THE GOLD THAT GREW BY SHASTA TOWN.
Joaquin Miller
rom Shasta town to Redding town - The ground is torn by miners dead;
- The manzanita, rank and red,
- Drops dusty berries up and down
- Their grass-grown trails. Their silent mines
- Are wrapped in chaparral and vines;
- Yet one gray miner still sits down
- Twixt Redding and sweet Shasta town.
- The quail pipes pleasantly. The hare
- Leaps careless o'er the golden oat
- That grows below the water moat;
- The lizard basks in sunlight there.
- The brown hawk swims the perfumed air
- Unfrightened through the livelong day;
- And now and then a curious bear
- Comes shuffling down the ditch by night,
- And leaves some wide, long tracks in clay
- So human-like, so stealthy light,
- Where one lone cabin still stoops down
- Twixt Redding and sweet Shasta town.
- That great graveyard of hopes! of men
- Who sought for hidden veins of gold;
- Of young men suddenly grown old
- Of old men dead, despairing when
- The gold was just within their hold!
- That storied land, whereon the light
- Of other days gleams faintly still;
- Somelike the halo of a hill
- That lifts above the falling night;
- That warm, red, rich and human land,
- That flesh-red soil, that warm red sand,
- Where one gray miner still sits down!
- Twixt Redding and sweet Shasta town!
- "I know the vein is here!" he said;
- For twenty years, for thirty years!
- While far away fell tears on tears
- From wife and babe who mourned him dead.
- No gold! No gold! And he grew old
- And crept to toil with bended head
- Amid a graveyard of his dead,
- Still seeking for that vein of gold.
- Then lo, came laughing down the years
- A sweet grandchild! Between his tears
- He laughed. He set her by the door
- The while he toiled; his day's toil o'er
- He held her chubby cheeks between
- His hard palms, laughed; and laughing cried.
- You should have seen, have heard and seen
- His boyish joy, his stout old pride,
- When toil was done and he sat down
- At night, below sweet Shasta town!
- At last his strength was gone. "No more!
- I mine no more. I plant me now
- A vine and fig-tree; worn and old,
- I seek no more my vein of gold.
- But, oh, I sigh to give it o'er;
- These thirty years of toil! somehow
- It seems so hard; but now, no more."
- And so the old man set him down
- To plant, by pleasant Shasta town.
- And it was pleasant; piped the quail
- The full year through. The chipmunk stole,
- His whiskered nose and tossy tail
- Full buried in the sugar-bowl.
- And purple grapes and grapes of gold
- Swung sweet as milk. While orange-trees
- Grew brown with laden honey-bees.
- Oh! it was pleasant up and down
- That vine-set hill of Shasta town.
- * * * * * *
- And then that cloud-burst came! Ah, me!
- That torn ditch there! The mellow land
- Rolled seaward like a rope of sand,
- Nor left one leafy vine or tree
- Of all that Eden nestling down
- Below that moat by Shasta town!
- * * * * * *
- The old man sat his cabin's sill,
- His gray head bowed to hands and knee;
- The child went forth, sang pleasantly,
- Where burst the ditch the the day before,
- And picked some pebbles from the hill.
- The old man moaned, moaned o'er and o'er:
- "My babe is dowerless, and I
- Must fold my helpless hands and die!
- Ah, me! What curse comes ever down
- On me and mine at Shasta town."
- "Good Grandpa, see!" the glad child said,
- And so leaned softly to his side—
- Laid her gold head to his gray head,
- And merry voiced and cheery cried,
- "Good Grandpa, do not weep, but see
- I've found a peck of orange seeds!
- I searched the hill for vine or tree;
- Not one! not even oats or weeds;
- But, oh! such heaps of orange seeds!
- "Come, good Grandpa! Now, once you said
- That God is good. So this may teach
- That we must plant each seed, and each
- May grow to be an orange tree.
- Now, good Grandpa, please raise your head,
- And please come plant the seeds with me."
- And prattling thus, or like to this,
- The child thrust her full hands in his.
- He sprang, sprang upright as of old.
- "Tis gold! tis gold! my hidden vein!
- Tis gold for you, sweet babe, tis gold!
- Yea, God is good; we plant again! "
- So one old miner still sits down
- By pleasant, sunlit Shasta town.