The Deer-Star (A Paiute Legend)

HEAR now a tale of the deer-star,
Tale of the days agone,
When a youth rose up for the hunting
In the bluish light of dawn --
Rose up for the red deer hunting,
And what should a hunter do
Who has never an arrow feathered,
Nor a bow strung taut and true?
The women laughed from the doorways, the maidens mocked at the spring;
For thus to be slack at the hunting is ever a shameful thing.
The old men nodded and muttered, but the youth spoke up with a frown:
'If I have no gear for the hunting, I will run the red deer down.'

He is off by the hills of the morning,
By the dim, untrodden ways;
In the clean, wet, windy marshes
He has startled the deer agraze;
And a buck of the branching antlers
Streams out from the fleeing herd,
And the youth is apt to the running

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poem by Mary Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
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The Shepherds in Judea

Oh, the Shepherds in Judea,
They are pacing to and fro.
For the air grows chill at twilight
And the weanling lambs are slow!

Leave, O lambs, the dripping sedges, quit the bramble and the brier,
Leave the fields of barley stubble, for we light the watching fire;
Twinkling fires across the twilight, and a bitter watch to keep,
Lest the prowlers come a-thieving where the flocks unguarded sleep.

Oh, the Shepherds in Judea,
They are singing soft and low—
Song the blessed angels taught them
All the centuries ago!

There was never roof to hide them, there were never walls to bind;
Stark they lie beneath the star-beams, whom the blessed angels find,
With the huddled flocks upstarting, wondering if they hear aright.
While the Kings come riding, riding, solemn shadows in the night.

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poem by Mary Austin
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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