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As it Was in The Beginning

Miller, Joaquin (1837-1913)

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AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING.
 1. 
CANTO I.
 2. 
CANTO II.
 3. 
CANTO III.
 4. 
CANTO IV.
 5. 
CANTO V.
 6. 
CANTO VI.
 7. 
CANTO VII.
 8. 
CANTO VIII.
 9. 
CANTO IX.
 10. 
CANTO X.
  
A PREFATORY POSTSCRIPT.

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99

A PREFATORY POSTSCRIPT.

When, like a sentinel on his watch tower, the President, with his divine audacity and San Juan valor, voiced the real heart of the Americans against “race suicide,” I hastened to do my part, in my own way, ill or well, in holding up his hands on the firing line. For I had wrought here and fought here while he was still in school.

Ye Cyprians of fashion, ye whited, cursed mothers!
Yea, as the Christ cursed the barren fig tree,
With your one sickly branch where a dozen should be—
It were better ye never were born to be mothers,
Or, millstone at neck, ye be cast in the sea.
Ye are dried, wrinkled peppers in a dried-up pod,
Ye are hated of men and abhorred of God!
Oh give me good mothers! Yea, great, glad mothers,
Proud mothers of dozens, indeed, twice ten;
Fair mothers of daughters and mothers of men,
With old-time clusters of sisters and brothers,
When grand Greeks lived like to gods, and when
Brave mothers of men, strong-breasted and broad,
Did exult in fulfilling the purpose of God.
Yea, give me grand mothers, old world mothers,
Who peopled strong, lusty, loved Germany,
Till she pushed the Frank from the Rhine to the sea.
Yea, give me mothers to love, and none others;
Blessed, beautiful mothers of men for me,
For they, they have loved in the brave old way,
And for this all honor for aye and a day.
Oh ye of the West, ye ultimate mothers,
Ye firmest of foot and most mighty of hand,
Dominion is yours, through the whole wide land,
To the end of the world. For who but your brothers,
And men of your breasts led the Pioneer band,
Led west to the sea? Who hewed the red way?
Yea, who are the captains that lead us today?
—From “The Baroness of New York,” London and New York City, 1877, Pages 136–7.
But I was alone then, and as the stork had not so notably disappeared from the homes of those best able to welcome and entertain him, my book was no more welcome to them then, than the stork is now.

However, I venture this new book with confidence, not only because it is right, proper, clean, courageous, but now seems opportune. “Let the galled jade wince!” I give no quarter and ask none, except pardon for errors incident to great haste. I cry aloud from my mountain top, as a seer, and say: The cherry blossom bird of Nippon must be more with us, else another century and prolific Canada, like another Germany from the north, may descend upon us and take back train loads of tribute. We are coming to be too entirely Frenchish.

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