Joaquin Miller's Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

A hermit's path, a mountain's perch,
A sandaled monk, a dying man—
A far-off, low, adobe church,
Below the hermit's orange-trees
That cap the clouds above the seas,
So far, its spire seems but a span.
[OMITTED]

A low-voiced dove! The dying Don
Put back the cross and sat dark-browed
And sullen, as a dove flew out
The bough, and circling round about,
Was bathed and gathered in a cloud,
That, like some ship, sailed on and on.

But let the gray monk tell the tale;
And tell it just as told to me.
This Don was chiefest of the vale
That banks by San Diego's sea,
And who so just, so generous,
As he who now lay dying thus?

But wrong, such shameless Saxon wrong,
Had crushed his heart, had made him hate
The sight, the very sound of man.
He loved the lonely wood-dove's song;
He loved it as his living mate.
And lo! the good monk laid a ban

221

And penance of continual prayer—
But list, the living, dying there!

For now the end was, and he lay
As day lies banked against the night—
As lies some bark at close of day
To wait the dew-born breath of night;
To wait the ebb of tide, to wait
The swift plunge through the Golden Gate:

The plunge from bay to boundless sea—
From life through narrow straits of night,
From time to bright eternity—
To everlasting walks of light.
Some like as when you sudden blow
Your candle out and turn you so
To sleep unto the open day:
And thus the priest did pleading say:

“You fled my flock, and sought this steep
And stony, star-lit, lonely height,
Where weird and unnamed creatures keep
To hold strange thought with things of night
Long, long ago. But now at last
Your life sinks surely to the past.
Lay hold, lay hold, the cross I bring,
Where all God's goodly creatures cling.

“Yea! You are good. Dark-browed and low
Beneath your shaggy brows you look
On me, as you would read a book:
And darker still your dark brows grow
As I lift up the cross to pray,
And plead with you to walk its way.

222

“Yea, you are good! There is not one,
From Tia Juana to the reach
And bound of gray Pacific Beach,
From Coronado's palm-set isle
And palm-hung pathways, mile on mile,
But speaks you, Señor, good and true.
But oh, my silent, dying son!
The cross alone can speak for you
When all is said and all is done.

“Come! Turn your dim, dark eyes to me,
Have faith and help me plant this cross
Beyond where blackest billows toss,
As you would plant some pleasant tree:
Some fruitful orange-tree, and know
That it shall surely grow and grow,
As your own orange-trees have grown,
And be, as they, your very own.

“You smile at last, and pleasantly:
You love your laden orange-trees
Set high above your silver seas
With your own honest hand; each tree
A date, a day, a part, indeed,
Of your own life, and walk, and creed.

”You love your steeps, your star-set blue:
You watch yon billows flash, and toss,
And leap, and curve, in merry rout,
You love to hear them laugh and shout—
Men say you hear them talk to you;
Men say you sit and look and look,
As one who reads some holy book—
My son, come, look upon the cross?

223

“Come, see me plant amid your trees
My cross, that you may see and know
'T will surely grow, and grow, and grow,
As grows some trusted little seed;
As grows some secret, small good deed;
The while you gaze upon your seas. ...
Sweet Christ, now let it grow, and bear
Fair fruit, as your own fruit is fair.

“Aye! ever from the first I knew,
And marked its flavor, freshness, hue,
The gold of sunset and the gold
Of morn, in each rich orange rolled.

“I mind me now, 't was long since, friend,
When first I climbed your path alone,
A savage path of brush and stone,
And rattling serpents without end.

“Yea, years ago, when blood and life
Ran swift, and your sweet, faithful wife—
What! tears at last; hot, piteous tears
That through your bony fingers creep
The while you bend your face, and weep
As if your heart of hearts would break—
As if these tears were your heart's blood,
A pent-up, sudden, bursting flood—
Look on the cross, for Jesus' sake.”