East and West | Page 2

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 forevermore.
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!
The Hawk's Nest.
(Sierras.)
We checked our pace,--the red road sharply rounding;?We heard the troubled flow?Of the dark olive depths of pines, resounding?A thousand feet below.
Above the tumult of the ca?on lifted,?The gray hawk breathless hung;?Or on the hill a wingèd shadow drifted?Where furze and thorn-bush clung;
Or where half-way the mountain side was furrowed?With many a seam and scar;?Or some abandoned tunnel dimly burrowed,--?A mole-hill seen so far.
We looked in silence down across the distant?Unfathomable reach:?A silence broken by the guide's consistent?And realistic speech.
"Walker of Murphy's blew a hole through Peters?For telling him he lied;?Then up and dusted out of South Hornitos?Across the long Divide.
"We ran him out of Strong's, and up through Eden,?And 'cross the ford below;?And up this ca?on (Peters' brother leadin'),?And me and Clark and Joe.
"He fou't us game: somehow, I disremember?Jest how the thing kem round;?Some say 'twas wadding, some a scattered ember?From fires on the ground.
"But in one minute all the hill below him?Was just one sheet of flame;?Guardin' the crest, Sam Clark and I called to him.?And,--well, the dog was game!
"He made no sign: the fires of hell were round him,?The pit of hell below.?We sat and waited, but never found him;?And then we turned to go.
"And then--you see that rock that's grown so bristly?With chaparral and tan--?Suthin' crep' out: it might hev been a grizzly,?It might hev been a man;
"Suthin' that howled, and gnashed its teeth, and shouted?In smoke and dust and flame;?Suthin' that sprang into the depths about it,?Grizzly or man,--but game!
"That's all. Well, yes, it does look rather risky,?And kinder makes one queer?And dizzy looking down. A drop of whiskey?Ain't a bad thing right here!"
In the Mission Garden.
(1865.)
Father Felipe.
I speak not the English well, but Pachita?She speak for me; is it not so, my Pancha??Eh, little rogue? Come, salute me the stranger
Americano.
Sir, in my country we say, "Where the heart is,?There live the speech." Ah! you not understand? So!?Pardon an old man,--what you call "ol fogy,"--
Padre Felipe!
Old, Se?or, old! just so old as the Mission.?You see that pear-tree? How old you think, Se?or??Fifteen year? Twenty? Ah, Se?or, just Fifty
Gone since I plant him!
You like the wine? It is some at the Mission,?Made from the grape of the year Eighteen Hundred;?All the same time when the earthquake he come to
San Juan Bautista.
But Pancha is twelve, and she is the rose-tree;?And I am the olive, and this is the garden:?And Pancha we say; but her name is Francisca,
Same like her mother.
Eh, you knew her? No? Ah! it is a story;?But I speak not, like Pachita, the English:?So? If I try, you will sit here beside me,
And shall not laugh, eh?
When the American come to the Mission,?Many arrive at the house of Francisca:?One,--he was fine man,--he buy the cattle
Of José Castro.
So! he came much, and Francisca she saw him:?And it was Love,--and a very dry season;?And the pears bake on the tree,--and the rain come,
But not Francisca;
Not for one year; and one night I have walk much?Under the olive-tree, when comes Francisca:?Comes to me here, with her child, this Francisca,--
Under the olive-tree.
Sir, it