A Song of the South

Joaquin Miller

A SONG OF THE SOUTH.
PART I.
hyme on, rhyme on, in reedy flow,

0 river, rhymer ever sweet!

The story of thy land is meet;

The stars stand listening to know.

Rhyme on, 0 river of the earth!

Gray father of the dreadful seas,

Rhyme on! the world upon its knees

Invokes thy songs, thy wealth, thy worth.

Rhyme on! the reed is at thy mouth,

0 kingly minstrel, mighty stream!

Thy Crescent City, like a dream,

Hangs in the heaven of my South.

Rhyme on, rhyme on! these broken strings

Sing sweetest in this warm south wieid;

I sit thy willow banks and bind

A broken harp that fitful sings.
I.
And where is my silent, sweet blossom sown town?
And where is her glory, and what has she done?
By her Mexican seas in the path of the sun,
Sit you down; in her crescent of seas, sit you down.
Aye, glory enough by her Mexican seas!
Aye, story enough in that battle-torn town,
Hidden down in her crescent of seas, hidden down
In her mantle and sheen of magnolia white trees.
But mine is the story of souls; of a soul
That barter'd God's limitless kingdom for gold,—
Sold stars and all space for a thing he did hold
In his palm for a day; and then hid with the mole:
Sad soul of a rose-land, of moss-mantled oak—
Gray, Druid-old oaks; and the moss that sways
And swings in the wind is the battle-smoke
Of duelists dead, in her storied days:
Sad soul of a love-land, of church-bells and chimes;
A love-land of altars and oranige flowers;
And that is the reason for all these rhymes—
That church-bells are ringing through all these hours!
This sun-land has churches, has priests at prayer,
White nuns, that are white as the far north snow:
They go where duty may bid them go,—
They dare when the angel of death is there.
This land has ladies so fair, so fair,
In their Creole quarter, with great black eyes—
So fair that the Mayor must keep them there
Lest troubles, like troubles of Troy, arise.
This sun-land has ladies with eyes held down,
Held down, because if they lifted them,
Why, you would be lost in that old French town,
Though even you held to God's garment hem.
This love-land has ladies so fair. so fair,
That they bend their eyes to the holy book,
Lest you should forget yourself, your prayer,
And never more cease to look and to look.
And these are the ladies that no men see,
And this is the reason men see them not;
Better their modest, sweet mystery—
Better by far than red battle-shot.
And so, in this curious old town of tiles,
The proud French quarter of days long gone,
In castles of Spain and tumble-down piles,
These wonderful ladies live on and on.
I sit in the church where they come and go;
I dream of glory that has long since gone;
Of the low raised high, of the high brought low
As in battle-torn days of Napoleon.
These grass-plaited places, so rich, so poor!
One quaint old church at the edge of the town
Has white tombs laid to the very church door—
White leaves in thle story of life turn'd down:
White leaves in the story of life are these,
The low white slabs in the long, strong grass,
Where glory has emptied her hour-glass,
And dreams with the dreamers beneath the trees.
I dream with the dreamers beneath the sod,
Where souls pass by to the great white throne;
I count each tomb as a mute mile-stone
For weary, sweet souls on their way to God.
I sit all day by the vast, strong stream,
'Mid low white slabs in the long, strong grass,
Where time has forgotten for aye to pass,
To dream, and ever to dream and to dream,
This quaint old church, with its dead to the door,
By the cypress swamp at the edge of the town,
So restful it seems that you want to sit down
And rest you, and rest you for evermore.
And one white stone is a lowliest tomb
That has crept up close to the crumbling
door,Some penitent soul, as imploring room
Close under the cross that is leaning o'er.
'T is a low white slab, and't is nameless,
too,Her untold story, why, who should know?
Yet God, I reckon, can read right through
That nameless stone to the bosom below.
And the roses know. and they pity her, too;
They bend their heads in the sun or rain,
And they read, and they read, and then read again,
As children reading strange pictures through.
Why, surely her sleep it should be profound;
For oh, the apples of gold above!
And oh, the blossoms of bridal love!
And oh, the roses that gather around!
The sleep of a night or a thousand morns—
Why, what is the difference here, to-day?
Sleeping and sleeping the years away,
With all earth's roses and none of its thorns.
Magnolias white. white rose and red—
The palm-tree here and the cypress there:
Sit down by the palm at the feet of the dead,
And hear a penitent's midnight prayer.
II.
The old churchyard is still as death;
A stranger passes to and fro,
As if to church-he does not go;
The dead night does not draw a breath.
A lone sweet lady prays within.
The stranger passes by the door—
Will he not pray? Is he so poor
He has no prayer for his sin?
Is he so poor? Why, two strong hands
Are full and heavy, as with gold;
They clasp as clasp two iron bands
About two bags with eager hold.
Will he not pause and enter in,
Put down his heavy load and rest,
Put off his garmenting of sin,
As some black mantle from his breast?
Ah me! the brave alone can pray,
The church-door is as cannon's mouth
For crime to face, or North or South,
More dreaded than dread battle-day.
* * * * * *
Now two men pace. They pace apart;
And one with youth and truth is fair,
The fervid sun is in his heart,
The tawny South is in his hair.
Aye, two men pace-pace left and right—
The lone sweet lady prays within;
Aye, two men pace; the silent night
Kneels down in prayer for some sin.
Lo! two men pace; and one is gray,
A blue-eyed man from snow-clad land,
With something heavy in each hand,—
With heavy feet, as feet of clay.
Aye, two men pace; and one is light
Of step, but still his brow is dark;
His eyes are as a kindled spark
That burns beneath the brow of night!
And still they pace. The stars are red,
The tombs are white as frosted snow;
The silence is as if the dead
Did pace in couples to and fro.
III.
The azure curtain of God's house
Draws back, and hangs star-pinned to space;
I hear the low, large moon arouse,
And slowly lift her languid face.
I see her shoulder up the east,
Low-necked, and large as womanhood—
Low-necked, as for some ample feast
Of gods, within yon orange-wood.
She spreads white palms, she whispers
peace,Sweet peace on earth forevermore;
Sweet peace for two beneath the trees,
Sweet peace for one within the door.
The bent stream, as God's scimitar,
Flashed in the sun, sweeps on and on,
Till sheathed, like some great sword new drawn,
In seas beneath the Carib's star.
The high moon climbs the sapphire hill,
The lone sweet lady prays within;
The crickets keep such clang and din—
They are so loud, earth is so still!
And two men glare in silence there!
The bitter, jealous hate of each
Has grown too deep for deed or speech—
The lone sweet lady keeps her prayer.
The vast moon high through heaven's field
In circling chariot is rolled;
The golden stars are spun and reeled,
And woven into cloth of gold.
The white magnolia fills the night
With perfume, as the proud moon fills
The glad earth with her ample light
From out her awful sapphire hills.
White orange-blossoms fill the boughs
Above, about the old church-door;
They wait the bride, the bridal vows,—
They never hung so fair before.
The two men glare a as dark as sin!
And yet all seem so fair, so white,
You would not reckon it was night,—
The while the lady prays within.
IV.
She prays so very long and late,—
The two men, weary, waiting there,—
The great magnolia at the gate
Bends drowsily above her prayer.
The cypress in his cloak of moss,
That watches on in silent gloom,
Has leaned and shaped a shadow cross
Above the nameless, lowly tomb.
* * * * *
What can she pray for? What her sin?
What folly of a maid so fair?
What shadows bind the wondrous hair
Of one who prays so long within?
The palm-trees guard in regiment,
Stand right and left without the gate;
The myrtle-moss trees wait and wait;
The tall magnolia leans intent.
The cypress-trees, on gnarled old knees,
Far out the dank and marshy deep
Where slimy monsters groan and creep,
Kneel with her in their marshy seas.
What can her sin be? Who shall know?
The night flies by,—a bird on wing;
The men no longer to and fro
Stride up and down, or anything.
For one, so weary and so old,
Has hardly strength to stride or stir;
He can but hold his bags of gold,—
But hug his gold and wait for her.
The two stand still,-stand face to face.
The moon slides on, the midnight air
Is perfumed as a house of prayer,—
The maiden keeps her holy place.
Two men! And one is gray, but one
Scarce lifts a full-grown face as yet;
With lightfoot on life's threshold set,—
Is he the other's sun-born son?
And one is of the land of snow,
And one is of the land of sun;
A black-eyed, burning youth is one,
But one has pulses cold and slow:
Aye, cold and slow from clime of snow
Where Nature's bosom, icy bound,
Holds all her forces, hard, profound,—
Holds close where all the South lets go.
Blame not the sun, blame not the snows,-
God's great schoolhouse for all is clime;
The great school teacher, Father Time,
And each has borne as best he knows.
At last the elder speaks,-he cries,—
He speaks as if his heart would break;
He speaks out as a man that dies,—
As dying for some lost love's sake:
"Come, take this bag of gold, and go!
Come, take one bag! See, I have two!
Oh, why stand silent, staring so,
When I would share my gold with you?
"Come, take this gold! See how I pray!
See how I bribe, and beg, and buy,—
Aye, buy! and beg, as you, too, may
Some day before you come to die.
"God! take this gold, I beg, I pray!
I beg as one who thirsting cries
For but one drop of drink, and dies
In some lone, loveless desert way.
"You hesitate? Still hesitate?
Stand silent still and mock my pain?
Still mock to see me wait and wait,
And wait her love, as earth waits rain""
V.
O broken ship! O starless shore!
O black and everlasting night!
Where love comes never any more
To light man's way with heaven's light.
A godless man with bags of gold
I think a most unholy sight;
Ah, who so desolate at night,
Amid death's sleepers still and cold?
A godless man on holy ground
I think a most unholy sight.
I hear death trailing, like a hound,
Hard after him, and swift to bite.
VI.
The vast moon settles to the west;
Yet still two men beside that tomb,
And one would sit thereon to rest,—
Aye, rest below, if there were room.
VII.
What is this rest of death, sweet friend?
What is the rising up, and where?
I say, death is a lengthened prayer,
A longer night, a larger end.
Hear you the lesson I once learned:
I died; I sailed a million miles
Through dreamful, flowery, restful isles,—
She was not there, and I returned.
I say the shores of death and sleep
Are one; that when we, wearied, come
To Lethe's waters, an d lie dumb,
'Tis death, not sleep, holds us to keep.
Yea, we lie dead for need of rest,
And so the soul drifts out and o'er
The vast still waters to the shore
Beyond, in pleasant, tranquil quest
It sails straight on, forgetting pain,
Past isles of peace, to perfect rest,—
Now were it best abide, or best
Return and take up life again?
And that is all of death there is,
Believe me. If you find your love
In that far land, then, like the dove,
Pluck olive boughs, nor back to this.
But if you find your love not there;
Or if your feet feel sure, and you
Have still allotted work to do,—
Why, then haste back to toil and care.
Death is no mystery.'T is plain
If death be mystery, then sleep
Is mystery thrice strangely deep,—
For oh, this coming back again!
-capAusterest ferryman of souls!
I see the gleam of shining shores;
I hear thy steady stroke of oars
Above the wildest wave that rolls.
O Charon, keep thy somber ships!
I come, with neither myrrh nor balm,
Nor silver piece in open palm,—
Just lone, white silence on my lips.
VIII.
She prays so long! she prays so late!
What sin in all this flower land
Against her supplicating hand
Could have in heaven any weight?
Prays she for her sweet self alone?
Prays she for some one far away,
Or some one near and dear to-day,
Or some poor lorn, lost soul unknown?
It seems to me a selfish thing
To pray forever for one's self;
It seems to me like heaping pelf,
In heaven by hard reckoning.
Why, I would rather stoop and bear
My load of sin, and bear it well
And bravely down to your hard hell,
Than pray and pray a selfish prayer!
IX.
The swift chameleon in the gloom—
This gray morn silence so profound!—
Forsakes its bough, glides to the ground,
Then up, and lies across the tomb.
It erst was green as olive-leaf;
It then grew gray as myrtle moss
The time it slid the tomb across;
And now't is marble-white as grief.
The little creature's hues are gone
Here in the gray andl ghostly light;
It lies so pale, so panting white,—
White as the tomb it lies upon.
The two still by that nameless tomb!
And both so still! You might have said,
These two men, they are also dead,
And only waiting here for room.
How still beneath the orange-bough!
How tall was one, how bowed was one!
The one was as a journey done,
The other as beginning now.
And one was young,—young with that youth
Eternal that belongs to truth;
And one was old,—old with the years
That follow fast on doubts and fears.
And yet the habit of command
Was his, in every stubborn part;
No common knave was he at heart,
Nor his the common coward's hand.
He looked the young man in the face,
So full of hate, so frank of hate;
The other, standing in his place,
Stared back as straight and hard as fate.
And now he sudden turned away,
And now he paced the path, and now
Came back beneath the orange bough,
Pale-browed, with lips as cold as clay.
As mute as shadows on a wall,
As silent still, as dark as they,
Before that stranger, bent and gray,
The youth stood scornful, proud and tall.
He stood a clean palmetto tree
With Spanish daggers guarding it;
Nor deed, nor word, to him seemed fit
While she prayed on so silently.
He slew his rival with his eyes
His eyes were daggers piercing deep,—
So deep that blood began to creep
From their deep wounds and drop word-wise.
His eyes so black, so bright, that they
Might raise the dead, the living slay,
If but the dead, the living bore
Such hearts as heroes had of yore.
Two deadly arrows barbed in black,
And feathered, too, with raven's wing;
Two arrows that could silent sting,
And with a death-wound answer back.
How fierce he was! how deadly still
In that mesmeric, searching stare
Turned on the pleading stranger there
That drew to him, despite his will!
So like a bird down-fluttering,
Down, down. beneath a snake's bright
He stood, a fascinated thing,
That hopeless, unresisting, dies.
He raised a hard hand as before,
Reached out the gold, and offered it
With hand that shook as ague-fit,—
The while the youth but scorned the more.
"You will not touch it? In God's name,
Who are you, and what are you, then?
Come, take this gold, and be of men,—
A human form with human aim.
"Yea, take this gold,—!she must be mine!
She shall be mine! I do not fear
Your scowl, your scorn, your soul austere,
The living, dead, or your dark sign.
"I saw her as she entered there;
I saw her, and uncovered stood;
The perfume of her womanhood
Was holy incense on the air.
"She left behind sweet sanctity,
Religion went the way she went;
I cried I would repent, repent!
She passed on, all unheeding me.
"Her soul is young, her eyes are bright
And gladsome, as mine own are dim;
But oh, I felt my senses swim
The time she passed me by to-night!
"The time she passed, nor raised her
To hear me cry I would repent,
Nor turned her head to hear my cries,
But swifter went the way she went,
"Went swift as youth, for all these years!
And this the strangest thing appears,
That lady there seems just the same,—
Sweet Gladys-Ah! you know her name?
"You hear her name and start that I
Should name her dear name trembling so?
Why, boy, when I shall come to die
That name shall be the last I know.
"That name shall be the last sweet name
My lips shall utter in this life!
That name is brighter than bright flame,—
That lady is mine own sweet wife!
"Ah, start and catch your burning breath!
Ah, start and clutch your deadly knife!
If this be death, then be it death,—
But that loved lady is my wife!
"Yea, you are stunned! your face is white,
That I should come confronting you,
As comes a lorn ghost of the night
From out the past, and to pursue.
"You thought me dead? You shake your head,
You start back horrified to know
That she is loved, that she is wed,
That you have sinned in loving so.
Yet what seems strange, that lady there,
Housed in the holy house of prayer,
Seems just the same for all her tears,—
For all my absent twenty years.
"Yea, twenty years to-night, to-night,—
Just twenty years this day, this hour,
Since first I plucked that perfect flower,
And not one witness of the rite.
"Nay, do not doubt,—I tell you true!
Her prayers, her tears, her constancy
Are all for me, are all for me,—
And not one single thought for you!
"I knew, I knew she would be here
This night of nights to pray for me!
And how could I for twenty year
Know this same night so certainly?
"Ah me! some thoughts that we would drown,
Stick closer than a brother to
The conscience, and pursue, pursue,
Like baying hound, to hunt us down.
"And, then, that date is history;
For on that night this shore was shelled,
And many a noble mansion felled,
With many a noble family.
"I wore the blue; I watched the flight
Of shells, like stars tossed through the air
To blow your hearth-stones-anywhere,
That wild, illuminated night.
"Nay, rage befits you not so well;
Why, you were but a babe at best;
Your cradle some sharp bursted shell
That tore, maybe, your mother's breast!
"Hear me! We came in honored war.
The risen world was on your track!
The whole North-land was at our back,
From Hudson's bank to the North Star!
"And from the North to palm-set sea
The splendid fiery cyclone swept.
Your fathers fell, your mothers wept,
Their nude babes clinging to the knee.
"A wide and desolated track:
Behind, a path of ruin lay;
Before, some women by the way
Stood mutely gazing, clad in black.
From silent women waiting there
White tears came down like still, small rain;
Their own sons of the battle-plain
Were now but viewless ghosts of air.
"Their own dear, daring boys in gray,
They should not see them any more;
Our cruel drums kept telling o'er
The time their own sons went away
"Through burning town, by bursting shell—
Yea, I remember well that night;
I led through orange-lanes of light,
As through some hot outpost of hell!
"That night of rainbow shot and shell
Sent from yon surging river's breast
To waken me, no more to rest, —
That night I should remember well!
"That night, amid the maimed and dead—
A night in history set down
By light of many a burning town,
And written all across in red,
"Her father dead, her brothers dead,
Her home in flames,—what else could she
But fly all helpless here to me,
A fluttered dove, that night of dread?
"Short time, hot time had I to woo
Amid the red shells' battle-chime;
But women rarely reckon time,
And perils waken love anew.
"Aye, then I wore a captain's sword;
And, too, had oftentime before
Doffed cap at her dead father's door,
And passed a lover's pleasant word.
"And then-ah, I was comely then!
I bore no load upon my back,
I heard no hounds upon my track,
But stood the tallest of tall men.
"Her father's and her mother's shrine,
This church amid the orange-wood;
So near and so secure it stood,
It seemed to beckon as a sign.
"Its white cross seemed to beckon
My heart was strong, and it was mine
To throw myself upon my knee,
To beg to lead her to this shrine.
"She did consent. Through lanes of light
I led through this church-door that night–
Let fall your hand! Take back your
And stand,—stand patient in your place!
"She loved me; and she loves me still.
Yea, she clung close to me that hour
As honey-bee to honey-flower,—
And still is mine through good or ill.
"The priest stood there. He spake the prayer;
He made the holy, mystic sign,
And she was mine, was wholly mine,—
Is mine this moment, I can swear!
Then days, then nights of vast delight,—
Then came a doubtful later day;
The faithful priest, now far away,
Watched with the dying in the fight:
"The priest amid the dying, dead,
Kept duty on the battle-field,—
That midnight marriage unrevealed
Kept strange thoughts running thro' my head.
"At last a stray ball struck the priest;
This vestibule his chancel was;
And now none lived to speak her cause,
Record, or champion her the least.
"Hear me! I had been bred to hate
All priests, their mummeries and all.
Ah, it was fate,-ah, it was fate
That all things tempted to my fall!
"And then the dashing songs we sang
Those nights when rudely reveling,—
Such songs that only soldiers sing,—
Until the very tent-poles rang!
"What is the rhyme that rhymers say,
Of maidens born to be betrayed
By epaulettes and shining blade,
While soldiers love and ride away?
"And then my comrades spake her name
Half taunting, with a touch of shame;
Taught me to hold that lily-flower
As some light pastime of the hour.
And then the ruin in the land,
The death, dismay, the lawlessness!
Men gathered gold on every hand,—
Heaped gold: and why should I do less?
"The cry for gold was in the air,—
for Creole gold, for precious things;
The sword kept prodding here and there,
Through bolts and sacred fastenings.
"'Get gold! get gold!' This was the cry.
And I loved gold. What else could I
Or you, or any earnest one,
Born in this getting, age, have done?
"With this one lesson taught from youth,
And ever taught us, to get gold,—
To get and hold, and ever hold,—
What else could I have done, forsooth?
"She, seeing how I crazed for gold,—
This girl, my wife, one late night told
Of treasures hidden close at hand,
In her dead father's mellow land;
"Of gold she helped her brothers hide
Beneath a broad banana-tree
The day the two in battle died,
The night she, dying, fled to me.
"It seemed too good; I laughed to scorn
Her trustful tale. She answered not;
But meekly on the morrow morn
These two great bagsof bright gold brought.
"And when she brought this gold to me—
Red Creole gold, rich, rare, and old,—
When I at last had gold, sweet gold,
I cried in very ecstasy.
"Red gold! rich gold! two bags of gold!
The two stout bags of gold she brought
And gave, with scarce a second thought,—
Why, her two hands could scarcely hold!
"Now I had gold! two bags of gold!
Two wings of gold, to fly, and fly
The wide world's girth; red gold to hold
Against my heart for aye and aye!
"My country's lesson:' Gold! get gold!'
I learned it well in land of snow;
And what can glow, so brightly glow,
Long winter nights of northern cold?
"Aye, now at last, at last I had
The one thing, all fair things above,
My land had taught me most to love!
A miser now! and I grew mad.
"I With these two bags of gold my own,
I soon began to plan some night
For flight, for far and sudden flight,—
For flight; and, too, for flight alone.
"I feared! I feared! My heart grew
Some one might claim this gold of me!
I feared her,-feared her purity—
Feared all things but my bags of gold.
"I grew to hate her face, her creed,—
That face the fairest ever yet
That bowed o'er holy cross or bead,
Or yet was in God's image set.
"I fled, —nay, not so knavish low,
As you have fancied, did I fly:
I sought her at this shrine, and I
Told her full frankly I should go.
"I stood a giant in my power,—
And did she question or dispute?
I stood a savage, selfish brute,—
She bowed her head, a lily-flower.
"And when I sudden turned to go,
And told her I should come no more,
She bowed her head so low, so low,
Her vast black hair fell pouring o'er.
"And that was all; her splendid face
Was mantled from me, and her night
Of hair half hid her -from my sight,
As she fell moaning in her place.
"And there, through her dark night of hair,
She sobbed, low moaning in hot tears,
That she would wait, wait all the years,—
Would wait and pray in her despair.
"Nay, did not murmur, not deny,—
She did not cross me one sweet word!
I turned and fled; I thought I heard
A night-bird's piercing low death-cry!"
PART II.

How soft the moonlight of my South!

How sweet the South in soft moonlight!

I want to kiss her warm, sweet mouth

As she lies sleeping here to-night.

How still! I do not hear a mouse.

I see some bursting buds appear;

I hear God in his garden,-hear

Him trim some flowers for His house.

I hear some singing stars; the mouth

Of my vast river sings and sings,

And pipes on reeds of pleasant things,—

Of splendid promise for my South:

My great South-woman, soon to rise

And tiptoe up and loose her hair;

Tiptoe, and take from out the skies

God's stars and glorious moon to wear!

I.
The poet shall create or kill,
Bid heroes live, bid braggarts die.
I look against a lurid sky,—
My silent South lies proudly still.
The fading light of burning lands
Still climbs to God's house overhead;
Mute women wring white, withered hands;
Their eyes are red, their skies are red.
And we still boast our bitter wars!
Still burn and boast, and boast and lie
But God's white finger spins the stars
In calm dominion of the sky.
And not one ray of light the less
Comes down to bid the grasses spring;
No drop of dew nor anything
Shall fail for all our bitterness.
If man grows large, is God the less?
The moon shall rise and set the same,
The great sun spill his splendid flame,
And clothe the world in queenliness.
Yea, from that very blood-soaked sod
Some large-souled, seeing youth shall come
Some day, and he shall not be dumb
Before the awful court of God.
II.
The weary moon had turned away,
The far North Star was turning pale
To hear the stranger's boastful tale
Of blood and flame that battle-day.
And yet again the two men glared,
Close face to face above that tomb;
Each seemed as jealous of the room
The other, eager waiting shared.
Again the man began to say,—
As taking up some broken thread,
As talking to the patient dead,—
The Creole was as still as they:
"That night we burned yon grass-grown town,—
The grasses, vines are reaching up;
The ruins they are reaching down,
As sun-browned soldiers when they sup.
"I knew her,-knew her constancy.
She said this night of every year
She here would come, and kneeling here,
Would pray the livelong night for me.
"This praying seems a splendid thing!
It drives old Time the other way;
It makes him lose all reckoning
Of years that I have had to pay.
"This praying seems a splendid thing!
It makes me stronger as she prays—
But oh, those bitter, bitter days,
When I became a banished thing!
"I fled, took ship, -I fled as far
As far ships drive tow'rd the North Star:
For I did hate the South, the sun I
That made me think what I had done.
"I could not see a fair palm-tree
In foreign land, in pleasant place,
But it would whisper of her face
And shake its keen, sharp blades at me.
"Each black-eyed woman would recall
A lone church-door, a face, a name,
A coward's flight, a soldier's shame:
I fled from woman's face, from all.
"I hugged my gold, my precious gold,
Within my strong, stout buckskin vest.
I wore my bags against my breast
So close I felt my heart grow cold.
"I did not like to see it now;
I did not spend one single piece;
I traveled, traveled without cease
As far as Russian ship could plow.
"And when my own scant hoard was gone,
And I had reached the far North-land,
I took my two stout bags in hand
As one pursued, and journeyed on.
"Ah, I was weary! I grew gray;
I felt the fast years slip and reel,
As slip bright beads when maidens kneel
At altars when outdoor is gay.
"At last I fell prone in the road,—
Fell fainting with my curséd load.
A skin-clad Cossack helped me bear
My bags, nor would one shilling share.
"I He looked at me with proud disdain, —
He looked at me as if he knew;
His black eyes burned me thro' and thro';
His scorn pierced like a deadly pain.
"He frightened me with honesty;
He made me feel so small, so base,
I fled, as if a fiend kept chase,—
A fiend that claimed my company!
"I bore my load alone; I crept
Far up the steep and icy way;
And there, before a cross there lay
A barefoot priest, who bowed and wept.
"I threw my gold right down and sped
Straight on. And oh, my heart was light!
A springtime bird in springtime flight
Flies scarce more happy than I fled.
"I felt somehow this monk would take
My gold, my load from off my back;
Would turn the fiend from off my track,
Would take my gold for sweet Christ's sake!
"I fled; I did not look behind;
I fled, fled with the mountain wind.
At last, far down the mountain's base
I found a pleasant resting-place.
"I rested there so long, so well,
More grateful than all tongues can tell.
It was such pleasant thing to hear
That valley's voices calm and clear.
"That valley veiled in mountain air,
With white goats on the hills at morn;
That valley green with seas of corn,
With cottage-islands here and there.
"I watched the mountain girls. The hay
They mowed was not more sweet than they;
They laid brown hands in my white hair;
They marveled at my face of care.
"I tried to laugh; I could but weep.
I made these peasants one request,—
That I with them might toil or rest,
And with them sleep the long, last sleep.
"I begged that I might battle there,
In that fair valley-land, for those
Who gave me cheer, when girt with foes,
And have a country loved as fair.
"Where is that spot that poets name
Our country? name the hallowed land?
Where is that spot where man must stand
Or fall when girt with sword and flame?
Where is that one permitted spot?
Where is the one place man must fight?
Where rests the one God-given right
To fight, as ever patriots fought?
"I say'tis in that holy house
Where God first set us down on earth;
Where mother welcomed us at birth,
And bared her breasts, a happy spouse.
"The simple plowboy from his field
Looks forth. He sees God's purple wall
Encircling him. High over all
The vast sun wheels his shining shield.
"This King, who makes earth what it is, —
King David bending to his toil!
0 lord and master of the soil,
How envied in thy loyal bliss!
"Long live the land we loved in youth
That world with blue skies bent about,
Where never entered ugly doubt!
Long live the simple, homely truth!
"Can true hearts love some far snow land,
Some bleak Alaska bought with gold?
God's laws are old as love is old;
And Home is something near at hand.
"Yea, change yon river's course; estrange
The seven sweet stars; make hate divide
The full imoon from the flowing tide,—
But this old truth ye cannot change.
"I begged a land as begging bread;
I begged of these brave mountaineers
To share their sorrows, share their tears;
To weep as they wept with their dead.
"They did consent. The mountain town
Was mine to love, and valley lands.
That night the barefoot monk came down
And laid my two bags in my hands!
"On! on! And oh, the load I bore!
Why, once I dreamed my soul was lead;
Dreamed once it was a body dead!
It made my cold, hard bosom sore.
"I dragged that body forth and back—
O conscience, what a baying hound!
Nor frozen seas nor frosted ground
Can throw this bloodhound from his track.
"In farthest Russia I lay down,
A dying man, at last to rest;
I felt such load upon my breast
As seamen feel, who, sinking, drown.
"That night, all chill and desperate,
I sprang up, for I could not rest;
I tore the two bags from my breast,
And dashed them in the burning grate.
"I then crept back into my bed;
I tried, I begged, I prayed to sleep;
But those red, restless coins would keep
Slow dropping, dropping, and blood-red.
"I heard them clink, and clink, and clink, —
They turned, they talked within that grate.
They talked of her; they made me think
Of one who still did pray and wait.
"And when the bags burned crisp and black,
Two coins did start, roll to the floor,—
Roll out, roll on, and then roll back,
As if they needs must journey more.
"Ah, then I knew nor change nor space,
Nor all the drowning years that rolled
Could hide from me her haunting face,
Nor still that red-tongued, talking gold!
"Again I sprang forth from my bed!
I shook as in an ague fit;
I clutched that red gold, burning red,
I clutched as if to strangle it.
"I clutched it up-you hear me, boy?—
I clutched it up with joyful tears!
I clutched it close with such wild joy
I had not felt for years and years?
"Such joy! for I should now retrace
My steps, should see my land, her face;
Bring back her gold this battle-day,
And see her, hear her, hear her pray!
"I brought it back-you hear me, boy?
I clutch it, hold it, hold it now;
Red gold, bright gold that giveth joy
To all, and anywhere or how;
"That giveth joy to all but me,—
To all but me, yet soon to all.
It burns my hands, it burns! but she
Shall ope my hands and let it fall.
"For oh, I have a willing hand
To give these bags of gold; to see
Her smile as once she smiled on me
Here in this pleasant warm palm-land."
He ceased, he thrust each hard-clenched
fist,He threw his gold hard forth again,
As one impelled by some mad pain
He would not or could not resist.
The Creole, scorning, turned away,
As if he turned from that lost thief,—
The one who died without belief
That dark, dread crucifixion day.
III.
Believe in man nor turn away.
Lo! man advances year by year;
Time bears him upward, and his sphere
Of life must broaden day by day.
Believe in man with large belief;
The garnered grain each harvest-time
Hath promise, roundness, and full prime
For all the empty chaff and sheaf.
Believe in man with brave belief;
Truth keeps the bottom of her well;
And when the thief peeps down, the thief
Peeps back at him perpetual.
Fear not for man, nor cease to delve
For cool, sweet truth, with large belief.
Lo! Christ himself chose only twelve,
Yet one of these turned out a thief.
IV.
Down through the dark magnolia leaves,
Where climbs the rose of Cherokee
Against the orange-blossomed tree,
A loom of morn-light weaves and weaves,—
A loom of morn-light, weaving clothes
From snow-white rose of Cherokee,
And bridal blooms of orange-tree,
For fairy folk housed in red rose.
Down through the mournful myrtle crape,
Thro' moving moss, thro' ghostly gloom,
A long, white morn-beam takes a shape
Above a nameless, lowly tomb;
A long white finger, through the gloom
Of grasses gathered round about,
As God's white finger pointing out
A name upon that nameless tomb.
V.
Her white face bowed in her black hair,
The maiden prays so still within
That you might hear a falling pin,—
Aye, hear her white, unuttered prayer.
The moon has grown disconsolate,
Has turned her down her walk of stars:
Why, she is shutting up her bars,
As maidens shut a lover's gate.
The moon has grown disconsolate;
She will no longer watch and wait.
But two men wait; and two men will
Wait on till full morn, mute and still.
Still wait and walk among the trees
Quite careless if the moon may keep
Her walk along her starry steep
Or drown her in the Southern seas.
Still wait and walk among the trees
Quite careless if the moon may keep
Her walk along her starry steep
Or drown her in the Southern seas.
They know no moon, or set or rise
Of sun, or anything to light
The earth or skies, save her dark eyes,
This praying, waking, watching night.
They move among the tombs apart,
Their eyes turn ever to that door;
They know the worn walks there by heart—
They turn and walk them o'er and o'er.
They are not wide, these little walks
For dead folk by this crescent town:
They lie right close when they lie down,
As if they kept up quiet talks.
VI.
The two men keep their paths apart;
But more and more begins to stoop
The man with gold, as droop and droop
Tall plants with something at their heart.
Now once again, with eager zest,
He offers gold with silent speech;
The other will not walk in reach,
But walks around, as round a pest.
His dark eyes sweep the scene around,
His young face drinks the fragrant air,
His dark eyes journey everywhere,—
The other's cleave unto the ground.
It is a weary walk for him,
For oh, he bears such weary load!
He does not like that narrow road
Between the dead-it is so dim:
It is so dark, that narrow place,
Where graves lie thick, like yellow leaves:
Give us the light of Christ and grace;
Give light to garner in the sheaves.
Give light of love; for gold is cold,—
Aye, gold is cruel as a crime;
It gives no light at such sad time
As when man's feet wax weak and old.
Aye, gold is heavy, hard, and cold!
And have I said this thing before?
Well, I will say it o'er and o'er,
'T were need be said ten thousand fold.
"Give us this day our daily bread,"—
Get this of God; then all the rest
Is housed in thine own earnest breast,
If you but lift an honest head.
VII.
Oh, I have seen men tall and fair,
Stoop down their manhood with disgust,—
Stoop down God's image to the dust,
To get a load of gold to bear:
Have seen men selling day by day
The glance of manhood that God gave:
To sell God's image, as a slave
Might sell some little pot of clay!
Behold! here in this green graveyard
A man with gold enough to fill
A coffin, as a miller's till;
And yet his path is hard, so hard!
His feet keep sinking in the sand,
And now so near an opened grave!
He seems to hear the solemn wave
Of dread oblivion at hand.
The sands, they grumble so, it seems
As if he walks some shelving brink;
He tries to stop, he tries to think,
He tries to make believe he dreams:
Why, he was free to leave the land,—
The silver moon was white as dawn;
Why, he has gold in either hand,
Had silver ways to walk upon.
And who should chide, or bid him stay?
Or taunt, or threat, or bid him fly?
A The world's for sale," I hear men say,
And yet this man had gold to buy.
Buy what? Buy rest? He could not rest!
Buy gentle sleep? He could not sleep,
Though all these graves were wide and deep
As their wide mouths with the request.
Buy Love, buy faith, buy snow-white truth?
Buy moonlight, sunlight, present, past?
Buy but one brimful cup of youth
That true souls drink of to the last?
O God!'t was pitiful to see
This miser so forlorn and old!
0 God! how poor a man may be
With nothing in this world but gold!
VIII.
The broad magnolia's blooms werewhite;
Her blooms were large, as if the moon
Quite lost her way that dreamful night,
And lodged to wait the afternoon.
Oh, vast white blossoms, breathing love!
White bosom of my lady dead,
In your white heaven overhead
I look, and learn to look above.
IX.
The dew-wet roses wept; their eyes
All dew, their breath as sweet as prayer.
And as they wept, the dead down there
Did feel their tears and hear their sighs.
The grass uprose, as if afraid
Some stranger foot might press too near;
Its every blade was like a spear,
Its every spear a living blade.
The grass above that nameless tomb
Stood all arrayed, as if afraid
Some weary pilgrim, seeking room
And rest, might lay where she was laid.
X.
'T was morn, and yet it was not morn;
'T was morn in heaven, not on earth:
A star was singing of a birth,—
Just saying that a day was born.
The marsh hard by that bound the
lake,The great stork sea-lake, Ponchartrain,
Shut off from sultry Cuban main,—
Drew up its legs, as half awake:
Drew long, thin legs, stork-legs that steep
In slime where alligators creep,—
Drew long, green legs that stir the grass,
As when the lost, lorn night winds pass.
Then from the marsh came croakings low;
Then louder croaked some sea-marsh beast;
Then, far away against the east,
God's rose of morn began to grow.
From out the marsh against that east,
A ghostly moss-swept cypress stood;
With ragged arms, above the wood
It rose, a God-forsaken beast.
It seemed so frightened where it rose!
The moss-hung thing, it seemed to wave
The worn-out garments of a grave,—
To wave and wave its old grave-clothes.
Close by, a cow rose up and lowed
From out a palm-thatched milking-shed;
A black boy on the river road
Fled sudden, as the night had fled:
A nude black boy,-a bit of night
That had been broken off and lost
From flying night, the time it crossed
The soundless river in its flight:
A bit of darkness, following
The sable night on sable wing,—
A bit of darkness, dumb with fear,
Because that nameless tomb was near.
Then holy bells came pealing out;
Then steamboats blew, then horses neighed;
Then smoke from hamlets round about
Crept out, as if no more afraid.
Then shrill cocks here, and shrill cocks there,
Stretched glossy necks and filled the air;—
How many cocks it takes to make
A country morning well awake!
Then many boughs, with many birds,—
Young boughs in green, old boughs in gray;
These birds had very much to say,
In their soft, sweet, familiar words.
And all seemed sudden glad; the gloom
Forgot the church, forgot the tomb;
And yet, like monks with cross and bead,
The myrtles leaned to read and read.
And oh, the fragrance of the sod!
And oh, the perfume of the air!
The sweetness, sweetness everywhere,
That rose like incense up to God!
* * * * * *
I like a cow's breath in sweet spring;
I like the breath of babes new-born;
A maid's breath is a pleasant thing,—
But oh, the breath of sudden morn!
Of sudden morn, when every pore
Of Mother Earth is pulsing fast
With life, and life seems spilling o'er
With love, with love too sweet to last:
Of sudden morn beneath the sun,
By God's great river wrapped in gray,
That for a space forgets to run,
And hides his face, as if to pray.
XI.
The black-eyed Creole kept his eyes
Turned to the door, as eyes might turn
To see the holy embers burn
Some sin away at sacrifice.
Full dawn! but yet he knew no dawn,
Nor song of bird, nor bird on wing,
Nor breath of rose, nor anything
Her fair face lifted not upon.
And yet he taller stood with morn;
His bright eyes, brighter than before,
Burned fast against that favored door,
His proud lips lifting still with scorn,
A SONG OF THE SOUTH.
With lofty, silent scorn for one
Who all night long had plead and plead,
With none to witness but the dead
How he for gold had been undone.
O ye who feed a greed for gold
And barter truth, and trade sweet youth
For cold, hard gold, behold, behold!
Behold this man! behold this truth!
Why what is there in all God's plan
Of vast creation, high or low,
By sea or land, by sun or snow,
So mean, so miserly as man?
* * * * * *
Lo, earth and heaven all let go
Their garnered riches, year by year!
The treasures of the trackless snow,
Ah, hast thou seen how very dear?
The wide earth gives, gives golden grain,
Gives fruits of gold, gives all, gives all!
Hold forth your hand, and these shall fall
In your full palm as free as rain.
Yea, earth is generous. The trees
Strip nude as birth-time without fear;
And their reward is year by year
To feel their fullness but increase.
The law of Nature is to give,
To give, to give! and to rejoice
In giving with a generous.voice,
And so trust God and truly live.
* * * * * *
But see this miser at the last,—
This man who loved, who worshipped gold,
Who grasped gold with such eager hold,
He fain must hold forever fast:
As if to hold what God lets go;
As if to hold, while all around
Lets go and drops upon the ground
All things as generous as snow.
Let go your hold! let go or die!
Let go poor soul! Do not refuse
Till death comes by and shakes you loose,
And sends you shamed to hell for aye!
What if the sun should keep his gold?
The rich moon lock her silver up?
What if the gold-clad buttercup
Became such miser, mean and old?
Ah, me! the coffins are so true
In all accounts, the shrouds so th in
That down there you might sew and sew,
Nor ever sew one pocket in.
And all that you can hold of lands
Down there, below the grass, down there,
Will only be that little share
You hold in your two dust-full hands.
XII.
She comes! she comes! The stony floor
Speaks out! And now the rusty door
At last has just one word this day,
With mute, religious lips, to say.
She comes! she comes! And lo, her face
Is upward, radiant, fair as prayer!
So pure here in this holy place,
Where holy peace is everywhere.
Her upraised face, her face of light
And loveliness. from duty done,
Is like a rising orient sun
That pushes back the brow of night.
* * * * * *
How brave, how beautiful is truth!
Good deeds untold are like to this.
But fairest or all fair things is
A pious maiden in her youth:
A pious maiden as she stands
Just ou the threshold of the years
That throb and pulse with hopes and fears,
And reaches God her helpless hands.
* * * * * *
How fair is she! How fond is she!
Her foot upon the threshold there.
Her breath is as a blossomed tree,—
This maiden mantled in her hair!
Her hair, her black abundant hair,
Where night inhabited, all night
And all this day, will not take flight,
But finds content and houses there.
Her hands are clasped, her two small hands:
They hold the holy book of prayer
Just as she steps the threshold there,
Clasped downward where she silent stands.
XIII.
Once more she lifts her lowly face,
And slowly lifts her large, dark eyes
Of wonder, and in still surprise
She looks full forward in her place.
She looks full forward on the air
Above the tomb, and yet below
The fruits of gold, the blooms of snow,
As looking—looking anywhere.
She feels-she knows not what she feels—
It is not terror, is not fear.
But there is something that reveals
A presence that is near and dear.
She does not let her eyes fall down,
They lift against the far profound:
Against the blue above the town
Two wide-winged vultures circle round.
Two brown birds swim above the sea,—
Her large eyes swim as dreamily,
And follow far, and follow high,
Two circling black specks in the sky.
One forward step,-the closing door
Creaks out, as frightened or in pain;
Her eyes are on the ground again—
Two men are standing close before.
"My love," sighs one,"my life, my all!"
Her lifted foot across the sill
Sinks down.—and all things are so still
You hear the orange-blossoms fall.
But fear comes not where duty is.
And purity is peace and rest;
Her cross is close upon her breast,
Her two hands clasp hard hold of this.
Her two hands clasp cross, book, and she
Is strong in tranquil purity,—
Aye, strong as Samson when he laid
His two hands forth and bowed and prayed.
One at her left, one at her right,
And she between the steps upon,—
I can but see that Syrian right,
The women there at early dawn.
XIV.
The sky is like an opal sea,
The air is like the breath of kine;
But oh, her face is white, and she
Leans faint to see a lifted sign,—
To see two hands lift up and wave,—
To see a face so white with woe,
So ghastly, hollow, white as though
It had that moment left the grave.
Her sweet face at that ghostly sign,
Her fair face in her waeight ot hair,
Is like a white dove drowning there,—
A white dove drowned in Tuscan wine.
He tries to stand, to stand erect;
'Tis gold,'tis gold that holds him down! I
And soul and body both must drown,—
Two millstones tied about his neck.
Now once again his piteo us face
Is raised to her face reaching there
He prays such piteous silent prayer,
As prays a dying man for grace.
It is not good to see him strain
To lift his hands, to gasp, to try
To speak. His parched lips are so dry
Their sight is as a living pain,
I think that rich man down in hell
Some like this old man with his gold,—
To gasp and gasp perpetual,
Like to this minute I have told.
XV.
At last the miser cries his pain,—
A shrill, wild cry, as if a grave
Just op'd its stony lips and gave
One sentence forth. then closed again.
"'Twas twenty years last night, last night! ",
His lips still moved, but not to speak;
His outstretched hands, so trembling weak,
Were beggar's hands in sorry plight.
His face upturned to hers; his lips
Kept talking on, but gave no sound;
His feet were cloven to the ground;
Like iron hooks his finger tips.
"Aye, twenty years," she sadly sighed:
"I promised mother every year.
That I would pray for father here,
As she still prayed the night she died:
"To pray as she prayed, fervently,
As she had promised she would pray
The sad night that he turned away,
For him, wherever he might be."
Then she was still; then sudden she
Let fall her eyes, and so outspake,
As if her very heart would break,
Her proud lips trembling piteously:
"And whether he comes soon or late
To kneel beside this nameless grave,
May God forgive my father's hate
As I forgive, as she forgave!"
He saw the stone; he understood,
With that quick knowledge that will come
Most quick when men are made most dumb
With terror that stops still the blood.
And then a blindness slowly fell
On soul and body; but his hands
Held tight his bags, two iron bands,
As if to bear them into hell.
He sank upon the nameless stone
With oh! such sad, such piteous moan
As never man might seek to know
From man's most unforgiving foe.
He sighed at last, so long, so deep,
As one heart breaking in one's sleep,—
One long, last, weary, willing sigh,
As if it were a grace to die.
And then his hands, like loosened bands,
Hung down, hung down, on either side;
His hands hung down, hung open wide:
Wide empty hung the dead man's hands.

Home

Click here for more

Poetry

A Song of the South

Joaquin Miller