The Sea of Fire

THE SEA OF FIRE.

Joaquin Miller

n a land so far that you wonder whether

If God would know it should you fall down dead;

In a land so far through the soft, warm weather

That the sun sinks red as a warrior sped,—

Where the sea and the sky seem closing together,

Seem closing together as a book that is read:

'Tis the half-finished world! Yon footfall retreating,—

It might be the Maker disturbed at his task.

But the footfall of God, or the far pheasant beating,

It is one and the same, whatever the mask

It may wear unto man. The woods keep repeating

The old sacred sermons, whatever you ask.

It is man in his garden, scarce wakened as yet

From the sleep that fell on him when woman was made.

The new-finished garden is plastic and wet

From the hand that has fashioned its unpeopled shade;

And the wonder still looks from the fair woman's eyes

As she shines through the wood like the light from the skies.

And a ship now and then for this far Ophir shore

Draws in from the sea. It lies close to the bank;

Then a dull, muffled sound on the slow shuffled plank

As they load the black ship; but you hear nothing more,

And the dark, dewy vines, and the tall, somber wood

Like twilight droop over the deep, sweeping flood.

The black masts are tangled with branches that cross,

The rich fragrant gums fall from branches to deck,

The thin ropes are swinging with streamers of moss

That mantle all things like the shreds of a wreck;

The long mosses swing, there is never a breath:

The river rolls still as the river of death.
I.
In the beginning, —ay, before
The six-days' labors were well o'er;
Yea, while the world lay incomplete,
Ere God had opened quite the door
Of this strange land for strong men's feet,—
There lay against that westmost sea,
A weird, wild land of mystery.
A far white wall, like fallen moon,
Girt out the world. The forest lay
So deep you scarcely saw the day,
Save in the high-held middle noon:
It lay a land of sleep and dreams,
And clouds drew through like shoreless streams
That stretch to where no man may say.
Men reached it only from the sea,
By black-built ships, that seemed to creep
Along the shore suspiciously,
Like unnamed monsters of the deep.
It was the weirdest land, I ween,
That mortal eye has ever seen.
A dim, dark land of bird and beast,
Black shaggy beasts with cloven claw,—
a land that scarce knew prayer or priest,
Or law of man, or Nature's law;
Where no fixed line drew sharp dispute
'Twixt savage man and sullen brute.
II.
It hath a history most fit
For cunning hand to fashion on;
No chronicler hath mentioned it;
No buccaneer set foot upon.
'Tis of an outlawed Spanish Don,—
A cruel man, with pirate's gold
That loaded down his deep ship's hold.
A deep ship's hold of plundered gold!
The golden cruse, the golden cross,
From many a church of Mexico,
From Panama's mad overthrow,
From many a ransomed city's loss,
From many a follower fierce and bold,
And many a foeman stark and cold.
He found this wild, lost land. He drew
His ship to shore. His ruthless crew,
Like Romulus, laid lawless hand
On meek brown maidens of the land,
And in their bloody forays bore
Red firebrands along the shore.
III.
The red men rose at night. They came,
A firm, unflinching wall of flame;
They swept, as sweeps some fateful sea
O'er land of sand and level shore
That howls in far, fierce agony.
The red men swept that deep, dark shore
As threshers sweep a threshing floor.
And yet beside the slain Don's door
They left his daughter, as they fled:
They spared her life because she bore
Their Chieftain's blood and name. The red
And blood-stained hidden hoards of gold
They hollowed from the stout ship's hold,
And bore in many a slim canoe—
To where? The good priest only knew.
IV.
The course of life is like the sea;
Men come and go; tides rise and fall;
And that is all of history.
The tide flows in, flows out to-day—
And that is all that man may say;
Man is, man was, —and that is all.
Revenge at last came like a tide,—
'T was sweeping, deep and terrible;
The Christian found the land, and came
To take possession in Christ's name.
For every white man that had died
I think a thousand red men fell,—
A Christian custom; and the land
Lay lifeless as some burned-out brand.
V.
Ere while the slain Don's daughter grew
A glorious thing, a flower of spring,
A something more than mortals knew;
A mystery of grace and face,—
A silent mystery that stood
An empress in that sea-set wood,
Supreme, imperial in her place.
It might have been men's lust for gold, —
For all men knew that lawless crew
Left hoards of gold in that ship's hold,
That drew ships hence, and silent drew
Strange Jasons there to love or dare;
I never knew, nor need I care.
I say it might have been this gold
That ever drew and strangely drew
Strong men of land, strange men of sea
To seek this shore of mystery
With all its wondrous tales untold;
The gold or her, which of the two?
It matters not to me, or you.
But this I know, that as for me,
Between that face and the hard fate
That kept me ever from my own,
As some wronged monarch from his throne,
All heaped-up gold of land or sea
Had never weighed one feather's weight.
Her home was on the wooded height,—
A woody home, a priest at prayer,
A perfume in the fervid air,
And angels watching her at night.
I can but think upon the skies
That bound that other Paradise.
VI.
Below a star-built arch, as grand
As ever bended heaven spanned,
Tall trees like mighty columns grew—
They loomed as if to pierce the blue,
They reached, as reaching heaven through.
The shadowed stream rolled far below,
Where men moved noiseless to and fro
As in some vast cathedral, when
The calm of prayer comes to men,
And benedictions bless them so.
What wooded sea-banks, wild and steep!
What trackless wood! what snowy cone
That lifted from this wood alone!
What wild, wide river, dark and deep!
What ships against the shore asleep!
VII.
An Indian woman cautious crept
About the land the while it slept,
The relic of her perished race.
She wore rich, rudely-fashioned bands
Of gold above her bony hands;
She hissed hot curses on the place!
VIII.
Go seek the red man's last retreat!
What lonesome lands! what haunted lands!
Red mouths of beasts, red men's red hands;
Red prophet-priests, in mute defeat.
From Incan temples overthrown
To lorn Alaska's isles of bone
The red man lives and dies alone.
His boundaries in blood are writ!
His land is ghostland! That is his,
Whatever we may claim of this;
Beware how you shall enter it!
He stands God's guardian of ghostlands;
Yea, this same wrapped half-prophet stands
All nude and voiceless, nearer to
The dread, lone God than I or you.
IX.
This bronzed child, by that river's brink,
Stood fair to see as you can think,
As tall as tall reeds at her feet,
As fresh as flowers in her hair-,
As sweet as flowers over-sweet,
As fair as vision more than fair!
How beautiful she was! How wild!
How pure as water-plant, this child,—
This one wild child of Nature here
Grown tall in shadows.

And how near

To God, where no man stood between
Her eyes and scenes no man hath seen,—
This maiden that so mutely stood,
The one lone woman of that wood.
_Stop still, my friend, and do not stir,
Shut close your page and think of her.
The birds sang sweeter for her face;
Her lifted eyes were like a grace
To seamen of that solitude,
However rough, however rude.
The rippled river of her hair,
Flowed in such wondrous waves, somehow
Flowed down divided by her brow,—
It mantled her within its care,
And flooded all her form below,
In its uncommon fold and flow.
A perfume and an incense lay
Before her, as an incense sweet
Before blithe mowers of sweet May
In early morn. Her certain feet
Embarked on no uncertain way.
Come, think how perfect before men,
How sweet as sweet magnolia bloom
Embalmed in dews of morning, when
Rich sunlight leaps from midnight gloom
Resolved to kiss, and swift to kiss
Ere yet morn wakens man to bliss.
X.
The days swept on. Her perfect year
Was with her now. The sweet perfume
Of womanhood in holy bloom,
As when red harvest blooms appear,
Possessed her soul. The priest did pray
That saints alone should pass that way.
A red bird built beneath her roof,
Brown squirrels crossed her cabin sill,
And welcome came or went at will.
A hermit spider wove his web
Above her door and plied his trade,
With none to fright or make afraid.
The silly elk, the spotted fawn,
And all dumb beasts that came to drink,
That stealthy stole upon the brink
By coming night or going dawn,
On seeing her familiar face
Would fearless stop and stand in place.
She was so kind, the beasts of night
Gave her the road as if her right;
The panther crouching overhead
In sheen of moss would hear her tread,
And bend his eyes, but never stir
Lest he by chance might frighten her.
Yet in her splendid strength, her eyes,
There lay the lightning of the skies;
The love-hate of the lioness,
To kill the instant or caress:
A pent-up soul that sometimes grew
Impatient; why, she hardly knew.
At last she sighed, uprose, and threw
Her strong arms out as if to hand
Her love, sun-born and all complete
At birth, to some brave lover's feet
On some far, fair, and unseen land,
As knowing not quite what to do!
XI.
How beautiful she was! Why, she
Was inspiration! She was born
To walk God's sunlit hills at morn,
Nor waste her by this wood-dark sea.
What wonder, then, her soul's white wings
Beat at its bars; like living things!
Once more she sighed! She wandered through
The sea-bound wood, then stopped and drew
Her hand above her face, and swept
The lonesome sea, and all day kept
Her face to sea, as if she knew
Some day, some near or distant day.
Her destiny should come that way.
XII.
How proud she was! How darkly fair!
How full of faith, of love, of strength!
Her calm, proud eyes! Her great hair's length,—
Her long, strong, tumbled, careless hair,
Half curled and knotted anywhere,—
By brow or breast, or cheek or chin,
For love to trip and tangle in!
XIII.
At last a tall strange sail was seen:
It came so slow, so wearily,
Came creeping cautious up the sea,
As if it crept from out between
The half-closed sea and sky that lay
Tight wedged together, far away.
She watched it, wooed it. She did pray
It might not pass her by but bring
Some love, some hate, some anything,
To break the awful loneliness
That like a nightly nightmare lay
Upon her proud and pent-up soul
Until it barely brooked control.
XIV.
The ship crept silent up the sea,
And came—

You cannot understand

How fair she was, how sudden she
Had sprung, full grown, to womanhood;
How gracious, yet how proud and grand;
How glorified, yet fresh and free,
How human, yet how more than good.
XV.
The ship stole slowly, slowly on;—
Should you in Californian field
In ample flower-time behold
The soft south rose lift like a shield
Against the sudden sun at dawn,
A double handful of heaped gold,
Why you, perhaps, might understand
How splendid and how queenly she
Uprose beside that wood-set sea.
The storm-worn ship scarce seemed to creep
From wave to wave.It scarce could keep—
How still this fair girl stood, how fair!
How tall her presence as she stood
Between that vast sea and west wood!
How large and liberal her soul,
How confident, how purely chare,
How trusting; how untried the whole
Great heart, grand faith, that blossomed there.
XVI.
Ay, she was as Madonna to
The tawny, lawless, faithful few
Who touched her hand and knew her soul:
She drew them, drew them as the pole
Points all things to itself.

She drew

Men upward as a moon of spring,
High wheeling, vast and bosom-full,
Half clad in clouds and white as wool,
Draws all the strong seas following.
Yet still she moved as sad, as lone
As that same moon that leans above,
And seems to search high heaven through
For some strong, all sufficient love,
For one brave love to be her own,
Be all her own and ever true.
Oh, I once knew a sad, sweet dove
That died for such sufficient love,
Such high, white love with wings to soar,
That looks love level in the face,
Nor wearies love with leaning o'er
To lift love level to her place.
XVII.
How slow before the sleeping breeze,
That stranger ship from under seas!
How like to Dido by her sea,
When reaching arms imploringly,—
Her large, round, rich, impassiond arms,
Tossed forth from all her storied charms—
This one lone maiden leaning stood
Above that sea, beneath that wood!
The ship crept strangely up the seas;
Her shrouds seemed shreds, her masts seemed trees,—
Strange tattered trees of toughest bough
That knew no cease of storm till now.
The maiden pitied her; she prayed
Her crew might come, nor feel afraid;
She prayed the winds might come,u2013they came,
As birds that answer to a name.
The maiden held her blowing hair
That bound her beauteous self about;
The sea-winds housed within her hair;
She let it go, it blew in rout
About her bosom full and bare.
Her round, full arms were free as air,
Her high hands clasped as clasped in prayer.
XVIII.
The breeze grew bold, the battered ship
Began to flap her weary wings;
The tall, torn masts began to dip
And walk the wave like living things.
She rounded in, moved up the stream,
She moved like some majestic dream.
The captain kept her deck. He stood
A Hercules among his men;
And now he watched the sea, and then
He peered as if to pierce the wood.
He now looked back, as if pursued,
Now swept the sea with glass as though
He fled, or feared some prowling foe.
Slow sailing up the river's mouth,
Slow tacking north, slow tacking south,
He touched the overhanging wood;
He kept his deck, his tall black mast
Touched tree-top mosses as he passed;
He touched the steep shore where she stood.
XIX.
Her hands still clasped as if in prayer,
Sweet prayer set to silentness;
Her sun-browned throat uplifted, bare
And beautiful.

Her eager face

And all her presence gave such grace,
That she seemed more than mortal, fair.
XX.
He saw. He could not speak. No more
With lifted glass he swept the sea;
No more he watched the wild new shore.
Now foes might come, now friends might flee;
He could not speak, he would not stir,—
He saw but her, he feared but her.
The black ship ground against the shore,
With creak and groan and rusty clank,
And tore the mellow blossomed bank;
She ground against the bank as one
With long and weary journeys done,
That will not rise to journey more.
Yet still tall Jason silent stood
And gazed against that sea-washed wood,
As one whose soul is anywhere.
All seemed so fair, so wondrous fair!
At last aroused, he stepped to land
Like some Columbus; then laid hand
On lands and fruits, and rested there.
XXI.
He found all fairer than fair morn
In sylvan land, where waters run
With downward leap against the sun,
And full-grown sudden May is born.
He found her taller than tall corn
Tiptoe in tassel; found her sweet
As vale where bees of Hybla meet.
An unblown rose, an unread book;
A wonder in her wondrous eyes;
A large, religious, steadfast look
Of faith, of trust,-the look of one
New fashioned in fair Paradise.
He read this book-read on and on
From title page to colophon:
As in cool woods, some summer day,
You find delight in one sweet lay,
And so entranced read on and on
From title page to colophon.
XXII.
`
And who was he that rested there,—
This giant of a grander day,
This Theseus of a nobler Greece,
This Jason of the golden fleece?
Aye, who was he? And who were they
That came to seek the hidden gold
Long hollowed from the pirate's hold?
I do not know. You need not care,
* * * * *
They loved, this maiden and this man,
And that is all I surely know,—
The rest is as the winds that blow.
He bowed as brave men bow to fate,
Yet proud and resolute and bold;
She shy at first, and coyly cold,
Held back and tried to hesitate,—
Half frightened at this love that ran
Hard gallop till her hot heart beat
Like sounding of swift courser's feet.
XXIII.
Two strong streams of a land must run
Together surely as the sun
Succeeds the moon. Who shall gainsay
The gods that reign, that wisely reign?
Love is, love was, shall be again.
Like death, inevitable it is;
Perchance, like death, the dawn of bliss.
Let us, then, love the perfect day,
The twelve o'clock of life, and stop
The two hands pointing to the top,
And hold them tightly while we may.
XXIV.
How beautiful is love! The walks
By wooded ways; the silent talks
Beneath the broad and fragrant bough.
The dark deep wood, the dense black dell,
Where scarce a single gold beam fell
From out the sun.

They rested now

On mossy trunk. They wandered then
Where never fell the feet of men.
Then longer walks, then deeper woods,
Then sweeter talks, sufficient sweet,
In denser, deeper solitudes,—
Dear careless ways for careless feet;
Sweet talks of paradise for two,
And only two to watch or woo.
She rarely spake. All seemed a dream
She would not waken from. She lay
All night but waiting for the day,
When she might see his face, and deem
This man, with all his perils passed,
Had found sweet Lotus-land at last.
XXV.
The year waxed fervid, and the sun
Fell central down. The forest lay
A-quiver in the heat. The sea
Below the steep bank seemed to run
A molten sea of gold.

Away

Against the gray and rock-built isles
That broke the molten watery miles
Where lonesome sea-cows called all day,
The sudden sun smote angrily.
Therefore the need of deeper deeps,
Of denser shade for man and maid,
Of higher heights, of cooler steeps,
Where all day long the sea-wind stayed.
They sought the rock-reared steep. The breeze
Swept twenty thousand miles of seas;
Had twenty thousand things to say,
Of love, of lovers of Cathay,
To lovers'mid these mossy trees.
XXVI.
To left, to right, below the height,
Below the wood by wave and stream,
Plumed pampas grass did wave and gleam
And bend their lordly plumes, and run
And shake, as if in very fright
Before sharp lances of the sun.
They saw the tide-bound, battered ship
Creep close below against the bank;
They saw it cringe and shrink; it shrank
As shrinks some huge black beast with fear
When some uncommon dread is near.
They heard the melting resin drip,
As drip the last brave blood-drops when
Red battle waxes hot with men.
XXVII.
Yet what to her were burning seas,
Or what to him was forest flame?
They loved; they loved the glorious trees;
The gleaming tides might rise or fall,—
They loved the lisping winds that came
From sea-lost spice-set isles unknown,
With breath not warmer than their own;
They loved, they loved, -and that was all.
XXVIII.
Full noon! Above, the ancient moss
From mighty boughs swang slow across,
As when some priest slow chants a prayer
And swings sweet smoke and perfumed air
From censer swinging-anywhere.
He spake of love, of boundless love,u2018
Of love that knew no other land,
Or face, or place, or anything;
Of love that like the wearied dove
Could light nowhere, but kept the wing
Till she alone put forth her hand
And so received it in her ark
From seas that shake against the dark!
Her proud breast heaved, her pure, bare breast
Rose like the waves in their unrest
When counter storms possess the seas.
Her mouth, her arch, uplifted mouth,
Her ardent mouth that thirsted so,u2018
No glowing love song of the South
Can say; no man can say or know
Such truth as lies beneath such trees.
Her face still lifted up. And she
Disdained the cup of passion he
Hard pressed her panting lips to touch.
She dashed it by, uprose, and she
Caught fast her breath. She trembled much,
Then sudden rose full height, and stood
An empress in high womanhood:
She stood a tower, tall as when
Proud Roman mothers suckled men
Of old-time truth and taught them such.
XXIX.
Her soul surged vast as space is. She
Was trembling as a courser when
His thin flank quivers, and his feet
Touch velvet on the turf, and he
Is all afoam, alert and fleet
As sunlight glancing on the sea,
And full of triumph before men.
At last she bended some her face,
Half leaned, then put him back a pace,
And met his eyes.
Calm, silently
Her eyes looked deep into his eyes,—
As maidens search some mossy well
And peer in hope by chance to tell
By image there what future lies
Before them, and what face shall be
The pole-star of their destiny.
Pure Nature's lover! Loving him
With love that made all pathways dim
And difficult where he was not,—
Then marvel not at forms forgot.
And who shall chide? Doth priest know aught
Of sign, or holy unction brought
From over seas, that ever can
Make man love maid or maid love man
One whit the more, one bit the less,
For all his mummeries to bless?
Yea, all his blessings or his ban?
The winds breathed warm as Araby;
She leaned upon his breast, she lay
A wide-winged swan with folded wing.
He drowned his hot face in her hair,
He heard her great heart rise and sing;
He felt her bosom swell.

The air

Swooned sweet with perfume of her form.
Her breast was warm, her breath was warm,
And warm her warm and perfumed mouth
As summer journeys through the south.
XXX.
The argent sea surged steep below,
Surged languid in such tropic glow;
And two great hearts kept surging so!
The fervid kiss of heaven lay
Precipitate on wood and sea.
Two great souls glowed with ecstacy,
The sea glowed scarce as warm as they.
XXXI.
'Twas love's warm amber afternoon.
Two far-off pheasants thrummed a tune,
A cricket clanged a restful air.
The dreamful billows beat a rune
Like heart regrets.

Around her head

There shone a halo. Men have said
'Twas from a dash of Titian
That flooded all her storm of hair
In gold and glory. But they knew,
Yea, all men know there ever grew
A halo round about her head
Like sunlight scarcely vanished.
XXXII.
How still she was! She only knew
His love. She saw no life beyond.
She loved with love that only lives
Outside itself and selfishness,—
A love that glows in its excess;
A love that melts pure gold, and gives
Thenceforth to all who come to woo
No coins but this face stamped thereon,—
Ay, this one image stamped upon
Pure gold, with some dim date long gone.
XXXIII.
They kept the headland high; the ship
Below began to chafe her chain,
To groan as some great beast in pain:
While white fear leapt from lip to lip:
"The woods on fire! the woods in flame!
Come down and save us in God's name!"
He heard! he did not speak or stir,—
He thought of her, of only her,
While flames behind, before them lay
To hold the stoutest heart at bay!
Strange sounds were heard far up the flood,
Strange, savage sounds that chilled the blood!
Then sudden from the dense, dark wood
Above, about them where they stood
Strange, hairy beasts came peering out;
And now was thrust a long black snout,
And now a dusky mouth. It was
A sight to make the stoutest pause.
"Cut loose the ship!" the black mate cried;
"Cut loose the ship!" the crew replied.
They drove into the sea. It lay
As light as ever middle day.
And then a half-blind bitch that sat
All slobber-mouthed, and monkish cowled
With great, broad, floppy, leathern ears
Amid the men, rose up and howled,
And doleful howled her plaintive fears,
While all looked mute aghast thereat.
It was the grimmest eve, I think,
That ever hung on Hades' brink.
Great broad-winged bats possessed the air,
Bats whirling blindly everywhere;
It was such troubled twilight eve
As never mortal would believe.
XXXIV.
Some say the crazed hag lit the wood
In circle where the lovers stood;
Some say the gray priest feared the crew
Might find at last the hoard of gold
Long hidden from the black ship's hold,—
I doubt me if men ever knew.
But such mad, howling, flame-lit shore
No mortal ever knew before.
Huge beasts above that shining sea,
Wild, hideous beasts with shaggy hair,
With red mouths lifting in the air,
All piteous howled, and plaintively,—
The wildest sounds, the weirdest sight
That ever shook the walls of night.
How lorn they howled, with lifted head,
To dim and distant isles that lay
Wedged tight along a line of red,
Caught in the closing gates of day
'Twixt sky and sea and far away, -
It was the saddest sound to hear
That ever struck on human ear.
They doleful called; and answered they
The plaintiff sea-cows far away,—
The great sea-cows that called from isles,
Away across red flaming miles,
With dripping mouths and lolling tongue,
As if they called for captured young,
The huge sea-cows that called the whiles
Their great wide mouths were mouthing moss;
And still they doleful called across
From isles beyond the watery miles.
No sound can half so doleful be
As sea-cows calling from the sea.
XXXV.
The sun, outdone, lay down. He lay
In seas of blood. He sinking drew
The gates of sunset sudden to,
And they in shattered fragments lay.
Then night came, moving in mad flame;
Then full night, lighted as he came,
As lighted by high summer sun
Descending through the burning blue.
It was a gold and amber hue,
Aye, all hues blended into one.
The moon came on, came leaning low.
The moon spilled splendor where she came,
And filled the world with yellow flame
Along the far sea-isles aglow;
She fell along that amber flood,
A silver flame in seas of blood.
It was the strangest moon, ah me!
That ever settled on God's sea,
XXXVI.
Slim snakes slid down from fern and grass,
Fronm wood, from fen, from anywhere;
You could not step, you would not pass,
And you would hesitate to stir,
Lest in some sudden, hurried tread
Your foot struck some unbruised head:
It seemed like some infernal dream;
They slid in streams into the stream;
They curved, and sinuous curved across,
Like living streams of living moss,—
There is no art of man can make
A ripple like a swimming snake!
XXXVII.
Encompassed, lorn, the lovers stood,
Abandoned there, death in the air!
That beetling steep, that blazing wood—
Red flame! red flame, and everywhere!
Yet he was born to strive, to bear
The front of battle. He would die
In noble effort, and defy
The grizzled visage of despair.
He threw his two strong arms full length
As if to surely test their strength;
Then tore his vestments, textile things
That could but tempt the demon wings
Of flame that girt them round about,
Then threw his garments to the air
As one that laughed at death, at doubt,
And like a god stood thewed and bare.
She did not hesitate; she knew
The need of action; swift she threw
Her burning vestments by, and bound
Her wondrous wealth of hair that fell
An all-concealing cloud around
Her glorious presence, as he came
To seize and bear her through the flame,—
An Orpheus out of burning hell!
He leaned above her, wound his arm
About her splendor, while the noon
Of flood tide, manhood, flushed his face,
And high flames leapt the high head-land!
They stood as twin-hewn statues stand,
High lifted in some storied place.
He clasped her close, he spoke of death,—
Of death and love in the same breath.
He clasped her close; her bosom lay
Like ship safe anchored in some bay,
Where never rage or rack of main
Might even shake her anchor chain.
XXXVIII.
The flames! They could not stand or stay;
Beyond, the beetling steep, the sea!
But at his feet a narrow way,
A short steep path, pitched suddenly
Safe open to the river's beach,
Where lay a small white isle in reach,—
A small, white, rippled isle of sand
Where yet the two might safely land.
And there, through smoke and flame, behold
The priest stood safe, yet all appalled!
He reached the cross; he cried, he called;
He waved his high-held cross o f gold.
He called and called, he bade them fly
Through flames to him, nor bide and die!
Her lover saw; he saw, and knew
His giant strength could bear her through.
And yet he would not start or stir.
He clasped her close as death can hold,
Or dying miser clasp his gold,—
His hold became a part of her.
He would not give her up! He would
Not bear her waveward though he could!
That height was heaven; the wave was hell.
He clasped her close, — what else had done
The manliest man beneath the sun?
Was it not well? was it not well?
O man, be glad! be grandly glad,
And king-like walk thy ways of death!
For more than years of bliss you had
That one brief time you breathed her breath,
Yea, more than years upon a throne
That one brief time you held her fast,
Soul surged to soul, vehement, vast,—
True breast to breast, and all your own.
Live me one day, one narrow night,
One second of supreme delight
Like that, and I will blow like chaff
The hollow years aside, and laugh
A loud triumphant laugh, and I,
King-like and crowned, will gladly die.
Oh, but to wrap my love with flame!
With flame within, with flame without!
Oh, but to die like this, nor doubt—
To die and know her still the same!
To know that down the ghostly shore
Snow-white she walks for ever more!
XXXIX.
He poised her, held her high in air,—
His great strong limbs, his great arm's length!—
Then turned his knotted shoulders bare
As birth-time in his splendid strength,
And strode with lordly, kingly stride
To where the high and wood-hung edge
Looked down, far down upon the molten tide.
The flames leaped with him to the ledge,
The flames leapt leering at his side.
XL.
He leaned above the ledge. Below
He saw the black ship grope and cruise,—
A midge below, a mile below.
His limbs were knotted as the thews
Of Hercules in his death-throe.
The flame! the flame! the envious flame!
She wound her arms, she wound her hair
About his tall form, grand and bare,
To stay the fierce flame where it came.
The black ship, like some moonlit wreck,
Below along the burning sea
Groped on and on all silently,
With silent pigmies on her deck.
That midge-like ship, far, far below;
That mirage lifting from the hill!
His flame-lit form began to grow,—
To glow and grow more grandly still.
The ship so small, that form so tall,
It grew to tower over all.
A tall Colossus, bronze and gold,
As if that flame-lit form were he
Who once bestrode the Rhodian sea,
And ruled the watery world of old:
As if the lost Colossus stood
Above that burning sea of wood.
And she! that shapely form upheld,
Held high as if to touch the sky,
What airy shape, how shapely high,—
What goddess of the seas of eld!
Her hand upheld, her high right hand,
As if she would forget the land;
As if to gather stars, and heap
The stars like torches there to light
Her hero's path across the deep
To some far isle that fearful night.
XLI.
The envious flame, one moment leapt
Enraged to see such majesty,
Such scorn of death; such kingly scorn ...
Then like some lightning-riven tree
They sank down in that flame-and slept.
Then all was hushed above that steep
So still that they might sleep and sleep,
As when a Summer's day is born.
At last! from out the embers leapt
Two shafts of light above the night,—
Two wings of flame that lifting swept
In steady, calm, and upward flight;
Two wings of flame against the white
Far-lifting, tranquil, snowy cone;
Two wings of love, two wings of light,
Far, far above that troubled night,
As mounting, mounting to God's throne.
XLII.
And all night long that upward light
Lit up the sea-cow's bed below:
The far sea-cows still calling so
It seemed as they must call all night.
All night! there was no night. Nay, nay,
There was no night. The night that lay
Between that awful eve and day,—
That nameless night was burned away.

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Poetry

THE SEA OF FIRE.

Joaquin Miller