Joaquin Miller (1837 – 1913)
Pen name of the American poet, essayist and fabulist Cincinnatus Heine Miller.
O, the sea of lights for streaming
When the thousand flags are furled—
When the gleaming bay lies dreaming
As it duplicates the world!
A grand old Neptune in the prow,
Gray-hair'd, and white with touch of time,
Yet strong as in his middle prime;
A grizzled king, I see him now,
With beard as blown by wind of seas,
And wild and white as white sea-storm,
Stand up, turn suddenly, look back
Along the low boat's wrinkled track,
Then fold his mantle round a form
Broad-built as any Hercules,
And so sit silently.
These be but men. We may forget
The wild sea-king, the tawny brave,
The frowning wold, the woody shore,
The tall-built, sunburnt men of Mars. . .
O woman, born first to believe us;
Yea, also born first to forget;
Born first to betray and deceive us,
Yet first to repent and regret!
A face that lifted up; sweet face
That was so like a life begun,
That rose for me a rising sun
Above the bended seven hills
Of dead and risen old new Rome.
This creature comes from out the dim
Far centuries, beyond the rim
Of time's remotest reach or stir.
Is it worthwhile that we jostle a brother,
Bearing his load on the rough road of life?
Is it worthwhile that we jeer at each other,
In blackness of heart — that we war to the knife?
God pity us all in our pitiful strife.
I count the columned waves at war
With Titan elements; and they,
In martial splendor, storm the bar
And shake the world, these bits of spray.
In men whom men condemn as ill
I find so much of goodness still.
In men whom men pronounce divine
I find so much of sin and blot
I do not dare to draw a line
Between the two, where God has not.
Beside
The grim old sea-king sits his bride,
A sun-land blossom, rudely torn
From tropic forests to be worn
Above as stern a breast as e'er
Stood king at sea or anywhere.
The mountains from that fearful first
Named day were God's own house. Behold,
'Twas here dread Sinai's thunders burst
And showed His face. 'Twas here of old
His prophets dwelt. Lo, it was here
The Christ did come when death drew near.
"All honor to him who shall win the prize,"
The world has cried for a thousand years;
But to him who tries, and who fails and dies,
I give great honor and glory and tears.
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.
He seem'd as lithe and free and tall
And restless as the boughs that stir
Perpetual topt poplar trees.
And one, that one, had eyes to teach
The art of love, and tongue to preach
Life's hard and sober homilies;
And yet his eager hands, his speech,
All spoke the bold adventurer;
While zoned about the belt of each
There swung a girt of steel, till all
Did seem a walking arsenal.
Each gives to each, and like the star
Gets back its gift in tenfold pay.
Almost his first words were, "Well, let us go and talk with the poets!"
In vain I assured this untamed poet that the "Bards of San Francisco Bay," whom he had so naively saluted, had taken the vows of neither brotherhood nor sisterhood; that they feasted at no common board; flocked not; discoursed with no beaded rills; neither did their skilled hands sweep any strings whatever, and he must, therefore, listen in vain for the seraphic song.
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.
He rode as rides the hurricane;
He seem'd to swallow up the plain;
He rode as never man did ride,
He rode, for ghosts rode at his side,
And on his right a grizzled grim —
No, no, this tale is not of him.
O you had loved her sitting there,
Half hidden in her loosen'd hair:
Why, you had loved her for her eyes,
Their large and melancholy look
Of tenderness, and well mistook
Their love for light of Paradise.
Man's books are but a climbing stair,
Lain step by step, like stairs of stone;
The stairway here, the temple there —
Man's lampad honor, and his trust,
The God who called him from the dust.