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

The world lay as a dream of love,
Lay drowned in beauty , drowsed in peace,
Lay filled with plenty, fat-increase,
Lay low- voiced as a wooing dove.
And yet, poor, blind man was not glad,
But to and fro, contentious, mad,
Rebellious, restless, hard he sought
And sought and sought—he scarce knew what.

The Persian monarch shook his head,
Slow twirled his twisted, raven beard,
As one who doubted, questioned, feared.
Then called his poet up and said:
“What aileth man, blind man, that he,
Stiff-necked and selfish, will not see
Yon gorgeous glories overhead,
These flowers climbing to the knee,
As climb sweet babes that loving cling
To hear a song?—Go forth and sing!”

The poet passed. He sang all day,
Sang all the year, sang many years;
He sang in joy, he sang in tears,
By desert way or watered way,
Yet all his singing was in vain.
Man would not list, man would not heed
Save but for lust and selfish greed
And selfish glory and hard gain.

And so at last the poet sang
In biting hunger and hard pain
No more, but tattered, bent and gray,
He hanged his harp and let it hang

235

Where keen winds walked with wintry rain,
High on a willow by the way,
The while he sought his king to cry
His failure forth and reason why.

The old king pulled his thin white beard,
Slow sipped his sherbet nervously,
Peered right and left, suspicious peered,
Thrummed with a foot as one who feared,
Then fixed his crown on close; then he
Clutched tight the wide arm of his throne,
And sat all sullen, sad and lone.

At last he savagely caught up
And drained, deep drained, his jeweled cup;
Then fierce he bade his poet say,
And briefly say, what of the day?
The trembling poet felt his head,
He felt his thin neck chokingly.
“Oh, king, this world is good to see!
Oh, king, this world is beautiful!”
The king's thin beard was white as wool,
The while he plucked it terribly,
Then suddenly and savage said:
“Cut that! cut that! or lose your head!”

The poet's knees smote knee to knee,
The poet's face was pitiful.
“Have mercy, king! hear me, hear me!
This gorgeous world is beautiful,
This beauteous world is good to see;
But man, poor man, he has not time
To see one thing at all, save one—”

236

“Haste, haste, dull poet, and have done
With all such feeble, foolish rime!
No time? Bah! man, no bit of time
To see but one thing? Well, that one?”
“That one, oh, king, that one fair thing
Of all fair things on earth to see,
Oh, king, oh, wise and mighty king,
That takes man's time continually,
That takes man's time and drinks it up
As you have drained your jeweled cup—
Is woman, woman, wilful, fair—
Just woman, woman, everywhere!”

The king scarce knew what next to do;
He did not like that ugly truth;
For, far back in his sunny youth,
He, too, had loved a goodly few.
He punched a button, punched it twice,
Then as he wiped his beard he said:
“Oh, threadbare bard of foolish rime,
If man looks all his time at her,
Sees naught but her, pray tell me, sir,
Why, how does woman spend her time?”

The singer is a simple bird,
The simplest ever seen or heard.
It will not lie, it knows no thing
Save but to sing and truly sing.
The poet reached his neck, his head,
As if to lay it on the shelf
And quit the hard and hapless trade
Of simple truth and homely rime
That brought him neither peace nor pelf;
Then with his last, faint gasp he said:
“Why, woman, woman, matron, maid,

237

She puts in all her precious time
In looking, looking at herself!”

A silence then was heard to fall
So hard it broke into a grin!
The old king thought a space and thought
Of when her face was all in all—
When love was scarce a wasteful sin,
And even kingdoms were as naught.
At last he laughed, and in a trice
He banged the button, banged it thrice,
Then clutched his poet's hand and then
These two white-bearded, wise old men
They sat that throne and chinned and chinned,
And grinned, they did, and grinned and grinned!