East and West | Page 7

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 Ships.
As I stand by the cross on the lone mountain's crest,?Looking over the ultimate sea,?In the gloom of the mountain a ship 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 ship 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 ship 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 shore,?To the ship that is waiting for me.
The Goddess.
For the Sanitary Fair.
"Who comes?" The sentry's warning cry?Rings sharply on the evening air:?Who comes? The challenge: no reply,?Yet something motions there.
A woman, by those graceful folds;?A soldier, by that martial tread:?"Advance three paces. Halt! until?Thy name and rank be said."
"My name? Her name, in ancient song,?Who fearless from Olympus came:?Look on me! Mortals know me best?In battle and in flame."
"Enough! I know that clarion voice;?I know that gleaming eye and helm;?Those crimson lips,--and in their dew?The best blood of the realm.
"The young, the brave, the good and wise,?Have fallen in thy curst embrace:?The juices of the grapes of wrath?Still stain thy guilty face.
"My brother lies in yonder field,?Face downward to the quiet grass:?Go back! he cannot see thee now;?But here thou shalt not pass."
A crack upon the evening air,?A wakened echo from the hill:?The watch-dog on the distant shore?Gives mouth, and all is still.
The sentry with his brother lies?Face downward on the quiet grass;?And by him, in the pale moonshine,?A shadow seems to pass.
No lance or warlike shield it bears:?A helmet in its pitying hands?Brings water from the nearest brook,?To meet his last demands.
Can this be she of haughty mien,?The goddess of the sword and shield??Ah, yes! The Grecian poet's myth?Sways still each battle-field.
For not alone that rugged war?Some grace or charm from beauty gains;?But, when the goddess' work is done,?The woman's still remains.
Address.
Opening of the California Theatre, San Francisco, Jan. 19, 1870
Brief words, when actions wait, are well?The prompter's hand is on his bell;?The coming heroes, lovers, kings,?Are idly lounging at the wings;?Behind the curtain's mystic fold?The glowing future lies unrolled,--?And yet, one moment for the Past;?One retrospect,--the first and last.
"The world's a stage," the master said.?To-night a mightier truth is read:?Not in the shifting canvas screen,?The flash of gas, or tinsel sheen;?Not in the skill whose signal calls?From empty boards baronial halls;?But, fronting sea and curving bay,?Behold the players and the play.
Ah, friends! beneath your real skies?The actor's short-lived triumph dies:?On that broad stage, of empire won?Whose footlights were the setting sun,?Whose flats a distant background rose?In trackless peaks of endless snows;?Here genius bows, and talent waits?To copy that but One creates.
Your shifting scenes: the league of sand,?An avenue by ocean spanned;?The narrow beach of straggling tents,?A mile of stately monuments;?Your standard, lo! a flag unfurled,?Whose clinging folds clasp half the world,--?This is your drama, built on facts,?With "twenty years between the acts."
One moment more: if here we raise?The oft-sung hymn of local praise,?Before the curtain facts must sway;?Here waits the moral of your play.?Glassed in the poet's thought, you view?What money can, yet cannot do;?The faith that soars, the deeds that shine,?Above the gold that builds the shrine.
And oh! when others take our place,?And Earth's green curtain hides our face,?Ere on the stage, so silent now,?The last new hero makes his bow:?So may our deeds, recalled once more?In Memory's sweet but brief encore,?Down all the circling ages run,?With the world's plaudit of "Well done!"
The Lost Galleon.
In sixteen hundred and forty-one,?The regular yearly galleon,?Laden with odorous gums and spice,?India cottons and India rice,?And the richest silks of far Cathay,?Was due at Acapulco Bay.
Due she was, and over-due,--?Galleon, merchandise, and crew,?Creeping along through rain and shine,?Through the tropics, under the line.
The trains were waiting outside the walls,?The wives of sailors thronged the town,?The traders sat by their empty stalls,?And the viceroy himself came down;?The bells in the tower were all a-trip,?Te Deums were on each father's lip,?The limes were ripening