An Answer
by Joaquin Miller
ell! who shall lay hand on my harp but me,- Or shall chide my song from the sounding trees?
- The passionate sun and the resolute sea,
- These were my masters, and only these.
- These were my masters, and only these,
- And these from the first I obey'd, and they
- Shall command me now, and I shall obey
- As a dutiful child that is proud to please.
- There never were measures as true as the sun,
- The sea hath a song that is passingly sweet,
- And yet they repeat, and repeat, and repeat,
- The same old runes though the new years run.
- By unnamed rivers of the Oregon north,
- That roll dark-heaved into turbulent hills,
- I have made my home...... The wild heart thrills
- With memories fierce, and a world storms forth.
- On eminent peaks that are dark with pine,
- And mantled in shadows and voiced in storms,
- I have made my camps: majestic gray forms
- Of the thunder-clouds, they were companions of Mine;
- And face set to face, like to lords austere,
- Have we talk'd, red-tongued, of the mysteries
- Of the circling sun, of the oracled seas,
- While ye who judged me had mantled in fear.
- Some fragment of thought in the unfinish'd words;
- A cry of fierce freedom, and I claim no more.
- What more would you have from the tender of herds
- And of horse on an ultimate Oregon shore?
- From men unto God go forth, as alone,
- Where the dark pines talk in their tones of the sea
- To the unseen God in a harmony
- Of the under seas, and know the unknown.
- 'Mid white Sierras, that slope to the sea,
- Lie turbulent lands. Go dwell in the skies,
- And the thundering tongues of Yosemite
- Shall persuade you to silence, and you shall be wise.
- Yea, men may deride, and the thing it is well;
- Turn well and aside from the one wild note
- To the song of the bird with the tame, sweet throat;
- But the sea sings on in his cave and shell.
- Let the white moons ride, let the red stars fall,
- 0 great, sweet sea! 0 fearful and sweet!
- Thy songs they repeat, and repeat, and repeat:
- And these, I say, shall survive us all.