Now Cloud Cap’s near to Cooper Spur
Hard by the timber-line,
Above it looms the mountain and
Below it blooms the pine.
It’s reared of logs and sits bang up
Right pert upon a crag,
And through the roof a chimney’s built
Of hacked volcanic slag.
We gathered ’round the fireplace there—
The guide, the guests and me,
The Junior from New Haven and
The man from Tennessee.
We’d had a rousing dinner of
Spaghetti and roast-lamb,
Substantially supported by
A chowder made of clam.
We talked about the morrow and
The perils of the hike,
About the snowy crater there
And what it all was like.
We got along to bergschrunds and
Erosion and seracs,
And that kind of queer explosion when
A nervous serac cracks.
We figured out how long ’twould take
(We all submitted plans)
To parcel-post a glacier’s ice
By shipping it in cans.
We talked of starry nebulæ,
Auroras, comets’ tails,
Toads found alive in sandstone rock
And ice-imprisoned whales;
Suspended animation and
The tribe of Dinosaurs,
(Just here the man from Tennessee
Passed ’round some good cigars);
We stated and we countered in
A wordy-wise delirium
About the reptile Dinosaur
And mammal Dinotherium.
In short we talked of everything
That people talk about
When sparring for a last word more
To help the conflab out.
We sprawled a bit, we yawned and stretched,
We lumberingly arose
And brought a most loquacious night
Abruptly to a close.
A dozen moments afterwards,
A dozen drowsy heads
Had hit a dozen pillows on
A dozen downy beds.
For prostrate with their hikings were
A dozen pair of shanks
As they slept the sleep of Vikings ’neath
The wood-rat riddled planks.
The old Inn shook and trembled with
A rat-a-tat-a-tat,
As all the blustering four winds blew
Like Great Jehoshaphat—
Like Blazes blew and Blitzen, banged
The window-sash till sud-
denly the thing just opened with
One gosh-almighty thud.
Then quickly—as if conscious of
Such ill-timed, boorish riot,
Those shrieking, spiteful, frightful winds
Became most meek and quiet;
And in the lull there rolled a dull,
Strange gurgle in my ear
And through the window-space I saw
A monstrous thing appear—
A snow-white critter, giant-high,
With trunk and pussy’s paws—
In short his make-up seemed exempt
From all of Nature’s laws.
A husky, tusky Titan growth
With squidgy, squinty eyes—
I drew the covers closer up—
The creature said “Arise!”
“Not so, old Scout,” I squiddled out,
“Bed’s good enough for me!”
His trunk moved slowly toward my bunk,
The monster said “We’ll see!”
“Then who are you and what’s your game?”
(I tried to be as calm as
A man can be while shivering
In only silk pajamas.)
“To thus intrude your presence rude,
You big Albino cur!”
“What’s that!” said he, “You don’t know me—
I am a Dino, Sir!”
“A Dinosaur? The heck you are!
From your get-up I’ll swan
You’re what our scientific sharks
Have dubbed a Mastodon!
A rare, old wooly specimen
’Mongst fossil Pachyderms!”
“For what they claim I’m not to blame,
I have no knack at terms;
“I only know I say what’s so,
A Dino’s what I be—
Because your experts get things wrong—
That doesn’t bother me.
“I am a Dino—or to be
A little more exact,
I am a Dino’s aura, Sir!
A Dino’s ghost in fact!
“I overheard your talk tonight
About our ancient clan—
I grew absorbed, I got a hunch,
Thinks I ‘At last—my man!’
“You spoke of ice-imprisoned whales—
Oh little did you know
The way that touched my heart that pulsed
A million years ago—
“My other heart that lies so still
Within my frozen fur—
My other heart upon the hill
Deep in yon glacier.
“Oh could I break that crystal mold
Where I’ve been doomed to freeze
Down in that gloom and bitter cold
For untold centuries,
“I’m sure my heart would pulse again,
Those haunches limber grow,
And I could roam as once I did—
Once in the Long-ago!
“There is an ice-cave known to none,
Leads to that Mausoleum,
And he that was that other me
Rests there where you shall see him.
“So come and look—perhaps you could
Evolve some keen device
To extricate my stiffened shanks
From out that flux of ice,
“And I will bear you back, I swear,
As I’m a Dino’s spirit,
To this here shack before the crack
Of daylight—never fear it!”
“But Brother—” here you will observe
How friendly we’d become,
“For me to go up there tonight
With You—is going Some!
“And such a task! What could I do?
’Twould weigh so mighty on
My mortal shoulders—and besides
I’ve but my nightie on!”
“Why don’t you see” replied the wraith,
“What faith I’ve got in you—
Who’d parcel-post a glacier’s ice
In cans—what can’t you do?
“Some high explosive you could get
Like dynamite and blow
Me out from all my frigid plight—
It could be done, I know.”
“It could be done,” I said, “but then
The risk you run is heightened—
The dyna-MITE blow bones and all—
And then again it mightn’t!”
I looked to see—perhaps the pun
Had punched his ponderous thinker—
His countenance was passive quite,
He never winked a blinker.
But then his wraithy nut, I ween,
Was shadow-celled—not solid,
Hence this hiatus in his bean,
His manner grave and stolid.
“This dynamiting Dinos is
Quite risky in the main—
Although you haven’t much to lose
And quite a bit to gain!”
“I’ll chance it—come!” the Dino said,
“There’s little time to lose—
We ghosts you know, can only romp
While other people snooze.”
His trunk galumpled toward my bunk,
It snoodled till it found me,
Then with a firm but gentle squeeze
It wrapped itself around me;
It lifted me into the air
Out toward the window-sash—
The lamp upon the table there
Fell with a telltale crash,
Which roused my next-door neighbor up,
The man from Tennessee,
Who with his light came rushing in
To learn what it could be.
Of course no wraith can stand the light—
It must have made him sore
To have his trunk dissolve in night
While I sprawled on the floor.
As for the man from Tennessee
And what had just occurred—
With me in my pajamas there,
I told him not a word.
I told him nothing for I knew
He’d never understand—
I asked him just to get a rag
And wrap my bruiséd hand.