Joaquin Miller's Poems [in six volumes] |
1. |
2. |
1. |
2. |
3. |
4. |
5. |
6. |
7. |
8. |
9. |
10. |
11. |
12. |
13. |
14. |
15. |
16. |
17. |
18. |
19. |
20. |
21. |
22. |
23. |
24. |
25. |
26. |
27. |
28. |
29. |
30. |
31. |
32. |
33. |
1. |
2. |
3. |
4. |
5. |
6. |
7. |
8. |
9. |
10. |
11. |
12. |
13. |
14. |
15. |
16. |
17. |
18. |
19. |
20. |
1. |
2. |
3. |
4. |
5. |
6. |
7. |
8. |
9. |
10. |
11. |
12. |
13. |
14. |
15. |
16. |
17. |
18. |
19. |
20. |
21. |
22. |
23. |
24. |
25. |
26. |
27. |
28. |
29. |
30. |
31. |
32. |
33. |
34. |
35. |
36. |
37. |
38. |
39. |
40. |
41. |
42. |
43. |
44. |
45. |
46. |
47. |
48. |
49. |
50. |
51. |
52. |
53. |
54. |
55. |
56. |
57. |
58. |
59. |
60. |
61. |
62. |
63. |
64. |
65. |
66. |
67. |
68. |
69. |
70. |
71. |
72. |
73. |
1. |
2. |
3. |
4. |
1. |
2. |
3. |
THE SEA OF FIRE |
1. |
2. |
3. |
4. |
5. |
6. |
7. |
8. |
9. |
10. |
11. |
12. |
13. |
14. |
15. |
16. |
17. |
18. |
19. |
20. |
21. |
22. |
23. |
24. |
25. |
26. |
27. |
28. |
29. |
30. |
31. |
32. |
33. |
34. |
35. |
36. |
37. |
38. |
39. |
40. |
41. |
42. |
1. |
2. |
3. |
4. |
5. |
6. |
7. |
8. |
9. |
10. |
11. |
12. |
13. |
14. |
15. |
16. |
17. |
18. |
19. |
20. |
21. |
22. |
23. |
24. |
1. |
2. |
3. |
4. |
5. |
1. |
2. |
1. |
2. |
3. |
4. |
5. |
6. |
7. |
8. |
9. |
10. |
11. |
12. |
13. |
14. |
15. |
4. |
5. |
1. |
2. |
3. |
4. |
1. |
2. |
3. |
4. |
5. |
6. |
7. |
8. |
9. |
10. |
11. |
12. |
13. |
14. |
15. |
16. |
17. |
18. |
19. |
20. |
21. |
22. |
23. |
24. |
25. |
26. |
27. |
28. |
29. |
30. |
31. |
32. |
33. |
34. |
2. |
1. |
2. |
3. |
3. |
1. |
2. |
3. |
4. |
5. |
4. |
1. |
2. |
1. |
1. |
2. |
3. |
4. |
5. |
6. |
7. |
2. |
3. |
4. |
Joaquin Miller's Poems | ||
THE SEA OF FIRE
If God would know it should you fall down dead;
In a land so far through the soft, warm weather
That the sun sinks red as a warrior sped,—
Where the sea and the sky seem closing together,
Seem closing together as a book that is read:
It might be the Maker disturbed at his task.
But the footfall of God, or the far pheasant beating,
It is one and the same, whatever the mask
It may wear unto man. The woods keep repeating
The old sacred sermons, whatever you ask.
From the sleep that fell on him when woman was made.
The new-finished garden is plastic and wet
From the hand that has fashioned its unpeopled shade;
And the wonder still looks from the fair woman's eyes
As she shines through the wood like the light from the skies.
Draws in from the sea. It lies close to the bank;
As they load the black ship; but you hear nothing more,
And the dark, dewy vines, and the tall, somber wood
Like twilight droop over the deep, sweeping flood.
The rich fragrant gums fall from branches to deck,
The thin ropes are swinging with streamers of moss
That mantle all things like the shreds of a wreck;
The long mosses swing, there is never a breath:
The river rolls still as the river of death.
I
The six-day's labors were well o'er;
Yea, while the world lay incomplete,
Ere God had opened quite the door
Of this strange land for strong men's feet,—
There lay against that westmost sea,
A weird, wild land of mystery.
Girt out the world. The forest lay
So deep you scarcely saw the day,
Save in the high-held middle noon:
It lay a land of sleep and dreams,
That stretch to where no man may say.
By black-built ships, that seemed to creep
Along the shore suspiciously,
Like unnamed monsters of the deep.
It was the weirdest land, I ween,
That mortal eye has ever seen.
Black shaggy beasts with cloven claw,—
A land that scarce knew prayer or priest,
Or law of man, or Nature's law;
Where no fixed line drew sharp dispute
'Twixt savage man and sullen brute.
II
For cunning hand to fashion on;
No chronicler hath mentioned it;
No buccaneer set foot upon.
'Tis of an outlawed Spanish Don,—
A cruel man, with pirate's gold
That loaded down his deep ship's hold.
The golden cruse, the golden cross,
From many a church of Mexico,
From Panama's mad overthrow,
From many a ransomed city's loss,
From many a follower fierce and bold,
And many a foeman stark and cold.
His ship to shore. His ruthless crew,
Like Romulus, laid lawless hand
On meek brown maidens of the land,
And in their bloody forays bore
Red firebrands along the shore.
III
A firm, unflinching wall of flame;
They swept, as sweeps some fateful sea
O'er land of sand and level shore
That howls in far, fierce agony.
The red men swept that deep, dark shore
As threshers sweep a threshing floor.
They left his daughter, as they fled:
They spared her life because she bore
Their Chieftain's blood and name. The red
And blood-stained hidden hoards of gold
They hollowed from the stout ship's hold,
And bore in many a slim canoe—
To where? The good priest only knew.
IV
Men come and go; tides rise and fall;
And that is all of history.
The tide flows in, flows out today—
And that is all that man may say;
Man is, man was,—and that is all.
'Twas sweeping, deep and terrible;
The Christian found the land, and came
To take possession in Christ's name.
For every white man that had died
I think a thousand red men fell,—
A Christian custom; and the land
Lay lifeless as some burned-out brand.
V
A glorious thing, a flower of spring,
A something more than mortals knew;
A mystery of grace and face,—
A silent mystery that stood
An empress in that sea-set wood,
Supreme, imperial in her place.
For all men knew that lawless crew
Left hoards of gold in that ship's hold,
That drew ships hence, and silent drew
Strange Jasons there to love or dare;
I never knew, nor need I care.
That ever drew and strangely drew
Strong men of land, strange men of sea
To seek this shore of mystery
With all its wondrous tales untold;
The gold or her, which of the two?
It matters not to me, nor you.
Between that face and the hard fate
That kept me ever from my own,
As some wronged monarch from his throne,
All heaped-up gold of land or sea
Had never weighed one feather's weight.
A woody home, a priest at prayer,
A perfume in the fervid air,
And angels watching her at night.
I can but think upon the skies
That bound that other Paradise.
VI
As ever bended heaven spanned,
Tall trees like mighty columns grew—
They loomed as if to pierce the blue,
They reached, as reaching heaven through.
Where men moved noiseless to and fro
As in some vast cathedral, when
The calm of prayer comes to men,
And benedictions bless them so.
What trackless wood! what snowy cone
That lifted from this wood alone!
What wild, wide river, dark and deep!
What ships against the shore asleep!
VII
An Indian woman cautious creptAbout the land the while it slept,
The relic of her perished race.
She wore rich, rudely-fashioned bands
Of gold above her bony hands;
She hissed hot curses on the place!
VIII
What lonesome lands! what haunted lands!
Red mouths of beasts, red men's red hands;
Red prophet-priests, in mute defeat.
From Incan temples overthrown
To lorn Alaska's isles of bone
The red man lives and dies alone.
His land is ghostland! That is his,
Whatever we may claim of this;
Beware how you shall enter it!
He stands God's guardian of ghostlands;
Yea, this same wrapped half-prophet stands
All nude and voiceless, nearer to
The dread, lone God than I or you.
IX
Stood fair to see as you can think,
As tall as tall reeds at her feet,
As fresh as flowers in her hair;
As fair as vision more than fair!
How pure as water-plant, this child,—
This one wild child of Nature here
Grown tall in shadows.
To God, where no man stood between
Her eyes and scenes no man hath seen,—
This maiden that so mutely stood,
The one lone woman of that wood.
Shut close your page and think of her.
The birds sang sweeter for her face;
Her lifted eyes were like a grace
To seamen of that solitude,
However rough, however rude.
Flowed in such wondrous waves, somehow
Flowed down divided by her brow,—
It mantled her within its care,
And flooded all her form below,
In its uncommon fold and flow.
Before her, as an incense sweet
Before blithe mowers of sweet May
In early morn. Her certain feet
Embarked on no uncertain way.
How sweet as sweet magnolia bloom
Embalmed in dews of morning, when
Rich sunlight leaps from midnight gloom
Resolved to kiss, and swift to kiss
Ere yet morn wakens man to bliss.
X
Was with her now. The sweet perfume
Of womanhood in holy bloom,
As when red harvest blooms appear,
Possessed her soul. The priest did pray
That saints alone should pass that way.
Brown squirrels crossed her cabin sill,
And welcome came or went at will.
A hermit spider wove his web
Above her door and plied his trade,
With none to fright or make afraid.
And all dumb beasts that came to drink,
That stealthy stole upon the brink
By coming night or going dawn,
On seeing her familiar face
Would fearless stop and stand in place.
Gave her the road as if her right;
The panther crouching overhead
In sheen of moss would hear her tread,
Lest he by chance might frighten her.
There lay the lightning of the skies;
The love-hate of the lioness,
To kill the instant or caress:
A pent-up soul that sometimes grew
Impatient; why, she hardly knew.
Her strong arms out as if to hand
Her love, sun-born and all complete
At birth, to some brave lover's feet
On some far, fair, and unseen land,
As knowing not quite what to do!
XI
Was inspiration! She was born
To walk God's sunlit hills at morn,
Nor waste her by this wood-dark sea.
What wonder, then, her soul's white wings
Beat at its bars, like living things!
The sea-bound wood, then stopped and drew
Her hand above her face, and swept
The lonesome sea, and all day kept
Her face to sea, as if she knew
Some day, some near or distant day,
Her destiny should come that way.
XII
How proud she was! How darkly fair!How full of faith, of love, of strength!
Her calm, proud eyes! Her great hair's length,—
Her long, strong, tumbled, careless hair,
Half curled and knotted anywhere,—
By brow or breast, or cheek or chin,
For love to trip and tangle in!
XIII
It came so slow, so wearily,
Came creeping cautious up the sea,
As if it crept from out between
The half-closed sea and sky that lay
Tight wedged together, far away.
It might not pass her by but bring
Some love, some hate, some anything,
To break the awful loneliness
That like a nightly nightmare lay
Upon her proud and pent-up soul
Until it barely brooked control.
XIV
The ship crept silent up the sea,And came—
You cannot understand
How fair she was, how sudden she
Had sprung, full grown, to womanhood.
How gracious, yet how proud and grand;
How human, yet how more than good.
XV
Should you in Californian field
In ample flower-time behold
The soft south rose lift like a shield
Against the sudden sun at dawn,
A double handful of heaped gold,
Why you, perhaps, might understand
How splendid and how queenly she
Uprose beside that wood-set sea.
From wave to wave. It scarce could keep—
How still this fair girl stood, how fair!
How tall her presence as she stood
Between that vast sea and west wood!
How large and liberal her soul,
How confident, how purely chare,
How trusting; how untried the whole
Great heart, grand faith, that blossomed there.
XVI
The tawny, lawless, faithful few
Who touched her hand and knew her soul:
She drew them, drew them as the pole
Points all things to itself.
Men upward as a moon of spring
High wheeling, vast and bosom-full,
Half clad in clouds and white as wool,
Draws all the strong seas following.
As that same moon that leans above,
And seems to search high heaven through
For some strong, all sufficient love,
For one brave love to be her own,
Be all her own and ever true.
That died for such sufficient love,
Such high, white love with wings to soar,
That looks love level in the face,
Nor wearies love with leaning o'er
To lift love level to her place.
XVII
That stranger ship from under seas!
How like to Dido by her sea,
When reaching arms imploringly,—
Her large, round, rich, impassioned arms,
Tossed forth from all her storied charms—
This one lone maiden leaning stood
Above that sea, beneath that wood!
Her shrouds seemed shreds, her masts seemed trees,—
Strange tattered trees of toughest bough
The maiden pitied her; she prayed
Her crew might come, nor feel afraid;
She prayed the winds might come,—they came,
As birds that answer to a name.
That bound her beauteous self about;
The sea-winds housed within her hair;
She let it go, it blew in rout
About her bosom full and bare.
Her round, full arms were free as air,
Her high hands clasped as clasped in prayer.
XVIII
Began to flap her weary wings;
The tall, torn masts began to dip
And walk the wave like living things.
She rounded in, moved up the stream,
She moved like some majestic dream.
A Hercules among his men;
And now he watched the sea, and then
He peered as if to pierce the wood.
He now looked back, as if pursued,
Now swept the sea with glass as though
He fled, or feared some prowling foe.
Slow tacking north, slow tacking south,
He touched the overhanging wood;
He kept his deck, his tall black mast
He touched the steep shore where she stood.
XIX
Her hands still clasped as if in prayer,Sweet prayer set to silentness;
Her sun-browned throat uplifted, bare
And beautiful.
Her eager face
Illumed with love and tenderness,
And all her presence gave such grace,
That she seemed more than mortal, fair.
XX
With lifted glass he swept the sea;
No more he watched the wild new shore.
Now foes might come, now friends might flee;
He could not speak, he would not stir,—
He saw but her, he feared but her.
With creak and groan and rusty clank,
And tore the mellow blossomed bank;
She ground against the bank as one
With long and weary journeys done,
That will not rise to journey more.
And gazed against that sea-washed wood,
As one whose soul is anywhere.
All seemed so fair, so wondrous fair!
At last aroused, he stepped to land
On lands and fruits, and rested there.
XXI
In sylvan land, where waters run
With downward leap against the sun,
And full-grown sudden May is born.
He found her taller than tall corn
Tiptoe in tassel; found her sweet
As vale where bees of Hybla meet.
A wonder in her wondrous eyes;
A large, religious, steadfast look
Of faith, of trust,—the look of one
New fashioned in fair Paradise.
From title page to colophon:
As in cool woods, some summer day,
You find delight in some sweet lay,
And so entranced read on and on
From title page to colophon.
XXII
This giant of a grander day,
This Theseus of a nobler Greece,
This Jason of the golden fleece?
Aye, who was he? And who were they
That came to seek the hidden gold
I do not know. You need not care.
[OMITTED]
And that is all I surely know,—
The rest is as the winds that blow,
He bowed as brave men bow to fate,
Yet proud and resolute and bold;
She shy at first, and coyly cold,
Held back and tried to hesitate,—
Half frightened at this love that ran
Hard gallop till her hot heart beat
Like sounding of swift courser's feet.
XXIII
Two strong streams of a land must runTogether surely as the sun
Succeeds the moon. Who shall gainsay
The gods that reign, that wisely reign?
Love is, love was, shall be again.
Like death, inevitable it is;
Perchance, like death, the dawn of bliss.
Let us, then, love the perfect day,
The twelve o'clock of life, and stop
The two hands pointing to the top,
And hold them tightly while we may.
XXIV
By wooded ways; the silent talks
Beneath the broad and fragrant bough.
The dark deep wood, the dense black dell,
From out the sun.
On mossy trunk. They wandered then
Where never fell the feet of men.
Then longer walks, then deeper woods,
Then sweeter talks, sufficient sweet,
In denser, deeper solitudes,—
Dear careless ways for careless feet;
Sweet talks of paradise for two,
And only two to watch or woo.
She would not waken from. She lay
All night but waiting for the day,
When she might see his face, and deem
This man, with all his perils passed,
Had found sweet Lotus-land at last.
XXV
Fell central down. The forest lay
A-quiver in the heat. The sea
Below the steep bank seemed to run
A molten sea of gold.
Away
Against the gray and rock-built isles
That broke the molten watery miles
Where lonesome sea-cows called all day,
The sudden sun smote angrily.
Of denser shade for man and maid,
Where all day long the sea-wind stayed.
Swept twenty thousand miles of seas;
Had twenty thousand things to say,
Of love, of lovers of Cathay,
To lovers 'mid these mossy trees.
XXVI
Below the wood by wave and stream,
Plumed pampas grass did wave and gleam
And bend their lordly plumes, and run
And shake, as if in very fright
Before sharp lances of the sun.
Creep close below against the bank;
They saw it cringe and shrink; it shrank
As shrinks some huge black beast with fear,
When some uncommon dread is near.
They heard the melting resin drip,
As drip the last brave blood-drops when
Red battle waxes hot with men.
XXVII
Yet what to her were burning seas,Or what to him was forest flame?
They loved; they loved the glorious trees;
The gleaming tides might rise or fall,—
They loved the whispering winds that came
With breath not warmer than their own;
They loved, they loved,—and that was all.
XXVIII
From mighty boughs swang slow across,
As when some priest slow chants a prayer
And swings sweet smoke and perfumed air
From censer swinging—anywhere.
Of love that knew no other land,
Or face, or place, or anything;
Of love that like the wearied dove
Could light nowhere, but kept the wing
Till she alone put forth her hand
And so received it in her ark
From seas that shake against the dark!
Rose like the waves in their unrest
When counter storms possess the seas.
Her mouth, her arch, uplifted mouth,
Her ardent mouth that thirsted so,—
No glowing love song of the South
Can say; no man can say or know
Such truth as lies beneath such trees.
Disdained the cup of passion he
Hard pressed her panting lips to touch.
She dashed it by, uprose, and she
Caught fast her breath. She trembled much,
An empress in high womanhood:
She stood a tower, tall as when
Proud Roman mothers suckled men
Of old-time truth and taught them such.
XXIX
Was trembling as a courser when
His think flank quivers, and his feet
Touch velver on the turf, and he
Is all afoam, alert and fleet
As sunlight glancing on the sea,
And full of triumph before men.
Half leaned, then put him back a pace,
And met his eyes.
Her eyes looked deep into his eyes,—
As maidens search some mossy well
And peer in hope by chance to tell
By image there what future lies
Before them, and what face shall be
The pole-star of their destiny.
With love that made all pathways dim
And difficult where he was not,—
Then marvel not at forms forgot.
And who shall chide? Doth priest know aught
Of sign, or holy unction brought
From over seas, that ever can
One whit the more, one bit the less,
For all his mummeries to bless?
Yea, all his blessings or his ban?
She leaned upon his breast, she lay
A wide-winged swan with folded wing.
He drowned his hot face in her hair,
He heard her great heart rise and sing;
He felt her bosom swell.
Swooned sweet with perfume of her form.
Her breast was warm, her breath was warm,
And warm her warm and perfumed mouth
As summer journeys through the south.
XXX
The argent sea surged steep below,Surged languid in such tropic glow;
And two great hearts kept surging so!
The fervid kiss of heaven lay
Precipitate on wood and sea.
Two great souls glowed with ecstacy,
The sea glowed scarce as warm as they.
XXXI
'Twas love's warm amber afternoon.Two far-off pheasants thrummed a tune,
A cricket clanged a restful air.
The dreamful billows beat a rune
Like heart regrets.
There shone a halo. Men have said
'Twas from a dash of Titian red
That flooded all her storm of hair
In gold and glory. But they knew,
Yea, all men know there ever grew
A halo round about her head
Like sunlight scarcely vanishéd.
XXXII
How still she was! She only knewHis love. She saw no life beyond.
She loved with love that only lives
Outside itself and selfishness,—
A love that glows in its excess;
A love that melts pure gold, and gives
Thenceforth to all who come to woo
No coins but this face stamped thereon,—
Ay, this one image stamped upon
Pure gold, with some dim date long gone.
XXXIII
Below began to chafe her chain,
To groan as some great beast in pain:
While white fear leapt from lip to lip:
“The woods on fire! The woods in flame!
Come down and save us in God's name!”
He thought of her, of only her,
While flames behind, before them lay
To hold the stoutest heart at bay!
Strange, savage sounds that chilled the blood!
Then sudden, from the dense, dark wood
Above, about them where they stood
Strange, hairy beasts came peering out;
And now was thrust a long black snout,
And now a tusky mouth. It was
A sight to make the stoutest pause.
“Cut loose the ship!” the crew replied.
They drove into the sea. It lay
As light as ever middle day.
All slobber-mouthed, and monkish cowled
With great, broad, floppy, leathern ears
Amid the men, rose up and howled,
And doleful howled her plaintive fears,
While all looked mute aghast thereat.
It was the grimmest eve, I think,
That ever hung on Hades' brink.
Great broad-winged bats possessed the air,
Bats whirling blindly everywhere;
It was such troubled twilight eve
As never mortal would believe.
XXXIV
In circle where the lovers stood;
Some say the gray priest feared the crew
Might find at last the hoard of gold
Long hidden from the black ship's hold,—
I doubt me if men ever knew.
No mortal ever knew before.
Wild, hideous beasts with shaggy hair,
With red mouths lifting in the air,
All piteous howled, and plaintively,—
The wildest sounds, the weirdest sight
That ever shook the walls of night.
To dim and distant isles that lay
Wedged tight along a line of red,
Caught in the closing gates of day
'Twixt sky and sea and far away,—
It was the saddest sound to hear
That ever struck on human ear.
The plaintiff sea-cows far away,—
The great sea-cows that called from isles,
Away across red flaming miles,
With dripping mouths and lolling tongue,
As if they called for captured young,—
Their great wide mouths were mouthing moss;
And still they doleful called across
From isles beyond the watery miles.
No sound can half so doleful be
As sea-cows calling from the sea.
XXXV
In seas of blood. He sinking drew
The gates of sunset sudden to,
And they in shattered fragments lay.
Then night came, moving in mad flame;
Then full night, lighted as he came,
As lighted by high summer sun
Descending through the burning blue.
It was a gold and amber hue,
Aye, all hues blended into one.
The moon spilled splendor where she came,
And filled he world with yellow flame
Along the far sea-isles aglow;
She fell along that amber flood,
A silver flame in seas of blood.
It was the strangest moon, ah me!
That ever settled on God's sea.
XXXVI
From wood, from fen, from anywhere;
You could not step, you could not pass,
And you would hesitate to stir,
Lest in some sudden, hurried tread
Your foot struck some unbruiséd head:
They slid in streams into the stream;
They curved and sinuous curved across,
Like living streams of living moss,—
A ripple like a swimming snake!
XXXVII
Abandoned there, death in the air!
That beetling steep, that blazing wood—
Red flame! red flame, and everywhere!
Yet he was born to strive, to bear
The front of battle. He would die
In noble effort, and defy
The grizzled visage of despair.
As if to surely test their strength;
Then tore his vestments, textile things
That could but tempt the demon wings
Of flame that girt them round about,
Then threw his garments to the air
As one that laughed at death, at doubt,
And like a god stood thewed and bare.
The need of action; swift she threw
Her burning vestments by, and bound
Her wondrous wealth of hair that fell
An all-concealing cloud around
Her glorious presence, as he came
To seize and bear her through the flame,—
An Orpheus out of burning hell!
About her splendor, while the noon
Of flood tide, manhood, flushed his face,
They stood as twin-hewn statues stand,
High lifted in some storied place.
Of death and love in the same breath.
He clasped her close; her bosom lay
Like ship safe anchored in some bay,
Where never rage or rack of main
Might even shake her anchor chain.
XXXVIII
Beyond, the beetling steep, the sea!
But at his feet a narrow way,
A short steep path, pitched suddenly
Safe open to the river's beach,
Where lay a small white isle in reach,—
A small, white, rippled isle of sand
Where yet the two might safely land.
The priest stood safe, yet all appalled!
He reached the cross; he cried, he called;
He waved his high-held cross of gold.
He called and called, he bade them fly
Through flames to him, nor bide and die!
His giant strength could bear her through.
And yet he would not start or stir.
He clasped her close as death can hold,
His hold became a part of her.
Not bear her waveward though he could!
That height was heaven; the wave was hell.
He clasped her close,—what else had done
The manliest man beneath the sun?
Was it not well? was it not well?
And king-like walk thy ways of death!
For more than years of bliss you had
That one brief time you breathed her breath,
Yea, more than years upon a throne
That one brief time you held her fast,
Soul surged to soul, vehement, vast,—
True breast to breast, and all your own.
One second of supreme delight
Like that, and I will blow like chaff
The hollow years aside, and laugh
A loud triumphant laugh, and I,
King-like and crowned, will gladly die.
With flame within, with flame without!
Oh, but to die like this, nor doubt—
To die and know her still the same!
To know that down the ghostly shore
Snow-white she walks for ever more!
XXXIX
He poised her, held her high in air,—His great strong limbs, his great arm's length!—
Then turned his knotted shoulders bare
As birth-time in his splendid strength,
And strode with lordly, kingly stride
To where the high and wood-hung edge
Looked down, far down upon the molten tide.
The flames leaped with him to the ledge,
The flames leapt leering at his side.
XL
He saw the black ship grope and cruise,—
A midge below, a mile below.
His limbs were knotted as the thews
Of Hercules in his death-throe.
She wound her arms, she wound her hair
About his tall form, grand and bare,
To stay the fierce flame where it came.
Below along the burning sea
Groped on and on all silently,
With silent pigmies on her deck.
That mirage lifting from the hill!
His flame-lit form began to grow,—
To glow and grow more grandly still.
It grew to tower over all.
As if that flame-lit form were he
Who once bestrode the Rhodian sea,
And ruled the watery world of old:
As if the lost Colossus stood
Above that burning sea of wood.
Held high as if to touch the sky,
What airy shape, how shapely high,—
What goddess of the seas of eld!
As if she would forget the land;
As if to gather stars, and heap
The stars like torches there to light
Her hero's path across the deep
To some far isle that fearful night.
XLI
Enraged to see such majesty,
Such scorn of death; such kingly scorn ..
Then like some lightning-riven tree
They sank down in that flame—and slept.
Then all was hushed above that steep
So still that they might sleep and sleep,
As when a Summer's day is born.
Two shafts of light above the night,—
In steady, calm, and upward flight;
Two wings of flame against the white
Far-lifting, tranquil, snowy cone;
Two wings of love, two wings of light,
Far, far above that troubled night,
As mounting, mounting to God's throne.
XLII
And all night long that upward lightLit up the sea-cow's bed below:
The far sea-cows still calling so
It seemed as they must call all night.
All night! there was no night. Nay, nay,
There was no night. The night that lay
Between that awful eve and day,—
That nameless night was burned away.
Byron, Keats, Shelley, Browning, all poets, as a rule fled from the commercial centers, went out from under the mists and mirk into the sunlight to sing. I warn the coming poet that as a poet his place is not in any city. Be advised, or have done with aspiration to do new work or true work. The Old World has been written, written fully and bravely and well. It is only the vast, far, New World that needs you. He who is aiming to sit down in New York, or any city, and eat dinners that are cooked and seasoned by servants who are not given even as much time to go to church as were the slaves of the South, may be good enough and write well enough to please the city in these headlong days, but the real poet would rather house with a half savage and live on a sixpence in some mountain village, as did Byron, than feast off the board of Madame Leo Hunter in a city. Nor is Washington a better place for work with soul or heart in it. Madame Leo Hunter is there also, persistent, numerous, superficial and soulless as in almost any great center. If I am cruel, O my coming poets, I am cruel to be kind. Go forth in the sun, away into the wilds or contentedly
Joaquin Miller's Poems | ||