| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
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| 756. The Ride to Cherokee |
| | | By Amelia Walstien Carpenter |
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| IT ’S only we, Grimalkin, both fond and fancy free, | |
| So do your best, my beauty, for a home for you and me; | |
| For you the oats and leisure, for me the pipe and book, | |
| With sometimes, just at sunset, the long gray eastward look. | |
| For once there was another: ah, Kathrine! who shall say | 5 |
| What wilful fancy seized you that sunny summer day; | |
| You turned and nodded, smiling as you went gayly by, | |
| And the man who strolled beside you had a braver front than I; | |
| It meant a day’s undoing, a night’s black watch for me, | |
| And this mad ride, Grimalkin, to-day for Cherokee. | 10 |
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| The great crowd forges forward, like fire in fury blown, | |
| Each urging to the utmost, and God help him that ’s down, | |
| Shoulder to shoulder rising like shapes in horror cast, | |
| And my good mare aflashing a star along the blast; | |
| So—so—my brave Grimalkin, it ’shome for you and me | 15 |
| If we ride the distance safely to the line in Cherokee: | |
| We ’ll pass our lives together,—you ’ll have a stall with me, | |
| And a blanket—if we win it—in the home in Cherokee. | |
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| There ’s one that ’s riding with us, with many a good steed passed, | |
| Look well, little Grimalkin, or you ’re left, too, at the last; | 20 |
| He ’s singing as he ’s riding with his brave and gallant air, | |
| With the fierce light falling hotly on his face and yellow hair. | |
| A rush—a shout; he ’s falling; God help the man that ’s down | |
| As the wild steeds thunder onward, on the hard earth baked and brown. | |
| On, on; and look, Grimalkin! we’re safe, ’t is victory! | 25 |
| We ’ll stake the claim and hold the home, here in the Cherokee. | |
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| And he that fell! a breath space I saw his glazing eyes | |
| As he lay staring upward into the dust-filled skies: | |
| Eyes one star-flash of memory told me I ’d met before, | |
| Eyes that a woman’s loving would brighten nevermore. | 30 |
| And fancy flung me backward, from that madding rush and whirl, | |
| To an old Long Island garden and a violet-laden girl; | |
| Ah well, he stole my treasure, my sweetheart’s heart, from me,— | |
| God rest him! I ’m the victor, to-day in Cherokee! | |
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