Songs of the Sierras :: :: University of Virginia Library

Songs of the Sierras

Miller, Joaquin (1837-1913)

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CALIFORNIAN.

Glintings of day in the darkness,
Flashings of flint and of steel,
Blended in gossamer texture
The ideal and the real,
Limn'd like the phantom-ship shadow,
Crowding up under the keel.

I.

I stand beside the mobile sea;
And sails are spread, and sails are furl'd
From farthest corners of the world,
And fold like white wings wearily.
Steamships go up, and some go down
In haste, like traders in a town,
And seem to see and beckon all.
Afar at sea some white shapes flee,
With arms stretch'd like a ghost's to me,
And cloud-like sails far blown and curl'd,
Then glide down to the under-world.
As if blown bare in winter blasts
Of leaf and limb, tall naked masts
Are rising from the restless sea,
So still and desolate and tall,
I seem to see them gleam and shine
With clinging drops of dripping brine.
Broad still brown wings flit here and there,
Thin sea-blue wings wheel everywhere,
And white wings whistle through the air:
I hear a thousand sea-gulls call.

Behold the ocean on the beach
Kneel lowly down as if in prayer.
I hear a moan as of despair,
While far at sea do toss and reach
Some things so like white pleading hands.
The ocean's thin and hoary hair

Is trail'd along the silver'd sands,
At every sigh and sounding moan.
'Tis not a place of mirthfulness,
But meditation deep, and prayer,
And kneelings on the salted sod,
Where man must own his littleness
And know the mightiness of God.
The very birds shriek in distress
And sound the ocean's monotone.

Dared I but say a prophecy,
As sang the holy men of old,
Of rock-built cities yet to be
Along these shining shores of gold,
Crowding athirst into the sea,
What wondrous marvels might be told!
Enough, to know that empire here
Shall burn her loftiest, brightest star;
Here art and eloquence shall reign,
As o'er the wolf-rear'd realm of old;
Here learn'd and famous from afar,
To pay their noble court, shall come,
And shall not seek or see in vain,
But look on all with wonder dumb.

Afar the bright Sierras lie
A swaying line of snowy white,
A fringe of heaven hung in sight
Against the blue base of the sky.

I look along each gaping gorge,
I hear a thousand sounding strokes
Like giants rending giant oaks,
Or brawny vulcan at his forge;
I see pick-axes flash and shine
And great wheels whirling in a mine.
Here winds a thick and yellow thread,
A moss'd and silver stream instead;

And trout that leap'd its rippled tide
Have turn'd upon their sides and died.

Lo! when the last pick in the mine
Is rusting red with idlenesss,
And rot yon cabins in the mould,
And wheels no more croak in distress,
And tall pines reassert command,
Sweet bards along this sunset shore
Their mellow melodies will pour;
Will charm as charmers very wise,
Will strike the harp with master hand,
Will sound unto the vaulted skies
The valor of these men of old—
The mighty men of 'Forty-nine;
Will sweetly sing and proudly say,
Long, long agone there was a day
When there were giants in the land.

II.

Curambo! what a cloud of dust
Comes dashing down like driven gust!
And who rides rushing on the sight
Adown yon rocky long defile,
Swift as an eagle in his flight,
Fierce as a winter's storm at night
Blown from the bleak Sierra's height,
Careering down some yawning gorge?
His face is flush'd, his eye is wild,
And 'neath his courser's sounding feet
(A glance could barely be more fleet)
The rocks are flashing like a forge.
Such reckless rider!—I do ween
No mortal man his like has seen.
And yet, but for his long serape
All flowing loose, and black as crape,
And long silk locks of blackest hair
All streaming wildly in the breeze,

You might believe him in a chair,
Or chatting at some country fair
With friend or senorita rare,
He rides so grandly at his ease.

But now he grasps a tighter rein,
A red rein wrought in golden chain,
And in his tapidaros stands,
Half turns and shakes two bloody hands,
And shouts defiance at his foe;
Now lifts his broad hat from his brow
As if to challenge fate, and now
His hand drops to his saddle-bow
And clutches something gleaming there
As if to something more than dare,
While halts the foe that follow'd fast
As rushing wave or raving blast,
More sudden-swift than though were prest
All bridle-bands at one behest.

The stray winds lift the raven curls,
Soft as a fair Castilian girl's,
And press a brow so full and high
Its every feature does belie
The thought he is compell'd to fly;
A brow as open as the sky
On which you gaze and gaze again
As on a picture you have seen
And often sought to see in vain,
That seems to hold a tale of woe
Or wonder, that you fain would know;
A brow cut deep as with a knife,
With many a dubious deed in life;
A brow of blended pride and pain,
And yearnings for what should have been.

He grasps his gilded gory rein,
And wheeling like a hurricane,

Defying wood, or stone, or flood,
Is dashing down the gorge again.
Oh never yet has prouder steed
Borne master nobler in his need!
There is a glory in his eye
That seems to dare and to defy
Pursuit, or time, or space, or race.
His body is the type of speed,
While from his nostril to his heel
Are muscles as if made of steel.
He is not black, nor gray, nor white,
But 'neath that broad serape of night
And locks of darkness streaming o'er,
His sleek sides seem a fiery red—
They may be red with gushing gore.

What crimes have made that red hand red?
What wrongs have written that young face
With lines of thought so out of place?
Where flies he? And from whence has fled?
And what his lineage and race?
What glitters in his heavy belt,
And from his furr'd catenas gleam?
What on his bosom that doth seem
A diamond bright or dagger's hilt?
The iron hoofs that still resound
Like thunder from the yielding ground
Alone reply; and now the plain,
Quick as you breathe and gaze again,
Is won, and all pursuit is vain.

III.

I stand upon a stony rim,
Stone-paved and pattern'd as a street;
A rock-lipp'd canon plunging south,
As if it were earth's open'd mouth,
Yawns deep and darkling at my feet;

So deep, so distant, and so dim
Its waters wind, a yellow thread,
And call so faintly and so far,
I turn aside my swooning head.
I feel a fierce impulse to leap
Adown the beetling precipice,
Like some lone, lost, uncertain star;
To plunge into a place unknown,
And win a world all, all my own;
Or if I might not meet that bliss,
At least escape the curse of this.

I gaze again. A gleaming star
Shines back as from some mossy well
Reflected from blue fields afar.
Brown hawks are wheeling here and there,
And up and down the broken wall
Cling clumps of dark green chaparral,
While from the rent rocks, gray and bare,
Blue junipers hang in the air.

Here, cedars sweep the stream, and here,
Among the boulders moss'd and brown
That time and storms have toppled down
From towers undefiled by man,
Low cabins nestle as in fear,
And look no taller than a span.
From low and shapeless chimneys rise
Some tall straight columns of blue smoke,
And weld them to the bluer skies;
While sounding down the sombre gorge
I hear the steady pick-axe stroke,
As if upon a flashing forge.

Another scene, another sound!—
Sharp shots are fretting through the air,
Red knives are flashing everywhere,
And here and there the yellow flood

Is purpled with warm smoking blood.
The brown hawk swoops low to the ground,
And nimble chip-monks, small and still,
Dart stripéd lines across the sill
That lordly feet shall press no more.
The flume lies warping in the sun,
The pan sits empty by the door,
The pick-axe on its bed-rock floor
Lies rusting in the silent mine.
There comes no single sound nor sign
Of life, beside yon monks in brown
That dart their dim shapes up and down
The rocks that swelter in the sun;
But dashing round yon rocky spur
Where scarce a hawk would dare to whirr,
Fly horsemen reckless in their flight.
One wears a flowing black capote,
While down the cape doth flow and float
Long locks of hair as dark as night,
And hands are red that erst were white.

All up and down the land to-day
Black desolation and despair
It seems have sat and settled there,
With none to frighten them away.
Like sentries watching by the way
Black chimneys topple in the air,
And seem to say, Go back, beware!
While up around the mountain's rim
Are clouds of smoke, so still and grim
They look as they are fasten'd there.

A lonely stillness, so like death.
So touches, terrifies all things,
That even rooks that fry o'erhead
Are hush'd, and seem to hold their breath,
To fly with muffled wings,
And heavy as if made of lead.

Some skulls that crumble to the touch,
Some joints of thin and chalk-like bone,
A tall black chimney, all alone,
That leans as if upon a crutch,
Alone are left to mark or tell,
Instead of cross or cryptic stone,
Where fair maids loved or brave men fell.

I look along the valley's edge,
Where swings the white road like a swell
Of surf, along a sea of hedge
And black and brittle chaparral,
And enters like an iron wedge
Drove in the mountain dun and brown,
As if to split the hills in twain.
Two clouds of dust roll o'er the plain,
And men ride up and men ride down,
And hot men halt, and curse and shout,
And coming coursers plunge and neigh.
The clouds of dust are roll'd in one—
And horses, horsemen, where are they?
Lo! through a rift of dust and dun,
Of desolation and of rout,
I see some long white daggers flash,
I hear the sharp hot pistols crash,
And curses loud in mad despair
Are blended with a plaintive prayer
That struggles through the dust and air.

The cloud is lifting like a veil:
The frantic curse, the plaintive wail
Have died away; nor sound nor word
Along the dusty plain is heard
Save sounding of yon courser's feet,
Who flies so fearfully and fleet,
With gory girth and broken rein,
Across the hot and trackless plain.

Behold him, as he trembling flies,
Look back with red and bursting eyes
To where his gory master lies.
The cloud is lifting like a veil,
But underneath its drifting sail
I see a loose and black capote
In careless heed far fly and float,
So vulture-like above a steed
Of perfect mould and passing speed.

Here lies a man of giant mould,
His mighty right arm, perfect bare
Save but its sable coat of hair,
Is clutching in its iron clasp
A clump of sage, as if to hold
The earth from slipping from his grasp;
While, stealing from his brow, a stain
Of purple blood and gory brain
Yields to the parch'd lips of the plain,
Swift to resolve to dust again.

Lo! friend and foe blend here and there
With dusty lips and trailing hair:
Some with a cold and sullen stare,
Some with their red hands clasp'd in prayer.

Here lies a youth, whose fair face is
Still holy from a mother's kiss,
With brow as white as alabaster,
Save a tell-tale powder-stain
Of a deed and a disaster
That will never come again,
With their perils and their pain.

The tinkle of bells on the bended hills,
The hum of bees in the orange trees,
And the lowly call of the beaded rills
Are heard in the land as I look again

Over the peaceful battle-plain.
Murderous man from the field has fled,
Fled in fear from the face of his dead.
He battled, he bled, he ruled a day—
And peaceful nature resumes her sway.
And the sward where yonder corses lie,
When the verdant season shall come again,
Shall greener grow than it grew before;
Shall again in sun-clime glory vie
With the gayest green in the tropic scene,
Taking its freshness back once more
From them that despoil'd it yesterday.

IV.

The sun is red and flush'd and dry,
And fretted from his weary beat
Across the hot and desert sky,
And swollen as from overheat,
And failing too; for see he sinks
Swift as a ball of burnish'd ore:
It may be fancy, but methinks
He never fell so fast before.

I hear the neighing of hot steeds,
I see the marshalling of men
That silent move among the trees
As busily as swarming bees
With step and stealthiness profound,
On carpetings of spindled weeds,
Without a syllable or sound
Save clashing of their burnish'd arms,
Clinking dull death-like alarms—
Grim bearded men and brawny men
That grope among the ghostly trees.
Were ever silent men as these?
Was ever sombre forest deep
And dark as this? Here one might sleep

While all the weary years went round,
Nor wake nor weep for sun or sound.

A stone's throw to the right, a rock
Has rear'd his head among the stars—
An island in the upper deep—
And on his front a thousand scars
Of thunder's crash and earthquake's shock
Are seam'd as if by sabre's sweep
Of gods, enraged that he should rear
His front amid their realms of air.

What moves along his beetling brow,
So small, so indistinct and far,
This side yon blazing evening star,
Seen through that redwood's shifting bough?
A lookout on the world below?
A watcher for the friend—or foe?
This still troop's sentry it must be,
Yet seems no taller than my knee.

But for the grandeur of this gloom,
And for the chafing steeds' alarms,
And brown men's sullen clash of arms,
This were but as a living tomb.
These weeds are spindled, pale and white,
As if nor sunshine, life nor light
Had ever reach'd this forest's heart.
Above, the redwood boughs entwine
As dense as copse of tangled vine—
Above, so fearfully afar,
It seems as 'twere a lesser sky,
A sky without a moon or star,
The moss'd boughs are so thick and high.
At every lisp of leaf I start!
Would I could hear a cricket trill,
Or that yon sentry from his hill
Might shout or show some sign of life,

The place does seem so deathly still.
“Mount ye, and forward for the strife!”
Who by yon dark trunk sullen stands,
With black serape and bloody hands,
And coldly gives his brief commands?

They mount—away! Quick on his heel
He turns, and grasps his gleaming steel—
Then sadly smiles, and stoops to kiss
An upturn'd face so sweetly fair,
So rich of blessedness and bliss!
I know she is not flesh and blood,
But some sweet spirit of this wood;
I know it by her wealth of hair,
And step on the unyielding air;
Her seamless robe of shining white,
Her soul-deep eyes of darkest night:
But over all and more than all
That could be said or can befall,
That tongue can tell or pen can trace,
That wondrous witchery of face.

Between the trees I see him stride
To where a red steed fretting stands
Impatient for his lord's commands:
And she glides noiseless at his side.

Lo! not a bud, or leaf, or stem,
Beneath her feet is bowed or bent;
They only nod, as if in sleep,
And all their grace and freshness keep;
And now will in their beauty bloom,
In pink and pearl habiliment,
As though fresh risen from a tomb,
For fairest sun has shone on them.

“The world is mantling black again!
Beneath us, o'er the sleeping plain,

Dull steel-gray clouds slide up and down
As if the still earth wore a frown.
The west is red with sunlight slain!”

(One hand toys with her waving hair,
Soft lifting from her shoulders bare;
The other holds the loosen'd rein,
And rests upon the swelling mane
That curls the curved neck o'er and o'er,
Like waves that swirl along the shore.
He hears the last retreating sound
Of iron on volcanic stone,
That echoes far from peak to plain,
And 'neath the dense wood's sable zone
He peers the dark Sierras down.)
“But darker yet shall be the frown,
And redder yet shall be the flame.
And yet I would that this were not—
That all, forgiven or forgot
Of curses deep and awful crimes,
Of blood and terror, could but seem
Some troubled and unholy dream;
That even now I could awake,
And waking find me once again
With hand and heart without a stain,
Swift gliding o'er that sunny lake,
Begirt with town and castle-wall,
Where first I saw the silver light—
Begirt with blossoms, and the bloom
Of orange, sweet with the perfume
Of cactus, pomegranate and all
The thousand sweets of tropic climes;
And, waking, see the mellow moon
Pour'd out in gorgeous pleniluue
On silver ripples of that tide;
And, waking, hear soft music pour
Along that flora-formèd shore
And, waking, find you at my side,

My father's moss'd and massive halls,
My brothers in their strength and pride.”

(His hand forsakes her raven rair,
His eyes have an unearthly glare:
She shrinks and shudders at his side,
Then lifts to his her moisten'd eye,
And only looks her sad reply.
A sullenness his soul enthrals,
A silence born of hate and pride;
His fierce volcanic heart so deep
Is stirr'd, his teeth, despite his will,
Do chatter as if in a chill;
His very dagger at his side
Does shake and rattle in its sheath,
As blades of brown grass in a gale
Do rustle on the frosted heath:
And yet he does not bend or weep.)

I did not vow a girlish vow,
Nor idle imprecation now
Will I bestow by boasting word—
Feats of the tongue become the knave.
A wailing in the land is heard
For those that will not come again;
And weeping for the rashly brave,
Who sleep in many a gulch and glen,
Has wet a hundred hearths with tears,
And darken'd them for years and years.
Would I could turn their tears to gore,
Make every hearth as cold as one
Is now upon that sweet lake shore,
Where my dear kindred dwelt of yore;
Where now is but an ashen heap,
And mass of mossy earth and stone;
Where round an altar black wolves keep
Their carnival and doleful moan;
Where hornèd lizards dart and climb,
And mollusks slide and leave their slime.

“But tremble not. This night, my own,
Shall see my fierce foe overthrown;
And ere the day-star gleams again
My horse's hoofs shall spurn the dead—
The still warm reeking dead of those
Who brought us all our bitter woes;
While all my glad returning way
Shall be as light as living day,
From ranchos, campos, burning red.
And then! And then my peri pearl”—
(As if to charm her from her fears
And drive away the starting tears,
Again his small hand seeks a curl,
And voice forgets its sullen ire,
And eye forsakes its flashing fire)—
“Away to where the orange tree
Is white through all the cycled years,
And love lives an eternity;
Where birds are never out of tune
And life knows no decline of noon;
Where winds are sweet as woman's breath,
And purpled, dreamy, mellow skies
Are lovely as a woman's eyes,—
There, we in calm and perfect bliss
Of boundless faith and sweet delight
Shall realize the world above,
Forgetting all the wrongs of this,
Forgetting all of blood and death,
And all your terrors of to-night,
In pure devotion and deep love.”

As gently as a mother bows
Her first-born sleeping babe above,
The cherish'd cherub lips to kiss
In her full blessedness and bliss,
He bends to her with stately air,
His proud head in its cloud of hair.
I do not heed the hallow'd kiss;

I do not hear the hurried vows
Of passion, faith, unfailing love;
I do not mark the prison'd sigh,
I do not meet the moisten'd eye:
A low sweet melody is heard
Like cooing of some Balize bird,
So fine it does not touch the air,
So faint it stirs not anywhere;
Faint as the falling of the dew,
Low as a pure unutter'd prayer,
The meeting, mingling, as it were,
Of souls in paradisal bliss.

Erect again, he grasps the rein
So tight, as to the seat he springs,
I see his red steed plunge and poise
And beat the air with iron feet,
And curve his noble glossy neck,
And toss on high his swelling mane,
And leap—away! he spurns the rein,
And flies so fearfully and fleet,
But for the hot hoofs' ringing noise
'Twould seem as if he were on wings.

And she is gone! Gone like a breath,
Gone like a white sail seen at night
A moment, and then lost to sight;
Gone like a star you look upon,
That glimmers to a bead, a speck,
Then softly melts into the dawn,
And all is still and dark as death.

V.

* * * * *

I look far down a dewy vale,
Where cool palms lean across a brook
As crooked as a shepherd's crook.

Red parrots call from orange trees,
Where white lips kiss the idle breeze,
And murmur with the hum of bees:
The gray dove coos his low love-tale.

With cross outstretch'd like pleading hands
That mutely plead the faith of Christ,
Amid the palms a low church stands:
I would that man might learn from these
The priceless victories of Peace,
And woo her 'mid these olive trees,
And win an earthly paradise.

I see black clouds of troops afar
Sweep like a surge that sweeps the shore,
And check'ring all the green hills o'er
Are battlements and signs of war.
I hear the hoarse-voiced cannon roar:
The red-mouthed orators of war
Plead as they never plead before;
While outdone thunder stops his car
And leans in wonderment afar.

A fragment from the struggle rent
Forsakes the rugged battlement,
And winds it painfully and slow
Across the rent and riven lands
To where a gray church open stands,
As if it bore a load of woe.

Curambo! 'tis a chief they bear!
And by his black and flowing hair
Methinks I have seen him before.
A gray priest guides them through the door,
They lay him bleeding on the floor.

He moves, he lifts his feeble hand,
And points with tried and trenchèd brand,

And bids them to the battle-plain.
They turn—they pause: he bids again;
They turn a last time to their chief,
And gaze in silence and deep pain,
For silence speaks the deepest grief.
They clutch their blades; they turn—are gone:
And priest and chief are left alone.

“So here my last day has its close,
And here it ends. Here all is not.
I am content. 'Tis what I sought—
Revenge—and then my last repose.
Oh for the rest—for the rest eternal!
Oh for the deep and the dreamless sleep!
Where never a hope lures to deceive;
Where never a heart beats but to grieve;
Nor thoughts of heaven or hells infernal
Shall ever wake or dare to break
The rest of an everlasting sleep!

“Is there truth in the life eternal?
Will our memories never die?
Shall we relive in realms supernal
Life's resplendent and glorious lie?
Death has not one shape so frightful
But defiantly I would brave it;
Earth has nothing so delightful
But my soul would scorn to crave it,
Could I know for sure, for certain,
That the falling of the curtain
And the folding of the hands
Is the full and the final casting
Of accounts for the everlasting!
Everlasting, and everlasting!

“Well, I have known, I know not why,
Through all my dubious days of strife,
That when we live our deeds we die;

That man may in one hour live
All that his life can bear or give.
This I have done, and do not grieve,
For I am older by a score
Than many born long, long before,
If sorrows be the sum of life.

“Ay, I am old—old as the years
Could brand me with their blood and tears;
For with my fingers I can trace
Grief's trenches on my hollow face,
And through my thin frame I can feel
The pulses of my frozen heart
Beat with a dull uncertain start:
And, mirror'd in my sword, to-day,
Before its edge of gleaming steel
Had lost its lustre in the fray,
I saw around my temples stray
Thin straggling locks of steely gray.

“Fly, fly you, to yon snowy height,
And tell to her I fail, I die!
Fly swiftly, priest, I bid you!—fly
Before the falling of the night!
What! know her not? O priest, beware!
I warn you answer thus no more,
But bend your dull ear to the floor,
And hear you who she is, and where.

“She is the last, last of a line,
With blood as rich and warm as wine,
And blended blood of god and king;
Last of the Montezumas' line
Who dwelt up in the yellow sun,
And, sorrowing for man's despair,
Slid by his trailing yellow hair
To earth, to rule with love and bring
The blessedness of peace to us.

She is the last, last earthly one
Of all the children of the sun;
A sweet perfume still lingering
In essence pure, and living thus
In blessedness about the spot,
When rose, and bush, and bloom are not.

“Beside Tezcuco's flowery shore,
Where waves were washing evermore
The massive columns of its wall,
Stood Montezuma's mighty hall.
And here the Montezumas reign'd
In perfect peace and love unfeign'd,
Until from underneath the sea
Where all sin is, or ought to be,
Came men of death and strange device,
Who taught a mad and mystic faith
Of crucifixion and of Christ,
More hated than the plague or death.

“Nay, do not swing your cross o'er me;
You cross'd you once, but do not twice,
Nor dare repeat the name of Christ;
Nor start, nor think to fly, nor frown,
While you the stole and surplice wear;
For I do clutch your sable gown,
And you shall hear my curse, or prayer,
And be my priest in my despair;
Since neither priest, nor sign, nor shrine
Is left in all the land of mine.

“Enough! We know, alas! too well,
How red Christ ruled—Tonatiu fell.
The black wolf in our ancient halls
Unfrighten'd sleeps the live-long day.
The stout roots burst the mossy walls,
And in the moonlight wild dogs play
Around the plazas overgrown,

Where rude boars hold their carnivals.
The moss is on our altar-stone,
The mould on Montezuma's throne,
And symbols in the desert strown.

“And when your persecutions ceased
From troop, and king, and cowlèd priest,
That we had felt for centuries—
(Ah! know you, priest, that cross of thine
Is but death's symbol, and the sign
Of blood and butchery and tears?)—
And when return'd the faithful few,
Beside Tezcuco's sacred shore,
To build their broken shrines anew,
They number'd scarce a broken score.
Here dwelt my father—here she dwelt
Here kept one altar burning bright,
Last of the thousands that had shone
Along the mountain's brows of stone,
Last of a thousand stars of night.
To Tonatiu Ytzaqual we bow'd—
Nay, do not start, nor shape the sign
Of horror at this creed of mine,
Nor call again the name of Christ:
You cross you once, you cross you twice—
I warn you do not cross you thrice;
Nor will I brook a sign or look
Of anger at her faith avow'd.
I am no creedist. Faith to me
Is but a name for mystery.
I only know this faith is her's:
I care to know no more, to be
The truest of its worshippers.

“The Cold-men came across the plain
With gory blade and brand of flame:
I know not that they knew or cared
What was our race, or creed, or name;

I only know the Northmen dared
Assault and sack, for sake of gain
Of sacred vessels wrought in gold,
The temple where gods dwelt of old;
And that my father, brothers, dared
Defend their shrines—and all were slain.

“‘Fly with the maid,’ my father cried,
When first the fierce assault was made—
‘A boat chafes at the causeway side,’
And in the instant was obey'd.
We gain'd the boat, sprang in, away
We dash'd along the dimpled tide.

“It must have been they thought we bore
The treasure in our flight and haste,
For in an instant from the shore
An hundred crafts were making chase,
And as their sharp prows drew apace
I caught a carbine to my face.
She, rising, dash'd it quick aside;
And, when their hands were stretch'd to clasp
The boat's prow in their eager grasp,
She turn'd to me and sudden cried,
‘Come, come!’ and plunged into the tide.
I plunged into the dimpled wave:
I had no thought but 'twas my grave;
But faith had never follower
More true than I to follow her.

“On, on through purple wave she cleaves,
As shoots a sunbeam through the leaves.
At last—what miracle was there!—
Again we breathed the welcome air;
And, resting by the rising tide,
The secret outlet of the lake,
Safe hid by trackless fern and brake,
With yellow lilies at her side,

She told me how in ages gone
Her Fathers built with sacred stone
This secret way beneath the tide,
That now was known to her alone.

“When night came on and all was still,
And stole the white moon down the hill
As soft, as if she too fear'd ill,
Again I sought the sacred halls
And on the curving causeway stood.
I look'd—naught but the blacken'd walls
And charr'd bones of my kindred blood
Was left beside the dimpled flood.

* * * * *
* * * * *

“Enough! Mine was no temper'd steel
To-day upon the stormy field,
As many trench'd heads yonder feel,
And many felt, that feel no more,
That fought beneath your cross and shield,
And, falling, called in vain to Christ.
You curs'd monk! dare you cross you thrice,
When I have warn'd you twice before?
To you and your damn'd faith I owe
My heritage of crime and woe;
You shall not live to mock me more
If there be temper in this brand,
Or nerve left in this bloody hand.
I start, I leave the stony ground,
Despite of blood or mortal wound,
Or darkness that has dimn'd the eye,
Or senses that do dance and reel—
I clutch a throat—I clench a steel—
I thrust—I fail—I fall—I die ...”

VI.

She stands upon the wild watch-tower
And with her own hand feeds the flame—
The beacon-light to guide again
His coming from the battle-plain.
'Tis wearing past the midnight hour,
The latest that he ever came,
Yet silence reigns around the tower.

'Tis hours past the midnight hour:
She calls, she looks, she lists in vain
For sight or sound from peak or plain.
She moves along the beetling tower,
She leans, she lists forlorn and lone,
She stoops her ear low to the ground,
In hope to catch the welcome sound
Of iron on the rugged stone.

In vain she peers down in the night
But for one feeble flash of light
From flinty stone and feet of steel.
She stands upon the fearful rim,
Where even coolest head would reel,
And fearless leans her form far o'er
Its edge, and lifts her hands to him,
And calls in words as sweetly wild
As bleeding saint or sorrowing child.
She looks, she lists, she leans in vain,
In vain his dalliance does deplore;
She turns her to the light again,
And bids the watchman to the plain,
Defying night or dubious way,
To guide the flight or join the fray.

The day-star dances on the snow
That gleams along Sierra's crown

In gorgeous everlasting glow
And frozen glory and renown.
Yet still she feeds the beacon flame,
And lists, and looks, and leans in vain.

The day has dawn'd. She still is there!
Yet in her sad and silent air
I read the stillness of despair.
Why burns the red light on the tower
So brightly at this useless hour?
But see! The day-king hurls a dart
At darkness, and his cold black heart
Is pierced; and now, compell'd to flee,
Flies bleeding to the farther sea.
And now, behold, she radiant stands,
And lifts her thin white jewelled hands
Unto the broad, unfolding sun,
And hails him Tonatiu and King
With hallow'd mien and holy prayer.
Her fingers o'er some symbols run,
Her knees are bowed in worshipping
Her God, beheld when thine is not,
In form of faith, long, long forgot.

Again she lifts her brown arms bare,
Far flashing in their bands of gold
And precious stones, rare, rich, and old.
Was ever mortal half so fair?
Was ever such a wealth of hair?
Was ever such a plaintive air?
Was ever such a sweet despair?

Still humbler now her form she bends;
Still higher now the flame ascends:
She bares her bosom to the sun.
Again her jewell'd fingers sun
In signs and sacred form and prayer.
She bows with awe and holy air

In lowly worship to the sun;
Then rising calls her lover's name,
And leaps into the leaping flame.

I do not hear the faintest moan,
Or sound, or syllable, or tone.
The red flames stoop a moment down,
As if to raise her from the ground;
They whirl, they swirl, they sweep around
With light'ning feet and fiery crown;
Then stand up, tall, tip-toed, as one
Would hand a soul up to the sun.