Joaquin Miller

For the Right, through thickest night, Till the man-brute Wrong be driven From high places; till the Right Shall lift like some grand beacon light. For the Right! Love, Right and duty; Lift the world up, though you fall

These stony altars they have hurled Oppression back, have kept the boon Of liberty. Behold, how free The mountains stand, and eternally.

The mountains from that fearful first Named day were God's own house. Behold, 'Twas here dread Sinai's thunders burst And showed His face. 'Twas here of old His prophets dwelt. Lo, it was here The Christ did come when death drew near.

A thousand miles of mighty wood Where thunder-storms stride fire-shod; A thousand flowers every rod, A stately tree on every rood; Ten thousand leaves on every tree, And each a miracle to me;

Where storm-born shadows hide and hunt I knew thee, in thy glorious youth, And loved thy vast face, white as truth; I stood where thunderbolts were wont To smite thy Titan-fashioned front, And heard dark mountains rock and roll;

Lo! all things moving must go by. The sea lies dead. Behold, this land Sits desolate in dust beside His snow-white, seamless shroud of sand; The very clouds have wept and died, And only God is in the sky.

I dared not dream she loved me. Nay, Her love was proud; and pride is loth To look with favor, own it fond Of one the world loves not to-day … No matter if she loved or no, God knows I loved enough for both,

This creature comes from out the dim Far centuries, beyond the rim Of time's remotest reach or stir.

Her mouth Was roses gather'd from the south, The warm south side of Paradise, And breathed upon and handed down, By angels on a stair of stars.

O you had loved her sitting there, Half hidden in her loosen'd hair: Why, you had loved her for her eyes, Their large and melancholy look Of tenderness, and well mistook Their love for light of Paradise.

Not that I deem'd she loved me. Nay, I dared not even dream of that. I only say I knew her; say She ever sat before me, sat All still and voiceless as love is, And ever look'd so fair, divine,

The sunlight of a sunlit land, A land of fruit, of flowers, and A land of love and calm delight; A land where night is not like night, And noon is but a name for rest, And love for love is reckoned best. Where conversations of the eyes

I only saw her as she pass'd — A great, sad beauty, in whose eyes Lay all the loves of Paradise. . . . You shall not know her — she who sat Unconscious in my heart all time I dream'd and wove this wayward rhyme,

These be but men. We may forget The wild sea-king, the tawny brave, The frowning wold, the woody shore, The tall-built, sunburnt men of Mars. . .But what and who was she, the fair? The fairest face that ever yet Look'd in a wave as in a …

He seem'd as lithe and free and tall And restless as the boughs that stir Perpetual topt poplar trees. And one, that one, had eyes to teach The art of love, and tongue to preach Life's hard and sober homilies;

Beside The grim old sea-king sits his bride, A sun-land blossom, rudely torn From tropic forests to be worn Above as stern a breast as e'er Stood king at sea or anywhere.

A grand old Neptune in the prow, Gray-hair'd, and white with touch of time, Yet strong as in his middle prime; A grizzled king, I see him now, With beard as blown by wind of seas, And wild and white as white sea-storm,

He rode as rides the hurricane; He seem'd to swallow up the plain; He rode as never man did ride, He rode, for ghosts rode at his side, And on his right a grizzled grim — No, no, this tale is not of him.

In men whom men condemn as ill I find so much of goodness still. In men whom men pronounce divine I find so much of sin and blot I hesitate to draw a line Between the two, where God has not.

Each gives to each, and like the star Gets back its gift in tenfold pay.To get and give and give amain The rivers run and oceans roll. O generous and high-born rain When reigning as a splendid whole! That man who lives for self alone

I count the columned waves at war With Titan elements; and they, In martial splendor, storm the bar And shake the world, these bits of spray.

O star-built bridge, broad milky way! O star-lit, stately, splendid span! If but one star should cease to stay And prop its shoulders to God's plan — The man who lives for self, I say, He lives for neither God nor man.

Oh, great is the hero who wins a name, But greater many and many a time Some pale-faced fellow who dies in shame, And lets God finish the thought sublime.And great is the man with a sword undrawn, And good is the man who refrains from …

"All honor to him who shall win the prize," The world has cried for a thousand years; But to him who tries, and who fails and dies, I give great honor and glory and tears.Give glory and honor and pitiful tears To all who fail in their …