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diff --git a/old/69555-0.txt b/old/69555-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1656ec6..0000000 --- a/old/69555-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5477 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Cactus and pine, by Sharlot M. Hall - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Cactus and pine - Songs of the Southwest - -Author: Sharlot M. Hall - -Release Date: December 16, 2022 [eBook #69555] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CACTUS AND PINE *** - - - - - - CACTUS AND PINE - - SONGS OF THE SOUTHWEST - - BY - - SHARLOT M. HALL - - [Illustration] - - BOSTON - SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY - 1911 - - - - - Copyright, 1910 - SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY - - - - - To the mother who bore my body; - To the land that mothered my soul; - To the Ultimate Guide who led me - Scarred through the battle, but whole; - Mother, and Land, and The Vision, - Stern trails where my feet were set; - Take these from the Price I owe ye-- - Whose life is less than the Debt. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - THE WEST 1 - - THE SANTA FE TRAIL 5 - - THE SONG OF THE COLORADO 9 - - TWO BITS 12 - - SPRING IN THE DESERT 16 - - IN OLD TUCSON 18 - - THE LITTLE HOUSE OF MARY 20 - - THE SONG OF THE PINE 23 - - SHEEP HERDING 26 - - THE MERCY OF NA-CHIS 28 - - THE SEA TO A DESERT DWELLER 31 - - HIS PLACE 33 - - THE TRAIL OF DEATH 35 - - THE PINES OF THE MOGOLLONES 38 - - THE IVORY CRUCIFIX 40 - - A SONG FROM THE HILLS 43 - - JUAN OF THE SLAG POTS 45 - - OVER THE RANGE 47 - - A SADDLE SONG 49 - - AT MISSION PURISSIMA 51 - - POPPIES OF WICKENBURG 54 - - BOOT HILL 55 - - THE DESERT QUEEN 57 - - TO A HOME IN A CANON 58 - - THE DEATH OF THE OLD HUNTER 59 - - THE MASS OF MANGAS 61 - - THE WATER TANK AT DUSK 64 - - DOLORES’ OLLA 67 - - NIGHT IN THE PINES 69 - - THE DESERT 71 - - THE EAGLE OF SACRAMENTO 72 - - CACTUS AND ROSE 77 - - OUR LADY OF MIRAGE 79 - - THE MAID OF TUCANO 80 - - A FLOWER ON THE TRAIL 85 - - THE OCCULTATION OF VENUS 86 - - A FOREST LULLABY 87 - - THE COLORADO RIVER 88 - - THE END OF THE TRAIL 89 - - THE RANGE RIDER 90 - - THE YUCCA PALMS 92 - - IN THE BRACKEN 93 - - ARIZONA 94 - - - CAMP FIRE TALES - - THE HASH-WRASTLER 101 - - WATCH 105 - - MONTE BILL 109 - - - BEYOND THE DESERT - - THE GREATER FLAG 115 - - THE HYMN OF THE MEN THAT FAIL 119 - - THE LAST CAMP-FIRE 122 - - THE GIVERS 124 - - A CREED 125 - - QUITS 126 - - MEDUSA TO PERSEUS 127 - - THE LONG QUEST 130 - - A LITANY OF EVERY DAY 132 - - WIND SONG 134 - - THE LOST THOUGHTS 136 - - THE STRANGER 138 - - DAY’S END 139 - - THE FIRST FIRE ON THE HEARTH 140 - - A TRUCE WITH DEAD SOULS 142 - - A FRIEND 143 - - MAGDALEN 145 - - THE EARTH MADONNA 146 - - LOVE’S WISDOM 147 - - THE GIFTS 149 - - LIFE IS A DAY 151 - - THE COMPACT 153 - - COMPANIONED 155 - - ALONE 157 - - THE INHERITOR 158 - - ON MY OWN PORTRAIT 161 - - THE IMMORTAL 162 - - THE BEDESMAN OF THE YEAR 165 - - THE LONG MARCH 166 - - THE RACE MOTHER 170 - - ROAD’S END 172 - - THE CHOOSING 173 - - WINE OF DREAMS 175 - - MY GARDEN 177 - - SUMMER APPLES 178 - - HER FINGER FATE 179 - - DUMB IN JUNE 181 - - MEMORIAM 182 - - AS A LITTLE SHADOW ON THE GRASS 184 - - DAWN 185 - - A BALLAD OF CHARLIE’S MEN 186 - - A LOST IDEAL 188 - - THE LIFE-BOND 189 - - TO SONG 190 - - HER GIFT 191 - - THE LIFE EXPRESS 192 - - FOR A BIRTHDAY 193 - - GOD SPEED 194 - - A CHANT TO DEATH 195 - - THE FAR-CALLED 197 - - TIRED 199 - - WHEN SHE WENT ON 200 - - O GREAT CONSOLER 201 - - AND THIS IS LIFE 203 - - THE THINKER 204 - - - - - CACTUS AND PINE - - - - -THE WEST - - - When the world of waters was parted by the stroke of a mighty rod, - Her eyes were first of the lands of earth to look on the face of God; - The white mists robed and throned her, and the sun in his orbit wide - Bent down from his ultimate pathway and claimed her his chosen bride; - And he who had formed and dowered her with the dower of a royal queen, - Decreed her the strength of mighty hills, the peace of the plains - between; - The silence of utmost desert, and cañons rifted and riven, - And the music of wide-flung forests were strong winds shout to heaven. - - Then high and apart he set her and bade the gray seas guard, - And the lean sands clutching her garments’ hem keep stern and solemn - ward. - What dreams she knew as she waited! What strange keels touched her - shore! - And feet went into the stillness and returned to the sea no more. - They passed through her dream like shadows--till she woke one pregnant - morn - And watched Magellan’s white-winged ships swing round the ice-bound - Horn; - She thrilled to their masterful presage, those dauntless sails from - afar, - And laughed as she leaned to the ocean till her face shone out like a - star. - - And men who toiled in the drudging hives of a world as flat as a floor - Thrilled in their souls to her laughter and turned with face to the - door; - And creeds as hoary as Adam, and feuds as old as Cain, - Fell deaf on the ear that harkened and caught that far refrain; - Into dungeons by light forgotten, and prisons of grim despair, - Hope came with pale reflection of her star on the swooning air; - And the old, hedged, human whirlpool, with its seething misery, - Broke bound, as a pent-up river breaks through to the healing sea. - - Calling, calling, calling; resistless, imperative, strong; - Soldier and priest and dreamer--she drew them, a mighty throng; - The unmapped seas took tribute of many a dauntless band, - And many a brave hope measured but bleaching bones in the sand; - Yet for one that fell a hundred sprang out to fill his place; - For death at her call was sweeter than life in a tamer race. - Sinew and bone she drew them; steel-thewed--and the weaklings shrank; - Grim-wrought of granite and iron were the men of her foremost rank. - - Stern as the land before them, and strong as the waters crossed; - Men who had looked on the face of defeat nor counted the battle lost; - Uncrowned rulers and statesmen, shaping their daily need - To the law of brother with brother, till the world stood by to heed; - The sills of a greater empire they hewed and hammered and turned, - And the torch of a larger freedom from their blazing hilltops burned; - Till the old ideals that had led them grew dim as a childhood’s dream, - And Caste went down in the balance, and Manhood stood supreme. - - The wanderers of earth turned to her, outcast of the older lands; - With a promise and hope in their pleading, and she reached them - pitying hands; - And she cried to the Old World cities that drowse by the Eastern main: - “Send me your weary, house-worn broods, and I’ll send you Men again! - Lo, here in my wind-swept reaches, by my marshalled peaks of snow, - Is room for a larger reaping than your o’ertilled fields can grow; - Seed of the Man-Seed springing to stature and strength in my sun; - Free, with a limitless freedom no battles of men have won.” - - For men, like the grain of the cornfields, grow small in the huddled - crowd; - And weak for the breath of spaces where a soul may speak aloud; - For hills like stairways to heaven, shaming the level track; - And sick with the clang of pavements, and the marts of the trafficking - pack; - Greatness is born of greatness, and breadth of a breadth profound; - The old Antaean fable of strength renewed from the ground - Was a human truth for the ages; since the hour of the Eden-birth, - That man among men was strongest who stood with his feet on the earth. - - - - -THE SANTA FE TRAIL - - - This way walked Fate; and as she went flung far the line of destiny - That bound an untracked continent to brotherhood from sea to sea; - That long gray trail of dream and hope, marked mile by mile with - graves that keep - On every barren hill and slope some stout heart lost in dreamless - sleep. - Patience and faith and fortitude were willed to it and justified; - Stern, homely virtues, plain and rude; eternal as the sky, and wide. - Nor ever sea king dared the sea in braver mood than those who went - Strong-armed to wrest from Mystery their birth-right, half a - continent. - - Gay, hawk-eyed, brown-faced voyageurs, tired of the river’s muddy - tide, - Or drawn by whispered, golden lures, or beckoned by the prairies - wide; - These first, and lightly down the wind their songs float backward as - they pass;-- - So light they go they leave behind scarce one dim footprint on the - grass. - And after them, lean, rugged, grim,--one marked untrodden heights to - scan; - The gray peak looking down on him knew something kindred in the man: - Prophetic his keen eyes could trace in those lone wastes that seemed - to wait, - The larger promise of his race, the germ of many an unborn State. - - Then Fremont, leading Empire’s way; beside him, silent, dim, - unguessed, - Unheralded to claim her own, the Soul of the Awakening West: - Behind above the thundering flight of fear-swept bison vaguely beat - A murmur dominant with might, the trample of a million feet. - That long gray trail! That path of fate! For gain or loss, for life or - death, - Driven by greed or hope or hate, it drew them to the latest breath; - It broke them to its giant mold; it seared their weakness to the bone; - It stripped them stark to sun and cold and mocked at whimperer and - drone. - - And they were Men that bore its mark; and they were Men its service - made-- - Strong-souled to face the utter dark, and watch with Fear still - unafraid; - Stern school of heroes unconfessed; unweighed for meed of right or - wrong; - By glib late-comers dispossessed of honors that to them belong; - As in the fire-tried furnace hour strange, warring elements will fuse - To purpose, unity, and power; to truer strength and nobler use-- - Unconscious, save that here was life a man might live as manhood - meant, - They wrought a nation from their strife and shaped it with their - discontent. - - No pulseless, still-born hope was theirs; each man a later Argonaut, - Who from great dreams and ceaseless cares outwove the golden fleece - he sought; - And single-handed out of need made potent opportunity; - Nor shamed the hour with laggard deed; nor quailed at naked Destiny: - They touched the Wilderness to flower; they gave the unvoiced solitude - A tongue that spoke with master power the message of its iron mood:-- - But ah! the coast! The hands that bled! The toll of heart-aches and of - tears! - The stern, white faces of the dead that paved that highway through the - years! - - The long grass hides the rutted trail where tracked those mighty - caravans - Whose far-lit camp fires low and pale, elude, howe’er the vision scans - That lost horizon, shrunk to fit the little roads that come and go, - By easy ways of greatness quit, that any chance-drawn foot may know; - Light trails and traffic o’er the dust of them that were a braver - breed; - Forgotten in the careless lust for larger gain and lesser deed.-- - Mother of all the Roads that hold that power o’er men that makes or - mars! - These lead to cities, lands, and gold--this led to the eternal stars! - - - - -THE SONG OF THE COLORADO - - - From the heart of the mighty mountains strong-souled for my fate I - came, - My far-drawn track to a nameless sea through a land without a name; - And the earth rose up to hold me, to bid me linger and stay; - And the brawn and bone of my mother’s race were set to bar my way. - - Yet I stayed not, I could not linger; my soul was tense to the call - The wet winds sing when the long waves leap and beat on the far sea - wall. - I stayed not, I could not linger; patient, resistless, alone, - I hewed the trail of my destiny deep in the hindering stone. - - How narrow that first dim pathway--yet deepening hour by hour! - Years, ages, eons, spent and forgot, while I gathered me might and - power - To answer the call that led me, to carve my road to the sea, - Till my flood swept out with that greater tide as tireless and - tameless and free. - - From the far, wild land that bore me, I drew my blood as wild-- - I, born of the glacier’s glory, born of the uplands piled - Like stairs to the door of heaven, that the Maker of All might go - Down from His place with honor, to look on the world and know - - That the sun and the wind and the waters, and the white ice cold and - still, - Were moving aright in the plan He had made, shaping His wish and will. - When the spirit of worship was on me, turning alone, apart, - I stayed and carved me temples deep in the mountain’s heart, - - Wide-domed and vast and silent, meet for the God I knew, - With shrines that were shadowed and solemn and altars of richest hue; - And out of my ceaseless striving I wrought a victor’s hymn, - Flung up to the stars in greeting from my far track deep and dim. - - For the earth was put behind me; I reckoned no more with them - That come or go at her bidding, and cling to her garment’s hem. - Apart in my rock-hewn pathway, where the great cliffs shut me in, - The storm-swept clouds were my brethren, and the stars were my kind - and kin. - - Tireless, alone, unstaying, I went as one who goes - On some high and strong adventure that only his own heart knows. - Tireless, alone, unstaying, I went in my chosen road-- - I trafficked with no man’s burden--I bent me to no man’s load. - - On my tawny, sinuous shoulders no salt-gray ships swung in; - I washed no feet of cities, like a slave whipped out and in; - My will was the law of my moving in the land that my strife had made-- - As a man in the house he has builded, master and unafraid. - - O ye that would hedge and bind me--remembering whence I came! - I, that was, and was mighty, ere your race had breath or name! - Play with your dreams in the sunshine--delve and toil and plot-- - Yet I keep the way of my will to the sea, when ye and your race are - not! - - - - -TWO BITS - -Two Bits was an old race horse well known from Texas to Arizona. He -belonged at the time of his death to Lieut. Charles Curtis (now Capt. -Curtis, Military Instructor at the University of Wisconsin), who built -the first stockade on the site of the present Fort Whipple, Arizona. -The incident is true; wounded to his death, the old horse out-ran -the Apaches and after his rider, who was severely wounded, fell off, -Two Bits went on to Fort Wingate where the sight of his wounds and -the bloody pouches told the story. The old horse headed the relief -party and led them back to his fallen rider and then dropped dead. -The troops, to all of whom the old race horse was a familiar comrade, -buried him under a heap of lava bowlders beside the old Government -Trail a few miles west of Fort Wingate, New Mexico. - - - Where the shimmering sands of the desert beat - In waves to the foothills’ rugged line, - And cat-claw and cactus and brown mesquite - Elbow the cedar and mountain pine; - Under the dip of a wind-swept hill, - Like a little gray hawk Fort Whipple clung; - The fort was a pen of peeled pine logs - And forty troopers the army strong. - - At the very gates when the darkness fell, - Prowling Mohave and Yavapai - Signalled with shrill coyote yell, - Or mocked the night owl’s piercing cry; - Till once when the guard turned shuddering - For a trace in the east of the welcome dawn, - Spent, wounded, a courier reeled to his feet:-- - “Apaches--rising--Wingate--warn!” - - “And half the troop at the Date Creek Camp!” - The Captain muttered; “Those devils heard!” - White-lipped he called for a volunteer - To ride Two Bits and carry the word. - “Alone; it’s a game of hide and seek; - One man may win where ten would fail.” - Himself the saddle and cinches set - And headed Two Bits for the Verde Trail. - - Two Bits! How his still eyes woke to the chase! - The bravest soul of them all was he! - Hero of many a hard-won race, - With a hundred scars for his pedigree. - Wary of ambush, and keen of trail, - Old in wisdom of march and fray; - And the grizzled veteran seemed to know - The lives that hung on his hoofs that day. - - “A week. God speed you and make it less! - Ride by night from the river on.” - Caps were swung in a silent cheer, - A quick salute, and the word was gone. - Sunrise, threading the Point of Rocks; - Dusk, in the cañons dark and grim, - Where coiled like a rope flung down the cliffs, - The trail crawls up to the frowning Rim. - - A pebble turned, a spark out-struck - From steel-shod hoofs on the treacherous flint-- - Ears strain, eyes wait, in the rocks above - For the faintest whisper, the farthest glint; - But shod with silence and robed with night - They pass untracked, and mile by mile - The hills divide for the flying feet, - And the stars lean low to guide the while. - - Never a plumed quail hid her nest - With the stealthiest care that a mother may, - As crouched at dawn in the chaparral - These two, whom a heart-beat might betray. - So, hiding and riding, night by night; - Four days, and the end of the journey near; - The fort just hid in the distant hills-- - But hist! A whisper--a breath of fear! - - They wheel and turn--too late. Ping! Ping! - From their very feet a fiery jet. - A lurch, a plunge, and the brave old horse - Leaped out with his broad breast torn and wet. - Ping! Thud! On his neck the rider swayed; - Ten thousand deaths if he reeled and fell! - Behind, exultant, the painted horde - Poured down like a skirmish line from Hell. - - Not yet! Not yet! Those ringing hoofs - Have scarred their triumph on many a course; - And the desperate, blood-trailed chase swept on, - Apache sinews ’gainst wounded horse. - Hour crowding hour till the yells died back, - Till the pat of the moccasined feet was gone; - And dumb to heeding of foe or fear - The rider dropped,--but the horse kept on. - - Stiff and stumbling and spent and sore, - Plodding the long miles doggedly; - Till the daybreak bugles of Wingate rang - And a feint neigh answered the reveille. - Wide swung the gates--a wounded horse-- - Red-dabbled pouches and riding gear; - A shout, a hurry, a quick-flung word-- - And “Boots and Saddles” rang sharp and clear. - - Like a stern commander the old horse turned - As the troop filed out, and straight to the head - He guided them back on that weary trail - Till he fell by his fallen rider--dead-- - But the man and the message saved. And he - Whose brave heart carried the double load, - With his last trust kept and his last race won, - They buried him there on the Wingate road. - - - - -SPRING IN THE DESERT - - - Silence, and the heat lights shimmer like a mist of sifted silver, - Down across the wide, low washes where the strange sand rivers flow; - Brown and sun-baked, quiet, waveless, trailed with bleaching, - flood-swept bowlders; - Rippled into mimic water where the restless whirlwinds go. - - On the banks the gray mesquite trees droop their slender, lace-leafed - branches; - Fill the lonely air with fragrance, as a beauty unconfessed; - Till the wild quail comes at sunset with her timorous, plumed covey, - And the iris-throated pigeon coos above her hidden nest. - - Every shrub distills vague sweetness; every poorest leaf has gathered - Some rare breath to tell its gladness in a fitter way than speech; - Here the silken cactus blossoms flaunt their rose and gold and - crimson, - And the proud zahuaro lifts its pearl-carved crown from careless - reach. - - Like to Lillith’s hair down-streaming, soft and shining, glorious, - golden, - Sways the queenly palo verde robed and wreathed in golden flowers; - And the spirits of dead lovers might have joy again together - Where the honey-sweet acacia weaves its shadow-fretted bowers. - - Velvet-soft and glad and tender goes the night wind down the cañons, - Touching lightly every petal, rocking leaf and bud and nest; - Whispering secrets to the black bees dozing in the tall wild lilies, - Till it hails the sudden sunrise trailing down the mountain’s crest. - - Silence, sunshine, heat lights painting opal-tinted dream and vision - Down across the wide, low washes where the whirlwinds wheel and - swing;-- - What of dead hands, sun-dried, bleaching? What of heat and thirst and - madness? - Death and life are lost, forgotten, in the wonder of the spring. - - - - -IN OLD TUCSON - - - In old Tucson, in old Tucson, - How swift the happy days ran on! - How warm the yellow sunshine beat - Along the white caliche street! - The flat roofs caught a brighter sheen - From fringing house leeks thick and green, - And chiles drying in the sun; - Splashes of crimson ’gainst the dun - Of clay-spread roof and earthen floor; - The squash vine climbing past the door - Held in its yellow blossoms deep - The drowsy desert bees asleep. - - By one low wall, at one shut gate, - The dusty roadway turned to wait; - The pack mules loitered, passing where - The muleteers had sudded care - Of cinche and pack and harness bell. - The oleander blossoms fell, - Wind-drifted flecks of flame and snow; - The fruited pomegranate swung low; - And in the patio dim and cool - The gray doves flitted round the pool - That caught her image lightly as - The face that fades across a glass. - - In old Tucson, in old Tucson, - The pool is dry, the face is gone. - No dark eyes through the lattice shine, - No slim brown hand steals through to mine; - There where her oleander stood - The twilight shadows bend and brood, - And through the glossed pomegranate leaves - The wind remembering waits and grieves; - Waits with me, knowing as I know, - She may not choose to come and go-- - She who with life no more has part - Save in the dim pool of my heart. - - And yet I wait, and yet I see - The dream that was come back to me; - The green leek springs above the roof, - The dove that mourned alone, aloof, - Flutes softly to her mate among - The fig leaves where the fruit has hung - Slow-purpling through the sunny days; - And down the golden desert haze - The mule bells tinkle faint and far;-- - But where her candle shone, a star; - And where I watched her shadow fall,-- - The gray street and a crumbling wall. - - - - -THE LITTLE HOUSE OF MARY - -Throughout the desert region of the Southwest are abandoned mining -camps; shafts caved, machinery silent and rusting away, sand drifted in -the long-empty cabins. In one such deserted camp a child’s play-house -was found beside a great bowlder, the little toys and treasures -undisturbed through all the years. - - - The hoof-worn pack trails still wind down past barren cliff and ledge, - And fail and fade like water spilled at the sage gray desert’s edge; - Lost in the shifting sand banks, clear where the long dykes lift - Their rough, brown, sun-burned shoulders out of the wind-blown drift. - - Like scars long-healed the weed-grown dumps where the miners plied - their craft, - And the tuna drops its crimson fruit down the mouth of the caving - shaft. - A broken shovel, a worn-out pick--and down in the gulch below - A lean coyote homes her whelps where the stamps beat blow on blow. - - Where the tent camp took its careless way to the rocky cañon’s brink, - The plumed quail leads her covey, and the wild deer come to drink; - But then the mule bells tinkled, and, proud of her rank and place, - The old white bell mare took the lead, setting the train its pace. - - And close by a gray-ribbed bowlder, shading her eyes with her hands, - Watching the ore trains passing out to the unknown lands, - A little, wistful figure with dreaming, gentle face, - Like a flower from some old-time garden abloom in that rugged place. - - Child of the sun-white desert; no other land she knew; - Its cactus and sage were her greenest green; its skies were her - deepest blue; - The shy, wild things were her playmates, and under the old cleft stone - She builded a little kingdom for her and them alone. - - And here are her guarded treasures, quaint little shapes of clay, - Fashioned by small brown fingers as she sang at her lonely play;-- - But the dust lies thick upon them, and sand drifts bar the door, - And only a swift green lizard shimmers across the floor. - - Like memories worn too deep to lose the pack trail still winds down, - Out past the old gray bowlder and the ledges seamed and brown; - Till here it swerves a hand-width back, where once the rough cross - stood, - With a child’s brief name and a child’s scant years carved in the - sun-bleached wood. - - The cross is fallen and crumbling, but still the wild quails call - As if they missed a comrade through the sage brush thick and tall; - And where the love vine tangles and the wind croons low at even, - The little playhouse waits for her, for “Mary, aged seven.” - - - - -THE SONG OF THE PINE - - - Hear now the song of the pine - That is sung when strong winds sweep - Hot-flung from the mighty South, - Or the North Wind bellows deep: - Hear thou the song of the pine - When the sea-wet West beats in, - Or the East from his tether breaks - With clamorous, human din. - The long boughs quiver and shake, - Uproused from their primal ease, - And bend as an organ reed - When a strong hand strikes the keys; - And a mighty hymn rolls forth - To the far hills farthest line, - Earth’s challenge and trumpet call-- - Hear now the song of the pine. - - The strong gray hills are my throne, the rock-ribbed thews of the - earth; - There have I marshalled my brethren, and laughed at wind and sun; - I tent with the crag and the eagle; the Cloud Gods saw my birth; - I have drunk the strength of ages--a thousand years as one. - - I have warred with rift and crevice, with avalanche and shale, - Grappling my barren ridge with the grip of a mail-clad fist; - Storms roll their anger around me, torn through with lightnings pale, - Or robe me in lonely ermine, or garb me with sodden mist. - - The stars are my near companions; ever to them I lift, - And grow to their nightly splendor with soul as far and free; - Counting the swinging seasons by the planet’s veer and drift, - Till again the wild Spring-Joy wells up from the earth to me:-- - - The old, fierce joy of living, all primitive, undenied; - As breathed from the Maker’s lips on clay still warm with its touch; - When no soul skulked or whimpered, or in impotent weakness cried, - And life was a strong man’s gift to be held in an iron clutch. - - Held--or flung down as the pine-top shakes down a ripened cone; - Then stretches green fingers skyward with larger faith and hope; - Glad without thought or question, undoubtful of earth or sun, - From the bent blue overhead to the mold where the dark roots grope. - - But level sinketh to level as height calls up to height; - Courage is born of danger; the deed of the naked need; - Came Ease to sit on the hearth, dear-bought with the ancient might, - And drunk with her smile men slept and lapsed to a weaker breed, - - O men that dream in the lowland, men that drowse in the plain, - Wake ye, and turn to the forest, turn to the far, high hills; - Ye shall win from their unspent greatness the olden strength again; - Ye shall hear in that lofty silence the battle shout that thrills. - - Ye shall find in those utmost reaches power undefiled; - Wisdom untaught of sages, and patience and truth divine; - Life tameless still; untainted; primal and potent and wild-- - Rouse ye, nor linger belittled,--shamed by the wind-swung pine. - - - - -SHEEP HERDING - - - A gray, slow-moving, dust-bepowdered wave, - That on the edges breaks to scattering spray, - Round which the faithful collies wheel and bark - To scurry in the laggard feet that stray: - A babel of complaining tongues that make - The dull air weary with their ceaseless fret; - Brown hills akin to those of Gallilee - On which the shepherds tend their charges yet. - - The long, hot days; the stark, wind-beaten nights; - No human presence, human sight or sound; - Grim, silent land of wasted hopes, where they - Who came for gold oft times have madness found; - A bleating horror that fore-gathers speech; - Freezing the word that from the lip would pass; - And sends the herdsman grovelling with his sheep, - Face down and beast-like on the trampled grass. - - * * * * * - - The collies halt; the slow herd sways and reels, - Huddled in fright above a low ravine, - Where wild with thirst a herd unshepherded - Beats up and down--with something dark between; - A narrow circle that they will not cross; - A thing to stop the maddest in their run-- - A guarding dog too weak to lift his head, - Who licks a still hand shriveled in the sun. - - - - -THE MERCY OF NA-CHIS - -Felix Knox was killed by a band of renegade Apaches under Na-chis, -son of the famous chief Ca-chis, near York’s Ranch in south-eastern -Arizona. Knox made a brave fight and when found his body was not -mutilated, and the face had been covered to keep away the coyotes and -vultures. - - - Knox the gambler--Felix Knox; - Trickster, short-card man, if you will; - Rustler, brand-wrangler--all of that-- - But Knox the man and the hero still! - For life at best is a hard-set game; - The cards come stacked from the Dealer’s hand; - And a man plays king of his luck just once-- - When he faces death in the last grim stand. - - Knox had been drummer in Crook’s command; - A devil of daring lived in his drum; - With his heart in the call and his hand on the sticks - The dead from their sand-filled graves might come: - Crippled for life he drummed his last; - Shot through the knee in the Delshay fight-- - But he crawled to a rock and drummed “Advance” - Till the Tonto renegades broke in flight. - - That was the man who shamed Na-chis! - Two miles out on the Clifton Road - Beyond York’s Ranch the ambush lay,-- - Till a near, swift-moving dust-whirl showed - Where the buckboard came. Na-chis crouched low - And gripped his rifle and grimly smiled - As he counted his prey with hawk-like eyes-- - The men, the woman, the little child. - - They halted--full in the teeth of the trap. - Knox saw--too late. He weighed the chance - And thrust the whip in the driver’s hand - And wheeled the mules: “Back! Back to the ranch!” - He cried as he jumped; “I’ll hold them off. - Whip for your life!” The bullets sung - Like swarming bees through the narrow pass, - And whirred and hummed and struck and stung. - - But he turned just once--to wave his hand - To wife and child; then straight ahead, - With yell for yell and shot for shot, - Till the rocks of the pass were spattered red; - And seven bodies bepainted and grim - Sprawled in the cactus and sand below; - And seven souls of the Devil’s kin - Went with him the road that dead men know. - - Ay! That was Knox! When the cowboys came - On the day-old trail of the renegade, - Na-chis the butcher, the merciless, - This was the tribute the chief had paid - To the fearless dead. No scarring fire; - No mangling knife; but across the face - His own rich blanket drawn smooth and straight, - Stoned and weighted to keep its place. - - - - -THE SEA TO A DESERT DWELLER - - - Lo here is the sea, the sea! - And long waves leaped to my feet; - Foam-white the breakers beat, - Or crept to the hedging rocks - As a whipped cur creeps to the knee-- - Look, here is the sea, the sea! - - Was it regal, as I had dreamed, - With its far-drawn dole of ships? - Or sad with the breath of lips - That greet their beloved no more? - Wetly the white sands gleamed; - Like those other sands they seemed. - - I have stood as the sun went down, - At dusk on the desert’s edge, - In the grip of a sheltering ledge, - And watched the wide plain burn - To silver from red and brown; - Gem-set like a royal crown. - - These waves that ripple and roll - Have rippled in waves of light - Long since to my childish sight; - And the pale heat vapors that glide - Were sea sprites taking toll - For a chartless voyager’s soul. - - Low lights ashine on the lee, - Where the orient steamers come; - E’en so the stars at home - Hang low in the purple sky;-- - ’Twas the face of a friend to me, - But they cry “The sea! The sea!” - - - - -HIS PLACE - -To the enduring memory of Clarence H. Shaw, who knew the desert as few -men know it, and who lies at rest in one of its most beautiful corners. - - - This is his place--here where the mountains run, - Naked and scarred and seamed up to the face of the sun; - His place--reaches of wind-blown sand, brown and barren and old; - Where the creosote, scorched and glazed, clings with a stubborn hold; - And tall and solemn and strange the fluted cactus lifts - Its arms like a cross that pleads from the lonely, rock-hedged rifts; - His place--where the great, near stars lean low and burn and shine - Still and steady and clear, like lamps at the door of a shrine. - - This is his land, his land--where the great skies bend - Over the wide, clean sweep of a world without measure or end: - His land--where across and between the pale, swift whirlwinds go - Like souls that may not rest, by their quest sent to and fro: - And down the washes of sand the vague mirages lay - Their spell of enchanted light, moving in ripple and spray - Of waters that gleam and glisten, with joy and color rife-- - Streams where no mouth may drink, but fair as the River of Life. - - This is his place--the mesquite, like a thin green mist of tears, - Knows the way of his wish, keeps the hope of his years; - Till, one appointed day, comes the with-holden spring; - Then, miracle wrought in gold, that swift, rare blossoming! - This is his place--where silence eternal fills - The still, white, sun-drowsed plain, and the slumbering, iron-rimmed - hills; - Where To-day and Forever mingle, and Changeless and Change are one-- - Here in his own land he waits till To-day and Forever are done. - - - - -THE TRAIL OF DEATH - -The Jornado del Muerto, the desert trail across southern New Mexico and -Arizona. - - - We rode from daybreak; white and hot - The sun beat like a hammer-stroke - On molten iron; the blistered dust - Rose up in clouds to sere and choke; - But on we rode, gray-white as ghosts, - Bepowdered with that bitter snow, - The stinging breath of alkali - From the grim, crusted earth below. - - Silent, our footsteps scarcely wrung - An echo from the sullen trail; - Silent, parched lip and stiffening tongue, - We watched the horses fall and fail: - Jack’s first; he caught my stirrup strap;-- - God help me! but I shook him off; - Death had not diced for two that day - To meet him in that Devil’s trough. - - I flung him back my dry canteen, - An ounce at most, weighed drop by drop - With life; he clutched it, drank, and laughed; - Hard, hideous--a peal to stop - The strongest heart; then turned and ran - With arms outflung and mad eyes set, - Straight on where ’gainst the dun sky’s rim - Green trees stood up, and cool and wet - - Long silver waves broke on the sand. - The cursed mirage! that lures and taunts - The thirst-scourged lip and tortured sight - Like some lost hope that mocking haunts - A dying soul. I tried to call,-- - The dry words rattled in my throat; - And sun and sand and crouching sky-- - God! How they seemed to glare and gloat! - - Reeling I caught the saddle-horn; - On, on; but now it seemed to be - The spring-house path, and at the well - My mother stood and beckoned me: - The bucket glistened; drip, drip, drip, - I heard the water fall and plash; - Then keen as Hell the burning wind - Awoke me with its fiery lash. - - On, on; what was that bleaching thing - Across the trail? I dared not look; - But on--blind, aimless, till the sun - Crept grudging past the hills and took - His curse from off the gasping land. - The blessed dusk! my gaunt horse raised - His head and neighed, and staggered on; - And I, with bleeding lips, half-crazed, - - Laughed out; for just above us there, - Rock-caught against a blackened ledge - A little pool; one last hard climb; - Full spent we fell upon its hedge-- - One still forever. Weak I lay - And drank; hot hands and temples laved: - Jack gone, alas! the horses dead; - But night and water--I was saved! - - - - -THE PINES OF THE MOGOLLONES - - - In the forests on the mountains sing the pines a wondrous measure, - As the wind, the master-player, sways their branches to and fro: - Varied music, full of power, full of passion, joy, and sorrow; - Wild and loud with pain and heart-break, then with love and gladness - low. - - And that music holds the story of the world since its first waking; - Holds the secret of all living and the life that yet will be; - All the lore the wind has gathered as he roamed the wide earth over, - From the silent, sun-white desert to the restless, moaning sea. - - In that singing whisper softly voices of the long lost peoples; - Hymns that rose o’er crumbled altars, prayers for the forgotten dead; - Mothers’ sighs and children’s laughter mingle with the soldiers’ war - cry, - Clash of arms and blare of trumpets, and the conquering army’s tread. - - And above this earth-born music rings a higher tone incessant, - Calling: “Upward! Upward! Upward! Rise and follow where I go; - Leave the camp-fire, leave the quarry, seek the joy that comes of - seeking, - While the strong peaks keep their places and the snow-sweet waters - flow.” - - And the wind, the master-player, blends these varied tones together - Till they rise, a glorious paean, from the forests wide and free-- - Rise and echo on forever; full of courage, hope, and daring; - Wild with all the pain of living, glad with all life’s harmony. - - - - -THE IVORY CRUCIFIX - - In crossing southern Arizona many years ago the late Captain W. O. - O’Neill, “Buckey” O’Neill, as he was then called, saw something - protruding from a mound of sand at the foot of a giant cactus. Turning - aside to investigate he found the sun-dried bodies of a man and woman, - the withered, skeleton hand of the woman still holding an ivory - crucifix. - - Captain O’Neill buried the bodies and brought away the crucifix. Some - time later he learned that it had belonged to the young wife of a - Mexican cattle rancher. She had loved one of her husband’s vaqueros - and they had gone away together. The husband and his men followed till - turned back by the sand storm which had swallowed up the fugitives. It - seemed that the woman, too weak to unclasp the crucifix from her neck, - had stretched the slender rosary to its full length in her effort to - lay the crucifix on her lover’s lips as he breathed his last. - - - “Ride, Juan, he follows, follows fast!” - Nay, darling, down the wind - You do but hear the trampling herds - That flee our path behind: - Look forward where the sunrise plays - Across the mountain’s rim; - There shall you measure fairer days - With me, and far from him. - - “Oh! Juan, the desert lies between, - A waste of fear and dread; - Smitten with bitter winds that shake - The white bones of the dead: - It lies between, as in our hearts - Our sinful loving lies; - Think you that earth will grant us peace - An angry heaven denies?” - - “Haste! Haste! I hear the click of steel, - The ring of muffled spur, - And fearful shapes loom grim against - The far mirage’s blur; - Up-swimming on its trembling light - Huge, shadowy giants ride, - Like blood-avengers through the haze-- - He, with his men beside!” - - Red swung the sun, a sullen disk - Across the copper sky, - And whirling sand-wreaths pale as ghosts - Beat upward spitefully; - Beat up and broke, and whirled anew, - And called their nameless kin - To race with them the race of death - No soul of man may win. - - Forgot and far the fear behind; - Before the God of Wrath - Out-stretched his hand upon the storm - And barred their guilty path: - “A cross!” How grim and gray and gaunt - The tall zahauro loomed, - As if in solemn vigil o’er - Some martyr-saint entombed. - - “Pray! Pray!” she whispered as they fell; - “The pitying saints may hear. - Jesus! One mercy in the name - Of her that is most dear! - Oh! Mary! Mother! if your grace - Be given to such as we, - I pray you of your tenderness, - Spare him and punish me!” - - “The crucifix my mother gave!” - With dying breath she strove - To lay the carven, ivory Christ - Upon the lips beloved. - “Mine be the penance, gracious Lord!” - The dark wall closed apace, - As if earth strove to hide from Heaven - The anguished, pleading face. - - Still, still, along the drifted sand; - How still the starlight crept! - How still his vigil sad and lone - The gaunt zahuaro kept! - There, where in wavering shadows that - Like life’s threads intermix, - Her dead hand still to his dead lips - Pressed close the crucifix. - - - - -A SONG FROM THE HILLS - - - Oh, the black bear on the mountain! - Oh, the trout in stream and fountain! - Oh, the bloodhound’s bay that echoes loud and clear! - Oh, the buck, his proud head shaking, - From the leafy covert breaking, - As he scents the air that tells of danger near! - - Oh, the sunlight softly streaming, - On the polished rifle gleaming - As we follow on the trail with stealthy tread! - Oh, the camp-fire dimly glowing, - Dusky, flickering shadows throwing - O’er the piney boughs that form the hunter’s bed! - - Oh, the woodland life enchanting, - Memory’s farthest chamber haunting - With the mountain air and odor of the pine! - Though a palace door stood waiting, - I would pass its golden grating - With a smile and never wish its splendors mine. - - For the forests with their shadows, - Hidden springs and sunny meadows, - And the mountains in their glory are my own: - In the breeze the fir trees whisper - Music like a solemn vesper, - And the pines take up the song in fuller tone. - Life is freer here and fuller; - All beside of earth grows duller; - And the one whose soul this strong enchantment fills - Leaves all other things when dying, - And like a homing pigeon flying - Turns him back to lie and rest among the hills. - - - - -JUAN OF THE SLAG POTS - - A “Run-away” in the smelter, at Jerome, Arizona. - - - Juan of the slag pots, sullen and grim, - Scarred of jaw and crooked of limb; - May the Mother of Christ have thought of him! - Ay! Juan, lame Juan; no saint indeed, - But a better thing--a man, at need. - Night long where the reek of the sulphur smoke - Rolls up till the heart is like to choke; - Till the ears are sick with the clang and whirr, - And the eyeballs ache with the fiery blur, - Juan rolled the slag pots, huge and black, - And poured them out in a burning track - Down the slippery dump like a lava flow, - To cool in the cañon depths below. - - Behind in the smelter vast and dim - The beat of the great blasts called to him, - And deep in the throat of the furnace glowed - The molten ore on its fiery road; - Soon to flow in a golden stream, - With rainbow shimmer and jeweled gleam - Into the pots like some strange wine. - “Tap!” the foreman gave the sign. - Juan poised the bar on his arm at rest - And swung it straight for the clay-cloaked “breast”; - A touch; a fury of blinding light; - A sweep of the swirling mass flame-white; - Hot drops flung like scorching hail - As the swift flood leaped from its narrow trail - Like a hungry hound on a blood-stained track. - “Back!” the frightened men surged back; - Reeled and ran--but the hindmost fell - Straight in the path of that molten hell. - Cheeks that were black with the stinging smoke - Went white beneath, and a hoarse shout broke - From the swaying crowd--but no man moved; - And the hot flood crept and crawled and shoved - Its flame-tongues out. Then straight and swift - Juan leaped, and they saw him stoop and lift - A fear-dazed burden, and turn and call - On the saints for mercy. Ay! that’s all. - Where the great blasts beat and the smoke drifts low, - Like ragged veils swung to and fro, - Shifting, shimmering, dun and gray, - Juan sits in the sunshine day by day; - Juan of the slag pots, sullen and grim, - Scarred of jaw and crooked of limb-- - May the Mother of Christ have thought of him! - - - - -OVER THE RANGE - - “L---- died at Chilikoot Pass: ‘Good-bye boys,’ he said; ‘I’m going - over the range too--but I’ve got to blaze my own trail.’” - - Letter from the Klondyke. - - - Open the door of the tent, boys, - And turn my face to the snow; - Let me look once more on the grand old peaks - Ere my summons comes to go; - For I start tonight on a stranger trail - Than any our feet have trod-- - With never a blaze to mark the way, - Nor a footstep pressed on the sod. - - ’Tis an old, old road, but who passes there - Goes out in the dark alone; - With no hail from the comrades gone before, - And the camping-grounds unknown; - There’s never a guide for love or gold - Would lead you along that track, - And you needn’t tighten your cartridge belt, - Nor diamond hitch the pack. - - What foes may lurk in the shadows dark - No mortal hand can stay; - And the wealth you have heaped with a lifetime’s toil - Is as dust beside the way; - For empty-handed we strike Life’s trail - When the dawn wind sings of hope,-- - And empty-handed we turn at last - On the brink of its utmost slope. - - I set my face to the stars tonight, - My heart to the Silent Call; - And fearlessly follow the unknown path - That leads to the fate of all.-- - Be it rest or work or peace or strife-- - Be rust or growth the change-- - Here’s one who goes with a joyous soul, - Nor shrinks to cross the range. - - - - -A SADDLE SONG - - “The jingle of spur and rattle of rein; the musical squeak of good - saddle leather.” - - - To horse! as rode the knights of old for tourney and affray; - To horse! the world is wide, and ours, free heart and summer day: - Oh! Laughter now shall be our god and every care take wings, - And we’ll take our marching orders from the song the saddle sings. - - The gipsey blood is coursing red along each leaping vein; - We are brothers to the bursting flower and kindred with the rain: - How the voice of nature calls us! How it beckons! How it rings, - In the echoes of the marching song the old saddle sings! - - The fir trees standing sentinel upon the mountain’s crest - Have sent their message on the wind to fill us with unrest; - To mingle with our dreams the scent the healing balsam flings, - And blend the forest whispers with the song the saddle sings. - O jingling spur and rattling rein, brown earth and bending sky, - We turn to you to brim again the cup of life run dry; - Take toll of all the fancied gain that hard-spent striving brings, - But set our days in measure with the song the saddle sings. - - - - -AT MISSION PURISSIMA - - - The hands are dust that piled these rough brown walls, - Yet still the sunshine falls - Like a touch warm with love upon the gilded cross, - Whose yearly loss - By wind and rain has worn its gilt away, - As youth, which cannot stay - When life frets hard upon its shining stuff: - Yet ’tis enough - That once the cross was gold, the heart alive to joy. - The dark-faced altar boy - Still lights the candles at the Virgin’s feet; - And strange and sad and sweet - The air is dim with long-dead incense-smoke: - Wan Joseph draws his cloak, - Faded and torn, still ’round the Holy Child; - And woman-wise and mild - Pure Mary bends her soft eyes to the floor, - Where from the far-off door, - Through which the sky looks and the green-branched trees, - On bended, praying knees - Sad penitents have worn a weary trail - There to the altar rail. - - Down that old road of pain a woman glides; - The dim place hides - Her eyes that plead and lips that wince and pray: - The saints that stay - Up on the painted walls in the sweet dusk - Of sandal-smoke and musk, - And scent of withering altar flowers, and holy myrrh, - Look down on her - With pity--for a saint must understand. - In one slim hand - She bears a small, rude-shapen earthen jar, - Whose roughness cannot mar - The rare, green grace of the mimosa tree - Whose lace-like tracery - Of leaf and stem she touches as she prays. - Suppliant she lays - Her fingers gently, and each little leaf, - Feeling her grief, - Folds to its green mate like two hands in prayer: - The branches share - Her heart’s hurt tremble, as if they would plead - For her at need. - Above the candles in her deep-niched place - Pure Mary’s face, - Compassionate and tender, bids her speak. - Entreating, passion-weak, - The slow words come: “O Queen of Heaven! - Who yet on earth was even - Woman as I--hear this my woman’s plea; - Grant this to me,-- - Thou in whose white breast a woman’s heart hath beat. - O Pure! O Sweet! - Keep me, thy little one, still clean and pure. - Let me endure - All pain of life, so that thou make me strong. - Hold me from wrong; - And as these leaves that tremble over-much - Close at my touch, - Shut thou my heart against this evil love. - As the gray dove - Beside the water pool would flee the snare, - Keep me aware - How he who seeks seeks not my soul at all, - Which flies beyond his call; - But for his careless joy one idle hour - Would bind his power - Like Eve’s snake round me, laughing as he crushed.” - There in the hushed, - Sweet darkness, pierced by points of candle light - Like stars at night, - She left the green mimosa at the Virgin’s feet, - Continually to entreat - Her soul’s safety--then across the worn old floor - She walked, with face transfigured, to the door. - - - - -POPPIES OF WICKENBURG - - - Where Coronado’s men of old - Sought the Pecos’ fabled gold - Vainly many weary days, - Now the land is all ablaze. - - Where the desert breezes stir, - Earth, the old sun-worshiper, - Lifts her shining chalices - Up to tempt the priestly bees. - - Every golden cup is filled - With a nectar sun-distilled; - And the perfume, Nature’s prayer, - Sweetens all the desert air. - - Poppies, poppies, who would stray - O’er the mountains far away, - Seeking still Quivira’s gold, - When your wealth is ours to hold? - - - - -BOOT HILL - -In the old days of the Frontier, the cemetery in every town and -mining camp was called “Boot Hill,” because many of its inmates -died, literally, “With their boots on.” Today these graveyards, with -their sunken, half-obliterated graves, are all that is left of many -a once-thriving camp. Their nameless dead are the drift that mark -forgotten channels where once the tide of human life flowed full and -strong. - - - Go softly, you whose careless feet - Would crush the sage brush, pungent, sweet, - And brush the rabbit weed aside - From burrows where the ground squirrels hide, - And prairie dog his watch-tower keeps - Among the ragged gravel heaps. - Year long the wind blows up and down - Each lessening mound, and drifts the brown, - Dried wander-weed there at their feet-- - Who no more wander, slow or fleet. - Sun-bleached, rain-warped, the head boards hold - One story, all too quickly told: - That here some wild heart takes its rest - From spent desire and fruitless quest. - - Here in the greasewood’s scanty shade - How many a daring soul was laid! - Boots on, full-garbed as when he died; - The pistol belted at his side; - The worn sombrero on his breast-- - To prove another man the best. - Arrow or knife, or quick-drawn gun-- - The glad, mad, fearless game was done, - A life for stakes--play slow or fast-- - Win--lose--yet Death was trumps at last. - - Some went where bar-room tinsel flared, - Or painted dance-hall wantons stared; - Some, where the lone, brown ranges bared - Their parched length to a parching sky, - And God alone might hear the cry - From thirst-dried lips that, stiff and cold, - Seemed still to babble: “Gold, gold, gold!” - Woman, or wine, or greed, or Chance;-- - A comrade’s shot; an Indian lance; - By camp or cañon, trail or street-- - Here all games end; here all trails meet. - - The ground squirrels chatter in the sun; - The dry, gray sage leaves, one by one, - Drift down, close-curled, in odorous heaps; - Above, wide-winged, a wild hawk sweeps; - And on the worn board at the head - Of one whose name was fear and dread, - A little, solemn ground owl sits. - Ah, here the Man and Life are quits! - Go softly, nor with careless feet-- - Here all games end; here all trails meet. - - - - -THE DESERT QUEEN - -Cereus Giganteus; the “Giant Cactus” of the Southwest. - - - I was Zenobia in the olden time - And ruled the desert from Palmyra’s walls; - I flung my challenge to imperial Rome - So far that still across the years it calls - In proud defiance--but my halls are dust; - The jackal suns him at the temple door; - The wind-blown sands hide street and corridor - And heap the palace floor. - - Forgotten is Aurelian and his might; - Above his grave the beggar children smile; - And I, who swayed the East in other days, - Am mistress now of many a Western mile: - Crowned with a coronal of snowy flowers, - And armed and guarded with a thousand spears, - I dream--while dim mirages recreate - In shimmering light the splendor of past years. - - - - -TO A HOME IN A CANON - - - Strength of the mighty hills, and peace of them; - Peace of white, silent peaks against the sky, - And silence of far deserts gray and wide; - Freedom of winds that blow in earth’s lone places, - And the brooding rest of night above the pines, - Are in these walls; eternal as the hills, - The desert, and the wind that goes between. - The hands will pass; the written word grow dim; - The name an echo’s echo faint and die; - But when its farthest whisper is forgot - These walls shall speak of human hope and love; - Shall say to unknown men in unguessed years: - “Here one made truce with Time a little hour; - Fought, worked; held hard-won victory--knew defeat; - Drained Life’s cup from the bubbles to the lees - And tossed it down and took him to the dust.” - - - - -THE DEATH OF THE OLD HUNTER - -For a third of a century William Reavis, the “Old Hunter,” “The Hermit -of Superstition Mountains,” lived alone with his traps and rifle and -burros, and died at last as he had lived: “Alone with the wind and the -stars and the sky.” In his life and death he was a type of frontiersman -now passed and almost forgotten. - - - Out! Carry me out! I choke in these cabin walls! - Lay me down on the earth under the wide night sky: - Straight on the strong, clean earth--no idle blanket between; - Cheek to cheek with the dust I will watch my last lean hour go by. - - Farther! Push back that bough till I face the stars: - North star--Dipper--Pointer that still holds true; - Many a night ye have led--through storm and wind-whipped cloud; - Lead still, old guides--I line my last long course by you. - - Hark! The night wind sweeps through the crackling grass, - Nosing the thin, sere weeds that hide in the prairie swale; - Rattling the hunted reeds that shiver and shrink in the marsh, - With whimper and snarl and whine, like a hound that bays on the - trail. - - Lift me up! My soul hunts with you tonight, - Old mate of a hundred trails; speed on the eager pack; - There was never a road ye knew too wild for my feet to take-- - Tonight they will keep the way when even ye turn back. - - Lift me up! To my feet! A hand-clasp each! - May your trail be long as mine--knife keen--and powder dry! - Eye true to the bead! Now go--quick--while I keep my feet! - I die as I lived--alone with the wind and the stars and the sky. - - - - -THE MASS OF MANGAS - -Mission San Xavier del Bac, near Tucson, Arizona. - - - Years had the Mission stood alone, - Its silent chapels bat-tenanted; - On its altars the gray owl nested her young, - And the ground squirrels burrowed above the dead - By the western wall, nor stirred their sleep; - Bare lay the fields, sun-scorched and white;-- - As black hawks scatter the timorous quail - Padre and soldier and neophyte - - Scattered before the Apache hordes - That swept the valley with death and flame-- - Now back at last like quail to their nests, - Timorous, fearing, they slowly came, - Priest and people; to wring anew - From the sullen desert a grudging chance - For scanty food and room to toil, - Or a quick-won end on a blood-stained lance. - - With fragrant branches of gray mesquite, - And waxen yuccas fair and tall; - Lifting their bells like hands in prayer, - Slender and snowy and virginal; - And desert lilies as frail as hope, - They wreathed the altars, and lit once more - The long-dead altars, and set the rood - Over the arrow-bitten door. - - The pale Christ leaned from the iron-wood cross - High in its niche deep-walled and gray; - And under his feet, in order set, - Censer and chalice in rough-wrought clay - Where once was silver shaped in Spain-- - Now spoil of fight to the savage foe, - And bandied from careless hand to hand - Unblest uses and lips to know. - - The tapers flickered and tenderly - The last words whispered and echoed up - To the painted saints in the dusk above, - As the padre lifted the earthen cup - And the blessed wine--but crash it fell, - Staining the floor with a crimson tide - Unseen of the startled worshipers-- - For look! where the door unbarred swings wide! - - Sombre and splendid in paint and plume, - With claws of eagle and puma skin, - Mangas, the dread Apache chief, - And a hundred braves at his back crowd in; - He swept the shards of the cup aside - And its silver mate on the altar set: - “Padre, the boy you stopped to draw - From the lion’s jaw makes good his debt. - - “With Death hot-heel on your track you turned - To save a child of the enemy; - Let these, beloved of your hidden God, - Be bond of peace for mine and me; - And these in thanks for that other day.” - Censer and chalice he set them down, - And bared his arms of their turquoise beads, - And stripped the robe from his shoulders brown. - - Man by man his men heaped up - The pile till it grew to the Virgin’s feet; - Skin and blanket, and beads that hung - Like jeweled buds in the pale mesquite. - Then swift as they came they went again; - But, so ’tis writ in the Mission rolls, - With wine and incense the padre straight - Said holy mass for their heathen souls, - - And held them saved to the Mother Church; - For a grateful heart is a thing indeed - That weighed in the palm of the Savior’s hand - Out-values penance and prayer and creed; - And year by year when the yucca bells - Like flags of truce swung tall and white, - The name of Mangas was blessed anew - With book and taper and solemn rite. - - - - -THE WATER TANK AT DUSK - -(In the Harqua Hala desert.) - - - The wild, bare, rock-fanged hills that all day long - Shut in the hand-width valley from the world, - Like wolfish out-posts which no foot might pass, - Creep close as friendly dogs with head on paws - And drowsy eyes that watch the evening fire. - Their sun-baked, tawny brown melts into mist - Of rose and violet and translucent blue, - With gold dust powdered softly through the air - That swims and shimmers as if all the earth - Were carven jewels bathed in golden light. - In the soft dusk the desert seems to pant, - Only half-rested from the burning day; - Yet stirs a little happily to feel - The night wind, cool and gentle, whispering - In the white-flowered mesquite where wild bees hum - Delirious with honey sweets and fragrances; - And through the leafless thorn whose tortured boughs - Were wreathed, men say, to crown the suffering Christ - On his high cross. (And still each Passion Week - The sorrowing tree wears buds like drops of blood - In memory.) With swift, soft whirr of wings - The gray doves flutter down beside the pool, - Cooing their love notes sweet as fairy flutes, - And in the grass the fiddler-crickets chirp. - The spotted night hawk saws his raucous note, - Like some harsh rasp upon an o’er-drawn string; - The squeaking bats drop from the cotton-wood trees, - Dipping and diving round the shining pool - Where night moths hover like moon-elves astray. - It seems the deep blue sky has fallen there - In the blue, star-set water, where the wind - Makes mimic waves that hardly over-toss - The peach-leaf boat on which the dragon fly - Rides sailor-wise to rest his gorgeous wings. - The hot, dry, day-time scent of sun-burned sand - Is drowned in sweetness of the blossoming grape, - And pungent odour of the wax-white cups - Of yerba mansa, hedging the blue pool - With a green wall whose every flower - Blooms twice, once on its tall-leafed stalk, and once - Down where the waves like silver mirrors mix - Its whiteness with the red pomegranate stars. - In the shadow of the plume-branched tamerask - There is a half-hushed, honey-throated call, - And from the cotton-wood’s topmost moonlit bough - Music’s enraptured soul seems waked to answer. - So sweet, so low, so pure, so tender-clear; - So brimmed with joy; so wistful, plaintive-sad; - As if all love o’ the world pulsed in that throat; - As if all pain o’ life beat in the heart below. - It is the mocking bird to his brown mate, - The desert’s vesper song of rest and peace. - - - - -DOLORES’ OLLA - -In Mexico the fiesta of San Juan, in the heart of June, is a time of -sport and pleasure and love-making. The eve of All Soul’s Night in -November is a time of universal prayer for the dead. Friendless indeed -is the soul for which no word is uttered then, and dearest treasures -go, if need be, to buy prayers and candles for the loved one’s rest. - - -SAN JUAN’S DAY - - San Juan’s Day in Guadalupe; the plaza is astir - With caballeros bold and gay and senoritas shy, - And Miguel the alfarero wends through the crowd to her, - Dolores with the dusky eyes as soft as twilit sky. - - Dolores ’neath whose lightest touch his heart is like the clay; - Who molds him as he molds his wares upon the whirring wheel; - Oh! may the Saints be good to him on this auspicious day, - And grant him words to tell her all the love a man may feel. - - Mi alma, see, this olla--how it flashes in the sun, - And shimmers with the iris of paloma’s dimpled breast! - Lift thou the lid and look within, querida, little one; - My heart lies warm below your gaze as birds lie in the nest. - - -ALL SOUL’S NIGHT - - “Ay de mi! Valgame Dios! Senor, but a moment, stay! - The jar! The olla! Will you buy it? Very little you shall pay. - Look you, burnished green and copper, flecked with waves of rainbow - light; - Miguel, best alfarero--Good saints keep his soul tonight! - Miguel made it. Ah! The padre--going to the mass so soon! - Father, wait--a prayer for Miguel! Mary, Mother, grant the boon!-- - Senor, gracias! When the aves rise tonight for Miguel’s rest, - Know a woman in the darkness prays that you too may be blest.” - - - - -NIGHT IN THE PINES - - - It were mid-day one had said, with a brighter sun o’erhead, - When a little hush came stealing through the branches swaying low; - Such a space of silence tender as the pause that serves to render - Some sweet music even sweeter in its pulsing after-flow. - - The gold-sifted light that rested on the bracken plumes green-crested, - Shimmered faintly into silver on the diamond-dusted firs; - Upward where the mountain lifted one brown shoulder seamed and rifted, - Grew a shadow ’gainst the sky line, softly as the shade that stirs - - Lightly o’er a sleeper dreaming;--then the star lamps trimmed and - gleaming, - From the dim, blue dome near-bending flashed their jewelled radiance - down: - Where the timid aspens quiver gusty wind-puffs start and shiver, - Like the ghosts of wandering night elves rustling through the - needles brown. - - Night that elsewhere silently lays her spell on land and sea, - Soothing restless souls to quiet in the shadow of her wings, - Here with hushing tone and slow through the rocking pines croons low - Earth-old lullabies as tender as a watching mother sings. - - Rest ye, weary hearts and lone; lean ye down against mine own; - Put aside the fret of living and be glad in dreamless sleep; - Lose awhile the vain regretting in the balm of sweet forgetting-- - Or remember but the promise that the coming mornings keep. - - - - -THE DESERT - - - That silence which enfolds the Great Beyond - Broods in these spaces where the yucca palms - Like gray old votaries chant unworded psalms, - Grand, voiceless harmonies where-to the Heavens respond. - - Lone, vast, eternal as Eternity, - The brown wastes crawl to clutch the wrinkled hills,-- - Till night lets down her solemn dusk and fills - The waiting void with haunting mystery. - - Here Solitude hath made her dwelling place, - As when of old amid untrodden sands, - Slow-journeying, wise men of all alien lands - Sought at her feet life’s hidden roads to trace. - - All ways of earth, still glad or sad they go, - The roads of life--till breath of man shall cease-- - Silent, the desert keeps her ancient peace, - And that last secret which the dead may know. - - - - -THE EAGLE OF SACRAMENTO - - This poem is founded upon an incident in Colonel Doniphan’s campaign - with the Army of the West in 1846-47. The battle of Sacramento was - fought Feb. 28, 1847; the Mexican army, accompanied by the governor - and leading citizens of Chihuahua, had taken a strong position in the - rocky foothills of the Sierra de Victoriano, and there awaited Colonel - Doniphan who had about nine hundred men. The Mexican army numbered - 2200 men, with heavy artillery and entrenched. They expected to rout - the Americans at the first fire, and amused themselves with feasting - and sports while awaiting their approach. - - Colonel Doniphan was compelled to make his attack across a small plain - in full range of the artillery and cut by a deep gulch which offered - a serious stay to the charge. Just as the column halted on its brink - some of the men saw a bald eagle hovering over the plain and set up a - shout of “Victory! The eagle!” They charged up the hill, sweeping the - Mexican army before them, with the loss of but one man, Major Owens, - who was shot from his horse. - - The Chihuahuan army lost 1100 men and all stores, sheep, cattle, hard - bread, and much silver coin. Several wagons were found filled with - ropes cut in lengths with which to tie the captured Americans. The - governor, citizens, and army fled in confusion back to the city of - Chihuahua, which was occupied by Doniphan’s troops and held for some - weeks. - - - The Hills of Victoriano were gay that winter morning; - Chihuahuan gentlemen looked down tricked out in brave array; - When Trial with the ebon flag rode forth to give us warning. - “Your leader”--“Come and take him--and luck be yours the day!” - “No quarter to the Gringo”! the skull and cross-bones fluttered; - Four thousand throats took up the yell, the echoes flung it back; - How boastfully, exultantly, the taunting threat they uttered-- - As coyotes bold with number yelp round a gray wolf’s pack. - - Nine hundred men in buckskin, in patches and in tatters; - Lean and hungry as the deserts we had traversed wearily; - But little versed in pipe clay, in gold lace and such matters-- - Only our bare brown rifles to match their pageantry. - There on the hills above us the proud senores gathered - As for some rare fiesta, laughed with their men below; - “Now by the flag they jest at they’ll pray they ne’er were fathered; - Their jaunty coats shall sit awry ere this day’s sun is low.” - - Their peons manned the cannon, their rabble filled the trenches-- - We were too mean a crew to soil the hands of gentlemen; - Their mocking words they fling at us, till Mitchell fiercely - clenches - His fist and shouts: “Now, rangers! Sweep the vermin from their - den!” - Barred with a rain-washed gulley the hill sloped up before us; - A deep-worn trench too wide to leap and like to cost us dear; - Just on its edge we halted--broad wings were hovering o’er us-- - “An omen! Look! the eagle!” uprose a mighty cheer. - - With one wild charge we crossed the gulch, half on our comrades’ - shoulders, - And, the great bald eagle leading, stormed up the rocky hill; - Their grape went wide below us, or crashed among the bowlders, - And when our rifles spoke them back the beaten guns were still: - We scared them from their cover, we sent the peons flying; - We turned on them the cannon they had not wit to fire; - What way the battle led us was strewn with dead and dying, - And we heaped their gaudy trappings to feed the funeral pyre. - - One knee around the saddle horn, half lounging in his saddle, - Sat Doniphan, and whistled as he whittled carelessly, - Shaping a cedar splinter to a rough-turned wooden paddle:-- - “With my compliments to Trial for his pirate flag,” said he. - The flag was torn and trampled and the throats that cried “No - quarter!” - Were silent on the bloody field or sullen in defeat; - The ropes they’d cut to bind our hands we cut again still shorter, - And we bound the fleeing stragglers as we caught them in retreat. - - Back on the road where late they came with pomp and jest and - laughter, - They fled, the governor leading, to Chihuahua’s very gate; - And in their gay-decked carriages our rangers followed after, - Or on their prancing horses rode down in martial state. - What spoil was ours for taking--bread and corn and sheep and cattle! - How the “Gringo beggars” feasted on the feast the Dons had spread! - And the priest Ortiz who cursed us and reviled us through the battle, - Was left to scare the vultures and say masses for the dead. - - We had three score captured cannon, guns and gun mules all together; - Our saddle bags were heavy with peso and doubloon; - We had bridles silver-studded and carved of Spanish leather-- - Ah! well we turned the tale of them that boasted all too soon! - And well we cheered the eagle till the hills above us thundered; - We set the old cathedral bells to peal triumphantly-- - And in the gray old plaza, while our prisoners scoffed and wondered, - We shamed our sullen foemen when we gave them amnesty. - - - - -CACTUS AND ROSE - - - She wore red roses as a queen - Her jewels when she wills to shine; - She pressed one full bud to her lips, - The while she bent her eyes to mine: - “Were not life cheap for such a flower?” - Was it by chance her fingers strayed - So near my own? But ere the touch - The tempter in my blood was stayed. - - A mist was on the laughing eyes, - It veiled her soft, enticing grace; - Beyond her lure of gold and blue - A tender, shadowy, haunting face - Grew like a star in twilit skies - When evening fades to rarer light; - Again I saw the cactus flowers, - Blood red, in braids as black as night. - - Again we paced the earthen floor - In waiting measure, till the dance - Swept to its swift and dizzy whirl; - And there were eyes that looked askance - Because her brown hand lay in mine - Like some small, gentle, brown-winged bird; - And there were hearts had given life - For that one shy, low-spoken word - - That made the night so more than dear; - That set my years to one strange tune - Of footfalls on the hard-beat earth, - And soft guitar and low-hung moon; - And wind that whispered through the roof’s - Rude thatch of branches interlaced; - And bare, dark, earthen walls whereon - The leaping firelight roughly traced - - Her shadow, swaying as we danced.-- - Then morning came, as calm and pale - As some dead face where tapers shine; - And through the tule reeds the quail - Called mournfully--as if they knew - No other night would ever be - So dear, so rare, so blessed of God, - From sunrise to eternity. - - White-robed as any bride she lay; - Like weary stars the tapers shone; - And what I vowed in that dim place - Was vowed to her dead heart alone: - I went forth old, that had been young; - But still I keep till life’s last hour - The quail call through the tule reeds, - And one dead, crumbling, cactus flower. - - - - -OUR LADY OF MIRAGE - - - She walks across the desert and the shuttle in her hand - Weaves out behind her webs of light that clothe the shifting sand; - Where her swift footstep passes strange, shadowy cities rise, - And chartless seas roll shoreward where never sea-shore lies; - And where no house was builded nor ever home shall be - Stretch green and peaceful homelands with tender witchery: - Like flowers that bend to greet her soft colors glow and gleam - Of gardens never tended beside an unknown stream; - And there like silver shadows move women gentle-eyed, - And children run before them and lovers walk beside; - And all that life has banished and all that love has missed - Comes in that mystic vision to keep a holy tryst. - The restless winds are music, the shifting sands reveal - The truth beyond the substance, the dream forever real-- - Across life’s poorest barrens, o’er desert waste and slope, - She weaves her bright illusions, the blest mirage of hope. - - - - -THE MAID OF TUCANO - - Some years ago a small agate carved with the head of a woman was found - in a pre-historic mound near Phoenix, Arizona. More recently the - explorations made by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes at Casa Grande have proven - these mounds to have been the communal homes of a considerable people, - of whom the Pima Indians of the region retain some traditions. Based - somewhat upon the carved agate and with a slight thread of tradition - in it the poem is still mostly fanciful. - - - Fair lies the vale of Tucano, - Rich Heart of the Land of the Sun; - Broad spread its emerald mesas, - Sparkling its bright waters run; - Far spread the golden-plumed maize fields, - With orchard and garden between, - To where like sentinels watching - The pines of the uplands lean. - - Here in the days long forgotten - Ruled Che-he-ah-pik the Chief, - And here lived a maid of his people, - Fair in her love and her grief. - Sister in grace to the yuccas, - Swaying white-chaliced and tall; - But her heart was the heart of the snow-flower - That blooms on the high mountain wall; - - Far from the reach of the many, - Who mar with the dust of their feet - And the plucking of idle fingers - Blossoms that else were sweet. - Yet the fleet-footed, venturesome climber - May win to the snowy peaks; - And to him who is true in his loving - At last turns the love that he seeks. - - When the signal-smoke rose on the mountain - Like a gray banner tossed in the wind, - Or the watch fires at night glimmered star-like - Against the grim darkness behind; - The Chief said: “My forts are still holden, - No enemy strives at the pass;” - But the maid with eyes misty and tender - Looked upward and whispered “Alas! - - “For the distance that lieth between us! - O Heart of my Heart! Do you dream - Of me here in the vale as you wander - By rock-riven cañon and stream, - Where in childhood we gathered the pine nuts, - Or plundered the blue pigeon’s nest, - Or standing knee deep in the bracken - Watched the sun burn to gold in the west? - - “The red roses bloom for my taking, - But fairer the roses we knew, - Swaying over the cliffs in the spring time, - Their pale blossoms dappled with dew; - And sweet is the mocking bird’s music, - And the laughter in garden and hall; - But sweeter the wind in the pine trees - And the slow-pacing sentinel’s call.” - - So the maiden dreamed, twining the garlands - To lay on the Harvest God’s shrine, - And mingling the fruits of the lowland - With balsamic cedar and pine; - Till the chief on his roof-terrace lying - A-weary of rule and of sport, - Let his gaze idly rest on the worker, - Alone in the old temple court. - - The gray walls seemed bright with her presence, - As when a stray moonbeam illumes - With its silvery radiance the shadow - That darkens in desolate rooms: - Soft-crooning a melody tender, - And low with her home-longing grief, - She turned at a footstep and, startled, - Looked up from the flowers to the chief. - - Smiling into her dark eyes that questioned - He raised the fresh garlands, “Now see - How each blossom you touch, making sweeter, - Is robbed of its sweets by a bee. - Can you wonder that I, being stronger, - And you than the blossoms more sweet, - Was drawn like the bees to the honey - And found myself here at your feet? - - “Leave the garlands to fingers less slender, - These rough walls to faces less fair, - And come where love laughs in the sunshine, - And joy waits to welcome you there; - Here is silence and service and shadow, - There is music and gladness and light, - And I, who am chief to all others, - Will serve you and love you to-night.” - - “Nay, your bees seek the garden buds only; - Scant honey the cactus flowers hold; - Nor careless hands linger to pluck them, - For all of their crimson and gold; - Desert born with the birthright of freedom, - They wither and fade in the close, - As I pine in the garden-set valley - For the breath of the hills and the snows. - - “Think you love can be bought with a jewel? - Or caught in the net of a name? - Or a black mountain eaglet held captive - Sing sweet as your mocking bird tame? - Like to like--go you back to your roses; - For me, warrior’s daughter and bride, - Fitter home is the cloud-beaten fortress - Than here by the green river side. - - “When the feast of the Harvest is over - Comes one whom you fighting-men know, - Whose station was won at the spear point, - Whose fortune is bent with the bow; - Stern guard of your battle-swept passes, - As free as the winds are and bold; - Yet with honor and truth above jewels, - And faithfulness dearer than gold. - - “So farewell! Nor remember the madness - That tempted your fancy and hour; - Know no bud ever swells in the desert - But thorns hedge the heart of the flower.” - Che-he-ah-pik passed out of the courtyard - And seeking with wonder-lit face - A keen-fingered carver of gem stones, - He bade him to cunningly trace - - On red agate the head of the worker, - And set it his necklace within; - “So shall those who forget me remember - The love that a chief could not win.” - - * * * * * - - Dust is the Harvest God’s altar; - Naught of his people is known-- - Only the face of the maiden - Carved on the red agate stone. - - - - -A FLOWER ON THE TRAIL - - - My heart was weary yesterday; - I said: “The road is long; - The busy hum of middle day - Shuts out the morning song; - The rush of careless, hurrying feet - That crowd the upward slope, - Have crushed the daisies into dust, - And spent the dews of hope.” - - Then straight within the trampled path - The eager throng had trod, - A little purple flower unclosed, - Nor pined for greener sod: - And one whose load had weighed him sore - Looked down at it and smiled, - And dreamed of woodland trails he loved - To follow when a child. - - So still when bitterness and fret - Would drown the melody, - Some little harmony steals in - To set the music free; - And we may keep till day is done - The morning dreams we knew, - If ever in our hearts there live - The daisies and the dew. - - - - -THE OCCULTATION OF VENUS - -The occultation of Venus and the moon, in March, 1899, was wonderfully -beautiful and impressive as seen in the desert. - - - A jeweled crown for an old man’s brow, - That mystical, splendid, tropic sky - Arched low o’er the desert, reaching far - Its weary leagues wind-parched and dry: - So bare and lone and sad it lay, - The gray old land that seemed to yearn - With a human longing for some caress - From its granite barriers, grim and stern. - - Shouldering up to the very stars - The strong peaks lifted their solemn might; - And through their rock-gapped pinnacles burned - The wondrous glory that charmed the night. - Like a giant’s scimeter wrought in gold - The late moon rose in the dawn-touched east, - And close beside white Venus shone, - As once she shone on shrine and priest. - - Like a soul’s white flame the planet passed-- - Alone the moon rode proud and high-- - O wait of God! the lost star swung - A silver sphere in the hither sky;-- - (Is it so, O Life, that thy light is lost - In the disk of Death if we could but know?) - And the old land blushed with sudden youth - In the tender fire of the morning-glow. - - - - -A FOREST LULLABY - - - Wind among the green leaves singing, - Bend the branches as you go; - Gently, gently, that their swinging - Hush the little heart below; - Still the busy little fingers, - Softly close the dark-fringed eyes, - For no gleam of daylight lingers - In the dusky, twilight skies. - - Silver stars, come peeping, peeping, - Weaving with your shining beams, - Round my drowsy blossom sleeping, - Fairy spells of happy dreams: - Lullaby, O captive rover, - All your playmates are at rest; - Bees have left the scented clover, - Baby birds are in the nest. - - Little rabbits warmly cuddle - In the grasses soft and deep; - And the wee white daisies huddle - In the shadow fast asleep: - Lullaby my bird, my blossom; - Sleep my light-winged butterfly, - Cradled safe on earth’s brown bosom - Till the morning you shall lie. - - - - -THE COLORADO RIVER - - - Long, silent leagues of ever-shifting sand, - White-hot and shimmering to the distant hills - Where wheeling slow the whirlwind dips and fills, - Or beckons like some shadowy, giant hand. - Gray wisps of greenwood and mesquite that stand - In withered patches like an old man’s beard, - Ragged and grizzled: nearer, dark and weird, - The river slips along the cringing land, - Swift to possess and loath to give again. - Foam-ribbed and sullen, staggering with the weight - Of forests spoiled, he takes his price in full, - Stern toll for every drop to land and men; - In witness there--Poor pawn of love or hate!-- - Caught in a drift a grinning human skull. - - - - -THE END OF THE TRAIL - - - Sunset--and the end of the Trail; - Here the last faint footsteps fail - And I go on alone - Into the untracked ways; - I who in other days - Blazed many a road straight up - To the peaks that touch the sun-- - But now is the climbing done. - - No more to my feet the trail; - No more to my hand the rein; - No more--Ah! never again - The sun and the wind, and free! - The far stars over me! - As the Wilderness called I went; - Now deep and solemn and low - A Mightier calls--and I go. - - Nor guide nor compass nor sign; - Face out, to the uttermost dark; - And the wind in the strong boughs--Hark! - Paean and dirge for a king! - Life, I have loved you well; - Forget the rest when you tell-- - This soul did not falter, nor quail, - Nor shrink at the end of the Trail. - - - - -THE RANGE RIDER - - - Up and saddle at daybreak, - Into the hills with the light, - While still on piñon and cedar - Lingers the wings of night; - Clatter of hoofs in the cañon, - Scatter of horns on the trail; - Dim forms lost in the chaparral, - Fleeing like frightened quail. - - Follow! the deer behind them - Pant in a beaten race; - Light in its flight is slower - Than a mountain steer in chase. - ’Ware! That black bull charges; - Head down, red eyes aglow; - Crack! Crack! the pistol flashes-- - God, but a noble foe! - - His black bulk reels from the pathway, - The horses reek and sweat; - Unsaddle a space and breathe them, - The day’s before us yet: - Look back from our bed of bracken - Here on the world’s green roof, - You’d lie at less ease in the green below - But for pistol and sure-set hoof. - - What! Is your nerve so shaken? - A man can die but once! - Who shirks the game for the chance-sent end - Is a coward soul, or a dunce.-- - The turn of a loose-cinched saddle, - The plunge of a keen-curved horn-- - Play down to-day--and to-morrow - Who cares that we were born! - - - - -THE YUCCA PALMS - - - Gray pilgrims without pouch or staff, - Or dust-stained robe, or cockle shell; - Seek ye the path to some lost shrine - Here in the desert grim as Hell? - - No arched cathedral dome bends down; - The earth is iron, the sky is brass; - ’Tis ages since these blistered sands - Forgot the touch of flower and grass. - - Stern penance do ye for old wrongs - Mayhap, or saintship seek from pain; - With suppliant hands that never win - The benison of cooling rain. - - In beggar rags like that wild throng - That once in old Perugia stood, - Ye bear your serried scourges high, - A flagellante brotherhood. - - - - -IN THE BRACKEN. - - - Scent of the pine on the hilltops, - Rush of the mountain breeze, - And long, deep slopes of bracken fern - Like sun-lit emerald seas. - - Gray old rocks where the lizards hide - And chattering chipmunks play; - Where the brown quail leads her timorous brood - Through the fronds that bend and sway. - - Home of the doe and her spotted fawns, - (Shyest of woodland things.) - Haunt of the hawks that dip and dive - On circling, fearless winds. - - The skies bend down with a deeper blue - Where the white clouds drift and hover; - And the tall peaks drowse in the golden haze - That dapples their forest cover. - - The needles whisper an endless song - As the brown cones bend and nod: - “O rest, O rest, with the bracken and pine - In the strong, green hills of God.” - - - - -ARIZONA - -In his message of December, 1905, President Roosevelt advised that -Arizona and New Mexico be admitted to the Union as one state. In -Arizona the opposition to this “joint-statehood” measure was bitter and -determined. - - - No beggar she in the mighty hall where her bay-crowned sisters wait, - No empty-handed pleader for the right of a free-born State; - No child, with a child’s insistance, demanding a gilded toy; - But a fair-browed, queenly woman, strong to create or destroy. - Wise for the need of the sons she has bred in the school where - weaklings fail; - Where cunning is less than manhood, and deeds, not words, avail: - With the high, unswerving purpose that measures and overcomes; - And the faith in the Farthest Vision that builded her hard-won homes. - - Link her, in her clean-proved fitness, in her right to stand alone,-- - Secure for whatever future in the strength that her past has won,-- - Link her, in her morning beauty, with another, however fair? - And open your jealous portal and bid her enter there - With shackles on wrist and ankle and dust on her stately head, - And her proud eyes dim with weeping? No! Bar your doors instead - And seal them fast forever! But let her go her way-- - Uncrowned, if you will, but unshackled, to wait for a larger day. - - Ay! let her go bare-handed; bound with no grudging gift; - Back to her own free spaces, where her rock-ribbed mountains lift - Their walls like a sheltering fortress; back to her house and blood; - And we of her blood will go our way and reckon your judgment good. - We will wait outside your sullen door till the stars you wear grow dim - As the pale dawn-stars that swim and fade o’er our mighty Cañon’s rim; - We will lift no hand for the bays ye wear nor covet your robes of - state-- - But ah! By the skies above us all we will shame ye while we wait! - - We will make ye the mould of an empire here in the land ye scorn; - While ye drowse, and dream in your well-housed ease that States at - your nod are born. - Ye have blotted your own beginnings, and taught your sons to forget - That ye did not spring fat-fed and old from the powers that bear and - beget; - But the while ye follow your smooth-made roads to a fireside safe of - fears, - Shall come a voice from a land still young to sing in your age-dulled - ears - The hero song of a strife as fine as your father’s fathers knew. - When they dared the rivers of unmapped wilds at the will of a bark - canoe. - - The song of the deed in the doing; of the work still hot from the - hand; - Of the yoke of man laid friendly-wise on the neck of a tameless land. - While your merchandise is weighing we will bit and bridle and rein - The floods of the storm-rocked mountains and lead them down to the - plain; - And the foam-ribbed, dark-hued waters, tired with that mighty race, - Shall lie at the feet of palm and vine and know their appointed place; - And out of that subtle union, desert with mountain flood, - Shall be homes for a nation’s choosing, where no home else had stood. - - We will match the gold of your minting, with its mint-stamp dulled and - marred - By the blood and tears that have stained it, and the hands that have - clutched too hard, - With the gold that no man has lied for; the gold no woman has made - The price of her truth and honor, plying a shameless trade: - The clean, pure gold of the mountains, straight from the strong, dark - earth; - With no tang or taint upon it from the hour of its primal birth. - The trick of the Money-changer, shifting his coins as he wills, - Ye may keep--no Christ was bartered for the wealth of our lavish - hills. - - “Yet we are a little people--too weak for the cares of state!” - Let us go our way--when ye look again ye may find us, mayhap, too - great. - Cities we lack--and gutters where children snatch for bread: - Numbers--and hordes of starvelings, toiling but never fed. - Spare pains that would make us greater in the pattern that ye have - set; - We hold to the larger measure of the men that ye forget-- - The men who from trackless forests and prairies lone and far, - Hewed out the land where ye sit at ease and grudge us our fair-won - star. - - “There yet be men, my masters,”--though the net that the trickster - flings - Lies wide on the land to its bitter shame, and his cunning parleyings - Have deafened the ears of Justice, that was blind and slow of old: - Yet Time, the last Great Judge, is not bought, or bribed, or sold; - And Time and the Race shall judge us--not a league of trafficking men, - Selling the trust of the people to barter it back again; - Palming the lives of millions as a handful of easy coin-- - With a single heart to the narrow verge where Craft and State-craft - join. - - - - -CAMP-FIRE TALES - - - - -THE HASH-WRASTLER - -Being the story of the life and death of the camp cook, as told by an -old cow puncher. - - - Of course the boss he carries some weight, tho’ the owner’s a - figger-head; - (Handy fer signin’ checks an’ sich-- the Lord in His pity makes some - folks rich! - Fortune at best’s a skittish bitch as’ll neither be drove er led; - An’ “A fool fer luck!” is a standing rule, which I reckon Solomon - said.) - - There’s some as growed on the own home range, an’ some as was vented - young; - An’ I’ve knowed buckaros as can’t be beat that wrastled the Greaser - tongue; - An’ there’s now an’ again a tenderfoot the cinches don’t seem to rub; - But the man that the outfit hitches to is the man that hustles the - grub. - - It ain’t no cinch in the summer time to tighten a hungry belt, - When yer horse is lathered an’ steamin’ hot, an’ ye think yer goin’ to - melt; - But that old chuck wagon’s a bigger throne than the Czar of Rushy owns - When you’ve punched a blizzard from dark to dark, an’ the marrer - chilled in yer bones. - - Yer _chaps_ is froze to the saddle skirts an’ the froth on yer bridle - white, - An’ the sigh ye let it ain’t no bluff when that camp-fire heaves in - sight; - An’ ye see him grab up the coffee pot an’ rattle the lid like sin; - An’ holler away to beat the band: “Grub pile! Fa-all in! Fa-a-all in!” - - It’s then that ye know yer friend o’ friends, an’ that wrastler gits - his due-- - In cussin’ an’ sich--fer a haloed saint couldn’t cook to suit the - crew. - It’s: “Slushy, say, yer off yer base; them biskits is dough inside. - Did ye bile the critter that Noah milked, or only her horns an’ hide?” - - “Stove?” Oh, sure! A hole in the ground on the leeward side of the - camp; - The end-gate dropped fer a kneadin’ board, an’ some grease an’ rag fer - a lamp: - But his kittles was slammin’ by three o’clock, along with the bosses - snore; - A-knowin’ we’d polish his skillets clean an’ yell possessed fer more. - - There was me an’ Jim an’ Otero’s Kid, I reckon we didn’t make - That wrastler’s life one shinin’ round of lemon pie an’ cake: - But he paid us off as slick an’ clean as ever a debt was paid-- - An’ I low if our pull was better Beyond he’d git some boot on the - trade. - - The fall rodear was all but done an’ the beef steers waitin’ to ship, - When it seemed that the Kid an’ me an’ Jim was booked fer a longer - trip. - Smallpox--an’ the way them boys lit out was worse’n the worst stampede - Of buffaloed steers on a rainy night the Old Trail ever seed. - - All but that lank-jawed slinger o’ pots, that blamed hash-wrastlin’ - fool;-- - “I’m runnin’ this camp--you tend to biz;” he says, as stiddy an’ cool - As a chunk of ice on a Christmas tree--an’ I reckon we didn’t dispute; - Fer the Kid an’ me was as crazy as loons, an’ Jim on the cut an’ - shoot. - - He tied Jim up with a hackamore, an’ he pulled the three of us - through-- - But I swear when I think o’ the way things went, an’ him, I feel plumb - blue; - - Fer that same disease jist doused his glim as quick as you’d holler - “Scat!” - Jist cut him out an’ afore we knew he was gone like the drop of a hat. - - “Th’ boys is comin’,” he says quite wild; “an’ them beans ain’t - seasoned right; - An’ Jim’ll kick at th’ bread an’ say th’ coffee’s a holy fright. - You tell ’em”--he fingered the kiverlid, an’ his words come choked - an’ thin-- - “Reddy jist to th’ minnit, boys--Grub pile! Fa-a-ll in! Fa-a-ll in!” - - - - -WATCH - -The Old Prospector’s Dog - - - What’s that ye say? That yaller dog - Ain’t killed with handsomeness, ye low? - Well, he ain’t travellin’ on his shape, - I tell ye that right here an’ now. - - Ye wouldn’t have him follerin’ _you_, - Ner be ketched dead with him beside? - Well, I don’t want no better pard - When I tramp up the Great Divide. - - The beauty club shied off I guess - An’ hit him pretty middlin’ light; - But looks don’t fill no empty tanks-- - An’ plain old _stay’s_ what wins a fight. - - An’ that dog’s got the stayin’ powers - A long sight more’n the most o’ men; - He’s just clean grit an’ “stay there” mixed, - An’ don’t ask no odds how an’ when. - - ’Twas crossin’ of the Plomas Range; - I’d made a right big strike, ye see, - An’ ever’ loafer in the camp - Was hangin’ round an’ watchin’ me. - - So thinks I: “You’d better pull your freight - Between two suns an’ cache that dust, - Unless ye want some knife to let - Th’ daylight in through your ol’ crust.” - - Well, me an’ Watch an’ my ol’ mule - Jest humped ourselves fer three hull days, - An’ then, sez I: “We’ll rest, ol’ pard; - Nobody’s follered us this ways.” - - So I just cooks a bit o’ grub - An’ lays right down an’ goes to snorin’, - An’ never knows another thing - Untell I hear ol’ Watch a-roarin’. - - I jumped right up an’ into Hell-- - A pair o’ Greasers chokin’ me, - An’ punchin’ of me with a knife-- - Another’n fightin’ Watch--an he - - Jest looks at me an’ keeps a-chawin’ - The rascal’s throat, an’ growlin’ low - As if to say: “Hold on, ol’ pard-- - I’m comin’ soon’s I git a show.” - - I fit an’ scratched an’ dodged that knife-- - An’ then my foot slipped on a stone - An’ things looked dark--but next I knowed - Ol’ Watch was playin’ it alone. - - He dropped his man an’ tackled mine-- - An’ when my head got clear agin - I see a pile o’ rags an’ truck - Where them three Greaser thieves had bin. - - An’ that ol’ dog was guardin’ me, - An’ lickin’ of my hands an’ face-- - An’ him just red with drippin’ blood-- - There wasn’t nary yaller place - - On his ol’ hide frum head to foot. - I’se most as bad--but I caught that mule - An’ somehow histed me an’ Watch - Up on ’er back--the night was cool-- - - An’ we lit out--an’ long near day - I hear ’way off a rooster crowin’-- - An’ jest what happened after that - I haint no certain way o’ knowin’; - - Fer next I knowed I hear a voice - That kep’ a tellin’ me: “Be still-- - Jest swaller this here mighty quick, - An’ when ye’ve et an’ drunk yer fill - - I’ll let ye talk. Th’ dog, ye say? - Oh! he’s all right--he saved yer skin; - Come howlin’ here ’fore break o’ day, - An’ we lit out an’ brung ye in-- - - Him leadin’ right to where you lay-- - Down crost th’ wash an’ up th’ hill-- - Live? Course he’ll live. Now you hol’ on-- - This haint your talk--you jes’ keep still.” - - So I lays still--an’ Watch does too-- - Jest sort o’ laid up fer repairs, - Fer weeks an’ weeks--till last we got - As hearty as a pair o’ bears. - - Then we lit out--a-headin’ straight - Back to th’ ol’ home in Mizzury-- - An’ me an’ Watch’ll settle down - An’ take our ease, I jest assure ye. - - An’ any feller that thinks our looks - Haint up to par, ner apt to mash - Th’ most o’ folks, kin have his say-- - But me an’ Watch has got th’ cash. - - An’ its cash that counts--clean cash an’ grit; - An’ Watch has got th’ grit, I low, - An’ me th’ cash--an’ we two’s pards-- - But he’s th’ best I tell ye now. - - An’ when Life’s fight is fit an’ done, - An’ we go crost th’ Great Divide, - W’y Watch an’ me has made it up - That we’ll be planted side by side. - - - - -MONTE BILL - -As told by the old stage driver - - - See that big black zahuaro[1] - Out there alone on the hill, - With the sand piled up at its sun-bleached roots? - Well, there lies Monte Bill. - Rough? Well I reckon you’d think so! - A devil to cut an’ shoot; - He’d face all the men in Creation, - An’ the fiends in Hell to boot. - - His business? Oh! that was the pasteboards, - They was just the whole o’ his game; - An’ he handled ’em like greased lightnin’-- - That’s how he got his name. - (An’ a name is a durned poor measure - When you’re weighin’ th’ worth of a man; - An’ you can’t go all by his business - To git at his clean ground plan.) - - Bill was stagin’ it up from Ehrenberg-- - I was drivin’ the six that fall! - It was hotter’n all tarnation - An’ the desert shut in like a wall; - The mirage it was sloshin’ an’ shinin’ - Like the water before an’ behind; - An’ the dust in your throat near chokin’, - An’ burnin’ your eyes fair blind. - - They was only two other passengers - A-making the trip that day; - A little mite of a woman, - An’ a child like a bird at play: - She was goin’ up to Fort Whipple, - Were an officer’s wife, she said, - An’ the way her baby took to Bill - Just mighty near turned his head. - - We was joggin’ along through a sand-wash, - An’ talkin’ an’ laughin’ the while, - An’ nobody s’posed an Apache - Was nearer’n fifty miles; - But the time that ye think yer safest - It’s good to be sayin’ a prayer, - An’ the yell that come from a patch o’ mesquite - Plumb raised the roots o’ my hair. - - Bill gobbled the situation-- - Took it all to onct at a glance; - An’ to save that woman an’ baby - He saw they was just one chance. - He yelled up the boot to warn me, - An’ out o’ the side he jumped, - An’ I swung the whip an’ swore for life,-- - An’ I tell ye them six bronks humped. - - Bill lit on his feet an’ runnin’ - An’ down by a greasewood dropped-- - He knowed he had nary a show to beat - But he wasn’t the breed that stopped.-- - An’ the rest? Well, Cullin’s station - Was a long ten mile away; - ’Twas a run with Death--but that baby - An’ woman wan’t hurt that day. - - An’ Bill? Well, it’s no good talkin’-- - You know what Apaches is! - An’ a man that they git their claws on - Had better take Hell for his - When the troop from old Camp Date Creek - Got to him they came too late-- - Just a smolderin’ pile of ashes - Was left to tell his fate. - - We dug out a grave on the hillside - An’ filled it with cactus an’ stones; - For we didn’t want the kiotes - To chaw what was left of his bones: - An’ that “giant” growed up above him, - An’ the wind piled the sand below-- - But I reckon as how old Bill don’t care, - For he’s gone where brave men go. - - [1] Giant cactus of the Southwest - - - - -BEYOND THE DESERT - - - - -THE GREATER FLAG - - - Fling out its folds to the winds of earth from every crest and crag, - Roll strong salute from a million throats to honor this greater flag; - The flag of a larger freedom, the flag of a wider trust, - From the Arctic snow-peaks circling to the sun-scourged desert dust: - Flower of the New World’s morning; noon promise and prophesy, - Spanning the reach of endeavor into the vast To Be: - Broadening its stripes that their shadow shelter a mightier brood, - A nation reckoned of nations, fearless of temper and mood. - - Never the past forgetting, to the hope of the past still true; - But formed to a larger stature ’neath skies of a deeper blue; - Grown to a fuller being; wise with the price of the years; - The wisdom born of mistakes outwrought, the tenderness taught of - tears; - Strong with the pain of the purchase, tense muscle and sweat of brow, - When Destiny over the nation’s heart drove deep its iron plow, - Fit with the brawn of battle for guarding the ways of peace, - That the factions of evil dwindle and the forces of right increase. - - Hemmed no more in the cradle by the marge of the Eastern Sea, - No more for a home-hedged people the Stars of the West float free; - As the pine to its tall pride reaches, as the man to his power and - prime, - So the life of the nation broadens, strong-souled, to its riper time: - With the might of a Titan impulse, a million hands at the wheel; - A million minds far-serving, a million hearts to feel; - Upborn as a ship sea-driven when the full tides sweep and roll, - In the track of the gods fore-destined to the one unchanging goal. - - In the front of the great World-Shapers given to lead and mold, - Lining the course of the New to plumb with the tried of the Old: - On the broad foundation whose mortar was leavened with blood and - tears, - Rounding the temple fore-tokened in dreams of prophets and seers; - Wide-domed as the vault of heaven; including as heaven includes; - Puny and strong alike, full-handed or bare of goods: - Holding no caste in justice, no fief of air and light-- - Not flung as a bone to beggars but ceded a primal right. - - No more shall the Grail of the ages for the few be sought and won; - But alike and alike the sharing when the strife is striven and done. - Each man by the flag above him bound to his bravest and best; - To full, free chance for his making, to room for his highest quest; - Bound by the flag above him to reckon his brother’s need; - Bound by the flag above him to hearken and help and heed - The voices crying in darkness, as the crying of kind and kin; - The call of the scourged and outcast, as the call of the housed - within. - - Unfurl its folds to the winds of earth from every crest and crag; - Roll strong salute from a million throats to honor this greater flag; - The flag of a larger freedom, the flag of a wider trust; - From the Arctic snow-peaks waving to the sun-scourged desert dust; - With the light of its starry halo out-tossed on the utmost seas, - And its stripes in the sunshine rippling caressed by the farthest - breeze; - With the hope of the hearts that won it our torch and beacon still, - And the blood yet red for its keeping that flowed on Bunker Hill. - - - - -THE HYMN OF THE MEN THAT FAIL - - - Lo, here we face the Weigher with our balance; we, who out of all our - toil have won - Only hope fore-spent and ideals vanished; only scars and sweat beneath - the sun; - All we dared, and spent our hearts in daring, grasping as a hand that - grasps a star, - Star-wise in its beauty and eluding lies beyond us still as dim and - far. - - And the soul that panoplied for battle once rode bravely forth in - Fortune’s train; - Wise now by futile march and foray, knows the high adventure was in - vain: - We have gained no laurels for our striving, naught of praise from them - that sit to judge; - Yet while there is room for new endeavor life is all too full for - fret or grudge. - - We have failed--and bitter was the failing; full the price we paid of - faith and trust; - Still our souls turn backward unavailing to the Gods thrown prostrate - in the dust: - For we could not keep the sight of childhood; and the Grail our hearts - set out to seek-- - It was but a vessel, empty, earthen--yet we had the joy of them that - seek. - - All the winds of earth have blown us backward; all her tides have - turned our course awry; - And though night be gemmed with starry splendor there is never lode - star in our sky: - Straight against the winds of Fate we venture; in the teeth of every - tide we steer; - High above the darkness that enfolds us burns our guiding hope forever - clear. - - We are them that fail; our hands are empty; hall and mart and temple - know us not; - Power is not to us, nor place uplifted; wit is not of us to plan and - plot; - But the wide and lonely places know us; hill and plain and wood and - dark morrass; - And the light of homes and smoke of cities rise behind our footsteps - as we pass. - - We have broke the way our brother followed; we have set the harvest to - his hand; - And the gold he heaps to fill his coffers we have winnowed out of - barren sand: - Earth yields her good to only stern compellers; ours the knotted grip - that bent her will; - Bound her to the serving of our kindred--and her captive-hate is on us - still. - - Homeless we have reared the homes of nations; mirthless we have - laughed for others’ mirth; - Striven that another might have honor, as the stars appointed at our - birth; - Ours the blood that reddened fields forgotten; ours the faith that - sped a hope forlorn; - Ours the eyes that doomed to watch through darkness, see the first, - far promises of morn. - - We are them that fail--O ye that reckon--holding high our shortage to - be weighed; - Grant ye that no other bore our burden; grant ye that the debt we made - we paid: - We have failed; but beaten and defeated, still we face whatever Life - may send; - Still we ask no odds of Fate or Fortune--we that go down fighting to - the end. - - - - -THE LAST CAMP-FIRE - - - Scar not earth’s breast that I may have - Somewhere above her heart a grave; - Mine was a life whose swift desire - Bent ever less to dust than fire; - Then through the swift, white path of flame - Send back my soul to whence it came: - From some great peak storm-challenging, - My death-fire to the heavens fling; - The rocks my altar, and above - The still eyes of the stars I love; - No hymn, save as the midnight wind - Comes whispering to seek his kind. - - Heap high the logs of spruce and pine, - Balsam for spices and for wine; - Brown cones, and knots a golden blur - Of hoarded pitch more sweet than myrrh; - Cedar to stream across the dark - Its scented embers spark on spark; - Long shaggy boughs of juniper, - And silvery, odorous sheafs of fir; - Spice wood to die in incense smoke - Against the stubborn roots of oak-- - Red to the last for hate or love, - As that red, stubborn heart above. - - Watch till the last pale ember dies, - Till wan and low the dead pyre lies; - Then let the thin, white ashes blow - To all earth’s winds, a finer snow; - There is no wind of hers but I - Have loved it as it whistled by; - No leaf whose life I would not share, - No weed that is not someway fair: - Hedge not my dust in one close urn, - It is to these I would return-- - The wild, free winds, the things that know - No master’s rule, no ordered row. - - To be, if nature will, at length - Part of some great tree’s noble strength; - Growth of the grass; to live anew - In many a wild flower’s richer hue; - Find immortality indeed - In ripened heart of fruit and seed. - Time grants not any man redress - Of his broad law, forgetfulness:-- - I parley not with shaft and stone, - Content that in the perfume blown - From next year’s hillsides something sweet, - And mine, shall make earth more complete. - - - - -THE GIVERS - - - At the house of a soul once came knocking - The first of a line of gift-bearers, - Close-veiled and light-footed as silence, - And speaking with voice soft and tender: - “Lo, here is a season for growing,” - He said, then passed into the stillness, - Leaving his room to a brother. - - And they that came after him softly - Set down in the doorway their burdens, - And whispered, “Make use of them swiftly, - O soul, ere one cometh to reckon.” - But he, the proud soul, laughing lightly, - Looked up where the sun was unrisen - And said, “I will slumber till daybreak.” - - So he turned on his pillow and, dreaming, - Saw laurels inwoven to crown him; - And wealth for his taking; and Beauty, - With love in her eyes, run to meet him; - Then he woke to a step in the doorway: - “All night at thy feet lay thy wishes; - Now I take them,” one said, and departed. - - - - -A CREED - - - Let others frame their creeds; mine is to work; - To do my best, however far it fall - Below the keener craft of stronger hands: - To be myself, full-hearted, free, and true - To what my own soul sees, below, above; - To think my thought straight-forward from the heart; - To feel, and be, and never stop to ask: - “Do all men so? Is this the World’s highway?” - To look unflinching in the face of life - As eagles look upon the noonday sun; - To cut my own path through primeval woods; - To lay my own course by the polar star - Across the trackless plains and mountains vast; - To seek, not follow, ever to the end. - And for the rest--bare-handed have I come - Into this world, I know not whence nor why; - Bare-handed and alone and unafraid, - With heart of fire and eyes that question still, - Will I go forth into the wide Beyond; - As went the men who bore my blood of old - To prove their dream of Heaven, or dare their Hell. - - - - -QUITS - - - Life made no easy truce with me, - He set no white flag on my road; - Unshod he thrust me to the trail - And laughed the while he piled my load. - Greeting, old master! Greeting, friend! - I’ve made you friend; I’ve fought you fair; - I’ve stumbled, fallen, scrambled up; - Yet somehow borne the appointed share - To this last station. Take the pack; - Sort, weigh it--lack or over-due, - Still here’s the load; the climb was mine, - Scars, road-marks--all the rest to you. - We’re done; shake hands before we part. - I rest here--feel the wind and rain - Year-long blow past my rough, brown tent-- - Joy with you till we meet again! - - - - -MEDUSA TO PERSEUS - - - Perseus, draw near to me and fear me not; - Think’st thou I have not listened for thy step - Through all the eons of my awful doom, - As on the earth when light of Helios fades - The young maid listens for her lover’s step - Crushing the daisies and the dewy grass? - No lover’s feet will ever come to me - But thine are dearer; and the asphodel - Thou bearest fairer than Love’s fairest flowers. - - Draw near, and near, and nearer; I would feel - The end of this long waiting; I would be - For one quick moment all I might have been-- - Woman and tender; drain at this one draught - My woman’s cup; tear-jeweled, brimmed with pain: - Ay! By these tears I cheat thee, Mighty Maid, - And by this pain--my heart is human still! - Thy curse fell impotent, that left me yet - Bond-thrall to one dark prover of humanity. - - Dreams; old, old dreams that gather in the dusk; - Death’s dusk that soon will end them! How they press - Upon me! Voices that I loved but never knew; - Strong hands that clung across my black despair; - Eyes that were stars of many a night that else - Had known no morning. Oh! life, life, life, life! - What hast thou given me--that would have made - Thee rich with giving? Only bitter breath - And tears; loathing of them I would have loved; - And fear of them whose fears I would have borne. - Truly thou wert a generous patron! - I thank thee--that thou favor me no more! - - How wan those vapors rise from this sad place, - As if they too would seek a brighter world; - A world of heat and frost and night and sun! - So have I, sitting, watched them hour by hour; - Seeing in each some hearth smoke newly lit, - Some sweet, small home where happiness had room. - How have I hungered in this silence for - Earth’s common sounds; the crying and the mirth! - Her poorest field I would have tilled with love; - Her roughest path I would have walked with joy. - - These idle hands had worn them to the bone - In common tasks and found the labor sweet; - Served slave to slaves, could any serving buy - Or beg, or bribe, the meanest human lot. - Alas! in this dim cave they could but grope - Each into each and, clasping, feign to hold - The grasp of friend, the hand of love and kin: - So out of moans my lips would form strange words; - All tender, crooning, soft and slow and hushed; - And warm, wet mouths in dreams have touched my breast, - Seeking for food above the heart that breaks. - - But now the sleep--the end--the doom fulfilled! - Hope, fear, despair--I bid ye long farewell-- - Here at this brink whereon your feet must turn - Backward to haunt some other mortal soul: - For I am free--am free--am free at last! - Wrapped round with death as with a royal robe! - Sisters, farewell! I would that ye might keep - Some memory of the tortured human heart - That vexed your silence with its agony, - And loved while vexing. Perseus, the sword! - Strike swift! I would be gone on what far way - A soul must take to seek the Other World. - Stay not for pleadings and petitionings; - I crave no gift the Gods can give but rest-- - Strike deep and strong and sure and set me free. - - - - -THE LONG QUEST - - “Has the longest prayer of man been answered to thee, Stranger, and - hast thou thy friend?” - - --_Amiel’s Journal._ - - - Friend, I have found thee not; I have not heard - Thy voice, nor touched thy hand, nor seen thine eyes - Grow clear with that great speech which needs not words: - Yet do I seek thee--asking of the stars, - Low-swung across this desert sky of mine, - If anywhere they shine on one who goes - Swift-footed to like end on kindred road. - - Yet do I seek thee--asking of the wind, - Old Master-Singer, singing down the world, - Mingling all music in his endless song, - If he has caught some word, some tone, of thine - To stir my silence like a trumpet call. - I seek thee where the tall pines laugh and lean - Against the sun, against the storm and cloud; - For thou art strong like them and swift to joy; - Strong to endure; deep-rooted into life; - And glad of earth as of the blue above. - - I seek thee where the patient grasses go - Across the hills; their patience is as thine; - Thy quiet surety that Life’s barrens yet - Shall blossom; yet shall yield their fruit and seed; - Not less, nor less approved, measured at last, - Than lavish harvests won by lighter toil. - I seek thee where the wild floods whirl and swing - Through riven cañons, mad to reach the sea; - As some great soul that dares to know the all-- - The worst, the best, the farthest bound of life; - Holding the pain and passion little price - For one strong leap beyond the utmost verge, - One mighty hail across the infinite. - - Friend, friend, I seek thee; holding that high quest - Better than all earth’s finding. Go thy way - Swift and unhindered under thine own star; - Along whatever way thy feet must take - Past high and higher, on to higher yet; - On to the farthest peak thine eyes can see;-- - I seek thee, seek thee; call to thee “God speed!” - Go thou, nor wait--sure that somewhere I come. - - - - -A LITANY OF EVERY DAY - - - Not that there be less to bear, - Not that there be more to share; - But for braver heart for bearing, - But for freer heart for sharing, - Here I pray. - - Not for scenes of richer beauty, - Not for paths of lighter duty; - But for clearer eyes for seeing, - Gentler hands, more patient being, - Every day. - - Not that joy and peace enfold me, - Not that wealth and pleasure hold me; - But that I may dry a tear, - Speak a word of strength and cheer - On the way. - - Not that I may sit apart, - Housed from hurt of fling and smart; - But that in the press and throng - I may keep a courage strong, - Here I pray. - - Not that I at set of sun - Measure deeds of greatness done; - But that when my feet shall pass - To my low tent in the grass - One may say - - “Speed thee well, O friend, who gave - Freely all thy heart did crave; - Love and truth and tenderness, - Faith and trust and kindliness, - In thy day.” - - - - -WIND SONG - - - One day upon the wings of air - My soul shall get him forth; - And nothing know I whence or where, - To East or South or North; - And little care I through what ways - This soul of mine shall ride; - Or if the call be soon or late, - At morn or eventide. - - But I would go when strong winds blow - Full-throated down the heaven; - And on the blast like pennants cast - The wild, black hawks are driven: - O kith and kin are they to me, - Wild-winged my soul shall pass - With them as their own shadows drive - Across the wind-swept grass. - - Free winds that wander up and down - The weary hills of earth; - What call like yours can sorrow drown, - Or touch her seas to mirth! - Strong winds that were tempestuous souls, - O brothers, turn and wait; - Take up my longing on your wings - Till I shall master Fate. - - Take up my longing on your wings, - O brothers, as ye go; - The dauntless soul within me sings - That mighty hymn ye know; - Kindred are we, though but for ye - The boundless ways were made; - Yet I would go my lesser road - As strong and unafraid. - - - - -THE LOST THOUGHTS - -Guy de Maupassant, in his last days, believed his thoughts to be -fluttering about his head like many-colored butterflies. “Where are my -lost thoughts? Who will tell me where to find my thoughts?” he cried to -those who tended him. - - - See! Do you see that wondrous, winged cloud? - As if all the garden flowers had taken flight - Into the blue air for a holiday, - And left their tall green stalks beteared with dew? - They are butterflies now, but once I know - They were my thoughts. I called them when I chose; - They came to me in gentle, circling troops - Like fairies tamed by love, and poised upon - My hands, and brushed my cheeks and lips with wings - As soft as Psyche’s kisses in the dark. - There was a white one like an orient pearl - Seen in the moonlight; pure and holy as - The Virgin’s white throat in the candle shine - Of her high altar--or a young girl’s soul. - There was a girl--we two were boy and girl - And play-mate lovers. I must have caught - The white wings roughly, for they still are stained. - I do forget--but Ah! the silken-bright - Red poppy flowers that are red butterflies! - My thoughts, my thoughts, shot through with gleaming gold - And gemmed and jewelled like a Hindu queen, - Amber and emerald, ruby and topaz, - And charmful jade, and opal’s mystic fire; - And richer dyes than Tyre knew in her pride-- - (My own soul broken to a thousand hues - As light upon a prism--the prism Life.) - My wingèd thoughts! My heavenly butterflies! - Now they are black, all black, with eyes of fire; - I smother in the sable of their wings - That wrap around me like a velvet pall-- - I cannot see the sun for their deep eyes-- - Be merciful! My butterflies! O my lost thoughts! - - - - -THE STRANGER - - - Art stranger, Love? because no lover’s hand - Hath clasped my own with pressure strong and sweet? - Because my ears heed not those tender tales - That hearts in tune with Spring and thee repeat? - Nay, rather walk we closer, soul to soul, - Great Love and I; I love thee all too much - To jar thy music with a lesser tone, - Or mar thy radiance with a duller touch. - - I hold me to thy uses consecrate, - As some white temple set beside the sea; - With close-shut door no foot may enter in - Till fair tides bring its own divinity: - Here are no withered flowers against the shrine; - No dusty highways through the beaten grass - Where all men go; only the birds and thee, - The salt winds and the sun, unstayed may pass. - - - - -DAY’S END - - - Swiftly at set of sun, - The long day being done, - I seek my love; - Her whom my heart doth hold - Dearer than gems and gold - Or treasure trove. - - Still are her eyes and cool - As some clear mountain pool - Fern-hid and lone, - Some reed-edged pool that lies - Blue under star-lit skies, - The wild-fowl flown; - - The ousel’s fluting note - Hushed in his dappled throat, - The night wind still-- - And over all the peace - Which is my soul’s release - From life sore-spent and days that reckon ill. - - - - -THE FIRST FIRE ON THE HEARTH - - - Clean as a new-built altar to the Gods - The new hearth stands; - No tears have stained, no prayers have hallowed it; - Make clean thy hands - As some High Priest who tends the holy flame - Life-long in temples old; - Bring not to kindle this divine first fire - Wood that is bought and sold - In common marts; but such as symbols clear - The life that thou shalt make, - Here under this new roof, by this new hearth, - For Great Love’s sake. - - Bring heart of pine to point thee to the stars; - Higher and yet more high - Thy thought on its green pinions shall ascend-- - Yet keep thee ever nigh - Tender and kind to every earth-born need; - As low-spread cedar boughs - Give grateful shade, or laid upon the fire - Shed fragrance through the house. - Here let the oak outspend his noble strength - In flame that shall endure - Beyond the last red coal to thy life’s end - In strength as great and sure. - - Lay here red sandal and dark orient teak, - That their rich wood may turn - To star-crowned dreams and visions in the flame - Wherein their kindred burn; - And mystic, harp-stringed branches of the palm-- - Prophet and seer of trees-- - Speeding thy life through all that can beset - To noblest destinies: - Bring these, as men bring votive offerings, - And let rare spices fall - Into the unswept flame. High, higher yet, - Thy life at Love’s great call! - - - - -A TRUCE WITH DEAD SOULS - - - Now loose me, loose me, O ye dead - Whose shadowy fingers clasp my own; - I must fare on my way alone, - Along a road ye may not tread, - To hopes and fears ye have not known. - - Nor shall ye challenge my high truth, - Nor deem of me that I forget - That far goal where our eyes were set; - Nor hold me false to that lost youth - Whose solemn visions lead me yet. - - Ye quiet, ye untroubled dead, - Count ye the stones that stay my feet? - Or reckon ye the winds that beat - Fiercely upon my naked head? - Weigh ye the fear my soul must meet? - - O loose me, for I journey far; - O hold me not; ye cannot know - On what rough trails my feet must go - In lands unlit of sun and star, - Where still the swiftest feet are slow. - - I see what ye no more may see; - I seek our vision’s noblest use; - And he that keeps that quest with me - Through good and ill all patiently - Is Life. Ah! dead souls, grant the truce! - - - - -A FRIEND - - - I choose no friend as one may choose a glove, - To use, hold in his hand, and cast aside - When it is old; forgetting that awhile - It served his purpose--neither more nor less - Than others of its kind have served, and will: - Nor as we in a grave or idle hour - Take up a book and say: “This shall beguile - My listlessness, or teach what I would know;” - Then leave its crumpled pages on a shelf - And go about the various ways of life. - - More would I take my friend as one who finds - A cool spring in the desert, where his cup, - Filled to the brim, leaves gratitude behind; - And though he wander far knows if at last - His feet turn back along that self-same road - The same good welcome waits him at the end: - Or as those faces we behold in dreams; - Haunting us, waking, with their strange, deep eyes - That sting the soul into a thousand needs - Finer and freer than it knew before. - - He is my friend who tempts me ever on - To high and higher; standing yet above - With hand reached back, as one who knows the path - Has stones a-many for the surest feet; - Who weighs my weakness fairly with my strength - And sets a better higher than my best; - Bidding me work when others say “Well done!” - - My friend is he who gives me larger faith - In men and life and hope of final good; - Who by the alchemy of his fine breadth - Transmutes my doubt and pain and weariness - Into peace and the pure gold of patience. - The wind and stars, those old, old friends of mine, - Are symbols of the human souls I love; - Free as the wind is, high and pure and clear - As shine the stars--so would I have my friend. - - - - -MAGDALEN - - - Do you remember, love, the thing I was - That summer morning when you stood with me - There in the rain-wet fields, where the sweet wind - Blew my hair loose and free? - - Do you remember? Ay! My soul was clean - As that clean wind that blew between us two; - My spirit burned as some white temple flame - When the god passes through. - - You were my god--and all of earth fell back; - I saw but you--knew only you were near; - Look in my eyes--What is it there today - That strikes you cold with fear? - - You stooped that day to touch your cheek to mine-- - I laugh to watch you shrink and shudder now; - Am I so changed? Look well--it is your mark - That brands me, cheek and brow. - - Ay! and my hand-print lies upon your soul! - You cannot loose my fingers from your own; - And though your feet go up to palaces, - Or down to Hell they do not go alone. - - - - -THE EARTH MADONNA - - - Beloved, see, within my close-curved arm - He lies, your child. Oh! keep us well from harm! - Love him, by all our tender love and true-- - As I through him find deeper love for you. - - All our great hopes and dreams and dear desires - Lie in this small shut hand; our purest fires - Burn here in this new life--your soul and mine - Fused to new shape immortal and divine. - - And yet--if in this holy hour and dear - Great Death came down and stood beside me here, - And said “One must I take with me tonight, but keep - That one for which your heart would longest weep - - Tears of heart’s blood,----Beloved, I could smile - And lift the child to meet his kiss the while, - So you were left. For he, so dear, so dear, - Is but my child--But you, my Life, stay near! - - - - -LOVE’S WISDOM - - - Woulds’t thou be loved? Then set thy love so high - No man may win it, though he stand upon - The utmost peaks with face against the stars. - Aloof! Nor bend thee once to eyes that burn, - And lips that plead, and hands that clasp and cling: - The jewel that within the temple glowed - A soul’s fit forfeit, as a bit of glass - Cast with the pot-shreds lies when it is won. - - Who minds him of the flower that undenied - He plucked and kissed? Or for an hour forgets - The rose that slipped his grasp and left a thorn - Deep in his hands to mock their daring quest? - And who hath loved the broad plains, lavish-souled - Of all rich gifts that make life dear and good, - As men have loved the mountains that afar - Beckon in untrod grandeur, and deny? - - Still is the vision dearer than the real, - The dreaming sweeter than the dream fulfilled; - For men love most the unattainable; - Leaving the hearth-light, warm and near and kind, - To follow pale auroras through the night, - With beggared souls that to the winds have flung - Their rarest gifts in hopeless bribery. - - Woulds’t thou be loved? Then hold thyself apart,-- - Nor yield to any, though he drain his life - To flood thine own; for if thou give again - Such barter in its usage carries scorn - Of too free giving:--so thy love were lost, - And thou uncrowned, that else had reigned a queen. - Heaven’s self were transient lure, were it not set - Too high for careless winning, over earth. - - - - -THE GIFTS - - - There were three gifts at eventide the West Wind brought to me, - That I might choose for joy or use my fate from out the three: - “Now here is gold,” the West Wind saith, “and fair it is to see; - Who chooseth gold hath power to hold; men serve him loyally.” - - “A prince he is,” the West Wind saith; “I know the hidden mine; - Shalt lead thee now o’er fire and snow to where the ingots shine?” - Nay then, who hath the yellow gold hath trouble at his back; - Whose needs are few, whose heart is true, what knoweth he of lack? - - “But here is Love,” the West Wind saith, “the light of life is he; - Wilt bid him now to bind thy brow with myrtle greenery? - He sets the pace that young feet dance, and leads with lute and bow; - Take thou his hand and through the land with him till curfew go.” - - Nay then, for he who seeketh Love finds but an empty nest; - Love cometh still of his own will, unsought, and that is best. - Then one spake up full loud and clear: “Now I am Work,” said he; - “And they that hold not love nor gold have need of mine and me.” - - “Wilt follow, follow, where I lead?” his voice rang free and strong; - “Here’s hope and cheer for all the year; here’s balm for every wrong.” - Yea, I will turn and follow thee; thou speakest like a king;-- - “Then shalt thou see if true thou be, _the other gifts I bring_.” - - - - -LIFE IS A DAY - - “Life is as a day that hath its morn of hope, its noon of strength, - its night of peace, whose morrow no man knoweth.” - - -MORNING - - Young Heart, Spring Heart, - Waken with the morning; - Sing for the long road - That lieth white before; - Lieth there untrodden - With little flowers adorning, - And green hills of promise - Thy fathers saw of yore. - - Young Heart, Spring Heart, - Wine of Life is flowing; - Stoop thee to the beaker - And drain it at a draught; - Gird thee for the journey, - Joy is in the going, - And hope is in the heart of him - Who wine of Life hath quaffed. - - -NOON - - Strong Heart, Bold Heart, - Brace thee for the battle; - Wait now the onset - Exultant and calm; - Love lilt and war cry, - Babies’ soft prattle, - Mingle and meet - In thy life’s swelling psalm. - - Dreaming is over, - The old gods are buried; - Joy was a phantom - Ye chased through the mist; - Broken the shrines where - Thy young feet have tarried; - Dust are the lips that - Thy young lips have kissed. - - -NIGHT - - Old Heart, Still Heart, - Lying in the shadow; - Lying there all silent - With the glory on thy face; - Feet that have trodden - The upland and meadow - Spring nevermore - To the heat of the race. - - Old Heart, Still Heart, - Life is a striving; - Of all that it promises - Work is the best; - Love is a fable, - And wealth is but giving-- - Kind is the evening - That leadeth to rest. - - - - -THE COMPACT - - “Body, pray thee, let me go! - It is the soul that struggles so.” - - _Danske Dandridge._ - - - O Life, let us make compact here, as men who set a bond between them; - We have been comrades, journeying all roads together, near and far, - And rough and smooth; all the winds that blow hail us as brothers, - And the stars of every land speak us in common tongue as kin: - Right gladly have we dared all chance and found it good--if won or - lost; - But there must come a day when thou and I loose hands, divide the - pack, - And fare us each alone on widening trails that nevermore shall meet. - Friend, when we know that hour face to face; in hall or tent, on road - or waste or plain; - Or, as I pray, where some great, silent peak fronts solemn, fearless, - to eternity; - Say thou “Godspeed!” and lift the stirrup cup right gaily to the lips - that cry “Farewell!” - Grip thou my hand, as one who sees his long-tried friend go forth - On some great quest he would, but may not, share--where danger jostles - honor on the road. - When that stern call no mortal may gainsay rings in my ears, - Do thou make generous haste; nor grudge my going, nor cling doggedly - Till flesh and soul are riven with mighty pain, or worn with slow - decay; - But as thou love me, as I have been true to thee and to thy service, - Give me swift release, and lift our love up as a lifted torch to light - my going. - I have no quarrel that we two must part; nor fear of that still, - wondrous mystery - Beyond the parting: but spare thou my human weakness; I would go out - undismayed; - Unshrinking; shadowed with no vain regret for done or undone;-- - As we could we wrought; let who comes after better us in deed, but not - in will: - Now Hope, and Courage, and my comrade Life, shoulder to shoulder for - the final stand! - Till from beyond those farthest heights of all my cheer rings down to - meet your parting cheer, - As some path seeker on untrodden peaks shouts backward to his fellows - and goes on. - - - - -COMPANIONED - - - At daybreak when the sunrise lay - Along the desert sand, - I buckled girth and tightened rein, - And rode to win the land; - I rode as rides a careless youth - Who fears no evil tide; - But from the dark a phantom stark - Pressed out to gain my side. - - Gray-cowled and still he nearer drew, - The morning air grew chill; - The wind wailed low the while I turned - And bade him name his will: - “My will it is to ride with thee, - Whatever chance betide; - For good or ill to follow still, - More close than friend or bride.” - - My heart turned cold, my arm grew weak; - I struck a stinging spur - And strove at maddest pace to lose - That ghostly follower. - We reeled upon the desert’s verge, - My hard-pressed steed and I,-- - And full beside through that wild ride - The wraith smiled silently. - - He clasped my hand, he touched my brow - With lips that froze and burned; - “Now art thou mine to have and hold - Till all the tale be learned. - Put by the whip and ringing spur; - Put by the brave array; - For thou with me shall presently - Go forth in hodden gray. - - “I lay my chrism upon thine eyes - That thy blind soul may see - The grandeur rife in human life, - Its joy and misery.”-- - So fare we softly side by side, - Nor ever turn again; - And now I hail the presence “Friend,” - Who once had called him “Pain.” - - - - -ALONE - - - Oh! arms that ache with weary emptiness, - Yet knew Love’s fullness ere your day was old, - How shall I turn with comforting to you - Who have the burden’s tender memory still? - Hands that but clasp each other, wet with tears - Yet tingling with the pressure of a touch - Scarce now withdrawn, I give you no regret-- - Whose “has been” gladdens all the long “to be.” - What know you, though you grieve, of loneliness, - Who count the days back sure of smiles that were, - And eyes that looked and loved and understood? - Empty the arms, companioned still the soul-- - For souls once met blend all futurity - Into that meeting. - - But one I knew whose empty heart had ne’er - Beat faster to the sound of kindred step; - Whose hand no other hand had reached to grasp - In brotherhood of purpose; in whose ear - No voice spoke greeting in a mother tongue: - A soul that from the Chaos back of Time - Passed out alone, and through the Then and Now - Walked alien past the homes of happy men. - E’en stars bend to each other through the blue, - And earth calls upward to her sister spheres; - But seeking, seeking, still in ceaseless quest, - This soul went outward to Eternity. - - - - -THE INHERITOR - - - Look you, ye line of men and women reaching back - Behind my shoulders into Life’s lost dawn-- - Ye square-jawed, low-browed, fierce-eyed fighting-man; - Ye fawning slave, cringing before the whip; - Ye strong-souled prophet of diviner things; - Ye praying saint, ye sensuous, sin-steeped fool; - Ye seer, love driven, paying drop by drop - Thy own blood down to buy thy brother’s need; - Ye sleek and shifty plotter, cunning-lipped - Ye pale ascetic, ye the loose-tongued bawd; - Ye weak, and tender, loving, scorning, mad - With glutted pride--abased in misery; - Ye that have measured all the pendulum - Of human passion, chance, and hope, and pain-- - I bid ye halt; I am the crucible, - My will the furnace fire; fused here in me - Your motley ore shall take what shape I choose, - To serve what end I order and command. - - I’ll make of ye my weapon and my tool, - My sword and plowshare. Ye shall hold or break, - Strike or be idle, at my word. In my hand - Ye shall be gathered as a missile fit - And hurled subservient to seek my goal. - Look in my eyes and know I fear ye not; - Because ye were I am--and rule ye now. - I will not go your road nor seek your end; - I will not pray your prayer nor sing your song; - Ye shall not sear me with the sullen heat - Of your spent passions. My lips shall never writhe - With bitter pleading for your old desires. - Ye shall not shake my soul with your lost fears, - Nor grip my heart with dead regret and pain. - - I am your master; if ye live again - Ye take life from my hand at my own terms. - I will bind up the fire that flared in you - To use diverse, and make of it a torch - Clear-flamed and strong to light the road I choose. - Your wrongs shall set me free from kindred wrong; - Your labor and your loss shall be the steps - Beneath my feet on which I stand to rise. - Your hopes undone shall wing my hope for flight; - I will take up the broken dreams that fell - From your spent grasp and weld them into one-- - A deathless vision of futurity. - - O ye dead hearts that ached; dead hands that clinched - In fear or fury; dead lips that lied or loved; - Dead souls that grovelled or aspired as ye could-- - Ye rule me not--I am the master here. - For my swift hour ye serve me as I will-- - Till from forgotten dust I serve the men that come. - - - - -ON MY OWN PORTRAIT - - - And yet--the face shall pass - As a shadow ’cross the grass; - As the shadow of a bird-wing - Spread a moment in the sun; - As the light-blown dust that dances - In the wind and whirls and glances - Mote-wise in a passing sunbeam, - When the Sand of Fate is run. - Out of silence--here and hither; - Into silence--whence and whither - Still unanswered; still unmapped - The road the feet have come and gone. - Heart of fire, soul aspiring; - Spirit daring, strong, untiring-- - Is the unmapped Road to Silence - All that ye and Life have won? - Ah! but there was still the fight! - Darkness--and the search for light! - Road unmapped--but fearless going - Out upon the journey--knowing - Naught and daring all. - As ye will then, weigh and measure; - Count the gain and hoard the treasure-- - But the Fight was more than all. - - - - -THE IMMORTAL - - - King and priest and poet met - In a garden, arbor set, - On a green hill by the sea - Where the waves lapped tenderly, - Crooning to the restless sands - Lullabies of distant lands. - From the stately palace near - Rippling music smote the ear, - Mingled with the solemn bell - Of the monks that matins tell - ’Neath the censer swinging slow - In the ancient church below. - Dawn, with rosy fingertips - Reached to Day, her lingering lips - Pressed upon the dead Night’s brow; - As we mortals, too, somehow, - Turn us in the past to grope - Ere we grasp the hand of Hope. - - Spake the king, as wistfully - He looked out across the sea - Sparkling in the growing light: - “Ah! the morning-promise bright! - Bright as life, whose morning glow - Shadows but to dusk we know! - Is it then a little striving, - Ending at the last in nothing? - Lieth there a fairer day - Past Death’s night, O poet, say? - Priest, what sayeth your heart’s need, - Standing clear of myth and creed? - - Said the priest: “Man is the flower - Of creation’s natal hour; - He earth’s lord--and yet earth’s sorrow - Presseth him, till he must borrow - Joy from some half-guessed tomorrow-- - If his making be not jest; - Or a mockery, at best. - You who rule and I who pray, - Shut from common strife away, - Still find in our life’s brief cup - Tears and wormwood welling up; - Vain would our existence be - Without immortality.” - - Lightly then the poet laughed - As the ruddy wine he quaffed: - “What is immortality - To the butterfly or bee? - Yet life’s sweetest sweets are theirs, - Summer suns and summer airs; - Skyward still the brown larks climb - And the ring doves in the lime - Wake the roses with their cooing, - Silence into sweetness wooing; - And the grass is glad in growing - For the white flocks hillward going. - - “E’en with gifts of sorrow’s giving - There is joy enough in living; - Heart-kept joys in every day - No ill chance can take away. - Truth and beauty are immortal, - And if we tomorrow’s portal - Should not pass, yet men may say: - “He lived kindly yesterday; - Sought no evil, thought no ill; - So we keep his memory still, - As a lamp our feet to guide - Till the ebbing of the tide - Calls us seaward in the dark.” - Look you, brothers, if a spark - Of eternal fire be caught - In these bodies weakly wrought, - Let it flame to noble deeds - For our present, human needs-- - So from life itself may we - Build our immortality.” - - - - -THE BEDESMAN OF THE YEAR - - - Stands Time, the gray old bedesman, - And loosely through his hold - Slip down the days like carven beads, - Silver and dusk and gold. - - And each day hath its whispered prayer, - Each one its patron saint; - And each its tender memories - Like incense sweet and faint. - - O gray old bedesman, when you’ve told - Life’s rosary all through, - Leave us the old life’s memory - To consecrate the new. - - - - -THE LONG MARCH - - -REVEILLE - - Ho, comrades, on the mountain top the sun has touched the trees, - Strike camp and march, the ringing bugles call; - Swing lightly to the saddle with the rifle held at ease,-- - We may need it, we who ride to win or fall. - What is living but a battle? What is dying but a rest? - If there’s time to snatch a laurel ere we go, - And to leave one hot kiss printed on the lips we love the best - We have garnered all the fullest life can know. - - With our faces toward the morning, with her music in our hearts, - And the sunrise on our banners bright with hope, - Lo, our line of march is upward where the snowy summit starts, - Press forward for the rough, untrodden slope. - Through the pines the wind is laughing and the tall trees sway and - swing - Like the swaying crowds that cheer us as we ride; - And our bugles wake the echoes till the far peaks shout and sing-- - Ah! but life is youth and love and battle-pride. - - -THE CAMP - - Halt, comrades, here the sun of noon falls straight upon the grass, - And the droning locust drowns the bugle call; - In the valley there below us see the harvesters that pass - Where the gold of ripened grain is over all. - Like a flag of truce the home-smoke waving in the summer wind - Calls the workers from the field for rest and cheer-- - When the battle din is over and the glory all behind - It were good to find such welcome kind and near. - - Who has clasped the hand of woman in the hour when life was hard, - Who has loved a little child and called him son; - Who has set himself with broken arms the homeland road to guard, - Yearns for friendly board and hearth when all is done. - Coin of peace is price of battle, glory but a rainbow set - In the clearing sky for sign of hope to come; - As the road winds down the valley all the rest we may forget, - Knowing life is work and love and joy of home. - - -THE BIVOUAC - - Look, comrades, through the bending trees a gleam of silver light, - Where the winding river goes to find the sea; - Off-saddle,--here we bivouac the long appointed night, - Till the Great Commander sounds reveille. - All along the trail behind us in the grasses and the pines - Lie the brothers who were weary e’re the night; - And we shoulder close together now to hide the thinning lines, - And there’s more than mist of years to dim our sight. - - Old ambitions burned to ashes sift their whiteness through the hair - Of the gayest youth who faced the morning sun; - And it’s more of scars than honors that the bravest comrades wear, - As we count the cost and know the fight is done. - Guidons flutter in the night wind and the campfires flicker low, - We are silent with old memories deep and fond; - Up, comrades, cheer the joy of life once more before we go-- - Knowing now ’tis love and service and a mighty hope Beyond. - - - - -THE RACE MOTHER - - - At sunrise I saw her, the woman eternal, the Race Mother; - She stood upon a great, gray cliff--and behind her the forest; - The dawn was on her face; over the world she looked as one seeking-- - As one whose eyes have watched long through shadow, - And are weary still watching for one who comes not. - Her mate she sought--waiting there with the forest behind her, - And the world stretching wide, and the wind singing glory to daybreak. - Strong and pure and clean-limbed and deep-bosomed-- - Goddess and woman in one--loving and longing she waited. - Out from the foot of the cliff one crept up to take her; - Huge-muscled, careless--o’er-borne with fierce cravings and hunger. - He saw not her eyes with the passionate longing within them-- - Burning holy and tender with infinite love and compassion. - Only the strong, sweet body he grasped--crushed and maimed--bound to - serve him; - Bent at his will, and distorted--till ugly and broken, - Unmeet even to serve, it shambled beside him. - On the breast hung a child, half-divine, half-monstrous-- - Maimed too, scarred, deformed--mingling strangely - The holy dawn-dream in the deep, waiting eyes of the woman, - And the careless, fierce face of the man as he fought up to take her. - - * * * * * - - It was night now, and the dawn-light was dead, and the wide world was - hidden, - And the wind whimpered and wailed like a creature that suffers and - hopes not. - - - - -ROAD’S END. - - - The old wife by the grave-stone stands - And looketh far away; - Her eyes are deep as pools of rain - Twilit at close of day. - “God rest ye, husband of my flesh-- - Life-Stranger to my soul-- - I pray thy spirit goes to seek - Some dear-desired goal.” - - “How long, how long, the way chance willed, - We journeyed side by side, - Yet never met at stile or gate-- - I was thy body’s bride! - That far-off day, our wedding day, - I dreamed as women will-- - The heart a-hungered and alone - Is lone and hungered still.” - - “Four hands won roof and goods and gear - And ploughed and gleaned and spun-- - Two stranger hearts the world apart - Sat down when toil was done. - God rest ye now beyond the end; - God light the way ahead-- - And that the living eyes were blind, - Lay sight upon the dead.” - - - - -THE CHOOSING - - - “Here is life,” I said to my heart; - “Shall thou and I take part - In his battle and busy mart? - Shall we follow the voices that call - From temple and workshop and hall: - ‘Lo, brother, we bid thee come?’” - - “There is pleasure in palace and bower; - There is gold for our winning, and power; - And fame--for an idle hour - A bauble to tempt the best. - Shall we make us one with the rest, - And attempt, and achieve--or fail?” - - But my heart, grown sudden wise, - Looked out from steadfast eyes - And said: “In myself it lies - To be more than a tool for gain-- - Nay, Life, ye must bid again - Ere I answer to your call.” - - “What say you of honor, O Life? - Has it room in the bitter strife - With which your service is rife? - Is there room for a soul to be - All the best it can feel and see; - To unfold its wings and arise?” - - Then Life, with sphinx-like face, - And smile wherein no trace - Of answering had place; - Said: “Take my gift, or leave it-- - But know they that receive it - Can make it what they will.” - - - - -WINE OF DREAMS - - - With wine of dream-land fill the cup - And pledge the past, my soul, with me; - Drink deep, old friend, and summons up - The ghost of all the Used-To-Be. - Here’s to the joys we knew erstwhile; - Look how they troop, a motley crew! - Here’s to the laugh, the jest, the smile, - That cheered our way when life was new. - - “Comrades, good cheer! Good luck be yours! - Long may you follow on our track; - Until we pass to farther shores-- - Then to our place here turn you back - And laugh with those we leave behind; - Ring merry music in their ears; - Crack joke with joke in merry kind, - Till they shall give no place to tears.” - - We crave no grief, my soul and I; - Each life enough of sorrow knows; - Let none mourn darkly when we lie - In silence under rue and rose. - And you, gray wraith in cowl and gown, - Who “Closer than a brother” pressed; - Here on this last couch lay you down-- - Together neath Death’s touch we rest. - - For you were fashioned of our tears; - You were the shadow which Life’s real, - With broken hopes and bitter fears, - Cast o’er our shining, high ideal. - Your power is done--hide in the dust - Of that wild heart which gave you birth-- - But all our joys we leave in trust - To cheer some toiling child of earth. - - - - -MY GARDEN - - - My heart is a little garden - Set in a desert waste; - The walls are rough, the door is small, - And high the key is placed. - - None guess my hidden riches, - My wealth of leaf and bloom; - The gold of chaliced lilies, - The roses rare perfume. - - Here climbs the starry jasmine, - Hope’s ladder to the skies; - And here like thoughts too pure for words - The silken moonflowers rise. - - Here falls the plashing fountain - With Fancy’s waters bright; - Here flit Ambition’s butterflies, - Winged jewels in the light. - - And all sweet birds are singing - Their happy songs together; - So brings the year whatever cheer - My heart holds summer weather. - - - - -SUMMER APPLES - - - Apples of Hesperides, - Jugglers’ golden balls are these; - Look within them and you’ll see - Many a magic mystery: - Winter snows are prisoned here; - April showers, May sunshine clear; - All the witchery of June, - Rose’s red and robin’s tune; - Wrought by Nature’s alchemy - Into sweet reality. - - - - -HER FINGER FATE - - “A friend, a foe, a true love, a beau, a journey to go.” - -The old superstition of naming the spots on the fingernails still -survives in country places, where some old lady may say gravely: “You -have an enemy; look at the spots on your finger nails,” and young girls -count them for friend or lover. “I knew he would be a wanderer,” said -one woman of an absent son, “there was always a journey on both his -hands.” - - - Softly she whispered it over, - Knee deep in the scented grass, - Where I and the first wild roses - Lingered to watch her pass. - She kissed her hand to the swallows - Skimming the pond below, - And turned with a face all archness - As she chanted ‘Friend or foe?’ - - “See, here is my life before me, - All that I keep or fail;” - And she counted the spots that glistened - On each rose-leaf finger nail; - Like baby pearls in the sunshine, - Or wind-rocked, cloudy flecks; - The little white dots that dappled - Her nails with snowy specks. - - “A friend--but look, how many! - A foe--” Not one, I said; - “A true love”--Sweet, he is near you-- - She blushed as the roses red. - He is waiting, dear, to claim you; - Your truest love and beau-- - Ah! why did my eyes turn misty - As she murmured “A journey to go”? - - The roses bloom in the meadow - As they bloomed that other day, - And I and the spring and the swallows - Wander the old sweet way; - We call but we cannot wake her, - So still in the vale below; - And my heart and the blossoms whisper, - “A journey, a journey to go.” - - - - -DUMB IN JUNE - -Written on the fly leaf of Richard Burton’s volume of verse, “Dumb in -June.” - - - June that floods the earth with sweetness, - Songs and scents and petals bright; - How my heart in your completeness - Loses self with full delight! - Think you if with no lip-greeting - I give welcome warmly told, - That my spirit to this meeting - Springs not as in time of old? - - Dearer comer than when child-heart - Sang to greet you from the hill; - Dearer to the captive wild-heart - Where the music now is still. - Should I sing when you are singing - Through my soul’s most shadowed ways, - Jubilant with promise, ringing - Down the drone of common days? - - June-time! Spring-time! Hour of growing! - Time with all renewing blest! - Throbbing from a heart o’er-flowing, - Silent songs may praise you best. - - - - -MEMORIAM - - - In memory of our dead! The dead that lie - Near, love-guarded graves, where still our tenderness - Can reach out like a hand across the dark - To touch the still hands folded close in rest. - The near, loved dead that were our own; - That walked with us the busy common ways, - And made life dear, and homely duties sweet. - In memory of our dead! In memory of the memories that go - Forever with us, till we, too, shall lie - With still, white faces turned to meet the stars. - - In memory, in hope, in tenderness! - Rest ye, O well-beloved, remembered dead! - Peace with you! Ye that do but keep - The bivouac till we come. - Ye that but wait us till the march is done; - Arms stacked; and guidons fluttering - Above the camp of our eternal rest. - - In memory! In memory of the far, forgotten dead, - That lie unheeded in the common dust. - In memory of the daring hearts that sleep - In unmarked graves beside forgotten trails; - The men who set their faces to the West, - And blazed the way for empires yet to come-- - Winning at last a width of nameless sod. - - In memory! Wherever one brave soul goes out - Strong-hearted on that last, lone road all men must take, - He, too, is comrade, and his courage is - A bugle call that rings “Advance, nor fear!” - To every hard-pressed soul upon the way. - Wherever one spent toiler for the common good - Lets fall his tools from weary, calloused hands, - His work is ours,--a trust to further to the fullest end. - - No hope that ever warmed a human heart - Was lost when that heart crumbled into dust: - The dreams that woke the sunrise of the world are ours-- - Our dead walk with us daily, hand in hand. - But every joy we know to give or keep; - By hearts more gentle, and by eyes more true, - They are our own, and undivided still. - - In memory! In memory of the dead! - In tenderness and hope for all who live! - Peace with you, ye that lie at rest! - Hope with you, ye that live and yet must face - The pain of living! - In memory, in hope, in tenderness! - - - - -AS A LITTLE SHADOW ON THE GRASS - - - How all alone we are, despite our striving - For sympathy and love! - How all alone we are in this our living, - With silent skies above! - - These stars of ours have shone on Alexander; - Their tender light was old - What time the Roman hills knew lost Evander; - The night winds sweet and cold - - Have lingered in the dusk with Omar’s roses; - They keep the fragrance yet! - And all the rare, green earth that round us closes - Whispers a vague regret. - - It is not ours; we are not its first lovers; - We do but journey here - Where every little springing grass blade covers - Some heart once held as dear. - - We yearn to touch them, stretch our hands in greeting; - To make them all our own. - Mist wraiths and dreams! they vanish at the meeting - And we pass on alone. - - - - -DAWN - - - Once the Dawn among the trees whispered me such words as these: - “There was stillness in the valley, there was darkness on the hill, - Till my spirit came among them, borne upon a minion breeze, - Woke them into light and music and dispelled them with my will. - - “Where my fingers touched the tresses of the clouds with swift - caresses, - Burned a splendor like the jewels set to bind a princess’ hair; - Softly from my garment shaken fell the gentle dew that blesses - Every sweet and stately blossom meet to make the morning fair. - - “Then the birds with liquid singing set the leafy woodland ringing, - Till the cattle in the meadow waked the joyous songs to mark; - And the great, gold sun leaped upward, all the light of heaven - bringing-- - Heart, hast thou a morning also, waiting just beyond the dark?” - - - - -A BALLAD OF CHARLIE’S MEN - - - Duncan and I at the kirk would wed, - And soon should our bridal vows be said; - But a pibroch thrilled through the morning air, - And a white cockade gleamed brightly there; - ’Twas Charlie Stuart bowed low at my side: - “O, lend me your lover now,” he cried, - “And when I march homeward adown the glen - You shall wed the bravest of Charlie’s men.” - - Duncan my lover was good to see, - Straight and tall as the dark pine tree; - Black was his eye as the deep midnight; - His arm was strong and his step was light; - His words were kind and his laugh rang free,-- - And oh! he was all in the world to me! - But he marched away through the narrow glen - To fight for Scotland with Charlie’s men. - - The days were long and the nights were drear, - My heart grew sick with its weight of fear; - For the battle was fought and the battle was lost, - And the hearts of the living must count the cost; - And Charlie Stuart’s an outlaw now - With a price in gold on his bonnie brow; - And never the watchers in brae and glen - Shall welcome the coming of Charlie’s men. - - And Duncan, my lover, my life, my light, - Was the first to fall in that bitter fight; - With Scotland’s banner clasped close in his hand - They laid him to sleep in that stranger land; - Narrow and lonely and low is his bed, - And the gorse of the Southland blooms thick o’er his head; - But still I roam through the mournful glen - And wait for the marching of Charlie’s men. - - The mavis and merle in the thicket pipe clear, - But the wail of the pibroch is all I can hear; - The heather a-bloom takes the tint of his plaid, - And the foam on the burn shows the Stuart cockade; - The moonlight that falls on the rocks of Ben More - Is alive with the gleam of his targe and claymore-- - And still in my heart and the haunted glen - There echoes the marching of Charlie’s men. - - - - -A LOST IDEAL - - - A mocking bird from out the South - Sang through my dream, he said, - But when the dream was done I heard - A woman’s voice instead. - - A woman’s voice that strove to wake - The joyous tones I missed; - But only breathed a sigh across - The lips that pain had kissed. - - A deep perfume of tropic flowers - Stole through my dream, he said; - But when I sought the blossoms bright - I saw a face instead. - - A woman’s face where Nature wrote - The score of some grand hymn, - Then blotting it with life and toil - Left all the record dim. - - And in the dream my soul thrice turned - To greet a comrade call; - But when I woke the gray of night - Lay silent over all. - - - - -THE LIFE-BOND - - “The last brotherhood is of pain.”--_Hindoo Saying._ - - - You think my mouth is over-stern - For woman-grace and tenderness; - You wonder if my lips could learn - The trick of love word and caress; - You sadden when you meet my eyes; - You say they are too still and deep, - Like water where a shadow lies - Some secret thing to hide and keep. - My face no smooth, soft beauty owns, - Unlined and happy as a flower; - My voice has lack of laughing tones - To charm you in a care-free hour-- - But I have lived! I do not need - Your play-day love, that only seeks - It’s own light joy, nor stays to heed - The message which the shadow speaks. - Death-darkening eyes have looked in mine - And gone the braver for that glance; - And hearts sore-pressed have sought a sign, - Then turned to meet the fighting chance; - And hands that fought to hold the breach - Have caught fresh weapons from my hands; - And lips that knew but stranger speech - Have learned how love may understand. - Joy with you, friend, and happiness! - You do not need me now, but when - Life wills your hour of pain and stress - Turn back--and find me waiting then. - - - - -TO SONG - - - Grant us, O Soul of Song, that we may find - Much joy in singing, though the road be blind; - Thou knowest we, thy Children of the Air, - Must get our dinners, God alone knows where, - And for a ragged coat have scanty words; - So let us joy in music with the birds, - Our brother minstrels, who among the trees - Have short delight what time the summer please. - Make summer for us, e’en when winter snows - Beat down upon us and the north winds blows; - Fence us with mail against the biting blast, - And feed our fancy, though the body fast. - - If any Hall keep still the olden cheer, - Grant thou we find an ungrudged welcome there, - And as of old have leave to harp and sing - Till wild bees hum the reveille of Spring; - And black birds pipe it, and the cuckoos call; - And every ivy leaf along the wall - Shakes to the sun a tender green leaf-wing - And whispers “Spring! The Spring! It is the Spring!” - Then Ho! for pouch and staff and cockle shell! - Ho! for the road we know and love so well! - Stay an you will! For us the Open Way; - The sun and stars and winds of Arcady! - - - - -HER GIFT - -To Our Lady of La Casa Nichita. - - - She would have told you that she had - No clever gifts to win and wile; - No cunning trick of speech or song - To charm and change your mood the while, - Not under her smooth fingers flowed - The music, by her touch set free; - Not through her hands her inward dream - Was wrought for all the world to see. - - And yet--she spoke, and in his soul - One heard the song his vision sought; - And one within her eyes beheld - The symbol of his noblest thought; - And one who held that Beauty dwelt - A thing apart from common need, - Passed through her door and went his way - To voice a finer, truer creed. - - She would have said no gift was hers, - No power of speech or brush or pen; - And yet--who passing touched her hand, - Turned to his highest dream again - With surer faith and larger hope-- - For hers, the great gift to inspire, - To shine across our duller lives - And light them as with temple fire. - - - - -THE LIFE EXPRESS - - - When all is said life’s not unlike a train-- - Save that we take it if we will or no-- - And whence it comes, and whither it will go, - Or if it will companion us again, - No guide books tell, no mapped time tables show; - Nor of the miles ahead can any know-- - Whether tomorrow’s road be hill or plain. - For some the swift express; the rumbling freight - For others; some must till the end harrass - Their souls for fare, while others ride in state-- - Yet to one end that heeds not caste or class. - When we outside that far Last Station wait - May the Great Agent meet us with a pass. - - - - -FOR A BIRTHDAY - - - Wiser and older grown - I will not wish you, nor say, - “Many returns of the day!” - Nor bid for happiness-- - Since Life will ban or bless - Still in the old, stern way. - - If years be a boon or curse - I reckon a close-drawn thing; - And doubt if the good they bring - Outweighs by a hair the pain-- - If the loss sink not the gain-- - Yet, be yours as you onward wend, - Strong soul, and rest at the end. - - - - -GOD SPEED - - - Comrade, whose eyes have seen beyond - That Last Horizon lone and far; - Remoter than the utmost star - That watches on the rim of space; - I that shall see no more your face, - Save in some vision brief and fond, - I that alone must go and come, - I that alone must stay or roam, - Bid you God speed and hearty cheer, - Bid you a joy untouched of fear - On every road a soul may take. - To fuller life, to dreamless sleep, - To all a heart may give or keep, - God speed you, guide your going--yet - The roads of earth not quite forget. - - - - -A CHANT TO DEATH - - - When the bright sunrise slants across the hills - And every peak is like a golden tower - Where some glad face looks East to meet the day, - My heart leaps strong with thankfulness for dawn, - Singing like Memnon in the sands of old - For fresh hope and new promise. And when noon - Poises the far sun midway in his course - I joy in space for working; for an hour - In which to shape my hidden thought a form - Before my fellows, that my dream may live - When I am brother to the silent dust. - - And when night’s shadow folds the weary earth, - With all her burden of tired hearts that pray, - Best of life’s gifts, sleep and forgetfulness, - One boon alone I crave of heaven, rest. - But most I bow in thankfulness for death; - Wise death, kind death, who softly stoops to lay - All pitiful a cool hand on the brow - That life has fevered with his pitiless - Stern goading on an ever-fruitless round. - - Master of Fate, and rest’s own almoner, - No angel sable-winged and harsh and cold, - No black-robed, hidden-visaged shape art thou, - Preying upon the frightened souls of men; - But a near friend, whose hand upon our own - Touches to strengthen, and whose shadow is - Like the one tree within a sun swept waste. - Hope giver, healer, they who would upbraid - Thy name and coming know not thee nor life; - But we who work here in the dark, we know. - - We know whose name gives courage for the fight; - Whose call rings “Forward” down the lagging line. - Captained by thee we lift each day the load - To aching shoulders, take the road once more - With song and laughter and bugle blown - To straggling comrades: “Look you, man, good cheer!” - Who knows? Perhaps tonight we bivouac; - Face front, and let us win our rest like men; - With tasks well done and nothing scrimped or shirked; - Sure that at last we get discharge of Life - And serve a gentler master, even Death. - - - - -THE FAR-CALLED - -The French peasants have a belief that if a green bough be found upon -the cradle of a new-born child the fairies have called that child to -wander far in quest of other-worldly things all its mortal life. - - - When on the bed of birth I lay - Out of the dark one came, - And laid the green bough on my head - And kissed my lips with flame; - And whispered in my ear the call - I may no more deny; - Nor ever drown in lesser sound - Until the hour I die. - - And though my feet go down the street - They feel not wood and stone; - But tread the floor of forests far, - And uplands wide and lone: - And eyes like clouds blown through with rain - Turn pleading-like to me-- - Their sorrow I may stay to ease, - But not their gladness see. - - I know the roads my kindred take - To gain and gear and home, - I turn and bid them all Godspeed-- - And yet I may not come. - I know the good of gain and gear, - And hearth alight with love-- - Bide ye that may--I cannot stay, - That seeking still must rove. - - And little camp-fires in the dark - Send out their light to me; - And little sweet, low voices call: - “O traveller, who are ye, - That goes so fast, that goes so far - Along the hidden night, - As if ye sought some radiant star, - Nor ever camp-fire’s light?” - - But for my soul I may not turn, - My feet are strong and swift; - I go to find beyond the wind - Where unknown mountains lift, - The tree where-from the green bough came, - The voice that calls to me; - Visions more bright than star or light, - That lead and beckon me. - - - - -TIRED - - - I wonder if the growing grass - Has ever weariness? - Or the little flowers that lean - The gray hillside to bless? - - Their roots reach down into the mold - So deep, that once was men; - I wonder do they ever draw - A heart-ache from it then? - - And the rain that patters down - On the green blades like tears; - Has it kept a taste of salt - From the forgotten years? - - And the wind that has been breath - Of happy lips or sad; - Is that why its voice has still - No sound ever wholly glad? - - Forget us, Earth, forget; - When we dry our tears on your breast;-- - As we and the mold are one - Let us nothing know but rest. - - - - -WHEN SHE WENT ON - - - How white and calm and still she lay! - The little child-like hands at rest, - Folded so lightly on her breast-- - It seemed some solemn wonder-play! - - The waxen lids pressed down her eyes, - Blue, wistful eyes that could not see - How still beside her tenderly - We kept our useless ministries. - - One smoothed the pillow at her head, - With hands that trembled overmuch; - And drew the sheet with lingering touch, - And closed the books that she had read. - - The little room still seemed to hold - All of her warm, bright, living self; - The empty slippers on the shelf - Still kept her foot’s slim mold. - - O restless feet that could not wait - Our slower footsteps, blundering, fond; - Turn back to us when soon or late - We seek you in the Land Beyond. - - - - -O GREAT CONSOLER - - - A hymn to thee, a hymn to thee, consoler; - Thou strong consoler who hast touched our life - With a great quiet brooding o’er its strife; - With a great peace beyond its wrath and dolor. - - All other hopes, all other loves, may fail us; - Thou over all art truth and constancy; - Our little passions quench themselves in thee; - Thy balm and strength must at the last avail us. - - Walk with me then as brother walks with brother; - Hold thou my hand; I think I hear thee say: - “Bethink thee; this may be thy last ‘today’; - Thine eyes may not look out across another. - - “Then forward! face what e’er it brings and laugh - Straight in the eyes of Fortune at her worst; - No loss he fears who hath lost all at first, - Nor fears to drink, who my dark wine would quaff. - - “Art empty-handed? Yea, but at the best - No wealth of earth could stay an hour my feet; - Dost thirst! My cup upon the lip is sweet; - Art weary? I alone can give thee rest.” - - - - -AND THIS IS LIFE - - - And this is life--to have and hold - A little love, a little gold; - To prove the Dream with work well done; - To rest an hour before the sun - Drops down to night--then journey on - An unmapped road to seek the Dawn. - - - - -THE THINKER - - - He who grasps at the flowers of thought - Oft finds in his eager fingers naught, - But leafless stalks where the blossoms hung, - In some long-lost summer when life was young-- - Or at best but a glimmer of thistle down - To sprinkle his hair ’neath the laurel crown. - - - -Note from Transcriber - -It was decided not to correct likely mistakes in the poems. However, -for the convenience of the reader, we are providing this list of some -deviations from other editions. - -Page 13: In lieu of “A week. God speed”, “A week--God speed” - -Page 18: In lieu of “muleteers had sudded”, “muleteers had sudden” - -Page 36: In lieu of “upon its hedge”, “upon its edge” - -Page 61: In lieu of “The long-dead altars”, “The long-dead tapers” - -Page 68: In lieu of “Senor”, “Señor” - -Page 101: In lieu of “growed on the own”, “growed on the’r own” - -Page 102: In lieu of “along with the bosses”, “along with the boss’s” -and “An’ I lay” instead of “An’ I low” - -Page 105: In lieu of “handsomeness, ye low”, “handsomeness, ye ’low” - -Page 107: In lieu of “I haint”, “I hain’t” - -Page 108: In lieu of “I low”, I ’low” - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CACTUS AND PINE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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