(NYE'S FORD, STANISLAUS, 1870)Do I sleep? do I dream?Do I wonder and doubt?Are things what they seem?Or is visions about?Is our civilization a failure?Or is the Caucasian played out?Which expressions are strong;Yet would feebly implySome account of a wrong—Not to call it a lie—As was worked off on William, my pardner,And the same being W. Nye.He came down to the FordOn the very same dayOf that lottery drawedBy those sharps at the Bay;And he says to me, "Truthful, how goes it?"I replied, "It is far, far from gay;"For the camp has gone wildOn this lottery game,And has even beguiled'Injin Dick' by the same."Then said Nye to me, "Injins is pizen:But what is his number, eh, James?"I replied, "7, 2,9, 8, 4, is his hand;"When he started, and drewOut a list, which he scanned;Then he softly went for his revolverWith language I cannot command.Then I said, "William Nye!"But he turned upon me,And the look in his eyeWas quite painful to see;And he says, "You mistake; this poor InjinI protects from such sharps as YOU be!"I was shocked and withdrew;But I grieve to relate,When he next met my viewInjin Dick was his mate;And the two around town was a-lyingIn a frightfully dissolute state.Which the war dance they hadRound a tree at the BendWas a sight that was sad;And it seemed that the endWould not justify the proceedings,As I quiet remarked to a friend.For that Injin he fledThe next day to his band;And we found William spreadVery loose on the strand,With a peaceful-like smile on his features,And a dollar greenback in his hand;Which the same, when rolled out,We observed, with surprise,Was what he, no doubt,Thought the number and prize—Them figures in red in the corner,Which the number of notes specifies.Was it guile, or a dream?Is it Nye that I doubt?Are things what they seem?Or is visions about?Is our civilization a failure?Or is the Caucasian played out?
(MOUTH OF THE SHAFT)What I want is my husband, sir,—And if you're a man, sir,You'll give me an answer,—Where is my Joe?Penrhyn, sir, Joe,—Caernarvonshire.Six months agoSince we came here—Eh?—Ah, you know!Well, I am quietAnd still,But I must stand here,And will!Please, I'll be strong,If you'll just let me waitInside o' that gateTill the news comes along."Negligence!"—That was the cause!—Butchery!Are there no laws,—Laws to protect such as we?Well, then!I won't raise my voice.There, men!I won't make no noise,Only you just let me be.Four, only four—did he say—Saved! and the other ones?—Eh?Why do they call?Why are they allLooking and coming this way?What's that?—a message?I'll take it.I know his wife, sir,I'll break it."Foreman!"Ay, ay!"Out by and by,—Just saved his life.Say to his wifeSoon he'll be free."Will I?—God bless you!It's me!
Why, as to that, said the engineer,Ghosts ain't things we are apt to fear;Spirits don't fool with levers much,And throttle-valves don't take to such;And as for Jim,What happened to himWas one half fact, and t'other half whim!Running one night on the line, he sawA house—as plain as the moral law—Just by the moonlit bank, and thenceCame a drunken man with no more senseThan to drop on the railFlat as a flail,As Jim drove by with the midnight mail.Down went the patents—steam reversed.Too late! for there came a "thud." Jim cursedAs the fireman, there in the cab with him,Kinder stared in the face of Jim,And says, "What now?"Says Jim, "What now!I've just run over a man,—that's how!"The fireman stared at Jim. They ranBack, but they never found house nor man,—Nary a shadow within a mile.Jim turned pale, but he tried to smile,Then on he toreTen mile or more,In quicker time than he'd made afore.Would you believe it! the very next nightUp rose that house in the moonlight white,Out comes the chap and drops as before,Down goes the brake and the rest encore;And so, in fact,Each night that actOccurred, till folks swore Jim was cracked.Humph! let me see; it's a year now, 'most,That I met Jim, East, and says, "How's your ghost?""Gone," says Jim; "and more, it's plainThat ghost don't trouble me again.I thought I shookThat ghost when I tookA place on an Eastern line,—but look!"What should I meet, the first trip out,But the very house we talked about,And the selfsame man! 'Well,' says I, 'I guessIt's time to stop this 'yer foolishness.'So I crammed on steam,When there came a screamFrom my fireman, that jest broke my dream:"'You've killed somebody!' Says I, 'Not much!I've been thar often, and thar ain't no such,And now I'll prove it!' Back we ran,And—darn my skin!—but thar WAS a manOn the rail, dead,Smashed in the head!—Now I call that meanness!" That's all Jim said.
(MR. INTERVIEWER INTERVIEWED)Know me next time when you see me, won't you, old smarty?Oh, I mean YOU, old figger-head,—just the same party!Take out your pensivil, d—n you; sharpen it, do!Any complaints to make? Lots of 'em—one of 'em's YOU.You! who are YOU, anyhow, goin' round in that sneakin' way?Never in jail before, was you, old blatherskite, say?Look at it; don't it look pooty? Oh, grin, and be d—d to you, do!But if I had you this side o' that gratin,' I'd just make it livelyfor you.How did I get in here? Well what 'ud you give to know?'Twasn't by sneakin' round where I hadn't no call to go;'Twasn't by hangin' round a-spyin' unfortnet men.Grin! but I'll stop your jaw if ever you do that agen.Why don't you say suthin, blast you? Speak your mind if you dare.Ain't I a bad lot, sonny? Say it, and call it square.Hain't got no tongue, hey, hev ye? Oh, guard! here's a little swellA cussin' and swearin' and yellin', and bribin' me not to tell.There! I thought that 'ud fetch ye! And you want to know my name?"Seventy-nine" they call me, but that is their little game;For I'm werry highly connected, as a gent, sir, can understand,And my family hold their heads up with the very furst in the land.For 'twas all, sir, a put-up job on a pore young man like me;And the jury was bribed a puppos, and at furst they couldn't agree;And I sed to the judge, sez I,—Oh, grin! it's all right, my son!But you're a werry lively young pup, and you ain't to be played upon!Wot's that you got?—tobacco? I'm cussed but I thought 'twas a tract.Thank ye! A chap t'other day—now, lookee, this is a fact—Slings me a tract on the evils o' keepin' bad company,As if all the saints was howlin' to stay here along o' we.No, I hain't no complaints. Stop, yes; do you see that chap,—Him standin' over there, a-hidin' his eyes in his cap?Well, that man's stumick is weak, and he can't stand the pris'n fare;For the coffee is just half beans, and the sugar it ain't nowhere.Perhaps it's his bringin' up; but he's sickenin' day by day,And he doesn't take no food, and I'm seein' him waste away.And it isn't the thing to see; for, whatever he's been and done,Starvation isn't the plan as he's to be saved upon.For he cannot rough it like me; and he hasn't the stamps, I guess,To buy him his extry grub outside o' the pris'n mess.And perhaps if a gent like you, with whom I've been sorter free,Would—thank you! But, say! look here! Oh, blast it! don't give itto ME!Don't you give it to me; now, don't ye, don't ye, DON'T!You think it's a put-up job; so I'll thank ye, sir, if you won't.But hand him the stamps yourself: why, he isn't even my pal;And, if it's a comfort to you, why, I don't intend that he shall.
It was the stage-driver's story, as he stood with his back to thewheelers,Quietly flecking his whip, and turning his quid of tobacco;While on the dusty road, and blent with the rays of the moonlight,We saw the long curl of his lash and the juice of tobacco descending."Danger! Sir, I believe you,—indeed, I may say, on that subject,You your existence might put to the hazard and turn of a wager.I have seen danger? Oh, no! not me, sir, indeed, I assure you:'Twas only the man with the dog that is sitting alone in yon wagon."It was the Geiger Grade, a mile and a half from the summit:Black as your hat was the night, and never a star in the heavens.Thundering down the grade, the gravel and stones we sent flyingOver the precipice side,—a thousand feet plumb to the bottom."Half-way down the grade I felt, sir, a thrilling and creaking,Then a lurch to one side, as we hung on the bank of the canyon;Then, looking up the road, I saw, in the distance behind me,The off hind wheel of the coach, just loosed from its axle, andfollowing."One glance alone I gave, then gathered together my ribbons,Shouted, and flung them, outspread, on the straining necks of mycattle;Screamed at the top of my voice, and lashed the air in my frenzy,While down the Geiger Grade, on THREE wheels, the vehicle thundered."Speed was our only chance, when again came the ominous rattle:Crack, and another wheel slipped away, and was lost in the darkness.TWO only now were left; yet such was our fearful momentum,Upright, erect, and sustained on TWO wheels, the vehicle thundered."As some huge boulder, unloosed from its rocky shelf on the mountain,Drives before it the hare and the timorous squirrel, far leaping,So down the Geiger Grade rushed the Pioneer coach, and before itLeaped the wild horses, and shrieked in advance of the dangerimpending."But to be brief in my tale. Again, ere we came to the level,Slipped from its axle a wheel; so that, to be plain in my statement,A matter of twelve hundred yards or more, as the distance may be,We traveled upon ONE wheel, until we drove up to the station."Then, sir, we sank in a heap; but, picking myself from the ruins,I heard a noise up the grade; and looking, I saw in the distanceThe three wheels following still, like moons on the horizon whirling,Till, circling, they gracefully sank on the road at the side of thestation."This is my story, sir; a trifle, indeed, I assure you.Much more, perchance, might be said—but I hold him of all men mostlightlyWho swerves from the truth in his tale. No, thank you— Well, sinceyou ARE pressing,Perhaps I don't care if I do: you may give me the same, Jim,—nosugar."
REPORTED BY TRUTHFUL JAMESIt was Andrew Jackson Sutter who, despising Mr. Cutter for remarkshe heard him utter in debate upon the floor,Swung him up into the skylight, in the peaceful, pensive twilight,and then keerlessly proceeded, makin' no account what WE did—To wipe up with his person casual dust upon the floor.Now a square fight never frets me, nor unpleasantness upsets me, butthe simple thing that gets me—now the job is done and gone,And we've come home free and merry from the peaceful cemetery,leavin' Cutter there with Sutter—that mebbee just a stutterOn the part of Mr. Cutter caused the loss we deeply mourn.Some bashful hesitation, just like spellin' punctooation—might haveworked an aggravation on to Sutter's mournful mind,For the witnesses all vary ez to wot was said and nary a galoot willtoot his horn except the way he is inclined.But they all allow that Sutter had begun a kind of mutter, whenuprose Mr. Cutter with a sickening kind of ease,And proceeded then to wade in to the subject then prevadin': "IsProfanity degradin'?" in words like unto these:"Onlike the previous speaker, Mr. Sutter of Yreka, he was but ahumble seeker—and not like him—a cuss"—It was here that Mr. Sutter softly reached for Mr. Cutter, when thelatter with a stutter said: "ac-customed to discuss."Then Sutter he rose grimly, and sorter smilin' dimly bowed onto theChairman primly—(just like Cutter ez could be!)Drawled "he guessed he must fall—back—as—Mr. Cutter owned thepack—as—he just had played the—Jack—as—" (here Cutter's gunwent crack! as Mr. Sutter gasped and ended) "every man can see!"But William Henry Pryor—just in range of Sutter's fire—hereevinced a wild desire to do somebody harm,And in the general scrimmage no one thought if Sutter's "image" wasa misplaced punctooation—like the hole in Pryor's arm.For we all waltzed in together, never carin' to ask whether it wasSutter or was Cutter we woz tryin' to abate.But we couldn't help perceivin', when we took to inkstand heavin',that the process was relievin' to the sharpness of debate,So we've come home free and merry from the peaceful cemetery, and Imake no commentary on these simple childish games;Things is various and human—and the man ain't born of woman who isfree to intermeddle with his pal's intents and aims.
REPORTED BY TRUTHFUL JAMESWe hev tumbled ez dustOr ez worms of the yearth;Wot we looked for hez bust!We are objects of mirth!They have played us—old Pards of the river!—they hev played us forall we was worth!Was it euchre or drawCut us off in our bloom?Was it faro, whose lawIs uncertain ez doom?Or an innocent "Jack pot" that—opened—was to us ez the jaws of thetomb?It was nary! It kemWith some sharps from the States.Ez folks sez, "All things kemTo the fellers ez waits;"And we'd waited six months for that suthin'—had me and Bill Nye—insuch straits!And it kem. It was small;It was dream-like and weak;It wore store clothes—that's allThat we knew, so to speak;But it called itself "Billson, Thought-Reader"—which ain't half aname for its cheek!He could read wot you thought,And he knew wot you did;He could find things untaught,No matter whar hid;And he went to it, blindfold and smiling, being led by the hand likea kid!Then I glanced at Bill Nye,And I sez, without pride,"You'll excuse US. We've nighOn to nothin' to hide;But if some gent will lend us a twenty, we'll hide it whar folksshall decide."It was Billson's own selfWho forked over the gold,With a smile. "Thar's the pelf,"He remarked. "I make boldTo advance it, and go twenty better that I'll find it without beingtold."Then I passed it to Nye,Who repassed it to me.And we bandaged each eyeOf that Billson—ez weSoftly dropped that coin in his coat pocket, ez the hull crowdaround us could see.That was all. He'd one handLocked in mine. Then he groped.We could not understandWhy that minit Nye sloped,For we knew we'd the dead thing on Billson—even more than wedreamed of or hoped.For he stood thar in doubtWith his hand to his head;Then he turned, and lit outThrough the door where Nye fled,Draggin' me and the rest of us arter, while we larfed till wethought we was dead,Till he overtook NyeAnd went through him. Words failFor what follers! Kin IPaint our agonized wailEz he drew from Nye's pocket that twenty wot we sworn was in his owncoat-tail!And it WAS! But, when found,It proved bogus and brass!And the question goes roundHow the thing kem to pass?Or, if PASSED, woz it passed thar by William; and I listens, andechoes "Alas!"For the days when the skillOf the keerds was no blind,When no effort of willCould beat four of a kind,When the thing wot you held in your hand, Pard, was worth more thanthe thing in your mind."
(REPORTED BY TRUTHFUL JAMES)Waltz in, waltz in, ye little kids, and gather round my knee,And drop them books and first pot-hooks, and hear a yarn from me.I kin not sling a fairy tale of Jinnys* fierce and wild,For I hold it is unchristian to deceive a simple child;But as from school yer driftin' by, I thowt ye'd like to hearOf a "Spelling Bee" at Angels that we organized last year.It warn't made up of gentle kids, of pretty kids, like you,But gents ez hed their reg'lar growth, and some enough for two.There woz Lanky Jim of Sutter's Fork and Bilson of Lagrange,And "Pistol Bob," who wore that day a knife by way of change.You start, you little kids, you think these are not pretty names,But each had a man behind it, and—my name is Truthful James.There was Poker Dick from Whisky Flat, and Smith of Shooter's Bend,And Brown of Calaveras—which I want no better friend;Three-fingered Jack—yes, pretty dears, three fingers—YOU have five.Clapp cut off two—it's sing'lar, too, that Clapp ain't now alive.'Twas very wrong indeed, my dears, and Clapp was much to blame;Likewise was Jack, in after-years, for shootin' of that same.The nights was kinder lengthenin' out, the rains had jest begun,When all the camp came up to Pete's to have their usual fun;But we all sot kinder sad-like around the bar-room stoveTill Smith got up, permiskiss-like, and this remark he hove:"Thar's a new game down in Frisco, that ez far ez I can seeBeats euchre, poker, and van-toon, they calls the 'Spellin' Bee.'"Then Brown of Calaveras simply hitched his chair and spake,"Poker is good enough for me," and Lanky Jim sez, "Shake!"And Bob allowed he warn't proud, but he "must say right tharThat the man who tackled euchre hed his education squar."This brought up Lenny Fairchild, the schoolmaster, who saidHe knew the game, and he would give instructions on that head."For instance, take some simple word," sez he, "like 'separate:'Now who can spell it?" Dog my skin, ef thar was one in eight.This set the boys all wild at once. The chairs was put in row,And at the head was Lanky Jim, and at the foot was Joe,And high upon the bar itself the schoolmaster was raised,And the bar-keep put his glasses down, and sat and silent gazed.The first word out was "parallel," and seven let it be,Till Joe waltzed in his "double l" betwixt the "a" and "e;"For since he drilled them Mexicans in San Jacinto's fightThar warn't no prouder man got up than Pistol Joe that night—Till "rhythm" came! He tried to smile, then said "they had himthere,"And Lanky Jim, with one long stride, got up and took his chair.O little kids, my pretty kids, 'twas touchin' to surveyThese bearded men, with weppings on, like schoolboys at their play.They'd laugh with glee, and shout to see each other lead the van,And Bob sat up as monitor with a cue for a rattan,Till the Chair gave out "incinerate," and Brown said he'd be durnedIf any such blamed word as that in school was ever learned.When "phthisis" came they all sprang up, and vowed the man who rungAnother blamed Greek word on them be taken out and hung.As they sat down again I saw in Bilson's eye a flash,And Brown of Calaveras was a-twistin' his mustache,And when at last Brown slipped on "gneiss," and Bilson took his chair,He dropped some casual words about some folks who dyed their hair.And then the Chair grew very white, and the Chair said he'd adjourn,But Poker Dick remarked that HE would wait and get his turn;Then with a tremblin' voice and hand, and with a wanderin' eye,The Chair next offered "eider-duck," and Dick began with "I",And Bilson smiled—then Bilson shrieked! Just how the fight begunI never knowed, for Bilson dropped, and Dick, he moved up one.Then certain gents arose and said "they'd business down in camp,"And "ez the road was rather dark, and ez the night was damp,They'd"—here got up Three-fingered Jack and locked the door andyelled:"No, not one mother's son goes out till that thar word is spelled!"But while the words were on his lips, he groaned and sank in pain,And sank with Webster on his chest and Worcester on his brain.Below the bar dodged Poker Dick, and tried to look ez heWas huntin' up authorities thet no one else could see;And Brown got down behind the stove, allowin' he "was cold,"Till it upsot and down his legs the cinders freely rolled,And several gents called "Order!" till in his simple wayPoor Smith began with "O-r"—"Or"—and he was dragged away.O little kids, my pretty kids, down on your knees and pray!You've got your eddication in a peaceful sort of way;And bear in mind thar may be sharps ez slings their spellin' square,But likewise slings their bowie-knives without a thought or care.You wants to know the rest, my dears? Thet's all! In me you seeThe only gent that lived to tell about the Spellin' Bee!———He ceased and passed, that truthful man; the children went their wayWith downcast heads and downcast hearts—but not to sport or play.For when at eve the lamps were lit, and supperless to bedEach child was sent, with tasks undone and lessons all unsaid,No man might know the awful woe that thrilled their youthful frames,As they dreamed of Angels Spelling Bee and thought of Truthful James.
* Qy. Genii.
DRAMATIS PERSONAEPoet. Philosopher. Jones of Mariposa.
POETHalt! Here we are. Now wheel your mare a trifleJust where you stand; then doff your hat and swearNever yet was scene you might cover with your rifleHalf as complete or as marvelously fair.PHILOSOPHERDropped from Olympus or lifted out of Tempe,Swung like a censer betwixt the earth and sky!He who in Greece sang of flocks and flax and hemp,—heHere might recall them—six thousand feet on high!POETWell you may say so. The clamor of the river,Hum of base toil, and man's ignoble strife,Halt far below, where the stifling sunbeams quiver,But never climb to this purer, higher life!Not to this glade, where Jones of Mariposa,Simple and meek as his flocks we're looking at,Tends his soft charge; nor where his daughter Rosa—(A shot.)Hallo! What's that?PHILOSOPHERA—something thro' my hat—Bullet, I think. You were speaking of his daughter?POETYes; but—your hat you were moving through the leaves;Likely he thought it some eagle bent on slaughter.Lightly he shoots— (A second shot.)PHILOSOPHERAs one readily perceives.Still, he improves! This time YOUR hat has got it,Quite near the band! Eh? Oh, just as you please—Stop, or go on.POETPerhaps we'd better trot itDown through the hollow, and up among the trees.BOTHTrot, trot, trot, where the bullets cannot follow;Trot down and up again among the laurel trees.PHILOSOPHERThanks, that is better; now of this shot-dispensingJones and his girl—you were saying—POETWell, you see—I—hang it all!—Oh! what's the use of fencing!Sir, I confess it!—these shots were meant for ME.PHILOSOPHERAre you mad!POETGod knows, I shouldn't wonder!I love this coy nymph, who, coldly—as yon peakShines on the river it feeds, yet keeps asunder—Long have I worshiped, but never dared to speak.Till she, no doubt, her love no longer hiding,Waked by some chance word her father's jealousy;Slips her disdain—as an avalanche down glidingSweeps flocks and kin away—to clear a path for ME.Hence his attack.PHILOSOPHERI see. What I admireChiefly, I think, in your idyl, so to speak,Is the cool modesty that checks your youthful fire,—Absence of self-love and abstinence of cheek!Still, I might mention, I've met the gentle Rosa,—Danced with her thrice, to her father's jealous dread;And, it is possible, she's happened to disclose a—Ahem! You can fancy why he shoots at ME instead.POETYOU?PHILOSOPHERMe. But kindly take your hand from your revolver,I am not choleric—but accidents may chance.And here's the father, who alone can be the solverOf this twin riddle of the hat and the romance.Enter JONES OF MARIPOSA.POETSpeak, shepherd—mine!PHILOSOPHERHail! Time-and-cartridge waster,Aimless exploder of theories and skill!Whom do you shoot?JONES OF MARIPOSAWell, shootin' ain't my taste, orEF I shoot anything—I only shoot to kill.That ain't what's up. I only kem to tell ye—Sportin' or courtin'—trot homeward for your life!Gals will be gals, and p'r'aps it's just ez well yeLarned there was one had no wish to be—a wife.POETWhat?PHILOSOPHERIs this true?JONES OF MARIPOSAI reckon it looks like it.She saw ye comin'. My gun was standin' by;She made a grab, and 'fore I up could strike it,Blazed at ye both! The critter is SO shy!POETWho?JONES OF MARIPOSAMy darter!PHILOSOPHERRosa?JONES OF MARIPOSASame! Good-by!
(SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA)Shrewdly you question, Senor, and I fancyYou are no novice. Confess that to littleOf my poor gossip of Mission and PuebloYou are a stranger!Am I not right? Ah! believe me, that everSince we joined company at the posadaI've watched you closely, and—pardon an old priest—I've caught you smiling!Smiling to hear an old fellow like me talkGossip of pillage and robbers, and evenAir his opinion of law and alcaldesLike any other!Now!—by that twist of the wrist on the bridle,By that straight line from the heel to the shoulder,By that curt speech,—nay! nay! no offense, son,—You are a soldier?No? Then a man of affairs? San Sebastian!'Twould serve me right if I prattled thus wildlyTo—say a sheriff? No?—just caballero?Well, more's the pity.Ah! what we want here's a man of your presence;Sano, Secreto,—yes, all the four S's,Joined with a boldness and dash, when the time comes,And—may I say it?—One not TOO hard on the poor country people,Peons and silly vaqueros, who, dazzledBy reckless skill, and, perchance, reckless largesse,Wink at some queer things.No? You would crush THEM as well as the robbers,—Root them out, scatter them? Ah you are bitter—And yet—quien sabe, perhaps that's the one wayTo catch their leader.As to myself, now, I'd share your displeasure;For I admit in this Jack of the TulesCertain good points. He still comes to confession—You'd "like to catch him"?Ah, if you did at such times, you might lead himHome by a thread. Good! Again you are smiling:You have no faith in such shrift, and but littleIn priest or penitent.Bueno! We take no offense, sir; whateverIt please you to say, it becomes us, for Church sake,To bear in peace. Yet, if you were kinder—And less suspicious—I might still prove to you, Jack of the TulesShames not our teaching; nay, even might show you,Hard by this spot, his old comrade, who, wounded,Lives on his bounty.If—ah, you listen!—I see I can trust you;Then, on your word as a gentleman—follow.Under that sycamore stands the old cabin;There sits his comrade.Eh!—are you mad? You would try to ARREST him?You, with a warrant? Oh, well, take the rest of them:Pedro, Bill, Murray, Pat Doolan. Hey!—all of you,Tumble out, d—n it!There!—that'll do, boys! Stand back! Ease his elbows;Take the gag from his mouth. Good! Now scatter like devilsAfter his posse—four straggling, four drunken—At the posada.You—help me off with these togs, and then vamos!Now, ole Jeff Dobbs!—Sheriff, Scout, and Detective!You're so derned 'cute! Kinder sick, ain't ye, bluffingJack of the Tules!
(1797)They ran through the streets of the seaport town,They peered from the decks of the ships that lay;The cold sea-fog that came whitening downWas never as cold or white as they."Ho, Starbuck and Pinckney and Tenterden!Run for your shallops, gather your men,Scatter your boats on the lower bay."Good cause for fear! In the thick mid-dayThe hulk that lay by the rotting pier,Filled with the children in happy play,Parted its moorings and drifted clear,Drifted clear beyond reach or call,—Thirteen children they were in all,—All adrift in the lower bay!Said a hard-faced skipper, "God help us all!She will not float till the turning tide!"Said his wife, "My darling will hear MY call,Whether in sea or heaven she bide;"And she lifted a quavering voice and high,Wild and strange as a sea-bird's cry,Till they shuddered and wondered at her side.The fog drove down on each laboring crew,Veiled each from each and the sky and shore:There was not a sound but the breath they drew,And the lap of water and creak of oar;And they felt the breath of the downs, fresh blownO'er leagues of clover and cold gray stone,But not from the lips that had gone before.They came no more. But they tell the taleThat, when fogs are thick on the harbor reef,The mackerel fishers shorten sail—For the signal they know will bring relief;For the voices of children, still at playIn a phantom hulk that drifts alwayThrough channels whose waters never fail.It is but a foolish shipman's tale,A theme for a poet's idle page;But still, when the mists of Doubt prevail,And we lie becalmed by the shores of Age,We hear from the misty troubled shoreThe voice of the children gone before,Drawing the soul to its anchorage.
They say that she died of a broken heart(I tell the tale as 'twas told to me);But her spirit lives, and her soul is partOf this sad old house by the sea.Her lover was fickle and fine and French:It was nearly a hundred years agoWhen he sailed away from her arms—poor wench!—With the Admiral Rochambeau.I marvel much what periwigged phraseWon the heart of this sentimental Quaker,At what gold-laced speech of those modish daysShe listened—the mischief take her!But she kept the posies of mignonetteThat he gave; and ever as their bloom failedAnd faded (though with her tears still wet)Her youth with their own exhaled.Till one night, when the sea-fog wrapped a shroudRound spar and spire and tarn and tree,Her soul went up on that lifted cloudFrom this sad old house by the sea.And ever since then, when the clock strikes two,She walks unbidden from room to room,And the air is filled that she passes throughWith a subtle, sad perfume.The delicate odor of mignonette,The ghost of a dead-and-gone bouquet,Is all that tells of her story; yetCould she think of a sweeter way?
I sit in the sad old house to-night,—Myself a ghost from a farther sea;And I trust that this Quaker woman might,In courtesy, visit me.For the laugh is fled from porch and lawn,And the bugle died from the fort on the hill,And the twitter of girls on the stairs is gone,And the grand piano is still.Somewhere in the darkness a clock strikes two:And there is no sound in the sad old house,But the long veranda dripping with dew,And in the wainscot a mouse.The light of my study-lamp streams outFrom the library door, but has gone astrayIn the depths of the darkened hall. Small doubtBut the Quakeress knows the way.Was it the trick of a sense o'erwroughtWith outward watching and inward fret?But I swear that the air just now was fraughtWith the odor of mignonette!I open the window, and seem almost—So still lies the ocean—to hear the beatOf its Great Gulf artery off the coast,And to bask in its tropic heat.In my neighbor's windows the gas-lights flare,As the dancers swing in a waltz of Strauss;And I wonder now could I fit that airTo the song of this sad old house.And no odor of mignonette there is,But the breath of morn on the dewy lawn;And mayhap from causes as slight as thisThe quaint old legend is born.But the soul of that subtle, sad perfume,As the spiced embalmings, they say, outlastThe mummy laid in his rocky tomb,Awakens my buried past.And I think of the passion that shook my youth,Of its aimless loves and its idle pains,And am thankful now for the certain truthThat only the sweet remains.And I hear no rustle of stiff brocade,And I see no face at my library door;For now that the ghosts of my heart are laid,She is viewless for evermore.But whether she came as a faint perfume,Or whether a spirit in stole of white,I feel, as I pass from the darkened room,She has been with my soul to-night!
(FROM THE SEA)Serene, indifferent of Fate,Thou sittest at the Western Gate;Upon thy height, so lately won,Still slant the banners of the sun;Thou seest the white seas strike their tents,O Warder of two continents!And, scornful of the peace that fliesThy angry winds and sullen skies,Thou drawest all things, small, or great,To thee, beside the Western Gate.O lion's whelp, that hidest fastIn jungle growth of spire and mast!I know thy cunning and thy greed,Thy hard high lust and willful deed,And all thy glory loves to tellOf specious gifts material.Drop down, O Fleecy Fog, and hideHer skeptic sneer and all her pride!Wrap her, O Fog, in gown and hoodOf her Franciscan Brotherhood.Hide me her faults, her sin and blame;With thy gray mantle cloak her shame!So shall she, cowled, sit and prayTill morning bears her sins away.Then rise, O Fleecy Fog, and raiseThe glory of her coming days;Be as the cloud that flecks the seasAbove her smoky argosies;When forms familiar shall give placeTo stranger speech and newer face;When all her throes and anxious fearsLie hushed in the repose of years;When Art shall raise and Culture liftThe sensual joys and meaner thrift,And all fulfilled the vision weWho watch and wait shall never see;Who, in the morning of her race,Toiled fair or meanly in our place,But, yielding to the common lot,Lie unrecorded and forgot.