Transcriber's note:
Minor spelling and punctuation inconsistencies have been harmonized. Missing page numbers are page numbers that were not shown in the original text.
THE SHIP IN THE DESERT.
THE
Ship in the Desert.
BY
JOAQUIN MILLER,
AUTHOR OF "SONGS OF THE SIERRAS" AND "SONGS OF
THE SUN-LANDS."
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1875.
Copyright, 1875,
By C. H. Miller.
Cambridge:
Press of John Wilson & Son.
DEDICATED
TO
MY DEAR PARENTS,
ON THE FOOTHILLS OF
THE OREGON SIERRAS.
PREFACE.
WITH deep reverence I inscribe these lines, my dear parents, to you. I see you now, away beyond the seas, beyond the lands where the sun goes down in the Pacific like some great ship of fire, resting still on the green hills, watching your herds, waiting
"Where rolls the Oregon,
And hears no sound save its own dashing."
Nearly a quarter of a century ago you took me the long and lonesome half-year's journey across the mighty continent, wild, and rent, and broken up, and sown with sand and ashes, and crossed by tumbling, wooded rivers that ran as if glad to get away, fresh and strange and new as if but half-fashioned from the hand of God.
All the time as I tread this strange land I re-live those scenes, and you are with me. How dark and deep, how sullen, strong, and lion-like the mighty Missouri rolled between his walls of untracked wood and cleft the unknown domain of the middle world before us!
Then the frail and buffeted rafts on the river, the women and children huddled together, the shouts of the brawny men as they swam with the bellowing cattle; the cows in the stormy stream, eddying, whirling, spinning about, calling to their young, their bright horns shining in the sun.... The wild men waiting on the other side, painted savages leaning silent on their bows, despising our weakness, opening a way, letting us pass on to the unknown distances, where they said the sun and moon lay down together and brought forth the stars.... The long and winding lines of wagons, the graves by the wayside, the women weeping together as they passed on. Then hills, then plains, parched lands like Syria, dust, and ashes, and alkali, cool streams with woods, camps by night, great wood fires in circles, tents in the centre like Cæsar's battle-camps, painted men that passed like shadows, showers of arrows, the wild beasts howling from the hill....
You, my dear parents, will pardon the thread of fiction on which I have strung these scenes and descriptions of a mighty land of mystery, and wild and savage grandeur, for the world will have its way, and, like a spoiled child, demands a tale.
"Yea,
We who toil and earn our bread
Still have our masters...."
A ragged and broken story it is, with long deserts, with alkali and ashes, yet it may, like the land it deals of, have some green places, and woods, and running waters, where you can rest....
Three times now I have ranged the great West in fancy, as I did in fact for twenty years, and gathered unknown and unnamed blossoms from mountain-top, from desert level, where man never ranged before, and asked the world to receive my weeds, my grasses, and blue-eyed blossoms. But here it ends. Good or bad, I have done enough of this work on the border. The Orient promises a more grateful harvest.
I have been true to my West. She has been my only love. I have remembered her greatness. I have done my work to show to the world her vastness, her riches, her resources, her valor and her dignity, her poetry and her grandeur. Yet while I was going on, working so in silence, what were the things she said of me? But let that pass, my dear parents. Others will come after us. Possibly I have blazed out the trail for great minds over this field, as you did across the deserts and plains for great men a quarter of a century ago.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
Lake Como, Italy.
THE SHIP IN THE DESERT.
I.
A MAN in middle Aridzone
Stood by the desert's edge alone,
And long he look'd, and lean'd. He peer'd,
Above his twirl'd and twisted beard,
Beneath his black and slouchy hat ...
Nay, nay, the tale is not of that.
A skin-clad trapper, toe-a-tip,
Stood on a mountain top, and he
Look'd long and still and eagerly.
"It looks so like some lonesome ship
That sails this ghostly lonely sea,—
This dried-up desert sea," said he,
"These tawny sands of Arazit" ...
Avaunt! the tale is not of it.
A chief from out the desert's rim
Rode swift as twilight swallows swim,
Or eagle blown from eyrie nest.
His trim-limb'd steed was black as night,
His long black hair had blossom'd white,
With feathers from the koko's crest;
His iron face was flush'd and red,
His eyes flash'd fire as he fled,
For he had seen unsightly things;
Had felt the flapping of their wings.
A wild and wiry man was he,
This tawny chief of Shoshonee;
And O his supple steed was fleet!
About his breast flapp'd panther skins,
About his eager flying feet
Flapp'd beaded, braided moccasins:
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.
An Indian warrior lost his way
While prowling on this desert's edge
In fragrant sage and prickly hedge,
When suddenly he saw a sight,
And turn'd his steed in eager flight.
He rode right through the edge of day,
He rode into the rolling night.
He lean'd, he reach'd an eager face,
His black wolf skin flapp'd out and in,
Held seat and saddle to its place;
But that gray ghost that clutch'd thereat ...
Arrête! the tale is not of that.
A chieftain touch'd the desert's rim
One autumn eve: he rode alone
And still as moon-made shadows swim.
He stopp'd, he stood as still as stone,
He lean'd, he look'd, there glisten'd bright
From out the yellow yielding sand
A golden cup with jewell'd rim.
He lean'd him low, he reach'd a hand,
He caught it up, he gallop'd on,
He turn'd his head, he saw a sight ...
His panther skins flew to the wind,
The dark, the desert lay behind;
The tawny Ishmaelite was gone;
But something sombre as death is ...
Tut, tut! the tale is not of this.
A mountaineer, storm-stained and brown,
From farthest desert touched the town,
And, striding through the crowd, held up
Above his head a jewell'd cup.
He put two fingers to his lip,
He whisper'd wild, he stood a-tip,
And lean'd the while with lifted hand,
And said, "A ship lies yonder dead,"
And said, "Doubloons lie sown in sand
In yon far desert dead and brown,
Beyond where wave-wash'd walls look down,
As thick as stars set overhead.
That three shipmasts uplift like trees" ...
Away! the tale is not of these.
An Indian hunter held a plate
Of gold above his lifted head,
Around which kings had sat in state ...
"'Tis from that desert ship," they said,
"That sails with neither sail nor breeze,
Or galleon, that sank below
Of old, in olden dried-up seas,
Ere yet the red men drew the bow."
But wrinkled women wagg'd the head,
And walls of warriors sat that night
In black, nor streak of battle red,
Around against the red camp light,
And told such wondrous tales as these
Of wealth within their dried-up seas.
And one, girt well in tiger's skin,
Who stood, like Saul, above the rest,
With dangling claws about his breast,
A belt without, a blade within,
A warrior with a painted face,
And lines that shadow'd stern and grim,
Stood pointing east from his high place,
And hurling thought like cannon shot,
Stood high with visage flush'd and hot ...
But, stay! this tale is not of him.
II.
By Arizona's sea of sand
Some bearded miners, gray and old,
And resolute in search of gold,
Sat down to tap the savage land.
They tented in a canñon's mouth
That gaped against the warm wide south,
And underneath a wave-wash'd wall,
Where now nor rains nor winds may fall,
They delved the level salt-white sands
For gold, with bold and hornéd hands.
A miner stood beside his mine,
He pull'd his beard, then look'd away
Across the level sea of sand,
Beneath his broad and hairy hand,
A hand as hard as knots of pine.
"It looks so like a sea," said he.
He pull'd his beard, and he did say,
"It looks just like a dried-up sea."
Again he pull'd that beard of his,
But said no other thing than this.
A stalwart miner dealt a stroke,
And struck a buried beam of oak.
An old ship's beam the shaft appear'd,
With storm-worn faded figure-head.
The miner twisted, twirled his beard,
Lean'd on his pick-axe as he spoke:
"'Tis from some long-lost ship," he said,
"Some laden ship of Solomon
That sail'd these lonesome seas upon
In search of Ophir's mine, ah me!
That sail'd this dried-up desert sea." ...
Nay, nay, 'tis not a tale of gold,
But ghostly land storm-slain and old.
III.
But this the tale. Along a wide
And sounding stream some silent braves,
That stole along the farther side
Through sweeping wood that swept the waves
Like long arms reach'd across the tide,
Kept watch and ward and still defied....
A low black boat that hugg'd the shores,
An ugly boat, an ugly crew,
Thick-lipp'd and woolly-headed slaves,
That bow'd, that bent the white-ash oars,
That cleft the murky waters through,
That climb'd the swift Missouri's waves,—
The surly, woolly-headed slaves.
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,
Stand up, turn suddenly, look back
Along the low boat's wrinkled track,
Then fold his mantle round a form
Broad-built as any Hercules,
And so sit silently.
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....
Another boat with other crew
Came swift and silent in her track,
And now shot shoreward, now shot back,
And now sat rocking fro and to,
But never once lost sight of her.
Tall, sunburnt, southern men were these
From isles of blue Caribbean seas,
And one, that woman's worshipper,
Who looked on her, and loved but her.
And one, that one, was wild as seas
That wash the far dark Oregon,
And ever leaning, urging on,
And standing up in restless ease,
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;
And yet his eager hands, his speech,
All spoke the bold adventurer;
While zoned about the belt of each
There swung a girt of steel, till all
Did seem a walking arsenal.
IV.
Pursuer and pursued. And who
Are these that make the sable crew;
These mighty Titans, black and nude,
And hairy-breasted, bronzed and broad
Of chest as any demi-god,
That dare this peopled solitude?
And who is he that leads them here,
And breaks the hush of wave and wood?
Comes he for evil or for good?
Brave Jesuit or bold buccaneer?
Nay, these be idle themes. Let pass.
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 glass;
That look'd as look the still, far stars,
So woman-like, into the wave
To contemplate their beauty there,
Yet look as looking anywhere?
And who of all the world was she?
A bride, or not a bride? A thing
To love? A prison'd bird to sing?
You shall not know. That shall not be
Brought from the future's great profound
This side the happy hunting-ground.
I only saw her, heard the sound
Of murky waters gurgling round
In counter-currents from the shore,
But heard the long, strong stroke of oar
Against the waters gray and vast.
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 dreamed and wove this wayward rhyme,
And loved and did not blush thereat.
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
Are all enough; where beauty thrills
The heart like hues of harvest-home;
Where rage lies down, where passion dies,
Where peace hath her abiding place....
A face that lifted up; sweet face
That was so like a life begun,
That rose for me a rising sun
Above the bended seven hills
Of dead and risen old new Rome.
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,
Her hush'd, vehement soul fill'd mine,