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

How soft the moonlight of my South!
How sweet the South in soft moonlight!
I want to kiss her warm, sweet mouth
As she lies sleeping here tonight.

How still! I do not hear a mouse.
I see some bursting buds appear;
I hear God in his garden,—hear
Him trim some flowers for His house.

I hear some singing stars; the mouth
Of my vast river sings and sings,
And pipes on reeds of pleasant things,—
Of splendid promise for my South:

My great South-woman, soon to rise
And tiptoe up and loose her hair;
Tiptoe, and take from out the skies
God's stars and glorious moon to wear!

I

The poet shall create or kill,
Bid heroes live, bid braggarts die.
I look against a lurid sky,—
My silent South lies proudly still.

The fading light of burning lands
Still climbs to God's house overhead;
Mute women wring white, withered hands;
Their eyes are red, their skies are red.

179

And we still boast our bitter wars!
Still burn and boast, and boast and lie
But God's white finger spins the stars
In calm dominion of the sky.

And not one ray of light the less
Comes down to bid the grasses spring;
No drop of dew nor anything
Shall fail for all our bitterness.

If man grows large, is God the less?
The moon shall rise and set the same,
The great sun spill his splendid flame,
And clothe the world in queenliness.

Yea, from that very blood-soaked sod
Some large-souled, seeing youth shall come
Some day, and he shall not be dumb
Before the awful court of God.

II

The weary moon had turned away,
The far North Star was turning pale
To hear the stranger's boastful tale
Of blood and flame that battle-day.

And yet again the two men glared,
Close face to face above that tomb;
Each seemed as jealous of the room
The other, eager waiting shared.

180

Again the man began to say,—
As taking up some broken thread,
As talking to the patient dead,—
The Creole was as still as they:

“That night we burned yon grass-grown town,—
The grasses, vines are reaching up;
The ruins they are reaching down,
As sun-browned soldiers when they sup.

“I knew her,—knew her constancy.
She said this night of every year
She here would come, and kneeling here,
Would pray the livelong night for me.

“This praying seems a splendid thing!
It drives old Time the other way;
It makes him lose all reckoning
Of years that I have had to pay.

“This praying seems a splendid thing!
It makes me stronger as she prays—
But oh, those bitter, bitter days,
When I became a banished thing!

“I fled, took ship,—I fled as far
As far ships drive tow'rd the North Star:
For I did hate the South, the sun
That made me think what I had done.

“I could not see a fair palm-tree
In foreign land, in pleasant place,
But it would whisper of her face
And shake its keen, sharp blades at me.

181

“Each black-eyed woman would recall
A lone church-door, a face, a name,
A coward's flight, a soldier's shame:
I fled from woman's face, from all.

“I hugged my gold, my precious gold,
Within my strong, stout buckskin vest.
I wore my bags against my breast
So close I felt my heart grow cold.

“I did not like to see it now;
I did not spend one single piece;
I traveled, traveled without cease
As far as Russian ship could plow.

“And when my own scant hoard was gone,
And I had reached the far North-land,
I took my two stout bags in hand
As one pursued, and journeyed on.

“Ah, I was weary! I grew gray;
I felt the fast years slip and reel,
As slip bright beads when maidens kneel
At altars when outdoor is gay.

“At last I fell prone in the road,—
Fell fainting with my cursed load.
A skin-clad Cossack helped me bear
My bags, nor would one shilling share.

“He looked at me with proud disdain,—
He looked at me as if he knew;
His black eyes burned me thro' and thro';
His scorn pierced like a deadly pain.

182

“He frightened me with honesty;
He made me feel so small, so base,
I fled, as if a fiend kept chase,—
A fiend that claimed my company!

“I bore my load alone; I crept
Far up the steep and icy way;
And there, before a cross there lay
A barefoot priest, who bowed and wept.

“I threw my gold right down and sped
Straight on. And oh, my heart was light!
A springtime bird in springtime flight
Flies scarce more happy than I fled.

“I felt somehow this monk would take
My gold, my load from off my back;
Would turn the fiend from off my track,
Would take my gold for sweet Christ's sake!

“I fled; I did not look behind;
I fled, fled with the mountain wind.
At last, far down the mountain's base
I found a pleasant resting-place.

“I rested there so long, so well,
More grateful than all tongues can tell.
It was such pleasant thing to hear
That valley's voices calm and clear:

“That valley veiled in mountain air,
With white goats on the hills at morn;
That valley green with seas of corn,
With cottage-islands here and there.

183

“I watched the mountain girls. The hay
They mowed was not more sweet than they;
They laid brown hands in my white hair;
They marveled at my face of care.

“I tried to laugh; I could but weep.
I made these peasants one request,—
That I with them might toil or rest,
And with them sleep the long, last sleep.

“I begged that I might battle there,
In that fair valley-land, for those
Who gave me cheer, when girt with foes,
And have a country loved as fair.

“Where is that spot that poets name
Our country? name the hallowed land?
Where is that spot where man must stand
Or fall when girt with sworn and flame?

“Where is that one permitted spot?
Where is the one place man must fight?
Where rests the one God-given right
To fight, as ever patriots fought?

“I say 'tis in that holy house
Where God first set us down on earth;
Where mother welcomed us at birth,
And bared her breasts, a happy spouse.

“The simple plowboy from his field
Looks forth. He sees God's purple wall
Encircling him. High over all
The vast sun wheels his shining shield.

184

“This King, who makes earth what it is,—
King David bending to his toil!
O Lord and master of the soil,
How envied in thy loyal bliss!

“Long live the land we loved in youth
That world with blue skies bent about,
Where never entered ugly doubt!
Long live the simple, homely truth!

“Can true hearts love some far snow-land,
Some bleak Alaska bought with gold?
God's laws are old as love is old;
And Home is something near at hand.

“Yea, change yon river's course; estrange
The seven sweet stars; make hate divide
The full moon from the flowing tide,—
But this old truth ye cannot change.

“I begged a land as begging bread;
I begged of these brave mountaineers
To share their sorrows, share their tears;
To weep as they wept with their dead.

“They did consent. The mountain town
Was mine to love, and valley lands.
That night the barefoot monk came down
And laid my two bags in my hands!

“On! on! And oh, the load I bore!
Why, once I dreamed my soul was lead;
Dreamed once it was a body dead!
It made my cold, hard bosom sore.

185

“I dragged that body forth and back—
O conscience, what a baying hound!
Nor frozen seas nor frosted ground
Can throw this bloodhound from his track.

“In farthest Russia I lay down,
A dying man, at last to rest;
I felt such load upon my breast
As seamen feel, who, sinking, drown.

“That night, all chill and desperate,
I sprang up, for I could not rest;
I tore the two bags from my breast,
And dashed them in the burning grate.

“I then crept back into my bed;
I tried, I begged, I prayed to sleep;
But those red, restless coins would keep
Slow dropping, dropping, and blood-red.

“I heard them clink, and clink, and clink,—
They turned, they talked within that grate.
They talked of her; they made me think
Of one who still did pray and wait.

“And when the bags burned crisp and black,
Two coins did start, roll to the floor,—
Roll out, roll on, and then roll back,
As if they needs must journey more.

“Ah, then I knew nor change nor space,
Nor all the drowning years that rolled
Could hide from me her haunting face,
Nor still that red-tongued, talking gold!

186

“Again I sprang forth from my bed!
I shook as in an ague fit;
I clutched that red gold, burning red,
I clutched as if to strangle it.

“I clutched it up—you hear me, boy?—
I clutched it up with joyful tears!
I clutched it close with such wild joy
I had not felt for years and years!

“Such joy! for I should now retrace
My steps, should see my land, her face;
Bring back her gold this battle-day,
And see her, hear her, hear her pray!

“I brought it back—you hear me, boy?
I clutch it, hold it, hold it now;
Red gold, bright gold that giveth joy
To all, and anywhere or how;

“That giveth joy to all but me,—
To all but me, yet soon to all.
It burns my hands, it burns! but she
Shall ope my hands and let it fall.

“For oh, I have a willing hand
To give these bags of gold; to see
Her smile as once she smiled on me
Here in this pleasant warm palm-land.”

He ceased, he thrust each hard-clenched fist,—
He threw his gold hard forth again,
As one impelled by some mad pain
He would not or could not resist.

187

The Creole, scorning, turned away,
As if he turned from that lost thief,—
The one who died without belief
That dark, dread crucifixion day.

III

Believe in man nor turn away.
Lo! man advances year by year;
Time bears him upward, and his sphere
Of life must broaden day by day.

Believe in man with large belief;
The garnered grain each harvest-time
Hath promise, roundness, and full prime
For all the empty chaff and sheaf.

Believe in man with brave belief;
Truth keeps the bottom of her well;
And when the thief peeps down, the thief
Peeps back at him perpetual.

Faint not that this or that man fell;
For one that falls a thousand rise
To lift white Progress to the skies:
Truth keeps the bottom of her well.

Fear not for man, nor cease to delve
For cool, sweet truth, with large belief.
Lo! Christ himself chose only twelve,
Yet one of these turned out a thief.

188

IV

Down through the dark magnolia leaves,
Where climbs the rose of Cherokee
Against the orange-blossomed tree,
A loom of morn-light weaves and weaves,—

A loom of morn-light, weaving clothes
From snow-white rose of Cherokee,
And bridal blooms of orange-tree,
For fairy folk housed in red rose.

Down through the mournful myrtle crape,
Thro' moving moss, thro' ghostly gloom,
A long, white morn-beam takes a shape
Above a nameless, lowly tomb;

A long white finger through the gloom
Of grasses gathered round about,—
As God's white finger pointing out
A name upon that nameless tomb.

V

Her white face bowed in her black hair,
The maiden prays so still within
That you might hear a falling pin,—
Aye, hear her white, unuttered prayer.

The moon has grown disconsolate,
Has turned her down her walk of stars:
Why, she is shutting up her bars,
As maidens shut a lover's gate.

189

The moon has grown disconsolate;
She will no longer watch and wait.
But two men wait; and two men will
Wait on till full morn, mute and still.

Still wait and walk among the trees
Quite careless if the moon may keep
Her walk along her starry steep
Or drown her in the Southern seas.

They know no moon, or set or rise
Of sun, or anything to light
The earth or skies, save her dark eyes,
This praying, waking, watching night.

They move among the tombs apart,
Their eyes turn ever to that door;
They know the worn walks there by heart—
They turn and walk them o'er and o'er.

They are not wide, these little walks
For dead folk by this crescent town:
They lie right close when they lie down,
As if they kept up quiet talks.

VI

The two men keep their paths apart;
But more and more begins to stoop
The man with gold, as droop and droop
Tall plants with something at their heart.

Now once again, with eager zest,
He offers gold with silent speech;

190

The other will not walk in reach,
But walks around, as round a pest.

His dark eyes sweep the scene around,
His young face drinks the fragrant air,
His dark eyes journey everywhere,—
The other's cleave unto the ground.

It is a weary walk for him,
For oh, he bears such weary load!
He does not like that narrow road
Between the dead—it is so dim:

It is so dark, that narrow place,
Where graves lie thick, like yellow leaves:
Give us the light of Christ and grace;
Give light to garner in the sheaves.

Give light of love; for gold is cold,—
Aye, gold is cruel as a crime;
It gives no light at such sad time
As when man's feet wax weak and old.

Aye, gold is heavy, hard, and cold!
And have I said this thing before?
Well, I will say it o'er and o'er,
'T were need be said ten thousand fold.

“Give us this day our daily bread,”—
Get this of God; then all the rest
Is housed in thine own earnest breast,
If you but lift an honest head.

191

VII

Oh, I have seen men tall and fair,
Stoop down their manhood with disgust,—
Stoop down God's image to the dust,
To get a load of gold to bear:

Have seen men selling day by day
The glance of manhood that God gave:
To sell God's image, as a slave
Might sell some little pot of clay!

Behold! here in this green graveyard
A man with gold enough to fill
A coffin, as a miller's till;
And yet his path is hard, so hard!

His feet keep sinking in the sand,
And now so near an opened grave!
He seems to hear the solemn wave
Of dread oblivion at hand.

The sands, they grumble so, it seems
As if he walks some shelving brink;
He tries to stop, he tries to think,
He tries to make believe he dreams:

Why, he was free to leave the land,—
The silver moon was white as dawn;
Why, he had gold in either hand,
Had silver ways to walk upon.

And who should chide, or bid him stay?
Or taunt, or threat, or bid him fly?

192

“The world's for sale,” I hear men say,
And yet this man had gold to buy.

Buy what? Buy rest? He could not rest!
Buy gentle sleep? He could not sleep,
Though all these graves were wide and deep
As their wide mouths with the request.

Buy Love, buy faith, buy snow-white truth?
Buy moonlight, sunlight, present, past?
Buy but one brimful cup of youth
That true souls drink of to the last?

O God! 'twas pitiful to see
This miser so forlorn and old!
O God! how poor a man may be
With nothing in this world but gold!

VIII

The broad magnolia's blooms were white;
Her blooms were large, as if the moon
Quite lost her way that dreamful night,
And lodged to wait the afternoon.

Oh, vast white blossoms, breathing love!
White bosom of my lady dead,
In your white heaven overhead
I look, and learn to look above.

IX

The dew-wet roses wept; their eyes
All dew, their breath as sweet as prayer.

193

And as they wept, the dead down there
Did feel their tears and hear their sighs.

The grass uprose, as if afraid
Some stranger foot might press too near;
Its every blade was like a spear,
Its every spear a living blade.

The grass above that nameless tomb
Stood all arrayed, as if afraid
Some weary pilgrim, seeking room
And rest, might lay where she was laid.

X

'T was morn, and yet it was not morn;
'T was morn in heaven, not on earth:
A star was singing of a birth,—
Just saying that a day was born.

The marsh hard by that bound the lake,—
The great stork sea-lake, Ponchartrain,
Shut off from sultry Cuban main,—
Drew up its legs, as half awake:

Drew long, thin legs, stork-legs that steep
In slime where alligators creep,—
Drew long, green legs that stir the grass,
As when the lost, lorn night winds pass.

Then from the marsh came croakings low
Then louder croaked some sea-marsh beast;
Then, far away against the east,
God's rose of morn began to grow.

194

From out the marsh against that east,
A ghostly moss-swept cypress stood;
With ragged arms, above the wood
It rose, a God-forsaken beast.

It seemed so frightened where it rose!
The moss-hung thing, it seemed to wave
The worn-out garments of a grave,—
To wave and wave its old grave-clothes.

Close by, a cow rose up and lowed
From out a palm-thatched milking-shed;
A black boy on the river road
Fled sudden, as the night had fled:

A nude black boy,—a bit of night
That had been broken off and lost
From flying night, the time it crossed
The soundless river in its flight.

A bit of darkness, following
The sable night on sable wing,—
A bit of darkness, dumb with fear,
Because that nameless tomb was near.

Then holy bells came pealing out;
Then steamboats blew, then horses neighed;
Then smoke from hamlets round about
Crept out, as if no more afraid.

Then shrill cocks here, and shrill cocks there
Stretched glossy necks and filled the air;—
How many cocks it takes to make
A country morning well awake!

195

Then many boughs, with many birds,—
Young boughs in green, old boughs in gray;
These birds had very much to say,
In their soft, sweet, familiar words.

And all seemed sudden glad; the gloom
Forgot the church, forgot the tomb;
And yet, like monks with cross and bead,
The myrtles leaned to read and read.

And oh, the fragrance of the sod!
And oh, the perfume of the air!
The sweetness, sweetness everywhere,
That rose like incense up to God!

I like a cow's breath in sweet spring;
I like the breath of babes new-born;
A maid's breath is a pleasant thing,—
But oh, the breath of sudden morn!—

Of sudden morn, when every pore
Of Mother Earth is pulsing fast
With life, and life seems spilling o'er
With love, with love too sweet to last:

Of sudden morn beneath the sun,
By God's great river wrapped in gray,
That for a space forgets to run,
And hides his face, as if to pray.

196

XI

The black-eyed Creole kept his eyes
Turned to the door, as eyes might turn
To see the holy embers burn
Some sin away at sacrifice.

Full dawn! but yet he knew no dawn,
Nor song of bird, nor bird on wing,
Nor breath of rose, nor anything
Her fair face lifted not upon.

And yet he taller stood with morn;
His bright eyes, brighter than before,
Burned fast against that favored door,
His proud lips lifting still with scorn,—

With lofty, silent scorn for one
Who all night long had plead and plead,
With none to witness but the dead
How he for gold had been undone.

O ye who feed a greed for gold
And barter truth, and trade sweet youth
For cold, hard gold, behold, behold!
Behold this man! behold this truth!

Why what is there in all God's plan
Of vast creation, high or low,
By sea or land, by sun or snow,
So mean, so miserly as man?

Lo, earth and heaven all let go
Their garnered riches, year by year!

197

The treasures of the trackless snow,
Ah, hast thou seen how very dear?

The wide earth gives, gives golden grain,
Gives fruits of gold, gives all, gives all!
Hold forth your hand, and these shall fall
In your full palm as free as rain.

Yea, earth is generous. The trees
Strip nude as birth-time without fear;
And their reward is year by year
To feel their fullness but increase.

The law of Nature is to give,
To give, to give! and to rejoice
In giving with a generous voice,
And so trust God and truly live.

But see this miser at the last,—
This man who loved, who worshipped gold,
Who grasped gold with such eager hold,
He fain must hold forever fast:

As if to hold what God lets go;
As if to hold, while all around
Lets go and drops upon the ground
All things as generous as snow.

Let go your hold! let go or die!
Let go poor soul! Do not refuse
Till death comes by and shakes you loose,
And sends you shamed to hell for aye!

198

What if the sun should keep his gold?
The rich moon lock her silver up?
What if the gold-clad buttercup
Became such miser, mean and old?

Ah, me! the coffins are so true
In all accounts, the shrouds so thin
That down there you might sew and sew,
Nor ever sew one pocket in.

And all that you can hold of lands
Down there, below the grass, down there,
Will only be that little share
You hold in your two dust-full hands.

XII

She comes! she comes! The stony floor
Speaks out! And now the rusty door
At last has just one word this day,
With mute, religious lips, to say.

She comes! she comes! And lo, her face
Is upward, radiant, fair as prayer!
So pure here in this holy place,
Where holy peace is everywhere.

Her upraised face, her face of light
And loveliness, from duty done,
Is like a rising orient sun
That pushes back the brow of night.

199

How brave, how beautiful is truth!
Good deeds untold are like to this.
But fairest of all fair things is
A pious maiden in her youth:

A pious maiden as she stands
Just on the threshold of the years
That throb and pulse with hopes and fears,
And reaches God her helpless hands.

How fair is she! How fond is she!
Her foot upon the threshold there.
Her breath is as a blossomed tree,—
This maiden mantled in her hair!

Her hair, her black abundant hair,
Where night inhabited, all night
And all this day, will not take flight,
But finds content and houses there.

Her hands are clasped, her two small hands:
They hold the holy book of prayer
Just as she steps the threshold there,
Clasped downward where she silent stands.

XIII

Once more she lifts her lowly face,
And slowly lifts her large, dark eyes
Of wonder, and in still surprise
She looks full forward in her place.

She looks full forward on the air
Above the tomb, and yet below

200

The fruits of gold, the blooms of snow,
As looking—looking anywhere.

She feels—she knows not what she feels:
It is not terror, is not fear.
But there is something that reveals
A presence that is near and dear.

She does not let her eyes fall down,
They lift against the far profound:
Against the blue above the town
Two wide-winged vultures circle round.

Two brown birds swim above the sea,—
Her large eyes swim as dreamily,
And follow far, and follow high,
Two circling black specks in the sky.

One forward step,—the closing door
Creaks out, as frightened or in pain;
Her eyes are on the ground again—
Two men are standing close before.

“My love,” sighs one, “my life, my all!”
Her lifted foot across the sill
Sinks down,—and all things are so still
You hear the orange-blossoms fall.

But fear comes not where duty is,
And purity is peace and rest;
Her cross is close upon her breast,
Her two hands clasp hard hold of this.

Her two hands clasp cross, book, and she
Is strong in tranquil purity,—

201

Aye, strong as Samson when he laid
His two hands forth and bowed and prayed.

One at her left, one at her right,
And she between the steps upon,—
I can but see that Syrian night,
The women there at early dawn.

XIV

The sky is like an opal sea,
The air is like the breath of kine;
But oh, her face is white, and she
Leans faint to see a lifted sign,—

To see two hands lift up and wave,—
To see a face so white with woe,
So ghastly, hollow, white as though
It had that moment left the grave.

Her sweet face at that ghostly sign,
Her fair face in her weight of hair,
Is like a white dove drowning there,—
A white dove drowned in Tuscan wine.

He tries to stand, to stand erect;
'T is gold, 't is gold that holds him down!
And soul and body both must drown,—
Two millstones tied about his neck.

Now once again his piteous face
Is raised to her face reaching there
He prays such piteous silent prayer,
As prays a dying man for grace.

202

It is not good to see him strain
To lift his hands, to gasp, to try
To speak. His parched lips are so dry
Their sight is as a living pain,

I think that rich man down in hell
Some like this old man with his gold,—
To gasp and gasp perpetual,
Like to this minute I have told.

XV

At last the miser cries his pain,—
A shrill, wild cry, as if a grave
Just op'd its stony lips and gave
One sentence forth, then closed again.

“'T was twenty years last night, last night!”
His lips still moved, but not to speak;
His outstretched hands, so trembling weak,
Were beggar's hands in sorry plight.

His face upturned to hers; his lips
Kept talking on, but gave no sound;
His feet were cloven to the ground;
Like iron hooks his finger tips.

“Aye, twenty years,” she sadly sighed;
“I promised mother every year,
That I would pray for father here,
As she still prayed the night she died:

“To pray as she prayed, fervently,
As she had promised she would pray

203

The sad night that he turned away,
For him, wherever he might be.”

Then she was still; then sudden she
Let fall her eyes, and so outspake,
As if her very heart would break,
Her proud lips trembling piteously:

“And whether he comes soon or late
To kneel beside this nameless grave,
May God forgive my father's hate
As I forgive, as she forgave!”

He saw the stone; he understood,
With that quick knowledge that will come
Most quick when men are made most dumb
With terror that stops still the blood.

And then a blindness slowly fell
On soul and body; but his hands
Held tight his bags, two iron bands,
As if to bear them into hell.

He sank upon the nameless stone
With oh! such sad, such piteous moan
As never man might seek to know
From man's most unforgiving foe.

He sighed at last, so long, so deep,
As one heart breaking in one's sleep,—
One long, last, weary, willing sigh,
As if it were a grace to die.

204

And then his hands, like loosened bands,
Hung down, hung down, on either side;
His hands hung down, hung open wide:
Wide empty hung the dead man's hands.