Complete Poetical Works

     (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."
     Then said Nye to me, "Injins is pizen:
     But what is his number, eh, 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,
     Was what he, no doubt,
     Thought the number and 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?

     (MOUTH OF THE SHAFT)

     What I want is my husband, sir,—
        And if you're a man, sir,
     You'll give me an answer,—
        Where is my Joe?

     Penrhyn, sir, Joe,—
        Caernarvonshire.
     Six months ago
        Since we came here—
     Eh?—Ah, you know!

     Well, I am quiet
        And still,
     But I must stand here,
        And will!
     Please, I'll be strong,
        If you'll just let me wait
        Inside o' that gate
     Till the news comes along.

        "Negligence!"—
     That was the cause!—
        Butchery!
     Are there no laws,—
        Laws to protect such as we?

     Well, then!
        I won't raise my voice.
     There, men!
        I won't make no noise,
     Only you just let me be.

     Four, only four—did he say—
     Saved! and the other ones?—Eh?
        Why do they call?
        Why are they all
     Looking and coming this way?

     What's that?—a message?
        I'll take it.
     I know his wife, sir,
        I'll break it.
        "Foreman!"
        Ay, ay!
        "Out by and by,—
        Just saved his life.
        Say to his wife
        Soon he'll be free."
     Will I?—God bless you!
        It's me!

     Why, as to that, said the engineer,
     Ghosts ain't things we are apt to fear;
     Spirits don't fool with levers much,
     And throttle-valves don't take to such;
         And as for Jim,
         What happened to him
     Was one half fact, and t'other half whim!

     Running one night on the line, he saw
     A house—as plain as the moral law—
     Just by the moonlit bank, and thence
     Came a drunken man with no more sense
         Than to drop on the rail
         Flat as a flail,
     As Jim drove by with the midnight mail.

     Down went the patents—steam reversed.
     Too late! for there came a "thud."  Jim cursed
     As the fireman, there in the cab with him,
     Kinder stared in the face of Jim,
         And says, "What now?"
         Says Jim, "What now!
     I've just run over a man,—that's how!"

     The fireman stared at Jim.  They ran
     Back, but they never found house nor man,—
     Nary a shadow within a mile.
     Jim turned pale, but he tried to smile,
         Then on he tore
         Ten mile or more,
     In quicker time than he'd made afore.

     Would you believe it! the very next night
     Up rose that house in the moonlight white,
     Out comes the chap and drops as before,
     Down goes the brake and the rest encore;
         And so, in fact,
         Each night that act
     Occurred, till folks swore Jim was cracked.

     Humph! let me see; it's a year now, 'most,
     That I met Jim, East, and says, "How's your ghost?"
     "Gone," says Jim; "and more, it's plain
     That ghost don't trouble me again.
         I thought I shook
         That ghost when I took
     A place on an Eastern line,—but look!

     "What should I meet, the first trip out,
     But the very house we talked about,
     And the selfsame man!  'Well,' says I, 'I guess
     It's time to stop this 'yer foolishness.'
         So I crammed on steam,
         When there came a scream
     From my fireman, that jest broke my dream:

     "'You've killed somebody!'  Says I, 'Not much!
     I've been thar often, and thar ain't no such,
     And now I'll prove it!'  Back we ran,
     And—darn my skin!—but thar WAS a man
         On the rail, dead,
         Smashed in the head!—
     Now I call that meanness!"  That's all Jim said.

     (MR. INTERVIEWER INTERVIEWED)

     Know me next time when you see me, won't you, old smarty?
     Oh, I mean YOU, old figger-head,—just the same party!
     Take out your pensivil, d—n you; sharpen it, do!
     Any complaints to make?  Lots of 'em—one of 'em's YOU.

     You! who are YOU, anyhow, goin' round in that sneakin' way?
     Never in jail before, was you, old blatherskite, say?
     Look at it; don't it look pooty?  Oh, grin, and be d—d to you, do!
     But if I had you this side o' that gratin,' I'd just make it lively
        for you.

     How did I get in here?  Well what 'ud you give to know?
     'Twasn't by sneakin' round where I hadn't no call to go;
     'Twasn't by hangin' round a-spyin' unfortnet men.
     Grin! but I'll stop your jaw if ever you do that agen.

     Why don't you say suthin, blast you?  Speak your mind if you dare.
     Ain't I a bad lot, sonny?  Say it, and call it square.
     Hain't got no tongue, hey, hev ye?  Oh, guard! here's a little swell
     A cussin' and swearin' and yellin', and bribin' me not to tell.

     There! I thought that 'ud fetch ye!  And you want to know my name?
     "Seventy-nine" they call me, but that is their little game;
     For I'm werry highly connected, as a gent, sir, can understand,
     And my family hold their heads up with the very furst in the land.

     For 'twas all, sir, a put-up job on a pore young man like me;
     And the jury was bribed a puppos, and at furst they couldn't agree;
     And I sed to the judge, sez I,—Oh, grin! it's all right, my son!
     But you're a werry lively young pup, and you ain't to be played upon!

     Wot's that you got?—tobacco?  I'm cussed but I thought 'twas a tract.
     Thank ye!  A chap t'other day—now, lookee, this is a fact—
     Slings me a tract on the evils o' keepin' bad company,
     As if all the saints was howlin' to stay here along o' we.

     No, I hain't no complaints.  Stop, yes; do you see that chap,—
     Him standin' over there, a-hidin' his eyes in his cap?
     Well, that man's stumick is weak, and he can't stand the pris'n fare;
     For the coffee is just half beans, and the sugar it ain't nowhere.

     Perhaps it's his bringin' up; but he's sickenin' day by day,
     And he doesn't take no food, and I'm seein' him waste away.
     And it isn't the thing to see; for, whatever he's been and done,
     Starvation isn't the plan as he's to be saved upon.

     For he cannot rough it like me; and he hasn't the stamps, I guess,
     To buy him his extry grub outside o' the pris'n mess.
     And perhaps if a gent like you, with whom I've been sorter free,
     Would—thank you!  But, say! look here!  Oh, blast it! don't give it
        to ME!

     Don't you give it to me; now, don't ye, don't ye, DON'T!
     You think it's a put-up job; so I'll thank ye, sir, if you won't.
     But hand him the stamps yourself: why, he isn't even my pal;
     And, if it's a comfort to you, why, I don't intend that he shall.

     It was the stage-driver's story, as he stood with his back to the
        wheelers,
     Quietly flecking his whip, and turning his quid of tobacco;
     While on the dusty road, and blent with the rays of the moonlight,
     We saw the long curl of his lash and the juice of tobacco descending.

     "Danger!  Sir, I believe you,—indeed, I may say, on that subject,
     You your existence might put to the hazard and turn of a wager.
     I have seen danger?  Oh, no! not me, sir, indeed, I assure you:
     'Twas only the man with the dog that is sitting alone in yon wagon.

     "It was the Geiger Grade, a mile and a half from the summit:
     Black as your hat was the night, and never a star in the heavens.
     Thundering down the grade, the gravel and stones we sent flying
     Over the precipice side,—a thousand feet plumb to the bottom.

     "Half-way down the grade I felt, sir, a thrilling and creaking,
     Then a lurch to one side, as we hung on the bank of the canyon;
     Then, looking up the road, I saw, in the distance behind me,
     The off hind wheel of the coach, just loosed from its axle, and
        following.

     "One glance alone I gave, then gathered together my ribbons,
     Shouted, and flung them, outspread, on the straining necks of my
        cattle;
     Screamed at the top of my voice, and lashed the air in my frenzy,
     While down the Geiger Grade, on THREE wheels, the vehicle thundered.

     "Speed was our only chance, when again came the ominous rattle:
     Crack, and another wheel slipped away, and was lost in the darkness.
     TWO only now were left; yet such was our fearful momentum,
     Upright, erect, and sustained on TWO wheels, the vehicle thundered.

     "As some huge boulder, unloosed from its rocky shelf on the mountain,
     Drives before it the hare and the timorous squirrel, far leaping,
     So down the Geiger Grade rushed the Pioneer coach, and before it
     Leaped the wild horses, and shrieked in advance of the danger
        impending.

     "But to be brief in my tale.  Again, ere we came to the level,
     Slipped from its axle a wheel; so that, to be plain in my statement,
     A matter of twelve hundred yards or more, as the distance may be,
     We traveled upon ONE wheel, until we drove up to the station.

     "Then, sir, we sank in a heap; but, picking myself from the ruins,
     I heard a noise up the grade; and looking, I saw in the distance
     The three wheels following still, like moons on the horizon whirling,
     Till, circling, they gracefully sank on the road at the side of the
        station.

     "This is my story, sir; a trifle, indeed, I assure you.
     Much more, perchance, might be said—but I hold him of all men most
        lightly
     Who swerves from the truth in his tale.  No, thank you— Well, since
     you ARE pressing,
     Perhaps I don't care if I do: you may give me the same, Jim,—no
        sugar."

     REPORTED BY TRUTHFUL JAMES

     It was Andrew Jackson Sutter who, despising Mr. Cutter for remarks
        he heard him utter in debate upon the floor,
     Swung him up into the skylight, in the peaceful, pensive twilight,
        and then keerlessly proceeded, makin' no account what WE did—
     To wipe up with his person casual dust upon the floor.

     Now a square fight never frets me, nor unpleasantness upsets me, but
        the simple thing that gets me—now the job is done and gone,
     And we've come home free and merry from the peaceful cemetery,
        leavin' Cutter there with Sutter—that mebbee just a stutter
     On the part of Mr. Cutter caused the loss we deeply mourn.

     Some bashful hesitation, just like spellin' punctooation—might have
        worked an aggravation on to Sutter's mournful mind,
     For the witnesses all vary ez to wot was said and nary a galoot will
        toot his horn except the way he is inclined.

     But they all allow that Sutter had begun a kind of mutter, when
        uprose Mr. Cutter with a sickening kind of ease,
     And proceeded then to wade in to the subject then prevadin': "Is
        Profanity degradin'?" in words like unto these:

     "Onlike the previous speaker, Mr. Sutter of Yreka, he was but a
        humble seeker—and not like him—a cuss"—
     It was here that Mr. Sutter softly reached for Mr. Cutter, when the
        latter with a stutter said: "ac-customed to discuss."

     Then Sutter he rose grimly, and sorter smilin' dimly bowed onto the
        Chairman primly—(just like Cutter ez could be!)
     Drawled "he guessed he must fall—back—as—Mr. Cutter owned the
        pack—as—he just had played the—Jack—as—" (here Cutter's gun
        went crack! as Mr. Sutter gasped and ended) "every man can see!"

     But William Henry Pryor—just in range of Sutter's fire—here
        evinced a wild desire to do somebody harm,
     And in the general scrimmage no one thought if Sutter's "image" was
        a misplaced punctooation—like the hole in Pryor's arm.

     For we all waltzed in together, never carin' to ask whether it was
        Sutter or was Cutter we woz tryin' to abate.
     But we couldn't help perceivin', when we took to inkstand heavin',
        that the process was relievin' to the sharpness of debate,

     So we've come home free and merry from the peaceful cemetery, and I
        make no commentary on these simple childish games;
     Things is various and human—and the man ain't born of woman who is
        free to intermeddle with his pal's intents and aims.

     REPORTED BY TRUTHFUL JAMES

     We hev tumbled ez dust
       Or ez worms of the yearth;
     Wot we looked for hez bust!
       We are objects of mirth!
     They have played us—old Pards of the river!—they hev played us for
        all we was worth!

     Was it euchre or draw
       Cut us off in our bloom?
     Was it faro, whose law
       Is uncertain ez doom?
     Or an innocent "Jack pot" that—opened—was to us ez the jaws of the
        tomb?

     It was nary!  It kem
       With some sharps from the States.
     Ez folks sez, "All things kem
       To the fellers ez waits;"
     And we'd waited six months for that suthin'—had me and Bill Nye—in
        such straits!

     And it kem.  It was small;
       It was dream-like and weak;
     It wore store clothes—that's all
       That we knew, so to speak;
     But it called itself "Billson, Thought-Reader"—which ain't half a
        name for its cheek!

     He could read wot you thought,
       And he knew wot you did;
     He could find things untaught,
       No matter whar hid;
     And he went to it, blindfold and smiling, being led by the hand like
        a kid!

     Then I glanced at Bill Nye,
       And I sez, without pride,
     "You'll excuse US.  We've nigh
       On to nothin' to hide;
     But if some gent will lend us a twenty, we'll hide it whar folks
        shall decide."

     It was Billson's own self
       Who forked over the gold,
     With a smile.  "Thar's the pelf,"
       He remarked.  "I make bold
     To advance it, and go twenty better that I'll find it without being
        told."

     Then I passed it to Nye,
       Who repassed it to me.
     And we bandaged each eye
       Of that Billson—ez we
     Softly dropped that coin in his coat pocket, ez the hull crowd
        around us could see.

     That was all.  He'd one hand
       Locked in mine.  Then he groped.
     We could not understand
       Why that minit Nye sloped,
     For we knew we'd the dead thing on Billson—even more than we
        dreamed of or hoped.

     For he stood thar in doubt
       With his hand to his head;
     Then he turned, and lit out
       Through the door where Nye fled,
     Draggin' me and the rest of us arter, while we larfed till we
        thought we was dead,

     Till he overtook Nye
       And went through him.  Words fail
     For what follers!  Kin I
       Paint our agonized wail
     Ez he drew from Nye's pocket that twenty wot we sworn was in his own
        coat-tail!

     And it WAS!  But, when found,
       It proved bogus and brass!
     And the question goes round
       How the thing kem to pass?
     Or, if PASSED, woz it passed thar by William; and I listens, and
        echoes "Alas!

     "For the days when the skill
       Of the keerds was no blind,
     When no effort of will
       Could beat four of a kind,
     When the thing wot you held in your hand, Pard, was worth more than
        the thing in your mind."

     (REPORTED BY TRUTHFUL JAMES)

     Waltz in, waltz in, ye little kids, and gather round my knee,
     And drop them books and first pot-hooks, and hear a yarn from me.
     I kin not sling a fairy tale of Jinnys* fierce and wild,
     For I hold it is unchristian to deceive a simple child;
     But as from school yer driftin' by, I thowt ye'd like to hear
     Of a "Spelling Bee" at Angels that we organized last year.

     It warn't made up of gentle kids, of pretty kids, like you,
     But gents ez hed their reg'lar growth, and some enough for two.
     There woz Lanky Jim of Sutter's Fork and Bilson of Lagrange,
     And "Pistol Bob," who wore that day a knife by way of change.
     You start, you little kids, you think these are not pretty names,
     But each had a man behind it, and—my name is Truthful James.

     There was Poker Dick from Whisky Flat, and Smith of Shooter's Bend,
     And Brown of Calaveras—which I want no better friend;
     Three-fingered Jack—yes, pretty dears, three fingers—YOU have five.
     Clapp cut off two—it's sing'lar, too, that Clapp ain't now alive.
     'Twas very wrong indeed, my dears, and Clapp was much to blame;
     Likewise was Jack, in after-years, for shootin' of that same.

     The nights was kinder lengthenin' out, the rains had jest begun,
     When all the camp came up to Pete's to have their usual fun;
     But we all sot kinder sad-like around the bar-room stove
     Till Smith got up, permiskiss-like, and this remark he hove:
     "Thar's a new game down in Frisco, that ez far ez I can see
     Beats euchre, poker, and van-toon, they calls the 'Spellin' Bee.'"

     Then Brown of Calaveras simply hitched his chair and spake,
     "Poker is good enough for me," and Lanky Jim sez, "Shake!"
     And Bob allowed he warn't proud, but he "must say right thar
     That the man who tackled euchre hed his education squar."
     This brought up Lenny Fairchild, the schoolmaster, who said
     He knew the game, and he would give instructions on that head.

     "For instance, take some simple word," sez he, "like 'separate:'
     Now who can spell it?"  Dog my skin, ef thar was one in eight.
     This set the boys all wild at once.  The chairs was put in row,
     And at the head was Lanky Jim, and at the foot was Joe,
     And high upon the bar itself the schoolmaster was raised,
     And the bar-keep put his glasses down, and sat and silent gazed.

     The first word out was "parallel," and seven let it be,
     Till Joe waltzed in his "double l" betwixt the "a" and "e;"
     For since he drilled them Mexicans in San Jacinto's fight
     Thar warn't no prouder man got up than Pistol Joe that night—
     Till "rhythm" came!  He tried to smile, then said "they had him
        there,"
     And Lanky Jim, with one long stride, got up and took his chair.

     O little kids, my pretty kids, 'twas touchin' to survey
     These bearded men, with weppings on, like schoolboys at their play.
     They'd laugh with glee, and shout to see each other lead the van,
     And Bob sat up as monitor with a cue for a rattan,
     Till the Chair gave out "incinerate," and Brown said he'd be durned
     If any such blamed word as that in school was ever learned.

     When "phthisis" came they all sprang up, and vowed the man who rung
     Another blamed Greek word on them be taken out and hung.
     As they sat down again I saw in Bilson's eye a flash,
     And Brown of Calaveras was a-twistin' his mustache,
     And when at last Brown slipped on "gneiss," and Bilson took his chair,
     He dropped some casual words about some folks who dyed their hair.

     And then the Chair grew very white, and the Chair said he'd adjourn,
     But Poker Dick remarked that HE would wait and get his turn;
     Then with a tremblin' voice and hand, and with a wanderin' eye,
     The Chair next offered "eider-duck," and Dick began with "I",
     And Bilson smiled—then Bilson shrieked!  Just how the fight begun
     I never knowed, for Bilson dropped, and Dick, he moved up one.

     Then certain gents arose and said "they'd business down in camp,"
     And "ez the road was rather dark, and ez the night was damp,
     They'd"—here got up Three-fingered Jack and locked the door and
        yelled:
     "No, not one mother's son goes out till that thar word is spelled!"
     But while the words were on his lips, he groaned and sank in pain,
     And sank with Webster on his chest and Worcester on his brain.

     Below the bar dodged Poker Dick, and tried to look ez he
     Was huntin' up authorities thet no one else could see;
     And Brown got down behind the stove, allowin' he "was cold,"
     Till it upsot and down his legs the cinders freely rolled,
     And several gents called "Order!" till in his simple way
     Poor Smith began with "O-r"—"Or"—and he was dragged away.

     O little kids, my pretty kids, down on your knees and pray!
     You've got your eddication in a peaceful sort of way;
     And bear in mind thar may be sharps ez slings their spellin' square,
     But likewise slings their bowie-knives without a thought or care.
     You wants to know the rest, my dears?  Thet's all!  In me you see
     The only gent that lived to tell about the Spellin' Bee!

                                 ———

     He ceased and passed, that truthful man; the children went their way
     With downcast heads and downcast hearts—but not to sport or play.
     For when at eve the lamps were lit, and supperless to bed
     Each child was sent, with tasks undone and lessons all unsaid,
     No man might know the awful woe that thrilled their youthful frames,
     As they dreamed of Angels Spelling Bee and thought of Truthful James.

     * Qy. Genii.

     DRAMATIS PERSONAE

     Poet.  Philosopher.  Jones of Mariposa.

     POET

     Halt!  Here we are.  Now wheel your mare a trifle
       Just where you stand; then doff your hat and swear
     Never yet was scene you might cover with your rifle
       Half as complete or as marvelously fair.

     PHILOSOPHER

     Dropped from Olympus or lifted out of Tempe,
       Swung like a censer betwixt the earth and sky!
     He who in Greece sang of flocks and flax and hemp,—he
       Here might recall them—six thousand feet on high!

     POET

     Well you may say so.  The clamor of the river,
       Hum of base toil, and man's ignoble strife,
     Halt far below, where the stifling sunbeams quiver,
       But never climb to this purer, higher life!

     Not to this glade, where Jones of Mariposa,
       Simple and meek as his flocks we're looking at,
     Tends his soft charge; nor where his daughter Rosa—
         (A shot.)
       Hallo!  What's that?

     PHILOSOPHER

                             A—something thro' my hat—
     Bullet, I think.  You were speaking of his daughter?

     POET

     Yes; but—your hat you were moving through the leaves;
       Likely he thought it some eagle bent on slaughter.
     Lightly he shoots—  (A second shot.)

     PHILOSOPHER

                          As one readily perceives.
      Still, he improves!  This time YOUR hat has got it,
     Quite near the band!  Eh? Oh, just as you please—
       Stop, or go on.

     POET

                       Perhaps we'd better trot it
     Down through the hollow, and up among the trees.

     BOTH

     Trot, trot, trot, where the bullets cannot follow;
       Trot down and up again among the laurel trees.

     PHILOSOPHER

     Thanks, that is better; now of this shot-dispensing
       Jones and his girl—you were saying—

     POET

                                             Well, you see—
     I—hang it all!—Oh! what's the use of fencing!
       Sir, I confess it!—these shots were meant for ME.

     PHILOSOPHER

     Are you mad!

     POET

                   God knows, I shouldn't wonder!
       I love this coy nymph, who, coldly—as yon peak
     Shines on the river it feeds, yet keeps asunder—
       Long have I worshiped, but never dared to speak.

     Till she, no doubt, her love no longer hiding,
       Waked by some chance word her father's jealousy;
     Slips her disdain—as an avalanche down gliding
       Sweeps flocks and kin away—to clear a path for ME.

     Hence his attack.

     PHILOSOPHER

                        I see.  What I admire
       Chiefly, I think, in your idyl, so to speak,
     Is the cool modesty that checks your youthful fire,—
       Absence of self-love and abstinence of cheek!

     Still, I might mention, I've met the gentle Rosa,—
       Danced with her thrice, to her father's jealous dread;
     And, it is possible, she's happened to disclose a—
       Ahem!  You can fancy why he shoots at ME instead.

     POET

     YOU?

     PHILOSOPHER

          Me.  But kindly take your hand from your revolver,
       I am not choleric—but accidents may chance.
     And here's the father, who alone can be the solver
       Of this twin riddle of the hat and the romance.

     Enter JONES OF MARIPOSA.

     POET

     Speak, shepherd—mine!

     PHILOSOPHER

                            Hail!  Time-and-cartridge waster,
       Aimless exploder of theories and skill!
     Whom do you shoot?

     JONES OF MARIPOSA

                        Well, shootin' ain't my taste, or
       EF I shoot anything—I only shoot to kill.

     That ain't what's up.  I only kem to tell ye—
       Sportin' or courtin'—trot homeward for your life!
     Gals will be gals, and p'r'aps it's just ez well ye
       Larned there was one had no wish to be—a wife.

     POET

     What?

     PHILOSOPHER

           Is this true?

     JONES OF MARIPOSA

                          I reckon it looks like it.
       She saw ye comin'.  My gun was standin' by;
     She made a grab, and 'fore I up could strike it,
       Blazed at ye both!  The critter is SO shy!

     POET

     Who?

     JONES OF MARIPOSA

           My darter!

     PHILOSOPHER

                       Rosa?

     JONES OF MARIPOSA

                              Same!  Good-by!

     (SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA)

     Shrewdly you question, Senor, and I fancy
     You are no novice.  Confess that to little
     Of my poor gossip of Mission and Pueblo
          You are a stranger!

     Am I not right?  Ah! believe me, that ever
     Since we joined company at the posada
     I've watched you closely, and—pardon an old priest—
          I've caught you smiling!

     Smiling to hear an old fellow like me talk
     Gossip of pillage and robbers, and even
     Air his opinion of law and alcaldes
          Like any other!

     Now!—by that twist of the wrist on the bridle,
     By that straight line from the heel to the shoulder,
     By that curt speech,—nay! nay! no offense, son,—
          You are a soldier?

     No?  Then a man of affairs?  San Sebastian!
     'Twould serve me right if I prattled thus wildly
     To—say a sheriff?  No?—just caballero?
          Well, more's the pity.

     Ah! what we want here's a man of your presence;
     Sano, Secreto,—yes, all the four S's,
     Joined with a boldness and dash, when the time comes,
          And—may I say it?—

     One not TOO hard on the poor country people,
     Peons and silly vaqueros, who, dazzled
     By reckless skill, and, perchance, reckless largesse,
        Wink at some queer things.

     No?  You would crush THEM as well as the robbers,—
     Root them out, scatter them?  Ah you are bitter—
     And yet—quien sabe, perhaps that's the one way
          To catch their leader.

     As to myself, now, I'd share your displeasure;
     For I admit in this Jack of the Tules
     Certain good points.  He still comes to confession—
          You'd "like to catch him"?

     Ah, if you did at such times, you might lead him
     Home by a thread.  Good!  Again you are smiling:
     You have no faith in such shrift, and but little
          In priest or penitent.

     Bueno!  We take no offense, sir; whatever
     It please you to say, it becomes us, for Church sake,
     To bear in peace.  Yet, if you were kinder—
          And less suspicious—

     I might still prove to you, Jack of the Tules
     Shames not our teaching; nay, even might show you,
     Hard by this spot, his old comrade, who, wounded,
          Lives on his bounty.

     If—ah, you listen!—I see I can trust you;
     Then, on your word as a gentleman—follow.
     Under that sycamore stands the old cabin;
          There sits his comrade.

     Eh!—are you mad?  You would try to ARREST him?
     You, with a warrant?  Oh, well, take the rest of them:
     Pedro, Bill, Murray, Pat Doolan.  Hey!—all of you,
          Tumble out, d—n it!

     There!—that'll do, boys!  Stand back!  Ease his elbows;
     Take the gag from his mouth.  Good!  Now scatter like devils
     After his posse—four straggling, four drunken—
          At the posada.

     You—help me off with these togs, and then vamos!
     Now, ole Jeff Dobbs!—Sheriff, Scout, and Detective!
     You're so derned 'cute!  Kinder sick, ain't ye, bluffing
          Jack of the Tules!

     (1797)

     They ran through the streets of the seaport town,
     They peered from the decks of the ships that lay;
     The cold sea-fog that came whitening down
     Was never as cold or white as they.
       "Ho, Starbuck and Pinckney and Tenterden!
       Run for your shallops, gather your men,
         Scatter your boats on the lower bay."

     Good cause for fear!  In the thick mid-day
     The hulk that lay by the rotting pier,
     Filled with the children in happy play,
     Parted its moorings and drifted clear,
       Drifted clear beyond reach or call,—
       Thirteen children they were in all,—
         All adrift in the lower bay!

     Said a hard-faced skipper, "God help us all!
     She will not float till the turning tide!"
     Said his wife, "My darling will hear MY call,
     Whether in sea or heaven she bide;"
       And she lifted a quavering voice and high,
       Wild and strange as a sea-bird's cry,
         Till they shuddered and wondered at her side.

     The fog drove down on each laboring crew,
     Veiled each from each and the sky and shore:
     There was not a sound but the breath they drew,
     And the lap of water and creak of oar;
       And they felt the breath of the downs, fresh blown
       O'er leagues of clover and cold gray stone,
         But not from the lips that had gone before.

     They came no more.  But they tell the tale
     That, when fogs are thick on the harbor reef,
     The mackerel fishers shorten sail—
     For the signal they know will bring relief;
       For the voices of children, still at play
       In a phantom hulk that drifts alway
         Through channels whose waters never fail.

     It is but a foolish shipman's tale,
     A theme for a poet's idle page;
     But still, when the mists of Doubt prevail,
     And we lie becalmed by the shores of Age,
       We hear from the misty troubled shore
       The voice of the children gone before,
         Drawing the soul to its anchorage.

     They say that she died of a broken heart
       (I tell the tale as 'twas told to me);
     But her spirit lives, and her soul is part
       Of this sad old house by the sea.

     Her lover was fickle and fine and French:
       It was nearly a hundred years ago
     When he sailed away from her arms—poor wench!—
       With the Admiral Rochambeau.

     I marvel much what periwigged phrase
       Won the heart of this sentimental Quaker,
     At what gold-laced speech of those modish days
       She listened—the mischief take her!

     But she kept the posies of mignonette
       That he gave; and ever as their bloom failed
     And faded (though with her tears still wet)
       Her youth with their own exhaled.

     Till one night, when the sea-fog wrapped a shroud
       Round spar and spire and tarn and tree,
     Her soul went up on that lifted cloud
       From this sad old house by the sea.

     And ever since then, when the clock strikes two,
       She walks unbidden from room to room,
     And the air is filled that she passes through
       With a subtle, sad perfume.

     The delicate odor of mignonette,
       The ghost of a dead-and-gone bouquet,
     Is all that tells of her story; yet
       Could she think of a sweeter way?

     I sit in the sad old house to-night,—
       Myself a ghost from a farther sea;
     And I trust that this Quaker woman might,
       In courtesy, visit me.

     For the laugh is fled from porch and lawn,
       And the bugle died from the fort on the hill,
     And the twitter of girls on the stairs is gone,
       And the grand piano is still.

     Somewhere in the darkness a clock strikes two:
       And there is no sound in the sad old house,
     But the long veranda dripping with dew,
       And in the wainscot a mouse.

     The light of my study-lamp streams out
       From the library door, but has gone astray
     In the depths of the darkened hall. Small doubt
       But the Quakeress knows the way.

     Was it the trick of a sense o'erwrought
       With outward watching and inward fret?
     But I swear that the air just now was fraught
       With the odor of mignonette!

     I open the window, and seem almost—
       So still lies the ocean—to hear the beat
     Of its Great Gulf artery off the coast,
       And to bask in its tropic heat.

     In my neighbor's windows the gas-lights flare,
       As the dancers swing in a waltz of Strauss;
     And I wonder now could I fit that air
       To the song of this sad old house.

     And no odor of mignonette there is,
       But the breath of morn on the dewy lawn;
     And mayhap from causes as slight as this
       The quaint old legend is born.

     But the soul of that subtle, sad perfume,
       As the spiced embalmings, they say, outlast
     The mummy laid in his rocky tomb,
       Awakens my buried past.

     And I think of the passion that shook my youth,
       Of its aimless loves and its idle pains,
     And am thankful now for the certain truth
       That only the sweet remains.

     And I hear no rustle of stiff brocade,
       And I see no face at my library door;
     For now that the ghosts of my heart are laid,
       She is viewless for evermore.

     But whether she came as a faint perfume,
       Or whether a spirit in stole of white,
     I feel, as I pass from the darkened room,
       She has been with my soul to-night!

     (FROM THE SEA)

     Serene, indifferent of Fate,
     Thou sittest at the Western Gate;

     Upon thy height, so lately won,
     Still slant the banners of the sun;

     Thou seest the white seas strike their tents,
     O Warder of two continents!

     And, scornful of the peace that flies
     Thy angry winds and sullen skies,

     Thou drawest all things, small, or great,
     To thee, beside the Western Gate.

     O lion's whelp, that hidest fast
     In jungle growth of spire and mast!

     I know thy cunning and thy greed,
     Thy hard high lust and willful deed,

     And all thy glory loves to tell
     Of specious gifts material.

     Drop down, O Fleecy Fog, and hide
     Her skeptic sneer and all her pride!

     Wrap her, O Fog, in gown and hood
     Of her Franciscan Brotherhood.

     Hide me her faults, her sin and blame;
     With thy gray mantle cloak her shame!

     So shall she, cowled, sit and pray
     Till morning bears her sins away.

     Then rise, O Fleecy Fog, and raise
     The glory of her coming days;

     Be as the cloud that flecks the seas
     Above her smoky argosies;

     When forms familiar shall give place
     To stranger speech and newer face;

     When all her throes and anxious fears
     Lie hushed in the repose of years;

     When Art shall raise and Culture lift
     The sensual joys and meaner thrift,

     And all fulfilled the vision we
     Who watch and wait shall never see;

     Who, in the morning of her race,
     Toiled fair or meanly in our place,

     But, yielding to the common lot,
     Lie unrecorded and forgot.