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

I heard a tale long, long ago,
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:

Once in the olden, golden days,
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.

The very dogs had fled the storm,
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

Aside from mother loving so,
He heard God from the mount above
Speak through the clouds and loving say:
“Yea, all is dead but Love.”

“Now take up Love and cherish her,
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.

But man uprose, enraged to see
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.

So faint, indeed, the cold hearthstone
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.”

The beast obeyed, but yet looked back
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.

And God said: “Look not back again.”
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.”

And ever still about the camp,
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.