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THE ULTIMATE WEST |
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Joaquin Miller's Poems | ||
THE ULTIMATE WEST
[My Mountains still are free!]
My Mountains still are free!They hurl oppression back;
They keep the boon of liberty.
THE GOLD THAT GREW BY SHASTA TOWN
The ground is torn by miners dead;
The manzanita, rank and red,
Drops dusty berries up and down
Their grass-grown trails. Their silent mines
Are wrapped in chaparral and vines;
Yet one gray miner still sits down
'Twixt Redding and sweet Shasta town.
Leaps careless o'er the golden oat
That grows below the water moat;
The lizard basks in sunlight there.
The brown hawk swims the perfumed air
Unfrightened through the livelong day;
And now and then a curious bear
Comes shuffling down the ditch by night,
And leaves some wide, long tracks in clay
So human-like, so stealthy light,
Where one lone cabin still stoops down
'Twixt Redding and sweet Shasta town.
Who sought for hidden veins of gold;
Of young men suddenly grown old—
Of old men dead, despairing when
The gold was just within their hold!
That storied land, whereon the light
Of other days gleams faintly still;
Somelike the halo of a hill
That lifts above the falling night;
That warm, red, rich and human land,
Where one gray miner still sits down!
'Twixt Redding and sweet Shasta town!
For twenty years, for thirty years!
While far away fell tears on tears
From wife and babe who mourned him dead.
No gold! No gold! And he grew old
And crept to toil with bended head
Amid a graveyard of his dead,
Still seeking for that vein of gold.
A sweet grandchild! Between his tears
He laughed. He set her by the door
The while he toiled; his day's toil o'er
He held her chubby cheeks between
His hard palms, laughed; and laughing cried.
You should have seen, have heard and seen
His boyish joy, his stout old pride,
When toil was done and he sat down
At night, below sweet Shasta town!
I mine no more. I plant me now
A vine and fig-tree; worn and old,
I seek no more my vein of gold.
But, oh, I sigh to give it o'er;
These thirty years of toil! somehow
It seems so hard; but now, no more.”
To plant, by pleasant Shasta town.
And it was pleasant; piped the quail
His whiskered nose and tossy tail
Full buried in the sugar-bowl.
Swung sweet as milk. While orange-trees
Grew brown with laden honey-bees.
Oh! it was pleasant up and down
That vine-set hill of Shasta town.
[OMITTED]
That torn ditch there! The mellow land
Rolled seaward like a rope of sand,
Nor left one leafy vine or tree
Of all that Eden nestling down
Below that moat by Shasta town!
[OMITTED]
His gray head bowed to hands and knee;
The child went forth, sang pleasantly,
Where burst the ditch the day before,
And picked some pebbles from the hill.
The old man moaned, moaned o'er and o'er:
“My babe is dowerless, and I
Must fold my helpless hands and die!
Ah, me! What curse comes ever down
On me and mine at Shasta town.”
And so leaned softly to his side,—
Laid her gold head to his gray head,
And merry voiced and cheery cried,
“Good Grandpa, do not weep, but see!
I searched the hill for vine or tree;
Not one!—not even oats or weeds;
But, oh! such heaps of orange seeds!
That God is good. So this may teach
That we must plant each seed, and each
May grow to be an orange tree.
Now, good Grandpa, please raise your head,
And please come plant the seeds with me.”
And prattling thus, or like to this,
The child thrust her full hands in his.
“'Tis gold! 'tis gold! my hidden vein!
'Tis gold for you, sweet babe, 'tis gold!
Yea, God is good; we plant again!”
So one old miner still sits down
By pleasant, sunlit Shasta town.
THE SIOUX CHIEF'S DAUGHTER
Dark cloven clouds drive to and fro
By peaks pre-eminent in snow;
A sounding river rushes past,
So wild, so vortex-like, and vast.
A tawny maiden, mute and still,
Stands waiting at the river's brink,
As eager, fond as you can think.
A mighty chief is at her feet;
She does not heed him wooing so—
She hears the dark, wild waters flow;
She waits her lover, tall and fleet,
From out far beaming hills of snow.
His brawny arm, his blade is bare.
She looks him fairly in the face;
She moves her foot a little pace
And says, with calmness and command,
“There's blood enough in this lorn land.
Of courage and fierce fortitude;
To breast and wrestle with the rude
And storm-born waters, now I will
Bestow you both.
And you, my burly chief, I know
Would choose my right. Now peer you low
Across the waters wild and wide.
See! leaning so this morn I spied
Red berries dip yon farther side.
Twin boughs of autumn berries gleam!
Plunge in the stream, bear knife in teeth
To cut yon bough for bridal wreath.
Plunge in! and he who bears him best,
And brings yon ruddy fruit to land
The first, shall have both heart and hand.”
Like antique bronzes rarely seen,
Shot up like flame.
Like fixed, impassive fortitude.
Then one threw robes with sullen air,
And wound red fox-tails in his hair;
But one with face of proud delight
Entwined a wing of snowy white.
The sign and each impatient brave
Shot sudden in the sounding wave;
The startled waters gurgled round;
Their stubborn strokes kept sullen sound.
Oh, then her heart beat loud and strong!
Oh, then the proud love pent up long
Broke forth in wail upon the air!
And leaning there she sobbed and wept,
With dark face mantled in her hair.
He nears the shore, her love! and now
The foam flies spouting from the face
That laughing lifts from out the race.
She sees the kingly crest of snow;
She knows her tall, brown Idaho.
She cries aloud, she laughing cries,
And tears are streaming from her eyes:
“O splendid, kingly Idaho!
I kiss thy lifted crest of snow.
Come swift, O sweet! why falter so?
Come! Come! What thing has crossed your track?
I kneel to all the gods I know. ...
Great Spirit, what is this I dread?
Why, there is blood! the wave is red!
That wrinkled chief, outstripped in race,
Dives down, and, hiding from my face,
Strikes underneath.
Now plucks my hero's berry bough,
And lifts aloft his red fox head,
Hist, softly! Let him come and see.
Oh, come! and I will be your bride,
Despite yon chieftain's craft and might.
Come back to me! my lips are dumb,
My hands are helpless with despair;
The hair you kissed, my long, strong hair,
Is reaching to the ruddy tide,
That you may clutch it when you come.
O God, he sinks! O Heaven! save
My brave, brave king! He rises! see!
Hold fast, my hero! Strike for me.
Strike straight this way! Strike firm and strong!
Hold fast your strength. It is not long—
O God, he sinks! He sinks! Is gone!
Or did I wake and now but dream?
And what is this crawls from the stream?
Oh, here is some mad, mad mistake!
What, you! the red fox at my feet?
You first, and failing from the race?
What! You have brought me berries red?
What! You have brought your bride a wreath?
You sly red fox with wrinkled face—
That blade has blood between your teeth!
And clutch your red blade to the shore. ...
Ha! ha! Take that! take that and that!
The full day shines! ... Two fox-tails float
Far down, and I but mock thereat.
Climbs out the willows of the west,
All dripping from his streaming hair?
'Tis he! My hero brave and fair!
His face is lifting to my face,
And who shall now dispute the race?
O'er yonder lodge shall coo their loves.
My hands shall heal your wounded breast,
And in yon tall lodge two shall rest.”
A SHASTA TALE OF LOVE
Where I had gone apart to pray
By Shasta's pyramid of snow,
That touches me unto this day.
I know the fashion is to say
An Arab tale, an Orient lay;
But when the grocer rings my gold
On counter, flung from greasy hold,
He cares not from Acadian vale
It comes, or savage mountain chine;—
But this the Shastan tale:
When men and beasts companioned, when
All went in peace about their ways
Nor God had hid His face from men
Because man slew his brother beast
To make his most unholy feast,
A gray coyote, monkish cowled,
Upraised his face and wailed and howled
The while he made his patient round;
For lo! the red men all lay dead,
Stark, frozen on the ground.
A mother with her long, meshed hair
Bound tight about her baby's form,
Lay frozen, all her body bare.
Her last shred held her babe in place;
Her last breath warmed her baby's face.
Then, as the good monk brushed the snow
He heard God from the mount above
Speak through the clouds and loving say:
“Yea, all is dead but Love.”
And seek the white man with all speed,
And keep Love warm within thy fur;
For oh, he needeth love indeed.
Take all and give him freely, all
Of love you find, or great or small;
For he is very poor in this,
So poor he scarce knows what love is.”
The gray monk raised Love in his paws
And sped, a ghostly streak of gray,
To where the white man was.
A gaunt wolf track his new-hewn town.
He called his dogs, and angrily
He brought his flashing rifle down.
Then God said: “On his hearthstone lay
The seed of Love, and come away;
The seed of Love, 'tis needed so,
And pray that it may grow and grow.”
And so the gray monk crept at night
And laid Love down, as God had said,
A faint and feeble light.
It seemed would chill starved Love to death;
And so the monk gave all his own
And crouched and fanned it with his breath
Until a red cock crowed for day.
Then God said: “Rise up, come away.”
All morn along his lonely track;
For he had left his all in all,
His own Love, for that famished Love
Seemed so exceeding small.
But ever, where a campfire burned,
And he beheld strong, burly men
At meat, he sat him down and turned
His face to wail and wail and mourn
The Love laid on that cold hearthstone.
Then God was angered, and God said:
“Be thou a beggar then; thy head
Hath been a fool, but thy swift feet,
Because they bore sweet Love, shall be
The fleetest of all fleet.”
By chine or plain, in heat or hail,
A homeless, hungry, hounded tramp,
The gaunt coyote keeps his wail.
And ever as he wails he turns
His head, looks back and yearns and yearns
For lost Love, laid that wintry day
To warm a hearthstone far away.
Poor loveless, homeless beast, I keep
Your lost Love warm for you, and, too,
A cañon cool and deep.
LOVE IN THE SIERRAS
A forest maiden; she is mine
And on Sierras' slopes of pine,
The vines below, the snows above,
A solitary lodge is set
Within a fringe of water'd firs;
And there my wigwam fires burn,
Fed by a round brown patient hand,
That small brown faithful hand of hers
That never rests till my return.
The yellow smoke is rising yet;
Tiptoe, and see it where you stand
Lift like a column from the land.
No jewels fret her dimpled hands,
And half her bronzen limbs are bare.
Her round brown arms have golden bands,
Broad, rich, and by her cunning hands
Cut from the yellow virgin ore,
And she does not desire more.
I wear the beaded wampum belt
That she has wove—the sable pelt
That she has fringed red threads around;
And in the morn, when men are not,
I wake the valley with the shot
That brings the brown deer to the ground.
And she beside the lodge at noon
Sings with the wind, while baby swings
In sea-shell cradle by the bough—
Sings low, so like the clover sings
With swarm of bees; I hear her now,
I see her sad face through the moon ...
She has not much to say, and she
Lifts never voice to question me
In aught I do ... and that is much.
I love her for her patient trust,
And my love's forty-fold return—
A value I have not to learn
As you ... at least, as many must ...
Her breasts are curtained by her hair,
And sometimes, through the silken fringe,
I see her bosom's wealth, like wine
Burst through in luscious ruddy tinge—
And all its wealth and worth are mine.
I know not that one drop of blood
Of prince or chief is in her veins:
I simply say that she is good,
And loves me with pure womanhood.
... When that is said, why, what remains?”
OLD GIB AT CASTLE ROCKS
His step is doubtful, slow,
And now men pass him by today:
But forty years ago—
Why forty years ago I say
Old Gib was good to know.
Where cars glide to and fro,
The Modoc held the world at bay,
And blood was on the snow.
Ay, forty years ago I say
Old Gib was good to know.
This valley lay in flame;
Up yonder pass and far away,
Red ruin swept the same:
Two women, with their babes at play,
Were butchered in black shame.
Old Gib loomed like a pine;
“Now will you fight, or will you fly?
I'll take a fight in mine.
Come let us fight; come let us die!”
There came just twenty-nine.
And, too, a motley crew
Of half-tamed red men; would they fly,
Or would they fight him too?
That was a time to do.
And growl in Castle Rocks,
Straight up till Shasta gleamed in snow,
And shot red battle shocks;
Till clouds lay shepherded below,
A thousand ghostly flocks.
No looking backward then;
His bare feet bled; the rocks were red
From torn, bare-footed men.
Yet up, up, up, till well nigh dead—
The Modoc in his den!
“Now, white man, what would you?
Behold my hundreds for the fight,
But yours so faint and few;
We are as rain, as hail at night
But you, you are as dew.
I will not fight so few;
Yet if I hear one rifle crack,
Be that the doom of you!
Back! down, I say, back down your track,
Back, down! What else to do?”
Brave men have died before;
And you shall fight, or you shall fly.
You find no women more,
Shall storm your Castle's door!”
Six thousand feet below,
Sweet Sacramento ceased to sing,
But wept and wept, for oh!
These arrows sting as adders sting,
And they kept stinging so.
And we can die as they;
But ah! my babe, my one year's bride!
And they so far away.
Brave Captain lead us back—aside,
Must all here die today?”
Yea, no man there that day—
No white man there but turned to red,
In that fierce fatal fray;
But Gib with set teeth only said:
“No; we came here to stay!”
But when the night came on,
No white man there was now afraid,
The last Modoc had gone;
His ghost in Castle Rocks was laid
Till everlasting dawn.
Parties with Indian depredation claims against the Government desiring exact information touching the first trouble with the Modocs, now nearly forty years ago, the venerable leader of the volunteers in the first battle made out, with his own hand, the following quaint account of it, swore to it before a Notary, and sent it to Washington. The italics, capitals, and all are as he set them down in his crude but truthful way.—
Frank Leslie's Magazine, 1893.I Reuben P. Gibson Was Born in Lowell Mass in 1826 of American Parents, shiped on board a whaler of New Bedford in 1846, Rounded Cape Horn, spent several years on the Pacific Ocean, and in 1846 landed in California. Came to the Mines in Shasta County California, and have lived here in Shasta County more than 40 years, most of which time I have been and am now a Magistrate. I have had much to do with Indians, and in 1855 they became Very Restless, and some of them took to the Castle Rocks, Called Castle del Diablo, at that time by the Mexicans, and they—the Hostiles began to destroy our Property, and Kill White people. Troops of the Regular Army tried to engage them, but found them inaccessible. I then raised a Company of Twenty-Nine White men and thirty Indian (friendly) Scouts and after hard Perilous Marches by Night. We engaged and destroyed the Hostiles, having taken Many Scalps. This battle was Fought in the Castle Rocks in this Shasta County and was in June 1855. The hostiles were Modocs and Other Renegades and this was the first Battle in a war that Spread all over the Coast I had Some Indians hurt, and one man mortally wounded, James Lane by name. Some Others were more or less hurt with Arrows. Joaquin Miller Received an Arrow in the face and Neck at my Side and we thought would die but at last got Well. He and Mountain Joe had a Post at Soda Springs below Castle Rocks, and their property had been destroyed and made untenable. In all My Experience I know of nothing in Indian warfare so effectual for good as this Campaign. The indians had Possessions of the lines of travel connecting Middle and Northern California and it Was impossible for the Mails to get through until the Hostiles were destroyed.
(Signed) Reuben P GibsonSubscribed and sworn to before me this 17th day of November, 1892, and I hereby certify that I am well acquainted with said affiant and know him to be a person of veracity and entitled to credit. He is a Justice of the Peace in this Shasta County.
[SEAL] F. P. Primm, Notary Public in and for Shasta County, Cal.Let me here introduce a line of facts stranger than anything imagined in all these pages. I had not intended to insert these verses and had delivered to my publishers the completed collection without them. Against my objection that the lines were not only too personal, but unequal, it was urged that they would be missed by my readers; besides their preservation was due to my old commander, and as this was the first of my three terrible Indian campaigns, and I had served only as private instead of leader, I could hardly be held guilty of egotism. Deference to the dead made me consent to try and find the lines at once in some library. On my way I met a man whom I knew but slightly as U. S. Marshal under President Hayes. My weary eyes were unequal to the task before me, and I asked him to go with me. This he did, and now let his letter tell the rest.
“Oakland, Dec. 20, 1896.“Joaquin, my dear fellow, I enclose herewith the copies you expressed a wish for. I think they are exact. I was especially careful in making the affidavit of Old Gib; so where he differs with Webster orthographically, I follow Gib.
“Now my boy, I've a little story. I'll be considerate and make it brief. In the early part of the summer of 1855, I was one of a company of about twenty that left Auburn, Placer Co., on a prospecting expedition, intending, unless we found satisfactory prospects nearer, to go to the Trinity. We crossed the Yuba and Feather, camping a few days on Nelson Creek, then traveling in a northwesterly direction, we reached the headwaters of the Sacramento, where we found a party of white men and Indians who, a day or two previous to our meeting them, had had a desperate fight with Indians. They told us they had lost several men, killed and wounded, but had nearly exterminated the Indians. I saw one of their men, a boy in appearance, who had, as I understood, received two arrow wounds in the face and neck. He was in great pain, and no one believed he could recover.
“Twelve years later I, then Sheriff of Placer Co., had occassion to go to Shasta on official business. W. E. Hopping was then Sheriff of Shasta Co. In the course of conversation with him, I spoke of the incident narrated above. He interrupted me, and said: ‘The Captain of the volunteers at the battle is in town.’ He found him, and introduced me to the man who was doubtless Old Gib, though his name has gone from my memory. I asked about the young fellow who was so desperately wounded. ‘Oh, he pulled through all right, the game little cuss,’ said he, ‘he's up in Oregon, I believe.’ I don't think he mentioned his name, but in copying the affidavit of Old Gib, it dawned upon me who that ‘game little cuss’ was.
Yours, A. W. Poole.”THE LARGER COLLEGE
ON LAYING THE COLLEGE CORNER-STONE
Where winter winds from warm Cathay
Sing sibilant, where blossoms swarm
With Hybla's bees, we come to lay
This tribute of the truest, best,
The warmest daughter of the West.
Against this warm, still, Cortez wave.
In ashes of the Aztec's throne,
In tummals of the Toltec's grave,
We plant this stone, and from the sod
Pick painted fragments of his god.
God's pathway through the pass of care;
Her altar-stone Balboa's Beach,
Her incense warm, sweet, perfumed air;
Such incense! where white strophes reach
And lap and lave Balboa's Beach!
Is sown at springtime, warm with earth;
We sow this seed as some good deed
Is sown, to grow until its worth
Shall grow, through rugged steeps of time,
To touch the utmost star sublime.
The westmost sea, the westmost shore,
To guide man's ship of destiny
To teach him strength, to proudly teach
God's grandeur, where His white palms reach:
Man's books are but a climbing stair,
Lain step by step, like stairs of stone;
The stairway here, the temple there—
Man's lampad honor, and his trust,
The God who called him from the dust.
Beyond and on his lessons lie—
The lessons of the violet,
The large gold letters of the sky;
The love of beauty, blossomed soil,
The large content, the tranquil toil:
The patient toil, the constant stir,
The toil of seas where shores are wrought,
The toil of Christ, the carpenter;
The toil of God incessantly
By palm-set land or frozen sea.
Where nature does so much for man,
Shall man not set his standard high,
And hold some higher, holier plan?
Some loftier plan than ever planned
By outworn book of outworn land?
Shall man for God do aught at all?
I count that soul exceeding small
That lives alone by book and creed,—
A soul that has not learned to read.
TO THE PIONEERS
READ SAN FRANCISCO, 1894
How slow these feet, once swift and firm!
Ye came as romping, rosy sons,
Come jocund up at College term;
Ye came so jolly, stormy, strong,
Ye drown'd the roll-call with your song.
But now ye lean a list'ning ear
And—“Adsum! Adsum! I am here!”
That tops the keystone, star of States,
All hail! Your battle flags are furled
In fruitful peace. The golden gates
Are won. The jasper walls be yours.
Your sun sinks down yon soundless shores.
Night falls. But lo! your lifted eyes
Greet gold outcroppings in the skies.
Our storm-born eagle shrieks his scorn
Of doubt or death, and upward seeks
Through unseen worlds the coming morn.
Or storm, or calm, or near, or far,
His eye fixed on the morning star,
He knows, as God knows, there is dawn;
And so keeps on, and on, and on!
Fought on and on with battered shield,
Up bastion, rampart, till the rays
Of full morn met ye on the field.
To do and dare, and dare and do!
Ye knew that time, that God's first-born,
Would turn the darkest night to morn.
And lived as heroes live—and die.
Ye loved the truth, ye lived the truth;
Ye knew that cowards only lie.
Then heed not now one serpent's hiss,
Or trait'rous, trading, Judas kiss.
Let slander wallow in his slime;
Still leave the truth to God and time.
As track God's trailing garment's hem
Where Shasta keeps shall be your shrouds,
And ye shall pass the stars in them.
Your tombs shall be while time endures,
Such hearts as only truth secures;
Your everlasting monuments
Sierra's snow-topt battle tents.
“49”
We have spent our gold,
Our barks are astrand on the bars;
We are battered and old,
Yet at night we behold,
Outcroppings of gold in the stars.
Chorus—
Tho' battered and old,Our hearts are bold,
Yet oft do we repine;
For the days of old,
For the days of gold,
For the days of forty-nine.
Where the quail all day
Pipe on the chaparral hill;
A few more days,
And the last of us lays
His pick aside and all is still.
We are cast away,
Poor battered old hulks and spars;
But we hope and pray,
On the judgment day,
We shall strike it up in the stars.
This poem is taken from “'49, or the Gold Seekers,” by permission of Funk & Wagnalls, New York, publishers of the book. The words have been set to music and selected as the Song of the Native Sons of California. It was sung in Mining Camps long before it was in print.
SAN DIEGO
The true, the blushful hypocrine!”
This town sudden born in the path of the sun?
This town of St. James, of the calm San Diego,
As suddenly born as if shot from a gun?
As softer than sunlight, as warmer than wine!
Why speak of her bravely; this ultimate town
With feet in the foam of the vast Argentine:
The boundless white border of battle-torn lands—
The fall of Napoleon, the rise of red Juarez—
The footfalls of nations are heard on her sands.
PIONEERS TO THE GREAT EMERALD LAND
READ AT PORTLAND, 1896
Land of the sun mists, land of the sea,
Stately and stainless and storied and grand
As cloud-mantled Hood in white majesty—
Mother of States, we are worn, we are gray—
Mother of men, we are going away.
Of cities, of churches, of homes, of sweet rest,
We are going away, we must journey again,
As of old we journeyed to the vast, far West.
We tent by the river, our feet once more,
Please God, are set for the ultimate shore.
In emerald kilt, with star-set crown
Of sapphire, say is it night? Is it dawn?
Say what of the night? Is it well up and down?
We are going away. ... From yon high watch tower,
Young men, strong men, say, what of the hour?
Faith to be cherished, battles to fight,
Victories won were never well won
Save fearlessly won for God and the right.
Be ashes, but ashes, with the infidel.
All else must follow if you have but Faith.
Be true to their Faith, and you must be true.
“Lo! I will be with you,” the Master saith.
Good by, dawn breaks; it is coming full day
And one by one we strike tent and away.
Our dim eyes lift to the farther shore,
And never these riddled, gray regiments
Shall answer full roll-call any more.
Yet never a doubt, nay, never a fear
Of old, or now, knew the Pioneer.
ALASKA
Such cold seas of silence! such room!
Such snow-light, such sea light confounded
With thunders that smite like a doom!
Such grandeur! such glory! such gloom!
Hear that boom! hear that deep distant boom
Of an avalanche hurled
Down this unfinished world!
In splendor of white, as God's throne!
Ice worlds to the pole! and ice places
Untracked, and unnamed, and unknown!
Hear that boom! Hear the grinding, the groan
Of the ice-gods in pain! Hear the moan
Of yon ice mountain hurled
Down this unfinished world.
TWILIGHT AT THE HIGHTS
Lies compassed about by the hosts of night—
Lies humming, low, like a hive of bees;
And the day lies dead. And its spirit's flight
Is far to the west; while the golden bars
That bound it are broken to a dust of stars.
The wolf and the dog; dear incense hour
When Mother Earth hath a smell of musk,
And things of the spirit assert their power—
When candles are set to burn in the west—
Set head and foot to the day at rest.
ARBOR DAY
We lift a living light to-day,
That shall outshine the splendid bronze
That lords and lights that lesser Bay.
Thy very name, lorn Nazareth,
Means woods, means sense of birds and bees,
And song of leaves with lisping breath.
With robes of green in healthful fold;
We tore the green robes from her breast!
We sold our mother's robes for gold!
Lies shamed and naked at our feet!
In penitence we plant a tree;
We plant the cross and count it meet.
Here in this glorious Spanish bay,
We plant the cross, the Christian cross,
The Crusade Cross of Arbor Day.
BY THE BALBOA SEAS
Our hills are girt in sheen of gold;
Our golden flower-fields are sweet
With honey hives. A thousand-fold
More fair our fruits on laden stem
Than Jordan tow'rd Jerusalem.
The ages pass in silence by.
Gold apples of Hesperides
Hang at our God-land gates for aye.
Our golden shores have golden keys
Where sound and sing the Balboa seas.
MAGNOLIA BLOSSOMS
Her blooms are large, as if the moon
Had lost her way some lazy night,
And lodged here till the afternoon.
White bosom of my lady dead,
In your white heaven overhead
I look, and learn to look above.
CALIFORNIA'S CHRISTMAS
Seems some illumined story—
The story of our Savior born,
Told from old turrets hoary—
The full moon smiling tips a horn
And hies to bed in glory!
And lasting summer weather;
Red roses bloom on bosoms white
And rosy cheeks together.
If you should smite one cheek, still smite
For she will turn the other.
And Love, roseclad, discloses.
The only snowstorm we shall know
Is this white storm of roses—
It seems like Maytime, mating so,
And—Nature counting noses.
You hear some boatmen rowing.
Their sisters' hands trail o'er the side;
They toy with warm waves flowing;
Their laps are laden deep and wide
From rose-trees green and growing.
Such roses richly yellow!
The air is like a perfume fed
From autumn fruits full mellow—
An oar forgets its fellow!
Nor let me wander further;
Some sister in some boat of bliss
And I her only brother—
Sweet paradise on earth it is;
I would not seek another.
THE MEN OF FORTY-NINE
What lives they lived! what deaths they died!
A thousand cañons, darkling wide
Below Sierra's slopes of pine,
Receive them now. And they who died
Along the far, dim, desert route—
Their ghosts are many. Let them keep
Their vast possessions. The Piute,
The tawny warrior, will dispute
No boundary with these. And I
Who saw them live, who felt them die,
Say, let their unplow'd ashes sleep,
Untouch'd by man, on plain or steep.
The burden of that frightful year,
Who toil'd, but did not gather store,
They shall not be forgotten. Drear
And white, the plains of Shoshonee
Shall point us to that farther shore,
And long, white, shining lines of bones,
Make needless sign or white mile-stones.
The train that moved like drifting barge;
The dust that rose up like a cloud—
Like smoke of distant battle! Loud
The great whips rang like shot, and steel
Of antique fashion, crude and large,
Flash'd back as in some battle charge.
Along that long and lonesome way,
With lifted faces. Full were they
Of great endeavor. Brave and true
As stern Crusader clad in steel,
They died a-field as it was fit.
Made strong with hope, they dared to do
Achievement that a host today
Would stagger at, stand back and reel,
Defeated at the thought of it.
What patient hope, when hope was past!
What still surrender at the last,
A thousand leagues from hope! how pure
They lived, how proud they died!
How generous with life! The wide
And gloried age of chivalry
Hath not one page like this to me.
In sunny summer weather. I
But think upon my buried brave,
And breathe beneath another sky.
Let Beauty glide in gilded car,
And find my sundown seas afar,
Forgetful that 'tis but one grave
From eastmost to the westmost wave.
That o'er uncoffin'd faces fell!
The final, silent, sad farewell!
God! these are with me all the years!
They shall be with me ever. I
Shall not forget. I hold a trust.
They are part of my existence. When
You sweep, and fields of corn flash back,
And herds of lowing steers move by,
And men laugh loud, in mute mistrust,
I turn to other days, to men
Who made a pathway with their dust.
THE HEROES OF AMERICA
That conquer'd forests, harvest set!
O sires, mothers of my West!
How shall we count your proud bequest?
But yesterday ye gave us birth;
We eat your hard-earned bread today,
Nor toil nor spin nor make regret,
But praise our petty selves and say
How great we are. We all forget
The still endurance of the rude
Unpolish'd sons of solitude.
These settlers hewing to the seas!
Great horny-handed men and tan;
Men blown from many a barren land
Beyond the sea; men red of hand,
And men in love, and men in debt,
Like David's men in battle set;
And men whose very hearts had died,
Who only sought these woods to hide
Their wretchedness, held in the van;
Yet every man among them stood
Alone, along that sounding wood,
And every man somehow a man.
They push'd the mailéd wood aside,
They toss'd the forest like a toy,
That grand forgotten race of men—
The boldest band that yet has been
Together since the siege of Troy.
YOSEMITE
O colossal walls and crown'd
In one eternal thunder!
Sound! sound! sound!
O ye oceans overhead,
While we walk, subdued in wonder,
In the ferns and grasses, under
And beside the swift Merced!
Streaming, sounding banners, set
On the giant granite castles
In the clouds and in the snow!
But the foe he comes not yet,—
We are loyal, valiant vassals,
And we touch the trailing tassels
Of the banners far below.
From the white Sierra's verge,
To the very valley blossom.
Surge! surge! surge!
Yet the song-bird builds a home,
And the mossy branches cross them,
And the tasselled tree-tops toss them,
In the clouds of falling foam.
O ye heaven-born and deep,
In one dread, unbroken chorus!
We may wonder or may weep,—
We may wait on God before us;
We may bow down and deplore us,
But may never understand.
We advance, but would retreat
From this restless, broken breast
Of the earth in a convulsion.
We would rest, but dare not rest,
For the angel of expulsion
From this Paradise below
Waves us onward and ... we go.
DEAD IN THE SIERRAS
Where berries are red,
And madroños are rankest,
The hunter is dead!
By his half-open door;
May pass and repass
On his path, as of yore;
In the leaves on his limb;
May scream and may scream,—
It is nothing to him.
Like columns of stone;
And tall as a pine—
As a pine overthrown!
What else can be done
Than let him sleep on
Till the light of the sun?
Marble is dust,
Cold and repellent;
And iron is rust.
“THE FOURTH” IN OREGON
Old worlds! The West declares the West,
Her storied ways, her gloried days,
Because the West deserveth best.
This new, true land of noblest deeds
Has rights, has sacred rights and needs.
Of dauntless thought, of men of might,
In lesser lands and far away.
But truth is truth and right is right.
And, oh, to sing like sounding flood,
These boundless boundaries writ in blood!
Of burning Moscows, Cossacks, snows;
Then years and years of British greed,
Of grasping greed; of lurking foes.
I say no story ever writ
Or said, or sung, surpasses it!
Has bravely dared stand up and say:
“Give ye to Cæsar Cæsar's due?”
Unpaid, unpensioned, mute and gray,
Some few survivors of the brave,
Still hold enough land for a grave.
Why, o'er your banner of bright stars,
Their star should be the blazing sun
Above the battle star of Mars.
Let us be bravely, frankly just.
The mountains from the first were free.
They ever laid the tyrant low,
And kept the boon of liberty.
The levels of the earth alone
Endured the tyrant, bore the throne.
Bore Sodoms, Babylons of crime,
And all sad cities overthrown
Along the surging surf of time.
The coward, slave, creeps in the fen:
God's mountains only cradle men.
And brave the men of Bunker Hill;
Most brave and worthy every one,
In work and faith and fearless will
And brave endeavor for the right,
Until yon stars burst through their night.
Yet when he laid his sword aside,
The bravest deed yet done was done.
And when in stately strength and pride
He took the plow and turned the mold
He wrote God's autograph in gold.
In priceless victories of peace,
With plowshare set in mother mold;
Then gathering the golden fleece
This farmer laid him down to rest.
Of all men gathered here today
Has not drawn sword as swift as true,
Then laid its reddened edge away,
And took the plow, and turned the mold
To sow yon sunny steeps with gold.
Of battle charge, of banners borne
Triumphant up the blazing hill
On battle's front, of banners torn,
Of horse and rider torn and rent,
Red regiment on regiment.
Who, far out yonder lone frontier,
With wife and babe fought in the van,
Fought on, fought on, year after year.
No brave, bright flag to cheer the brave,
No farewell gun above his grave.
Who here set plowshare to the sun,
And silent gave their sunless years,
Were kings of heroes every one.
No Brandywine, no Waterloo
E'er knew one hero half so true!
God's pity for the stifled pain;
And tears as ever woman shed,
Sweet woman's tears for maimed or slain.
Who fights alone, who falls alone.
The hero of all lands to me?
Far up yon yellow lifting wave
His brave ship cleaves the golden sea.
And gold or gain, or never gain,
No argosy sails there in vain.
Who turns his back upon the field,
Who wears the slavish livery
Of town or city, sells his shield
Of honor, as his ilk of old
Sold body, soul, for British gold.
Content ye here; here God to you,
Whatever fate or change may yield,
Has been most generous and true.
Yon everlasting snow-peaks stand
His sentinels about this land.
As heaven's porch with heaven's peace.
Behold His portals bathed in light!
Behold at hand the golden fleece!
Behold the fatness of the land
On every hill, on every hand!
God's upward path, God's upward plan
Of peace, God's everlasting creed
Thou mantled magistrates in white,
Give us His light! Give us His light!
This poem was read, 1896, near the scene of the Whitman massacre at the old Mission. The story of Oregon—Aure il Agua; Hear the Waters—glowing with great deeds, drama, tragedy, surpassing anything in the history of any other State, east or west, old or new. When the paw of the British lion reached down from Canada and laid heavy hand on Oregon, these pioneers met under their great firs and proclaimed to the world that they were not British subjects, but American citizens. Marcus P. Whitman mounted horse in midwinter and set out alone and rode 3,000 miles to lay the facts before the President. Yet the Government never lifted a hand to help save Oregon to the Nation. So far from that, a Senator rose in his place and literally denounced all effort in that direction, saying: “I would to God we had never heard of that country; we do not want a foot of ground on the Pacific Ocean.” Webster was hardly less cruel. But undaunted, Whitman gathered up hundreds of wagons and led back to Oregon; the first that ever crossed the plains. He saved Oregon, but lost his life and all his house. Then the pioneers, to avenge the massacre, declared war on their own account, fought it to a finish without so much as a single man or gun from the Government, made peace on their own account, and then went to work and dug their own gold from their own ground, and with their own hands coined it and paid their war debts and from the first kept their paper with its face in virgin gold. The coins, virgin gold with a sheaf of wheat on one side, showing the richness of the soil, and a beaver on the reverse, typifying the industry of the people. Oregon is the only division of this republic that ever coined gold under authority of law. And even in later Indian wars Oregon was always treated meanly, most meanly. More than once every man and boy who could carry a gun or drive a team was in the field. My father and his three sons, aged ten, twelve and fourteen, were all at one time teamsters in a supply train. And the Government paid for services and supplies but tardily, if at all. The meanness is incredible. There are millions still due Oregon. No, I am not angry, or selfish either; I never received or claimed one cent for services, supplies or losses. But some of these old pioneers are in need now.
AN ANSWER
Or shall chide my song from the sounding trees?
The passionate sun and the resolute sea,
These were my masters, and only these.
And these from the first I obey'd, and they
Shall command me now, and I shall obey
As a dutiful child that is proud to please.
The sea hath a song that is passingly sweet,
And yet they repeat, and repeat, and repeat,
The same old runes though the new years run.
That roll dark-heaved into turbulent hills,
I have made my home. ... The wild heart thrills
With memories fierce, and a world storms forth.
And mantled in shadows and voiced in storms,
I have made my camps: majestic gray forms
Of the thunder-clouds, they were companions of mine;
Have we talk'd, red-tongued, of the mysteries
Of the circling sun, of the oracled seas,
While ye who judged me had mantled in fear.
A cry of fierce freedom, and I claim no more.
What more would you have from the tender of herds
And of horse on an ultimate Oregon shore?
Where the dark pines talk in their tones of the sea
To the unseen God in a harmony
Of the under seas, and know the unknown.
Joaquin Miller's Poems | ||