And face set to face, like to lords austere,
Have we talk'd, red-tongued, of the mysteries
Of the circling sun, of the oracled seas,
While ye who judged me had mantled in fear.

Some fragment of thought in the unfinish'd words; A cry of fierce freedom, and I claim no more. What more would you have from the tender of herds

And of horse, on an ultimate Oregon shore?

From men unto God go forth, as alone,

Where the dark pines talk in their tones of the

sea

To the unseen God in a harmony

Of the under seas, and know the unknown.

'Mid white Sierras, that slope to the sea,

Lie turbulent lands. Go dwell in the skies, And the thundering tongues of Yosemite

Shall persuade you to silence, and you shall be wise.

Yea, men may deride, and the thing it is well;

Turn well and aside from the one wild note To the song of the bird with the tame, sweet throat;

But the sea sings on in his cave and shell.

Let the white moons ride, let the red stars fall,
O great, sweet sea! O fearful and sweet!
Thy song they repeat, and repeat, and repeat;
And these, I say, shall survive us all.

I but sing for the love of song and the few
Who loved me first and shall love me last;

And the storm shall pass as the storms have pass'd,

For never were clouds but the sun came through.

PART II.

IN the days when my mother, the Earth, was young,

And you all were not, nor the likeness of you, She walk'd in her maidenly prime among

The moonlit stars in the boundless blue.

Then the great sun lifted his shining shield,
And he flash'd his sword as the soldiers do,
And he moved like a king full over the field,
And he look'd and he loved her brave and true.

And looking afar from the ultimate rim,
As he lay at rest in a reach of light,
He beheld her walking alone at night,
Where the buttercup stars in their beauty swim.

397

So he rose up flush'd in his love, and he ran,
And he reach'd his arms, and around her waist
He wound them strong like a love-struck man,
And he kiss'd and embraced her, brave and
chaste.

So he nursed his love like a babe at its birth,

And he warm'd in his love as the long years ran, Then embraced her again, and sweet mother Earth Was a mother indeed, and her child was man.

The sun is the sire, the mother is earth!

What more do you know? what more do I need? The one he begot, and the one gave birth,

And I love them both, and let laugh at your creed.

And who shall pronounce that the child of the sun,
With his rich sun-worship, was utterly wrong
In the far, new years when the stars kept song?
But judge, and be judged;-condemn, and have
done.

And who shall proclaim they were all unwise

In their great, warm faith? Time answers us not:

The quick fool questions; but who replies?
The wise man hesitates, hush'd in thought.

THE BRAVEST BATTLE THAT EVER WAS FOUGHT.

THE bravest battle that ever was fought,
Shall I tell you where and when?

On the maps of the world you will find it not, 'Twas fought by the mothers of men.

Nay, not with cannon or battle shot,
With sword or nobler pen;
Nay, not with eloquent word or thought,
From mouths of wonderful men.

But deep in a welled-up woman's heart,
A woman that would not yield,
But bravely, silently bore her part-
Lo, there is that battlefield!

No marshaling troop, no bivouac song,
No banner to gleam and wave;
But Oh! these battles they last so long,
From babyhood to the grave.

Yet, faithful still as a bridge of stars, She fights in her walled-up town; Fights on and on in the endless wars, Then silent, unseen, goes down.

Should the dead not decay, when the culture
of fields be resumed in the May?
Lo! the days are dark-wing'd as the vulture!
Let them swoop, then, and bear them away:
By the walks let me cherish red flowers,
By the wall teach one tendril to run;
Lest I wake, and I watch all the hours
I shall ever see under the sun.

It is well, may be so, to bear losses,
And to bend and bow down to the rod;
If the scarlet red bars and the crosses
Be but rounds up the ladder to God.
But this mocking of men! Ah, that enters
The marrow! the murmurs that swell
To reproach for my song-love, that centres,
Vast land, upon thee, are not well.

And I go, thanking God in my going,
That an ocean flows stormy and deep,
And yet gentler to me is its flowing

Than the storm that forbids me to sleep.
And I go, thanking God, with hands lifted,

That a land lies beyond where the free And the gentle of heart and the gifted Of soul have a home in the sea.

SUMMER FROSTS.

FROSTS of an hour! Fruits of a season!
Who foresees them? Slain in a day,
The loves of a lustrum. Who shall say
The heart has sense or the soul has reason?
. . . One not knowing and one not caring.
Leaves in their pathway. Let them part;
She with the gifts of a gracious bearing,
He with the pangs of a passionate heart.

AT SEA.

WE part as ships on a pathless main,
Gayly enough, for the sense of pain

Is asleep at first; but ghosts will arise
When we would repose, and the forms will come
And walk when we walk, and will not be dumb,
Nor yet forget with their wakefnl eyes.

When we most need rest, and the perfect sleep,
Some hand will reach from the dark, and keep
The curtains drawn and the pillows toss'd
Like a tide of foam; and one will say
At night-O, Heaven, that it were day!
And one by night, through the misty tears,
Will say-O, Heaven, the days are years,

And I would to Heaven that the waves were

cross'd.

THE RHYME OF THE GREAT RIVER.

PART II.

How soft this moonlight of the South!
How sweet my South in soft moonlight!
I want to kiss her warm sweet mouth
As she lies sleeping here to-night.

How still! I do not hear a mouse.
I see some bursting buds appear;
I hear God in His garden,—hear
Him trim some flowers for His house.

I hear some singing stars; the mouth
Of my vast river sings and sings,
And pipes on reeds of pleasant things,-.
Of splendid promise for my South:

My great South-woman, soon to rise
And tiptoe up and loose her hair;
Tiptoe, and take from all the skies

God's stars and glorious moon to wear!

OCEAN.

MAGNOLIAS.

THE broad magnolia's blooms are white;
Her blooms are large, as if the moon
Had lost her way some lazy night,
And lodged here till the afternoon.
Oh, vast white blossoms breathing love!
White bosom of my lady dead,
In your white heaven overhead
I look, and learn to look above.

PRAYERS.

399

-Ibid.

AND oh the fragrance of the sod!
And oh the perfume of the air!
The sweetness, sweetness everywhere,
That rose like incense up to God!
I like a cow's breath in sweet spring,
I like the breath of babes new-born;
A maid's breath is a pleasant thing,-
But oh the breath of sudden morn!
Of sudden morn, when every pore
Of mother earth is pulsing fast
With life, and life seems spilling o'er
With love, with love too sweet to last:
Of sudden morn beneath the sun,

By God's great river wrapped in gray,
That for a space forgets to run,
And hides his face as if to pray.

CONTENTMENT.

"AND I have said, and I say it ever,

-Ibid.

As the years go on and the world goes over,. 'Twere better to be content and clever In tending of cattle and tossing of clover,

In the grazing of cattle and the growing of grain,
Than a strong man striving for fame or gain;
Be even as kine in the red-tipp'd clover,
For they lie down and their rests are rests,
And the days are theirs, come sun, come rain,
To lie, rise up, and repose again;

While we wish, yearn, and do pray in vain,
And hope to ride on the billows of bosoms,
And hope to rest in the haven of breasts,

Till the heart is sicken'd and the fair hope dead;
Be even as clover with its crown of blossoms,
Even as blossoms ere the bloom is shed,
Kiss'd by kine and the brown sweet bee-
For these have the sun, and moon, and air,
And never a bit of the burthen of care;

And with all of our caring what more have we?

I would court content like a lover lonely,
I would woo her, win her, and wear her only,
And never go over this white sea wall

For gold or glory or for aught at all."

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.

-Ibid.

I TELL you that love is the bitterest sweet
That ever laid hold on the heart of a man;
A chain to the soul, and to cheer as a ban,
And a bane to the brain, and a snare to the feet.
Ay! who shall ascend on the hollow white wings
Of love but to fall; to fall and to learn,

Like a moth, and a man, that the lights lure to burn,

That the roses have thorns, and the honey-bee stings?

I say to you surely that grief shall befall;
I lift you my finger, I caution you true,

And yet you go forward, laugh gayly, and you
Must learn for yourself, then mourn for us all.
You had better be drown'd than to love and to
dream,

It were better to sit on a moss-grown stone, And away from the sun, and forever alone, Slow pitching white pebbles at trout in the

stream.

Alas for a heart that is left forlorn!

If you live you must love; if you love, regret,— It were better, perhaps, we had never been born, Or better, at least, we could well forget. The clouds are above us, and snowy and cold, And what is beyond but the steel-gray sky, And the still far stars that twinkle and lie Like the eyes of a love or delusions of gold! Ah! who would ascend? The clouds are above.

Ay! all things perish; to rise is to fall. And alack for lovers, and alas for love, And alas that we ever were born at all. -Isles of the Amazons.