Joaquin Miller

“ Ere God had opened quite the door
Of this strange land for strong men’s feet,—
There lay against that westmost sea
One weird-wild land of mystery.
A far white wall, like fallen moon,
Girt out the world. The forest lay
So deep you scarcely saw the day,
Save in the high-held middle noon:
It lay a land of sleep and dreams,
And clouds drew through like shoreless streams
That stretch to where no man may say.
Men reached it only from the sea,
By black-built ships, that seemed to creep
Along the shore suspiciously,
Like unnamed monsters of the deep. ”

“ The sea
Below the steep bank seemed to run
A molten sea of gold.
Away
Against the gray and rock-built isles
That broke the molten watery miles
Where lonesome sea-cows called all day,
The sudden sun smote angrily.
Therefore the need of deeper deeps,
Of denser shade for man and maid,
Of higher heights, of cooler steeps,
Where all day long the sea-wind stayed.
They sought the rock-reared steep. The breeze
Swept twenty thousand miles of seas;
Had twenty thousand things to say
Of love, of lovers of Cathay,
To lovers ’mid these high-held trees. ”

“ As she shines through the wood like the light from the skies.
And a ship now and then from some far Ophir’s shore
Draws in from the sea. It lies close to the bank;
Then a dull, muffled sound of the slow-shuffled plank
As they load the black ship; but you hear nothing more,
And the dark dewy vines, and the tall sombre wood
Like twilight droop over the deep sweeping flood.
The black masts are tangled with branches that cross,
The rich, fragrant gums fall from branches to deck,
The thin ropes are swinging with streamers of moss
That mantle all things like the shreds of a wreck ”

“ The plaintive sea-cows far away,—
The great sea-cows that called from isles,
Away across wide watery miles,
With dripping mouths and lolling tongue,
As if they called for captured young,—
The huge sea-cows that called the whiles
Their great wide mouths were mouthing moss;
And still they doleful called across
From isles beyond the watery miles.
No sound can half so doleful be
As sea-cows calling from the sea.
XXXV. The drowned sun sank and died. He lay
In seas of blood. ”

“ A presence that is near and dear.
She does not let her eyes fall down,
They lift against the far profound:
Against the blue above the town
Two wide-winged vultures circle round.
Two brown birds swim above the sea,—
Her large eyes swim as dreamily
And follow far, and follow high,
Two circling black specks in the sky.
One forward step,—the closing door
Creaks out, as frightened or in pain;
Her eyes are on the ground again—
Two men are standing close before.
“My love,” sighs one, “my life, my all!” ”

“ In sheen of moss would hear her tread
And bend his eyes, but never stir
Lest he by chance might frighten her.
Yet in her splendid strength, her eyes,
There lay the lightning of the skies;
The love-hate of the lioness,
To kill the instant, or caress:
A pent-up soul that sometimes grew
Impatient; why, she hardly knew. ”

“ Above the sea in sheen of gold,
His sea-bride leaping from his hold;
The lost Colossus, and his bride
In bronze perfection at his side:
As if the lost Colossus came
Companioned from the past, his bride
With torch all faithful at his side:
With star-tipped torch that reached and rolled
Through cloud-built corridors of gold:
His bride, austere and stern and grand,—
Bartholdi’s goddess by the sea,
Far lifting, lighting Liberty
From prison seas to Freedom’s land.
XLI. The flame! the envious flame, it leapt
Enraged to see such majesty,
Such scorn of death; such kingly scorn. ”

“ They slid in streams into the stream,—
It seemed like some infernal dream;
They curved, and graceful curved across,
Like graceful, waving sea-green moss,—
There is no art of man can make
A ripple like a rippling snake! ”

“ Has white tombs laid to the very church door,—
White leaves in the story of life turned down.
White leaves in the story of life are these,
The low white slabs in the long strong grass,
Where Glory has emptied her hour-glass
And dreams with the dreamers beneath the trees.
I dream with the dreamers beneath the sod,
Where souls pass by to the great white throne ”

“ As drip the last brave blood-drops when
Life’s battle waxes hot with men.
XXVII. Yet what to her were burning seas,
Or what to him was forest flame?
They loved; they loved the glorious trees,
The gleaming tides, or rise or fall;
They loved the lisping winds that came
From sea-lost spice-set isles unknown,
With breath not warmer than their own:
They loved, they loved,—and that was all.
XXVIII. Full noon! Below the ancient moss
With mighty boughs high clanged across,
The man with sweet words, over-sweet,
Fell pleading, plaintive, at her feet. ”

“ THE SEA OF FIRE.
In that far land, farther than Yucatan,
Hondurian height, or Mahogany steep,
Where the great sea, hollowed by the hand of man
Hears deep come calling across to deep;
Where the great seas follow in the grooves of men
Down under the bastions of Darien:
In that land so far that you wonder whether
If God would know it should you fall down dead ”

“ What if the sun should keep his gold?
The rich moon lock her silver up?
What if the gold-clad buttercup
Became a miser, mean and old?
Ah, me! the coffins are so true
In all accounts, the shrouds so thin,
That down there you might sew and sew,
Nor ever sew one pocket in.
And all that you can hold of lands
Down there, below the grass, down there,
Will only be that little share
You hold in your two dust-full hands.
XII. She comes! she comes! The stony floor
Speaks out! And now the rusty door
At last has just one word this day,
With mute religious lips, to say.
She comes! she comes! ”

“ Ah, me! the brave alone can pray.
The church-door is as cannon’s mouth
To sinner North, or sinner South,
More dreaded than dread battle day.
Now two men pace. They pace apart,
And one with youth and truth is fair ”

“ They swept, as sweeps some fateful sea
O’er land of sand and level shore
That howls in far, fierce agony.
The red men swept that deep, dark shore
As threshers sweep a threshing-floor.
And yet beside the slain Don’s door
They left his daughter, as they fled:
They spared her life, because she bore
Their Chieftain’s blood and name. The red
And blood-stained hidden hoards of gold
They hollowed from the stout ship’s hold,
And bore in many a slim canoe—
To where? The good priest only knew.
IV. The course of life is like the sea:
Men come and go; tides rise and fall ”

“ The shadowed stream rolled far below,
Where men moved noiseless to and fro
As in some vast cathedral, when
The calm of prayer comes to men,
With benedictions, bending low.
Lo! wooded sea-banks, wild and steep! ”

“ But the footfall of God, or the far pheasant beating,
It is one and the same, whatever the mask
It may wear unto man. The woods keep repeating
The old sacred sermons, whatever you ask.
The brown-muzzled cattle come stealthy to drink,
The wild forest cattle, with high horns as trim
As the elk at their side: their sleek necks are slim
And alert like the deer. They come, then they shrink
As afraid of their fellows, of shadow-beasts seen
In the deeps of the dark-wooded waters of green.
It is man in his garden, scarce wakened as yet
From the sleep that fell on him when woman was made. ”

“ The myrtle-moss trees wait and wait;
The tall magnolia leans intent.
The cypress trees, on gnarled old knees,
Far out the dank and marshy deep
Where slimy monsters groan and creep,
Kneel with her in their marshy seas.
What can her sin be? Who shall know?
The night flies by,—a bird on wing;
The men no longer to and fro
Stride up and down, or anything.
For one so weary and so old
Has hardly strength to stride or stir ”

“ The dead night does not draw a breath.
A lone sweet lady prays within.
The stranger passes by the door—
Will he not pray? Is he so poor
He has no prayer for his sin?
Is he so poor! His two strong hands
Are full and heavy, as with gold ”

“ I have now and then sent forth from Mexico, and from remoter shores of the Gulf, fragments of these thoughts as they rounded into form, and some of them have been used at a Dartmouth College Commencement, and elsewhere; but as a whole the book is new.
From the heart of the Sierra, where I once more hear the awful heart-throbs of Nature, I now intrust the first reception of these lessons entirely to my own country. And may I not ask in return, now at the last, when the shadows begin to grow long, something of that consideration which, thus far, has been accorded almost entirely by strangers? ”

“ With oh such sad, such piteous moan
As never man might seek to know
From man’s most unforgiving foe.
He sighed at last, so long, so deep,
As one heart breaking in one’s sleep,—
One long, last, weary, willing sigh,
As if it were a grace to die.
And then his hands, like loosened bands,
Hung down, hung down on either side;
His hands hung down and opened wide:
He rested in the orange lands.
University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.
Transcriber’s Note. The following emendations have been made to the text:
“You will not touch it? In God’s name for
‘You will not touch it? ”