They are no more. Their lands have been taken,

Their graves are defiled, by barbarians rifled.

Often at daybreak, often at twilight,

Often in dreams rise the bitter longings

For faces of brothers, for songs of their triumph,

For sight of their village with blue smoke curling.

Rises no more the sun on their lodges.

Rises no moon to the sound of the love lute,

The heart is a shell, the limbs are the turtle,

The blood crawls slow like brown swamp water.

Only the heart like the wind never ceases,

Calling old names, the names of companions.

There is no answer. Sorrow walks with me.

Grief goes before me. No one comes after.

I am the exile. I am the wanderer,

Destined to die in a country of strangers.

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CONRAD RICHTER was born in Pennsylvania, the son, grandson, nephew, and great-nephew of clergymen. He was intended for the ministry, but at thirteen he declined a scholarship and left preparatory school for high school, from which he was graduated at fifteen. After graduation he went to work. His family on his mother’s side was identified with the early American scene, and from boyhood on he was saturated with tales and the color of Eastern pioneer days. In 1928 he and his small family moved to New Mexico, where his heart and mind were soon captured by the Southwest. From this time on he devoted himself to fiction. The Sea of Grass and The Trees were awarded the gold medal of the Societies of Libraries of New York University in 1942. The Town received the Pulitzer Prize in 1951, and The Waters of Kronos won the 1960 National Book Award for fiction. His other novels include The Fields (1946), The Light in the Forest (1953), The Lady (1957), A Simple Honorable Man (1962), The Grandfathers (1964), and The Aristocrat, published just before his death in 1968.