Poems / by Madison Cawein ; with a foreward by William Dean Howells [electronic text]

THE MAN HUNT

THE woods stretch deep to the mountain side, And the brush is wild where a man may hide.

They have brought the bloodhounds up again To the roadside rock where they found the slain.

They have brought the bloodhounds up, and they Have taken the trail to the mountain way.

Three times they circled the trail and crossed; And thrice they found it and thrice they lost.

Now straight through the trees and the underbrush They follow the scent through the forest's hush.

And their deep-mouthed bay is a pulse of fear In the heart of the wood that the man must hear.

The man who crouches among the trees From the stern-faced men who follow these.

A huddle of rocks that the ooze has mossed, And the trail of the hunted again is lost.

An upturned pebble; a bit of ground A heel has trampled — the trail is found.

And the woods reëcho the bloodhounds' bay As again they take to the mountain way.

A rock; a ribbon of road; a ledge, With a pine tree clutching its crumbling edge.

A pine, that the lightning long since clave, Whose huge roots hollow a ragged cave.

A shout; a curse; and a face aghast; The human quarry is laired at last.

The human quarry with clay-clogged hair And eyes of terror who waits them there.

That glares and crouches and rising then Hurls clods and curses at dogs and men.

Until the blow of a gun-butt lays Him stunned and bleeding upon his face.

A rope; a prayer; and an oak-tree near, And a score of hands to swing him clear.

A grim, black thing for the setting sun And the moon and the stars to gaze upon.