2. Since early dawn, through manzanita brush,
across rush streams and shallows, working up
to toplands where the giant redwoods crush
their green lips to the new moon’s spilling cup;
3. since dawn we mark his tracks and trailed him down
far grooves and clearings, fields and vales until,
breasting a summit, we beheld his crown
Lifted a moment on a neighbor hill.
4. Stealthy then, our hearts aflame,
we made our way across to him, silent as death,
On hands and knees and stomachs-half afraid
to let out or draw in a single breath;
5. and then we saw him all, thrice twenty feet
Away-no more!-like something in a dream,
one hoofed upraised, his satin flanks abeat,
from out his nostrils brief, white clouds of steam.
6. My gun was up, I had a perfect sight,
my finger wrapped the trigger as if wired ...
“a lifetime’s chance,” they said in camp that night:
but I say no man living could have fired!
