TO ABBIE.
TO ABBIE.
Note.—The lines in this little book, as in all my others, were written, or at least conceived, in the lands where the scenes are laid; so that whatever may be said of the imperfections of my work, I at least have the correct atmosphere and color. 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?Joaquin Miller.Mount Shasta, California,A.D.1887.
Note.—The lines in this little book, as in all my others, were written, or at least conceived, in the lands where the scenes are laid; so that whatever may be said of the imperfections of my work, I at least have the correct atmosphere and color. 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?
Joaquin Miller.
Mount Shasta, California,A.D.1887.
SONGS OF THE MEXICAN SEAS.
Inthat far land, farther than Yucatan,Hondurian height, or Mahogany steep,Where the great sea, hollowed by the hand of manHears deep come calling across to deep;Where the great seas follow in the grooves of menDown under the bastions of Darien:In that land so far that you wonder whetherIf God would know it should you fall down dead;In that land so far through the wilds and weatherThat the lost sun sinks like a warriorsped,—Where the sea and the sky seem closing together,Seem closing together as a book that is read:In that nude warm world, where the unnamed riversRoll restless in cradles of bright buried gold;Where white flashing mountains flow rivers of silverAs a rock of the desert flowed fountains of old;By adark woodedriver that calls to the dawn,And calls all day with his dolorous swan:In that land of the wonderful sun and weather,With green under foot and with gold over head,Where the spent sun flames, and you wonder whether’T isan isle of fire in his foamy bed:Where the oceans of earth shall be welded togetherBy the great French master in his forge flamered,—Lo! the half-finished world! Yon footfallretreating,—It might be the Maker disturbed at his task.But the footfall of God, or the far pheasant beating,It is one and the same, whatever the maskIt may wear unto man. The woods keep repeatingThe old sacred sermons, whatever you ask.The brown-muzzled cattle come stealthy to drink,The wild forest cattle, with high horns as trimAs the elk at their side: their sleek necks are slimAnd alert like the deer. They come, then they shrinkAs afraid of their fellows, of shadow-beasts seenIn the deeps of the dark-wooded waters of green.It is man in his garden, scarce wakened as yetFrom the sleep that fell on him when woman was made.The new-finished garden is plastic and wetFrom the hand that has fashioned its unpeopled shade;And the wonder still looks from the fair woman’s eyesAs she shines through the wood like the light from the skies.And a ship now and then from some far Ophir’s shoreDraws in from the sea. It lies close to the bank;Then a dull, muffled sound of the slow-shuffled plankAs they load the black ship; but you hear nothing more,And the dark dewy vines, and the tall sombre woodLike 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 mossThat mantle all things like the shreds of a wreck;The long mosses swing, there is never a breath:The river rolls still as the river of death.
Inthat far land, farther than Yucatan,Hondurian height, or Mahogany steep,Where the great sea, hollowed by the hand of manHears deep come calling across to deep;Where the great seas follow in the grooves of menDown under the bastions of Darien:
In that land so far that you wonder whetherIf God would know it should you fall down dead;In that land so far through the wilds and weatherThat the lost sun sinks like a warriorsped,—Where the sea and the sky seem closing together,Seem closing together as a book that is read:
In that nude warm world, where the unnamed riversRoll restless in cradles of bright buried gold;Where white flashing mountains flow rivers of silverAs a rock of the desert flowed fountains of old;By adark woodedriver that calls to the dawn,And calls all day with his dolorous swan:
In that land of the wonderful sun and weather,With green under foot and with gold over head,Where the spent sun flames, and you wonder whether’T isan isle of fire in his foamy bed:Where the oceans of earth shall be welded togetherBy the great French master in his forge flamered,—
Lo! the half-finished world! Yon footfallretreating,—It might be the Maker disturbed at his task.But the footfall of God, or the far pheasant beating,It is one and the same, whatever the maskIt may wear unto man. The woods keep repeatingThe old sacred sermons, whatever you ask.
The brown-muzzled cattle come stealthy to drink,The wild forest cattle, with high horns as trimAs the elk at their side: their sleek necks are slimAnd alert like the deer. They come, then they shrinkAs afraid of their fellows, of shadow-beasts seenIn the deeps of the dark-wooded waters of green.
It is man in his garden, scarce wakened as yetFrom the sleep that fell on him when woman was made.The new-finished garden is plastic and wetFrom the hand that has fashioned its unpeopled shade;And the wonder still looks from the fair woman’s eyesAs she shines through the wood like the light from the skies.
And a ship now and then from some far Ophir’s shoreDraws in from the sea. It lies close to the bank;Then a dull, muffled sound of the slow-shuffled plankAs they load the black ship; but you hear nothing more,And the dark dewy vines, and the tall sombre woodLike 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 mossThat mantle all things like the shreds of a wreck;The long mosses swing, there is never a breath:The river rolls still as the river of death.
Inthe beginning,—ay, beforeThe six-days’ labors were wello’er;Yea, while the world lay incomplete,Ere God had opened quite the doorOf this strange land for strong men’sfeet,—There lay against that westmost seaOne weird-wild land of mystery.
A far white wall, like fallen moon,Girt out the world. The forest laySo 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 streamsThat stretch to where no man may say.
Men reached it only from the sea,By black-built ships, that seemed to creepAlong the shore suspiciously,Like unnamed monsters of the deep.It was the weirdest land, I ween,That mortal eye has ever seen:
A dim, dark land of bird and beast,Black shaggy beasts with clovenclaw,—A land that scarce knew prayer or priest,Or law of man, or Nature’s law;Where no fixed line drew sharp dispute’Twixtsavage man and silent brute.
It hath a history most fitFor cunning hand to fashion on;No chronicler hath mentioned it;No buccaneer set foot upon.’T isof an outlawed SpanishDon,—A cruel man, with pirate’s goldThat loaded down his deep ship’s hold.
A deep ship’s hold of plundered gold!The golden cruise, the golden cross,From many a church of Mexico,From Panama’s mad overthrow,From many a ransomed city’s loss,From many a follower stanch and bold,And many a foeman stark and cold.
He found this wild, lost land. He drewHis ship to shore. His ruthless crew,Like Romulus, laid lawless handOn meek brown maidens of the land,And in their bloody forays boreRed firebrands along the shore.
The red men rose at night. They came,A firm, unflinching wall of flame;They swept, as sweeps some fateful seaO’erland of sand and level shoreThat howls in far, fierce agony.The red men swept that deep, dark shoreAs threshers sweep a threshing-floor.
And yet beside the slain Don’s doorThey left his daughter, as they fled:They spared her life, because she boreTheir Chieftain’s blood and name. The redAnd blood-stained hidden hoards of goldThey hollowed from the stout ship’s hold,And bore in many a slimcanoe—To where? The good priest only knew.
The course of life is like the sea:Men come and go; tides rise and fall;And that is all of history.The tide flows in, flows outto-day,—And that is all that man may say;Man is, man was,—and that is all.
Revenge at last came like atide,—’T wassweeping, deep, and terrible;The Christian found the land, and cameTo take possession in Christ’s name.For every white man that had diedI think a thousand red menfell,—A Christian custom; and the landLay lifeless as some burned-out brand.
Ere while the slain Don’s daughter grewA glorious thing, a flower of spring,A lithe slim reed, a sun-loved weed,A something more than mortal knew;A mystery of grace andface,—A silent mystery that stoodAn empress in that sea-set wood,Supreme, imperial in her place.
It might have been men’s lust forgold,—For all men knew that lawless crewLeft hoards of gold in that ship’s hold,That drew ships hence, and silent drewStrange Jasons to that steep wood shore,As if to seek that hiddenstore,—I never either cared or knew.
I say it might have been this goldThat ever drew and strangely drewStrong men of land, strange men of sea,To seek this shore of mysteryWith all its wondrous tales untold:The gold or her, which of the two?It matters not; I never knew.
But this I know, that as for me,Between that face and the hard fateThat kept me ever from my own,As some wronged monarch from his throne,God’s heaped-up gold of land or seaHad never weighed one feather’s weight.
Her home was on the woodedheight,—A woody home, a priest at prayer,A perfume in the fervid air,And angels watching her at night.I can but think upon the skiesThat bound that other Paradise.
Below a star-built arch, as grandAs ever bended heaven spanned;Tall trees like mighty columnsgrew—They loomed as if to pierce the blue,They reached as reaching heaven through.
The shadowed stream rolled far below,Where men moved noiseless to and froAs in some vast cathedral, whenThe calm of prayer comes to men,With benedictions, bending low.
Lo! wooded sea-banks, wild and steep!A trackless wood; a snowy coneThat lifted from this wood alone!This wild wide river, dark and deep!A ship against the shore asleep!
An Indian woman crept, a crone,Hard by about the land alone,The relic of her perished race.She wore rich, rudely-fashioned bandsOf gold above her bony hands:She hissed hot curses on the place!
Go seek the red man’s last retreat!A lonesome land, the haunted lands!Red mouths of beasts, red men’s red hands:Red prophet-priest, in mute defeat!
His boundaries in blood are writ!His land is ghostland! That is his,Whatever man may claim of this;Beware how you shall enter it!He stands God’s guardian of ghostlands;Ay, this same wrapped half-prophet standsAll nude and voiceless, nearer toThe awful God than I or you.
This bronzed child, by that river’s brink,Stood fair to see as you can think,As tall as tall reeds at her feet,As fresh as flowers in her hair;As sweet as flowers over-sweet,As fair as vision more than fair!
How beautiful she was! How wild!How pure as water-plant, thischild,—This one wild child of Nature hereGrown tall in shadows.And how nearTo God, where no man stood betweenHer eyes and scenes no man hathseen,—This maiden that so mutely stood,The one lone woman of that wood.
Stop still, my friend, and do not stir,Shut close your page and think of her.The birds sang sweeter for her face;Her lifted eyes were like a graceTo seamen of that solitude,However rough, however rude.
The rippled rivers of her hair,That ran in wondrous waves, somehowFlowed down divided by herbrow,—Half mantled her within its care,And flooded all, or bronze or snow,In its uncommon fold and flow.
A perfume and an incense layBefore her, as an incense sweetBefore blithe mowers of sweet MayIn early morn. Her certain feetEmbarked on no uncertain way.
Come, think how perfect before men,How sweet as sweet magnolia bloomEmbalmed in dews of morning, whenRich sunlight leaps from midnight gloomResolved to kiss, and swift to kissEre yet morn wakens man to bliss.
The days swept on. Her perfect yearWas with her now. The sweet perfumeOf womanhood in holy bloom,As when red harvest blooms appear,Possessed her now. The priest did prayThat saints alone should pass that way.
A red bird built beneath her roof,Brown squirrels crossed her cabin sill,And welcome came or went at will.A hermit spider wove his web,And up against the roof would spinHis net to catch mosquitoes in.
The silly elk, the spotted fawn,And all dumb beasts that came to drink,That stealthy stole upon the brinkIn that dim while that lies betweenThe coming night and going dawn,On seeing her familiar faceWould fearless stop and stand in place.
She was so kind, the beasts of nightGave her the road as if her right;The panther crouching overheadIn sheen of moss would hear her treadAnd bend his eyes, but never stirLest 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 grewImpatient; why, she hardly knew.
At last she sighed, uprose, and threwHer strong arms out as if to handHer love, sun-born and all completeAt birth, to some brave lover’s feetOn some far, fair, and unseen land,As knowing now not what to do!
How beautiful she was! Why, sheWas inspiration! She was bornTo walk God’s summer hills at morn,Nor waste her by this wood-dark sea.What wonder, then, her soul’s white wingsBeat at its bars, like living things!
Once more she sighed! She wandered throughThe sea-bound wood, then stopped and drewHer hand above her face, and sweptThe lonesome sea, and all day keptHer face to sea, as if she knewSome day, some near or distant day,Her destiny should come that way.
How proud she was! How darkly fair!How full of faith, of love, of strength!Her calm, proud eyes! Her great hair’slength,—Her long, strong, tumbled, careless hair,Half curled and knotted anywhere,From brow to breast, from cheek to chin,For love to trip and tangle in!
At last a tall strange sail was seen:It came so slow, so wearily,Came creeping cautious up the sea,As if it crept from out betweenThe half-closed sea and sky that layTight wedged together, far away.
She watched it, wooed it. She did prayIt might not pass her by, but bringSome love, some hate, some anything,To break the awful lonelinessThat like a nightly nightmare layUpon her proud and pent-up soulUntil it barely brooked control.
The ship crept silent up the sea,Andcame—You cannot understandHow fair she was, how sudden sheHad sprung, full-grown, to womanhood:How gracious, yet how proud and grand;How glorified, yet fresh and free,How human, yet how more than good.
The ship stole slowly, slowlyon;—Should you in Californian fieldIn ample flower-time beholdThe soft south rose lift like a shieldAgainst the sudden sun at dawn,A double handful of heaped gold,Why you, perhaps, might understandHow splendid and how queenly sheUprose beside that wood-set sea.
The storm-worn ship scarce seemed to creepFrom wave to wave. It scarce couldkeep—How still this fair girl stood, how fair!How proud her presence as she stoodBetween that vast sea and west wood!How large and liberal her soul,How confident, how purely chare,How trusting; how untried the wholeGreat heart, grand faith, that blossomed there!
Ay, she was as Madonna toThe tawny, lawless, faithful fewWho touched her hand and knew her soul:She drew them, drew them as the polePoints all things to itself.She drewMen upward as a moon of spring,High wheeling, vast and bosom-full,Half clad in clouds and white as wool,Draws all the strong seas following.
Yet still she moved as sad, as loneAs that same moon that leans above,And seems to search high heaven throughFor some strong, all-sufficient love,For one brave love to be her own,To lean upon, to love, to woo,To lord her high white world, to yieldHis clashing sword against her shield.
Oh, I once knew a sad, white doveThat died for such sufficient love,Such high-born soul with wings to soar:That stood up equal in its place,That looked love level in the face,Nor wearied love with leaningo’erTo lift love level where she trodIn sad delight the hills of God.
How slow before the sleeping breeze,That stranger ship from under seas!How like to Dido by her sea,When reaching armsimploringly,—Her large, round, rich, impassioned arms,Tossed forth from all her storiedcharms,—This one lone maiden leaning stoodAbove that sea, beside the wood!
The ship crept strangely up the seas;Her shrouds seemed shreds, her masts seemedtrees,—Strange tattered trees of toughest boughThat knew no cease of storm till now.The maiden pitied her; she prayedHer crew might come, nor feel afraid;She prayed the winds might come,—they came,As birds that answer to a name.
The maiden held her blowing hairThat bound her beauteous self about;The sea-winds housed within her hair:She let it go, it blew in routAbout her bosom full and bare.Her round, full arms were free as air,Her high hands clasped, as clasped in prayer.
The breeze grew bold, the battered shipBegan to flap her weary wings;The tall, torn masts began to dipAnd walk the wave like living things.She rounded in, she struck the stream,She moved like some majestic dream.
The captain kept her deck. He stoodA Hercules among his men;And now he watched the sea, and thenHe peered as if to pierce the wood.He now looked back, as if pursued,Now swept the sea with glass, as thoughHe fled or feared some hidden foe.
Swift sailing up the river’s mouth,Swift tacking north, swift tacking south,He touched the overhanging wood;He tacked his ship; his tall black mastTouched tree-top mosses as he passed;He touched the steep shore where she stood.
Her hands still clasped as if in prayer,Sweet prayer set to silentness;Her sun-browned throat uplifted, bareAnd beautiful.Her eager faceIllumed with love and tenderness,And all her presence gave such grace,Dark shadowed in her cloud of hair,That she seemed more than mortal fair.
He saw. He could not speak. No moreWith lifted glass he sought the sea;No more he watched the wild new shore.Now foes might come, now friends might flee;He could not speak, he would notstir,—He saw but her, he feared but her.
The black ship ground against the shore,She ground against the bank as oneWith long and weary journeys done,That would not rise to journey more.
Yet still this Jason silent stoodAnd gazed against that sun-lit wood,As one whose soul is anywhere.
All seemed so fair, so wondrous fair!At last aroused, he stepped to landLike some Columbus. They laid handOn lands and fruits, and rested there.
He found all fairer than fair mornIn sylvan land, where waters runWith downward leap against the sun,And full-grown sudden May is born.He found her taller than tall cornTiptoe in tassel; found her sweetAs vale where bees of Hybla meet.
An unblown rose, an unread book;A wonder in her wondrous eyes;A large, religious, steadfast lookOf faith, of trust,—the look of oneNew welcomed in her Paradise.
He read this book,—read on and onFrom titlepage to colophon:As in cool woods, some summer day,You find delight in some sweet lay,And so entranced read on and onFrom titlepage to colophon.
And who was he that restedthere,—This Hercules, so huge, so rare,This giant of a grander day,This Theseus of a nobler Greece,This Jason of the golden fleece?And who was he? And who were theyThat came to seek the hidden goldLong hallowed from the pirate’s hold?I do not know. You need not care.
. . . . . .
They loved, this maiden and this man,And that is all I surelyknow,—The rest is as the winds that blow.He bowed as brave men bow to fate,Yet proud and resolute and bold;She, coy at first, and mute and cold,Held back and seemed tohesitate,—Half frightened at this love that ranHard gallop till her hot heart beatLike sounding of swift courser’s feet.
Two strong streams of a land must runTogether surely as the sunSucceeds the moon. Who shall gainsayThe fates that reign, that wisely reign?Love is, love was, shall be again.Like death, inevitable it is;Perchance, like death, the dawn of bliss.Let us, then, love the perfect day,The twelveo’clockof life, and stopThe two hands pointing to the top,And hold them tightly while we may.
How piteous strange is love! The walksBy wooded ways; the silent talksBeneath the broad and fragrant bough.The dark deep wood, the dense black dell,Where scarce a single gold beam fellFrom out the sun.They rested nowOn mossy trunk. They wandered thenWhere never fell the feet of men.
Then longer walks, then deeper woods,Then sweeter talks, sufficient sweet,In denser, deepersolitudes,—Dear careless ways for careless feet;Sweet talks of paradise for two,And only two, to watch or woo.
She rarely spake. All seemed a dreamShe would not waken from. She layAll night but waiting for the day,When she might see his face, and deemThis man, with all his perils passed,Had found the Lotus-land at last.
The year waxed fervid, and the sunFell central down. The forest layA-quiver in the heat. The seaBelow the steep bank seemed to runA molten sea of gold.AwayAgainst the gray and rock-built islesThat broke the molten watery milesWhere 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 breezeSwept twenty thousand miles of seas;Had twenty thousand things to sayOf love, of lovers of Cathay,To lovers’midthese high-held trees.
To left, to right, below the height,Below the wood by wave and stream,Plumed pampas grasses grew to gleamAnd bend their lordly plumes, and runAnd shake, as if in very frightBefore sharp lances of the sun.
They saw the tide-bound battered shipCreep close below against the bank;They saw it cringe and shrink; it shrankAs shrinks some huge black beast with fearWhen some uncommon dread is near.They heard the melting resin drip,As drip the last brave blood-drops whenLife’s battle waxes hot with men.
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 cameFrom sea-lost spice-set isles unknown,With breath not warmer than their own:They loved, they loved,—and that was all.
Full noon! Below the ancient mossWith mighty boughs high clanged across,The man with sweet words, over-sweet,Fell pleading, plaintive, at her feet.
He spake of love, of boundlesslove,—Of love that knew no other land,Or face, or place, or anything;Of love that like the wearied doveCould light nowhere, but kept the wingTill she alone put forth her hand,And so received it in her arkFrom seas that shake against the dark!
He clasped her hands, climbed past her knees,Forgot her hands and kissed herhair,—The while her two hands clasped in prayer,And fair face lifted to the trees.
Her proud breast heaved, her pure proud breastRose like the waves in their unrestWhen counter storms possess the seas.Her mouth, her arched, uplifted mouth,Her ardent mouth that thirstedso,—No glowing love-song of the SouthCan say; no man can say or knowThe glory there, and so live onContent without that glory gone!
Her face still lifted up. And sheDisdained the cup of passion heHard pressed her panting lips to touch.She dashed it by despised, and sheCaught fast her breath. She trembled much,And sudden rose full height, and stoodAn empress in high womanhood:She stood a tower, tall as whenProud Roman mothers suckled menOf old-time truth and taught them such.
Her soul surged vast as space is. SheWas trembling as a courser whenHis thin flank quivers, and his feetTouch velvet on the turf, and heIs all afoam, alert, and fleetAs sunlight glancing on the sea,And full of triumph before men.
At last she bended some her face,Half leaned, then put him back a pace,And met his eyes.Calm, silentlyHer eyes looked deep into hiseyes,—As maidens down some mossy wellDo peer in hope by chance to tellBy image there what future liesBefore them, and what face shall beThe pole-star of their destiny.
Pure Nature’s lover! Loving himWith love that made all pathways dimAnd difficult where he wasnot,—Then marvel not at form forgot.And who shall chide? Doth priest know aughtOf sign, or holy unction broughtFrom over seas, that ever canMake man love maid or maid love manOne whit the more, one bit the less,For all his mummeries to bless?Yea, all his blessing or his ban?
The winds breathed warm as Araby:She leaned upon his breast, she layA wide-winged swan with folded wing.He drowned his hot face in her hair,He heard her great heart rise and sing;He felt her bosom swell.The airSwooned sweet with perfume of her form.Her breast was warm, her breath was warm,And warm her warm and perfumed mouthAs summer journeys through the South.
The argent sea surged steep below,Surged languid in a tropic glow;And two great hearts kept surging so!
The fervid kiss of heaven layPrecipitate on wood and sea.Two great souls glowed with ecstasy,The sea glowed scarce as warm as they.
’T waslove’s low amber afternoon.Two far-off pheasants thrummed a tune,A cricket clanged a restful air.The dreamful billows beat a runeLike heart regrets.Around her headThere shone a halo. Men have said’T wasfrom a dash of TitianThat flooded all her storm of hairIn gold and glory. But they knew,Yea, all men know there ever grewA halo round about her headLike sunlight scarcely vanishèd.
How still she was! She only knewHis love. She saw no life beyond.She loved with love that only livesOutside itself andselfishness,—A love that glows in its excess;A love that melts pure gold, and givesThenceforth to all who come to wooNo coins but this face stampedthereon,—Ay, this one image stamped uponIts face, with some dim date long gone.
They kept the headland high; the shipBelow began to chafe her chain,To groan as some great beast in pain;While white fear leapt from lip to lip:“The woods are fire! the woods are flame!Come down and save us, in God’s name!”
He heard! he did not speak orstir,—He thought of her, of only her.While flames behind, before them layTo hold the stoutest heart at bay!
Strange sounds were heard far up theflood,—Strange, savage sounds that chilled the blood!Then sudden from the dense dark woodAbove, about them where they stoodA thousand beasts came peering out;And now was thrust a long black snout,And now a tusky mouth. It wasA sight to make the stoutest pause.
“Cut loose the ship!” the black mate cried;“Cut loose the ship!” the crew replied.They drove into the sea. It layAs light as ever middle day.
The while their half-blind bitch, that satAll slobber-mouthed, and monkish cowledWith great, broad, floppy, leathern ears,Amid the men, rose up and howled,And doleful howled her plaintive fears,While all looked mute aghast thereat.It was the grimmest eve, I think,That ever hung on Hades’ brink.
Great broad-winged bats possessed the air,Bats whirling blindly everywhere;It was such troubled twilight eveAs never mortal would believe.
Some say the crazed hag lit the woodIn circle where the lovers stood;Some say the gray priest feared the crewMight find at last the hoard of goldLong hidden from the black ship’shold,—I doubt me if men ever knew.But such mad, howling, flame-lit shoreNo mortal ever saw before.
Huge beasts above that shining sea,Wild, hideous beasts with shaggy hair,With red mouths lifting in the air,They piteous howled, andplaintively,—The wildest sounds, the weirdest sightThat ever shook the walls of night.
How lorn they howled, with lifted head,To dim and distant isles that layWedged tight along a line of red,Caught in the closing gates of day’Twixtsky and sea and faraway,—It was the saddest sound to hearThat ever struck on human ear.
They doleful called; and answered theyThe plaintive sea-cows faraway,—The great sea-cows that called from isles,Away across wide watery miles,With dripping mouths and lolling tongue,As if they called for capturedyoung,—
The huge sea-cows that called the whilesTheir great wide mouths were mouthing moss;And still they doleful called acrossFrom isles beyond the watery miles.No sound can half so doleful beAs sea-cows calling from the sea.
The drowned sun sank and died. He layIn seas of blood. He sinking drewThe gates of sunset sudden to,Where shattered day in fragments lay,And night came, moving in mad flame:The night came, lighted as he came,As lighted by high summer sunDescending through the burning blue.It was a gold and amber hue,And all hues blended into one.The night spilled splendor where she came,And filled the yellow world with flame.
The moon came on, came leaning lowAlong the far sea-isles aglow;She fell along that amber floodA silver flame in seas of blood.It was the strangest moon, ah me!That ever settled on God’s sea.
Slim snakes slid down from fern and grass,From wood, from fen, from anywhere;You could not step, you would not pass,And you would hesitate to stir,Lest in some sudden, hurried treadYour foot struck some unbruisèd head:
They slid in streams into thestream,—It seemed like some infernal dream;They curved, and graceful curved across,Like graceful, waving sea-greenmoss,—There is no art of man can makeA ripple like a rippling snake!
Abandoned, lorn, the lovers stood,Abandoned there, death in the air!That beetling steep, that blazingwood,—Red flame! and red flame everywhere!Yet was he born to strive, to bearThe front of battle. He would dieIn noble effort, and defyThe grizzled visage of despair.
He threw his two strong arms full lengthAs if to surely test their strength;Then tore his vestments, textile thingsThat could but tempt the demon wingsOf flame that girt them round about,Then threw his garments to the airAs one that laughed at death, at doubt,And like a god stood grand and bare.
She did not hesitate; she knewThe need of action; swift she threwHer burning vestments by, and boundHer wondrous wealth of hair that fellAn all-concealing cloud aroundHer glorious presence, as he cameTo seize and bear her through theflame,—An Orpheus out of burning hell!
He leaned above her, wound his armAbout her splendor, while the noonOf flood-tide, manhood, flushed his face,And high flames leapt the highheadland!—They stood as twin-hewn statues stand,High lifted in some storied place.
He clasped her close, he spoke ofdeath,—Of death and love in the same breath.He clasped her close; her bosom layLike ship safe anchored in some bay.
The flames! They could not stand or stay;Before the beetling steep, the sea!But at his feet a narrow way,A short steep path, pitched suddenlySafe open to the river’s beach,Where lay a small white isle inreach,—A small, white, rippled isle of sandWhere yet the two might safely land.
And there, through smoke and flame, beholdThe priest stood safe, yet all appalled!He reached the cross; he cried, he called;He waved his high-held cross of gold.He called and called, he bade them flyThrough flames to him, nor bide and die!
Her lover saw; he saw, and knewHis giant strength would bear her through.And yet he would not start or stir.He clasped her close as death can hold,Or dying miser clasp hisgold,—His hold became a part of her.
He would not give her up! He wouldNot bear her waveward though he could!That height was heaven; the wave was hell.He clasped her close,—what else had doneThe manliest man beneath the sun?Was it not well? was it not well?
O man, be glad! be grandly glad,And kinglike walk thy ways of death!For more than years of bliss you hadThat one brief time you breathed her breath.Yea, more than years upon a throneThat one brief time you held her fast,Soul surged to soul, vehement,vast,—True breast to breast, and all your own.
Live me one day, one narrow night,One second of supreme delightLike that, and I will blow like chaffThe hollow years aside, and laughA loud triumphant laugh, and I,King-like and crowned, will gladly die.
Oh, but to wrap my love with flame!With flame within, with flame without!Oh, but to die like this, nordoubt—To die and know her still the same!To know that down the ghostly shoreSnow-white she waits me evermore!
He poised her, held her high inair,—His great strong limbs, his great arm’slength!—Then turned his knotted shoulders bareAs birth-time in his splendid strength,And strode, strode with a lordly strideTo where the high and wood-hung edgeLooked down, far down upon the molten tide.The flames leapt with him to the ledge,The flames leapt leering at his side.
He leaned above the ledge. BelowHe saw the black ship idlycruise,—A midge below, a mile below.His limbs were knotted as the thewsOf Hercules in his death-throe.
The flame! the flame! the envious flame!She wound her arms, she wound her hairAbout his tall form, grand and bare,To stay the fierce flame where it came.
The black ship, like some moonlit wreck,Below along the burning seaCrept on and on all silently,With silent pygmies on her deck.
That midge-like ship far, far below;That mirage lifting from the hill!His flame-lit form began togrow,—To grow and grow more grandly still.The ship so small, that form so tall,It grew to tower over all.
A tall Colossus, bronze and gold,As if that flame-lit form were heWho once bestrode the Rhodian sea,And ruled the watery world of old:As if the lost Colossus stoodAbove that burning sea of wood.
And she, that shapely form upheld,Held high, as if to touch the sky,What airy shape, how shapelyhigh,—A goddess of the seas of eld!
Her hand upheld, her high right hand,As if she would forget the land;As if to gather stars, and heapThe stars like torches there to lightHer Hero’s path across the deepTo some far isle that fearful night.
It was as if Colossus came,Came proudly reaching from the flameAbove the sea in sheen of gold,His sea-bride leaping from his hold;The lost Colossus, and his brideIn bronze perfection at his side:As if the lost Colossus cameCompanioned from the past, his brideWith torch all faithful at his side:
With star-tipped torch that reached and rolledThrough cloud-built corridors of gold:His bride, austere and stern andgrand,—Bartholdi’s goddess by the sea,Far lifting, lighting LibertyFrom prison seas to Freedom’s land.