By Joaquin Miller (1841 - 1913)

At the Grave of Walker

HE lies low in the levelled sand, Unsheltered from the tropic sun, And now of all he knew not one Will speak him fair in that far land. Perhaps ’twas this that made me seek, Disguised, his grave one winter-tide; A weakness for the weaker side, A siding with the helpless weak.   A palm not far held out a hand, Hard by a long green bamboo swung, And bent like some great bow unstrung, And quivered like a willow wand; Perched on its fruits that crooked hang, Beneath a broad banana’s leaf, A bird in rainbow splendor sang A low, sad song, of tempered grief.   No sod, no sign, no cross nor stone, But at his side a cactus green Upheld its lances long and keen; It stood in sacred sands alone, Flat-palmed and fierce with lifted spears; One bloom of crimson crowned its head, A drop of blood, so bright, so red, Yet redolent as roses’ tears.   In my left hand I held a shell, All rosy lipped and pearly red; I laid it by his lowly bed, For he did love so passing well The grand songs of the solemn sea. O shell! sing well, wild, with a will, When storms blow loud and birds be still, The wildest sea-song known to thee!   I said some things with folded hands, Soft whispered in the dim sea-sound, And eyes held humbly to the ground, And frail knees sunken in the sands. He had done more than this for me, And yet I could not well do more: I turned me down the olive shore, And set a sad face to the sea.

By the Pacific Ocean

HERE room and kingly silence keep Companionship in state austere; The dignity of death is here, The large, lone vastness of the deep; Here toil has pitched his camp to rest: The west is banked against the west.   Above yon gleaming skies of gold One lone imperial peak is seen; While gathered at his feet in green Ten thousand foresters are told: And all so still! so still the air That duty drops the web of care.   Beneath the sunset’s golden sheaves The awful deep walks with the deep, Where silent sea doves slip and sweep, And commerce keeps her loom and weaves The dead red men refuse to rest; Their ghosts illume my lurid West.

Columbus

BEHIND him lay the gray Azores,   Behind the Gates of Hercules; Before him not the ghost of shores,   Before him only shoreless seas. The good mate said: “Now must we pray,   For lo! the very stars are gone. Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?”   “Why, say, ‘Sail on! sail on! and on!’”   “My men grow mutinous day by day;   My men grow ghastly wan and weak.” The stout mate thought of home; a spray   Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. “What shall I say, brave Admiral, say,   If we sight naught but seas at dawn?” “Why, you shall say at break of day,   ‘Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!’”   They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,   Until at last the blanched mate said: “Why, now not even God would know   Should I and all my men fall dead. These very winds forget their way,   For God from these dread seas is gone. Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say”—   He said: “Sail on! sail on! and on!”   They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate:   “This mad sea shows his teeth to-night. He curls his lip, he lies in wait,   With lifted teeth, as if to bite! Brave Admiral, say but one good word:   What shall we do when hope is gone?” The words leapt like a leaping sword:   “Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!”   Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,   And peered through darkness. Ah, that night Of all dark nights! And then a speck—   A light! A light! A light! A light! It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!   It grew to be Time’s burst of dawn. He gained a world; he gave that world   Its grandest lesson: “On! sail on!”

Crossing the Plains

WHAT great yoked brutes with briskets low, With wrinkled necks like buffalo, With round, brown, liquid, pleading eyes, That turned so slow and sad to you, That shone like love’s eyes soft with tears, That seemed to plead, and make replies, The while they bowed their necks and drew The creaking load; and looked at you. Their sable briskets swept the ground, Their cloven feet kept solemn sound.   Two sullen bullocks led the line, Their great eyes shining bright like wine; Two sullen captive kings were they, That had in time held herds at bay, And even now they crushed the sod With stolid sense of majesty, And stately stepped and stately trod, As if ’t were something still to be Kings even in captivity.

Dead in the Sierras

HIS footprints have failed us, Where berries are red, And madroños are rankest,— The hunter is dead!     The grizzly may pass By his half-open door; May pass and repass On his path, as of yore;     The panther may crouch In the leaves on his limb; May scream and may scream,— It is nothing to him.     Prone, bearded, and breasted Like columns of stone; And tall as a pine— As a pine overthrown!     His camp-fires gone, What else can be done Than let him sleep on Till the light of the sun?     Ay, tombless! what of it? Marble is dust, Cold and repellent; And iron is rust.

Juanita

YOU will come, my bird, Bonita? Come! For I by steep and stone Have built such nest for you, Juanita, As not eagle bird hath known.     Rugged! Rugged as Parnassus! Rude, as all roads I have trod— Yet are steeps and stone-strewn passes Smooth o’erhead, and nearest God.     Here black thunders of my cañon Shake its walls in Titan wars! Here white sea-born clouds companion With such peaks as know the stars!     Here madrona, manzanita— Here the snarling chaparral House and hang o’er steeps, Juanita, Where the gaunt wolf loved to dwell!     Dear, I took these trackless masses Fresh from Him who fashioned them; Wrought in rock, and hewed fair passes, Flower set, as sets a gem.     Aye, I built in woe. God willed it; Woe that passeth ghosts of guilt; Yet I built as His birds builded— Builded, singing as I built.     All is finished! Roads of flowers Wait your loyal little feet. All completed? Nay, the hours Till you come are incomplete.     Steep below me lies the valley, Deep below me lies the town, Where great sea-ships ride and rally, And the world walks up and down.     O, the sea of lights far streaming When the thousand flags are furled— When the gleaming bay lies dreaming As it duplicates the world!     You will come, my dearest, truest? Come, my sovereign queen of ten; My blue skies will then be bluest; My white rose be whitest then:     Then the song! Ah, then the sabre Flashing up the walls of night! Hate of wrong and love of neighbor— Rhymes of battle for the Right!

Peter Cooper

GIVE honor and love for evermore To this great man gone to rest; Peace on the dim Plutonian shore, Rest in the land of the blest.     I reckon him greater than any man That ever drew sword in war; I reckon him nobler than king or khan, Braver and better by far.     And wisest he in this whole wide land Of hoarding till bent and gray; For all you can hold in your cold dead hand Is what you have given away.     So whether to wander the stars or to rest Forever hushed and dumb, He gave with a zest and he gave his best— Give him the best to come. 1883.

The Voice of the Dove

COME listen, O Love, to the voice of the dove, Come, hearken and hear him say, There are many To-morrows, my Love, my Love,— There is only one To-day.   And all day long you can hear him say This day in purple is rolled, And the baby stars of the milky-way— They are cradled in cradles of gold.   Now what is thy secret, serene gray dove, Of singing so sweetly alway? “There are many To-morrows, my Love, my Love,— There is only one To-day.”

To Russia

WHO tamed your lawless Tartar blood? What David bearded in her den The Russian bear in ages when You strode your black, unbridled stud, A skin-clad savage of your steppes? Why, one who now sits low and weeps, Why, one who now wails out to you,— The Jew, the Jew, the homeless Jew.   Who girt the thews of your young prime And bound your fierce divided force? Why, who but Moses shaped your course United down the grooves of time? Your mighty millions all to-day The hated, homeless Jew obey. Who taught all poetry to you? The Jew, the Jew, the hated Jew.   Who taught you tender Bible tales Of honey-lands, of milk and wine? Of happy, peaceful Palestine? Of Jordan’s holy harvest vales? Who gave the patient Christ? I say, Who gave your Christian creed? Yea, yea, Who gave your very God to you? Your Jew! Your Jew! Your hated Jew!

Twilight at the Heights

THE BRAVE young city by the Balboa seas 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.   Come under my oaks, oh, drowsy dusk! 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.

Vaquero

HIS broad-brimmed hat pushed back with careless air, The proud vaquero sits his steed as free As winds that toss his black abundant hair. No rover ever swept a lawless sea With such a haught and heedless air as he Who scorns the path, and bounds with swift disdain Away, a peon born, yet born to be A splendid king; behold him ride and reign.   How brave he takes his herds in branding days, On timbered hills that belt about the plain; He climbs, he wheels, he shouts through winding ways Of hiding ferns and hanging fir; the rein Is loose, the rattling spur drives swift; the mane Blows free; the bullocks rush in storms before; They turn with lifted heads, they rush again, Then sudden plunge from out the wood, and pour A cloud upon the plain with one terrific roar.   Now sweeps the tawny man on stormy steed, His gaudy trappings tossed about and blown About the limbs as lithe as any reed; The swift long lasso twirled above is thrown From flying hand; the fall, the fearful groan Of bullock toiled and tumbled in the dust— The black herds onward sweep, and all disown The fallen, struggling monarch that has thrust His tongue in rage and rolled his red eyes in disgust.

Westward Ho!

WHAT strength! what strife! what rude unrest! What shocks! what half-shaped armies met! A mighty nation moving west, With all its steely sinews set Against the living forests. Hear The shouts, the shots of pioneer, The rended forests, rolling wheels, As if some half-checked army reels, Recoils, redoubles, comes again, Loud-sounding like a hurricane.   O bearded, stalwart, westmost men, So tower-like, so Gothic built! A kingdom won without the guilt Of studied battle, that hath been Your blood’s inheritance.… Your heirs Know not your tombs: the great plough shares Cleave softly through the mellow loam Where you have made eternal home, And set no sign. Your epitaphs Are writ in furrows. Beauty laughs While through the green ways wandering Beside her love, slow gathering White, starry-hearted May-time blooms Above your lowly levelled tombs; And then below the spotted sky She stops, she leans, she wonders why The ground is heaved and broken so, And why the grasses darker grow And droop and trail like wounded wing.   Yea, Time, the grand old harvester, Has gathered you from wood and plain. We call to you again, again; The rush and rumble of the car Comes back in answer. Deep and wide The wheels of progress have passed on; The silent pioneer is gone. His ghost is moving down the trees, And now we push the memories Of bluff, bold men who dared and died In foremost battle, quite aside.

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