Even So

by Joaquin Miller

Sierras, and eternal tents

Of snow that flash o'er battlements

Of mountains! My land of the sun,

Am I not true? have I not done

All things for thine, for thee alone,

O sun-land, sea-land, thou mine own?

Be my reward some litt,e place

To pitch my tent, some tree and vine

Where I may sit with lifted face,

And drink the sun as drinking wine:

Where sweeps the Oregon, and where

White storms caroused on perfumed air.

n the shadows a-west of the sunset mountains,
Where old-time giants had dwelt and peopled,
And built up cities and castled battlements,
And rear'd up pillars that pierced the heavens,
A poet dwelt, of the book of Nature—
An ardent lover of the pure and beautiful,
Devoutest lover of the true and beautiful.
Profoundest lover of the grand and beautiful—
With heart all impulse, and intensest passion,
Who believed in love as in God eternal—
A dream while the waken'd world went over,
An Indian summer of the singing seasons;
And he sang wild songs like the wind in cedars,
Was tempest-toss'd as the pines, yet ever
As fix'd in faith as they in the mountains
He had heard a name as one hears of a princess,
Her glory had come unto him in stories;
From afar he had look'd as entranced upon her;
He gave her name to the wind in measures
And he heard her name in the deep-voiced cedars,
And afar in the winds rolling on like the billows,
Her name in the name of another forever
Gave all his numbers their grandest strophes;
Enshrined her image in his heart's high temple,
And saint-like held her, too sacred for mortal.
*****
He came to fall like a king of the forest
Caught in the strong storm arms of the wrestler;
Forgetting his songs, his crags and his mountains,
And nearly his God, in his wild deep passion;
And when he had won her and turn'd him homeward,
With the holiest pledges love gives its lover,
The mountain route was as strewn with roses.
Can high love then be a thing unholy,
To make us better and bless'd supremely?
The day was fix'd for the feast and nuptials;
He crazed with impatience at the tardy hours;
He flew in the face of old Time as a tyrant;
He had fought the days that stood still between them,
Fought one by one, as you fight with a foeman,
Had they been animate and sensate beings.
At last then the hour came coldly forward.
When Mars was trailing his lance on the mountains
He rein'd his steed and look'd down in the canyon
To where she dwelt, with a heart of fire.
He kiss'd his hand to the smoke slow curling,
Then bow'd his head in devoutest blessing.
His spotted courser did plunge and fret him
Beneath his gay silken-fringed carona
And toss his neck in a black-mane banner'd;
Then all afoam, plunging iron-footed,
Dash'd him down with a wild impatience.
A coldness met him, like the breath of a cavern,
As he joyously hasten'd across the threshold.
She came, and coldly she spoke and scornful,
In answer to warm and impulsive passion.
All things did array them in shapes most hateful,
And life did seem but a jest intolerable.
He dared to question her why this estrangement:
She spoke with a strange and stiff indifference,
And bade him go on all alone life's journey.
Then stern and tall he did stand up before her,
And gaze dark-brow'd through the low narrow casement.
For a time, as if warring in thought with a passion;
Then, crushing hard down the hot welling bitterness,
He folded his for m i n a sullen silentness
And turned for ever away from her presence;
Bearing his sorrow like some great burden,
Like a black nightmare in his hot heart muffled;
With his faith in the truth of woman broken.
*****
'Mid Theban pillars, where sang the Pindar,
Breathing the breath of the Grecian islands,
Breathing in spices and olive and myrtle,
Counting the caravans, curl'd and snowy,
Slow journeying over his head to Mecca
Or the high Christ land of most holy memory,
Counting the clouds through the boughs above him,
That brush'd white marbles that time had chisel'd
And rear'd as tombs on the great dead city,
Letter'd with solemn but unread moral—
A poet rested in the red-hot summer.
He took no note of the things about him,
But dream'd and counted the clouds above him;
His soul was troubled, and his sad heart's Mecca
Was a miner's home far over the ocean,
Banner'd by pines that did brush blue heaven.
When the sun went down on the bronzed Morea,
He read to himself from the lines of sorrow
That came as a wail from the one he worshipp'd,
Sent over the seas by an old companion:
They spoke no word of him, or remembrance.
And he was most sad, for he felt forgotten,
And said: "In the leaves of her fair heart's album
She has cover'd my face with the face of another.
Let the great sea lift like a wall between us,
High-back'd, with his mane of white storms for ever—
I shall learn to love, I shall wed my sorrow,
I shall take as a spouse the days that are perish'd;
I shall dwell in a land where the march of genius
Made tracks in marble in the days of giants;
I shall sit in the ruins where sat the Marius,
Gray with the ghosts of the great departed. "
And then he said in the solemn twilight...
"Strangely wooing are yon worlds above us,
Strangely beautiful is the Faith of Islam,
Strangely sweet are the songs of Solomon,
Strangely tender are the teachings of Jesus,
Strangely cold is the sun on the mountains,
Strangely mellow is the moon on old ruins,
Strangely pleasant are the stolen waters,
Strangely lighted is the North night region,
Strangely strong are the streams in the ocean,
Strangely true are the tales of the Orient,
But stranger than all are the ways of women."
His head on his hands and his hands on the marble,
Alone in the midnight he slept in the ruins;
And a form was before him white mantled in moonlight,
And bitter he said to the one he had worshipp'd
"Your hands in mine. your face, your eyes
Look level into mine, and mine
Are not abashed in anywise
As eyes were in an elden syne.
Perhaps the pulse is colder now,
And blood comes tamer to the brow
Because of hot blood long ago....
Withdraw your hand?.... Well, be it so,
And turn your bent head slow sidewise,
For recollections are as seas
That come and go in tides, and these
Are flood tides filling to the eyes.
"How strange that you above the vale
And I below the mountain wall
Should walk and meet!..Why, you are pale!..
Strange meeting on the mountain fringe!..
....More strange we ever met at all!....
Tides come and go, we know their time;
The moon, we know her wane or prime;
But who knows how the heart may hinge?
You stand before me here to-night,
But not beside me, not beside—
Are beautiful, but not a bride.
Some things I recollect aright,
Though full a dozen years are done
Since we two met one winter night—
Since I was crush'd as by a fall;
For I have watch'd and pray'd through all
The shining circles of the sun.
"I saw you where sad cedars wave;
I sought you in the dewy eve
When shining crickets trill and grieve;
You smiled, and I became a slave.
A slave! I worshipp'd you at night,
When all the blue field blossom'd red
With dewy roses overhead
In sweet and delicate delight.
I was devout. I knelt that night
To Him who doeth all things well.
I tried in vain to break the spell;
My prison'd soul refused to rise
And image saints in Paradise,
While one was here before my eyes.
"Some things are sooner marr'd than made.
A frost fell on a soul that night,
And one was black that erst was white.
And you forget the place-the night!
Forget that aught was done or said—
Say this has pass'd a long decade—
Say not a single tear was shed—
Say you forget these little things!
Is not your recollection loth?
Well, little bees have bitter stings,
And I remember for us both.
"No, not a tear. Do men complain?
The outer wound will show a stain,
And we may shriek at idle pain;
But pierce the heart, and not a word,
Or wail, or sign, is seen or heard.
"I did not blame-I do not blame,
My wild heart turns to you the same,
Such as it is; but oh, its meed
Of faithfulness and trust and truth,
And earnest confidence of youth,
I caution, you, is small indeed.
"I follow'd you, I worshipp'd you
And I would follow, worship still;
But if I felt the blight and chill
Of frosts in my uncheerful spring,
And show it now in riper years
In answer to this love you bring
In answer to this second love,
This wail of an unmated dove,
In cautious answer to your tears—
You, you know who taught me disdain.
But deem you I would deal you pain?
I joy to know your heart is light,
I journey glad to know it thus,
And could I dare to make it less?
Yours-you are day, but I am night.
"God knows I would descend to-day
Devoutly on my knees, and pray
Your way might be one path of peace
Through bending boughs and blossom'd trees,
And perfect bliss throu gh roses fair;
But know you, back—one long decade—
How fervently, how fond I pray'd?—
What was the answer to that prayer?
"The tale is old, and often told
And lived by more than you suppose—
The fragrance of a summer rose
Press'd down beneath the stubborn lid,
When sun and song are hush'd and hid,
And summer days are gray and old.
"We parted so. Amid the bays
And peaceful palms and song and shade
Your cheerful feet in pleasure stray'd
Through all the swift and shining days.
" You made my way another way,
You bade it should not be with thine—
A fierce and cheerless route was mine:
But we have met, to-night-to-day.
"You talk of tears—of bitter tears—
And tell of tyranny and wrong,
And I re-live some stinging jeers,
Back, far back, in the leaden years.
A lane without a turn is long,
I muse, and whistle a reply—
Then bite my lips and crush a sigh.
"You sympathize that I am sad,
I sigh for you that you complain,
I shake my yellow hair in vain,
I laugh with lips, but am not glad.
* * * * * * * *
.... "His was a hot love of the hours,
And love and lover both are flown;
Now you walk, like a ghost, alone.
He sipp'd your sunny lips, and he
Took all their honey; now the bee
Bends down the heads of other flowers
And other lips lift up to kiss...
... I am not cruel, yet I find
A savage solace for the mind
And sweet delight in saying this...
Now you are silent, white, and you
Lift up your hands as making sign,
And your rich lips lie thin and blue
And ashen.... and you writhe, and you
Breathe quick and tremble... is it true
The soul takes wounds, sheds blood like wine?
* * * * * * * *
... "You seem so most uncommon tall
Against the lonely ghostly moon,
That hurries homeward oversoon,
And hides behind you and the pines;
And your two hands hang cold and small,
And your two thin arms lie like vines,
Or winter moonbeams on a wall.
... What if you be a weary ghost,
And I but dream, and dream I wake?
Then wake me not, and my mistake
Is not so bad;, let's make the most
Of all we get, asleep, awake—
And waste not one sweet thing at all.
God knows that, at the best, life brings
The soul's share so exceeding small
We weary for some better things,
And hunger even unto death.
Laugh loud, be glad with ready breath,
For after all are joy and grief
Not merely matters of belief?
And what is certain after all,
But death, delightful, patient death?
The cool and perfect, peaceful sleep,
Without one tossing hand, or deep
Sad sigh and catching in of breath!
"Be satisfied. The price of breath
Is paid in toil. But knowledge is
Bought only with a weary care,
And wisdom means a world of pain....
Well, we have suffered, will again,
And we can work and wait and bear,
Strong in the certainty of bliss.
Death is delightful: after death
Breaks in the dawn of perfect day.
Let question he who will: the May
Throws fragrance far beyond the wall.
"Death is delightful. Death is dawn.
Fame is not much, love is not much,
Yet what else is there worth the touch
Of lifted hand with dagger drawn?
So surely life is little worth:
Therefore I say, Look up; therefore
I say, One little star has more
Bright gold than all the earth of earth.
"Yea, we must labor, plant to reap—
Life knows no folding up of hands—
Must plow the soul, as plowing lands;
In furrows fashion'd strong and deep.
Life has its lesson. Let us learn
The hard, long lesson from the birth,
And be content; stand breast to breast,
And bear and battle till the rest.
Yet I look to yon stars, and say:
Thank Christ, ye are so far away
That when I win you I can turn
And look, and see no sign of earth.
* * * * * * * *

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Poetry

Even So

by Joaquin Miller