The sky-line melts from russet into blue, <br />Unbroken the horizon, saving where <br />A wreath of smoke curls up the far, thin air, <br />And points the distant lodges of the Sioux. <br /> <br />Etched where the lands and cloudlands touch and die <br />A solitary Indian tepee stands, <br />The only habitation of these lands, <br />That roll their magnitude from sky to sky. <br /> <br />The tent poles lift and loom in thin relief, <br />The upward floating smoke ascends between, <br />And near the open doorway, gaunt and lean, <br />And shadow-like, there stands an Indian Chief. <br /> <br />With eyes that lost their lustre long ago, <br />With visage fixed and stern as fate's decree, <br />He looks towards the empty west, to see <br />The never-coming herd of buffalo. <br /> <br />Only the bones that bleach upon the plains, <br />Only the fleshless skeletons that lie <br />In ghastly nakedness and silence, cry <br />Out mutely that naught else to him remains<br /><br />Emily Pauline Johnson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/silhouette/
