Sleep and dream, my baby, by the tepee fire— Nothing for thy kindling hope, nothing to desire!
Broken, let thy young heart ache; crushed, thy spirit brood! What to thee the white man's ways, worse than solitude? By a dying watch fire crooning in the night— Let the vanquished tribesmen pass from human sight.
16
WALTER EVANS KIDD
Walter Evans Kidd was born in the Blue Mountains of Grant County. He received his education in the public schools of Antelope, at Washington High School in Portland, and at the University of Oregon, where he was graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in 1926 and with a master of arts degree in 1934. While a student at Eugene he won the Edison Marshall short story prize. From 1930 to 1933 he was instructor in English in the Roseburg High School. He has been a teacher in Portland since 1934 and is now on the English staff of Washington High School. His poetry has appeared in such publications as the American Mercury, Nation, Commonweal, Poetry and Frontier.
Calf Pasture Gate
Let down
Once before the other chores are yet begun,
Once after all are done
Except the milking chore,
The ground is trampled bare and brown
And pocked with muddy scars
By calves that pass into a pen
At sucking time and later out again.
The gate,
Barred roughly up in place,
Is so familiar in the scene
To calves inside their grazing space
And cows on field about
That they accept the fate
Of being, as they are, shut in or out.
