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

Rhyme on, O river of the earth!
Gray father of the dreadful seas,
Rhyme on! the world upon its knees
Invokes thy songs, thy wealth, thy worth.

Rhyme on! the reed is at thy mouth,
O kingly minstrel, mighty stream!
Thy Crescent City, like a dream,
Hangs in the heaven of my South.

Rhyme on, rhyme on! these broken strings
Sing sweetest in this warm south wind;
I sit thy willow banks and bind
A broken harp that fitful sings.

I

And where is my silent, sweet blossom-sown town?
And where is her glory, and what has she done?
By her Mexican seas in the path of the sun,
Sit you down; in her crescent of seas, sit you down.

Aye, glory enough by her Mexican seas!
Aye, story enough in that battle-torn town,

156

Hidden down in her crescent of seas, hidden down
In her mantle and sheen of magnolia-white trees.

But mine is the story of souls; of a soul
That barter'd God's limitless kingdom for gold,—
Sold stars and all space for a thing he did hold
In his palm for a day; and then hid with the mole:

Sad soul of a rose-land, of moss-mantled oak—
Gray, Druid-old oaks; and the moss that sways
And swings in the wind is the battle-smoke
Of duelists dead, in her storied days:

Sad soul of a love-land, of church-bells and chimes;
A love-land of altars and orange-flowers;
And that is the reason for all these rhymes—
That church-bells are ringing through all these hours!

This sun-land has churches, has priests at prayer,
White nuns, that are white as the far north snow:
They go where duty may bid them go,—
They dare when the angel of death is there.

This love-land has ladies, so fair, so fair,
In their Creole quarter, with great black eyes—

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So fair that the Mayor must keep them there
Lest troubles, like troubles of Troy, arise.

This sun-land has ladies with eyes held down,
Held down, because if they lifted them,
Why, you would be lost in that old French town,
Though even you held to God's garment hem.

This love-land has ladies so fair, so fair,
That they bend their eyes to the holy book,
Lest you should forget yourself, your prayer,
And never more cease to look and to look.

And these are the ladies that no men see,
And this is the reason men see them not;
Better their modest, sweet mystery—
Better by far than red battle-shot.

And so, in this curious old town of tiles,
The proud French quarter of days long gone,
In castles of Spain and tumble-down piles,
These wonderful ladies live on and on.

I sit in the church where they come and go;
I dream of glory that has long since gone;
Of the low raised high, of the high brought low
As in battle-torn days of Napoleon.

These brass-plaited places, so rich, so poor!
One quaint old church at the edge of the town
Has white tombs laid to the very church door—
White leaves in the story of life turn'd down:

158

White leaves in the story of life are these,
The low, white slabs in the long, strong grass,
Where glory has emptied her hour-glass,
And dreams with the dreamers beneath the trees.

I dream with the dreamers beneath the sod,
Where souls pass by to the great white throne;
I count each tomb as a mute mile-stone
For weary, sweet souls on their way to God.

I sit all day by the vast, strong stream,
'Mid low white slabs in the long, strong grass,
Where time has forgotten for aye to pass,
To dream, and ever to dream and to dream.

This quaint old church, with its dead to the door,
By the cypress swamp at the edge of the town,
So restful it seems that you want to sit down
And rest you, and rest you for evermore.

III

The azure curtain of God's house
Draws back, and hangs star-pinned to space;
I hear the low, large moon arouse,
And slowly lift her languid face.

I see her shoulder up the east,
Low-necked, and large as womanhood—
Low-necked, as for some ample feast
Of gods, within yon orange-wood.

She spreads white palms, she whispers peace,—
Sweet peace on earth forevermore;

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Sweet peace for two beneath the trees,
Sweet peace for one within the door.

The bent stream, as God's scimitar,
Flashed in the sun, sweeps on and on,
Till sheathed, like some great sword new-drawn,
In seas beneath the Carib's star.

The high moon climbs the sapphire hill,
The lone sweet lady prays within;
The crickets keep such clang and din—
They are so loud, earth is so still!

And two men glare in silence there!
The bitter, jealous hate of each
Has grown too deep for deed or speech—
The lone sweet lady keeps her prayer.

The vast moon high through heaven's field
In circling chariot is rolled;
The golden stars are spun and reeled,
And woven into cloth of gold.

The white magnolia fills the night
With perfume, as the proud moon fills
The glad earth with her ample light
From out her awful sapphire hills.

White orange-blossoms fill the boughs
Above, about the old church-door;
They wait the bride, the bridal vows,—
They never hung so fair before.

The two men glare as dark as sin!
And yet all seem so fair, so white,

160

You would not reckon it was night,—
The while the lady prays within.

IV

She prays so very long and late,—
The two men, weary, waiting there,—
The great magnolia at the gate
Bends drowsily above her prayer.

The cypress in his cloak of moss,
That watches on in silent gloom,
Has leaned and shaped a shadow cross
Above the nameless, lowly tomb.

What can she pray for? What her sin?
What folly of a maid so fair?
What shadows bind the wondrous hair
Of one who prays so long within?

The palm-trees guard in regiment,
Stand right and left without the gate;
The myrtle-moss trees wait and wait;
The tall magnolia leans intent.

The cypress-trees, on gnarled old knees,
Far out the dank and marshy deep
Where slimy monsters groan and creep,
Kneel with her in their marshy seas.

What can her sin be? Who shall know?
The night flies by,—a bird on wing;
The men no longer to and fro
Stride up and down, or anything.

161

For one, so weary and so old,
Has hardly strength to stride or stir;
He can but hold his bags of gold,—
But hug his gold and wait for her.

The two stand still,—stand face to face.
The moon slides on, the midnight air
Is perfumed as a house of prayer,—
The maiden keeps her holy place.

Two men! And one is gray, but one
Scarce lifts a full-grown face as yet;
With light foot on life's threshold set,—
Is he the other's sun-born son?

And one is of the land of snow,
And one is of the land of sun;
A black-eyed, burning youth is one,
But one has pulses cold and slow:

Aye, cold and slow from clime of snow
Where Nature's bosom, icy bound,
Holds all her forces, hard, profound,—
Holds close where all the South lets go.

Blame not the sun, blame not the snows,—
God's great schoolhouse for all is clime;
The great school teacher, Father Time,
And each has borne as best he knows.

At last the elder speaks,—he cries,—
He speaks as if his heart would break;
He speaks out as a man that dies,—
As dying for some lost love's sake:

162

“Come, take this bag of gold, and go!
Come, take one bag! See, I have two!
Oh, why stand silent, staring so,
When I would share my gold with you?

“Come, take this gold! See how I pray!
See how I bribe, and beg, and buy,—
Aye, buy! and beg, as you, too, may
Some day before you come to die.

“God! take this gold, I beg, I pray!
I beg as one who thirsting cries
For but one drop of drink, and dies
In some lone, loveless desert way.

“You hesitate? Still hesitate?
Stand silent still and mock my pain?
Still mock to see me wait and wait,
And wait her love, as earth waits rain?”

V

O broken ship! O starless shore!
O black and everlasting night!
Where love comes never any more
To light man's way with heaven's light.

A godless man with bags of gold
I think a most unholy sight;
Ah, who so desolate at night,
Amid death's sleepers still and cold?

A godless man on holy ground
I think a most unholy sight.

163

I hear death trailing, like a hound,
Hard after him, and swift to bite.

VI

The vast moon settles to the west;
Yet still two men beside that tomb,
And one would sit thereon to rest,—
Aye, rest below, if there were room.

VII

What is this rest of death, sweet friend?
What is the rising up, and where?
I say, death is a lengthened prayer,
A longer night, a larger end.

Hear you the lesson I once learned:
I died; I sailed a million miles
Through dreamful, flowery, restful isles,—
She was not there, and I returned.

I say the shores of death and sleep
Are one; that when we, wearied, come
To Lethe's waters, and lie dumb,
'Tis death, not sleep, holds us to keep.

Yea, we lie dead for need of rest,
And so the soul drifts out and o'er
The vast still waters to the shore
Beyond, in pleasant, tranquil quest:

It sails straight on, forgetting pain,
Past isles of peace, to perfect rest,—
Now were it best abide, or best
Return and take up life again?

164

And that is all of death there is,
Believe me. If you find your love
In that far land, then, like the dove,
Pluck olive boughs, nor back to this.

But if you find your love not there;
Or if your feet feel sure, and you
Have still allotted work to do,—
Why, then haste back to toil and care.

Death is no mystery. 'Tis plain
If death be mystery, then sleep
Is mystery thrice strangely deep,—
For oh, this coming back again!

Austerest ferryman of souls!
I see the gleam of shining shores;
I hear thy steady stroke of oars
Above the wildest wave that rolls.

O Charon, keep thy somber ships!
I come, with neither myrrh nor balm,
Nor silver piece in open palm,—
Just lone, white silence on my lips.

VIII

She prays so long! she prays so late!
What sin in all this flower land
Against her supplicating hand
Could have in heaven any weight?

Prays she for her sweet self alone?
Prays she for some one far away,

165

Or some one near and dear today,
Or some poor lorn, lost soul unknown?

It seems to me a selfish thing
To pray forever for one's self;
It seems to me like heaping pelf,
In heaven by hard reckoning.

Why, I would rather stoop and bear
My load of sin, and bear it well
And bravely down to your hard hell,
Than pray and pray a selfish prayer!

IX

The swift chameleon in the gloom—
This gray morn silence so profound!—
Forsakes its bough, glides to the ground,
Then up, and lies across the tomb.

It erst was green as olive-leaf;
It then grew gray as myrtle moss
The time it slid the tomb across;
And now 't is marble-white as grief.

The little creature's hues are gone
Here in the gray and ghostly light;
It lies so pale, so panting white,—
White as the tomb it lies upon.

The two still by that nameless tomb!
And both so still! You might have said,
These two men, they are also dead,
And only waiting here for room.

166

How still beneath the orange-bough!
How tall was one, how bowed was one!
The one was as a journey done,
The other as beginning now.

And one was young,—young with that youth
Eternal that belongs to truth;
And one was old,—old with the years
That follow fast on doubts and fears.

And yet the habit of command
Was his, in every stubborn part;
No common knave was he at heart,
Nor his the common coward's hand.

He looked the young man in the face,
So full of hate, so frank of hate;
The other, standing in his place,
Stared back as straight and hard as fate.

And now he sudden turned away,
And now he paced the path, and now
Came back beneath the orange bough,
Pale-browed, with lips as cold as clay.

As mute as shadows on a wall,
As silent still, as dark as they,
Before that stranger, bent and gray,
The youth stood scornful, proud and tall.

He stood a clean palmetto tree
With Spanish daggers guarding it;
Nor deed, nor word, to him seemed fit
While she prayed on so silently.

167

He slew his rival with his eyes
His eyes were daggers piercing deep,—
So deep that blood began to creep
From their deep wounds and drop wordwise.

His eyes so black, so bright, that they
Might raise the dead, the living slay,
If but the dead, the living bore
Such hearts as heroes had of yore.

Two deadly arrows barbed in black,
And feathered, too, with raven's wing;
Two arrows that could silent sting,
And with a death-wound answer back.

How fierce he was! how deadly still
In that mesmeric, searching stare
Turned on the pleading stranger there
That drew to him, despite his will!

So like a bird down-fluttering,
Down, down, beneath a snake's bright eyes,
He stood, a fascinated thing,
That hopeless, unresisting, dies.

He raised a hard hand as before,
Reached out the gold, and offered it
With hand that shook as ague-fit,—
The while the youth but scorned the more.

“You will not touch it? In God's name,
Who are you, and what are you, then?
Come, take this gold, and be of men,—
A human form with human aim.

168

“Yea, take this gold,—she must be mine!
She shall be mine! I do not fear
Your scowl, your scorn, your soul austere,
The living, dead, or your dark sign.

“I saw her as she entered there;
I saw her, and uncovered stood;
The perfume of her womanhood
Was holy incense on the air.

“She left behind sweet sanctity,
Religion went the way she went;
I cried I would repent, repent!
She passed on, all unheeding me.

“Her soul is young, her eyes are bright
And gladsome, as mine own are dim;
But oh, I felt my senses swim
The time she passed me by tonight!—

“The time she passed, nor raised her eyes
To hear me cry I would repent,
Nor turned her head to hear my cries,
But swifter went the way she went,—

“Went swift as youth, for all these years!
And this the strangest thing appears,
That lady there seems just the same,—
Sweet Gladys—Ah! you know her name?

“You hear her name and start that I
Should name her dear name trembling so?
Why, boy, when I shall come to die
That name shall be the last I know.

169

“That name shall be the last sweet name
My lips shall utter in this life!
That name is brighter than bright flame,—
That lady is mine own sweet wife!

“Ah, start and catch your burning breath!
Ah, start and clutch your deadly knife!
If this be death, then be it death,—
But that loved lady is my wife!

“Yea, you are stunned! your face is white,
That I should come confronting you,
As comes a lorn ghost of the night
From out the past, and to pursue.

“You thought me dead? You shake your head,
You start back horrified to know
That she is loved, that she is wed,
That you have sinned in loving so.

“Yet what seems strange, that lady there,
Housed in the holy house of prayer,
Seems just the same for all her tears,—
For all my absent twenty years.

“Yea, twenty years tonight, tonight,—
Just twenty years this day, this hour,
Since first I plucked that perfect flower,
And not one witness of the rite.

“Nay, do not doubt,—I tell you true!
Her prayers, her tears, her constancy
Are all for me, are all for me,—
And not one single thought for you!

170

“I knew, I knew she would be here
This night of nights to pray for me!
And how could I for twenty year
Know this same night so certainly?

“Ah me! some thoughts that we would drown,
Stick closer than a brother to
The conscience, and pursue, pursue,
Like baying hound, to hunt us down.

“And, then, that date is history;
For on that night this shore was shelled,
And many a noble mansion felled,
With many a noble family.

“I wore the blue; I watched the flight
Of shells, like stars tossed through the air
To blow your hearth-stones—anywhere,
That wild, illuminated night.

“Nay, rage befits you not so well;
Why, you were but a babe at best;
Your cradle some sharp bursted shell
That tore, maybe, your mother's breast!

“Hear me! We came in honored war.
The risen world was on your track!
The whole North-land was at our back,
From Hudson's bank to the North Star!

“And from the North to palm-set sea
The splendid fiery cyclone swept.
Your fathers fell, your mothers wept,
Their nude babes clinging to the knee.

171

“A wide and desolated track:
Behind, a path of ruin lay;
Before, some women by the way
Stood mutely gazing, clad in black.

“From silent women waiting there
White tears came down like still, small rain;
Their own sons of the battle-plain
Were now but viewless ghosts of air.

“Their own dear, daring boys in gray,—
They should not see them any more;
Our cruel drums kept telling o'er
The time their own sons went away.

“Through burning town, by bursting shell—
Yea, I remember well that night;
I led through orange-lanes of light,
As through some hot outpost of hell!

“That night of rainbow shot and shell
Sent from yon surging river's breast
To waken me, no more to rest,—
That night I should remember well!

“That night, amid the maimed and dead—
A night in history set down
By light of many a burning town,
And written all across in red,—

“Her father dead, her brothers dead,
Her home in flames,—what else could she
But fly all helpless here to me,
A fluttered dove, that night of dread?

172

“Short time, hot time had I to woo
Amid the red shells battle-chime;
But women rarely reckon time,
And perils waken love anew.

“Aye, then I wore a captain's sword;
And, too, had oftentime before
Doffed cap at her dead father's door,
And passed a lover's pleasant word.

“And then—ah, I was comely then!
I bore no load upon my back,
I heard no hounds upon my track,
But stood the tallest of tall men.

“Her father's and her mother's shrine,
This church amid the orange-wood;
So near and so secure it stood,
It seemed to beckon as a sign.

“Its white cross seemed to beckon me;
My heart was strong, and it was mine
To throw myself upon my knee,
To beg to lead her to this shrine.

“She did consent. Through lanes of light
I led through this church-door that night—
Let fall your hand! Take back your face
And stand,—stand patient in your place!

“She loved me; and she loves me still.
Yea, she clung close to me that hour
As honey-bee to honey-flower,—
And still is mine through good or ill.

173

“The priest stood there. He spake the prayer;
He made the holy, mystic sign,
And she was mine, was wholly mine,—
Is mine this moment, I can swear!

“Then days, then nights of vast delight,—
Then came a doubtful later day;
The faithful priest, nor far away,
Watched with the dying in the fight:

“The priest amid the dying, dead,
Kept duty on the battle-field,—
That midnight marriage unrevealed
Kept strange thoughts running thro' my head.

“At last a stray ball struck the priest;
This vestibule his chancel was;
And now none lived to speak her cause,
Record, or champion her the least.

“Hear me! I had been bred to hate
All priests, their mummeries and all.
Ah, it was fate,—ah, it was fate
That all things tempted to my fall!

“And then the dashing songs we sang
Those nights when rudely reveling,—
Such songs that only soldiers sing,—
Until the very tent-poles rang!

“What is the rhyme that rhymers say,
Of maidens born to be betrayed
By epaulettes and shining blade,
While soldiers love and ride away?

174

“And then my comrades spake her name
Half taunting, with a touch of shame;
Taught me to hold that lily-flower
As some light pastime of the hour.

“And then the ruin in the land,
The death, dismay, the lawlessness!
Men gathered gold on every hand,—
Heaped gold: and why should I do less?

“The cry for gold was in the air,—
For Creole gold, for precious things;
The sword kept prodding here and there,
Through bolts and sacred fastenings.

“‘Get gold! get gold!’ This was the cry.
And I loved gold. What else could I
Or you, or any earnest one,
Born in this getting age, have done?

“With this one lesson taught from youth,
And ever taught us, to get gold,—
To get and hold, and ever hold,—
What else could I have done, forsooth?

“She, seeing how I crazed for gold,—
This girl, my wife, one late night told
Of treasures hidden close at hand,
In her dead father's mellow land;

“Of gold she helped her brothers hide
Beneath a broad banana-tree
The day the two in battle died,
The night she, dying, fled to me.

175

“It seemed too good; I laughed to scorn
Her trustful tale. She answered not;
But meekly on the morrow morn
These two great bags of bright gold brought.

“And when she brought this gold to me,—
Red Creole gold, rich, rare, and old,—
When I at last had gold, sweet gold,
I cried in very ecstasy.

“Red gold! rich gold! two bags of gold!
The two stout bags of gold she brought
And gave, with scarce a second thought,—
Why, her two hands could scarcely hold!

“Now I had gold! two bags of gold!
Two wings of gold, to fly, and fly
The wide world's girth; red gold to hold
Against my heart for aye and aye!

“My country's lesson: ‘Gold! get gold!’
I learned it well in land of snow;
And what can glow, so brightly glow,
Long winter nights of northern cold?

“Aye, now at last, at last I had
The one thing, all fair things above,
My land had taught me most to love!
A miser now! and I grew mad.

“With these two bags of gold my own,
I soon began to plan some night
For flight, for far and sudden flight,—
For flight; and, too, for flight alone.

176

“I feared! I feared! My heart grew cold,—
Some one might claim this gold of me!
I feared her,—feared her purity—
Feared all things but my bags of gold.

“I grew to hate her face, her creed,—
That face the fairest ever yet
That bowed o'er holy cross or bead,
Or yet was in God's image set.

“I fled,—nay, not so knavish low,
As you have fancied, did I fly:
I sought her at this shrine, and I
Told her full frankly I should go.

“I stood a giant in my power,—
And did she question or dispute?
I stood a savage, selfish brute,—
She bowed her head, a lily-flower.

“And when I sudden turned to go,
And told her I should come no more,
She bowed her head so low, so low,
Her vast black hair fell pouring o'er.

“And that was all; her splendid face
Was mantled from me, and her night
Of hair half hid her from my sight,
As she fell moaning in her place.

“And there, through her dark night of hair,
She sobbed, low moaning in her tears,
That she would wait, wait all the years,—
Would wait and pray in her despair.

177

“Nay, did not murmur, not deny,—
She did not cross me one sweet word!
I turned and fled; I thought I heard
A night-bird's piercing low death-cry!”