 | Joaquin Miller's Poems |  |
LINES MOTHER LIKED
OH, FOR ENGLAND'S OLD-TIME THUNDER!
Oh, for England's old sea thunder!Oh, for England's bold sea men,
When we banged her over, under
And she banged us back again!
Better old-time strife and stresses,
Cloud topt towers, walls, distrust;
Better wars than lazinesses,
Better loot than wine and lust!
Give us seas? Why, we have oceans!
Give us manhood, sea men, men!
Give us deeds, loves, hates, emotions!
Else give back these seas again.
THE BRAVEST BATTLE
Shall I tell you where and when?
On the maps of the world you will find it not;
It was fought by by the mothers of men.
With sword or braver pen;
Nay, not with eloquent word or thought,
From mouths of wonderful men.
Of woman that would not yield,
But patiently, silently bore her part—
Lo! there in that battle-field.
No banners to gleam and wave;
And oh! these battles they last so long—
From babyhood to the grave!
She fights in her walled-up town—
Fights on and on in the endless wars,
Then silent, unseen—goes down.
A few years ago, when living in my log cabin, Washington, some ladies came to inform me that I had been chosen to write a poem for the unveiling of an equestrian statue of a hero, the hero of “The bravest battles that ever were fought.”
When they had delivered their message I told them that the beautiful city was being disfigured by these pitiful monuments to strife, not one in forty being fit works of art, and that I hoped and believed that the last one of these would be condemned to the scrap heap within the next century. I reminded them that while nearly every city in the Union had more or less of these monstrosities I had seen but one little figure in honor of woman; that of a crude bit of granite to the memory of a humble baker woman in a back street of New Orleans, who gave away bread to the poor. I finally told them, however, that if they would come back next morning I would have a few lines about “The bravest battles that ever were fought.”
One of them came, got the few lines, but they were not read at the unveiling. However, they were read later in New York, by a New Orleans
THE DEAD CZAR
The clean, red lightning leapt,
And lo! a prostrate royal form . . .
And Alexander slept!
Down through the snow, all smoking, warm,
Like any blood, his crept.
Yea, one lay dead, for millions dead!
One red spot in the snow,
For one long damning line of red,
Where exiles endless go—
The babe at breast, the mother's head
Bowed down, and dying so.
Then build her scaffold high,
That all may on her forehead read
Her martyr's right to die!
Ring Cossack round on royal steed!
Now lift her to the sky!
But see! From out the black hood shines
A light few look upon!
Lorn exiles, see, from dark, deep mines,
A star at burst of dawn! . . .
A thud! A creak of hangman's lines!—
A frail shape jerked and drawn! . . .
About her neck a cord.
In God's house rests his royal head—
Hers in a place abhorred—
Yet I had rather have her bed
Than thine, most royal lord!
Aye, rather be that woman dead,
Than thee, dead-living Czar,
To hide in dread, with both hands red,
Behind great bolt and bar . . .
You may control to the North Pole,
But God still guides His star.
MOTHERS OF MEN
“Oh, give me good mothers! Yea, great, glad mothers,Proud mothers of dozens, indeed, twice ten;
Fair mothers of daughters and mothers of men,
With old-time clusters of sisters and brothers,
When grand Greeks lived like to gods, and when
Brave mothers of men, strong breasted and broad,
Did exult in fulfilling the purpose of God.”
THE LITTLE BROWN MAN
His hundred thousand fishing-boats
Rock idly in the reedy moats;
His baby wife no more is glad.
But yesterday, with all Nippon,
Beneath his pink-white cherry-trees,
In chorus with his brown, sweet bees,
He careless sang, and sang right on.
His startled bees have taken wing!
His bees begin to storm and sting;
His seas flash lightning, and a flood
Of crimson stains their wide, white ring;
His battle-ships belch hell, and all
Nippon is but one Spartan wall!
Aye, he, the boy of yesterday,
Now holds the bearded Russ at bay;
While, blossom'd steeps above, the clouds
Wait idly, still, as waiting shrouds.
His love of Emperor, of isles
That boast a thousand bastioned miles
Above the clouds where never breath
Of frost or foe has ventured yet,
Or foot of foreign man has set!
Beware his scorn of food (his fare
Is scarcely more than sweet sea-air);
Beware his cunning, sprite-like skill—
But most beware his dauntless will.
The giant and the shepherd youth—
The tallest, smallest of all men,
The trained in tongue, the trained in truth.
Beware this boy, this new mad man!
That erst mad man of Macedon,
Who drank and died at Babylon;
That shepherd lad; the Corsican—
They sat the thrones of earth! Beware
This new mad man whose drink is air!
But, stirred, they court a common death!
He knows the decencies of life—
Of all men underneath the sun
He is the one clean man, the one
Who never knew a drunken breath!
Beware this sober, wee brown man,
Who yesterday stood but a span
Beneath his blossomed cherry-trees,
Soft singing with his brother bees!
A sudden, sinuous copperhead:
It makes no flourish, no mistake;
It darts but once—the man is dead!
'Tis short and black; 'tis never seen
Save when, close forth, it leaps its sheath
And, snake-like, darts up from beneath.
But oh, its double edge is keen!
It strikes but once, then on, right on:
The sword is gone—the Russ is gone!
The Japanese, or more properly the Nipponese, are the only entirely temperate people I ever knew, and travel has been my trade since a lad. True, there are English, American, French, German hotels at Nagasaki, Kobe, Tokio, and like large cities, where the tourist can have “all the comforts of a home” and disport himself much as at Newport or Saratoga. And here the little brown man often brings his venerable parent and others of his house to dine, observe foreigners, and listen to the music; but they all eat sparingly and drink not at all, in the sense that the white man drinks. His wildest dissipation is cold tea.
CHILKOOT PASS
That rock-locked gate to the golden door!
These thunder-built steeps have words built to suit,
And whether you prayed or whether you swore
'Twere one where it seemed that an oath was a prayer—
Seemed God couldn't care,
Seemed God wasn't there!
And talked, as a friend, to those five-horned stars!
With muckluck shoon and with talspike
You, too, bared head to the bars,
The heaven-built bars where morning is born,
And drank with maiden morn
From Klondike's golden horn!
Such sermons as never men say!
You sat and sat with the midnights
That sit and that sit all day:
You heard the silence, you heard the room,
Heard the glory of God in the gloom
When the icebergs boom and boom!
Aye, come to my heart and to stay;
For better crusader or bolder
Bared never a breast to the fray.
And whether you prayed or whether you cursed
You dared the best and you dared the worst
That ever brave man durst.
THE FOURTH IN HAWAIIAN WATERS
O star-built banner of the brave!
We follow you, exult in you
Or Arctic peak or sapphire wave;
From mornlit Maine to dusk Luzon,
Or set of sun or burst of dawn.
From battle-torn Manila's bay
We toss you bravely to the breeze
This nation's natal day to stay—
To stay, to lead, lead on and on
Or set of sun or burst of dawn.
O ye who fought at Brandywine,
Behold your stars triumphant still;
Behold where Freedom builds her shrine,
Where Freedom still leads on and on,
Or set of sun or burst of dawn.
| Joaquin Miller's Poems | |