The Sierras from the Sea
by Joaquin Miller
- I.
ike fragments of an uncompleted world,- From bleak Alaska, bound in ice and spray,
- To where the peaks of Darien lie curl'd
- In clouds, the broken lands loom bold and gray.
- The seamen nearing San Francisco Bay
- Forget the compass here; with sturdy hand
- They seize the wheel, look up, then bravely lay
- The ship to shore by rugged peaks that stand
- The stern and proud patrician fathers of the land.
- II.
- They stand white stairs of heaven,- stand a line
- Of lifting, endless, and eternal white.
- They look upon the far and flashing brine,
- Upon the boundless plains, the broken height
- Of Kamiakin's battlements. The flight
- Of time is underneath their untopp'd towers.
- They seem to push aside the moon at night,
- To jostle and to loose the stars. The flowers
- Of heaven fall about their brows in shining showers.
- III.
- They stand in line of lifted snowy isles
- High held above the toss'd and tumbled sea, -
- A sea of wood in wild unmeasured miles:
- White pyramids of Faith where man is free;
- White monuments of Hope that yet shall be
- The mounts of matchless and immortal song....
- I look far down the hollow days; I see
- The bearded prophets, simple-soul'd and strong,
- That strike the sounding harp and thrill the heeding throng.
- IV.
- Serene and satisfied! supreme! as lone
- As God, they loom like God's archangels churl'd;
- They look as cold as kings upon a throne;
- The mantling wings of night are crush'd and curl'd
- As feathers curl. The elements are hurl'd
- From off their bosoms, and are bidden go,
- Like evil spirits, to an under-world.
- They stretch from Cariboo to Mexico,
- A line of battle-tents in everlasting snow.