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

The man stood silent, peering past
His utmost verge of memory.
What lay beyond, beyond that vast
Bewildering darkness and dead sea
Of noisome vapors and dread night?
No light! not any sense of light
Beyond that life when Love was born
On that first, far, dim rim of morn:
No light beyond that beast that clung
In darkness by the light of love
And died to save her young.

And yet we know life must have been
Before that dark, dread life of pain;
Life germs, love germs of gentle men,
So small, so still; as still, small rain.
But whence this life, this living soul,
This germ that grows a godlike whole?
I can but think of that sixth day
When God first set His hand to clay,
And did in His own image plan
A perfect form, a manly form,
A comely, godlike man.

II

Did soul germs grow down in the deeps,
The while God's Spirit moved upon
The waters? High-set Lima keeps
A rose-path, like a ray of dawn;
And simple, pious peons say

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Sweet Santa Rosa passed that way;
And so, because of her fair fame
And saintly face, these roses came.
Shall we not say, ere that first morn,
Where God moved, garmented in mists,
Some sweet soul germs were born?

III

The strange, strong man still kept the prow;
He saw, still saw before light was,
The dawn of love, the huge sea-cow,
The living slime, love's deathless laws.
He knew love lived, lived ere a blade
Of grass, or ever light was made;
And love was in him, of him, as
The light was on the sea of glass.
It made his heart great, and he grew
To look on God all unabashed;
To look lost eons through.

IV

Illuming love! what talisman!
That Word which makes the world go 'round!
That Word which bore worlds in its plan!
That Word which was the Word profound!
That Word which was the great First Cause,
Before light was, before sight was!
I would not barter love for gold
Enough to fill a tall ship's hold;
Nay, not for great Victoria's worth—
So great the sun sets not upon
In all his round of earth.

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I would not barter love for all
The silver spilling from the moon;
I would not barter love at all
Though you should coin each afternoon
Of gold for centuries to be,
And count the coin all down as free
As conqueror fresh home from wars,—
Coin sunset bars, coin heaven-born stars,
Coin all below, coin all above,
Count all down at my feet, yet I—
I would not barter love.

V

The lone man started, stood as when
A strong man hears, yet does not hear.
He raised his hand, let fall, and then
Quick arched his hand above his ear
And leaned a little; yet no sound
Broke through the vast, serene profound.
Man's soul first knew some telephone
In sense and language all its own.
The tall man heard, yet did not hear;
He saw, and yet he did not see
A fair face near and dear.

For there, half hiding, crouching there
Against the capstan, coils on coils
Of rope, some snow still in her hair,
Like Time, too eager for his spoils,
Was such fair face raised to his face
As only dream of dreams give place;
Such shyness, boldness, sea-shell tint,
Such book as only God may print,

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Such tender, timid, holy look
Of startled love and trust and hope,—
A gold-bound story-book.

And while the great ship rose and fell,
Or rocked or rounded with the sea,
He saw,—a little thing to tell,
An idle, silly thing, maybe,—
Where her right arms was bent to clasp
Her robe's fold in some closer clasp,
A little isle of melting snow
That round about and to and fro
And up and down kept eddying.
It told so much, that idle isle,
Yet such a little thing.

It told she, too, was of a race
Born ere the baby stars were born;
She, too, familiar with God's face,
Knew folly but to shun and scorn;
She, too, all night had sat to read
By heaven's light, to hear, to heed
The awful voice of God, to grow
In thought, to see, to feel, to know
The harmony of elements
That tear and toss the sea of seas
To foam-built battle-tents.

He saw that drifting isle of snow,
As some lorn miner sees bright gold
Seamed deep in quartz, and joys to know
That here lies hidden wealth untold.
And now his head was lifted strong,
As glad men lift the head in song.
He knew she, too, had spent the night

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As he, in all that wild delight
Of tuneful elements; she, too,
He knew, was of that olden time
Ere oldest stars were new.

VI

Her soul's ancestral book bore date
Beyond the peopling of the moon,
Beyond the day when Saturn sate
In royal cincture, and the boon
Of light and life bestowed on stars
And satellites; ere martial Mars
Waxed red with battle rage and shook
The porch of heaven with a look;
Ere polar ice-shafts propt gaunt earth,
And slime was but the womb of time,
That knew not yet of birth.

VII

To be what thou wouldst truly be,
Be bravely, truly, what thou art.
The acorn houses the huge tree,
And patient, silent bears its part,
And bides the miracle of time.
For miracle, and more sublime
It is than all that has been writ,
To see the great oak grow from it.
But thus the soul grows, grows the heart,—
To be what thou wouldst truly be,
Be truly what thou art.

To be what thou wouldst truly be,
Be true. God's finger sets each seed,

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Or when or where we may not see;
But God shall nourish to its need
Each one, if but it dares be true;
To do what it is set to do.
Thy proud soul's heraldry? 'T is writ
In every gentle action; it
Can never be contested. Time
Dates thy brave soul's ancestral book
From thy first deed sublime.

VIII

Wouldst learn to know one little flower,
Its perfume, perfect form and hue?
Yea, wouldst thou have one perfect hour
Of all the years that come to you?
Then grow as God hath planted, grow
A lordly oak or daisy low,
As He hath set His garden; be
Just what thou art, or grass or tree.
Thy treasures up in heaven laid
Await thy sure ascending soul,
Life after life,—be not afraid!

IX

Wouldst know the secrets of the soil?
Wouldst have Earth bare her breast to you?
Wouldst know the sweet rest of hard toil?
Be true, be true, be ever true!
Ah me, these self-made cuts of wrong
That hew men down! Behold the strong
And comely Adam bound with lies
And banished from his paradise!
The serpent on his belly still

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Eats dirt through all his piteous days,
Do penance as he will.

Poor, hell-bruised, prostrate, tortuous snake!
What soul crawls here upon the ground?
God willed this soul at birth to take
The round of beauteous things, the round
Of earth, the round of boundless skies.
It lied, and lo! how low it lies!
What quick, sleek tongue to lie with here!
Wast thou a broker but last year?
Wast known to fame, wast rich and proud?
Didst live a lie that thou mightst die
With pockets in thy shroud?

X

Be still, be pitiful! that soul
May yet be rich in peace as thine.
Yea, as the shining ages roll
That rich man's soul may rise and shine
Beyond Orion; yet may reel
The Pleiades with belts of steel
That compass commerce in their reach;
May learn and learn, and learning teach,
The while his soul grows grandly old,
How nobler far to share a crust
Than hoard car-loads of gold!

XI

Oh, but to know; to surely know
How strangely beautiful is light!
How just one gleam of light will glow
And grow more beautifully bright

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Than all the gold that ever lay
Below the wide-arched Milky Way!
“Let there be light!” and lo! the burst
Of light in answer to the first
Command of high Jehovah's voice!
Let there be light for man to-night,
That all men may rejoice.

XII

The little isle of ice and snow
That in her gathered garment lay,
And dashed and drifted to and fro
Unhindered of her, went its way.
The while the warm winds of Japan
Were with them, and the silent man
Stood by her, saying, hearing naught,
Yet seeing, noting all; as one
Sees not, yet all day sees the sun.
He knew her silence, heeded well
Her dignity of idle hands
In this deep, tranquil spell.

XIII

The true soul surely knows its own,
Deep down in this man's heart he knew,
Somehow, somewhere along the zone
Of time, his soul should come unto
Its safe seaport, some pleasant land
Of rest where she should reach a hand.
He had not questioned God. His care
Was to be worthy, fit to share

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The glory, peace, and perfect rest,
Come how or when or where it comes,
As God in time sees best.

Her face reached forward, not to him,
But forward, upward, as for light;
For light that lay a silver rim
Of sea-lit whiteness more than white.
The vast full morning poured and spilled
Its splendor down, and filled and filled
And overfilled the heaped-up sea
With silver molten suddenly.
The night lay trenched in her meshed hair;
The tint of sea-shells left the sea
To make her more than fair.

What massed, what matchless midnight hair!
Her wide, sweet, sultry, drooping mouth,
As droops some flower when the air
Blows odors from the ardent South—
That Sapphic, sensate, bended bow
Of deadly archery; as though
Love's legions fortressed there and sent
Red arrows from his bow fell bent.
Such apples! such sweet fruit concealed
Of perfect womanhood make more
Sweet pain than if revealed.

XIV

How good a thing it is to house
Thy full heart treasures to that day
When thou shalt take her, and carouse
Thenceforth with her for aye and aye;

160

How good a thing to give the store
That thus the thousand years or more,
Poor, hungered, holy worshiper,
You kept for her, and only her!
How well with all thy wealth to wait
Or year, or thousand thousand years,
Her coming at love's gate!

XV

The winds pressed warm from warm Japan
Upon her pulsing womanhood.
They fanned such fires in the man
His face shone glory where he stood.
In Persia's rose-fields, I have heard,
There sings a sad, sweet, one-winged bird;
Sings ever sad in lonely round
Until his one-winged mate is found;
And then, side laid to side, they rise
So swift, so strong, they even dare
The doorway of the skies.

XVI

How rich was he! how richer she!
Such treasures up in heaven laid,
Where moth and rust may never be,
Nor thieves break in, or make afraid.
Such treasures, where the tranquil soul
Walks space, nor limit nor control
Can know, but journeys on and on
Beyond the golden gates of dawn;
Beyond the outmost round of Mars;
Where God's foot rocks the cradle of
His new-born baby stars.

161

XVII

As one who comes upon a street,
Or sudden turn in pleasant path,
As one who suddenly may meet
Some scene, some sound, some sense that hath
A memory of olden days,
Of days that long have gone their ways,
She caught her breath, caught quick and fast
Her breath, as if her whole life passed
Before, and pendant to and fro
Swung in the air before her eyes;
And oh, her heart beat so!

How her heart beat! Three thousand years
Of weary, waiting womanhood,
Of folded hands, of falling tears,
Of lone soul-wending through dark wood;
But now at last to meet once more
Upon the bright, all-shining shore
Of earth, in life's resplendent dawn,
And he so fair to look upon!
Tall Phaon and the world aglow!
Tall Phaon, favored of the gods,
And oh, her heart beat so!

Her heart beat so, no word she spake;
She pressed her palms, she leaned her face,—
Her heart beat so, its beating brake
The cord that held her robe in place
About her wondrous, rounded throat,
And in the warm winds let it float
And fall upon her soft, round arm,

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So warm it made the morning warm.
Then pink and pearl forsook her cheek,
And, “Phaon, I am Sappho, I—”
Nay, nay, she did not speak.

And was this Sappho, she who sang
When mournful Jeremiah wept?
When harps, where weeping willows hang,
Hung mute and all their music kept?
Such witchery of song as drew
The war-like world to hear her sing,
As moons draw mad seas following.
Aye, this was Sappho; Lesbos hill
Had all been hers, and Tempos vale,
And song sweet as to kill.

Her dark Greek eyes turned to the sea;
Lo, Phaon's ferry as of old!
He kept his boat's prow still, and he
Was stately, comely, strong, and bold
As when he ferried gods, and drew
Immortal youth from one who knew
His scorn of gold. The Lesbian shore
Lay yonder, and the rocky roar
Against the promontory told,
Told and retold her tale of love
That never can grow old.

Three thousand years! yet love was young
And fair as when Æolis knew
Her glory, and her great soul strung
The harp that still sweeps ages through.
Ionic dance or Doric war,

163

Or purpled dove or dulcet car,
Or unyoked dove or close-yoked dove,
What meant it all but love and love?
And at the naming of Love's name
She raised her eyes, and lo! her doves!
Just of old they came.