I cursed the ship, the shore, the sea, The brave brown mate, the bearded men. I had a fever then, and then

Ship, shore, and sea, were one to me;
And weeks we on the dead waves lay,
And I more truly dead than they.
At last some rested on an isle;
The few strong-breasted with a smile
Returning to the sunny shore,
Scarce counting of the pain or cost,
Scarce recking if they won or lost.
They sought but action, asked no more;
They counted life but as a game,
With full per cent against them, and
Staked all upon a single hand,
And lost or won, content the same.

I never saw my chief again, I never sought again the shore, Or saw my white-walled city more. I could not bear the more than pain At sight of blossomed orange-trees Or blended song of birds and bees, The sweeping shadows of the palm, Or spicy breath of bay and balm. And, striving to forget the while, I wandered through the dreary isle, Here black with juniper, and there Made white with goats in summer coats,The only things that anywhere We found with life in all the land, Save birds that ran long-billed and brown, Long-legged and still as shadows are, Like dancing shadows, up and down The sea-rim on the sweltering sand.

The warm sea laid his dimpled face, With every white hair smoothed in place, As if asleep, against the land; Great turtles slept upon his breast,

As thick as eggs in any nest;

I could have touched them with my hand.

VI.

I WOULD Some things were dead and hid,
Well dead, and buried deep as hell,
With recollection dead as well,
And resurrection God-forbid.
They irk me with their weary spell
Of fascination, eye to eye,
And hot mesmeric serpent-hiss,
Through all the dull eternal days.
Let them turn by, go on their ways,
Let them depart or let me die;
For life is but a beggar's lie,
And, as for death, I grin at it;
I do not care one whiff or whit
Whether it be or that or this.

I give my hand; the world is wide; Then farewell memories of yore, Between us let strife be no more; Turn as you choose to either side; Say Fare-you-well, shake hands, and saySpeak loud, and say with stately grace, Hand clutching hand, face bent to faceFarewell for ever and a day.

O passion-tossed and bleeding past, Part now, part well, part wide apart, As ever ships on ocean slid

Down, down the sea, hull, sail, and mast!

And in the album of my heart

Let hide the pictures of your face,

With other pictures in their place
Slid over like a coffin's lid.

The days and grass grow long together;

They now fell short and crisp again,
And all the fair face of the main

Grew dark and wrinkled at the weather.
Through all the summer sun's decline
Fell news of triumphs and defeats,
Of hard advances, hot retreats-
Then days and days, and not a line.

I knew,

At last one night they came.
Ere yet the boat had touched the land,
That all was lost they were so few
I near could count them on one hand;
But he the leader led no more.

The proud chief still disdained to fly,
But, like one wrecked, clung to the shore,
And struggled on, and struggling fell
From power to a prison-cell,
And only left that cell to die.

VII.

My recollection, like a ghost,
Goes from this sea to that sea-side,
Goes and returns-as turns the tide,
Then turns again unto the coast.
I know not which I mourn the most,
My brother or my virgin bride,
My chief or my unwedded wife.
The one was as the lordly sun,
To joy in, bask in, and admire ;
The peaceful moon was as the one,
To love, to look to, and desire;
And both a part of my young life.

VIII.

Years after, sheltered from the sun
Beneath a Sacramento bay,

A black Muchacho by me lay
Along the long grass crisp and dun,
His brown mule browzing by his side,
And told with all a Peon's pride

How he once fought, how long and well,