Years passed. Fate placed my feet upon
The self-same way those women trode;
On me the prairie sunshine shone,
With eager steps I pressed the road
Which they, first of my sex and race
To pass the Rockies' stony wall,
Had honored, passing to their place
Among the immortals. I recall
The wonder that I felt to find
The deepened ruts with roses lined.
Alas, not marked by these alone,
The weary way from shore to shore;
But a white line of bleaching bone
Of worn-out oxen stretched before,
With lonely wayside graves. 'Twas thus
That first I learned the fearful price
The nation gave to dower us
With this fair land; the sacrifice
Of hecatombs of beasts and men,
By weariness, want, and foes in ambush slain.
This by the way. I stood, in time,
By Walla Walla's gentle stream,
In Wa-ii-lat-pu's vale, where crime
Struck down a good man, and his dream.
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