East and West: Poems Part 4

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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 s.h.i.+fting; 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 pa.s.s 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 s.h.i.+ps.

As I stand by the cross on the lone mountain's crest, Looking over the ultimate sea, In the gloom of the mountain a s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 sh.o.r.e, To the s.h.i.+p that is waiting for me.

The G.o.ddess.

For the Sanitary Fair.