Francis Bret Harte

Artemis in Sierra

     DRAMATIS PERSONAE

     Poet.  Philosopher.  Jones of Mariposa.


     POET

     Halt! Here we are. Now wheel your mare a trifle
       Just where you stand; then doff your hat and swear
     Never yet was scene you might cover with your rifle
       Half as complete or as marvelously fair.

     PHILOSOPHER

     Dropped from Olympus or lifted out of Tempe,
       Swung like a censer betwixt the earth and sky!
     He who in Greece sang of flocks and flax and hemp,--he
       Here might recall them--six thousand feet on high!

     POET

     Well you may say so.  The clamor of the river,
       Hum of base toil, and man's ignoble strife,
     Halt far below, where the stifling sunbeams quiver,
       But never climb to this purer, higher life!

     Not to this glade, where Jones of Mariposa,
       Simple and meek as his flocks we're looking at,
     Tends his soft charge; nor where his daughter Rosa--
         (A shot.)
       Hallo!  What's that?

     PHILOSOPHER

                             A--something thro' my hat--
     Bullet, I think.  You were speaking of his daughter?

     POET

     Yes; but--your hat you were moving through the leaves;
       Likely he thought it some eagle bent on slaughter.
     Lightly he shoots--  (A second shot.)

     PHILOSOPHER

                          As one readily perceives.
      Still, he improves!  This time YOUR hat has got it,
     Quite near the band!  Eh? Oh, just as you please--
       Stop, or go on.

     POET

                       Perhaps we'd better trot it
     Down through the hollow, and up among the trees.

     BOTH

     Trot, trot, trot, where the bullets cannot follow;
       Trot down and up again among the laurel trees.

     PHILOSOPHER

     Thanks, that is better; now of this shot-dispensing
       Jones and his girl--you were saying--

     POET

                                             Well, you see--
     I--hang it all!--Oh! what's the use of fencing!
       Sir, I confess it!--these shots were meant for ME.

     PHILOSOPHER

     Are you mad!

     POET

                   God knows, I shouldn't wonder!
       I love this coy nymph, who, coldly--as yon peak
     Shines on the river it feeds, yet keeps asunder--
       Long have I worshiped, but never dared to speak.

     Till she, no doubt, her love no longer hiding,
       Waked by some chance word her father's jealousy;
     Slips her disdain--as an avalanche down gliding
       Sweeps flocks and kin away--to clear a path for ME.

     Hence his attack.

     PHILOSOPHER

                        I see.  What I admire
       Chiefly, I think, in your idyl, so to speak,
     Is the cool modesty that checks your youthful fire,--
       Absence of self-love and abstinence of cheek!

     Still, I might mention, I've met the gentle Rosa,--
       Danced with her thrice, to her father's jealous dread;
     And, it is possible, she's happened to disclose a--
       Ahem!  You can fancy why he shoots at ME instead.

     POET

     YOU?

     PHILOSOPHER

          Me.  But kindly take your hand from your revolver,
       I am not choleric--but accidents may chance.
     And here's the father, who alone can be the solver
       Of this twin riddle of the hat and the romance.

     Enter JONES OF MARIPOSA.

     POET

     Speak, shepherd--mine!

     PHILOSOPHER

                            Hail!  Time-and-cartridge waster,
       Aimless exploder of theories and skill!
     Whom do you shoot?

     JONES OF MARIPOSA

                        Well, shootin' ain't my taste, or
       EF I shoot anything--I only shoot to kill.

     That ain't what's up.  I only kem to tell ye--
       Sportin' or courtin'--trot homeward for your life!
     Gals will be gals, and p'r'aps it's just ez well ye
       Larned there was one had no wish to be--a wife.

     POET

     What?

     PHILOSOPHER

           Is this true?

     JONES OF MARIPOSA

                          I reckon it looks like it.
       She saw ye comin'.  My gun was standin' by;
     She made a grab, and 'fore I up could strike it,
       Blazed at ye both!  The critter is SO shy!

     POET

     Who?

     JONES OF MARIPOSA

           My darter!

     PHILOSOPHER

                       Rosa?

     JONES OF MARIPOSA

                              Same!  Good-by!