Reported by Truthful James.
Being asked by an intimate party,--
Which the same I would term as a friend,--
Which his health it were vain to call hearty,
Since the mind to deceit it might lend;
For his arm it was broken quite recent,
And has something gone wrong with his lung,--
Which is why it is proper and decent
I should write what he runs off his tongue:
First, he says, Miss, he's read through your letter
To the end,--and the end came too soon;
That a slight illness kept him your debtor
(Which for weeks he was wild as a loon);
That his spirits are buoyant as yours is;
That with you, Miss, he challenges Fate
(Which the language that invalid uses
At times it were vain to relate).
And he says that the mountains are fairer
For once being held in your thought;
That each rock holds a wealth that is rarer
Than ever by gold-seeker sought
(Which are words he would put in these pages,
By a party not given to guile;
Which the same not, at date, paying wages,
Might produce in the sinful a smile).
He remembers the ball at the Ferry,
And the ride, and the gate, and the vow,
And the rose that you gave him,--that very
Same rose he is treasuring now
(Which his blanket he's kicked on his trunk, Miss,
And insists on his legs being free;
And his language to me from his bunk, Miss,
Is frequent and painful and free);
He hopes you are wearing no willows,
But are happy and gay all the while;
That he knows (which this dodging of pillows
Imparts but small ease to the style,
And the same you will pardon),--he knows, Miss,
That, though parted by many a mile,
Yet were he lying under the snows, Miss,
They'd melt into tears at your smile.
And you'll still think of him in your pleasures,
In your brief twilight dreams of the past;
In this green laurel-spray that he treasures,
It was plucked where your parting was last;
In this specimen,--but a small trifle,--
It will do for a pin for your shawl
(Which the truth not to wickedly stifle
Was his last week's "clean up,"--and _his all_).
He's asleep, which the same might seem strange, Miss,
Were it not that I scorn to deny
That I raised his last dose, for a change, Miss,
In view that his fever was high;
But he lies there quite peaceful and pensive.
And now, my respects, Miss, to you;
Which my language, although comprehensive,
Might seem to be freedom,--it's true.
Which I have a small favor to ask you,
As concerns a bull-pup, which the same,--
If the duty would not overtask you,--
You would please to procure for me, _game_;
And send per express to the Flat, Miss,
Which they say York is famed for the breed,
Which though words of deceit may be that, Miss,
I'll trust to your taste, Miss, indeed.
_P.S._--Which this same interfering
Into other folks' way I despise;
Yet if it so be I was hearing
That it's just empty pockets as lies
Betwixt you and Joseph, it follers,
That, having no family claims,
Here's my pile; which it's six hundred dollars,
As is yours, with respects,
Truthful James.
Further Language from Truthful James.
(Nye's Ford, Stanislaus.)
(1870.)
Do I sleep? do I dream?
Do I wonder and doubt?
Are things what they seem?
Or is visions about?
Is our civilization a failure?
Or is the Caucasian played out?
Which expressions are strong;
Yet would feebly imply
Some account of a wrong--
Not to call it a lie--
As was worked off on William, my pardner,
And the same being W. Nye.
He came down to the Ford
On the very same day
Of that lottery drawed
By those sharps at the Bay;
And he says to me, "Truthful, how goes it?"
I replied, "It is far, far from gay;
"For the camp has gone wild
On this lottery game,
And has even beguiled
'Injin Dick' by the same."
Which said Nye to me, "Injins is pizen:
Do you know what his number is, James?"
I replied "7,2,
9,8,4, is his hand;"
When he started, and drew
Out a list, which he scanned;
Then he softly went for his revolver
With language I cannot command.
Then I said, "William Nye!"
But he turned upon me,
And the look in his eye
Was quite painful to see;
And he says, "You mistake: this poor Injin
I protects from such sharps as you be!"
I was shocked and withdrew;
But I grieve to relate,
When he next met my view
Injin Dick was his mate,
And the two around town was a-lying
In a frightfully dissolute state.
Which the war-dance they had
Round a tree at the Bend
Was a sight that was sad;
And it seemed that the end
Would not justify the proceedings,
As I quiet remarked to a friend.
For that Injin he fled
The next day to his band;
And we found William spread
Very loose on the strand,
With a peaceful-like smile on his features,
And a dollar greenback in his hand;
Which, the same when rolled out,
We observed with surprise,
That that Injin, no doubt,
Had believed was the prize,--
Them figures in red in the corner,
Which the number of notes specifies.
Was it guile, or a dream?
Is it Nye that I doubt?
Are things what they seem?
Or is visions about?
Is our civilization a failure?
Or is the Caucasian played out?
The Wonderful Spring of San Joaquin.
Of all the fountains that poets sing,--
Crystal, thermal, or mineral spring;
Ponce de Leon's Fount of Youth;
Wells with bottoms of doubtful truth;
In short, of all the springs of Time
That ever were flowing in fact or rhyme,
That ever were tasted, felt, or seen,--
There were none like the Spring of San Joaquin.
_Anno Domini_ Eighteen-Seven,
Father Dominguez (now in heaven,--
_Obiit_, Eighteen twenty-seven)
Found the spring, and found it, too,
By his mule's miraculous cast of a shoe;
For his beast--a descendant of Balaam's ass--
Stopped on the instant, and would not pass.
The Padre thought the omen good,
And bent his lips to the trickling flood;
Then--as the chronicles declare,
On the honest faith of a true believer--
His cheeks, though wasted, lank, and bare,
Filled like a withered russet-pear
In the vacuum of a glass receiver,
And the snows that seventy winters bring
Melted away in that magic spring.
Such, at least, was the wondrous news
The Padre brought into Santa Cruz.
The Church, of course, had its own views
Of who were worthiest to use
The magic spring; but the prior claim
Fell to the aged, sick, and lame.
Far and wide the people came:
Some from the healthful Aptos creek
Hastened to bring their helpless sick;
Even the fishers of rude Soquel
Suddenly found they were far from well;
The brawny dwellers of San Lorenzo
Said, in fact, they had never been so:
And all were-ailing,--strange to say,--
From Pescadero to Monterey.
Over the mountain they poured in
With leathern bottles, and bags of skin;
Through the canons a motley throng
Trotted, hobbled, and limped along.
The fathers gazed at the moving scene
With pious joy and with souls serene;
And then--a result perhaps foreseen--
They laid out the Mission of San Joaquin.
Not in the eyes of Faith alone
The good effects of the waters shone;
But skins grew rosy, eyes waxed clear,
Of rough vacquero and muleteer;
Angular forms were rounded out,
Limbs grew supple, and waists grew stout;
And as for the girls,--for miles about
They had no equal! To this day,
From Pescadero to Monterey,
You'll still find eyes in which are seen
The liquid graces of San Joaquin.
There is a limit to human bliss,
And the Mission of San Joaquin had this;
None went abroad to roam or stay,
But they fell sick in the queerest way,--
A singular _maladie du pays_,
With gastric symptoms: so they spent
Their days in a sensuous content;
Caring little for things unseen
Beyond their bowers of living green,--
Beyond the mountains that lay between
The world and the Mission of San Joaquin.
Winter passed, and the summer came:
The trunks of _madrono_ all aflame,
Here and there through the underwood
Like pillars of fire starkly stood.
All of the breezy solitude
Was filled with the spicing of pine and bay
And resinous odors mixed and blended,
And dim and ghost-like far away
The smoke of the burning woods ascended.
Then of a sudden the mountains swam,
The rivers piled their floods in a dam.
The ridge above Los Gatos creek
Arched its spine in a feline fashion;
The forests waltzed till they grew sick,
And Nature shook in a speechless passion;
And, swallowed up in the earthquake's spleen,
The wonderful Spring of San Joaquin
Vanished, and never more was seen!
Two days passed: the Mission folk
Out of their rosy dream awoke.
Some of them looked a trifle white;
But that, no doubt, was from earthquake fright.
Three days: there was sore distress,
Headache, nausea, giddiness.
Four days: faintings, tenderness
Of the mouth and fauces; and in less
Than one week,--here the story closes;
We won't continue the prognosis,--
Enough that now no trace is seen
Of Spring or Mission of San Joaquin.
Moral.
You see the point? Don't be too quick
To break bad habits: better stick,
Like the Mission folk, to your _arsenic_.
On a Cone of the Big Trees.
_Sequoia Gigantea_.
Brown foundling of the Western wood,
Babe of primeval wildernesses!
Long on my table thou hast stood
Encounters strange and rude caresses;
Perchance contented with thy lot,
Surroundings new and curious faces,
As though ten centuries were not
Imprisoned in thy shining cases!
Thou bring'st me back the halcyon days
Of grateful rest; the week of leisure,
The journey lapped in autumn haze,
The sweet fatigue that seemed a pleasure,
The morning ride, the noonday halt,
The blazing slopes, the red dust rising,
And then--the dim, brown, columned vault,
With its cool, damp, sepulchral spicing.
Once more I see the rocking masts
That scrape the sky, their only tenant
The jay-bird that in frolic casts
From some high yard his broad blue pennant.
I see the Indian files that keep
Their places in the dusty heather,
Their red trunks standing ankle deep
In moccasins of rusty leather.
I see all this, and marvel much
That thou, sweet woodland waif, art able
To keep the company of such
As throng thy friend's--the poet's--table:
The latest spawn the press hath cast,--
The "modern Pope's," "the later Byron's,"--
Why e'en the best may not outlast
Thy poor relation,--_Sempervirens_.
Thy sire saw the light that shone
On Mohammed's uplifted crescent,
On many a royal gilded throne
And deed forgotten in the present;
He saw the age of sacred trees
And Druid groves and mystic larches;
And saw from forest domes like these
The builder bring his Gothic arches.
And must thou, foundling, still forego
Thy heritage and high ambition,
To lie full lowly and full low,
Adjusted to thy new condition?
Not hidden in the drifted snows,
But under ink-drops idly spattered,
And leaves ephemeral as those
That on thy woodland tomb were scattered.
Yet lie thou there, O friend! and speak
The moral of thy simple story:
Though life is all that thou dost seek,
And age alone thy crown of glory,--
Not thine the only germs that fail
The purpose of their high creation,
If their poor tenements avail
For worldly show and ostentation.
A Sanitary Message.
Last night, above the whistling wind,
I heard the welcome rain,--
A fusillade upon the roof,
A tattoo on the pane:
The key-hole piped; the chimney-top
A warlike trumpet blew;
Yet, mingling with these sounds of strife,
A softer voice stole through.
"Give thanks, O brothers!" said the voice,
"That He who sent the rains
Hath spared your fields the scarlet dew
That drips from patriot veins:
I've seen the grass on Eastern graves
In brighter verdure rise;
But, oh! the rain that gave it life
Sprang first from human eyes.
"I come to wash away no stain
Upon your wasted lea;
I raise no banners, save the ones
The forest wave to me:
Upon the mountain side, where Spring
Her farthest picket sets,
My reveille awakes a host
Of grassy bayonets.
"I visit every humble roof;
I mingle with the low:
Only upon the highest peaks
My blessings fall in snow;
Until, in tricklings of the stream
And drainings of the lea,
My unspent bounty comes at last
To mingle with the sea."
And thus all night, above the wind,
I heard the welcome rain,--
A fusillade upon the roof,
A tattoo on the pane:
The key-hole piped; the chimney-top
A warlike trumpet blew;
But, mingling with these sounds of strife,
This hymn of peace stole through.
The Copperhead.
(1864.)
There is peace in the swamp where the Copper head sleeps,
Where the waters are stagnant, the white vapor creeps,
Where the musk of Magnolia hangs thick in the air,
And the lilies' phylacteries broaden in prayer;
There is peace in the swamp, though the quiet is Death,
Though the mist is miasm, the Upas tree's breath,
Though no echo awakes to the cooing of doves,--
There is peace: yes, the peace that the Copperhead loves!
Go seek him: he coils in the ooze and the drip
Like a thong idly flung from the slave-driver's whip;
But beware the false footstep,--the stumble that brings
A deadlier lash than the overseer swings.
Never arrow so true, never bullet so dread,
As the straight steady stroke of that hammershaped head;
Whether slave, or proud planter, who braves that dull crest,
Woe to him who shall trouble the Copperhead's rest!
Then why waste your labors, brave hearts and strong men,
In tracking a trail to the Copperhead's den?
Lay your axe to the cypress, hew open the shade
To the free sky and sunshine Jehovah has made;
Let the breeze of the North sweep the vapors away,
Till the stagnant lake ripples, the freed waters play;
And then to your heel can you righteously doom
The Copperhead born of its shadow and gloom!
On a Pen of Thomas Starr King.
This is the reed the dead musician dropped,
With tuneful magic in its sheath still hidden;
The prompt allegro of its music stopped,
Its melodies unbidden.
But who shall finish the unfinished strain,
Or wake the instrument to awe and wonder,
And bid the slender barrel breathe again,--
An organ-pipe of thunder?
His pen! what humbler memories cling about
Its golden curves! what shapes and laughing graces
Slipped from its point, when his full heart went out
In smiles and courtly phrases!
The truth, half jesting, half in earnest flung;
The word of cheer, with recognition in it;
The note of alms, whose golden speech outrung
The golden gift within it.
But all in vain the enchanter's wand we wave:
No stroke of ours recalls his magic vision;
The incantation that its power gave
Sleeps with the dead magician.
Lone Mountain.
(Cemetery, San Francisco.)
This is that hill of awe
That Persian Sindbad saw,--
The mount magnetic;
And on its seaward face,
Scattered along its base,
The wrecks prophetic.
Here come the argosies
Blown by each idle breeze,
To and fro shifting;
Yet to the hill of Fate
All drawing, soon or late,--
Day by day drifting;--
Drifting forever here
Barks that for many a year
Braved wind and weather;
Shallops but yesterday
Launched on yon shining bay,--
Drawn all together.
This is the end of all:
Sun thyself by the wall,
O poorer Hindbad!
Envy not Sindbad's fame:
Here come alike the same,
Hindbad and Sindbad.
California's Greeting to Seward.
(1869.)
We know him well: no need of praise
Or bonfire from the windy hill
To light to softer paths and ways
The world-worn man we honor still;
No need to quote those truths he spoke
That burned through years of war and shame.
While History carves with surer stroke
Across our map his noon-day fame;
No need to bid him show the scars
Of blows dealt by the Scaean gate,
Who lived to pass its shattered bars,
And see the foe capitulate;
Who lived to turn his slower feet
Toward the western setting sun,
To see his harvest all complete,
His dream fulfilled, his duty done,--
The one flag streaming from the pole,
The one faith borne from sea to sea,--
For such a triumph, and such goal,
Poor must our human greeting be.
Ah! rather that the conscious land
In simpler ways salute the Man,--
The tall pines bowing where they stand,
The bared head of El Capitan,
The tumult of the waterfalls,
Pohono's kerchief in the breeze,
The waving from the rocky walls,
The stir and rustle of the trees;
Till lapped in sunset skies of hope,
In sunset lands by sunset seas,
The Young World's Premier treads the slope
Of sunset years in calm and peace.
The Two Ships.
As I stand by the cross on the lone mountain's crest,
Looking over the ultimate sea,
In the gloom of the mountain a ship lies at rest,
And one sails away from the lea:
One spreads its white wings on a far-reaching track,
With pennant and sheet flowing free;
One hides in the shadow with sails laid aback,--
The ship that is waiting for me!
But lo, in the distance the clouds break away!
The Gate's glowing portals I see;
And I hear from the outgoing ship in the bay
The song of the sailors in glee:
So I think of the luminous footprints that bore
The comfort o'er dark Galilee,
And wait for the signal to go to the shore,
To the ship that is waiting for me.
The Goddess.
For the Sanitary Fair.
"Who comes?" The sentry's warning cry
Rings sharply on the evening air:
Who comes? The challenge: no reply,
Yet something motions there.
A woman, by those graceful folds;
A soldier, by that martial tread:
"Advance three paces. Halt! until
Thy name and rank be said."
"My name? Her name, in ancient song,
Who fearless from Olympus came:
Look on me! Mortals know me best
In battle and in flame."
"Enough! I know that clarion voice;
I know that gleaming eye and helm;
Those crimson lips,--and in their dew
The best blood of the realm.
"The young, the brave, the good and wise,
Have fallen in thy curst embrace:
The juices of the grapes of wrath
Still stain thy guilty face.
"My brother lies in yonder field,
Face downward to the quiet grass:
Go back! he cannot see thee now;
But here thou shalt not pass."
A crack upon the evening air,
A wakened echo from the hill:
The watch-dog on the distant shore
Gives mouth, and all is still.
The sentry with his brother lies
Face downward on the quiet grass;
And by him, in the pale moonshine,
A shadow seems to pass.
No lance or warlike shield it bears:
A helmet in its pitying hands
Brings water from the nearest brook,
To meet his last demands.
Can this be she of haughty mien,
The goddess of the sword and shield?
Ah, yes! The Grecian poet's myth
Sways still each battle-field.
For not alone that rugged war
Some grace or charm from beauty gains;
But, when the goddess' work is done,
The woman's still remains.
Address.