When I was grass, perhaps I may have wept
As every year the grass-blades paled and slept;
Or shrieked in anguish impotent, beneath
The smooth impartial cropping of great teeth—
I don’t remember much what came to pass
When I was grass.
When I was monkey, I’m afraid the trees
Weren’t always havens of contented ease;
Things killed us, and we never could tell why;
No doubt we blamed the earth or sea or sky—
I have forgotten my rebellion’s shape
When I was ape.
Now I have reached the comfortable skin
This stage of living is enveloped in,
And hold the spirit of my mighty race
Self-conscious prisoner under one white face,—
I’m awfully afraid I’m going to die,
Now I am I.
So I have planned a hypothetic life
To pay me somehow for my toil and strife.
Blessed or damned, I someway must contrive
That I eternally be kept alive!
In this an endless, boundless bliss I see,—
Eternal me!
When I was man, no doubt I used to care
About the little things that happened there,
And fret to see the years keep going by,
And nations, families, and persons die.
I didn’t much appreciate life’s plan
When I was man.
WASTE.
Doth any man consider what we waste
Here in God’s garden? While the sea is full,
The sunlight smiles, and all the blessed earth
Offers her wealth to our intelligence.
We waste our food, enough for half the world,
In helpless luxury among the rich,
In helpless ignorance among the poor,
In spilling what we stop to quarrel for.
We waste our wealth in failing to produce,
In robbing of each other every day
In place of making things,—our human crown.
We waste our strength, in endless effort poured
Like water on the sand, still toiling on
To make a million things we do not want.
We waste our lives, those which should still lead on
Each new one gaining on the age behind,
In doing what we all have done before.
We waste our love,—poured up into the sky,
Across the ocean, into desert lands,
Sunk in one narrow circle next ourselves,—
While these, our brothers, suffer—are alone.
Ye may not pass the near to love the far;
Ye may not love the near and stop at that.
Love spreads through man, not over or around!
Yea, grievously we waste; and all the time
Humanity is wanting,—wanting sore.
Waste not, my brothers, and ye shall not want!
WINGS.
A sense of wings—
Soft downy wings and fair—
Great wings that whistle as they sweep
Along the still gulfs—empty, deep—
Of thin blue air.
Doves’ wings that follow,
Doves’ wings that fold,
Doves’ wings that flutter down
To nestle in your hold.
Doves’ wings that settle,
Doves’ wings that rest,
Doves’ wings that brood so warm
Above the little nest.
Larks’ wings that rise and rise,
Climbing the rosy skies—
Fold and drop down
To birdlings brown.
Light wings of wood-birds, that one scarce believes
Moved in the leaves.
The quick, shy flight
Of wings that flee in fright—
A start as swift as light—
Only the shaken air
To tell that wings were there.
Broad wings that beat for many days
Above the land wastes and the water ways;
Beating steadily on and on,
Through dark and cold,
Through storms untold,
Till the far sun and summer land is won.
And wings—
Wings that unfold
With such wide sweep before your would-be hold—
Such glittering sweep of whiteness—sun on snow—
Such mighty plumes—strong-ribbed, strong-webbed—strong-knit to go
From earth to heaven!
Hear the air flow back
In their wide track!
Feel the sweet wind these wings displace
Beat on your face!
See the great arc of light like rising rockets trail
They leave in leaving—
They avail—
These wings—for flight!
THE HEART OF THE WATER.
O the ache in the heart of the water that lies
Underground in the desert, unopened, unknown,
While the seeds lie unbroken, the blossoms unblown,
And the traveller wanders—the traveller dies!
O the joy in the heart of the water that flows
From the well in the desert,—a desert no more,—
Bird-music and blossoms and harvest in store,
And the white shrine that showeth the traveller knows!
THE SHIP.
The sunlight is mine! And the sea!
And the four wild winds that blow!
The winds of heaven that whistle free—
They are but slaves to carry me
Wherever I choose to go!
Fire for a power inside!
Air for a pathway free!
I traverse the earth in conquest wide;
The sea is my servant! The sea is my bride!
And the elements wait on me!
In dull green light, down-filtered sick and slow
Through miles of heavy water overhead,
With miles of heavy water yet below,
A ship lies, dead.
Shapeless and broken, swayed from side to side,
The helpless driftwood of an unknown tide.
AMONG THE GODS.
How close the air of valleys, and how close
The teeming little life that harbors there!
For me, I will climb mountains. Up and up,
Higher and higher, till I pant for breath
In that thin clearness. Still? There is no sound
Nor memory of sound upon these heights.
Ah! the great sunlight! The caressing sky,
The beauty, and the stillness, and the peace!
I see my pathway clear for miles below;
See where I fell, and set a friendly sign
To warn some other of the danger there.
The green small world is wide below me spread.
The great small world! Some things look large and fair
Which, in their midst, I could not even see;
And some look small which used to terrify.
Blessed these heights of freedom, wisdom, rest!
I will go higher yet.
A sea of cloud
Rolls soundless waves between me and the world.
This is the zone of everlasting snows,
And the sweet silence of the hills below
Is song and laughter to the silence here.
Great fields, huge peaks, long awful slopes of snow.
Alone, triumphant, man above the world,
I stand among these white eternities.
Sheer at my feet
Sink the unsounded, cloud-encumbered gulfs;
And shifting mists now veil and now reveal
The unknown fastnesses above me yet.
I am alone—above all life—sole king
Of these white wastes. How pitiful and small
Becomes the outgrown world! I reign supreme,
And in this utter stillness and wide peace
Look calmly down upon the universe.
Surely that crest has changed! That pile of cloud
That covers half the sky, waves like a robe!
That large and gentle wind
Is like the passing of a presence here!
See how yon massive mist-enshrouded peak
Is like the shape of an unmeasured foot,—
The figure with the stars!
Ah! what is this? It moves, lifts, bends, is gone!
With what a shocking sense of littleness—
A reeling universe that changes place,
And falls to new relation over me—
I feel the unseen presence of the gods!
SONGS.
I.
O world of green, all shining, shifting!
O world of blue, all living, lifting!
O world where glassy waters smoothly roll!
Fair earth, and heaven free,
Ye are but part of me—
Ye are my soul!
O woman nature, shining, shifting!
O woman creature, living, lifting!
Come soft and still to one who waits thee here!
Fair soul, both mine and free,
Ye who are part of me,
Appear! Appear!
II.
How could I choose but weep?
The poor bird lay asleep;
For lack of food, for lack of breath,
For lack of life he came to death—
How could I choose but weep?
How could I choose but smile?
There was no lack the while!
In bliss he did undo himself;
Where life was full he slew himself—
How could I choose but smile?
Would ye but understand!
Joy is on every hand!
Ye shut your eyes and call it night,
Ye grope and fall in seas of light—
Would ye but understand!
HEAVEN.
Thou bright mirage, that o’er man’s arduous way
Hast hung in the hot sky, with fountains streaming,
Cool marble domes, and palm-fronds waving, gleaming,—
Vision of rest and peace to end the day!
Now he is weariest, alone, astray,
Spent with long labor, led by thy sweet seeming,
Faint as the breath of Nature’s lightest dreaming,
Thou waverest and vanishest away!
Can Nature dream? Is God’s great sky deceiving?
Where joy like that the clouds above us show
Be sure the counterpart must lie below,
Sweeter than hope, more blessed than believing!
We lose the fair reflection of our home
Because so near its gates our feet have come!
BALLAD OF THE SUMMER SUN.
It is said that human nature needeth hardship to be strong,
That highest growth has come to man in countries white with snow;
And they tell of truth and wisdom that to northern folk belong,
And claim the brain is feeble where the south winds always blow.
They forget to read the story of the ages long ago:
The lore that built the pyramids where still the simoom veers,
The knowledge framing Tyrian ships, the greater skill that steers,
The learning of the Hindu in his volumes never done,
All the wisdom of Egyptians and the old Chaldean seers,—
Came to man in summer lands beneath a summer sun.
It is said that human nature needeth hardship to be strong,
That courage bred of meeting cold makes martial bosoms glow;
And they point to mighty generals the northern folk among,
And call mankind emasculate where southern waters flow.
They forget to look at history and see the nations grow!
The cohorts of Assyrian kings, the Pharaohs’ charioteers,
The march of Alexander, the Persians’ conquering spears,
The legions of the Romans, from Ethiop to Hun,
The power that mastered all the world and held it years on years,—
Came to man in summer lands beneath a summer sun.
It is said that human nature needeth hardship to be strong,
That only pain and suffering the power to feel bestow;
And they show us noble artists made great by loss and wrong,
And say the soul is lowered that hath pleasure without woe.
They forget the perfect monuments that pleasure’s blessings show;
The statue and the temple that no man living nears,
Song and verse and music forever in the ears,
The glory that remaineth while the sands of time shall run,
The beauty of immortal art that never disappears,—
Came to man in summer lands beneath a summer sun.
The faith of Thor and Odin, the creed of force and fears,
Cruel gods that deal in death, the icebound soul reveres,
But the Lord of Peace and Blessing was not one!
Truth and Power and Beauty—Love that endeth tears—
Came to man in summer lands beneath a summer sun.
PIONEERS.
Long have we sung our noble pioneers,
Vanguard of progress, heralds of the time,
Guardians of industry and art sublime,
Leaders of man down all the brightening years!
To them the danger, to their wives the tears,
While we sit safely in the city’s grime,
In old-world trammels of distress and crime,
Playing with words and thoughts, with doubts and fears.
Children of axe and gun! Ye take to-day
The baby steps of man’s first, feeblest age,
While we, thought-seekers of the printed page,
We lead the world down its untrodden way!
Ours the drear wastes and leagues of empty waves,
The lonely deaths, the undiscovered graves.
EXILES.
Exiled from home. The far sea rolls
Between them and the country of their birth;
The childhood-turning impulse of their souls
Pulls half across the earth.
Exiled from home. No mother to take care
That they work not too hard, grieve not too sore;
No older brother nor small sister fair;
No father any more.
Exiled from home; from all familiar things;
The low-browed roof, the grass-surrounded door;
Accustomed labors that gave daylight wings;
Loved steps on the worn floor.
Exiled from home. Young girls sent forth alone
When most their hearts need close companioning;
No love and hardly friendship may they own,
No voice of welcoming.
Blinded with homesick tears the exile stands;
To toil for alien household gods she comes;
A servant and a stranger in our lands,
Homeless within our homes.
A NEVADA DESERT.
An aching, blinding, barren, endless plain,
Corpse-colored with white mould of alkali,
Hairy with sage-brush, slimy after rain,
Burnt with the sky’s hot scorn, and still again
Sullenly burning back against the sky.
Dull green, dull brown, dull purple, and dull gray,
The hard earth white with ages of despair,
Slow-crawling, turbid streams where dead reeds sway,
Low wall of sombre mountains far away,
And sickly steam of geysers on the air.
TREE FEELINGS.
I wonder if they like it—being trees?
I suppose they do....
It must feel good to have the ground so flat,
And feel yourself stand right straight up like that—
So stiff in the middle—and then branch at ease,
Big boughs that arch, small ones that bend and blow,
And all those fringy leaves that flutter so.
You’d think they’d break off at the lower end
When the wind fills them, and their great heads bend.
But then you think of all the roots they drop,
As much at bottom as there is on top,—
A double tree, widespread in earth and air
Like a reflection in the water there.
I guess they like to stand still in the sun
And just breathe out and in, and feel the cool sap run;
And like to feel the rain run through their hair
And slide down to the roots and settle there.
But I think they like wind best. From the light touch
That lets the leaves whisper and kiss so much,
To the great swinging, tossing, flying wide,
And all the time so stiff and strong inside!
And the big winds, that pull, and make them feel
How long their roots are, and the earth how leal!
And O the blossoms! And the wild seeds lost!
And jewelled martyrdom of fiery frost!
And fruit trees. I’d forgotten. No cold gem,
But to be apples—and bow down with them!
MONOTONY.
FROM CALIFORNIA.
When ragged lines of passing days go by,
Crowding and hurried, broken-linked and slow,
Some sobbing pitifully as they pass,
Some angry-hot and fierce, some angry cold,
Some raging and some wailing, and again
The fretful days one cannot read aright,—
Then truly, when the fair days smile on us,
We feel that loveliness with sharper touch
And grieve to lose it for the next day’s chance.
And so men question—they who never know
If beauty comes or horror, pain or joy—
If we, whose sky is peace, whose hours are glad,
Find not our happiness monotonous!
But when the long procession of the days
Rolls musically down the waiting year,
Close-ranked, rich-robed, flower-garlanded and fair;
Broad brows of peace, deep eyes of soundless truth,
And lips of love,—warm, steady, changeless love;
Each one more beautiful, till we forget
Our niggard fear of losing half an hour,
And learn to count on more and ever more,—
In the remembered joy of yesterday,
In the full rapture of to-day’s delight,
And knowledge of the happiness to come,
We learn to let life pass without regret,
We learn to hold life softly and in peace,
We learn to meet life gladly, full of faith,
We learn what God is, and to trust in Him!
THE BEDS OF FLEUR-DE-LYS.
High-lying, sea-blown stretches of green turf,
Wind-bitten close, salt-colored by the sea,
Low curve on curve spread far to the cool sky,
And, curving over them as long they lie,
Beds of wild fleur-de-lys.
Wide-flowing, self-sown, stealing near and far,
Breaking the green like islands in the sea;
Great stretches at your feet, and spots that bend
Dwindling over the horizon’s end,—
Wild beds of fleur-de-lys.
The light keen wind streams on across the lifts,
Thin wind of western springtime by the sea;
The close turf smiles unmoved, but over her
Is the far-flying rustle and sweet stir
In beds of fleur-de-lys.
And here and there across the smooth, low grass
Tall maidens wander, thinking of the sea;
And bend, and bend, with light robes blown aside,
For the blue lily-flowers that bloom so wide,—
The beds of fleur-de-lys.
The Presidio, San Francisco.
IT IS GOOD TO BE ALIVE.
It is good to be alive when the trees shine green,
And the steep red hills stand up against the sky;
Big sky, blue sky, with flying clouds between—
It is good to be alive and see the clouds drive by!
It is good to be alive when the strong winds blow,
The strong, sweet winds blowing straightly off the sea;
Great sea, green sea, with swinging ebb and flow—
It is good to be alive and see the waves roll free!
THE CHANGELESS YEAR.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
Doth Autumn remind thee of sadness?
And Winter of wasting and pain?
Midsummer, of joy that was madness?
Spring, of hope that was vain?
Do the Seasons fly fast at thy laughter?
Do the Seasons lag slow if thou weep,
Till thou long’st for the land lying after
The River of Sleep?
Come here, where the West lieth golden
In the light of an infinite sun,
Where Summer doth Winter embolden
Till they reign here as one!
Here the Seasons tread soft and steal slowly;
A moment of question and doubt—
Is it Winter? Come faster!—come wholly!—
And Spring rusheth out!
We forget there are tempests and changes;
We forget there are days that are drear;
In a dream of delight, the soul ranges
Through the measureless year.
Still the land is with blossoms enfolden,
Still the sky burneth blue in its deeps;
Time noddeth, ’mid poppies all golden,
And memory sleeps.
WHERE MEMORY SLEEPS.
RONDEAU.
Where memory sleeps the soul doth rise,
Free of that past where sorrow lies,
And storeth against future ills
The courage of the constant hills,
The comfort of the quiet skies.
Fair is this land to tired eyes,
Where summer sunlight never dies,
And summer’s peace the spirit fills,
Where memory sleeps.
Safe from the season’s changing cries
And chill of yearly sacrifice,
Great roses crowd the window-sills,—
Calm roses that no winter kills.
The peaceful heart all pain denies,
Where memory sleeps.
CALIFORNIA CAR WINDOWS.
Lark songs ringing to Heaven,
Earth light clear as the sky;
Air like the breath of a greenhouse
With the greenhouse roof on high.
Flowers to see till you’re weary,
To travel in hours and hours;
Ranches of gold and purple,
Counties covered with flowers!
A rainbow, a running rainbow,
That flies at our side for hours;
A ribbon, a broidered ribbon,
A rainbow ribbon of flowers.
LIMITS.
On sand—loose sand and shifting—
On sand—dry sand and drifting—
The city grows to the west;
Not till its border reaches
The ocean-beaten beaches
Will it rest.
On hills—steep hills and lonely,
That stop at cloudland only—
The city climbs to the sky;
Not till the souls who make it
Touch the clear light and take it,
Will it die.
POWELL STREET.
You start
From the town’s hot heart
To ride up Powell Street.
Hotel and theatre and crowding shops,
And Market’s cabled stream that never stops,
And the mixed hurrying beat
Of countless feet—
Take a front seat.
Before you rise
Six terraced hills, up to the low-hung skies;
Low where across the hill they seem to lie,
And then—how high!
Up you go slowly. To the right
A wide square, green and bright.
Above that green a broad façade,
Strongly and beautifully made,
In warm clear color standeth fair and true
Against the blue.
Only, above, two purple domes rise bold,
Twin-budded spires, bright-tipped with balls of gold.
Past that, and up you glide,
Up, up, till, either side,
Wide earth and water stretch around—away—
The straits, the hills, and the low-lying, wide-spread, dusky bay.
Great houses here,
Dull, opulent, severe.
Dives’ gold birds on guarding lamps a-wing—
Dead gold, that may not sing!
Fair on the other side
Smooth, steep-laid sweeps of turf and green boughs waving wide.
This is the hilltop’s crown.
Below you, down
In blurred, dim streets, the market quarter lies,
Foul, narrow, torn with cries
Of tortured things in cages, and the smell
Of daily bloodshed rising; that is hell.
But up here on the crown of Powell Street
The air is sweet;
And the green swaying mass of eucalyptus bends
Like hands of friends,
To gladden you despite the mansions’ frown.
Then you go down.
Down, down, and round the turns to lower grades;
Lower in all ways; darkening with the shades
Of poverty, old youth, and unearned age,
And that quick squalor which so blots the page
Of San Francisco’s beauty,—swift decay
Chasing the shallow grandeur of a day.
Here, like a noble lady of lost state,
Still calmly smiling at encroaching fate,
Amidst the squalor, rises Russian Hill,—
Proud, isolated, lonely, lovely still.
So on you glide.
Till the blue straits lie wide
Before you; purple mountains loom across,
And islands green as moss;
With soft white fog-wreaths drifting, drifting through
To comfort you;
And light, low-singing waves that tell you reach
The end,—North Beach.
FROM RUSSIAN HILL.
A strange day—bright and still;
Strange for the stillness here,
For the strong trade-winds blow
With such a steady sweep it seems like rest,
Forever steadily across the crest
Of Russian Hill.
Still now and clear,—
So clear you count the houses spreading wide
In the fair cities on the farther side
Of our broad bay;
And brown Goat Island lieth large between,
Its brownness brightening into sudden green
From rains of yesterday.
Blue? Blue above of Californian sky,
Which has no peer on earth for its pure flame;
Bright blue of bay and strait spread wide below,
And, past the low, dull hills that hem it so,—
Blue as the sky, blue as the placid bay,—
Blue mountains far away.
Thanks this year for the early rains that came
To bless us, meaning Summer by and by.
This is our Spring-in-Autumn, making one
The Indian Summer tenderness of sun—
Its hazy stillness, and soft far-heard sound—
And the sweet riot of abundant spring,
The greenness flaming out from everything,
The sense of coming gladness in the ground.
From this high peace and purity look down;
Between you and the blueness lies the town.
Under those huddled roofs the heart of man
Beats warmer than this brooding day,
Spreads wider than the hill-rimmed bay,
And throbs to tenderer life, were it but seen,
Than all this new-born, all-enfolding green!
Within that heart lives still
All that one guesses, dreams, and sees—
Sitting in sunlight, warm, at ease—
From this high island,—Russian Hill.
“AN UNUSUAL RAIN.”
Again!
Another day of rain!
It has rained for years.
It never clears.
The clouds come down so low
They drag and drip
Across each hill-top’s tip.
In progress slow
They blow in from the sea
Eternally;
Hang heavily and black,
And then roll back;
And rain and rain and rain,
Both drifting in and drifting out again.
They come down to the ground,
These clouds, where the ground is high;
And, lest the weather fiend forget
And leave one hidden spot unwet,
The fog comes up to the sky!
And all our pavement of planks and logs
Reeks with the rain and steeps in the fogs
Till the water rises and sinks and presses
Into your bonnets and shoes and dresses;
And every outdoor-going dunce
Is wet in forty ways at once.
Wet?
It’s wetter than being drowned.
Dark?
Such darkness never was found
Since first the light was made. And cold?
O come to the land of grapes and gold,
Of fruit and flowers and sunshine gay,
When the rainy season’s under way!
And they tell you calmly, evermore,
They never had such rain before!
What’s that you say? Come out?
Why, see that sky!
Oh, what a world! so clear! so high!
So clean and lovely all about;
The sunlight burning through and through,
And everything just blazing blue.
And look! the whole world blossoms again
The minute the sunshine follows the rain.
Warm sky—earth basking under—
Did it ever rain, I wonder?
THE HILLS.
The flowing waves of our warm sea
Roll to the beach and die,
But the soul of the waves forever fills
The curving crests of our restless hills
That climb so wantonly.
Up and up till you look to see
Along the cloud-kissed top
The great hill-breakers curve and comb
In crumbling lines of falling foam
Before they settle and drop.
Down and down, with the shuddering sweep
Of the sea-wave’s glassy wall,
You sink with a plunge that takes your breath,
A thrill that stirreth and quickeneth,
Like the great line steamer’s fall.
We have laid our streets by the square and line,
We have built by the line and square;
But the strong hill-rises arch below
And force the houses to curve and flow
In lines of beauty there.
And off to the north and east and south,
With wildering mists between,
They ring us round with wavering hold,
With fold on fold of rose and gold,
Violet, azure, and green.
CITY’S BEAUTY.
Fair, oh, fair are the hills uncrowned,
Only wreathed and garlanded
With the soft clouds overhead,
With the waving streams of rain;
Fair in golden sunlight drowned,
Bathed and buried in the bright
Warm luxuriance of light,—
Fair the hills without a stain.
Fairer far the hills should stand
Crownèd with a city’s halls,
With the glimmer of white walls,
With the climbing grace of towers;
Fair with great fronts tall and grand,
Stately streets that meet the sky,
Lovely roof-lines, low and high,—
Fairer for the days and hours.
Woman’s beauty fades and flies,
In the passing of the years,
With the falling of the tears,
With the lines of toil and stress;
City’s beauty never dies,—
Never while her people know
How to love and honor so
Her immortal loveliness.
TWO SKIES.
FROM ENGLAND.
They have a sky in Albion,
At least they tell me so;
But she will wear a veil so thick,
And she does have the sulks so quick,
And weeps so long and slow,
That one can hardly know.
Yes, there’s a sky in Albion.
She’s shown herself of late.
And where it was not white or gray,
It was quite bluish—in a way;
But near and full of weight,
Like an overhanging plate!
Our sky in California!
Such light the angels knew,
When the strong, tender smile of God
Kindled the spaces where they trod,
And made all life come true!
Deep, soundless, burning blue!