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Joaquin Miller's Poems

[in six volumes]

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A dash of sadness in his air,
Born, may be, of his over care,
And may be, born of a despair
In early love—I never knew;
I question not, as many do,
Of things as sacred as this is;
I only know that he to me
Was all a father, friend, could be;
I sought to know no more than this
Of history of him or his.
A piercing eye, a princely air,
A presence like a chevalier,
Half angel and half Lucifer;
Sombrero black, with plume of snow
That swept his careless locks below;

5

A red serape with bars of gold,
All heedless falling, fold on fold,
A sash of silk, where flashing swung
A sword as swift as serpent's tongue,
In sheath of silver chased in gold;
Great Spanish spurs with bells of steel
That dash'd and dangled at the heel;
A face of blended pride and pain,
Of mingled pleading and disdain,
With shades of glory and of grief—
The famous filibuster chief
Stood front his men among the trees
That top the fierce Cordilleras,
With bent arm arched above his brow;—
Stood still, he stands, a picture, now—
Long gazing down his inland seas.