SONGS
op
THE SUN-LANDS.
BY
JOAQUIN MILLER,
AUTHOR OF "SONGS OF THE 55ERRA5.'
"The earth hath bobbles, as the water has,
And these are of them."
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1873. 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
C. H. MILLER,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
CAMBRIDGE:
PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON. 
TO TllL ROSSETTIS.  
CONTENTS.
PAGE
ISLES OF THE AMAZONS                7
FROM SEA TO SEA                   105
B~ THE SUN-DOWN SEAS              115
IN THE INDIAN SUMMER              149
OLIVE LEAVES: -
At Bethiehein                   105
In Palestine                    167
Beyond Jordan                   169
Faith                           170
`lope                           171
Charity                         173
The Last Supper                 176
A Song for Peace                178
FALLEN LFAVEs: -
Palm Leaves                     183 
Vi              CONTEiVTS.
FALLEN LEAVES: -                        PAGE
Tbomas of Tigre                       184
In Yosemite Valley                    189
Dead in the Sierras                     S
In Southern California                190
~Vho shall say~                       192
A Love Song                           194
Down into the Dust                    195
In San Francisco'                     197
Shadows of Shasta                     199
At Sea                                200
A ~Iemory of Santa Barbara            201
Summer Frosts                         201
Sleep that was not Sleep              205
" Sierras Adios"                      209 
ISLES OF TllE AMAZONS.
PART I. 
Primeval forests! virgin soj!
TItat Saxon lait not ravislt'd yet!
Lo! ~eak on peak in column set,
In stepping stairs that reach to Uod!
Here we are free as sea or winj,
For here are set the snowy tents
In everlasting battlements,
Against the march of Saxon mind. 
SONGS OF THE SUN-LANDS.
ISLES 0~ TllE AMAZONS.
PRELUDE
~ELL! who shall lay hand on my harp but me,
Or shall chide my song fi'om the sounding trees?
The passionate sun and the resolute sea,
These were my masters, and only these.
These were my masters, and only these,
And these from the first I obey'd, and they
Shall command me now, and I shall obey
As a dutiful child that is proud to please.
There never were measures as true as the sun,
Tile sea hath a song that is passingly sweet,
And yet they repeat, and repeat, and repeat,
The same old runes though the new years run.
1* 
10      ISLES OF THE AMAZOATS.
By unn~med rivers of the Oregon north,
That roll dark-heaved into turhuleut hills,
I have made my home....  The wild heart il~nlls
NYith memories fierce, and ff world stornis forth.
On eminent peaks that are daA~ with pine,
And mantled in shadows and voiced in storius,
I have made my camps: majestic gray f~rms
Of the thunder-clouds, they were companions of mine;
And face set to face, like to lords austere,
llave we talk'd, red-tongued, of the mysteries
Of the circhag sun, of the oracled seas,
N\rhile ye who judged me had mantled in fear.
Some fiagment of thought in the unfinish'd words;
A cry of fierce fleedom, and I daim no more.
~Vhat more would you have fi~om the tender of herds
And of horse on an ultimate Oregon shore?
From men unto God go forth, as alone,
~~here the dark pines talk in their tones of the sea
To the unseen God in a hai~mony
Of the under seas, and know the unknown. 
JSLES OF THE AAfAZONS~             II
`~Iid white Sierras, that slope to the sea,
Lie turbulent lands.  Go dwell ill the skies,
And the thundering tongues of Yosemit6
Shall persuade you to silence, and you shall be wise.
Yea, men may deride, and the thing it is well;
Turn well and aside from il~e one wild note
To the song of the bird with the tanie, sweet throat;
But the sea sings on in his cave and shell.
Let the white moons ride, let the red stars fall,
o great, sweet sea! 0 fearful and sweet!
Thy songs they repeat, and repeat, and repeat:
And these, I say, shall survive us all.
I but sing for the love of song and the few
Who loved me first and shall love me last;
And the storm shall pass as the storms have pass'd,
i~oi' never were clouds but the sun came through. 
PART I.
I.
~AR up in il~e hush of the Amazon River,
And mantled and hung in the tropical trees,
There are isles as grand as the isles of the seas;
And the waves strike strophes, and keen reeds quiver,
As the sudden canoe shoots apast them and over
The strong, still tide to the opposite shore,
Where il~e blue-eyed men by the sycamore
Sit mending their nets`neath the vine-twined cover;
II.
Sit weaving their threads of bark and of grasses,
They wind and they spin, on the clumsy wheel,
Into hammocks red-hued with the cochineal,
To trade with the single black ship that passes,
With foreign old freightage of curious old store,
And as still and ~s slo~v as if half asleep,
A cunning old trader that loves to creep
Above and adown in the shade of the shore. 
JSLES OF THE AMAZONS.`3
III.
And the blue-eyed men that are mild as the dawns -
Oh, delicate dawns of the grand Andes! -
Lift up soft eyes that are deep like seas,
And mild yet wild as the red-white fawns';
iv.
And they gaze into yours, then weave, then listen,
Then look in wonder, then again weave on,
Then again look wonder that you are not gone,
While the keen reeds quiver and the bent waves glisten;
Y.
But they say no words while they weave and wonder,
Though they sometimes sing, voiced low like the dove,
And as deep and as rich as their tropical love,
A-weaving their net threads through and under.
vi.
Yea, a pure, true people you may trust are these,
That weave their threads where the quick leaves
quiver;
And this is their tale of the Isles of the river,
And the why that their eyes are so blue like seas, 
`4       fSLES OF THE AMAZO;VS.
And the why that the men draw water and bear
The wine or the water in the wild boar skin,
And do live in the woods, aud do weave and spin,
And so bear with the women full burthen and share.
VII.
A curious old tale of a curious old time,
That is told you bet(mes by a quaint old crone,
~Yho sits on the rim of an island alone,
As ever was told you in story or rhyme.
VIII.
Her brown, b~re feet dip down to the river,
And dabble and p] ash to her comical tone;
And she holds in her hands a strange green stone,
As she talks to the boat where the bent reeds qniver.
Ix.
And the quaint old crone has a singular way
Of holding her head to the side and askew,
And smoothing the stone in her palms all day,
As saying, "I`ve nothing at a]l for you,"
Until you have anointed her palm, and you
Have touch'd on the delicate spring of a door
That~silver has open'd perhaps before;
For woman is woman the wide world through. 
JSLES OF THE AffAZO~VS.             15
x.
The old near truth on the far new shore!
I bought and I paid for it; so did you:
The tale may be false or the tale may be true;
I give as I got it, and who can more?
And if I have purchased a beautiful lie,
And liked it wdl, and believed it true,
I have done it before; and so have you,
And have been contented, and so have I.
XI.
If I have made journeys to difficult shores,
And woven delusions in innocent verse,
If none be the wiser, why, who is the worse?
The field it was mine, and the fruit it is yours.
XI'.
A sudden told tale.  You may read as you run.
A part of it hers, some part is my own,
Crude, and too carelessly woven and sown,
As I sail'd on the Mexican seas in the sun.
XIII.
She tells in her tale of a brave young knight,
A singer and knight of most knightly birth,
Aback in the darlingest days of th~ earth;
Oh, dear old days that are lost to sight! 
i6      JSLES OF THE AMAZONS.
xIy.
Oh, dear old days, when th() hot rhymes rang
Like steel upon steel whei~ toss'd to the sky;
When lovers could love, when maidens could die
But never deceive, and the song~men sang
In passion as pure as the blush of the grape,
To clashing of swords, for a maiden's s'veet sigh,
Nor measured for gold as men measuring tape,
Who turn ftom the counter to turning of lays
On degenerate deeds in degenerate days.
xv.
Ocarpet~knight singer! shrewd merchant of song!
Get gold and he glad, buy, sell, and be strong!
Sweet Cyprian, I kiss you, I pay you, we part:
Go! you have my gold, but who has my heart?
Go, splendid made singer, so flnish'd, so fair,
Go sing you of heaven, with never a prayer,
Of hearts that are aching, with never a heart,
Of Nature, all girded and bridled by art;
Go sing you of battles, with never a scar,
Of sunlight, with never a soul for the noon;
~Iove cold and alone like a broken, b~ght moon,
And shimmer and shine like a far, cold star. 
fSLES OF THE AMAZONS.`7
xyI.
`Twas nations ago, when the Amazons were,
That a fair young kn~ht - says the quaint old crone,
With her head sidewise, as she smoothes at the stone -
Came over the seas, with his golden hair,
And a great black steed, and glittering spurs,
And a sword that had come from crusaders down,
And a womaMy face in a manly frown,
And a heart as tender and as true as hers.
xyIT.
And fairest, and foremost in love as in war
Was the brave young knight of the brave old days
Of all of the knights, with their knightly ways,
That had jonrney'd away to the world afar
In the name of Spain; of the splendid few
~7ho bore her banner in the new-born world,
From the sea-Am, up where the clouds are curl'd,
And the condors beat their wings in the blue.
xyIIT.
He was born, says the crone, where the brave are fair,
And blown from the banks of the Guadalquiver,
B 
iS       fSLES OF THE AMAZO~VS.
And yet blue-eyed, with the Celt's soft hair,
With never a drop of the dark, deep river
Of ~1ooAsh blood that had swept through Spain,
And pJash'd the woAd with its tawny stain.
xlx.
lle sat on his steed, and his sword was bloody
With heathen blood; the batde was done;
And crown'd in ~re, wreathed and ruddy
With antique temples built up to the sun,
Below on the plain lay the beautiful city
At the conquerors' feet; the red street strown
With dead, with gold, and with gods overthrown.
flis heart rebell'd and arose with pity,
lle raised his head with a proud disdain,
And rein'd his steed on the reeking plain,
As the heathen pour'd, in a helpless flood,
With never a wail and with never a blow,
At last, to even provoke a foe,
Through gateways, wet with the pagan's blood.
xx.
llo, forward! smite!  but the minstrel linger'd,
He reach'd his hand anc~ he touch'd the rca,
lIe humm'd an air, and he toy'd and ~nger'd
The arching neck and the glossy mane.
 
ISLES OF THE AMAZOJVS.             19
xxl.
He rested tbe beel, be rested the hand,
Though il~e thing was death to tbe man to dare
To doubt, to question, to falter there,
Kor heeded at all to the hot command.
xxII.
lie wiped his steel on his black steed's mane,
lie sheathed it deep, then look'd at the sun,
Then counted his comrades, one by one,
With booty return'd fl~om the plunder'd plain.
xxIII.
lie lifted his face to the flashing snow,
lie lifted his shield of steel as he sang,
And he flung it away till it cl~u~g'd and rang
On the granite rocks in ~he plain bclow,
TThen cross'd his bosom.  ]\iade overbold,
He lifted his voice and sang, quite low
At first, then loud in the long-ago,
~Then a love endured though the days grew old.
xxIy.
They heard his song, the chief on the plain
Stood up in his stirrups, and, sword in hand,
 
20       JSLES OF THE AMAZONS.
lie cursed and he call'd with a loud command
To the blue-eyed boy to return again;
To lift his shield again to the sky,
And come and surrender his sword or die.
xxv.
lie wove his hand in the stormy mane,
lie lean'd him forward, he lifted the rein,
lie struck the flank, he wheel'd and sprang,
And gayly rode in the face of the sun,
And bared his sword and he bravely sang,
"llo! come and take it!" but there came not one.
xxvi.
And so he sang, with his face to the south:
"I shall go; I shall search for the Amazon shore,
Where the curses of man they are heard no more,
And kisses alone shall embrace the mouth.
xxyII.
"I shall journey in sear~4~ of the mean Isles,
Go far and away to traditional land,
~Vhere Love is a queen in a crown of siuiles,
And battle has never imbrued a hand;
 
JSLES OF THE AMAZONS.           21
xxvIII.
"Where man has never despoiled or trod;
Where woman's hand with a woman's heart
llas fashion'd an Eden fiom man apart,
And she walks in her garden alone with God.
xxlx.
"I shall seek that Eden, and all my years
Shall sit and repose, shall sing in il~e sun;
And the tides may rest or il~e tides may run,
And men may water the woAd with tears;
xxx.
"And the years may come and the years may g~
And men make war, may slay and be slain,
But I not care, for I never shall know
Of man, or of aught that is man's agailI.
xxxi.
"The waves may battle, the winds may blow,
The mellow rich moons may ripen and fail,
The seasons of gold fl~ey may gather or go,
The mono may chatter, the paroq1iet call,
 
22      ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.
xxx".
"And who shall take heed, take note, or shall know
If the Fates befi4end, or if ill bef~ll,
Of worlds without, or of worlds at all,
Of heaven above, or of hell below."
xxx"'.
`Twas the song of a dream and the dream of a singer,
Drawn fine as the delicate fibres of gold,
And broken in two by the touch of a finger,
And blown as the winds blow, rent and roll'd
In dust, and spent as a tale that is told.
xxxIY.
Alas! for his dreams and the songs lie sung:
The beasts beset him; the serpents they hung,
Red-tongued and terrible, over his head.
lie clove and lie thrnst wifli his keen, quick steel,
lie coax'd with his hand and urged with his heel,
Till his steel was broken, and his steed lay dead.
xxxy.
lIe toil'd to the river, he lean'd intent
To the wave, and away through the fringe of boughs,
Fi~om beasts that pursned; and breathed his vows,
For soul and body were wdl-mgh spcnt. 
JSLES OF THE AMAZONS.            23
xxxyl.
flis arm arch'd over, as do arms on seas,
For sign, or for sound; the thin lips press'd,
And the two hands eross'd on the helpless breast,
For there came no sound through the sweep of the trees
xx xvii.
`Twas the king of rivers, and the Isles were near;
Yet it moved so strange, so still, so strong,
And gave no sound, not even the song
Of a sea-bird screaming defiance or fear.
xxxviii.
It was dark and dreadful!  Wide like an ocean,
Much like a river but more like a sea,
Save that there was naught of the turbulent motion
Of tides, or of winds blown back, or a-lee.
xxxix.
Yea, strangely strong was the wave and slow,
And half-way hid in the dark deep tide,
Great turtles they paddled them to and fro,
And away to the Isles and the opposfte side.
 
24        ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.
XL.
The nnde black boar through abundant grass
Stole down to the water and buried his nose,
And crush'd white teeth till the bubbles rose
As white and as bright as the globes of glass.
XLI.
Yea, steadily moved it, mi~e upon mile,
Above and below and as still as the air;
The bank made slippery here and there
By the slushing slide of the crocodile.
XLII.
The great trees bent to the tide like slaves;
They dipp'd their boughs as the stream swept on,
And then drew back, then dipp'd and were gone,
Away to the seas with the resolute waves.
XLIII.
The land was the tide's; the shore was undone;
It iook'd as the lawless, unsatisfied seas
llad thrust up an arm through the tangle of trees,
And clutch'd at the citrons that grew in the sun; 
ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.             25
And clutch'd at the diamonds that hid in the sand,
And laid heavy hand on the gold, and a hand
On the redolent fi'nits, on the rubies-like wine,
And the stones like the stars when the stars are divine;
XLIV.
llad thrust through the rocks of the ribb'd Andes;
llad wrested and fled; and bad left a waste
And a wide way strewn in precipitate haste,
As he bore them away to the buccaneer seas.
XLv.
0, heavens, the eloquent song of the silence!
Asleep lay the sun in the vines, on the sod,
And asleep in il~e sun lay the green-girdled islands,
As rock'd to their rest in the cradle of God.
xLvI.
God's poet is silence!  IIis song is unspoken,
And yet so profound, so loud, and so far,
It fills you, it thrills you with measures unbroken,
And as soft, and as fair, and as far as a star.
2 
26       ISLES OF THE AAiAZONS.
XLYII.
The sliallow seas moan.  From the first they have
mutter'd
And mourn'd, as a child, and have wept at their
will....
The poems of God are too grand to be utter'd:
The dreadful deep seas they are loudest when stilL
XL VIII.
"I shall die," he said, "by the solemn deep river,
By the king of the rivers, and the mother of seas,
So far, and so far from my Guadalquiver,
Near, and so near to the dreaded Andes.
XLTX.
"Let me sing one song by the grand old river,
And die;" and he reaeh'd and he brake him a reed
From the rim of the river, where fl~ey lift and quiver,
And he trimm'd it and noteh'd it with all his speed
With his treacherous blade, in the sweep of the trees,
As he stood with his head bent low on his breast,
And the vines in his hair and the wave to his knees,
And bow'd like to one who would die to rest.
 
ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.                27
L.
"I shall fold my hands, for il~is is the river
Of death," he said, "and the sea-green isle
Isan Eden set by the gracious Giver
~Vherein to rest."  lie listened the while,
Then lifted his head, then lifted a hand
Arch'd over his brow, and he lean'd and listen'd, -
`Twas only a bird on a border of sand,
The dark stream eddy'd and gleam'd and glistcn'd
Stately and still as the march of a moon,
And the martial notes from the isle were gone, -
Gone as a dream dies oat with the dawn,
And gone as far as the night ftom the noon.
LI.
`Twas only a bird on a border of sand,
Slow piping, and diving it here and there,
Slim, gray, and shadowy, light as the air,
That dipp'd below from a point of the land.
LIT.
"Unto God a prayer and to love a tear,
And I die," he said, "in a desert here,
So deep that never a note is heard
But the listless song of that soulless bird." 
28       JSLES OF THE AMAZONS.
LIII.
He moved to a burthen of blossoms rare,
And stood in the red-white sweets to his knees, -
The pink and the purple that filled the air
With fragrance sweet as a breeze of bees.
LIV.
He crush'd the blooms to the sod untrod,
The mateless man, in an Eden, fair
As the one of old, in his fierce despair,
So hidden from man by the hand of God;
LV.
Ay, hidden above by the vines and mosses,
And zoned about by the tide like seas,
And curtain'd above by the linden-trees,
Well wove and inwove in intricate crosses;
Lv'.
The trees that lean'd in their love unto trees,
That lock'd in their loves, and were so made strong,
Stronger than armies; ay, stronger than seas
That rush from their caves in a storm of song.
LVIL
"A miser of old his last, great treasure
Flung far in the sea, and he fell and he died;
And so shall I give, 0 terrible tide,
To you my song and my last sad measure? 
ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.           29
~yIfl.
lle blew on his reed by the still, strong nver,
Blew low at first, like a dream, then lo~g,
Then loud, then loud as the keys that quiver,
And fi~et, and toss with their freight of song.
LIX.
lle sang and he sang with a resolute will,
Till the mono rested above on his haunches,
And held his head to the side and was still, -
Till a bird blew out of the night of branches,
Alit on a reed, and with delicate skill
Sang sadder than love, so sweeter than sad,
Till the boughs did burthen and the reeds did fill
Wfth beautifal birds, and the boy was glad.
LX.
Our loves they are told by the myriad-eyed stars,
Yet love it is well in a reasonable way,
And fame it is fair in its way for a day,
Borne dusty ftom books and bloody from wars;
And death, I say, is an absolute need,
And a cMm delight, and an ultimate good; 
30       JSLES OF THE AMAZONS.
But a song that is blown from a watery reed
By a soundless deep from a boundless wood,
Wi4~ never a hearer to heed or to prize
But God and the birds and the hairy wlld beasts,
Is sweeter than love, than fame, or than feasts,
Or any thing else that is under the skies.
LXL
The quick leaves quiver'd, and the sunlight danced;
As the boy sang sweet, and the birds said, "Sweet;"
And the tiger crept close, and lay low at his feet,
And he sheath'd his claws in the sun, entranced.
LXII.
The serpent that hung from the sycamore bough,
And sway'd his head in a crescent above,
llad folded his neck to the white limb now,
And fondled it close like a great black love.
LXIII.
But the hands grew weary, the heart wax'd faint,
The loud notes fell to a far-off plaint,
The sweet birds echo'd no more, "Oh, sweet,"
The tiger arose and nnsheath'd his claws,
The serpent extended his iron jaws,
And the fi'ail reed shiver'd and fell at his fee~ 
ISLES OF THE AMAZOAW.               31
~XIV.
A sound on the tide, and he turiied and cried,
"Oh, give God thanks, for they come, they come!"
lle look'd out afar on the opaline tide,
Then clasp'd his hands, and his lips were dumb.
LXV.
A sweeping swfft crescent of sudden canoes!
As light as the sun of the south and as soon,
And true and as still as a sweet half-moon
That leans ftom the heavens, and loves and wooes!
LXVI.
The Amazons came in their martial pride,
As fall on the stream as a studding of stars,
All girded in armor as girded in wars,
In fo~my white furrows dividing the tide.
LXVII.
With a face as brown as the boatmen's are,
Or the brave, brown hand of a harvester;
And girdled in gold, and crown'd in hair
In a storm of night, all studded with rare 
32       JSLES OF THE AMAZONS~.
Rich stones, that fretted the full of a noon,
The Queen on a prow stood splendid and tall,
As petulant waters would lift, and fall,
And beat, and bubble a watery rune:
LXYIII.
Stood forth for the song, half lean'd in surprise,
Stood fair to behold, and yet grand to behold,
And austere in her face, and saturnine-soul'd,
And sad and subdued, in her eloquent eyes.
LXIX.
And sad were they all; yet tall and serene
Of presence, but silent, and brow'd severe
As for some things lost, or for somo fair, green,
And beautiful place, to the memory dear.
LXX.
"0 Mother of God!  Thnce~merciful saint!
I am saved!" he said, and he wept outright;
Ay, wept as even a woman might,
~or the soul was full and the heart was faint. 
ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.             33
LXXL
"Stay! stay!" cried the Qneen, and she leapt to the
land,
And she lifted her hand, and she lower'd their spears,
A woman! a woman! ho! help! give a hand!
"A woman! a woman! we know by the tears."
LXXII.
Then gently as touch of the truest of woman,
They lifted him up from the earth as he fell,
And into the boat, with a half-hidden swell
Of the heart that was holy and tenderly human.
LXXIll.
They spoke low-voiced as a vesper prayer;
They pillowed his head as only the hand
Of woman can pillow, and push'd from the land,
And the Queen she sat threading the gold of his hair.
LXXIY.
Then away with the wave, and away to the Isles,
In a song of the oars of the crescented fleet
That timed together in musical wiles
In bubbles of melodies swift and sweet.
2*               c  
ISLES OF TliE AMAZONS.
PART IL 
Forsake the city.  Follow me
To where the white caps of a sea
Of mountains break and break again,
As blown in foam against a star -
As breaks the fury of a main -
And there remains, asftx'd, as far.
Forsake the people.  What are they
That laugh, that live, that love, by rule?
Forsake the Saxon.  What are these
That shun the shadows of the trees:
The Druid-forests?...  Go thy way,
We are not one.  I will not please
You -fare you well, 0 wiser fool I
But you who love me; - Ye who love
The shaggy forests, 4erce delights
Of sounding waterfalls, of heights
That hang like broken moons above,
With brows of pine that brush the sun,
Believe and follow.  We are one;
The wild man shall to us be tame;
The woods shall yield their mysteries;
The stars shall answer to a name,
And be as birds above the trees.
 
ISLES  OF  TllE AMAZONS.
PRELUDE.
1N the days when my mother, the Earth, was young,
And you all were not, nor the likeness of you,
She walk'd in her maidenly prime ~mong
The moonlit stars in the boundless blue.
Then the great sun lifted his shining shield,
And he fiash'd his sword as the soldiers do,
And he moved like a king full over the field,
And he look'd, and he loved her br~e and true.
And looking afar from the ultimate rim,
As he lay at rest in a reach of light,
lie beheld her walking alone at night,
Where the buttercup stars in their beauty swim.
So he rose up finsh'd in his love, and he ran,
And he readi'd his arms, and around her waist
He wound them strong like a love-struck man,
And he kiss'd and embraced her, brave and chaste.
 
38      ISLES OF THE AAiAZO~S.
So he nur~cd his love like a babe at its bir4~,
And he warm'd ill his love as the long years ran,
Then embraced her again, and sweet mother Earth
Was a mother indeed, and her child was man.
The sun is the sire, the mother is earth!
What more do you know? what more do I need?
The one he begot, and the one gave birth,
And I love them both, and let laugh at your creed.
And who shall pronounce that the child of the sun,
With his rich sun-worship, was utterly wrong
In the far, new years when the stars kept song?
But judge, and be judged; - condemn, and have done.
-And who shall proclaim they were all unwise
In their great, warm faith?  Time answers us not:
The quick fool questions; but who replies?
The wise man hesitates, hush'd in thought.
 
PAi~T II.
I.
~~llEY swept to the Isles through the furrows of foam,
They alit on the land as love hastening home,
And below the banana, with leaf like a tent,
They tenderly laid him, they bade him take rest;
They brought hiin strange ~shes and fruits of the best,
And he ate and took rest with a patient content.
II.
They watch'd with him well, and he rose up strong;
lle stood in their midst, and they said, "llow fair!"
And they said, "llow tall!"  And they toy'd with
his hair,
And il~ey toueh'd his limbs, and they said, "llow long!
And how strong they are; and how brave she is,
That she made her way through the wiles of man,
That she braved his wrath, that she broke the ban
Of his desolate life for the loves of this!" 
40       ISLES OF THE AAfAZOiVS.
IlL
They wove for him garments with womanly pride,
But he held his head with a sense of shame
In his strange deceit and his sex denied,
Then pursed his brow with a touch of blame.
I~.
They wrought for him armor of cunning attire,
They brought Lim a sword and a great shell shield,
And implored him to shiver the lance on the field,
And to follow their beautiflil Queen in her ire.
V.
But he took him apart; then the Amazons came
And entreated of him with their eloquent eyes
And their earnest and passionate souls of flame,
And the soft, sweet words that are broken of sighs,
To be one of their own, but he still denied,
And he warr'd with himseff, and his chivalrous heart
Arose and rebell'd at the treacherous part
lle play'd for his life; and he grew to despise
The thought of himself with a shudder of shame,
And bow'd and abash'd he stole farther aside. 
ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.     41
yI.
He stood by the palms and he lean'd in unrest,
And standing alone, look'd out and afar,
For his own fair land where the castles are,
With irresolute arms on a restless breast.
vi'.
He relived his loves, and recall'd his wars,
He gazed and he gazed with a soul distress'd,
Like a far sweet star that is lost in the west,
Till the day was broken to a dust of stars.
vi".
They sigh'd, and they left him alone in the care
Of faithfnllest matron; they moved to the field
With the lifted sword and the sounding shield
High fretting magnificent storms of hair.
Ix.
And, true as the moon in her march of stars,
The Queen stood forth in ber fierce attire
Worn as they train'd, or worn in the wars,
As bright and as chaste as a flash of fir~
 
42      JSLES OF THE AMAZONS.
x.
With girdles of gold and of silver cross'd,
And plaited, and chased, and bound together,
Broader and stronger than belts of leather,
Cunningly fashion'd and blazon'd and boss'd -
With diamonds circling her, stone upon stone,
Above the breast where the borders fail,
Below the breast where the flinges zone,
She moved in a glittering garment of mail.
XI'
The form made bardy and the waist made sparo
From athlete sports and adventures bold,
The breastplate, fasten'd with clasps of gold,
Was clasp'd, as close as the breasts could bear. -
And bound and drawn to a delicate span,
It fiash'd in the red front ranks of the field -
Was fashion'd full trim in its intricate plan
And gleam'd as a sign, as well as a shield,
That the virgin Queen was unyielding still,
And pui'e as the tides that around her ran;
True to her trust, and strong in her will
Of war, and hatred to the touch of man. 
ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.             43
xIT.
The field it was theirs in storm or in shine,
So fairly they stood 4~at the foe came not
To the battle again, and the fair forgot
The rage of battle; and they tdmm'd the vine,
They tended the fields of the tall green corn,
They crush'd the grape, and they drew the wine
In great round gourds or the bended horn,
And seem'd as souls that are half divine.
xIII.
They bathed in the wave in the amber~morn,
They took repose in the peaceful shade
Of eternal palms, and were never afraid;
Yet still did they sigh, and look far and forlorn.
xIv.
Then down where waves by the white sands ran
And left them laved with kisses, and these
They journey'd away with the caravan
Of the grand old tide to the grander seas.
Where the rim of the wave was weaving a spell,
And the grass grew soft where it hid from the sun,
Would the Amazons gather them every one
At the call of the Queen or the sound of her shell: 
44      ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.
xv.
Would come in strides through the kingly trees,
And train and marshal them brave and well
In the golden noon, in the hush of peace
Where the shifting shades of the fan-palms fell;
Would lean on their long quick quivering swords;
Would rest on their shields in a line at the side;
Would lift their brows to the fi'ont and tow'rds
Their Queen as she moved in her matchless pride:
xvi.
~ould train till flush'd and as warm as wine,
Would reach with their limbs, would thrust with the
lance,
Attack, retire, retreat and advance,
Then wheel in column, then f~ll in line;
Stand thigh and thigh with the limbs made hard
And rich and round as the swiftAimb'd pard,
Or a racer train'd, or a white bull caught
In the lasso's toils, where the tame are not.
xyll.
Would curve as the waves curve, swerve in line;
~Yould dash through the trees, would train with the
bow, 
JSLES OF THE AMAZOiVS.             45
Then back to the lines, now sudden, then slow,
Then flash their swords in the sun at a sign;
Would settle the foot right firm afront,
Then sound the shield till the sound was heard
Afar, as the horn in the black boar hunt;
Yet, stranger than all, say never a word.
XVIll.
When shadows fell far from the westward, and when
The sun had kiss'd hands and made sail for the east,
They would kindle the fires and gather them then,
Well-worn and most merry with song, to the feast.
xIx.
There feasting in circles, they sang of the sun,
Their prowess or valor, in peril or pain;
Till the Isles were awake and the birds were outdone;
And long ere the dawn were up singing again.
xx.
They sang of all things, but the one, sacred one,
That could make them most glad, as they lifted the
gourd
And pass'd it around, with its rich purple hoard,
From the Island that lay with its front to the sun. 
46      JSLES OF THE AMAZONS.
xx'.
Though lips were made luscious, and eyes as divine
As the eyes of the skies that bend down fiom above;
Though hearts were made glad and most mellow
with love,
As dripping gourds drain'd of their burthens of wine;
Though brimming, and dripping, and bent of their
shape
Were the generous gourds from the juice of the grape,
They could sing not of love, they could breathe not a
thought
Of the savor of life; love sought, or unsought.
xx".
Their loves they were not; they had banish'd the nan~e
Of man, and the uttermost mention of love,
The moonbeams about them, the quick stars above,
The mellow-voiced waves, they were ever the same,
In sign, and in saying, of the old true lies;
But they took no heed; no answering sign,
Save glances averted and half-hus}~d sighs,
Went back fi~om the breasts with their loves divine.
xxi~r.
They sang of tbeir fleedom with a will, and well,
They paid for it well when the price was blood;
 
ISLES OF THE AMAZO~VS.            47
They beat on the shield, and they blew on the shell,
When their wars were not, for they held it good
To be glad and to sing till the flush of the day,
In an annual feast, when the broad leaves fell;
Yet some sang not, and some sigh'd, "Ah, well!"
For there`5 far less left you to sing or to say,
When mettlesome love is banish'd, I ween, -
To hint at as hidden, or to half disclose
In the swift sword-cuts of the tongue, made keen
With wine at a feast,-than one would suppose.
xxrv.
So the days wore by, but they brought no rest
To the minstrel knight, though the sun was as gold,
And the Isles were green, and the Amazons blest
In the splendor of arms, and as pure as bold.
xxv.
lle now would resolve to reveal to her all,
His sex and his race in a well-timed song;
And his love of peace, his hatred of wrong,
And his own deceit, though the sun should fall. 
48        ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.
XXVI.
Then agaiif he would linger, and knew not how
lie could best proceed, and deferr'd him now
Till a favorite day, then the fair day came,
`And still he delayed, and reproach'd him the same.
XXVII.
Then again he did vow to reveal full soon,
Then deeply he blush'd, then upbraided sore
The winds that had blown fi~m the Castile shore,
And walk'd by the waves in the great white moon.
XXVIII.
Ile still said nought, but, subduing his head,
lle wander'd by day in a dubious spell
Of unutterable thought of the truth unsaid,
To the indolent shore; and he gather'd a shell,
And he shaped its point to his passionate mouth,
And he turn'd to a bank and began to blow,
While the Amazons train'd in a troop below,
And as soft and as sweet as a kiss of the South.
XXIX.
It stirr'd their souls, and they ceased to train
In troop by the shore, as the tremulous strain 
JSLES OF THE A MA ZONS.         49
Fell down from the hill throu~h the tasselling trees;
And a murmur of song, like tlie sound of bees
In the clover crown of a queenly sprJng,
Came back unto him, and lie laid the shell
Aside on the bank, and began to sing
Of eloquent love; and the aneient spell
Of passionate song was his, and the Isle,
As waked to delight fi~om its slumber long,
Came back in eehoes; yet all this while
lle knew not at all the sin of his song.
xxx.
Then the Amazons lifted with glad surprise,
Stood splendid at first and look'd flir and f~ir,
Set forward a foot, and shook baek their hair,
Like clouds push'd back from the sun-lit skies.
D  
ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.
PART III. 
ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.
PRELUDE.
Isles of the Incas! Amazon Isles,
The sun hath loved you, clothed and crown'd,
And touch'd you tenderly, girt you round
With a sunset wave in a wealth of smiles.
OIsles of a wave iii an ocean of wood!
O white waves lost in the wilds I love!
Let the red stars rest on your breast from above,
And sing to the sun, for his love it is good.
He has made you his heirs, he has given you gold,
And wrought for you garments of limitless green,
With beautiful bars of the scarlet between,
And of silver seams fretting you fold on fold.
He bas kiss'd and caress'd you, loved you true,
Yea, loved as a God lovcs, loved as I
Shall learn to love when the stars shall lie
Like blooms at my fect in a ficid of blue. 
PART III.
I.
bared their brows to the palnis above,
But son~e look'd level into comrade's eyes,
And they then remet~ber'd that the thought of love
\~`~s the thing forbidden, ai~d they sank in sighs.
II.
They turn'd fi'om the training, to heed in throng
To the oid, old tale; and il~ey traiii'd no more,
As he sang of love  and some on il~e shore
And full in t}~e sound of il~e eloquent song,
With a womanly air and irresolute will
Went listlessly onward as gathering shells;
Then gazed in the waters, as woa~en ii~ ~pells;
TJ~en turned to the song and sigl~' d, and were still.
"I.
And they said no word.  Some tapp'd on the sand
With il~e sandal i'd foot, keepii~g time to the sound,
In a sort of dream; some timed with the hand,
And one held eyes full of tears to the ground.
 
ISLE~S OF TllJ~ AMAZONS.
PRELUDE.
Isles of the Incas! Amazon Isles,
The sun hath loved you, clothed and crown'd,
And touch'd you tenderly, girt you round
With a sunset wave in a wealth of smiles.
O Isles of a wave iii an ocean of wood!
O white waves lost in the wilds I love!
Let the red stars rest on your breast fiom above,
And sing to the sun, for his love it is good.
lie has made you his heirs, he has given you gold,
And wrought for you garments of limitless green,
With beautiful bars of the scarlet between,
And of silver seams ftetting you fold on fold.
lie bas kiss'd and caress'd you, loved you true,
Yea, loved as a God loves, loved as I
Shall learn to love when the stars shall lie
Like blooms at my feet in a field of blue. 
JSLES OF TIfE AMAZOIV&           55
Iv.
She il~ought of the days when their wars were not,
As she lean'd and listen'd to the old, old song,
~Viien they sang of their loves, and she well forgot
The hard oppressions and a wodd of wrong.
Like a pure true woman, with her tri~st in tears
And the things that are true, she relived them in
thought,
Though hush'd and erush'd in the fall of the years;
She lived but the fair, and the false she forgot
As a tale long told, or as things that are dreams;
And the quivering curve of the lip confest
The silent regrets, and a soul that teems
~Vith a woAd of love ill a brave true breast.
y.
Then this one younger, who had known no love,
Nor look'd upon man but in bloo(1 on the field,
She bow'd her head, and she lea~i'd on her shield,
Aiid her i~eart beat qui4~ as the wings of a dove
That is blown fiom the sea, ~~~ere il~e rests are not
In the time of storms; and by instinct taught
Grew pensive, and sigh'd; and she thought and she
thought
Of some wondefful things, and - she knew not of what. 
ISLES OF THE AAIAZONS.
yI.
Then this one thought of a love f~~rsaken,
She thought of a brown sweet babe, and she thought
Of il~e bread-fruits gather'd, of the swift fish taken
In intricate nets, like a love well sought.
vi'.
She thought of the moons of her maiden dawn,
Mellow'd and fair with the forms of man;
So dearer indeed to dwell upon
Than the beautiful waves that around her ran;
vi".
So fairer indeed than the fringes of light
That lie at rest on the west of the sea
In furrows of foam on the borders of night,
And dearer indeed than the songs to be -
Than calling of dreams from the opposite land,
To the land of life, and of journeys dreary
~Vhen the soul goes over from the form grown weary,
And walks in the cool of the trees on the strand.
Ix.
But tbe Queen was enraged and would smite him at first
With il~e sword unto death, yet it seem'd that she durst 
fSLES OF THE AMAZONS.              57
Not touch him at all; and she moved as to d~ide,
And she lifted her face, and she fiown'd at his side,
Then touA~d on his arm; il~en she look'd in his eyes
And right fall in his soul, but she saw no fear
In the pale fair face, and with ftown severe
She press'd her lips as suppressing her sighs.
x.
She banish'd her wrath, she unbended her face,
She lifted her hand and put back his hair
From his fair sad brow, with a penitent air,
And forgave him all with an unutter'd grace;
For she snid no word.  Yet no more was severe;
She stood as subdued by il~e side of him still,
Then averted ber face with a resolute will,
As to hush a regret, or to hide back a tear.
xl.
She sigh'd to herself: "A stranger is this,
And ill and alone, that knows not at all
That a throne shall totter and the strong shall fall,
At the mention of love and its baneflillest bliss.
o life that is lost in bewildering love
But a stranger is sacred!"  She lifted a hand
3* 
58       ISLES OF THE AMAZO]\TS.
And she laid it as soft as the breast of a dove
On the minstrel's month. It was more than il~e wand
Of the tamer of serpents; for she did 110 more
Than to bid with her eyes and to beck wi4~ her hand,
And il~e song drew away to il~e waves of the shore;
Took wings, as it were, to the verge of the land.
xII.
But her heart was oppress'd.  With penitent head
She turn'd to her troop, and, retiring, she said:
"Alas! and alas! shall it come to pass
That the panther shall die froin a blade of grass?
That the tiger shall yield at il~e bent-horn blast?
That we, who have conquered a world and all
Of men and of beasts in the world, mnst fi~ll
Ourselves, at the mention of love, at last?"
xIII.
The singer was fretted, and farther apart
lIe wander'd, perplex'd; and he felt his heart
Beat quick and troubled, and all untamed,
As he saw her move with marvellous grace
To her troop below; he turn'd fi~om his plac~
 
ISLES OF THE AAIAZOI\TS.          59
Oppress'd and humbled, and sore ashamed
That he lived in the land in the shield of a lie;
That he dared not stand forth face to face
To the truth, and die as a knight should die.
xlv.
The tall brown Queen, when turn'd to her troop,
Led minstrel and all to the innermost part
Of the palm-crown'd Isle, where great trees group
In armies, to battle when black storms start,
And made her retreat from the sun by the trees
That are topped like tents, where the fire-flies
Are a light to the feet, and a fAr lake lies
As cool as the coral-set centres of seas.
xv.
And here the carpets of Nature were spread,
Made pink with blossoms and fragrant bloom;
ller soft couch, canopied overhead,
Allured to sleep with the deep perfume.
xv'.
Tlie sarsaparilla had woven its thread
So through and through, like the threads of gold;
`Twas stronger than thongs in its thousandfold,
And on every hand and up overhead 
6o       ISLES OF THE AAIAZOJVS.
Ran thick as threads on the rim of a reel,
Through red leaf and dead lea?, bough and vine,
The green and the gray lea?, coarse and fine,
And the cactus tinted with cochineal.
xvii.
And every color that the Master Sun
Has painted and hung in the halls of God,
Blush'd in the boughs or spread on the sod,
Pictured and woven and wound as one.
xviii.
The tamarind and the cocoa-tree,
The quick cinchona, the i'ed sangre,
The keen caressa, the sycamore,
Were woof ~nd warp as wide as the shore.
xix.
The palmftrces lorded the copse like kings,
Their tall tops tossing the indolent clouds
That folded the Isle in the dawn, like shronds,
Then fled from the sun like to living things.
The cockatoo swung in the vines below,
And muttering hung on a goJden il~rea4,
Or moved on the moss'd bough to and fro,
Ia plumes of gold and array'd in red, 
JSLES OF THE AMAZOW&              6i
xx.
The lake lay hidden away ftom the light,
As asleep in the Isle fi'om the tropical noon,
And narrow and bent like a new-born moon,
And fair as a moon in the noon of the night.
xxl.
`Twas shadow'd by forests, and fringed by ferns,
And fi'etted anon by the fishes that leapt
At indolent flies that slept or kept
Their drowsy tones on the tide by turns.
XXII.
And here in the dawn when the day was strong
And newly aroused fi'om leafy repose,
~Yith dews on his feet and tints of the rose
In his great flnsh'd face, was a sense and song
That the tame old world has nor known nor heard
The soul was fill' d with the soft perfl~mes,
The eloquent wings of the humming bird
Beguiled the heart, they purpled the air
And allured the eye, as so everywhere
On the rim of the wave, or across it in swings,
They swept or they sank in a sea of blooms,
And wove and wound in a song of wings. 
62       ISLES OF THE AMAZOJVS.
XXII'.
The senses drank of the fragrance deep,
The glad soul question'd it whether or no
It had risen above or yet dwelt below,
Or whether to laugh for lovb or to weep.
XXIV.
A bird in scarlet and gold, made ii~ad
~Yith sweet delights, through the branches slid
And kiss'd the lake on a drowsy lid
Till the Apples ran and the face was glad:
XXV.
Was glad and lovely as lights that sweq~
The face of heaven when stars are forth
In antumn time through the awful north,
Or the face of a child when it smiles in sleep.
XXVI.
And here was the Queen, in the tropical noon,
When the wave and the world and all were asleep,
And nothing look'd f~rth to betray or to peep
Through glories of jungle in garments of June, 
ISLES OF THE AMAZON&               63
To bathe with her court in the waters that bent
In the beautift~l l~~ke il~rough tasselling trees,
And the tangle of blooms in a burden of bees,
As bold and as sharp as a bow unspent.
xxv".
And strangely still, and more strangely sweet,
Was the lake that lay in its cradle of fern,
As still as a moon with her horns that turn
In the night, like lamps to some delicate feet.
xxviii.
They came and they stood by the brink of the tide,
They hung their shields on the boi~ghs of the trees,
They lean'd their lances against the side,
Unloosed their sandals, and busy as bees
That ply with industrious wing perfumes,
Ungather'd their robes in the rustle of leaves
And nodding of reeds and the beautifal blooms
That wound them as close as the winewine weaves.
xxix.
The minstrel had faiter'd, and fi~rther aside
Than ever before he averted his head;
lIe pick'd up a pebble and fretted the tide,
Then turn'd with a countenance flush'd and red.
 
64       ISLES OF TIlE AMAZO]\TS.
xxx.
lle feign'd him ill, he wandered away,
lle sat hiIll down by the w~~ters alone,
And prayed for pardon, as a knight should pray,
And rued an error not all his own.
xxxl.
The Amazons press'd to the girdle of reeds,
Two and by two they advanced to the wave,
They challenged each other, and bade be brave,
And banter'd, and vaunted of yalorous deeds.
xxxll.
They push'd and they parted the curtains of green,
All timid at first; then look'd at the wave
And laugh'd; retreated, then came up brave
To the brink of the water, led on by their Queen.
xxxIII.
Again they retreated, again advanced,
And parted the boughs in a proud disdain,
Then bent their heads to the waters, and glanced
Below, then blush'd, and then langb'd again;
 
ISLES OF THE AMAZONS             65
xxxlv.
A bird awaken'd, then all dismay'd
With a womanly sense of a beautifal shame
That strife and changes had left the same,
They shrank to the leaves and the sombre shade.
xxxv.
At last, press'd forward a beautiful pair
And bent to the wave, and bending they blush'd
As rich as the wines, when the waters rush'd
To the dimpled limbs, and laugh'd in their hair.
xxxvi.
The fair troop f~llow'd with shouts and cheers,
TLey cleft the wave, and the friendly ferns
Came down in curtains and curves and turns,
And a brave palm lifted a il~onsand spears.
xxxvii.
From under the ferns and away fiom fl~e land,
And out in the wave until lost below,
There lay, as white as a bank of snow,
A long and a beautifal border of sand.
E 
66      fSLES OF THE AAJAZO~VS.
xxxyIII.
Here clothed alone ill their ciouds of hair
And curtaiu'd about by the palm and fern,
And made as their ]\Iaker had made them, f~ir,
And splendid of natural grace and turn;
xxxlx.
Untrammell'd by art and untroubled by man
They tested their strength, or tried their speed,
And here they wrestled, and there they ran,
As supple and lithe as the watery reed.
XL.
The great trees shadow'd the bow-tipp'd tide,
And nodded their plumes fi'om the opposite side,
As if to whisper, Take care! take care!
But the meddlesome s~nshine here and there,
Kept pointing a ~nger right under the trees, -
nehes and wa(~&jn~  hand
Kept shiftino~ the br'~           a
At the rouiid bro~vn limbs on the border of san~,
And seeni'd to whisper, Ho! what are these?
XLI.
The gold-barr'd butterflies to and fro
And over the waterside wander'd and wove
As heedless and idle as clouds that rove
And drift by the peaks of perpetual snow. 
fSLES OF THE AMAZONS~             67
XLIT.
A monkey swung out fiom a bough in the skies,
~Yhite-whisker'd and ancient, and wisest of all
Of his populous race, and he heard them call
And he watcli'd them long, with his head sidewise,
From under his brows of amber and brown,
All patient and silent and~never once stirr'd;
Then he shook his head and he hasten'd him down
To his army below and said never a word.  
There is many a love in Ue land, my Thve,
But never a lo&e like U~is`is;
Then kill me dead`vith your love, my love,
And cover me up with kisses.
So kill me dead and cover me deep
lVhere never a soul discovers;
Deep in your heart to sThep, to sleep
In the darlingest tomb of lovers. 
ISL1~S OF TIlE AMAZONS.
PART IV 
ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.
P R E L U D E.
1T seems to me that Mother Earth
Is weary from eternal toil
And bringing forth by fretted soil
In all the agonies of birth.
Sit down! sit down! Lo, it were best
That we should rest, that she should rest
Let buffalo possess the land,
Let foxes populate the towns,
And wild deer wander through the downs.
Here we will laugh, nor lift a hand;
And laugh that man should ever care
For flock or field or mansion fair!
No ship shall founder in the seas,
Nor soldier fall in martial line,
Nor miner pensh in the mine.
Here we shall tent beneafl~ the trees, 
72      ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.
Where wife nor maid shall wait or weep,
For Earth shall sleep, and all shall sleep.
I think we then shall all he glad,
At least I know we are not now;
Not one.  And even Earth somehow
Seems growing old and over sad.
Then fold your hands, for it were best
That we should rest, that she should rest. 
PART IV.
I.
~HE wanderer took him apart from the place;
lle look'd up in the boughs at the gold b rds
there,
lle counted the humming-birds fi'etting the air,
And brush'd at the butterflies fanning bis face.
II.
lle sat him down in a crook of the wave
And away from the Amazons, under the skies
Where great trees cnrved to a leaf-lined cave,
And lifted his hands and shaded his eyes;
"I.
And he held his head to the north when they came
To run on the reaches of sand fiom the south,
And lie pull'd at his chin, and lie pursed his mouth,
And he shut his cy~s with a shudder of shame.
4 
74      JSLES OF THE AAfAZO~VS.
He reach'd from the bank and he brake him a reed -
A bamboo reed - from the brink below;
And he notched it and trimm'd it with all his speed,
And lifted it up and began to blow
As if to himself; as the sea sometimes
Does soothe and soothe in a low, sweet song,
~Vhen his rage is spent, and the beach swells strong
~Yith sweet repetitions of alliterate rhymes.
Iv.
The echoes New back from the indolent land;
Silent and still sat the tropical bird,
And only the sound of the reed was heard,
As the Amazons ceased from their sports on the sand.
V.
They rose from the wave, and inclining the head,
They listcn'd intent, with the delicate tip
Of the finger touch'd to the pouting lip,
Till the brown Queen turn'd in the tide, and led
Through the opaline lake, and under il~e shade,
And along the shore, and below the ferns
~~hcre the bcnt boughs reacli'd and return'd by turns,
To the shore where the J~i~alrous singer played. 
ISLES OF THE AMAZOWS.               75
VI.
lie bended his head and he shaded his eyes
As well as he might with his lifted ~ngers,
And ceased to sing.  But in mute surprise,
lle saw them linger as a child that lingers
Al]ured by a song thrown down to the street,
And looks bewilder'd about from its play,
For the last loved notes that fall at its feet
And he heard them whisper, he saw them sway
Aside and before and silent and sweet.
VII.
The soft notes swell'd, and the air swept loud,
They drew to the soui~d as if borne in a dream;
As blown in the purple and gold of a cloud,
Or borne on the breast of a crystalline stream.
VIII.
But the singer was vexed; he averted his head;
lie lifted his eyes to il~e mos~es uside
For a brief, little time, but they turn'd to the tide
in spite of his will, or of prayers well sui4. 
76       fSLES OF THE AAfAZONS.
Ix.
lie press'd four fingers against each lid,
Till the light was gone; yet for all th at he did
It seem'd that the lithe forms lay and beat
Afloat in his face and flill under his feet.
x.
lie seem'd to behold the billowy breasts,
And the rounded limbs in their pure unrests -
To see them swim as the mermaid swims,
~Vith the drifting dimpled, delicate Ihubs,
Folded and hidden in robes of hair;
While fishes of gold shot here and there
Below their breasts and above their feet,
Like birds in a beautiful garden of sweet.
XI.
It seems to me there is more that sees
Than the eyes in man; you may close your eyes,
You m~y turn your back, and may still be wise
In sacred and marvellous mysteries.
XII.
lie saw as one sees il~e sun of a noon
In the sun-kiss'd south, when the eyes are closed - 
JSLES OF THE AAfAZO~VS.           77
lle saw as one sees the bars of a moon
That fall through the boughs of the tropical trees,
~When he lies at length, nud is all composed,
And asleep ill his hammock by the sundown seas.
XIII.
lle heard the waters beat, bubble and fret;
lle lifted his eyes, yet forever il~ey lay
Afloat in the tiac; and he turn'd him away
And resolved to fly and for aye to forgct.
xiv.
~Ie rose up strong, an4 he cross'd him twice,
lle nerved his heart and he lifted his head,
lle crush'd the treacherous reed in a trice,
~rith an angry foot, and he turn'd and fled;
xy.
And flying, conflised like a pitifal slave,
lle question'd himself most sore as he fled,
If be most was a knight, or most was a knave, -
And flying he hurriedly tnrn'd his head
Back over his shoulder, and sudden aside,
~Yith an eager glance, wiil~ meddlesome eyes,
As a woman will turn: and he saw arise
The beautif~il Queen from the silvery tide. 
78       ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.
xyI.
She toss'd her hair, and she turn'd her eyes
~Vith all of their splendor to his as he fled,
And all their glory, and a strange surprise,
And a sad reproach and a woHd unsaid.
XYIT.
Tie beat on their shields, they rose in array,
As aroused from a trance, and hurriedly came
From out of the wave and he wander'd away,
~Yild.fretting his sensitive soul with blame,
Until all array'd; then ill and opprest,
And bitterly cursing the treacherous reed,
Return'd with his hand on his turbulent breast,
And struck to the heart, and most ill indeed.
XYIll.
Alone he would sit in the shadows at noon,
Alone he would sit by the waters at night;
~Yould sing sad-voiced, as a woman might,
With pale, kind face to the cold, pale moon.
xlx.
Tie would here advance, and would there retreat,
As a petulant child that has lost its way
in the redolent walks of a sultry day,
And wanders around with irresolute feet. 
fSLES OF THE AMAZONS.           79
xx.
lle would press his hand in pain to his heart,
lle wouJd fold his hands, he would toss his hair
From his brow, then turn to the palms, and apart
From eyes fl~at pursued, with a pitiful air.
XXI.
Ile made him a harp of mahogany wood,
lle strung it well wiil~ il~e sounding strings
Of the ostrich thews, fiom the ostrich wings,
And play'd and sang in a sad sweet rune.
lle hang'd his harp in the vines, and stood
By the tide at night, in the palms at noon,
And lone as a ghost in the shadowy wood.
XXII.
Then two grew sad, and alone sat she
By the great, strong stream, and she bow'd her head,
Then lifted her face to the tide and said,
"0, pure as a tear and as strong as a sea,
Yet tender to me as the toud~ of a dove,
I had rather sit sad and alone by thee,
Than to go and be glad, with a legion in love."
 
8o       JSLES OF THE AMAZOATS.
XXllI.
She sat sometime at the wanderer's side
As the kingly water went wandering by;
And the two once look'd, and they knew not why,
Full sad in each other's eyes, and they sigh'd.
xxly.
She courted the solitude under the rim
Of the trees that reach'd to the resolute stream,
And gazed in the waters as one in a dream,
Till her soul grew heavy and her eyes grew dim
To the fair delights of her own fair Isles.
She turn'd her face to the stranger again,
lle cheer'd with song and allured with smiles,
Bnt cheer'd, and allured, and soothed in vain.
xxy.
She how'd her hcad with a heautifi~l grief
That grew from her pity; she forgot hcr arms,
And she made neglect of the hatile alarms
That thrcatcn'd the land; the banana's leaf
J\Iadc shelter; he lifted his harp again,
She sat, she Iistcn'd intent and long,
Forgctting her care and forgctting her pain -
Made sad for the singer, made glad from his soi~g. 
JSLES OF THE AAfAZONS.           8i
xxv'.
But the braves waxed cold; the white moons waned,
And the brown Queen marshall'd them never once
more,
With sword and with shield, in the palms by the
shore;
But they sat them down to repose, or remained
Apart and scatter'd in the tropic-leaf'd trees,
As sadden'd by song, or for loves delay'd,
Or away in the Isle in couples il~ey stray'd,
Not at all content in their Isles of peace.
xxvi1.
They wander'd away to the lakes once more,
Or walk'd in the moon, or they sigh'd, or slept,
Or they sat in pairs by the shadowy shore,
And silent song with the waters kept.
xxyIII.
There was one who stood by the waters one eve,
With the stars on her hair, and the bars of the moon
Broken up at her feet by the bountiful boon
Of extending old trees, who did questioning grieve:
4*              F 
82       fSLES OF TIlE AAJAZONS.
"The birds they go over us two and by two;
The mono is mated; his bride in the boughs
Sits nursing his babe, and his passionate vows
Of love, you may hear them the whole day through.
"The lizard, the cayman, the white-toothed boar,
The serpents that glide in the sword-leaf'd grass,
The beasts that abide or the birds that pass,
They are glad in their loves as the green-leaf'd shore.
"There is nothing that is that can yield one bliss
Like an innocent love; the leaves have tongue
And the tides talk low in the reeds, and the young
And the quick bu~s open their lips but for this.
"In the steep and the starry silences,
On the stormy levels of the limitless seas,
Or here in the deeps of the dark-brow'd trees,
There is nothing so much as a brave man's kiss.
"There is nothing so strong, in the stream, on the land,
In the valley of palms, on the pinnacled snow,
In the clouds of the gods, on the grasses below,
As the silk-soft touch of a baby's brown hand. 
JSLES OF THE AAfAZONS.             83
"It were better to sit and to spin on a stone
The whole year through with a babe at the knee,
~Vith its brown hands reaching caressingly,
Than to sit in a girdle of gold and alone.
`0 barren dull days, where never the brown
Sweet hand of a babe hides back in the hair
~Vhcn a moU~cr comes home wiil~ her burthen of care,
And over the life of her life bends down.
"It were better perhaps to be mothers of men,
And to murmur not much; there are clouds in the
sun....
Can a woman undo what the gods have done?
Nay, the things must be as the things have been."
XXIX.
They wander'd well forth, some here and some il~ere,
Unsatisfied some and irresolute all.
The sun was the same, the moonlight did fall
Rich-barr'd and refulgent; the stars were as fair
As ever were stars; the fluitful clouds cross'd
And the harvest fail'd not; yet the fair Isle grew
As a prison to all, and they search'd on through
The magnificent shades as for il~ngs that were lost. 
84      ISLES OF THE AAfAZOI\TS.
xxx
The minstrei, more pensive, went deep in the wood,
And oft-time delay'd him the whole day through,
As eharm'd by the deeps, or the sad heart drew
Some solaces sweet from the solitude.
xxx'.
The singer forsook them at last, and the Queen
Came seldom then forth fi~om the fierce deep wood,
And her warriors, dark-brow'd and bewildering stood
In bands by the wave in the complicate screen
Of overbent boughs.  They would lean on their spears
And would talk sometimes low-voiced and by twos,
As allured by longings they could not refuse,
And would sidewise look, as beset by their fears.
xxx".
They wander'd and watd~ed as the days waxed full,
All listless and slow, and spurning the shells
~Yith brown sandall'd feet, to the whimsical swell
Of the wine-dark wave with its foam like wool.
xxx iii.
Once, wearied and sad, by il~e shadowy trees
In the flush of the sun they sank to their rests,
The dark hair veiling the beautiful breasts
That arose in billows, as mists veil seas. 
JSLES OF THE AMAZONS.            85
xxxlv.
Then away to the dream-world one and by one;
The great red sun in his purple was roll'd,
And red-wing'd birds and the birds of gold
Were above in the trees like the beams of the sun.
xxxv.
Then the sun came down, with his ladders of gold
Built up of his beams, and the souls arose
And ascended on these, and the fair repose
Of the negligent forms was a feast to behold.
xxxyl.
The round brown limbs they were reached or drawn,
The grass made dark with the fervor of hair;
And here were fl~e rose-red lips, and there
A flushed breast rose like a sun at a dawn.
xxxvii.
The copper-bound shields lay silent beside,
Their lances were leau'd to the leaning old trees,
~Yhlle away in the sun an irresolute breeze
With a rippled quick step stole over the tide. 
86       ISLES OF THE AAJAZONS.
xxxvIII.
Then black-wing'd birds blew over in pair,
Listless and slow, as tbey call'd of the seas,
And sounds came down through the tangle of trees
As lost, and nestled and hid in their hair.
xxxlx.
They started disturbed, they sprang as at war
To lance and to shield; but the dolorous sound
Was gone from the wood; they gazed around
And saw but the birds, black-winged and afar.
XL.
They gazed at each other, then turn'd them unheard,
Slow trailing their lances in long single line;
They moved through the forest, all dark as the sign
Of death that fell down fi'om the ominous bii'd.
XLI.
Then the great sun died, and a rose-red bloom
Grew over his grave in a border of gold,
And a cloud with a silver-white rim was rolF~
Like a cold gray stone at the door of a tomb. 
ISLES OF THE AMAZON&
XLiI.
Then away on the wave the invisible night,
~Vith her eyes of stars and her storms of hair,
Sail'd on in her wondeffal ships of air,
And il~e Isle lay dimpled in calm delight.
XLIII.
Strange voices were heard, sad visions were seen,
By sentries, betirnes, on the opposite shore,
~Vhere broad boughs bended their curtains of green
Far over the wave with their tropical store.
XLIV.
A sentry bent low on her palms and she peer'd
Suspiciously through; and, heavens! a man,
Low-brow'd and wicked, look'd backward, and jeer'd
And taunted right full in her f~ce as he ran:
XLY.
A low crooked man, with eyes like a bird, -
As round and as cunning, - who came from the land
Of lakes, where the clouds lie low and at hand,
Ai~d the songs of the bent black swans are heard; 
88      JSLES OF THE AMAZONS.
XLYI.
Where men a~~e most cunning and cruel withal,
And are Th~mous as spies, and are supple and fleet,
And are webb'd like tile water-fowl under the feet,
And they swim like the swans, and like pelicans call.
XLYII.
And again, on a night when the moon she was not,
A sentry saw stealing, as still as a dream,
A sudden canoe down the mid of the stre m,
Like gleamings of light, and as swift as a thought.
XLVIIl.
And lo! as it pass'd, from tile prow there arose
A dreadful and gibbering, hairy old man,
Loud laughing, as only a maniac can,
And shaking a lance at tile land of his foes;
XLIX.
Then sudden it vanish'd, as swift as it came,
Far down through the walls of the shadowy wood,
And the great moon rose like a forest aflame,
All threat'ning, sullen, and red like blood.
 
ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.
PART' V. 
~VeU, we have threaded through and through
The gloaming forests.  Fairy Isles,
Afloat in sun and summer smiles,
As fallen stars in fields of blue;
Some futile wars with subtile love
That mortal never vanquish'd yet,
Some symphonies by angels set
In wave below, in bough above,
Were yours and mine; but here adieu.
And zf it come to pass some days
That you grow weary, sad, and you
Lft up deep egesfom dusty ways
Of mart and moneys, to the blue
And pure cool waters, isle and vine,
And haUte you there, and then arise
i?efresk'd by oneftesh thought of mine,
I rest content; I kiss your eyes,
I kiss your hair, in my delight:
I kiss my hand, and say, "Good-niyht.'
Alay love be UtThe by sun or moon,
Alay peace be thine by peacefitl way
Tit rough all the darling days of May,
Titrougit all tite genial days of June,
To golden days titat (lie in sntiles
Of sunset on tite blessed Isles.
 
ISLES OF TIIE AMAZONS.
PRELUDE.
~~llEX spires shall shine on the Amazon's shore,
From temples of ~od, and time shall have roll'd
Like a scroll fi~om the border the limitless wold;
When the tiger is tamed, and the mono no more
Swings over the waters to chatter and call
To the crocodile sleeping in rashes and fern
When cities shall gleam, and their battlements burn
In the sunsets of gold, where the cocoa-nuts fall;
`Twill be something to lean fi~om the stars and to know
That the engine, red-mouthing with turbulent tongue,
The white ships that come, and the cargoes that go,
~Ye invoked them of old when the nations were
young: 
92       JSLES OF THE AMAZO~VS.
`Twill be something to know that we named them of
old, That we said to the nations, Lo! here is the fleece
That allures to the rest, and the perfectest peace,
With its foldings of sunlight shed mellow like gold:
That we were the Carsons in kingdoms untrod,
And follow'd the trail through the rustle of leaves,
And stood by the wave where solitude weaves
ller garments of mosses, and lonely as God:
That we did make venture when singers were young,
Inviting from Europe, from long-trodden l~nds
That are easy of journeys, and holy from hands
Laid upon by the ~1asters when giants had tongue:
The prophet should lead us, - and lifting a hand
To the world on the way, like a white guiding star,
Point out and allure to the fliir and unknown,
And the far, and the hidden delights of a land.
Behold my Sierr~s! there singers shall throng;
The Andes shMl break through fl~e wings of tiie
night
As the fierce condor breaks through the clouds in his
flight;
And I here plant the cross and possess them with song. 
PART  V.
I.
TrELL you that love is the bitterest sweet
~hat ever laid hold on the heart of a man;
A chain to the soul, and to d~eer as a ban,
And a bane to the brain, and a snare to the feet.
II.
Ay! who shall ascend on the hollow white wings
Of love but to fall; to fall and to learn,
Like a moth, and a man, that the lights lare to burn,
That the roses have thorns, and the honey-bee stings?
III.
I say to you surely that grief shall befall;
I lift you my finger, I caution you true,
And yet you go forward, laugh gayly, and you
~1ust learn for yourself, then mouri~ for us all. 
94       ISLES OF THE A AlA ZOWS.
Iv.
You had better be drown'd than to love and to dream,
It were better to sit on a moss-grown stone,
And away Thom the sun, and forever alone,
Slow pitching white pebbles at trout in the stream.
V.
Alas for a lie art that is left forlorn!
If you live you must love; if you love, regret, -
It were better, perhaps, we had never been born,
Or better, at least, we could well forget.
VI.
The clouds are above us, and snowy and cold,
And what is beyond but the steel-gray sky,
And the still fim stars that twinkle and lie
Like the eyes of a love or delusions of gold!
VII.
Ah! who would ascend?  The donds are above.
Ay! all things perish; to rise is to fail.
Aiid aiack for lovers, and alas for love,
And alas that we ever were born at all.
 
fSLES OF THE AMAZONS.             95
VIII.
The minstrel now stood by the border of wood,
But not as alone; with a resolute heart;
He reach'd his hand, like to one made strong,
Forgot his silence and resumed his song,
And aroused his soul, and assumed his part
~Vitli a passionate will, in the palms where he stood.
Ix.
"She is sweet as the breath of the Castile rose,
She is warm to the heart as a world of wine,
And as rich to behold as the rose that grows
Wkli its red heart bent to the tide of the Rhine.
"0 hot blood born of the heavens above!
I shall drain her soul, I shall drink her up;
I shall love with a searching and merciless love,
I shall sip her lips as the brown bees~sup,
"From the great gold heart of the buttercup!
I shall live and love!  I shall have my d~y,
Lct the suns fall down or the n~oons rise up,
And die li~ uiy tiu~~, and who shall gai ii say?
 
96       JSLES OF THE AAfAZONS.
"What boots me the battles that I have fought
Wiili self for honor?  My brave resolves;
And who takes note?  The soul dissolves
In a sea of love, and the land is forgot.
"The march of men, and the drift of ships,
The dreams of fame, and desires for gold~
Shall go for aye, as a tale that is told,
Nor divide for a day my lips from her lips.
"And a knight shall rest, and none shall say nay,
In a green Isle wash'd by an arm of the seas,
And wall'd ftom the world by the white Andes,
For the years are of age and can go their way."
x.
The sentinel stood on the farthermost land,
And shouted aloud to the shadowy forms:
"lie comes, he comes, in the strength of storms,"
And struck her shield, and, her sword in hand,
xT.
She cried, "lie conies with his silver spears,
With flint-tipp'd arrows and bended bows,
To take our blood, though we give him tears,
And to flood our Isle in a world of woes?'
 
ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.             9y
xII.
"lle comes, 0 Queen of the sun-kiss'd Isle,
lle comes as a wind comes, blown from fl~e seas,
In a cloud of canoes, on the ending breeze,
~NTith his shields of tortoise and of crocodile."
xIII.
She dared them come like a storm of seas,
To come as the winds come, fierce and frantic;
As sounding down to the far Atlantic,
And sounding away to the deep Andes.
xlv.
She rush'd her down where il~e white tide ran,
She breasted away where the breakers reel'd,
She shook her sword in the foeman' 5 van,
And beat, as the waves beat, sword on shield.
xv.
Sweeter than swans are a maiden's graces!
Sweeter than fruits are the kisses of morn!
Sweeter than babes is a love new-born,
But sweeter than all are a love's embraces.
6                G 
98       fSLES OF THE AMAZOIVS.
xvI.
She slept at peace, and the sentries' warning
Could hardly awaken the splendid Queen;
She slept in peace in the opaline
hush and blash of the tropic morning;
xvII.
And bound about by the twining glory,
Vine and trellis in the vernal morn,
As still and sweet as a babe new-born,
The brown Queen dream'd of the old new story.
xvIII.
But hark! her sentry's passionate words,
The sound of shields, and the clash of swords!
And slow she comes, her head on her breast,
And her two hands held as to plead for rest.
xlx.
N\~here, 0 where, are the J~no graces?
~V~here, 0 wl~ere, is ilie glance of Jove,
When the Qacen conies forth fi'om the sacred places,
hidden away iii the heart of the ~rove? 
ISLES OF THE AAIAZO]\TS.          99
xx.
Too deep, too deep, of tlie waters of love,
The beautiful woman had drunk in the wood:
The dangerous, wonderft~l waters that fill
The soul with wine that subdues the will.
She doubled her hands and she helpless stood,
With her head held down and her hands above.
xxl.
They rallied around as of old, - they besought her,
With swords to il~e sun and il~e sounding shield,
To lead them again to the glorious field,
So sacred to Freedom; and, breathless, they brought
her
11cr buckler and sword, and her armor all bright
With a thousand gems enjewell'd in gold.
She lifted her head with the look of old,
An instant only; with all of her might
Slie sought to be strong and majestic again:
She  bared them her arms and her ample brown
breast;
They lifted her armor, they~strove to invest
11cr form in armor, but they strove in vaia 
100      ISLES OF TIlE AMAZONS.
xxll.
It closed no more, but clanged on the ground,
Like the f'~ll of a knight, with an ominous sound,
And she shook her hair and she cried, "Alas!
That love should come and that life should pass;"
And she cried, "Alas! to be cursed... and bless'd,
For the nights of love and the noons of rest."
xxIIT.
11cr warriors wonder'd; they wandered apaft,
And trail'd their swords, and subdued their eyes
To earth in sorrow and in hush'd surprise,
And forgot themselves in their pity of heart.
xxly.
0 Isles of the sun," cried the blue-eyed youth,
"0 Edens new-made and let down from above!
Be sacred to peace and to passionate love,
~Iade happy in peace and made holy with truth.
xxv.
"0 gardens of ~od, newtlanted below!
Shall rivers be red?  Shall day be night?"
lIe stood in il~e wood with his face to the foe,
Apart ~fth his buckler and sword for the fight.
 
fSLES OF THE AMAZOW&              101
xxv'.
But the fafr Isle fill'd with the fierce invader;
They form'd on the strand, they lifted their spears,
~Vhere never was man for years and for years,
And moved on the Queen.  She lifted and laid her
Finger-tip to her lips.  For 0 sweet
Was the song of love, and the song new-horn,
That the n~nstrel blew in the virgin morn,
Away where the trees and the soft sands meet.
xxvii.
The strong men lean'd and their shields let fall,
And slowly they moved with their trailing spears,
And hea~s bow'd down as if bent with years,
And an air of gentleness over them all.
xxv"'.
The men grew glad as il~e song ascended,
They lean'd their lances against the palms,
They reach'd their arms as to reach for alms,
And the Amazons came - and their reiga was ended.
xxix.
They reach'd their arms to the arms extended,
Put by their swords, and ilO more seein'd sad,
But moved as the men moved, tall and splendid, -
i~Iingled together, and were all made glad.
 
102      ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.
xxx.
Then the Queen stood tall, as of old she had stood,
~Vkh her face to the sun and her breast to the foe;
Then moved like a king, unheeding and slow,
And aside to the singer in the fringe of the wood.
XXXI.
She led him forth, and she bade him sing:
Then bade him cease; and the gold of his hair
She  touch'd with her hands; she embraced him
there,
Then lifted her voice and proclaim'd him King.
XXXII.
And the men made fair in their new-found loves,
They all cried, "King!" and again and again,
Cried, "Long may they live, and long may thcy
reign,
As true in their loves as the red-bill'd doves:
XXXIII.
"Ay, long may they live, and long may they love,
And their blue-eyed babes with the years increase,
And we all have love, and we all have peace,
W~hile the seas are below or the sun is above. 
ISLES OF THE AMAZOWS.         103
xxxiv.
"Let the winds blow f~h and the fruits be gold,
And the gods be gracious to King and to Queen,
N~1ille the tides are gray or the Isles are green,
Or the moons wax new, or the moons wane old!"
xxxv.
The tawny old crone bere lays her stone
On the leaning grass and reaches a hand;
The day like a beautiful dream has flown,
The curtains of night come down on the land,
And I dip to the oars; but crc I go,
I tip ber an extra bright pesos or so,
And I smile my thanks, for I think them due
But, fairest of readers, now what think you?  
FROM SEA TO SEA.
5* 
IVe glide tkrougk golden seas of grai~z;
JVe skoot, a skining comet, tkrougk
Tke mountain rai~ge against tke blue
And tken below U~e walls of snow,
We blow tke desert dust amain;
We brush the gay madrona tree,
We greet U~e orange groves beThw, -
We rest beneath U~e oaks; and we
Have cleft a continent in twain. 
FROM SEA TO SEA.
I.
SHAKE hands! kiss hands in haste to the sea,
~Yhere the sun comes in, and mount with me
The matchless steed of the strong New WoAd,
That champs and ebafes with a strength untold, -
And away to the West, where the waves are curl'd,
As they kiss whfte palms to the capes of gold!
A girth of brass and a breast of steel,
A breath of fire and a flaming mane,
An iron hoof and a steel-clad heel,
A Mexican bit and a massive chain
Well tried and wrought in an iron rein;
And away! away! with a shout and yell
That had stricken a legion of old with fear,
That had started the dead from their graves whilere,
And startled the damn'd in hell as well.
Stand up! stand out! where the wind comes in,
And the wealth of the seas j~om~s over you,
As its health floods up to the face like wine,
An4 a breath blows up from the Delaware 
io8         F~OM SEA TO SEA.
And the Susquehanna.  ~Ye fbel the might
Of armies ill us; the blood leaps through
The frame with a fresh and a keen delight
As the Alleghanies have kiss'd the hair,
~~ith a kiss blown far through the rush and din,
By the chestnut burs and through boughs of pine.
II.
O seas in a land! 0 lakes of mine!
By the love I bear and the songs I bdng
Be glad with me! lift your waves and sing
A song in the reeds that surround your isles! -
A song of joy for this sun that smiles,
For this land I love and this age and sign;
For the peace that is and the perils pass'd;
For the hope that is and the rest at last!
"I.
O heart of the world's heart!  West! my N\Test!
Look up! look out!  There are fields of kine,
There are clover-fields that are red as wine;
A~id a world of kine in the fields take rcst,
And ruminate in the shade of trees
That are white with blossoms or brown with bees. 
F1?OM SEA TO SEA.                109
There are emerald seas of corn and cane;
There are cotton-~elds like a ft~amy main,
To the far-off South where the sun was born,
Where the fiih have birth and the loves knew morn.
There are isles of oak and a harvest plain,
Where brown men bend to the bending grain;
There are temples of God and towns new-born,
And beautiflil homes of beautiful brides;
And the hearts of oak and the hands of horn
liave fashion'd them all and a world besides..
A yell like the yell of the Iroquois,
And out of Eden, - and Illinois!
Iv.
A iush of rivers and a brush of trees,
A breath blown far fi~om the Mexican seas,
And over ilie gi~eat heart-vein of earth!
By the South-Sun-land of the Cherokee,
By the scalp-lock-lodge of the tall Pawnee,
And up Uie La Platte.  What a weary dearth
Of the homes of men!  What a wild ddight
Of space! of room!  What a sense of seas,
Where the seas are not!  What a salt-like breeze!
~Yhat dust and taste of quick alkali! 
110         F1?Off SEA TO SEA.
~.. Then hills! green, brown, then black like night,
All fierce and defiant against the sky!
By night and by day!  The deeps of the night
Are rolling upon us, yet fiercer the flight.
Lo! darkness bends down like a mother of grief
On the limitless plain, and the fall of her hair
It has mantled a world.  The stars are in shea?,
Yet onward we plunge like a beast in despair
Through the thick of the night; and the thundering
cars!
They have crush'd and have broken the beautiful day;
llave crumbled it, scatter'd it far away,
And blown it above to a dust of stars.
v.
At last! at last!  0 steed new-born,
Born strong of the will of the strong New World,
We shoot to the sumnAt, with the shafts of morn,
Of the mount of Thunder, where clouds are curl'd,
Below in a splendor of the sun-clad seas.
A kiss of welcome on the warm west breeze 
FllOAf,SEA TO SEA.            I"
Blows up with a smell of the fragrant pine,
And a faint, sweet fragrance fitom the far-off seas
Comes ill through the gates of the great South Pass
And thrills the soul like a flow of wine.
The hare leaps low in the storm-bent grass,
The mountain ram from his cliff looks back,
The brown deer hies to the tamarack;
And afar to the South with a sound of the main,
~~oll buffalo herds to the limitless plain..
On, on, o'er the summit; and onward again,
And down like the sea-dove the billow enshrouds,
And down like the swallow that dips to the sea,
We dart and we dash and we quiver and we
Are blowing to heaven white billows of clouds.
vi.
Thou "City of Saints!"  0 antique men,
And men of the Desert as the men of old!
Stand up! be glad!  When the truths are told,
When Time has utter'd his truil~s and when
llis hand has lifted the things to fame
From the mass of things to be known no more;
~Vben creeds have perish'd and have pass'd away, 
112         FkOM SEA TO SEA.
Opinions that lorded their little day, -
A monument set in the desert sand,
A pyramid rear'd on an inland shore,
And'their architects, shall have place and name.
o sea, land-lost!  0 desolate land,
Made brown with grain, and made green with bay;
Let mock who will, gainsay it who may,
No little thing has it been to rear
A resting~place in the desert here,
For Fathers bound to a farther land
No little thing with a foe at hand
That has known no peace, save with these strong men,
And the peace unbroken with the blameless Penn.
vii.
The llumboldt desert and the alkaline land,
And the seas of sage and of arid sand,
That stretch away till the straiu'd eye carries
The soul where the infinite spaces fill,
Are far iii the rear, and the fair Sierras
Are under our feet, and the heaft beats high,
And the blood comes quick; but the lips are still
~Yith awe and wonder, and all the will
Is bow'd with a grandeur that frets the sky. 
F2?OM SEA TO SEA.              113
A flash of lakes through the ft~grant trees,
A song of birds and a sound of bees
Above in the boughs of the sugar-pine.
The pick-axe stroke in the placer mine,
The boom of blasts in the gold-ribb'd hills,
The grizzly's growl in flie gorge below
Are dying away, and the sound of rills
From the far-off shimmeAng crest o~ snow,
The laurel green and the ivied oak,
A ydlow stream and a cabin's smoke,
The brown bent hills and the shepherd's call,
The hills of vine and of fruits, and all
The sweets of Eden are here, and we
Look out and afar to a limitless sea.
We have lived in age in a haff-moon-wane!
We have seen a world!  We have diased the sun
From sea to sea; but the task is done.
We here descend to the great white main, -
To the I~ing of Seas, with the temples bare
And a tropic breath on the brow and hair.
We are hush'd with wonder, and all apart
We stand in silence till the heaving lie art
II 
114       FEOAf SEA TO SEA.
Fills full of heaven, and then the knees
Go down in worship, on the golden sands.
With faces seaward, and with folded hands
We gaze on the beautiful Balboa se~s. 
BY TllE SUN-DOWN SEAS.  
BY TllE SUN-DOWN SEAS.
PART  L
I.
~IKE fragments of an uneompleted world,
From bleak Alaska, bound in ice and spray,
To where the peaks of Darien lie curl'd
In clouds, the broken lands loom bold and gray.
The seamen nearing San Francisco Bay
Forget the compass here; with sturdy hand
They seize the wheel, look up, then bravely lay
The ship to shore by rugged peaks that stand
The stern and proud patrician fathers of the land.
II.
They stand white stairs of heaven, - stand a line
Of lifting, endless, and eternal white.
They look upon the far and flashing brine,
Vpon the boundless plains, the broken height
Of I&amiakin's battlements.  The flight
Of time is underneath their untopp'd towers.
They seem to push aside the moon at night,
To jostle and to loose the stars.  The flowens
Of heave~ fall about their brows in shining showers. 
ii8     BY THE SUA~-DOWN SEAS.
"I.
They stand a line of lifted snowy isles
lligh held above a toss'd and tumbled sea, -
A sea of wood in wild unmeasured mlles:
White pyramids of Faith where man is free;
~Vhite monuments of llope that yet shall be
The mounts of matchless and immortal song..
I look fi~r down the hollow days; I see
The bearded prophets, simple-soul'd and strong,
Thatstrike the sounding harp and thrill the heeding
throng.
Iv.
Serene and satisfied! supreme! as lone
As God, they loom like God's archangels churl'd:
They look as cold as kings upon a throne:
The mantling wings of night are crush'd and curl'd
As feathers curl.  The elements arc hurPd
From off their bosoms, and are bidden go,
Like evil spirits, to an under-woAd.
They stretch fiom Cariboo to ~Iexic~
A line of battle-tents in everlasting snow. 
BY THE SU]\JLDOWN SEAS.        119
V.
See once Columbia's scenes, then roam no more;
No more remains on earth to cultured eyes;
The cataract comes d~wn, a broken roar,
The palisades defy approach, and rise
Green moss'd and dripping to the clouded skies.
The canon thunders with its fitil of foam,
And calls loud-mouth'd, and all the land defies;
The mounts make fellowship and dwell at home
In snowy brotherhood beneath their purpled dome.
VI.
The rainbows swim in circles round, and rise
Against the hanging granite walls till lost
In drifting dreamy clouds and dappled skies,
A grand mosaic intertwined and toss'd
Along the mighty canon, bound and cross'd
By storms of screaming birds of sea and land;
The salmon rush below, bright red and boss'd
In silver.  Tawny, tall, on either hand
You see the savage spearman nude and silent stand.
VII.
llere sweep the wide wild waters cold and white
And blue in their far depths; divided now
 
120      BY THE SUN-DOW;V SEAS,
By sudden swift canoe as still and light
As feathers nodding fi~om the painted brow
That lifts and looks from out the imaged prow.
Ashore you hear the papoose shout at play;
The curl'd smoke comes from underneath th~ bough
Of leaning fir: the wffe looks far away
And sees a swfft sweet bark divide the dashing spray.
~III.
Slow drift adown the river's levell'd deep,
And look above; lo, columns! woods! the snow!
The rivers rush upon the brink and leap
From out the clouds three thousand feet below,
And land afUam in tops of firs that grow
Against your river's rim: they pl~sh, they play,
In clouds, now loud ~nd now subdued and slow,
A thousand il~under tones; they swing and sway
In Idle winds, long leaning shafts of shining spray.
Ix.
An Indian surnmerftime it was, long past,
We lay on this Columbia, far below
The stormy water-falls, and God had cast
ITs heaven's stillness.  Dreamily and slow
We drifted as the light bark chose to go. 
BY THE SU;V-DOW;V SEA&           121
Au Indian girl with ornaments of shell
Began to sing.... The stars may ii old such flow
Of hair, such eyes, but rarely earth.  There fell
A sweet enchantment that possess'd me as a spell:
x.
We saw the elk forsake the sable wood,
Step quick across t}~e rim of shining sand,
Breast out in troop Qgainst the flashing flood,
Then brisket deep with lifted antici's stand,
And ears alert, look sharp on either hand,
Then ~vhistle shrill to dam and do~~bting fa~vn
To follo~ lead with blad nose to the land.
They cross'd, they climb'd tl~e heaving hills, were gone,
A sturdy chargiug line with crooked sabres 4i~awn:
xI.
Then black swans cross'd us slowly low and still;
Then other swans, wide-wing'd and wbite as sno~v,
Flew overhead and topp'~l the' timber'd hill,
And cali'd and sang afar coarse-voiced and slow,
Tiji sounds roan~d lost in sombre firs below..
Then clouds blew in, and all tlie sky was cast
With tumbled and tumultuous clouds that grow
 
122      BY THE SUA~DOW~V SEA&
Red tiianderbolts.... A fiasb   A thunder-blast!
The clouds were rent, and lo! ~Iount Hood hung wl~ite
and vast.
xII.
Once, morn by morn, when snowy mountains flamed
NYith sudden shafts of light that shot a flood
Into tlie vale like fiery arrows aiiu'd
At night fi'oa~ mighty hattlen~ents, iliere stood
Upon a cliff high-linin'd against ~Iount Hood,
A mateliless bull fi~esh forth fi~oni sable wold,
And standiiig so seem'd grander`gainst the wood
Than ~vinge'd bull that stood with tips of gold
Beside tlie brazen gates of Nhieveh of old.
xiii.
A time he toss'd the de~vy tur?, and then
Streteh'd forth his wrinkled ~ieek, ai~d long and loud
He eall'd above t1~e flu' ibodes of men
Untll his breath became a ending cloud
And ~vreathed ~~out his neck a misty shroud. 
BY TifE SUA~VOW;V SEAS.            123
lie then ~s sudden as he came pass'd on
~~~ith lifted head, n~ajestie ai~d most 1~j~oud,
And lone as night in deepest wood witl~drawa
lie roaiii'd in silent rage until another dawn.
xly.
~YI~at drove tlie l~en~it f~m the v;tlley herd,
~~~hat cross of love, what cold i~egleet of kind,
Or scorn of l~npretending worth l~ad stirr'd
~`he stiihboru hlood and drove hin~ forth to find
A fello~vship ill li~onntain cloud and wind,
I otttia~e wonder'd much; and ofttiiae thought
The beast betray'd a royal monarch's mind,
To lift above t}ie low herd's common lot,
And make them hear Jilin still when they had fain
forgot.
xy.
itis broad-brim~u'd hat push'd back with careless air,
The pi~oud vaqucro sits his steed as fi~ee
As winds that t(~55 his bl:tek ab~indaiit hair.
No rover ever sw~pt a lawless sea
~Vith such a haught and heedless air as he 
124     BY THE SUA~DOWIV SEAS.
~Ybo scorns tbe path, and bounds with swift disdain
Away: a peon born, yet born to be
A splendid king; behold bini ride, and reign,
The only perfect nionareli of the niottled plain.
xv'.
Ilow bra~e lie takes liis herds in branding days,
On tiuibc?d hills t}~at belt about tbe plain
lie cliiiibs, he wheels, lie shouts through winding ways
Of hiding ferns and haiiging fir; the rein
Is loose, the rattling spar drives s~4ft; the niane
Blows free; the bullocks rush in storms before;
They turn with lifted lie ads, they rush again,
Then sadden plunge fioni out the wood, and pour
A cloud upon the plain with one terrific roar.
Xv".
Now sweeps the tawny nian on storniy steed,
Ilis gaudy trappings toss'd about and blown
Above the linibs as lithe as any reed;
The swift long lasso twh4'd above is thrown
Froni flying hand; the fidl, tlic fcarfiil groan
Of bullock toii'd and tumbled iii t}~e dust -
The black herds onward sweq~, and all disown
 
BY TIlE SUW-DOWAT SEAS.        125
The fill en struggling monarch that has thrust
His tongue in rage and roll'd his red eyes ill disgust.
XVIII.
A morn in Oregon!  The kindled camp
Vpon the mountain brow that broke below
In steep and grassy stairway to il~e damp
And dewy valley, snapp'd and flamed aglow
~Vi4i knots of pine.  Above, the peaks of snow,
~Vith under-belts of sable forests, rose
And flash'd in sudden sunlight.  To and fro
And far below, in lines and winding rows,
The herders drove their bands, and broke the deep
repose.
XIX.
I heard their shouts like sounding hunter's hern,
Tlie lowing herds made echoes fir away;
~Vhcn lo the clouds came driving in with morn
Towai'd the sea, as fleeiag fl'om il~e day.
The valleys flll'd wiil~ curly clouds.  They lay
Below, a levcll'd sea that rcach'd and roll'd
And broi~e like breakers of a stormy bay
Against the grassy shingle fold on fold,
So like a splen4id ocean, snowy white and cold. 
126     B17 TIlE SYJV-DOWI\T SEAS.
XX.
The peopled valley lay a hidden world,
The shouts ~~ere sbouts of dro~ning men tbat died,
Tbe broken clouds along the border eurl'd,
And bent the grass with weighty f\'eight of tide.
A savage stood in silence at my side
Then sudden threw aback lils beaded strouds
And stretcl~'d liis hand above the scene, and ened,
As all the land lay dead in snowy shrouds
"Behold  the sun npon a silver sea of clouds."
XXI.
liere lifts the land of clouds!  Tbe mantled f()0'flls,
~Iade white with everlasting snow, look down
Through mists of many cai~ons, and the storms
That stretch f\~om Autumn tin~e until they drown
The yellow hein of Spring.  Tlie cedars frown,
f?ark~brow'd, thron gh banner'd clouds that stretch
and stream
Above tl~e sea Thom snowy mountain crown.
Tlie heavens roll, and all things drift or seena
To drift about and drive like some majestic dream. 
BY THE SUAT-DOWN SEAS.            127
XXII.
In ~~aning Antumn tiine, ~A~en purpled skies
~cgin to haze in indolence below
The snowy peaks, you see black fora~s arise
In rolling thunder banks above, aiid throw
Quick barricades about the glean~ing snow.
The strife begins   The b:ittling seasons stand
Broad breast to breast.  A tIash!  Conte~itions grow
Tewific.  Thunders crash, and liglitaii0gs brand
Tlie battlen~ents.  The clouds possess il~e storn~y l;ind.
XXIII.
Then clouds blow by, the swans take loftier flig}it,
The yellow bloon~s burst out up cii t}ie bill,
The purple cainas cO1~C5 as in a uigl~t,
Tall spiked and drippiag of the ~e~vs that fill
The niisty valley.... Suabeanis break and spfll
Their glory till the vale is fidi of noon.
The roses belt tlie streanis, no bird is still..
Tlie stars, as lai~e as lilies, meet tl~c nicon
Aiid sing of suaiincr, borii thus suddcii full aiid soon. 
BY THE SUN-DOWN SEAS.
PART  IL
I.
TALE half told and hardly nnderstood;
T}ie talk of bearded men that chanced to meet,
That lean'd on long quaint i4fles in the wood,
That look'd in fellow faces, spoke discreet
And low, ns half ia doubt and in defeat
Of hope; a tale it was of lands of gold
That lay toward the sun.  Wild wing'd and fleet
It spread among the swift ]\Iissoun's hold
[Tnbridled men, and reacli'd to where Ohio roll'd
II.
The long chain'd lines of yoked and patient steers;
Th~ lon~ white trains that pointed to the west,
Beyond the savage west; the hopes and fears
Of blunt untutor'd men, who hardly guess'd
 
BY THE SU~V-DOWW sThl&               129
Their course; the brave and silcut won~cn, drcss'd
In homely spun attire, the boys in bands,
The cheery babes that laugh'd at all, and bless'd
The doubting hearts with laughing lifted hands,
Proclaim'd an exodus for far nntraversed lands.
III.
The Plains!  The shouting 4nvers at the wheel;
The crash of leather whips; the crush and roll
Of wheels; the groan of yokes and grinding steel
And hon d~~in, and lo! at last the whole
Vast line, that reacWd as if to touch the goal,
Began to stretch and stream away and wind
Toward the west, as if with one control;
Then hope looin'd fair, and home lay far behind;
Before, the boundless plain, and fiercest of their kind.
ly.
The way lay wide and green and fresh as seas
And far away as any reach of wave;
The sunny stream~ went by in belt 0r trees~
And here and there the tassell'd, tawny brave
Swept by on horse, look'd back, stretch'd forth and
gave
6*                   1 
130     BY TIJE SUA7-DOWW SEAS.
A yell of hell, and then did wheel and rein
Awhile, and point away, dark-brow'd and grave,
Into the far and dim and distant plain
~Vith signs and prophecies, and then planged on again.
Y.
Some hills at last began to lift and break;
Some streams began to fall of wood and tide,
The sombre plain began betime to take
A line of weary brown, and wild and wide
It stretch'd its naked breast on every side..
A babe was beard at last to cry for bread
Amid the deserts; cattle low'd and died,
And dying men went by with broken tread,
And left a long black serpent line of wreck and dead.
VI.
Strange hnnger'd birds, black~wing'd and still 98
death,
And crown'd of red with hooked beaks, blew low
And close aboat, till we could touch their breath Strange annamed birds, that seern'd to come and go
In circles now, n~~d now direct ai~d slow,
 
BY TIlT SUAT~DOwN SEAS.          131
Contianal, yet never touch the earth;
Slim foxes shied and shuttled to and fro
At times across tlie dusty weary dear4~
Of life, look'd back, then sank like crickets in a bcai~tI~.
yII.
Tlie 4ust arose, a long dim line like smoke
From out a riven earth.  The wheels went by,
The thousand feet in harness and in yoke,
They tore the ways of ashen alkali,
And desert winds blew sudden, swfft and dry.
The dust! it sat upon and fill'd tlie train!
It seem'd to fret and ~lt the very sky.
Lo! dust upon the beasts, il~e tent, the l~lain,
And dust, alas! on breasts il~at rose not up again.
vii'.
They sat in desolation and in dust
By dried-up desert streams; tlie mother's hands
~Iid all her bended face; the cattle thrust
Their tongues and faintly call'd across il~e lands.
The babes, that knew not what the way throngh sands
Could mean, would ask if it would end to-day...
The panting wolves slid by, red-eyed, in bands
To streams beyond.  The men look'd t~r away,
And siiei~t saw that all a boundless desert lay. 
132    BY THE SUW-DOWA SEAS.
Ix.
They rose by night; they struggled on and on
As thin and still as ghosts; then here and there
Beside the dusty way before the dawn,
~Ien silent laid them down in their despair,
And died.  But woman!  Wornun, frail as fair!
~Iay man have strength to give to you your due;
You falter'd not, nor mun~ur'd anywhere,
You held your babes, held to your course, and you
Bore on through burning hell your double burthens
through.
x.
They stood at lost, the decimated few,
Above a laud of running streams, and they...?
They push'd aside the boughs, and peering through
Beheld afar the cool, refreshing bay;
Then some did curse, and some bend hands to pray;
But some look'd back upon the desert, wide
And desolate with death, then all the day
They wept.  But one, with nothing left beside
His dog to love, crept down amo'~g the ferns and died. 
BY THE SUiV-DOWI\T SEAS.          133
XI.
I stand upon the green Sien~a's wall;
Toward the east, beyond the yellow grass,
I see the broken hill-tops lift and fall,
Then sands that shimmer like a sea of glass,
In all the shining summer days that pass.
There lies the nation's great high road of dead.
Forgotten aye, unnumber'd, and, alas!
Un chronicled in deed or death; instead,
The stiff aristocrat lifts high a lordly head.
XII.
~Iy brave and nnrernember'd heroes, rest;
You fell in silence, silent lie and sleep.
Sleep on unsung, for il~is, I say, were best;
The woAd to-day has hardly time to weep;
The woild to-day will hardly care to keep
In heart her plain and unpretending brave.
The desert winds, they whistle by and sweep
About you; brown'(i and russet grasses wave
Along a thousand leagues that lie one common grave.
XIII.
The proud and careless pass in palace car
Along the line you blazon'd white with bones;
 
134      BY THE SUA~DOWrv SEA&
Pass s~vift to pcop}e, and possess and mar
Your lands with monuments and letter'd stones
Unto themselves.  Thank God! this waste disowns
Their touch.  llis everlasting hand has drawn
A shining line around you  ~Vcalth bemoans
The waste your splendid grave employs.  Sleep on,
No hand shal] touch your dust this side of God and
dawn.
xIy.
There came another, far less noble race;
They shot across the iron grooves, a host
Of school'd and cunning men; they push'd from place
The simple pioneer, and mock'd, and most
Of all set strife along the peaceful coast.
The rude unletter'd settler, bound and coil'd
In controversy, then before the boast
Of bold contentious men, confused and foile~,
Turn'd mute to wilder lands, and left his home despoil'd.
xv.
I let them stride across with grasping hands
And strive for brief possession; mark and line
~iU~ lifted walls the new divided lands,
And gather growing herds of lowing kine. 
BY THE SU]\T-DOWI\T SEAS.         135
I could not covet il~ese, could not confine
~iy ii cart to cue; all secn~d to me the same,
And all below my monutain home, divine
And beauti{\~l held in another's name,
As if the herds and lands were mine, subdued and tame.
XVI.
I have not been, shall not be, understood;
I have not wit, nor will, to well explain,
But il~at which men call good I find not good.
The lands the savage held, shall hold again,
The gold the savage spurn'd in proud disdain
For centuries; go, take them all; build high
Your gilded temples; ~trive and strike and strain
And crowd and controvert and curse and lie
In A~urAi and state, in town and citadel, and - die.
xv".
And who shall grow the nobler fi'om it all?
The mute and unsung savage loved as true, lIe felt, as grateful felt, God's blessings fill
About his lodge and tawny babes as you
In temples, - ~Ioslcn~, Christian monk, or Jew. 
136      BY TIlE SU;v-BOW~V SEA&
The sea, the great white, biaided, boundh~g sea,
Is laughing in your face; the ar~hing blue
Remains to God; the mountains still are fl~ee,
A reflige for the few remaining tribes and me.
xyJII.
Your cities! from the first the hand of God
Has been against them; sword and flood and flame,
The earthquake's march, and pestilence, have trod
To undiscerning dust the very name
Of antique capitals; and still the same
Sad destiny besets the battlefields
Of ~Iammon and the harlot's house of shame.
Lo! man with monuments and lifted shields
Against his city's fate.  A flame! his city yields.
XIX..
~Vhose ill had I devised, what evil done,
That I was bidden to arise and go?...
I hear the clear Columbian waters run,
I see the white Pacific flash and flow
Below tlie swayilig cedar-trees tli~t grow
 
BY THE SUW-DOWJV SEAS             137
On peaks pre-eminent; but never mine
Again the wooded way on steed of snow,
The fleeman's mountain camp in cloud or shine,
Or pure companionship of meek-eyed mottled kine.
xx.
What wonder that I swore a prophet's oath
Of after aays.... I push'd tbe boughs apart,
I stood, look'd forth, and then look'd back, all loath
To leave my shadow'd wood.  I gather'd heart
From very~fearft~lness; with sudden start
I plunged in the arena; stood a wild
Uncertain thing, and artless all in art..
The brave approved, the fair lean'd fair and smiled, -
The lions touch with velvet-touch a th~id child.
xxi.
But now enough of men.  Enough, brief day
Of tamer life.  The court, the castle gate
That open'd wide along a pleasant way,
The gracious conv~rse of the kingly great
Had made another glad, and weil el'~te
With hope.  A world of thanks; but I am grown
Aweary.... I am not of this estate;
The poor, the plain brave border-men alone
Were my first love, and these I will not now disown. 
138     BY THE SUN-DOWN SEAS.
xxII.
Who loves the least may oft lament most loud:
I stand mute-mouth'd n~on a far gray shore;
The soul lifts up, a lone and white-wing'd cloud,
And like some sea-bird back and then before
The storm of seas, it seeks my land once more;
And here about the peaceful peaks, as white
As steps of ~od, until the flites restore
~Iy feet, shall it abide: the sea at nig}it
llas flash'd reflections back fi~om foamy fields of light.
XXIII.
I know a grassy slope above the sea,
The utmost limit of the westmost land.
In savage, gnarl'd, and antique majesty
The great trees belt about the place, and stand
In guard, with mai1~d limb and lifted head
Against the cold approaching civic pride.
The foamy brooklets seaward leap; the bland
Still air is fresh with touch of wood and tide,
Aud peace, eternal peace, possesses wild and wi~ie.
xxiv.
llere I return, here I abide and rest;
Some flocks and herds shall feed along the stream;
 
BY THE SUN-DOWN SEAS.             139
Some corn and climbing vines shall make us blest
N\Tith bread and luscious fruit.... The sunny dream
Of savage men ill moccasins that seem
To come and go in silence, girt in shell,
Before a s~in-dad cabiii-door, I deem
The harbinger of peace.  hope weaves her spell
Again about the weaned heart, and all is well.
xxv.
llere I shall sit in sunlit life's decline
Beneath my vine and sombre verdant tree.
Some tawny maids in other tongues than mine
Shall minister.  Some memoAcs shMl be
Before me.  I shall sit and I shall see,
That last vast day that dawn shall re-inspire,
The sun fall down upon the farther sea,
Fa}l weaAed down to rest, and so retire,
A splendid sinking isle of far-off fading fire. 
BY THE SVX-DOWX SEAS.
PART  IlL
I.
HE stormy Isles of story and of song,
L o! yonder lie, wbite lifting from the sea.
The head is bow'd a time, then loud and long
The shouts go up; men lean tiptoed, to be
One instant nearer; turn, eat4~ high and fi~ee
Their little babes above the leaning baud,
And lift and point and bid them look and see
And laugh with theni and shout with lifted hand
To see at last the land; their sires' sires' darling land.
II.
Thou, mother of brave men, of nations!  Thou,
The white-brow'd Queen of bold white-bearded Sea!
Thou weft of old even the same as now,
So strong, so tame yet ~eree, so bound yet free,
A contradiction and a mystery;
Serene, yet passionate, in ways thine own. 
BY TilE SUAuDOWN SEAS.            141
Thy white ships wind and weave all time for thee
The zones of earth, aye thou hast set and sown
The seas in bed of blossom'd sail, white-spread and
blown.
"I.
Above yon inland populace the skies
Are pink and mellow'd soft in rosy light.
Tbe crown of earth!  A halo seems to rise
And hang perpetual above by night,
And dash by day the heavens, till the sight
Betrays the city's presence to the wave..
You hear a hollow sound as of the might
Of seas; you see the march of fair and brave
In millions; movh~g, moving, moving toward - a grave.
Iv.
I see above a crowded world a cross
Of gold.  It grows like some great cedar-tree
Upon a peak in shroud of cloud and moss,
~Iade bare and bronzed in far antiquity.
Stupendous pile!  The grim Yosemite'
llas rent apart his granite wall, and tbrown
Its rugged ftont before us.... llere I see
Tl~e strides of gi~nt men in cryptic stone,
And turn, and slow descend wbere sleep the great alone. 
142     BY THE SUIV-L)O!VW SEAS.
y.
The mighty captains have come home to rest;
The brave return'd to sleep amid the brave.
The sentinel that stood wi4~ steely breast
Before the fiery hosts of France, and gave
The battle-cry that roll'd, receding wave
On wave, the fbeman flying back and far,
Is here.  llow still!  Yet louder now il~c grave
Than ever-crushing Belgian battle-car
Or blue and battle-shaken seas of Traf~lgar.
VI'
The verger stalks in stiff importance o'er
The hollow, deep, and strange responding stones;
lie stands with lifted staff unchid before
The forms that once had crnsh'd or fashion'd il~rones,
And coldly points you out the coffln'd bones:
lie stands composed where armies could not stai~d
A little time before.... The hand disowns
Tbe~idle sword, and now instead the grand
And golden cross makes sign and takes austere cojii
inand. 
BY THE SU)wDOWIV SEAS.            143
yII.
The Abbey broods beside the turbid Thames;
11cr mother heart is ~Wd with memories;
lier every niche is stored with storied names;
They move before me like a mist of seas.
I om conf\ised, am made abash'd by these
~Iost king~y souls, grand, silent, and severe.
I am not equal, I should sore displease
The living... dead.  I dare not enter; drear
And stain'd in storms of grander days all things appear.
VIII.
I go! but shall I not return again
When Art has taught me gentler, kindlier skill,
And time has given force and strength of strain?
I go!  0 ye that dignify and ~ll
The chronicles of earth!  I would instil
Into my soul somehow the atnaosphere
Of sanctity that here usurps the will;
But go; I seek the tomb of one-a peer
Of peers - whose dust a fool refused to cherish here.
Ix.
O master, here I bow before a shrine;
Before the lorc~iest dust that ever yet
 
144      BY THE SUN-DOWN SEAS.
~Ioved ~nimate in human form divine.
Lo! dust indeed to dust.  The mould is set
Above thee and the ancient walls are wet,
And drip all day in dank and silent gloom,
As if the cold gray stones could not forget
Thy g1'eat estate shrunk to this sombre room,
Bnt learn to weep perpetual tears above thy tomb.
x.
Through broken panes I hear the seboolboys sboitt,
I see the black-wing'd engines sweep and pass,
And from the peopled narrow plot without,
Well grown with brier, moss, and heaving grass,
I see the Abbey loom an ivied mass,
~1ade eloquent of faiths, of fates to be,
0~ creeds, and perish'd kings; and still, alas,
O soldier-childe! most eloquent of il~ee,
Of thy sad life, and all the unseal'd mystery.
xI.
Before me lie the oak-crow~'d Annesley hills,
Before me lifts the ancient Annesley lIall
Above the mossy oaks.... A picture fills
With forms of other days.  A maiden tall
 
BY THE SUN-DOWN SEAS.             145
And fair; a fiery restless boy, with all
The force of man; a steed that frets without;
A long thin sword that rusts upon the wall....
The generations pass.... Behold! about
The ivied hall the fair-hair'd children sport and shout.
XII.
A line of elms along the hill-top run;
The diadem of oaks is torn away;
Discrown'd the promontory meets the sun,
And here is set the record of a day,
Of meaning full and memories; and gray
With a~nals dear to Annesley llall, it stands,
A stone, with but this single word to say -
But "Inkerman!" and lifts its unseen hands,
And beckons far to battle-fields of other lands.
XIII.
I look into the dread, forbidding tomb;
Lo! darkness - death.  The soul on shifting sand
That belts Eternity gropes in the gloom...
The black-wing'd bird goes forth in search of land,
But turns no more to reach my reaching band.
7                J 
146      BY THE SUAr-DOWN SEAS.
O land beyond the land! I lean me o'er
Thy dust in prayer devout.... I rise, I stand
Erect; the stormy seas are thine no more;
A weary whfte-wing'd dove has touch'd the olive shore.
xIv.
A bay wreath woven by the sun-down west
llangs damp and stain'd upon the dank gray wall,
Above thy time-soil'd tomb and tatter'd crest;
A bay-wreath gather'd by the seas that call
To orient Cathay, that break and fall
On shell-lined shores before Tahiti's breeze..
A slab, a crest, a wreath, and these are all
Neglected, tatter'd, torn; yet only these
The world bestows for song that rivall'd singing seas.
xy.
A bay-wreath wound by one more truly brave
Than Shastan; fair as thy eternal fame,
She sat and wove above the sunset wave,
And wound and sang thy measures and thy name.
`Twas wound by one, yet sent with one acclaim
By many, fair and warm as flowing win~,
And purely true, and tall as growing flame,
That list and lean in moonlight's mellow shine
To tropic tales of love in other tongues than thine. 
BY THE SUW-DOW7V SEAS.       147
xyl.
I bring this idle reflex of thy task,
And my few loves, to thy forgotten tomb:
I leave them here; and here all pardon ask
Of thee, and patience ask of singers whom
Thy majesty hath silenced.  I resume
My stafi~ and now my face is to the West;
My feet are worn; the sun is gone, a gloom
llas mantled llucknall, and the minstrel's zest
For fame is broken here, and here be pleads for rest.  
IN TllE INDIAN SUMMER. 
Sing songs, and give love in oblations;
Be glad, and forget in a rltgme
AIutations of time, and mutations
Of thought, that is fiercer than time. 
IN TllE INDIAN SUMMER.
~fllE sunlight lay in gathered sheaves
Along the ground, the golden leaves
Possessed the land and lay in bars
Above the lifted lawn of green
Beneath the feet, or fell, as stars
Fall, slautwise, shimmering and still
~pon the plain, upon the hill,
And heaving hill and plain between.
Some steeds in panoply were seen,
Strong, martial trained, with manes in air,
And tasselled reins and mountings rare;
Some silent people here and there,
That gathered leaves with listless will,
Or moved adown the dappled green,
Or looked away with idle gaze
Against the gold and purple haze.
You might have heard red apples fall, 
1S2     IN THE INDIAN SUAJMEB.
The pheasant on the farther hill,
A single, lonely, locust trill,
Or sliding sable cricket call
From out the grass, but that was all.
A wanderer of many lands
Was I, a weary Ishmaclite
That knew the sign of lifted hands;
llad seen the Crescent~mosques, had seen
The Drmd oaks of Aberdeen;
Then crossed the hilly seas, and saw
The sable pines of Mackinaw,
And lakes that lifted cold and white.
I saw the sweet Miami, saw
The swift Ohio bent and rolled
Between his gleaming walls of gold,
The Wabasb banks of gray papaw,
The Mississippi's ash; at morn
0~ autumn, when the oak is red,
Saw slanting pyramids of corn,
The level fields of spotted swine,
The crooked lanes of lowing kine,
And in the burning bushes saw
The face of God, with bended head. 
IN THE INDIAN SUMAfEB.      153
But when I saw her face, I said,
"Earth has no fruits so fairly red
As these that swing above my head;
No purpled lea?, no poppied land,
Like this that lies in reach of hand."
Some maple leaves hung overhead,
In scarlet hues and many kind;
Some danced about upon the sand,
As dancers dancing band in hand,
Begirt in gold, arrayed in red,
To soft songs whistled in the wind.
11cr image seemed a spirit'S then;
She filled the lawn whereon she stood,
And, soft, unto myself I said:
"0 soul, inured to rue and rime,
To barren toil and bitter bread,
To biting rime, to bitter rue,
Earth is not Nazareth; be good.
0 sacred Indian-summer time
Of scaHet fruits, of fi~agrant wood,
Of purpled clouds, of curling haze -
O days of golden dreams and days
Of banished, vanished tawny men,
7* 
154     fAT THE fNDfAN SUAfAJEll.
Of martial songs and manly deeds -
Be fair to~day, and bear me true."
We mounted, turned the sudden steeds
Toward the yellow hills, and flew.
My faith! but she rode fair, and she
llad scarlet berries in her hair,
And on her hands white starry stones.
The satellites of many thrones
Fall down before her gracious air
In that full season.  Fair to see
Are pearly shells, red virgin gold,
And yellow fruits, and sun-down seas,
And babes suntbrown; but all of these,
And all fair things of sea besides,
Before the matchless, manifold
Accomplishments of her who rides
With autumn summer in her hair,
And knows her steed and holds her fair
And stately in her stormy seat,
They lie like playthings at her feet.
By heaven! she was more than f~iir,
And more than good, and matcHess wise,
With all the lovelight in her eyes,
And all the midnight in her hair. 
I;V THE JNDJAN SUMMEi?.         155
The Nowing hair! the bannered manes!
The rustling leaves in whispers blown!
The sounding feet made melody,
And earth was filled and I was glad
With sweet delight; ay, even sad
From pure excess of joy, that fills
The soul sometimes too eager grown.
Through leafy avenues and lanes,
And lo! we climbed the yellow hills,
With russet leaves about the brows
That reached fi'om over-reaching trees.
With purpled briers to the knees
Of steeds that fretted foamy thews,
We turned to look a time below
Beneath the ancient arch of boughs,
That bent above us as a bow
Of promise, bound in many hues.
I reached my hand.  I could refuse
All fruits but this, the touch of her
At such a time.  But lo! she leaned
With lifted face and soul, and leant
As leans devoutest worshipper,
Beyond the branches scarlet screened 
156     IN THE INDIAN SUMMER.
And looked above me and beyond,
So fixed and silent, still and fond,
She seemed the while she looked to lose
lier very soul in such intent.
She looked on other things, but I,
I saw nor scarlet leaf nor sky;
I looked on her, and only her.
Afar the city lay in smokes
Of battle, and the martial strokes
Of Progress thundered through the land
And struck against the yellow trees,
And rolled in hollow echoes on
Like sounding limits of the seas
That smite the shelly shores at dawn.
Beyond, below, on eftber hand
There reached a lake in belt of pine,
A very dream; a distant dawn
Asleep in all the autumn shine,
Some like one of another land
That I once laid a hand upon,
And loved too well, and named as mine.
She sometimes touched with dimpled h~nd
The drifting mane with dreamy air, 
JAT THE JNDJAI\T SUMMEi?.      157
She sometimes pushed aback her hair;
But still she leaned and looked afar,
As silent as the statnes stand, -
For what?  For falling leaf?  For st~
That runs before the bride of death?.
The elements were still; a breath
Stirred not, the level western sun
Poured in his arrows every one;
Spilled all his wealth of purpled red
On velvet poplar leaf below,
On arching chestnut overhead
In all the hues of heaven's bow.
She sat the upper hill, and high.
I spurred my black steed to her side;
"The bow of promise, lo!" I cried,
And lifted up my eyes to hers
With all the fervid love that stirs
The blood of men beneath the sun,
And reached my hand, as one undone,
In suppliance to hers above:
"The bow of promise! give me love!
I reach a band, I rise or fall,
llenceforth from this: put forth a h~nd
From your high place and let me stand - 
158     JN THE IAtDJAiV SUMMER.
Stand soul and body, white and tall!
Why, I would live for you, would die
To-morrow, but to live to-day.
Give me but love, and let me live
To die before you.  I can pray
To only you, because I know,
If you but give what I bestow,
That God has nothing left to give?'
Christ! still her stately head was raised,
And still she silent sat and gazed
Beyond the trees, beyond the town,
To where the dimpled waters slept,
Nor splendid eyes once bended down
To eyes that lifted up and wept.
She spake not, nor subdued her head
To note a hand or heed a word;
And then I questioned if she heard
My life-tale on that leafy hill,
Or any fervid word I said,
And spoke with bold, vehement will.
She moved, and from her bridled hand
She sudden drew the dainty glove, 
JN THE JNDJAN SUMMER.           159
Then gazed again upon the land.
The dimpled hand, a snowy dove,
Alit, and moved along the mane
Of glossy skeins; then, overbold,
It fell across the mane, and lay
Before my eyes a sweet bonquet
Of clustered kisses, white as snow.
I should have seized it reaching so,
Bat something bade me back, - a ban;
Around the third fair finger ran
A shining, hatef\~l hoop of gold.
Ay, then I turned, I looked away,
I sudden felt forlorn and chill;
I whistled, like, for want to say,
And then I said, with bended head,
"Another's ship from other shores,
With richer freight, with fairer stores,
Shall come to her some day instead;"
Then turned about, - and all was still.
Yea, you had chafed at this, and cried,
And laughed with bloodless lips, and said
Some bitter things to sate your pride,
And toss4d aloft a lordly head, 
i6o    IN THE INDIAN SUMMEll.
And acted well some wilful lie,
And, most like, cursed yourself- but I.
Well, you be crucified, and you
Be broken up with lances through
The soul, then you may turn to find
Some ladder-rounds in keenest rods,
Some solace in the bitter rind,
Some favor with the gods irate -
The everlasting angered gods -
And ask not overmuch of fate.
I was not born, was never blessed,
With cunning ways, nor wit, nor skill
In woman's ways, nor words of love,
Nor f~ishioned suppliance of will.
A very clown, I il~ink, had guessed
llow out of place and plain I seemed;
I, I, the idol~worshipper,
N\7ho saw nor maple4eaves nor sky
~ut took some touch and hue of her.
Then, after all, what right had I
To lift my eyes to cycs that bcamed
So far beyond, so far above? 
JN THE J2VDfAN SUAlMER.         i6i
I am a pagan, heathen, lo!
A savage man, of savage lands;
Too quick to love, too slow to know
The sign that tame love nnderstands,
Or cold approaches pride demands.
Some heedless hoofs went sounding down
The broken way.  The woods were brown,
And homely now; some idle talk
Of folk and town; a broken walk;
But sounding feet made song no more
For me along that leafy shore.
The sun caught up his gathered sheaves
A squirrel caught a nut, and ran;
A rabbit rustled in the leaves;
A whhllng bat, Nack-winged and tan,
Blew swift between us; sullen night
Fell down upon us; mottled kine,
With lifted heads, went lowing down
The rocky ridge toward the town,
And all the woods grew dark as wine.
K  
OLIVE LEAVES. 
o boy at peace upon tI~e Delaware!
o brot}ter mine, t~atfrll in baUlefront
Of lfr, so braver, nobler far tltan I,
The wanderer who vexed all gentleness,
Receive U~is song; I have but this to give.
I may not rear U~e rThh man's ghosUy stone;
Rut you, through all my follies loving still
And trusting me... nay, I sit all not forget.
A failing hand in mine, and fa ding eyes
That look'd in mine as from another lana,
You said: " Some gentler things; a song for Peace.
`A1id all your songs for men one song for Cod."
And then the dark-brow'd moUter, Death, bent down
Her face to yours, and you were born to Him. 
OLIVE LEAVES.
AT    BETllLEllEM.
"In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wild waste there still is a tree."
"Though the many lights dwindle to one light,
There is help if the heavens have one."
"Change lays llOt her hand upon truth."
~~ITll incense and myrrh and sweet spices,
Frankincense and sacredest oil
In ivory, chased with devices
Cut quaint and in serpentine coil;
lleads bared, and held down to the bosom;
Brows massive with wisdom and bronzed
Beards white as the white may in blossom,
And borne to the breast and beyond, -
Came the Wise of the East, bending lowly
On staffs, with their garments girt round
With girdles of hair, to the holy
Child Christ, ia their sandals.  The sonnd 
i66          OLIVE LEAVES.
Of song and thanksgiving ascended -
Deep night!  Yet some shepherds afar
lleard a wail with the worshipping blended,
And they then knew the sign of the star. 
IN PALESTINE.
()  JEBUS! thou mother of prophets,
Of soldiers and heroes of song;
Let the crescent oppress thee and scoff its
Blind will, let the days do thee wrong;
But to me thou art sacred and splendid,
And to me thou art matchless and fair,
As the tawny sweet twilight, with blended
Sunlight and red stars in her hair.
Thy fair ships once came from sweet Cyprus,
And fair ships drew in from Cyrene,
Wfth fruits and rich robes and sweet spices
For thee and thine eminent queen;
And camels came in with the traces
Of white desert dust in their hair
As they kneel'd in the loud market-places,
And Arabs with lances were there.
 
i63            OLJVE LEA VES.
`Tis past, and the Bedouin pillows
His head where thy battlements fall,
And thy temples flash gold to the billows,
Never more over turreted wall.
`Tis past, and the green velvet mosses
Have grown by the sea, and now sore
Does the far billow mourn for his losses
Of lifted white ships to the shore.
Let the crescent uprise, let it flash on
Thy dust in the garden of death,
Thy chasten'd and passionless passion
Sunk down to the sound of a breath;
You lived like a king on a throne and
You died like a queen of the south;
For you lifted the cup with your own hand
To your proud and your passionate month;
Like a splendid swift serpent surrounded
With fire and sword, in your side
You struck your hot fangs and confounded
Your foes; you struck deep, and so - died.
 
BEYOND JORDAN.
~ND they came to him, mothers of Judji',
Dark-eyed and in splendor of hair,
Bearing down over shoulders of beauty,
And bosoms half hidden, half bare;
#nd they brought him their babes and besoaght
him
llalf kneeling, with suppliant air,
To bl~ss the brown cherubs' they brought him,
With holy hands laid in their hah'.
Then reaching his hands he said, lowly,
"Of such is My Kingdom;" and then
Took the brown little babes in the holy
White hands of the Saviour of men;
lleld them close to his heaft and caress'd then~,
Pat his face down to theirs as in prayer,
Put their hands to his neck, and so bless'd them
With baby hands hid iii his hair.
8 
F A I T II.
~IIi~P~E were whi~rsicai turns of the waters,
There were rhyil~mical talks of the sea, -
There were gather'd the darkest-eyed daughters
Of men, by the dark Galilee.
A  blowing full sail, and a parting
From multitudes, living in him,
A  trembling of lips, and tears starting
From eyes that look'd downward and dim.
A  mantle of night and a marching
Of storms, and a sounding of seas,
Of furrows of f~am and of arching
Black billows; a bending of knees;
The rising of Christ - an entrenting -
llands reach'd to the seas as he saith,
"llaye Faith!"  And lo! still are repeating
All seas, "llave Faith!  llave Faith!  llave
Faith! 
II 0 P E.
~~llAT song is well sung not of so~~ow?
What triumph well won without pain?
What virtue shall be, and not borrow
Bright lustre from many a stain?
What birth has there been without travail?
What battle well won without blood?
What good shall earth see without evil
Ingarner'd as chaff with the good?
Lo! the Cross set in rocks by the Roman,
And nourish'd by blood of the Lamb,
And water'd by tears of the woman,
llas flourish'd, has spread like a palm;
llas spread in the fi~osts, and far regions
Of snows in the North, and South sands,
Where never the tramp of his legions
Was heard, or has reach'd forth liis red hands.
 
172           OLJVE LEAV~S~.
Be thankful: the price and the payment,
The birth, the privations and scorn,
The cross, and the parting of raiment,
Are fiuish'd.  The star brought us morn:
Look starward; stand far and unearthy,
Free-sonl'd as a banner nnfiirl'd.
Be worthy, 0 brother, be woftby!
For a God was the price of the world. 
C H A R I T Y.
haiids were clasped downward and doubled,
Her head was held down and depress'd,
Her bosom, like white billows troubled,
Fell fitful and rose in unrest;
Her robes were all dust, and disorder'd
Her glory of hair, and her brow,
Her face, that had lifted and lorded,
Fell pallid and passionless now.
She heard not accusers that brought her
In mockery hurried to Him,
Nor heeded, nor said, nor besought her
With eyes lifted doubtful and dim.
All crush'd and stone-c~st in behavior,
She stood ~s a marble would stand,
Them the Saviour bent down, and the Saviour'
In silence wrote on in the sand. 
`74            OLJVE LEAVES.
What wrote lle?  llow fondly one lingers
And questions, what holy command
Fell down from the beautiful fingers
Of Jesus, like gems in the sand.
o better tbe Scian uncherish'd
llad died crc a note or device
Of battle was fashion'd, than perish'd
This only line written by Christ.
lle arose and he look'd on the daughter
Of Eve, like a delicate flower,
And he heard tbe revilers that brought her -
~Ien stormy, and strong as a tower;
And he s~id, "She has sinn'd; let the blameless
Come forward and cast the first stone!"
But they, they fled shamed and yet shameless
And she, she stood white and alone.
Who now shall accuse and arraign us?
What man shall condemn and disown?
Since Christ has said only the stainless
Shall cast at his fellows a stone.
 
OLJVE LEAVES.               175
For what man can b~re us his bosom,
And tond~ with bis forefinger there,
And say,`Tis as snow, as a blossom?
Beware of the stainless, beware!
o woman, born first to believe ns;
Yea, also born first to forget;
Born first to betray and deceive ns,
Yet first to repent and regret!
o first il~en in all that is buman,
Lo! first where the Nazarene trod,
o woman! 0 beautiful woman!
Be then first in the kingdom of God! 
TllE LAST SUPPER.
"And;when they had sung a hymn they went out
into the Mount of Olives."
~~llAT song sang the twelve with the Saviour
When ~nish'd the sacrament wine?
Were they bow'd and subdued in behavior,
Or bold as made bold with a sign?
Were the hairy breasts strong and defiant?
Were the naked arms brawny ana strong?
Were the bearded lips lifted reliant,
Thrust forth and full sturdy with song!
What sang they?  What sweet song of Zion
With Christ in il~eir midst Jike a crown?
V~7hile here sat Saint Peter, fl~e lion;
And there like a lamb, with head down,
 
OLJVE LEAVES.               177
Sat Saint John, with his silken and raven
Rich hair on his shoulders, and eyes
Lifting up to the faces unshaven
Like a sensitive child's in surpAse.
~Yas the song as strong fishermen swinging
Their nets full of hope to the sea?
Or low, like the ripple-wave, singing
Sea-songs on their loved Galilee?
Were they sad with foreshadow of sorrows,
Like the birds that sing low when the breeze
Is tipftoe with a tale of to-morrows, -
Of earthquakes and sinking of seas?
Ah! soft was their song as the waves are
That fall in low musical moans;
And sad I should say as il~e wh~ds are
That blow by the white gravestones.
8*               L 
A SONG FOR PEACE.
I.
a tale that is told, as a vision,
Forgive and fo~et; for I say
That the true shall endure the derision
Of the false till the full of the day;
II.
Ay~ forgive as you would be forgiven;
Ay, forget, lest the ill you have done
Be remernber'd against you in heaven
And all the days under t}ie snn.
"I.
Por who shall have bread without labor?
And who shall have rest wifliout price?
And wlio shall hold war with his neighbor
~Yith prouiise of peace with the Christ?
 
OLJVE LEAVES.`79
Iv'
The years may lay hand on f~iir heaven;
May place and displace the red stars;
May stain them, as blood-stains are driven
At sunset in beautiful bars;
V.
May shroud them in black till they fret us
As clouds with their showers of tears;
May grind us to dust and forget us,
May the years, 0, the pitiless years!
VI.
The precepts of Christ are beyond them;
The truths by il~e Nazarene taught,
With the tramp of the ages upon them,
They endure as though ages were nougl~t;
VII.
The deserts may drink up the f~~~untai~s,
The forests give place to the plain,
The main may give place to the mountains,
The mountains return to the main;
 
i8o          OLfVE LEAVES.
vi".
Mutations of worlds and mutations
Of suns may take place, but the reign
Of Time, and the toils and vexatious
Bequeath them, no, never a stain.
Ix.
Go forth to the fields as one sowing,
Sing songs and be glad as you go,
There are seeds that take root without showing,
And bear some fi'uit whether or no.
x.
And the sun shall shine sooner or later,
Though the midnight breaks ground on the morn,
Then appeal you to Christ, the Creator,
And to gray-bearded Time, His first-born.
 
FALLEN LEAVES. 
Some fugitive lines t~at allure us no more,
Some fragments tl~at fell to the sea out of time;
Unftnish'd an~l guiltless of thought as of 4iyme,
Thrown now on the world like wazfs on the shore. 
FALLEN LEAVES.
PALM LEAVES.
~llATCll of palm and a patch of clover,
Breath of balm in a field of brown,
The clouds blew up and the birds flew over,
And I look'd upward: but who look'd down?
Who was true in the test that tried us?
Who was it mock'd?  Who now may mourn
The loss of a love that a cross denied us,
With folded hands and a heart forlorn?
&od forgive when the fair forget us.
The worth of a smile, the weight of a tear,
Why, who can measnre?  The fi~tes beset us.
We laugh a moment; we mourn a year. 
TllOMAS OF TIGRE.
~ING of Tigre, comrade true!
Where in all thine isles art thon?
Sailing on Fonseca blue?
Nearing Amapala now?
King of Tigre, where art thou?
Battling for Antilles' queen?
Sabre hilt, or olive bough?
Crown of dust, or laurel green?
Roving love, or marriage vow?
King and comrade, where art thou?
Sailing on Pacific seas?
Pitching tent in Pimo now?
Underneath magnolia trees?
Thatch of palm, or cedar bough?
Soldier-singer, where art thou? 
FALLEN LEAVES.           185
Coasting on the Oregon?
Saddle, bow, or bhehen prow?
Round the Isles of Amazon?
Pampas, plain, or mountain brow?
Prince of rovers, where art thou?
Answer me from ont the West.
I am weary, stncken now;
Thou art strong and I would rest:
Reach a hand with lifted brow, -
Ring of Tigre, where art thou? 
IN YOSEMITE VALLEY.
SOlYND! sound! sound!
0 colossal walls, as crowu'd
In one eternal thunder!
Sound! sound! sound!
O ye oceans overhead,
While we walk, subdued in wonder,
In the ferns and grasses, under
And beside the swift Merced!
Fret! fret! fret!
Streaming, sounding banners, set
Oa the giant granite castles
In the clouds and in the snow!
But the foe he comes not yet, -
We are loyal, valiant vassals,
And we touch the trailing tassels,
Of the banners far below.
Surge! surge! surge!
From the white Sierra's verge, 
FALLEN LEAVES.              187
To the very va]ley blossom.
Surge! surge! surge!
Yet the song-bird builds a home,
And the mossy branches cross them,
And the tasselled tree-tops toss them,
In the clouds of falling foam.
Sweep! sweep! sweep!
O ye heaven-born and deep,
In one dread, unbroken chorus!
We may wonder or may weep, -
We may wait 011 God before us;
We may shout or lift a hand, -
We may bow down and deplore us,
But may never understand.
Beat! beat! beat!
We advance, but would retreat
From this restless, broken breast
Of the earth in a convulsion.
We would rest, but dare not rest,
For the angel of expulsion
From this Paradise below
Waves us onward and... we go. 
DEAD IN TllE SIERRAS.
~IS footprints have failed us,
Where berries are red,
And madroflos are rankest.
The hunter is dead!
The grizz}y 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 bre~sted
Like columns of stone;
And tall as a pine -
As a pine overthrown!
 
FALLE]\TLEAVES.              189
His camp-fires gone,
What else can be done
Than let him sleep on
Till the light of the sun?
Ay, tomNess! what of it?
~Iarble is dust,
Cold and repellent;
And iron is rust. 
IN SOUT11Ei~N CALIlfORMA.
~11ERE the cocoa and cactus are neighbors,
Where the fig and the fir-tree are one;
Where the brave corn is lifting bent sabres
And flashing the~ far in the sun;
Where the maidens blush red in their tresses
Of night, and retreat to advance,
And the dark, sweeping eyelash expresses
Deep passion, half hush'd in a trance;
Where the fig is in lea?, where il~e blossoni
Of orange is fragrant as fair, -
Santa Barbara's balm in the boson~,
11cr sunny, soft winds in the hair;
Where the grape is most lnscious, where laden
Long branches bend double with gold;
- Los Angelos leans like a maiden,
Red, blushing, half shy, and half bold.
 
FALLEN LEAVES.`9'
Where passion was born, and where poets
Are deeper in silence than song,
A love knows a love, and may know its
Reward, yet may never know wrong.
Where passion was born and where blushes
Gave birth to my songs of the Sonth,
And a song is a love-tale, and rushes,
Unchid, through the red of the month;
Where an Adam in Eden reposes,
I repose, I am glad, and take wine
In the clambering, redolent roses,
And nnder my fig and my vine. 
WllO SllALL SAY?
SINKING sun, a sky of red,
In bars and banners overhead,
And blown apart like curtains drawn;
Afar a-sea a blowing sail
That shall go down before the dawn;
And they are passion-tcss'd and pale
The two that stand and look nione
And silent, as two shafts of stone
Set head and foot above the dead.
They watch the ship, the weary sun,
The banner'd streamers every one,
Till darkness hides them in her hair.
The winds come in as cold as death,
And not a palm above the pair
To lift a lance or break a breath. 
FALLEiV LEA VES.          193
The hollow of the ocean fills
Like sounding hollow halls of stone,
And not a banner streams above;
The sea is set in snowy hills.
The ship is lost.  The winds are blown
Unheeded now; yet who shall say:
"We had been wiser so than they
Who wept and watch'd the parting sail
In silence; mute with sorrow, pale
With weeping for departed love"?
~)            M 
A LOVE - SONG.
1F earth is an oyster, love is the pearl,
As pure as pure caresses;
Then loosen the gold of your hair, my girl,
And hide my pearl in your tresses.
So, coral to coral and pearl to pearl,
And a cloud of curls above me,
O bury me deep, my beantiful girl,
And then confess you love me.
The world goes over my beautiful girl
In glitter and gold and odor of roses,
In eddies of splendor, in oceans of pearl,
But here the heaven reposes...
The world it is wide; men go their ways,
But love it is wise, and of all the hours,
And of all the beautiful sun-born days,
It sips their sweets as the bees sip flowers.
 
DOWN INTO TllE DUST.
S it worth ~~iile that we jostle a brothei
Be~ring his load on the rough road of lift~~?
Is it worth while that we jeer at each other
In blackness of heart? - that we war to the knife?
God pity us all in our pitiful strife.
God pity us all as we jostle each other;
God pardon us all for the tAumphs we feel
When a fellow goes down`neath his load on the heather,
Pierced to the heart: words are keener than steel,
And mightier far for woe or for we~l.
Were it not well, in this brief little journey
On over the isthmus, down into the tide,
~Ve give him a fish instead of a serpent,
Ere folding the hands to be and abide
Forever and aye ia dust at his side?
 
196         FALL~N LEAVES.
Look at the roses saluting each other;
Look at the herds all at peace on the plain -
Man, and man only, makes war on his brother,
And laughs in his heart at his peril and pain;
Shamed by the beasts that go down on the plain.
Is it worth while that we battle to humble
Some poor fellow-soldier down into the dust?
God pity us all!  Time eftsoon will tumble
All of us together like leaves in a gust,
Ilumbled indeed down into the dust. 
IN SAN FRANCISCO.
here sit we mid the sun-down seas
And the white sierras. The swift, sweet breeze
Is about us here; and a sky so fair
Is bending above in its azaline hue,
That you gaze and you gaze in delight, and you
See God and the portals of heaven there.
Yea, here sit we where the white ships ride
In the morn, made glad and forgetful of night,
The white and the brown men side by side
In search of the truth, and betrothed to the right;
For these are the idols, and only these,
Of men that abide by the sun-down seas.
The brown brave hand of the harvester,
The delicate hand of the prince untried,
The rough hard hand of the carpenter,
They are all upheld with an equal pride;
And the prize it is his to be crowa'd or blest,
Prince or peon, who bears him best. 
198         FALLE;V L~AVE&
Yea, here sit we by the golden gate,
Nor demanding much, but inviting you all,
Nor publishing loud, but daring to wait,
And great in much that tl~e days deem small;
And the gate it is God's, to Cathay, Japan, -
And who shall shnt it in the face of man? 
SllADOWS OF STIASTA.
1X  the place where the grizzly reposes,
Under peaks where a right is a wrong,
I have memories richer than roses,
Sweet echoes more sweet than a song;
Sonnds sweet as the voice of a singer
Made sacred with sorrows unsaid,
And a love that implores me to linger
For the love of dead days and their dead.
But I turn, throwing kisses, returning
To strife and to turbulent men,
As to learn to be wise, as unlearning
All things that were manliest then.
 
AT    SEA.
\VE    part as ships on a pathless main,
Gayly enough, for the sense of pain
Is asleep at first: but ghosts will arise
When we would repose, and the forms will come
And walk when we walk, and will not be dumb,
Nor yet forget with their wakeful eyes.
When we most need rest, and the perfect sleep,
Some hand will reach from the dark, and keep
The curtains drawn and the pillows toss'd
Like a tide of foam; and one will say
At night, -0 lleaven, that it were day!
And one by night through the misty tears
Will say, -0 lleaven, the days are years,
And I would to lleaven that the waves were cross'd. 
A MEMORY OF  SANTA BARBARA.
EA, Santa Barbara is fair;
A sunny clime and sweet to toucb,
For tamer men of gentler mien,
But as for me - another scene.
A land below the AThs. I know,
Set well with grapes and girt with much
Of woodland beauty; I shall share
My rides by night below the fight
Of Manna Loa, Ade below
The steep ~nd starry llebron height;
Shall lift my hands in many lands,
See South Sea palm, see Northland fir,
See white~wing'd swans, see red-bill'd doves;
See many lands and many loves,
But never more the face of her.
And what her name or where the place
Of her who makes my Mecca's prayer,
Concerns you not; not any trace
9* 
202         FALLEAT LEAVES.
Of entrance to my temple's shrine
Remains.  The memory is mine,
And none shall pass the portals there.
The present! take it, hold it thine,
Bat that one hour out from all
The years that are, or yet shall fall,
I pluck it out, I name it mine,
And whistle by the rest, and laugh
To see it blown about as chaW;
That hour bound in sunny sheaves,
With tassell'd shocks of golden shine,
That hour, wound in scarlet leaves,
Is mine.  I stretch a hand and swear
An oath that breaks into a prayer;
By heaven, it is wholly mine!
I see the gold and purple gleam
Of autumn leaves, a reach of seas,
A silent rider like a dream
Moves by, a mist of mysteries,
And these are mine, and only these,
Yet they be more iii my esteem,
Than silver'd sails on coral'd seas. 
FALLEN LEA VES.        203
Let rcd4eaf'd boughs sweet fruits bestow,
Let fame of foreign lands be mine,
Let blame ~r faithless men befall;
It matters nothing; over all,
One hour arches like a bow
Of promise blent in many hues,
That tide nor time shall bid decline;
Or storms of all the years refuse. 
SUMMER FROSTS.
~~ROSTS of an hour!  Fruits of a season!
Who foresees them?  Slain in a day,
The loves of a lustrum.  Who shall say
The heart has sense or the soul has reason?
~.. One not knowing and one not caring.
~.. Leaves ill their pathway.  Let them part;
She with the gifts of a gracious bearing,
lle with the pangs of a passionate heart. 
SLEEP TllAT WAS NOT SLEEP.
I3ACK there, madam!  Mark you, there!
I lie crouch'd against the wall,
And I dare not lift a finger,
Dare not lift my eyes or call,
While you hesitate and linger,
Leering through your tangled hair;
Drop the curtains!  Back, I say!
Lift aside your tangled hair
Overhanging coflln'd clay,
Resurrected for a day,
Cold and wet as cast-away.
~.. It was hard, but what was better
For a man so strangdy born
~nden~eath the stars or sun,
Than the savage race I run
Through the midnight to the morn,
Spite of fate or pri~ou fetter? 
206         FALLEW LEAVES.
Through the darkness to the dawn,
What beneath the sun was better?
Then I turn'd, and... you were gone.
Glory had a price; I paid her!
Truth was doubtful; I betray'd her!
You obey'd her to the letter.
And what profits? nothing, save
That I have slain the days full well, -
That you... are dead and in your grave;
That I... am living and in hell.
Yea! before-time you beset me,
Laugh'd and vow'd to not forget me,
Lcer'd and mock'd with all your might
When the fever held its riot
And the doctors bade be quiet.
Christ! you came to my bedside
In the middle of the night,
With your two hands on your heart, -
And you press'd on my bedside,
And so press'd upon your heart
That the blood, all thick and blacken'd,
When your bony fingers slacken'd,
Oozed between them to the floor, -
Oh, that ghostly, gory floor! 
FALLEN LEAVES.              207
And your mantle it was moulded,
And streak'd yellow where it folded,
Then your heavy, slimy hair,
On your bosom blue and bare,
Which you did not try to hide!
That you know was nothing fair,
As you press'd on my bedside!
Then your eyes had such a glare,
And the smell of death was there,
And the spirits that were with you
Whistled through the mossy door,
And they danced upon my bosom,
And they tangled up my hair,
And made crosses on the floor.
It Was not my fault, remember,
All this life of black disasters,
All this life of dark December,
All this heart-sickness and sadness.
Though we both did have our masters,
Yours was Love and mine Ambition,
~line is driving me to madness,
Yours, it drove you to perdition.
 
208        FALLEN LEAVES.
Yes, some time, if you will have it,
When this hot brain is less rabid,
When our masters both are sleeping,
When the storm the stars is keeping,
Leave that yellow moulded mantle, -
That diill, sullen, frozen stare,
And the cold death in your hair,
And I will no more upbraid you;
Leave the darkness where they laid you,
Leave the dampness you inhabit.
I will meet you just one minute
By the oak-tree, you remember,
With the grape-vine tangled in it;
I will tell you one sweet story,
With sweet balin and healing in it;
You will sigh Afemento morz, -
But remember, now remember,
I remain there but one minute. 
"SIERRAS  ADIOS."
~ITll the buckler and sword into battle
I moved, I was matebless and strong;
I stood in the rush and the rattle
Of shot, and the spirit of song
Was upon me; and youthful and splendid
My armor flashed far in the sun
As I sang of my land.  It is ended,
And all has been done, and undone.
I descend with my dead in the trenches,
To-night I bend down on the plain
In the dark, and a memory wrenches
The soul; I turn up to the rain
The cold and the beautiful faces,
Ay, faces forbidden for years,
Turn'd up to my face with the traces
Of blood to the white rain of tears.
N 
210          FALLEALEAVES.
Coun~ backward the years on your fingers,
While forward rides yonder white moon,
Till the soul turns aside, and it lingers
By a grave that was born of a June;
By the grave of a soul, where the grasses
Are tangled as witch-woven hair;
Where footprints are not, and where passes
Not any thing known anywhere;
By a grave without tombstone or token,
At a tomb where not fi~rn leaf or fir,
Root or branch, was once bended or broken,
To bestow there the body of her;
For it lives, and the soul perish'd only,
And alone in that land, with these hands,
Did I lay the dead soul, and all lonely
Does it lie to this day in the sands.
Lo! a wild little maiden with tresses
Of gold on the wind of the hills:
Ay, a wise little maiden that guesses
Some good in tbe cruelest ills;
And a babe with its baby-fists doubled,
And thrust to my beard, and within,
 
FALLEN LEAVES.              211
As he laughs iike a fountain half-troubled,
When my linger chucks undcr his chin.
Should the dead not decay, when il~e culture
Of lidds be resumed in fl~e ]\Iay?
Lo! the days are dark-wing'd as the vulture!
Let them swoop, then, and bear them away:
By the walks let me cherish red flowers,
By the wall teach one tendrjl to run;
Lest I wake, and I watch all the hours
I shall ever see under the sun.
It is wAl, may be so, to bear losses,
And to bend and bow down to the rod;
If the scarlet red bars and the crosses
Be but rounds up the ladder to God.
But this mocking of men!  Ah, that enters
The marrow! the murmurs that swell
To reproach for my song-love, that centres,
~rast land, upon thec, are not well.
And I go, thanking God in my going,
That an ocean flows stormy and deep,
And yet gentler to me is its flowing
Than the storm that forbids me to sleep.
 
212          FALLEiV LEAVES~.
And I go, thanking ~od, with hands lifted,
That a land lies beyond where the free
And the gentle of heart and the gifted
Of soul have a home in the sea.
Cambridge: Press of John Wilson & Son. 
MR. MfLLER~S
SONGS OF TllE SUN-LANDS.
Selections from some criticisms of Air. ThYler's
new volume of Poems, w/~icii Izave aj5~earea' in
tize Enjlisii journals.
From Ike AIkena'um.
"Songs of the Sun-Lands" is, it will be seen, similar in character to "Songs
of the Sierras," previously puhlished. The same kind of materials is used, and
the same kind of faults sod excellence in their use is observahie.  Mr. Miller's
muse in this, its second flight, has taken the same direction as in its first essay,
hut, upon the whole, we think, with a stronger wing.  The new work gives evidence that the author has not, as was feared, intensified his former mannerism,
but has profited by the advice of ftiends and critics.
From Ike Academy.
Mr. Miller has a faculty of making himself felt through what he writes, and we
quit his poems with a mingled sense of admiration and regret: admiration of his
really great powers; regret that he seems unable to pursue one of two courses in
their application, &c.
From Ike Westminster Ret'iew.
We some time ago called especial attention to this new American poet's first work,
"The Songs of the Sierras," nor do we repent of our criticism.  He has perhaps
lost something of that boldness, and that flavor of originality, which in a certain
way reminded one of Walt Whitman without his special weaknesses and extrav5gances.  Still, to counterbalance this loss, he has gained a certain polish. Yet
here we perceive a danger.  But Mr. Miller must be careful that he does not buy
elegance at too dear a price. We ourselves prefer the roughness of the backwoods
of America to all the drawing-room conventionalities of Europe. We prefer Mr.
Joaquiu Miller's native reed-pipe to any guitar. The most perfect poem in the
(i) 
present collection is without doubt "The Isles of the Amacons."  Here we see Mr.
Miller at his best.  Here he has put forth his real strength.  It is, in sliort, a
poem wisich will live.
From tlse Standard.
No poStry of the present age has any claim to the unconventional freedom, tlte
supreme independence, tlte spontaiieity, the hold and vigorous on.gin~ity, the allpervading passion, clie uliresting euergy, and the prodigal wealth of imagery which
stamp the poetry before us.... For further speciniens of Mr. Miller's preseist
pO5n~5 we must seisd our readers to the voluiue itself, whids is, with all its faults, a
very garden of delight, adorned everywhere as it is witit tlte fairest blooms of fancy,
and breathing everywhere as it dues of tite sweetest and purest inspirations of the
From See Losidon Suoday Ttnsea.
The success both in England and America of Mr. Joaquin Miller's "Songs of
the Sierras" lias been niscontested.  The tide of passionate life with which they
were charged, and the fervor of poetic appreciation and sympathy tltey displayed,
combined with the startling beauty aiid power of portions of the workmanship to
render men insensible to irregularities and biequalities of style.... Here we bid
farewell to Mr. Miller's ddigheful volume.  A pleasanter companion into the enchanted gardens of poetry we do not seek.  He knows
"each lane and every alley green,
Dingle or btishy dell of the wild wood,
And every husky bourn from side to side,"
and he conducts us to scenes to which we have no other guide.  That Mr. Miller
had poetic inspiration lila first volume abundantly proved.  That his verse will not
be a mere well at which the traveller cais driiik once crc pursuing his journey, but
a full river of song hurrying through forest and meadow, aiid beariiig with it carol
of bird and scent of flower and hay, is now safficiently established.
From t~ Bookaciter.
Resembling his previously published collectioti,  itt that tlie verses are principally descriptive of straisge, far-away Countries, and coistaiti numerous bright,
beautiful pictures of external nature, these songs of the suis-latids will be warmly
wdcomed as the riper efforts of a real poet.... And so we might proceed throiigh
poem after poem, finding images of great and sterlitig poetic value. Nor, perhaps,
would it be difficult to discover son e that might be called trivial and poor; but we
prefer to jeidge a writer by his best cattier than by lila worst; and Mr. Miller's
best lines stamp him a true man, - a man of sympathetic instincts and deep reverence for all that is high aiid tioble in nature and humanity.
(2) 
From tlie Noncooformist.
Of all American poetry in recent years, that of Mr. Joaquin Miller is the freshest.  He is a new poet in the proper sense of the term.  He owes allegiance to
no transatlantic masters, and he is no servile imitator of the modern minstrelsy of
our own country.  In outward form - in the mechanism of his poetry - he of
course follows the fashion of the times  hut the spirit is new, the tone is individual and distinct.  In his pomos for the first time the prairies. the sierras, and
the new and old life of the Far West of America, have been fairly poetized, so to
speak      Songs of the Sun-Lands" contains nothing, perhaps, superior to
"Arizonian" in Mr. Miller's "Songs of the Sierras;" yet it contains no poem
so crude as one or two poems in his former volume.  The best here i5, undoubtedly, "The Isles of the Amazons."... Notwithstanding these defects, however,
we maintain that we have in Mr. Joaquin Miller a new poet, who with more culture
and higher aims is fully capable of producing in the future a poem that the world
will not willingly let die.
From Ibe Globe.
His poetry is in no danger of suffering neglect, nor is it likely to lack admirers.
By his earlier volume, "The Songs of il~e Sierms," he fully proved his right to
be heard  and students of poetry have not forgotten the influence of the fresh
thought and freer music his verse contained.  That, in trofls, was the essence of
Mr. Mille~s achievement.  He had somehow broken away from the ordinary
standards of poetical composition without sacrifice of musical effect.  The verse
was larger and with 1     straint than could be found in other singers, moving
with a more continuous flow, and advancing in a cadence always varied and not
recurring.  Something instructive in the style seemed to image both the singer
sod the thing sung of, so that we were infinenced not so much by this or that particular thought, as by the romantic sod picturesque effect of the whole, with its
fearless and confident description, and its untamed yet tuneful melody.  To follow
the poet was like following a keen, swift rider, who rides eagerly, it matters not
whither, and who attracts us by a wild grace and a beautirul skill as he rushes
through scenes of luxuriant loveliness that would cause a less b~petuous horseman
to pause and linger.  That was the character of his verse as we knew it in the
earlier volume, and that also is its tha~atttr here.  What was best in the earlier
work is retained in this, and it still remains tlse best the poet can do.
From Ike Aforniog Post.
The author appears to be a true poet, with all the natural fire and tenderness
- the spark and dew- that fall from Helicon.... In tise present collection of
poems he has largely contriboted to his own fame,  bids was already very great,
and to the pleasure of all who can listen wiil~ sympathy to the pathetic muse expressing her feelings in simple but inspired strains.
ROBERTS BROTIlERS, PUBLISHERS,
Boston.
(3) 
MII. MILLER'S
SONGS OF~ THE SIERRAS.
One handsome i6;no voi?~me, clolh, gilt toj5.
Price $i.~o.
Eleven thousand copies of this very deservedly popular volume of Poems have been called for.
7ust Ready.
JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY'S
SONGS OF THE SOUTHERN
SEAS,
AND OTIlER POEMS.
i6mo, cloth, gilt.  Price $1.50.
ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
Boston.
(4)