Or, by the deluge roused from sleep
Within his bristling forest-keep,
Shakes all his pines, and far and wide
Sends down a rich, imperious tide.
At night the whistling tempests meet
In tryst upon his topmost seat,
And all the phantoms of the sky
Frolic and gibber, storming by.
By day I see the ocean-mists
Float with the current where it lists,
And from my summit I can hail
Cloud-vessels passing on the gale,--
The stately argosies of air,-
And parley with the helmsmen there;
Can probe their dim mysterious source,
Ask of their cargo and their course,—-
Whence come? where bound?—and wait reply,
As, all sails spread, they hasten by.
If, foiled in what I fain would know,
Again I turn my eyes below
And eastward, past the hither mead
Where all day long the cattle feed,
A crescent gleam my sight allures,
And clings about the hazy moors,—
The great, encircling, radiant sea,
Alone in its immensity.
Even there, a queen upon its shore,
I know the city evermore
Her palaces and temples rears,
And wooes the nations to her piers.
Yet the proud city seems a mole
To this horizon-bounded whole;
And, from my station on the mount,
The whole is little worth account
Beneath the overhanging sky,
That seems so far, and yet so nigh.
Here breathe I inspiration rare,
Unburdened by the grosser air
That hugs the lower land, and feel
Through all my finer senses steal
The life of what that life may be,
Freed from this dull earth's density,
When we, with many a soul-felt thriil,
Shall thrid the ether at our will,
Through widening corridors of morn
And starry archways swiftly borne.
Here, in the process of the night,
The stars themselves a purer light
Give out than reaches those who gaze
Enshrouded with the valley's haze.
October, entering Heaven's fane,
Assumes her lucent, annual reign.
Then what a dark and dismal clod,
Forsaken by the Sons of God,
Seems this sad world, to those which march
Across the high, illumined arch,
And with their brightness draw me forth
To scan the splendours of the North!
I see the Dragon, as he toils
With Ursa in his shining coils,
And mark the Huntsman lift his shield,
Confronting on the ancient field
The Bull, while in a mystic row
The jewels of his girdle glow;
Or haply I may ponder long
On that remoter sparkling throng,
The orient sisterhood around
Whose chief our Galaxy is wound.
Thus, half enrapt in classic dreams,
And brooding over Learning's gleams,
I leave to gloom the under-land,
And from my watch-tower, close at hand,
Like him who led the favoured race,
I look on glory face to face!
So, on the mountain-top, alone
I dwell, as one who holds a throne.
Or prince or peasant, him I count
My peer who stands upon a mount,
Sees farther than the tribes below,
And knows the joys they cannot know;
And, though beyond the sound of speech
They reign, my soul goes out to reach,
Far on their noble heights elsewhere,
My brother-monarchs of the air.
THE FEAST OF HARVEST.
THE fair Earth smiled and turned herself and woke,
And to the Sun with nuptial greeting said:
“I had a dream, wherein it seemed men broke
A sovran league, and long years fought and bled,
Till down my sweet sides ran my children's gore,
And all my beautiful garments were made red,
And all my fertile fields were thicket-grown,
Nor could thy dear light reach me through the air;
At last a voice cried, 'Let them strive no more!'
Then music breathed, and lo! from my despair
I wake to joy, yet would not joy alone!
"For, hark! I hear a murmur on the meads,— Where as of old my children seek my face,The low of kine, the peaceful tramp of steeds,
Blithe shouts of men in many a pastoral place, The noise of tilth through all my goodliest land; And happy laughter of a dusky race
Whose brethren lift them from their ancient toil, Saying "The year of jubilee has come; Gather the gifts of Earth with equal hand;
Henceforth ye too may share the birthright soil, The corn, the wine, and all the harvest-home.'
"O my dear lord, my radiant bridegroom, look!
Behold their joy who sorrowed in my dreams,-
The sword a share, the spear a pruning-hook;
Lo, I awake, and turn me toward thy beams
Even as a bride again! Oh shed thy light
Upon my fruitful places in full streams!
Let there be yield for every living thing;
The land is fallow,-let there be increase
After the darkness of the sterile night;
Ay, let us twain a festival of Peace
Prepare, and hither all my nations bring!"
The fair Earth spake: the glad Sun speeded forth,
Hearing her matron words, and backward drave
To frozen caves the icy Wind of the North,—
And bade the South Wind from the tropic wave
Bring watery vapours over river and plain,—
And bade the East Wind cross her path, and lave The lowlands, emptying there her laden mist,— And bade the Wind of the West, the best wind, blow After the early and the latter rain,—
And beamed himself, and oft the sweet Earth kissed,
While her sweet servitors sped to and fro.
Forthwith the troop that, at the beck of Earth,
Foster her children, brought a glorious store
Of viands, food of immemorial worth,
Her earliest gifts, her tenderest evermore.
First came the Silvery Spirit, whose marshalled files
Climb up the glades in billowy breakers hoar,
Nodding their crests, and at his side there sped The Golden Spirit, whose yellow harvests trail Across the continents and fringe the isles,
And freight men's argosies where'er they sail :
Oh what a wealth of sheaves he there outspread!
Came the dear spirit whom Earth doth love the best,
Fragrant of clover-bloom and new-mown hay,
Beneath whose mantle weary ones find rest,
On whose green skirts the little children play:
She bore the food our patient cattle crave.
Next, robed in silk, with tassels scattering spray,
Followed the generous Spirit of the Maize,-
And many a kindred shape of high renown
Bore-in the clustering grape, the fruits that wave
On orchard branches or in gardens blaze,
And those the wind-shook forest hurtles down.
Even thus they laid a great and marvellous feast; And Earth her children summoned joyously, Throughout that goodliest land wherein had ceased The vision of battle, and with glad hands free These took their fill, and plenteous measures poured, Beside, for those who dwelt beyond the sea.
Praise, like an incense, upward rose to Heaven For that full harvest,—and the autumnal Sun Stayed long above,—and ever at the board
Peace, white-robed angel, held the high seat given, And War far off withdrew his visage dun.
[Born about 1835. A name now universally known, by the authorship of The Luck of Roaring Camp, and especially of the verses on That Heathen Chinee].
THE MIRACLE OF PADRE JUNIPERO.
THIS is the tale that the Chronicle
Tells of the wonderful miracle
Wrought by the pious Padre Serro,
The very reverend Junipero.
The Heathen stood on his ancient mound,
Looking over the desert bound
Into the distant hazy South,
Over the dusty and broad champaign
Where, with many a gaping mouth,
And fissure cracked by the fervid drouth,
For seven months had the wasted plain
Known no moisture of dew or rain.
The wells were empty and choked with sand;
The rivers had perished from the land; `
Only the sea-fogs to and fro
Slipped like ghosts of the streams below.
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