(lass 
 
 PUKSKNTKl) BY 
 
? 
 
 i 
 
Joaquin Miller 
 
so HERE THEN IS A LITTLE 
 JOURNEY TO THE HOME OF 
 
 JOAQUIN MILLER 
 
 By ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 ALSO A STUDY OF THE 
 MAN AND HIS WORK 
 
 By GEORGE WHARTON JAMES 
 
 TO WHICH IS APPENDED A SLIGHT 
 STUDY OF THE MAN WHO WROTE 
 THE STUDY. BY FRA ELBERTUS. 
 WITH SUNDRY SELECTED POEMS 
 BY THE POET, GIVING A GOODLY 
 TASTE OF HIS RARE QUALITY 
 
 DONE INTO A BOOK BY THE ROYCROFTERS AT 
 THEIR SHOP WHICH IS IN EAST AURORA, N. Y. 
 

 
 Copyright 1903 
 
 by 
 Elbert Hubbard 
 
In men whom men pronounce as ill, 
 
 I find so much of goodness still ; 
 
 In men whom men pronounce divine, 
 
 I find so much of sin and blot ; 
 I hesitate to draw the line 
 
 Between the two, when God has not. 
 
 — ^Joaquin Miller. 
 
THE LITTLE JOURNEY 
 
THE LITTLE JOURNEY 
 
 HE wrote the greatest poem ever written 
 by an American : He lives at Oakland, 
 **on the Hights," and his name is 
 Joaquin Miller. 
 We took the street car to the end of the line, and 
 the conductor pointed to the road that led up the 
 hill. "Take that road and sail on," he said, and 
 smiled in a way that indicated he had sprung the 
 allusion before and was pleased with it. 
 We followed the road up the hillside. The day 
 was one of God's own, done by hand, just to show 
 what He could do. The sun was warm and bright ; 
 a gentle breeze, cool and refreshing, blew in with 
 messages from the sea. 
 
 The road wound around the hill, and led upward 
 by a gentle rise — back and forth, around and 
 back, and soon we saw the roadway over which 
 we had passed, a hundred feet below, with gar- 
 dens between. Gardens everywhere ! Gardens 
 lined off with boxwood and fenced by nodding 
 roses. Just above were orange and acacia trees, 
 
 1 
 
JOAQUIN white with blossoms that showered their petals 
 MILLER upon the passer-by. 
 
 And still we climbed. Up and up by that gentle 
 ascent, up and up and up we went. The air was 
 full of perfume and drowsy with the hum of bees. 
 Birds twittered in the thick foliage, and at a bend 
 in the winding road we saw a flock of quail run- 
 ning ahead of us, and suddenly disappear among 
 the masses of green. 
 
 Sandy was interested in finding out where the 
 quail had gone; Ben mopped his forehead, and 
 with coat on arm, talked of the Higher Criticism, 
 the wonders of the universe, and how beauty was 
 free for all — his preacher-habit still upon him. 
 Q Brudder and I turned and looked down upon the 
 panorama spread out at our feet. Here was color 
 — gorgeous, superb — the lilac of the wistaria 
 winding in and out among the roses, while pale 
 pink azalias, delicate, esthetic and spiritual, trusted 
 to our power of discernment to single them out 
 from the more obtrusive masses of magnolia that 
 everywhere sprang warm and voluptuous, heavy 
 with perfume. 
 
 2 
 
A little further away the color was lost in masses JOAQUIN 
 of green that pushed off into a dark purple. Spires MILLER 
 and steeples, and giant palms lifting their fronded 
 forms in air, told us the city was down there, five 
 miles away. And then there came a line of dark 
 blue that wound in and out, and marked the bay, 
 where little play-ships stood in the offing — their 
 prows all pointing one way. Submerged in the 
 blue ether across the bay lay the city of San Fran- 
 cisco — her plots and her schemes, her ambitions 
 and her hot desires, her tears of disappointment 
 and her groans and griefs, all veiled and lost be- 
 neath the translucent purple-blue coverlet of this 
 lazy summer day. 
 
 Over to the left, clinging to the hillside, was Sau- 
 salito, replica in little of the villages that line the 
 Bay of Naples. There at Sausalito lives Bill Fav- 
 ille. Prince of Architects, making much monies, 
 they say, over in the city, but hiding away here 
 on the hillside in a cottage of three rooms, where 
 Mrs. Bill escapes the servant-girl question and the 
 jealousies of the Smart Set by living the life that 
 is genuine. I will not say, **God bless Mr. and 
 
 3 
 
JOAQUIN Mrs. Bill," because I know that He has and will. 
 MILLER Q Just beyond Richardson's Bay, where phantom 
 ships toss on the tide and wait for cargoes that 
 never come, is San Raphael, and Dick Hotaling's 
 ranch — fairest of playthings — three thousand acres 
 — belonging to Dick and his friends, where plates 
 are always placed for me and the Cublet, and 
 chants from the Good Stuff are done in minor 
 key as the sun goes down through the Golden 
 Gate, with Dick's permission. 
 Beyond is Mt. Tamalpias, and just over there is 
 Mt. Diablo, where Preacher Ben says I should go 
 on pious errand bent. 
 Ben is a joker. 
 
 We trudge on up the hill, carrying coats and hats in 
 hand. The air grows warmer, the flowers are even 
 more plentiful. 
 
 We have been walking nearly two hours, and 
 must have come five miles. The road skirts through 
 a dense mass of dwarfed oak that covers the 
 driveway as the elms arch Chapel Street in New 
 Haven, only more so. 
 
 "It is like this," said Preacher Ben; and then he 
 
 4 
 
began to explain to me the Law of Paradox. JOAQUIN 
 Q '*The collection will now be taken," came a MILLER 
 deep bass voice from out the greeny gloom of the 
 close-growing oaks. 
 
 We started, looked, and there on a seat not 
 twenty feet away sat the Poet. You could never 
 mistake him — he looks like no other man on earth ; 
 personality surrounds him like an aura. 
 We stared. 
 
 " Come here and sit down, you rogues," called 
 the voice. 
 
 The Poet did not arise — why should he ? We had 
 always known each other, though we had never 
 met before. We shook hands and Ben and I took 
 seats on the rustic bench beside him, Brudder lay 
 on the grass at his feet, while Sandy renewed his 
 interest in quail. 
 
 *' Here I Ve been waiting an hour," said the Poet, 
 " I put on my Sunday clothes and came down to 
 meet you, but I had about given you up. Ben said 
 you were coming, but preachers are such dam liars 
 — they promise Paradise and mansions in the skies 
 and all kinds of things which they can never sup- 
 
 5 
 
JOAQUIN ply — I was afraid that you were not coming!" 
 MILLER He arose. He is six feet high to an inch, and in 
 spite of his sixty-two summers, straight as Sandy 
 and just as strong. 
 
 He stood off and talked to us. He knew we were 
 admiring him — how could he help it ! His white 
 beard fell to his waist, and his mustaches were 
 curled up savagely after the manner of Emperor 
 William, while his wide sombrero was cocked 
 carelessly to the northwest. His long, yellow hair 
 fell to his shoulders. The suit he wore was of 
 yellow corduroy that matched his hair, and his 
 russet-top boots, fringed at the side, matched the 
 corduroys. The buttons on his coat were made of 
 nuggets of Klondike gold; his belt was of buck- 
 skin with a big silver buckle, and between the 
 bottom of his vest and the top of his trousers was 
 a six-inch interregnum of blue flannel shirt. A 
 bright red necktie blew out from under the white 
 beard ; the trousers were caught over the ears of 
 the dainty boots ; one hand wore a gauntlet and 
 its mate was carried in a small, white hand, upon the 
 middle finger of which was an immense diamond. 
 
 6 
 
CJ * ' You are looking at my ring — worth a thousand JOAQUIN 
 dollars or more, they say — given to me by a dear MILLER 
 friend now in Purgatory, if Ben knows his business. 
 Q " I wear that ring in memory of a great friend- 
 ship, and also because I love the diamond for its 
 own sake — it symbols infinity, eternity. The dia- 
 mond is pure carbon ; at least, we can resolve it 
 back into carbon, but this done we cannot make it 
 over into a diamond. It is like life, we can take it 
 away, but we cannot give it. The secret of the 
 diamond is not ours — it took an eternity to pro- 
 duce it. I am as old as the diamond and I shall 
 never die." 
 
 We followed on up the hillside. The sun was sink- 
 ing down into the Golden Gate in a burst of 
 glory. **It's all mine," said the Poet, and waved 
 his hand toward the western landscape. 
 We came to a queer old stile and followed along 
 a grass-grown pathway. Soon a whole little vil- 
 lage smiled upon us from a terraced outlook, that 
 seemed surrounded and shut in by tall pines. The 
 houses were about as large as dry goods cases — 
 say eight by twelve. There were a dozen of them, 
 
 7 
 
JOAQUIN owned by the Poet, and of all sorts and colors 
 MILLER and shapes; all not worth so much as that dia- 
 mond ring. Over every little house ran a regular 
 riot of roses, red and white, in a mad race for 
 supremacy. In one of the tiny cottages lives the 
 Poet. We entered — there was only one room, a 
 rag carpet rug in the center, a plain pine table, a 
 bed in the corner. All around the room hung the 
 Poet's clothes. 
 
 "I am an ascetic in everything but duds," ex- 
 plained the Poet, as he saw Brudder vulcanizing. 
 "You see, folks are always giving me things — 
 there is an Esquimau suit of seal-skin, then comes 
 that leather hunting shirt and buckskin breeches. 
 The next is my second-best suit of corduroy, the 
 next is a velvet coat given to me by the Woman's 
 Club of Denver, when I lectured for them. As 
 you see, I have ten pairs of boots and six pairs of 
 moccasins. That ministerial black suit I wear when 
 I speak in Ben's pulpit." 
 
 There was a Mexican saddle and bridle in the 
 comer and bits of horse jewelry hung around on 
 hooks. 
 
 8 
 
"And your books?" I ventured. C^ "Books?" JOAQUIN 
 said the Poet, "Books? to hell with books! Books MILLER 
 are for people who cannot think." 
 It will be observed that the Poet's language is 
 as picturesque as his raiment. His words fitted him 
 like the feathers on a duck. Ben tried a swear 
 word, but it was strangely out of place, and as for 
 myself, I only cuss in print. 
 Joaquin Miller is the most charming poseur on this 
 terrestrial ball, but he has posed so long and so well 
 that his poses have now become natural, so he is 
 no longer a poseur. 
 
 Up on the topmost crest of the hill he has built 
 a monument, square, stem, rude, crude, and im- 
 mensely strong, with frowning battlements and 
 menacing turrets. The weather-worn rocks used in 
 its construction gave the building a Druidic look. It 
 took three years to build this monument, the work 
 being done mostly by the Poet's own hands. It is 
 twelve feet square at the base, and about twen- 
 ty-five feet high. What it was all for has been a 
 question much discussed in the neighborhood. 
 The Poet is very proud of this monument — it 
 
 9 
 
JOAQUIN really is a superb bit of handicraft for an amateur. 
 MILLER I saw the craftsman's pride beaming out of the blue 
 eyes, and so I worked the conversation around and 
 lighted the fuse. And here is the story : 
 I started to build that monument to the memory 
 of Adam. I thought that this spot must have been 
 the Garden of Eden — and anyway, the Garden 
 of Eden was no finer than this. And then I had 
 caught glimpses of God walking around here in the 
 cool of the day, and so my Chinese helpers and 
 I began the monument. 
 
 Then one day Preacher Ben came up here and 
 told me what a bad man Adam was, and how 
 Adam and his wife had made all the trouble that 
 was in the world. 
 
 Then I cast around to think who was the next 
 best man. And I dropped on Moses. 
 Moses was the greatest leader of men who ever 
 lived. He led his people out of captivity — made 
 them free, and there is nothing finer than to give 
 freedom. 
 
 So I said to my Chinese helpers, ** Here goes to 
 Moses!" 
 
 Moses was the son of Pharaoh's daughter, you 
 know — a love-child — his father an Israelite. She 
 hid her baby away in the bulrushes, and then went 
 
 10 
 
down and found him at the proper time, and JOAQUIN 
 told one of the most touching little stories MILLER 
 ever related — very beautiful and the most nat- 
 ural thing on earth. The child vv^as brought up a 
 prince, but his heart was with the Israelites, and 
 you know how he finished an Egyptian that he 
 saw putting the thing on an Israelite. Oh, Moses 
 had the quality — I expect to meet him in Elysium 
 some day — he is our kind. 
 
 How about the mistakes of Moses? Look you, 
 my boy, Moses made no mistakes. Don't imagine 
 that a man does not know just because he does not 
 explain. Moses knew, but he gave out just what 
 his people were ready for, and no more. He used 
 to say, ** God told me this and God told me that," 
 which was all right. God tells me things every 
 day — He whispers to me at night, and often I get 
 up and go out under the stars and wait for His 
 messages. 
 
 All of the Mosaic Laws were for the good of the 
 people, sanitary, sensible and right. Christianity is 
 a graft on Judaism, and it all traces to Moses. 
 Q Mose was what you might call an ornitholog- 
 ical rara avis. 
 
 When he died, God was the undertaker — no one 
 knows where he was buried, but I am of the belief 
 
 11 
 
JOAQUIN that he was buried right here — exactly under this 
 MILLER monument, and so far my assumption has not been 
 disproved. 
 
 Now we will unlock the little iron door and take 
 a look inside of this monument. You see these 
 steel grate-bars — looks like a furnace does n't it ? 
 Well, that is because it is — a crematory. My body 
 is to be placed up on top, that steel cover is to be 
 lifted so as to get a draft through, and twenty-five 
 cords of good, dry redwood will do the business. 
 There is the wood corded over there — we use a 
 little now and then, but we never let the pile get 
 below twenty-five cords. 
 
 I have invited all the preachers and priests, joss- 
 house men and sky-pilots in Oakland, Alameda 
 and San Francisco to attend my funeral. I have 
 written the funeral address myself, and the preach- 
 ers are to draw cuts to see who shall read it to 
 the people. Yes, the people are invited, too, and 
 if the funeral takes place on a school day, I have 
 arranged that the children shall all have a holiday. 
 I love children and children love me — they come 
 up here sometimes by the hundreds and I read to 
 them. I never caused a child a tear. All the mean 
 things I have been guilty of were directed towards 
 grown-up men. 
 
 12 
 
No sir, no one shall wear mourning for me — JOAQUIN 
 death is only a change of condition. And Nature's MILLER 
 changes are for the better. I want all denomina- 
 tions represented at my funeral, because I belong 
 to every sect. I sympathize with all superstitions 
 and creeds, because there is really but one religion 
 — these seeming differences are only a matter of 
 definitions evolved by certain temperaments. I 
 worship Joss, Jehovah, Jove, Jesus, Mary the 
 Blessed Mother, Ali Baba, and Mary Baker Eddy. 
 All of the gods were once men, and these names 
 all stand for certain things to certain people — each 
 means all to you that you can put into it. A name 
 is a sound, a puff of air, but behind the epiglottis, 
 the eustachian tube, the palate, the tongue and 
 the roof of the mouth, is a thought — I sympathize 
 with that thought, even with error, because error 
 is the pathway to truth, and so error is a phase of 
 truth. I am Francis of Assissi, Novalis, Plato, 
 Swedenborg, Porphyry and Buffalo Bill. I fill my- 
 self with aceticism, get drunk on abnegation, re- 
 cite my own poems, and dance a two-step inspired 
 by self-sacrifice. I am touched with madness, but 
 sane enough to know it. I have a good time on 
 nothing, and although I live 'way up here alone, yet 
 I am always in the company of good people — 
 
 13 
 
JOAQUIN are n't you here? I am the Universal Man, and so 
 MILLER are you, and everybody is, only they don't know 
 it. What 's that Chinaman yelling about ? Oh, he 
 says breakfast is ready — I forgot. 
 
 When you visit Joaquin Miller, you are not shown 
 to your room — you are given a house. The Poet 
 puts his head out of the door and gives an " Al- 
 lehoiah-ala-hoohoo-oo ! " and out hops an Orien- 
 tal, all dressed in white, and takes you to your 
 cottage. You perform your ablutions (I trust I use 
 the right word) at the spring, or the horse trough, 
 and when you get back that heathen Chinee has 
 opened your suit-case, brushed your clothes, hung 
 out your night-shirt, placed half a bushel of 
 cut roses on the table and disappeared. In ten 
 minutes he comes back in to tell you in pigeon 
 English that supper is ready. 
 The dining-room is in one of the cottages, set 
 apart for a kitchen. The Chinee is a superb cook. 
 Our table is set out under an arbor of roses, and 
 we have vegetables to spare, and fruits galore, 
 and nuts to crack, and a tin bucket of milk cooled 
 
 in the running water of the spring, and loaves of 
 
 14 
 
brown bread which we break up in chunks; but JOAQUIN 
 there is no meat. Q The Poet leaves us — he has MILLER 
 work to do — but scarcely do we get back to the 
 cottage, which we already call Home, before the 
 Poet's bearded face looks in at the open window, 
 and he asks, **Did you see that inscription on the 
 Carnegie Library down at Oakland? Over the 
 doorway are carved three words, 'Poetry, Lit- 
 erature, Prose.' 
 
 " That is a personal biff — I told 'em so. I said, * You 
 fellows should have put it this way : Poetry, Prose, 
 Rot, Tommyrot; and inside you should have 
 carved these words: Oratory, Gab, Guff, Talk, 
 Buzz, Harangue, Palaver, with the name of some 
 good man who has a talent for each.' " 
 The nearest cottage to the one occupied by the 
 Poet belongs to his mother, a Quaker-like old 
 dame, ninety years young, who fully realizes that 
 she is part of the Exhibit. 
 
 There was a whispered conference between 
 Mother and Son, and then the old lady asked: 
 "Which one is it, did you say, that writes the 
 * Little Journeys ' ? " 
 
 15 
 
JOAQUIN I saw I was being pointed out, and so I modestly 
 MILLER scrutinized the surrounding landscape, while the 
 old lady scrutinized me, walking around me twice. 
 Then she sighed and remarked, ** He does n't look 
 so very smart to me," and went on solemnly 
 with her knitting. Later, we became good friends 
 — the old lady and I — although I was conscious 
 that I was being compared furtively with the son 
 of his mother — much to my disadvantage. 
 *' He is greater than Shakespeare," said the old lady 
 to me once, confidentially — "only, do you know, 
 he is such a fool that he tears up the best things 
 he writes, and says he is going to write them 
 over, but he never does." 
 
 And then she explained how this son went off to 
 the Klondike two years ago, and was now plan- 
 ning to go again. " But I Ve set down my foot! I 
 found out about it and just put a stop to the 
 whole business — the idea!" and the good mother 
 sighed in a way that showed she had troubles of 
 her own. 
 
 We stood by the stile, saying the final good-bye. 
 The old lady had come down, too. ** He tears up 
 
 16 
 

the best things he writes," she said to me — "now JOAQUIN 
 
 tell him he has no sense!" MILLER 
 
 "And if you should," said the son, "she would 
 
 be the first one to dispute it." 
 
 " Thank heaven, I have n't another son like you ! " 
 
 was the answer, and the boy of three-score dodged 
 
 the old lady's cane, and said, "Don't worry, 
 
 sweetheart, you never will ! " 
 
 We crossed the stile, and followed on down the 
 
 winding pathway that ran through the grove of 
 
 citron and orange trees. Looking up after five 
 
 minutes' walk, we saw the Poet standing on a 
 
 slightly jutting cliff just above, his arm around his 
 
 mother. The old lady leaned over and called 
 
 aloud to me, in a voice touched with falsetto, 
 
 "Don't go to the Klondike — it is a fool idea! " 
 
 ELBERT HUBBARD. 
 
 17 
 
THE STUDY 
 
THE STUDY 
 
 JOAQUIN MILLER, the unique, the eccen- 
 tric, the sensational, the incomprehensible! 
 Yes, and at the same time, the greatest poet 
 of all this great America of ours. No other 
 writer has caught the lights and shades of the 
 West — its trackless deserts, its majestic mountains, 
 its gloomy canyons, its valleys, its placid ocean, 
 and its rough and ready, generously reckless, 
 tenderly sympathetic, early-day pioneers, as he. 
 Joaquin was brought up in the midst of it. If not 
 bom in it, his childhood was spent in it. The Or- 
 egon Trail was his first foot-path, skirmishes with 
 Indians his youthful adventures, and the wild chil- 
 dren of the untamed West his earliest companions. 
 Q And with the eye of the true artist, he has 
 painted his pictures faithfully to the land of his 
 love. His portraits are true to the life ; his land- 
 scapes full of the color that exists ; his seascapes 
 soulful of the tenderness, pathos and despair of 
 the placid and treacherous Pacific. 
 Others have written often and much about 
 
 19 
 
JOAQUIN Joaquin, sometimes sympathetically, oftener harshly 
 MILLER and unkindly. To write truthfully, though, one 
 must know. The angle of vision determines the 
 sight seen. 
 
 No unknowing and unsympathetic soul can describe 
 Joaquin. He is too open, too simple, too complex 
 in his very simplicity to be understood by the mcin 
 who is always ** looking for something more than 
 he sees." No poet was ever more misunderstood and 
 no poet was ever really so easy to understand and 
 know. Take him as he is ! Read him as he stands. 
 Do not seek to interpret his actions ; state them. 
 Do not put motives upon doings that are motive- 
 less, except that he had to do them. Let him be 
 his own interpreter and you will gain a clearer 
 knowledge of him. Thus it is I feel I can say to 
 Joaquin as Browning said : 
 
 Stand still, true poet that you are ! 
 
 I know you ; let me try and draw you. 
 
 We have spent happy days together — have quar- 
 reled and argued, loved and gossiped, trusted and 
 respected each other, and know each a little of 
 the other. That little I seek to present. 
 
 20 
 
I once received a cordial invitation from Joaquin JOAQUIN 
 to spend Christmas day w^ith him. I went early in MILLER 
 order that I might enjoy the full day, and, as is my 
 wont, took my camera with me, hoping for oppor- 
 tunities to make a few interesting pictures. It was 
 a beautiful morning and as I left the electric cars 
 in the valley and started to walk up the hillside 
 road to the Hights, all nature seemed to respond 
 to the joyous and healthy emotions of my own 
 soul. With my heavy camera swung over my 
 shoulder, I trudged along, now and again turning 
 back to enjoy the glorious valley view, with the 
 smooth expanse of hills surrounding the bay, and 
 the glow of the morning sun on the far-reaching 
 ocean. The winter rains had clothed the hillsides 
 and valley in their most perfect robes. Everything 
 was fresh, clean and sweet-scented, and the birds 
 reveled in the delight of it all as much as I did. 
 They twittered and chirped and called one to 
 another and sang their loudest, best and sweetest 
 in very fullness of joy. In one place, I saw a flock 
 of blackbirds dabble in little pools left by the 
 rain, chattering the while with a force zuid 
 
 21 
 
JOAQUIN volubility that suggested that each was trying to 
 
 MILLER drown the voice of the other. 
 
 On my arrival at the Hights, I found Joaquin's 
 
 plantation in full bloom. He has an Oriental's 
 
 fondness for flowers, and his garden, at this time, 
 
 showed evidence of great care and love expended 
 
 upon it. Joaquin's open door invited me to enter, 
 
 but as I stood upon the upper step, I got a glimpse 
 
 of the poet hard at work writing, in bed — his 
 
 usual working place. Before I had time to greet 
 
 him, his cheery salute burst forth : " What do you 
 
 mean by coming and bothering me at this early 
 
 hour in the morning ? The desire to write seizes 
 
 me seldom enough, and when it does, I don't want 
 
 to be bothered by any one coming to see me. 
 
 Go take a walk!" 
 
 Now many people would have been offended at 
 
 a salutation like this, but I knew Joaquin too well 
 
 to be such a fool. He simply meant what he said 
 
 and no more. His whole nature was absorbed in 
 
 giving expression to some thought that interested 
 
 him, and I came as a disturbing presence. He did 
 
 not want me and said so emphatically ; therefore, 
 
 22 
 


 
without a word, I withdrew to enjoy the delights JOAQUIN 
 of the garden. MILLER 
 
 Why will people insist upon it that candor is 
 offensive and insulting ? I was Joaquin's friend ; 
 he was mine. What friendship would there have 
 been in my disturbing him at his work when I had 
 all day to wait, and what faith would he have 
 shown in my friendship, if, fearful of offending, 
 he had allowed me to interrupt his work? That, 
 to me, would have been an insult and an 
 offence. To feel that my friend knew and under- 
 stood me so little as to deem me capable of put- 
 ting my paltry dignity before his comfort and the 
 accomplishment of what might be work of im- 
 portance to the world ! For aught I know, he may 
 have been writing at that very moment the poem 
 that to my mind is the most powerful yet written 
 in the English tongue — "Columbus" — and my 
 unexpected appearance might have disturbed or 
 jarred the fine equilibrium of mind and nervous 
 system which enabled him to put into such pure, 
 virile English, the grand and important lesson 
 taught to the New World by this great discoverer. 
 
 23 
 
JOAQUIN Suppose such a case — and it does not seem to me 
 MILLER an unreasonable supposition — could I have for- 
 given myself had such a thing occurred ? So now, 
 as then, I am thankful to Joaquin for his honest 
 candor. 
 
 Yet, warring with this sentiment in Joaquin's 
 mind, was his tardy recognition of the duties of 
 hospitality. Little by little there sifted into his 
 preoccupied brain the thought that, perhaps, he 
 had been discourteous to me. The moment he saw 
 this, wdth an intenseness, fervor, and simplicity, as 
 of a little child, he jumped out of bed, regardless 
 of the fact that he wore nothing but his pajamas, 
 rushed into the garden, rapidly and silently picked 
 a most beautiful bouquet, and then, stalking up to 
 me where I sat eyeing him with unaffected amuse- 
 ment, he said, ** If you can read what the flowers 
 say, you will see that I am sorry for not having 
 greeted you more hospitably this morning. I love 
 you and am glad to see you, but I am very busy 
 and want to work out what I have in mind. Ex- 
 cuse me for a little while." During this speech, 
 that calm, blue eye of his looked at me with a 
 
 24 
 
tremulous intenseness of simple trust and affection JOAQUIN 
 that brought tears into my eyes, and I thought MILLER 
 then, as I have thought many times since, how 
 little people understand this great, big, simple- 
 hearted, bewhiskered boy. There was no more 
 thought of effect in this action than there is in the 
 simplest doings of a child. He had yielded to the 
 generous impulse that struck him, without any 
 more thought of incongruity or ludicrousness than 
 that displayed by a little child who rushes into a 
 crowded reception room, in its night-dress, to 
 kiss papa and mamma good-night! 
 As I sat there, however, cogitating over this in- 
 teresting instance, somewhat in the fashion I have 
 just written down, a new thought struck me. It 
 was this: Though Joaquin does much of his 
 writing in bed, I have never seen a photograph 
 showing him at work. Now is the time to get one. 
 Q, Carefully I set up my camera, got everything 
 ready, and then calmly, and as silently as I could, 
 stole up the steps into his room. In a moment his 
 ire was aroused. With gruff impatience he called 
 out: "What are you doing?" Deliberately 
 
 25 
 
JOAQUIN proceeding to focus on him, I replied: "It is not 
 MILLER often the divine afflatus seizes me with the desire 
 to make a photograph of a man at work in bed. 
 When it does, I do not want any measly old poet 
 to interfere with my work. You have your work 
 to do, and I have mine." A merry twinkle came 
 into his eyes, and then he laughed outright. 
 "Well, what do you want, anyway?" 
 " All I want is that you will go right on with 
 your work, just as you are, until I ask you to stop. 
 Then I want you to hold still and look pleasant 
 for a little while, until I tell you to resume your 
 natural expression." 
 
 He did exactly as I asked him, and the result was 
 I secured two of as fine negatives as I ever made, 
 showing the poet engaged in writing, in his favor- 
 ite attitude. 
 
 It may strike some people as strange that he 
 should desire to write in bed, and yet it is per- 
 fectly simple and natural. There is a freedom 2md 
 ease of body when one is in bed, that, to many, 
 is conducive to an easy flow of thought. I have 
 often experienced it myself. The attitude of repose, 
 
 26 
 
with eyes closed, is productive of mental activity. JOAQUIN 
 It is little trouble to sit up, w^rite out the idea, MILLER 
 and then lie down again until more thoughts come. 
 It is only when the writing mood is upon him 
 that Joaquin is thus a *' stayer in bed." He is 
 usually very active and fond of outdoor exercise. 
 Q I once expressed to Joaquin a desire to meet 
 Col. John P. Irish, who was then editor of one 
 of the leading San Francisco dailies. One night 
 Joaquin came over to Oakland to deliver a lec- 
 ture, and, of course, I attended. Unfortunately, 
 some pressing duties detained me and I arrived at 
 the lecture hall after he had begun to speak. The 
 room was well filled. It must have been a lodge 
 room, for at each end and on each side there were 
 small, raised platforms, on which were seats cov- 
 ered with canopies, such as are used for officers 
 of secret organizations. Desirous of giving me a 
 good seat, the usher took me to the raised plat- 
 form on the side, at the right of Joaquin. My 
 entrance naturally disturbed the speaker, and, 
 seeing who it was, and noticing that Col. Irish sat 
 immediately in front of him, the thought doubtless 
 
 27 
 
JOAQUIN flashed through Joaquin's mind that here was a 
 MILLER good opportunity to make the promised intro- 
 duction. Accordingly, without any apology to 
 his audience, he stepped from the stand upon 
 which he was speaking, took CoL Irish by the 
 hand and led him to where I sat, exclaiming, 
 "James, Irish! Irish, James!" And then walked 
 back and resumed his speech. To say the audi- 
 ence was amazed, is but to express it mildly ; 
 while Irish and I stood quietly laughing at each 
 other, at the audience, and at Joaquin's consum- 
 mate imperturbability. 
 
 Lady Constance Rothschild, the wife of Mr. 
 Cyril Flower, Member of Parliament for Luton, 
 well known for the brilliancy of her receptions, as 
 well as their broad and bohemian character, once 
 told me of a reception she arranged for the pur- 
 pose of bringing Joaquin and Mrs. Langtry to- 
 gether. The latter was then at the height of her 
 fame. On the evening of the reception, Joaquin 
 came early, and, to Mrs. Flower's amazement, 
 presented himself in a red flannel shirt, a pair of 
 blue denim overalls, tucked into tall, miners' 
 
 28 
 
boots, and wearing a very high-crowned broad- JOAQUIN 
 brimmed sombrero, which he failed to remove in MILLER 
 her presence. 
 
 " You do not mind my appearing in this rig, do 
 you. Lady Constance?" inquired Joaquin. **I 
 want to meet Mrs. Langtry as a representative of 
 the miners of California.*' 
 "Certainly not," replied Mrs. Flower, "whatever 
 is agreeable to you is eminently satisfactory tome." 
 Q As the other guests arrived, one by one, and 
 saw this strangely grotesque figure, chatting with 
 perfect ease and sang froid with the most beauti- 
 ful belles of London, and the brainiest men in 
 England, they wondered what new freak Mrs. 
 Flower had provided for them. They were not 
 left long to question. When Mrs. Langtry ap- 
 peared, robed with the perfection of taste that 
 has helped make her name world-famed, Joaquin 
 advanced to meet her, led by Mrs. Flower. As 
 the introduction took place, Joaquin seemed not to 
 notice the proffered hand of Mrs. Langtry, but, 
 rapidly raising both hands to his sombrero, took 
 hold of it and dexterously showered upon the 
 
 29 
 
JOAQUIN astonished lady a wealth of beautiful rose leaves, 
 MILLER at the same time jerking out in his most jerky 
 fashion, **The tribute of the California roses to 
 the Jersey Lily." 
 
 "Where do you live, Joaquin?" I once asked 
 him. 
 
 "Three miles east, one mile perpendicular! " was 
 the reply. 
 
 Geographically speaking, that place is "the 
 Hights," near Oakland, California, and is Joaquin 
 Miller's home. 
 
 That expression, "Three miles east and one mile 
 perpendicular," is a graphic, symbolic statement 
 of Joaquin's mental habitat. He lives miles nearer 
 to the rising sun than most people, and his normal 
 dwelling place is "a mile perpendicular." His 
 nest is on " the Hights" ; his eye far-seeing, blue, 
 prophetic, keen, kind ; and his soul attuned, when 
 he sings, to the harmony of the spheres. 
 With narrowness, and conceit born of its narrow- 
 ness, the East has never thought Joaquin Miller 
 as great a poet as its Longfellow, its Bryant, its 
 Whittier, its Emerson, its Poe. But Eastern 
 
 30 
 
standards are not alone American standards. Be JOAQUIN 
 it for good or for evil, America, in literature, no MILLER 
 longer means New England, any more than 
 America is New England. The American poet 
 must be more than local. 
 
 America is not confined to New England. It is a 
 vast continent. To be an American poet, one must 
 know more than New England, more than the 
 North, more than the South, more than the Mid- 
 dle West, even more than Chicago and St. Louis. 
 He must know those towering and far-reaching 
 Rockies, in one fold of which all the mountains of 
 the East and South could softly nestle and hide. 
 He must know the Pacific as well as the Atlantic ; 
 the mysteries, honors, joys and agonies of the 
 painted desert ; the bottomless but colorful abysses 
 of the Grand Canyon; the wild, beauteous rug- 
 gedness of the Yosemite; the bubbling hell-pools 
 of the Yellowstone ; the solitude and snowy vast- 
 nesses of Alaska, and indeed, all the many and va- 
 ried physiographic features that distinguish our new 
 and Titanic West from our great but older East. 
 Q More ! he must be familiar with the child heart 
 
 31 
 
JOAQUIN of the human race as well as that of the highly 
 MILLER cultured. Longfellow wrote beautifully of the 
 Indian, but it was a white man, a civilized mind 
 expounding the theme, hence it was not Indian. 
 Joaquin lived v^th Indians; became an Indian. 
 There is a vast difference between becoming like 
 an Indian and really transforming into one. Few 
 white men ever become Indians. Joaquin did. He 
 began early enough — the only time one can begin. 
 Allured by the mysticism that surrounded the 
 strangely clad, often unclad, rough-looking, dark- 
 eyed natives, he followed them to their camps and 
 climbed with them to snowy mountain heights and 
 rocky canyon depths. He loved them, and they loved 
 him in return. Then they taught him the woodcraft 
 of a thousand years, and showed him how to read 
 the heavens, the earth, and the waters that are 
 under the earth, as none but Indians can. He 
 journeyed with them on foot, on horseback, and 
 in canoe. He sat with them by their camp-fires 
 and learned, as children learn from their mothers, 
 how they think, how they imagine, how they 
 
 create. He listened as they told their strange, 
 
 32 
 
simple and poetic conceptions as to how the world JOAQUIN 
 and all its powers originated. His poetic imagina- MILLER 
 tion was fired by their child-like, but exquisitely 
 beautiful stories, legends and myths. He saw the 
 mountains, valleys, forests, plains, canyons, deserts, 
 ocean and islands in their creation, as the Indian 
 poets saw them, and he entered into a new life 
 when these necromancers of the imagination pic- 
 tured for him the "days of old," when reptiles, 
 fishes, birds and beasts walked and talked with 
 men. 
 
 During all this time, he lived as an Indian, out 
 of doors, free, unconfined, wild, untamed, unciv- 
 ilized as the birds, the trees, the clouds, the stars. 
 Q Then, in the days of his young manhood, he 
 went back to civilization. He taught himself re- 
 straint, control, subjugation of his will to others. 
 In these days he passed through many and varied 
 experiences, now adding knowledge both of books 
 and men to his accumulated store of Indian and 
 Nature lore. Yet his life still gave him that daily 
 contact with the new and larger West of which 
 he was to become pre-eminently the poet. He 
 
 33 
 
JOAQUIN studied law and was admitted to practice at the 
 MILLER bar; he went to the gold mines and experienced 
 all its strange and novel life — doing his own cook- 
 ing, caring for sick comrades, washing his own 
 clothes, laboring with his hands in the eager 
 search for the yellow metal, now facing a drunken 
 desperado, and next passing the hat for an itiner- 
 ant preacher. During this gold excitement, there 
 was a time when the miners were shut in and 
 could get no mail. Deep snows, fifteen feet and 
 more, had frightened the mail carrier, and these 
 hundreds of men longed for news from wives, 
 daughters, sons, at home. Joaquin Miller was the 
 one man of the camp who volunteered to brave 
 the storms, dare the dangers, defy the perils, and 
 stand off the hungry wolves, as he crossed the 
 snow-clad mountains, swept by angry winds, 
 where no trail led his footsteps and all the ordi- 
 nary identification marks were invisible ; slid and 
 slipped down the steep canyon slopes and forded 
 or ** logged " the swift-running mountain streams, 
 simply to bring messages of love to the lonely 
 men. It was on that trip that he suffered the 
 
 34 
 
untold agonies of snow-blindness — agony that was JOAQUIN 
 not merely temporary, but that affected his eye- MILLER 
 sight so that he suffers from the ill effects to this 
 day. Soon he organized a pony express connect- 
 ing California, Idaho and Montana, and himself 
 rode against time, hostile Indians, and bandit 
 whites. Day or night, light, starlight or pitch dark, 
 the mad race of the pony express continued. Who 
 can tell what the world owes to the pictures that 
 flashed into the brain of the rising American poet 
 as he dashed through the air in this exciting and 
 dangerous occupation. 
 
 Before and during the war, he edited a paper, 
 and, as a Quaker should, he spoke in the interests 
 of peace. Not being a politician, he saw things 
 from the abstractly right view-point and said and 
 wrote things that in those heated days were re- 
 garded as treasonable ; so his paper was suppressed 
 and he was practically ostracised. 
 Again he fled to the gold mines, and there had 
 an experience with a brave band of pioneers who 
 went out to put down an uprising of the savage 
 Indians of the Lava Beds, in Northern California. 
 
 35 
 
JOAQUIN Q On his return, he was elected to the bench and 
 MILLER served a term, devoting all his spare time to writing 
 some of the thoughts that flooded his brain. His 
 published poems brought him nothing but disdain, 
 however, and defeat in the next convention, where 
 he asked for higher honors. It was a bitter disap- 
 pointment, yet, like so many similar experiences, 
 it was a blessing in disguise. It sent him off to 
 Europe, where he came in contact with the larger 
 world of science, art and letters. He saw the civ- 
 ilizations of the old world and learned at first hand, 
 with his novel experiences as a background, the 
 lessons of the past. 
 
 Then followed years of travel and varied vicissi- 
 tudes here, there and everywhere. Brought into 
 contact with the highest and the best, he learned 
 fully to appreciate what they valued in his art. 
 Q Hence a peculiar fitness for the work that des- 
 tiny had prepared for him. He came to look upon 
 this great America of his as no other poet of the 
 age could. His survey was from a higher eleva- 
 tion, was immeasurably more comprehensive, and 
 far more understanding than that of ciny of his 
 
 36 
 
compeers. He saw with the eyes of culture, edu- JOAQUIN 
 cation and refinement the Eastern and Old World MILLER 
 civilization, and, to my mind, more important still, 
 as an equipment for our poet, he saw with the 
 eyes of childhood of the race, eyes that accepted 
 the mysteries of Life and Nature as babes accept 
 them, without a thought, a question or a fear. 
 Q Hence his work is conventional, and yet as 
 wildly free as the song of the bird. His verse is 
 in line, yet it is not the line of the ruler, but of the 
 gigantic Sequoia. His poems are sculptured mar- 
 ble, but they are like El Capitan and the Grand 
 Canyon, sculptured by wind, frost, rain, storm 
 and atmospheric gases. 
 
 As a Nature singer, no American poet is the 
 equal of Joaquin Miller. None could have been 
 unless he had had Joaquin's experience and knew 
 what he knew. 
 
 There is nothing derogatory in recognizing the 
 limitations of Longfellow, Lowell and others of 
 our poets. They did not see, did not know this 
 larger, greater America, and therefore exercised 
 their energies in other directions. Had Fremont 
 
 37 
 
JOAQUIN been a poet, he might have stood side by side 
 MILLER with Joaquin Miller and challenged his right to the 
 elevated position I claim for him : for he knew — 
 he was a mountain climber, a forder of unknown 
 streams, a pathfinder over trackless prairies and 
 a maker of trails over pathless deserts. Lewis and 
 Clark knew enough, perhaps, had they had the 
 poetic fire, to have been great American poets : 
 for they wandered over the untamed vastness of 
 the West in the early days of the white man's 
 occupancy of the continent. 
 But men who never crossed the Missouri River, 
 much less those who never reached half-way to 
 it from the East — were incapable of being the 
 poets of all America. They did not know Amer- 
 ica in its fullness, hence their harps were not 
 strung to all its sweet melodies and entrancing 
 harmonies. 
 
 Nay! the simile is incomplete, unsatisfactory. To 
 stretch the musical metaphor and compel it, against 
 its limitations, to obey my thought, the theme, 
 "America," is one which requires orchestral 
 handling. String, wood, reed, brass, pipe and pig 
 
 38 
 
skin, with occasional cymbals and bells, are needed. JOAQUIN 
 The mere flute player, play he never so ravish- MILLER 
 ingly, cannot satisfy the ear's demand for brazen 
 music ; neither can the divine playing of a Paga- 
 nini on the strings compensate for the absence of 
 trombone, oboe, clarinet and French horn. 
 Our great poets, as Bryant, Longfellow, Lowell, 
 Emerson, Holmes, were admirable soloists, or 
 perhaps capable of producing delicious strains 
 from more than one instrument, but Joaquin Mil- 
 ler is the controlling power of a great orchestra, 
 upon every instrument of which he plays with 
 skill and passion. He has scaled the heights, dared 
 the depths of the wonderful gamut of a full, com- 
 plete, whole America. His work gives ravishing 
 melodies and entrancing harmonies, comprising 
 all the elements of choicest music in masterly ar- 
 rangement. 
 
 Read in the following selections his invitation to 
 his daughter to come to his newly established 
 home on "the Hights," above Oakland, and see 
 how, in that one song, longing, tenderness, sweet- 
 ness, pathos, strength, ruggedness, and love are 
 
 39 
 
JOAQUIN combined. Q He saw and described beauty in 
 MILLER every form. Read his "Alaska," ** Yosemite,'* 
 "The Ship in the Desert," and "Where Rolls 
 the Oregon," and then run through his poems as 
 a whole and pick out a thousand dainty and ex- 
 quisite little bits, such as these : 
 
 She was damn*d with the dower of beauty, she 
 Had gold in shower by shoulder and brow. 
 Her feet! — why, her two blessed feet were so small, 
 They could nest in this hand. How queenly, how tall, 
 How gracious, how grand ! 
 Or this introduction to his " Arizonian": 
 Come to my sunland! Come with me 
 To the land I love ; where the sun and sea 
 Are wed for ever; where the palm and pine 
 Are fiird with singers; where tree and vine 
 Are voiced with prophets ! O come, and you 
 Shall sing a song with the seas that swirl 
 And kiss their hands to that cold white girl, 
 To the maiden moon in her mantle of blue. 
 
 Even Browning's "Dawn" is not more vivid than 
 
 these two lines: 
 
 And the pale moon rubs on her purple cover 
 Till worn as thin and as bright as tin. 
 
 Like Browning, he has many notes of true fun, 
 
 40 
 
in which you can hear him clap his hands and JOAQUIN 
 
 laugh with very exuberance of glee. Such things MILLER 
 
 are, **In Classic Shades," "The Gentle Man 
 
 from Boston," '* William Brown of Oregon," and 
 
 '* A Turkey Hunt on the Colorado," the anti-climax 
 
 of which is a masterly stroke. 
 
 Listen to the bold roar of the storm in this verse 
 
 from ** At our Golden Gate" : 
 
 Oh, for England's old sea thunder 
 Oh, for England's bold sea men. 
 When we banged her over, under 
 And she banged us back again ! 
 Better old time strife and stresses. 
 Cloud top't towers, walls, distrust ; 
 Better wars than lazinesses, 
 Better loot than wine and lust ! 
 Give us seas ? Why, we have oceans ! 
 Give us manhood, sea men, men ! 
 Give us deeds, loves, hates, emotions! 
 ' Else give back these seas again. 
 
 He has always been an ideal defender of the 
 slandered and dishonored. When Joaquin Muri- 
 etta, the California bandit, was hounded and fol- 
 lowed, captured and cruelly slain, Miller defended 
 
 41 
 
JOAQUIN him in his poem and thus brought derision, scorn, 
 
 MILLER hatred and contumely upon himself. That hatred 
 
 and scorn was what caused him to change his 
 
 name to Joaquin. He took the hated name and 
 
 defied those who despised him. 
 
 When Walker was dishonored, he wrote his 
 
 "With Walker in Nicaragua," and started out 
 
 with: 
 
 He was a brick : 
 
 For he was true as God*s north star. 
 And brave as Yuba's grizzKes are, 
 Yet gentle as a panther is, 
 Mouthing her young in her first fierce kiss. 
 
 He dedicated his collected poems to the most hated 
 and universally disliked man in California: Col- 
 lis P. Huntington, president of the Southern 
 Pacific, in tribute of his greatness as a builder 
 of railways. 
 
 When Riel, the Rebel, was hanged in Canada, he 
 wrote three stanzas, that, had they been seen by 
 Queen Victoria, would have made her feel as if 
 all Arctic's snow and ice were piled upon her 
 bosom. 
 
 42 
 
His "Cuba Libre" was as vivid and powerful JOAQUIN 
 an arraignment of Spain as was ever penned, and MILLER 
 his "Chants for the Boer" put into burning 
 poetry what Herbert Spencer wrote in intense, 
 forceful prose. 
 
 For the right that needs assistance 
 For the wrong that needs resistance 
 For the glory in the distance, 
 For the good that we can do, 
 
 was his motto. 
 
 His cry of passion at the suggestion of an alliance 
 between England and the United States in the 
 Britain-Boer controversy, is like a trumpet-call from 
 the fearless Isaiah or daring Elijah. 
 And yet, at the outset, he says: "Find here not 
 one ill word for brave old England ; my first, best 
 friends were English ! " 
 
 To Russia, he has cried with Tolstoyan power 
 and warning. Nay, Tolstoy never wrote anything 
 as powerful as Joaquin Miller's "To the Czar." 
 Q Who shall say he is not a prophet ? Twenty- 
 three years ago, he wrote "Cuba Libre": 
 
 She shall rise as rose Columbus 
 
 From his chains, from shame and wrong — 
 
 43 
 
JOAQUIN Rise as morning, matchless, wondrous — 
 
 MILLER Rise as some rich morning song — 
 
 Rise as ringing song and story. 
 Valor, Love personified. 
 Stars and Stripes espouse her glory. 
 Love and liberty allied. 
 
 Yes, Joaquin has carried many messages to Gar- 
 cia. Like Andrew Rowan, who has no intention 
 of retiring from business, he is still carrying them. 
 Q In one or two instances, he has not hesitated to 
 call aloud to arms, as in the ** Chants for the Boer," 
 where he bids them welcome England : 
 
 Well, welcome her! 
 
 Give her such welcome with such will 
 
 As Boston gave in battle's whir 
 
 That red, dread day at Bunker Hill. 
 
 His ancestry and home training was that of the 
 Friends, and though he has never been a consist- 
 ent anything, much less a Friend in the orthodox, 
 religious sense, his voice has ever been for peace. 
 Q, There are some poets who are larger than 
 their message, and who know it; others whose 
 message is larger than themselves, and they know 
 
 it ; still others whose message is much larger than 
 
 44 
 
themselves, and they do not know it. To this JOAQUIN 
 latter class Joaquin Miller belongs. He neither MILLER 
 knows the measure of his work, nor of himself. 
 Nor does the world, as yet, dream of the magni- 
 tude and power of his art. He is a prophet who 
 sees to the highest hilltops and beyond. 
 
 GEORGE WHARTON JAMES. 
 
 STUDY OF JAMES 
 
 WHEN Napoleon met Wolfgang Goethe 
 he said, "At last I have seen a man." 
 C^ When George Wharton James 
 made a little journey to Sun-up and spoke one 
 Sunday afternoon in Roycroft Chapel, I mopped 
 for joy and said the same. 
 
 I never saw but one man to compare with James, 
 and that was Dr. Lorenz of Vienna. They look 
 alike, act alike, are about the same age — each has 
 the same splendid health, the good cheer, the 
 perfect poise, and the great sympathetic heart of 
 a Man. 
 
 45 
 
JOAQUIN These men know their business, and each, in his 
 MILLER own line, has done his work better than any other 
 living person. 
 
 James is the one authority on the Art of the 
 North American Indian. 
 What 's that ! — there is none ? 
 Lookee, my friend — no white woman can think 
 out with her head and make with her hands a 
 work of beauty to compare in completeness, in 
 proportion, in perfection of color and design, with 
 the work of an Arizona Indian woman. This In- 
 dian may work two years on a single basket, and 
 into its design she will weave the history of her 
 race, and her own history as well — her aspira- 
 tions, hopes, disappointments, and her love. 
 To do good work you must be a good person. 
 A beautiful piece of work is a beautiful thought 
 made manifest. 
 An Indian basket is a prayer. 
 Man, like Deity, creates in his own image. If there 
 is no beauty in your soul, there will be no beauty 
 in your work. If you have an inward illumination, 
 it will come out at your finger-tips in your work, 
 
 46 
 

 
 i^.!^j^:{^V-: 
 

 , ^^ 'if^ ,rt^ 'i^jmm^' 
 
 ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
if you are free. Cf And so these Indians who do JOAQUIN 
 
 this perfect work — this work of most exquisite MILLER 
 
 proportion and design — must have in them much 
 
 good. Are they not God's children ? and has He 
 
 not breathed into their spirits somewhat of the 
 
 goodness and glory that reveals itself in leaf and 
 
 flower, in bird and song, in mountain peak and 
 
 sunset glow? 
 
 All is one. 
 
 And when you see George Wharton James and 
 
 hear and listen to him as he relates the story of 
 
 Ramona and her baskets, your heart will go out 
 
 to all humanity in a universal sympathy, and love 
 
 will possess your soul. 
 
 James has lived alone in the mountains and on the 
 
 plains, and for six months has never seen a white 
 
 person. The man who can live alone must be in 
 
 good company in order to enjoy. Is n't that so? 
 
 Q James is a specimen. He can run, ride, swim, 
 
 work and play. He eats like a hired man and 
 
 sleeps like a baby. He has the child-heart, the 
 
 body of a strong man, the mind of a prophet, and 
 
 the soul of a god. 
 
 47 
 
JOAQUIN That is a combination we would all like to be, 
 
 MILLER and may, if we get ourselves in harmony with the 
 
 Infinite. 
 
 Let 's be men. 
 
 ELBERT HUBBARD. 
 
 48 
 
THE POEMS 
 
THE POEMS 
 
 ELECTIONS from Joaquin Miller's "Com- 
 plete Poetical Works," published by Whit- 
 aker & Ray Company, San Francisco, 
 California, to whom sincere thanks are 
 
 tendered for their kind permission to republish 
 
 here. 
 
 ABOVE THE CLOUDS 
 
 'Mid white Sierras, that slope to the sea, 
 Lie turbulent lands. Go dwell in the skies, 
 And the thundering tongues of Yosemite 
 Shall persuade you to silence, and you shall be 
 , wise. 
 
 I but sing for the love of song and the few 
 Who loved me first and shall love me last ; 
 And the storm shall pass as the storms have 
 
 pass'd. 
 For never were clouds but the sun came through. 
 
 49 
 
JOAQUIN KIT CARSON'S RIDE 
 
 MILLER Room ! room to turn round in, to breathe and be free, 
 To grow to be giant, to sail as at sea 
 With the speed of the wind on a stoed with his mane 
 To the wind, without pathway or route or a rein. 
 Room! room to be free where the white border'd sea 
 Blows a kiss to a brother as boundless as he; 
 Where the buffalo come like a cloud on the plain. 
 Pouring on like the tide of a storm driven main. 
 And the lodge of the hunter to friend or to foe 
 Offers rest ; and unquestioned you come or you go. 
 My plains of America ! Seas of wild lands ! 
 From a land in the seas in a raiment of foam. 
 That has reached to a stranger the welcome of home, 
 I turn to you, lean to you, lift you my hands. 
 London, 1871. 
 
 Run? Run? See this flank, sir, and I do love him 
 
 so! 
 But he 's blind as a badger. Whoa, Pache, boy, 
 
 whoa. 
 No, you would n*t believe it to look at his eyes. 
 But he 's blind, badger blind, and it happened this 
 
 wise: 
 
 50 
 


 •--awnrs. 
 
 PREACHER BEN 
 
We lay in the grass and the sunburnt clover JOAQUIN 
 
 That spread on the ground like a great brown MILLER 
 
 cover 
 Northward and southward, and west and away 
 To the Brazos, where our lodges lay, 
 One broad and unbroken level of brown. 
 We were waiting the curtains of night to come 
 
 down 
 To cover us trio and conceal our flight 
 With my brown bride, won from an Indian tovm 
 That lay in the rear the full ride of a night. 
 
 We lounged in the grass — her eyes were in 
 
 mine, 
 And her hands on my knee, and her hair was as 
 
 wine 
 In its wealth and its flood, pouring on and all over 
 Her bosom wine red, and press'd never by one. 
 Her touch was as warm as the tinge of the clover 
 Burnt brown as it reach'd to the kiss of the sun. 
 Her words they were low as the lute-throated 
 
 dove. 
 
 And as laden with love as the heart when it beats 
 
 51 
 
JOAQUIN In its hot, eager answer to earliest love, 
 MILLER Or the bee hurried home by its burthen of sweets. 
 
 We lay low in the grass on the broad plain levels, 
 Old Revels and I, and my stolen brown bride ; 
 "Forty full miles if a foot to ride! 
 Forty full miles if a foot, and the devils 
 Of red Comanches are hot on the track 
 When once they strike it. Let the sun go down 
 Soon, very soon," muttered bearded old Revels 
 As he peer'd at the sun, lying low on his back. 
 Holding fast to his Icisso. Then he jerk'd at his 
 
 steed 
 And he sprang to his feet, and glanced sv^ftly 
 
 around. 
 And then dropp'd, as if shot, with cin ear to the 
 
 ground ; 
 Then again to his feet, and to me, to my bride, 
 While his eyes were like flame, his face like a 
 
 shroud. 
 
 His form like a king and his beard like a cloud. 
 
 And his voice loud and shrill, as both trumpet and 
 
 reed, — 
 
 52 
 
"Pull, pull in your lassoes, and bridle to steed, JOAQUIN 
 And speed you if ever for life you would speed. MILLER 
 Aye, ride for your lives, for your lives you must 
 
 ride! 
 For the plain is aflame, the prairie on fire. 
 And the feet of w^ild horses hard flying before 
 I hear like a sea breaking high on the shore, 
 While the buffalo come like a surge of the sea. 
 Driven far by the flame, driving fast on us three 
 As a hurricane comes, crushing palms in his ire/' 
 
 We drew in the lassoes, seized saddle and rein. 
 Threw them on, cinched them on, cinched them 
 
 over again. 
 And again drew the girth ; and spring we to horse, 
 With head to the Brazos, with a sound in the air 
 Like the surge of a sea, with a flash in the eye, 
 From that red wall of flame reaching up to the 
 
 sky; 
 A red wall of flame and a black rolling sea 
 Rushing fsist upon us, as the wind sweeping free 
 And afar from the desert blown hollow and 
 
 hoarse. 
 
 53 
 
JOAQUIN Not a word, not a wail from a lip was let fall, 
 MILLER We broke not a whisper, we breathed not a 
 
 prayer. 
 There was work to be done, there was death in 
 
 the air. 
 And the chance was as one to a thousand for all. 
 
 Twenty miles ! thirty miles ! a dim distant 
 
 speck .... 
 Then a long reaching line, and the Brazos in sight ! 
 And I rose in my seat with a shout of delight. 
 I stood in my stirrup and look'd to my right — 
 But Revels was gone; I glanced by my shoulder 
 And saw his horse stagger ; I saw his head droop- 
 ing 
 Hard down on his breast, and his naked breast 
 
 stooping 
 Low down to the mane, as so swifter and bolder 
 Ran reaching out for us the red-footed fire. 
 He rode neck to neck with a buffalo bull. 
 That made the earth shake where he came in his 
 
 course, 
 The monarch of millions, with shaggy mane full 
 
 54 
 
Of smoke and of dust, and it shook with desire JOAQUIN 
 Of battle, with rage and with bello wings hoarse. MILLER 
 His keen, crooked horns, through the storm of his 
 
 mane. 
 Like black lances lifted and lifted again ; 
 And I looked but this once, for the fire licked 
 
 through, 
 And Revels was gone, as we rode two and two. 
 
 I look'd to my left then — and nose, neck, and 
 
 shoulder 
 Sank slowly, sank surely, till back to my thighs. 
 And up through the black blowing veil of her 
 
 hair 
 Did beam full in mine her two marvelous eyes, 
 With a longing and love yet a look of despair 
 And of pity for me, as she felt the smoke fold her, 
 And flames leaping far for her glorious hair. 
 Her sinking horse falter'd, plunged, fell and was 
 
 gone 
 As I reach'd through the flame and I bore her still on. 
 On ! into the Brazos, she, Pache and I — 
 Poor, burnt, blinded Pache. I love him.That's why. 
 
 55 
 
JOAQUIN JUANITA 
 
 MILLER You will come my bird, Bonita? 
 
 Come ! For I by steep and stone 
 Have built such nest for you, Juanita, 
 As not eagle bird hath known. 
 
 Rugged! Rugged as Parnassus! 
 Rude, as all roads I have trod — 
 Yet are steeps and stone-strewn passes 
 Smooth o'er head, and nearest God. 
 
 Here black thunders of my canyon 
 Shake its walls in Titan wars ! 
 Here white sea-bom clouds companion 
 With such peaks as know the stars ! 
 
 Here madrona, manzanita — 
 Here the snarling chaparral 
 House and hang o'er steeps, Juanita, 
 Where the gaunt wolf loved to dwell ! 
 
 Dear, I took these trackless masses 
 
 Fresh from Him who fashioned them ; 
 
 Wrought in rock, and hewed fair passes, 
 
 Flower set, as sets a gem. 
 
 56 
 
Aye, I built in woe. God willed it ; JOAQUIN 
 
 Woe that passeth ghosts of guilt ; MILLER 
 
 Yet I built as His birds builded — 
 Builded, singing as I built. 
 
 All is finished ! Roads of flowers 
 Wait your loyal little feet. 
 All completed ? Nay, the hours 
 Till you come are incomplete. 
 
 Steep below me lies the valley, 
 Deep below me lies the town. 
 Where great sea-ships ride and rally. 
 And the world walks up cind down. 
 
 O, the sea of lights far streaming 
 When the thousand flags are furled — 
 When the gleaming bay lies dreaming 
 As it duplicates the world ! 
 
 You will come my dearest, truest ? 
 
 Come my sovereign queen of ten ; 
 
 My blue skies will then be bluest; 
 
 My white rose be whitest then : 
 
 57 
 
JOAQUIN Then the song! Ah, then the saber 
 
 MILLER Flashing up the walls of night ! 
 
 Hate of wrong and love of neighbor — 
 Rhymes of battle for the Right ! 
 
 YOSEMITE 
 
 Sound! sound! sound! 
 
 O colossal walls and crown'd 
 
 In one eternal thunder! 
 
 Sound! sound! sound! 
 
 O ye oceans overhead, 
 
 While we walk, subdued in wonder, 
 
 In the ferns and grasses, under 
 
 And beside the swift Merced ! 
 
 Fret! fret! fret! 
 
 Streaming, sounding banners, set 
 On the giant granite castles 
 In the clouds and in the snow! 
 But the foe he comes not yet, — 
 We are loyal, valiant vassals. 
 And we touch the trailing tassels 
 Of the banners far below. 
 
 58 
 
Surge ! surge ! surge ! JOAQUIN 
 
 From the white Sierra's verge, MILLER 
 
 To the very valley blossom. 
 
 Surge! surge! surge! 
 
 Yet the song-bird builds a home. 
 
 And the mossy branches cross them. 
 
 And the tasselled tree-tops toss them, 
 
 In the clouds of falling foam. 
 
 Sweep! sweep! sweep! 
 O ye heaven-bom and deep. 
 In one dread, unbroken chorus I 
 We may wonder or may weep, — 
 We may wait on God before us ; 
 We may shout or lift a hand, — 
 We may bow down and deplore us. 
 But may never understand. 
 
 Beat! beat! beat! 
 We advance, but would retreat 
 From this restless, broken breast 
 Of the earth in a convulsion. 
 We would rest, but dare not rest, 
 
 59 
 
JOAQUIN For the angel of expulsion 
 
 MILLER From this Paradise below 
 
 Waves us onward and we go. 
 
 ALASKA 
 
 Ice built, ice bound and ice bounded, 
 
 Such cold seas of silence ! such room ! 
 
 Such snow-light, such sea-light confounded 
 
 With thunders that smite like a doom ! 
 
 Such grandeur! such glory! such gloom! 
 
 Hear that boom ! Hear that deep distant boom 
 
 Of an avalanche hurled 
 
 Down this unfinished world ! 
 
 Ice seas ! and ice summits ! ice spaces 
 
 In splendor of white, as God's throne ! 
 
 Ice worlds to the pole ! and ice places 
 
 Untracked and unnamed, and unknown! 
 
 Hear that boom ! Hear the grinding, the 
 
 groan 
 
 Of the ice-gods in pain! Hear the moan 
 
 Of yon ice mountain hurled 
 
 Down this unfinished world. 
 
 60 
 
PETER COOPER JOAQUIN 
 
 Died 1883 MILLER 
 
 Give honor and love forevermore 
 To this great man gone to rest ; 
 Peace on the dim Plutonian shore, 
 Rest in the land of the blest! 
 
 I reckon him greater than any man 
 That ever drew sword in war ; 
 I reckon him nobler than king or khan, 
 Braver and better by far. 
 
 And wisest he in this whole wide land 
 Of hoarding till bent and gray ; 
 For all you can hold in your cold dead hand 
 Is what you have given away. 
 
 So whether to wander the stars or to rest 
 
 Forever hushed and dumb, 
 
 He gave with a zest and he gave his best — 
 
 Give him the best to come. 
 
 61 
 
JOAQUIN THE DEAD MILLIONAIRE 
 
 MILLER The gold that with the sunlight lies 
 In bursting heaps at dawn, 
 The silver spilling from the skies 
 At night to walk upon, 
 The diamonds gleaming in the dew 
 He never saw, he never knew. 
 
 He got some gold, dug from the mud. 
 
 Some silver, crushed from stones. 
 
 The gold was red with dead men's blood, 
 
 The silver black with groans ; 
 
 And when he died he moaned aloud, 
 
 "There '11 be no pocket in my shroud." 
 
 TO THE JERSEY LILY 
 
 If all God's world a garden were. 
 
 And women were but flowers. 
 
 If men were bees that busied there, 
 
 Through endless summer hours, 
 
 O I would hum God's garden through 
 
 For honey till I came to you. 
 
 62 
 
TO THE CZAR JOAQUIN 
 
 Down from her high estate she stept, MILLER 
 
 A maiden, gently bom, 
 And by the icy Volga kept 
 Sad watch and waited mom ; 
 And peasants say that where she slept 
 The new moon dipt her hom. 
 Yet on and on, through shoreless snows, 
 Far tow'rd the bleak north pole, 
 The foulest wrong the good God knows 
 Rolled as dark rivers roll ; 
 While never once for all their woes 
 Upspake your ruthless soul. 
 
 She toiled, she taught the peasant, taught 
 The dark-eyed Tartar. He, 
 Illumined with her lofty thought. 
 Rose up and sought to be. 
 What God at the creation wrought, 
 A man ! God-like and free. 
 Yet still before him yawned the black 
 Siberian mines! And oh. 
 The knout upon the bare white back ! 
 
 63 
 
JOAQUIN The blood upon the snow! 
 MILLER The gaunt wolves, close upon the track, 
 Fought o'er the fallen so ! 
 
 And this that one might wear a crown 
 
 Snatched from a strangled sire ! 
 
 And this that two might mock or frown, 
 
 From high thrones climbing higher — 
 
 From where the Parricide looked down 
 
 With harlot in desire ! 
 
 Yet on, beneath the great north star, 
 
 Like some lost, living thing. 
 
 That long dread line stretched, black and far 
 
 Till buried by death's wing ! 
 
 And great men praised the goodly Czar — 
 
 But God sat pitying. 
 
 ****** 
 
 A storm burst forth ! From out the storm 
 The clean, red lightning leapt. 
 
 And lo, a prostrate royal form 
 
 And Alexander slept ! 
 Down through the snow, all smoking, warm 
 
 64 
 
Like any blood, his crept. JOAQUIN 
 
 Yea, one lay dead, for millions dead! MILLER 
 
 One red spot in the snow 
 
 For one long damning line of red, 
 
 Where exiles endless go — 
 
 The babe at breast, the mother's head 
 
 Bowed down, and dying so. 
 
 And did a woman do this deed? 
 
 Then build her scaffold high, 
 
 That all may on her forehead read 
 
 The martyr's right to die! 
 
 Ring Cossack round on royal steed! 
 
 Now lift her to the sky ! 
 
 But see ! From out the black hood shines 
 
 A light few look upon ! 
 
 Lorn exiles, see, from dark, deep mines, 
 
 A star at burst of dawn ! 
 
 A thud! A creak of hangman's lines! — 
 A frail shape jerked and drawn ! . . . . 
 
 'i' ^ •4* •!* •!• •£• 
 
 •r» •!• ^ •!• <|S <!> 
 
 The Czar is dead; the woman dead, 
 
 65 
 
JOAQUIN About her neck a cord. 
 MILLER In God's house rests his royal head — 
 Hers in a place abhorred ; 
 Yet I had rather have her bed 
 Than thine, most royal lord ! 
 Aye, rather be that woman dead, 
 Than thee, dead-living Czar, 
 To hide in dread, writh both hands red, 
 
 Behind great bolt and bar 
 
 You may control to the North Pole, 
 But God still guides the star. 
 
 THE PASSING OF TENNYSON 
 
 My kingly kinsmen, kings of thought, 
 I hear your gathered symphonies, 
 
 Such nights as when the world is not, 
 And great stars chorus through my trees. 
 
 We knew it, as God's prophets knew; 
 We knew it, as mute red men know, 
 When Mars leapt searching heaven through 
 With flaming torch, that he must go. 
 Then Browning, he who knew the stars. 
 Stood forth and faced insatiate Mars. 
 
 66 
 
Then up from Cambridge rose and turned JOAQUIN 
 
 Sweet Lowell from his Druid trees — MILLER 
 
 Turned where the great star blazed and burned, 
 
 As if his own soul might appease. 
 
 Yet on and on through all the stars 
 
 Still searched and searched insatiate Mars. 
 
 Then stanch Walt Whitman saw and knew ; 
 Forgetful of his ** Leaves of Grass," 
 He heard his ''Drum Taps," and God drew 
 His great soul through the shining pass, 
 Made light, made bright by burnished stars ; 
 Made scintillant from flaming Mars. 
 
 Then soft-voiced Whittier was heard 
 
 To cease ; was heard to sing no more. 
 
 As you have heard some sweetest bird 
 
 The more because its song is o'er. 
 
 Yet brighter up the street of stars 
 
 Still blazed sind burned smd beckoned Mars : 
 
 And then the king came ; king of thought, 
 
 67 
 
JOAQUIN King David with his harp and crown 
 
 MILLER How wisely well the gods had wrought 
 That these had gone and sat them down 
 To wait and welcome mid the stars 
 All silent in the light of Mars. 
 
 All silent .... So, he lies in state .... 
 
 Our redwoods drip and drip with rain 
 
 Against our rock-lined Golden Gate 
 We hear the great, sad, sobbing main. 
 
 But silent all He passed the stars 
 
 That year the whole world turned to Mars. 
 
 COLUMBUS 
 
 I Behind him lay the gray Azores, 
 
 Behind the Gates of Hercules ; 
 
 Before him not the ghost of shores ; 
 
 Before him only shoreless seas. 
 
 The good mate said : " Now must we pray, 
 
 For lo ! the very stars are gone. 
 
 Brave Adm'r'l, speak; what shall I say?" 
 
 " Why, say : * Sail on ! sail on ! and on ! ' " 
 
 68 
 
** My men grow mutinous day by day ; JOAQUIN 
 
 My men grow ghastly wan and weak." MILLER 
 
 The stout mate thought of home ; a spray 
 Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. 
 ** What shall I say, brave Adm'r'l, say, 
 If we sight naught but seas at dawn?" 
 ** Why, you shall say at break of day: 
 * Sail on ! sail on ! sail on ! and on ! 
 
 ♦ »» 
 
 They sailed and sailed as winds might blow, 
 Until at last the blanched mate said : 
 "Why, now not even God would know 
 Should I and all my men fall dead. 
 These very winds forget their way. 
 For God from these dread seas is gone. 
 Now speak, brave Adm'r'l ; speak and say — " 
 He said : ** Sail on ! sail on ! and on ! " 
 
 They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the 
 
 mate : 
 "This mad sea shows his teeth to-night. 
 He curls his lip, he lies in waut, 
 With lifted teeth, as if to bite! ^\ 
 
 69 
 
JOAQUIN Brave Adm'r'l, say but one good word: 
 
 MILLER What shall we do when hope is gone?" 
 
 The words leapt like a flaming sword : j 
 " Sail on ! sail on ! sail on ! and on ! " ^ 
 
 THE IDEAL AND THE REAL 
 And full these truths eternal 
 O'er the yearning spirit steal, 
 That the real is the ideal, 
 And the ideal is the real. 
 
 She was damn'd with the dower of beauty, she 
 Had gold in shower by shoulder and brow. 
 Her feet ! — why, her two blessed feet, were so small, 
 They could nest in this hand. Howqueenly, how tall. 
 How gracious, how grand ! She was all to me, — 
 My present, my past, my eternity ! 
 
 She but lives in my dreams. I behold her now 
 By shoreless white waters that flow'd like a sea 
 At her feet where I sat ; her lips push'd out 
 In brave, warm welcome of dimple and pout ! 
 'T was aeons agone. By that river that ran 
 All fathomless, echoless, limitless, on. 
 
 70 
 

 
 I 
 
 Ko 
 
 Q 
 
 2 
 
 o 
 
 
 •^ 
 ^ 
 
 >>. . 
 
 
 
 ft 
 
 
 
 3! 
 
 CO 
 
 -i-^^-h 
 
And shoreless, and peopled with never a man, JOAQUIN 
 
 We met, soul to soul No land; yet I think MILLER 
 
 There were willows and lilies that lean'd to drink. 
 The stars they were seaFd and the moons were 
 
 gone. 
 The wide shining circles that girdled that world, 
 They were distant and dim. And an incense curl'd 
 In vapory folds from that river that ran 
 All shoreless, with never the presence of man. 
 
 How sensuous the night ; how soft was the sound 
 Of her voice on the night ! How warm was her 
 
 breath 
 In that world that had never yet tasted of death 
 Or forbidden sweet fruit ! .... In that far profound 
 
 We were camped on the edges of god-land. We 
 Were the people of Saturn. The watery fields, 
 The wide-wing'd, dolorous birds of the sea. 
 They acknowledged but us. Our brave battle 
 
 shields 
 Were my naked white palms ; our food it was love. 
 Our roof was the fresco of gold belts above. 
 
 71 
 
JOAQUIN How tum'd she to me where that wide river ran, 
 MILLER With its Hlies and willows and watery reeds, 
 
 And heeded as only your true love heeds ! 
 
 How tender she was, and how timid she was ! 
 But a black, hoofed beast, with the head of a 
 
 man. 
 Stole down where she sat at my side, and began 
 To puff his tan cheeks, then to play, then to pause, 
 With his double-reed pipes; then to play and to 
 
 play 
 As never played man since the world began, 
 And never shall play till the judgment day. 
 
 How he puff 'd I how he play'd! Then down the 
 
 dim shore. 
 This half-devil man, all hairy and black. 
 Did dance with his hoofs in the sand, laughing 
 
 back 
 
 As his song died away She turned never more 
 
 Unto me after that. She rose, and she pass'd 
 Right on from my sight. Then I followed as fast 
 As true love can follow. But ever before 
 Like a spirit she fled. How vain and how far 
 
 72 
 
Did I follow my beauty, red belt or white star! JOAQUIN 
 Through foamy white sea, unto fruit laden shore ! MILLER 
 
 How long I did follow! My pent soul of fire 
 It did feed on itself. I fasted, I cried ; 
 Was tempted by many. Yet still I denied 
 The touch of all things, and kept my desire .... 
 I stood by the lion of St. Mark in that hour 
 Of Venice when gold of the sunset is roll'd 
 From cloud to cathedral, from turret to tower, 
 In matchless, magnificent garments of gold ; 
 Then I knew she was near ; yet I had not known 
 Her form or her face since the stars were sown. 
 
 We two had been parted — God pity us ! — when 
 This world was unnamed and all heaven was dim ; 
 We two had been parted far back on the rim 
 And the outermost border of heaven's red bars ; 
 We two had been parted ere the meeting of 
 
 men. 
 Or God had set compass on spaces as yet; 
 We two had been parted ere God had once set 
 His finger to spinning the purple with stars, — 
 
 73 
 
JOAQUIN And now at the last in the sea and fret 
 MILLER Of the sun of Venice, we two had met. 
 
 Where the lion of Venice, with brows a-frown, 
 With tossed mane tumbled, and teeth in air, 
 Looks out in his watch o'er the watery town, 
 With paw half lifted, with claws half bare. 
 By the blue Adriatic, at her bath in the sea, — 
 I saw her. I knew her, but she knew not me. 
 I had found her at last ! Why I, I had sail'd 
 The antipodes through, had sought, and had hailM 
 All flags ; I had climbed where the storm clouds 
 
 curl'd. 
 And caird o'er the awful arch'd dome of the 
 
 world. 
 
 I saw her one moment, then fell back abash'd. 
 And fill'd to the throat .... Then I turn'd me once 
 
 more. 
 Thanking God in my soul, while the level sun 
 
 flashed 
 Happy halos about her Her breast ! — ^why, her 
 
 breast 
 
 74 
 

 '■-'■■^].ri\-^y: 
 
;^'t.Vt.. u 
 
 -'''.■' J 
 
 # n 
 
Was white as twin pillows that lure you to rest. JOAQUIN 
 Her sloping limbs moved like to melodies told, MILLER 
 As she rose from the sea, and threw back the ' 
 
 gold 
 
 Of her glorious hair, and set face to the shore 
 
 I knew her ! I knew her, though we had not met 
 Since the red stars sang to the sun's first set ! 
 
 How long I had sought her ! I had hungered, nor 
 
 ate 
 Of any sweet fruits. I had followed not one 
 Of all the fair glories grown under the sun. 
 I had sought only her, believing that she 
 Had come upon earth, and stood waiting for me 
 Somewhere by my way. But the pathways of Fate 
 They had led otherwhere ; the round world round. 
 The far North seas and the near profound 
 Had fail'd me for aye. Now I stood by that sea 
 Where she bathed in her beauty, God, I and 
 
 she! 
 
 I spake not, but caught in my breath; I did raise 
 My face to fair heaven to give God praise 
 
 75 
 
JOAQUIN That at last, ere the ending of Time, we had met, 
 MILLER Had touch'd upon earth at the same sweet 
 
 place .... 
 Yea, we never had met since creation at all ; 
 Never, since ages ere Adam's fall. 
 Had we two met in that hunger and fret 
 Where two should be one, but had wander'd 
 
 through space ; 
 Through space and through spheres, as some bird 
 
 that hard fate 
 Gives a thousand glad Springs but never one 
 
 mate. 
 
 Was it well with my love? Was she true? Was 
 
 she brave 
 With virtue's own valor ? Was she waiting for me ? 
 Oh, how fared my love ? Had she home ? Had 
 
 she bread? 
 Had she known but the touch of the warm- 
 
 temper'd wave? 
 Was she bom to this world with a crown on her 
 
 head. 
 Or born, like myself, but a dreamer instead ? . . . . 
 
 76 
 
So long it had been! So long! Why, the sea — JOAQUIN 
 That wrinkled and surly, old, time-temper'd MILLER 
 
 slave — 
 Had been bom, had his revels, grown wrinkled 
 
 and hoar 
 Since I last saw my love on that uttermost shore. 
 
 Oh, how fared my love ? Once I lifted my face. 
 And I shook back my hair and look'd out on the 
 
 sea; 
 I press'd my hot palms as I stood in my place. 
 And I cried, " Oh, I come like a king to your 
 
 side 
 Though all hell intervene!" "Hist! she may 
 
 be a bride, I 
 
 A mother at peace, with sweet babes at her knee ! 
 A babe at her breast and a spouse at her side ! — 
 Had I wander'd too long, and had Destiny 
 Set mortal between us?" I buried my face 
 In my hands, and I moan'd as I stood in my place. 
 
 'T was her year to be young. She was tall, she 
 was fair — 
 
 77 
 
 u. 
 
JOAQUIN Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over 
 MILLER there? 
 
 'T was her year to be young. She was queenly 
 
 and tall; 
 And I felt she was true, as I lifted my face 
 And saw her press down her rich robe to its 
 
 place, 
 With a hand white and small as a babe's with a 
 
 doll. 
 And her feet ! — why, her feet in the white shining 
 
 sand 
 Were so small, 't was a wonder the maiden could 
 
 stand. 
 Then she push'd back her hair with a round 
 
 hand that shone 
 And flash'd in the light with a white starry stone. 
 
 Then my love she is rich! My love she is fair! 
 Is she pure as the snow on the Alps over there ? 
 She is gorgeous with wealth! "Thank God, she 
 
 has bread," 
 I said to myself. Then I humbled my head 
 In gratitude deep. Then I questioned me where 
 
 78 
 
Was her palace, her parents? What name did JOAQUIN 
 she bear? MILLER 
 
 What mortal on earth came nearest her heart? 
 
 Who touch'd the small hand till it thrill'd to a 
 smart ? 
 
 'T was her year to be young. She was rich, she 
 was fair — 
 
 Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there ? 
 
 Then she loosed her rich robe that was blue like 
 
 the sea. 
 And silken and soft as a baby's new bom. 
 And my heart it leap'd light as the sunlight at 
 
 mom 
 At the sight of my love in her proud purity. 
 As she rose like a Naiad half-robed from the 
 
 sea. 
 
 Then careless and calm as an empress can be 
 
 She loosed and let fall all the raiment of blue. 
 
 As she drew a white robe in a melody 
 
 Of moving white limbs, while between the two, 
 
 Like a rift in the cloud, shone her fair presence 
 
 through. 
 
 79 
 
JOAQUIN Soon she turn'd, reach'd a hand; then a tall 
 MILLER gondolier 
 
 Who had lean'd on his oar, like a long lifted 
 
 spear. 
 Shot sudden and swift and all silently. 
 And drew to her side as she turn'd from the tide. 
 It was odd, such a thing, and I counted it queer 
 That a princess like this, whether virgin or bride, 
 Should abide thus apart as she bathed in the sea ; 
 And I chafed and I chafed, and so unsatisfied. 
 That I flutter'd the doves that were perch'd close 
 
 about. 
 As I strode up and dovm in dismay and in doubt. 
 
 Swift she stept in the boat on the borders of night 
 As an angel might step on that far wonder land 
 Of eternal sweet life, which men mis-name Death. 
 Quick I called me a craft, and I caught at my 
 
 breath 
 As she sat in the boat, and her white baby hand 
 Held vestments of gold to her throat, snowy 
 
 white. 
 Then her gondola shot, — shot sharp for the shore : 
 
 80 
 
There was never the sound of a song or of oar, JOAQUIN 
 But the doves hurried home in white clouds to MILLER 
 
 Saint Mark, 
 Where the brass horses plunge their high manes 
 
 in the dark. 
 
 Then I cried: "Follow fast! Follow fast! Follow 
 
 fast! 
 Aye ! thrice double fare, if you follow her true 
 To her own palace door ! *' There was plashing 
 
 of oar 
 
 And rattle of rowlock I sat peering through. 
 
 Looking far in the dark, peering out as we passed 
 With my soul all alert, bending down, leaning low. 
 But only the oaths of the fisherman's crew 
 When we jostled them sharp as we sudden shot 
 
 through 
 The watery town. Then a deep, distant roar — 
 The rattle of rowlock ; the rush of the oar. 
 
 The rattle of rowlock, the rush of the sea .... 
 Swift wind like a sword at the throat of us all ! 
 I lifted my face, and, far, fitfully 
 
 81 
 
JOAQUIN The heavens breathed lightning; did Hft and let 
 MILLER fall 
 
 As if angels were parting God's curtains. Then 
 
 deep 
 And indolent-like, and as if half asleep, 
 As if half made angry to move at all. 
 The thunder moved. It confronted me. 
 It stood like an avalanche poised on a hill, 
 I saw^ its black brows. I heard it stand still. 
 
 The troubled sea throbb'd as if rack'd with pain. 
 Then the black clouds rose and suddenly rode. 
 As a fiery, fierce stallion that knows no rein ; 
 Right into the town. Then the thunder strode 
 As a giant striding from star to red star. 
 Then turn'd upon earth and frantically came. 
 Shaking the hollow heaven. And far 
 And near red lightning in ribbon and skin 
 Did seam and furrow the cloud with flame. 
 And write on black heaven Jehovah's name. 
 
 Then lightnings came weaving like shuttlecocks. 
 Weaving rent robes of black clouds for death. 
 
 82 
 

.'^^S^;^fm^-:wm^m^&:if^ 
 
 SANDY, BRUDDER AND THE SCRIBE 
 
And frightened doves fluttered them home in JOAQUIN 
 
 flocks, MILLER 
 
 And mantled men hied them with gather'd breath. 
 Black gondolas scattered as never before, 
 And drew like crocodiles up on the shore; 
 And vessels at sea stood further at sea, 
 And seamen haul'd with a bended knee, 
 And canvas came down to left and to right. 
 Till ships stood stripp'd as if stripp'd for fight ! 
 
 Then an oath. Then a prayer. Then a gust, with 
 
 rents 
 Through the yellow sail'd fishers. Then suddenly 
 Came sharp fork'd fire ! Then again thunder fell 
 Like the great first gun ! Ah, then there was rout 
 Of ships like the breaking of regiments. 
 And shouts as if hurled from an upper hell. 
 
 Then tempest ! It lifted, it spun us about. 
 Then shot us ahead through the hills of the sea 
 As a great steel arrow shot shoreward in wars — 
 Then the storm split open till I saw the blown 
 stars. 
 
 83 
 
JOAQUIN On! on! through the foam! through the storm! 
 MILLER through the town ! 
 
 She was gone ! She was lost in that wilderness 
 
 Of leprous white palaces Black distress ! 
 
 I stood in my gondola. All up and all down 
 We pushed through the surge of the salt-flood street 
 
 Above and below 'T was only the beat 
 
 Of the sea's sad heart .... I leaned, listened ; I 
 
 sat .... 
 'T was only the water-rat ; nothing but that ; 
 Not even the sea-bird screaming distress, 
 As she lost her way in that wilderness. 
 
 I listened all night. I caught at each sound ; 
 I clutch'd and I caught as a man that drown'd — 
 Only the sullen, low growl of the sea 
 Far out the flood-street at the edge of the ships ; 
 Only the billow slow licking his lips, 
 A dog that lay crouching there watching for me, — 
 Growling and showing white teeth all the night ; 
 Only a dog, and as ready to bite ; 
 Only the waves with their salt-flood tears 
 Fretting white stones of a thousand years. 
 
 84 
 
And then a white dome in the loftiness JOAQUIN 
 
 Of cornice and cross and of glittering spire MILLER 
 
 That thrust to heaven and held the fire 
 
 Of the thunder still ; the bird's distress 
 
 As he struck his wings in that wilderness, 
 
 On marbles that speak, and thrill, and inspire, — 
 
 The night below and the night above ; 
 
 The water-rat building, the sea-lost dove ; 
 
 That one lost, dolorous, lone bird's call. 
 
 The water-rat building, — but that was all. 
 
 Silently, slowly, still up and still down. 
 We row'd and we row'd for many an hour, 
 By beetling palace and toppling tower. 
 In the darks and the deeps of the watery 
 
 town. 
 Only the water-rat building by stealth. 
 Only the lone bird astray in his flight 
 That struck white wings in the clouds of night. 
 On spires that sprang from Queen Adria's 
 
 wealth ; 
 Only one sea dove, one lost white dove : 
 The blackness below, the blackness above ! 
 
 85 
 
JOAQUIN Then, pushing the darkness from pillar to post, 
 MILLER The morning came sullen and gray like a ghost 
 Slow up the canal. I lean'd from the prow. 
 And listen'd. Not even that dove in distress 
 Crying its way through the wilderness ; 
 Not even the stealthy old water-rat now, 
 Only the bell in the fisherman's tower. 
 Slow tolling at sea and telling the hour. 
 To kneel to their sweet Santa Barbara 
 For tawny fishers at sea, and to pray. 
 
 5F >'*»^ "l^ "P "r •?• 
 
 High over my head, carved cornice, quaint spire, 
 And ancient built palaces knock'd their gray 
 
 brows 
 Together and frown'd. Then slow-creeping scows 
 Scraped the walls on each side. Above me the 
 
 fire 
 Of sudden-bom morning came flaming in bars ; 
 While up through the chasm I could count the 
 
 stars. 
 Oh, pity ! Such ruin ! The dank smell of death 
 Crept up the canal: I could scarce take my breath ! 
 
 86 
 
'T was the fit place for pirates, for women who JOAQUIN 
 
 keep MILLER 
 
 Contagion of body and soul where they sleep 
 
 God's pity ! A white hand now beck'd me 
 From an old mouldy door, almost in my reach. 
 I sprang to the sill as one wrecked to a beach ; 
 I sprang with wide arms : it was she ! it was 
 
 she ! . . . . 
 And in such a damn'd place ! And what was her 
 
 trade ? 
 To think I had follow'd so faithful, so far 
 From eternity's brink, from star to white star, 
 To find her, to find her, nor wife nor sweet maid ! 
 To find her a shameless poor creature of shame, 
 A nameless, lost body, men hardly dared name. 
 
 All alone in her shame, on that damp, dismal 
 floor 
 
 She stood to entice me I bow'd me before 
 
 All-conquering beauty. I call'd her my Queen ! 
 I told her my love as I proudly had told 
 
 My love had I found her as pure as pure gold. 
 
 87 
 
JOAQUIN I reach'd her my hands, as fearless, as clean, 
 MILLER As man fronting cannon. I cried, "Hasten forth 
 To the sun ! There are lands to the south, to the 
 
 north. 
 Anywhere where you will. Dash the shame from 
 
 your brow ; 
 Come with me, for ever ; and come with me now ! '* 
 
 Why, I 'd have turn'd pirate for her, would have 
 
 seen 
 Ships burn'd from the seas, like to stubble from 
 
 field. 
 Would I turn from her now ? Why should I now 
 
 yield. 
 When she needed me most ? Had I found her a 
 
 queen. 
 And beloved by the world, — why, what had I 
 
 done? 
 I had woo'd, and had woo'd, and had woo'd till 
 
 I won! 
 
 Then, if I had loved her with gold and fair fame, 
 
 Would not I now love her, and love her the 
 
 same ? 
 
 88 
 
My soul hath a pride. I would tear out my heart JOAQUIN 
 And cast it to dogs, could it play a dog's part! MILLER 
 
 ** Don't you know me, my bride of the wide world 
 of yore ? 
 
 Why, don't you remember the white milky-way 
 
 Of stars, that we traversed the aeons before ? 
 
 We were counting the colors, we were naming 
 the seas 
 
 Of the vaster ones. You remember the trees 
 
 That sway'd in the cloudy white heavens, and 
 bore 
 
 Bright crystals of sweets, and the sweet manna- 
 dew? 
 
 Why, you smile as you weep, you remember, and 
 you. 
 
 You know me ! You know me ! You know me ! 
 Yea, 
 
 You know me as if 't were but yesterday ! " 
 
 I told her all things. Her brow took a frown ; 
 Her grand Titian beauty, so tall, so serene. 
 The one perfect woman, mine own idol queen — 
 
 89 
 
JOAQUIN Her proud swelling bosom, it broke up and down 
 MILLER As she spake, and she shook in her soul as she 
 
 said, 
 With her small hands held to her bent, aching 
 
 head: 
 " Go back to the world ! Go back, and alone 
 Till kind Death comes and makes white his own." 
 I said : " I will wait ! I will wait in the pass 
 Of death, until Time he shall break his glass." 
 
 Then I cried, "Yea, here where the gods did 
 
 love, 
 Where the white Europa was won, — she rode 
 Her milk-white bull through these same warm 
 
 seas, — 
 Yea, here in the land where huge Hercules, 
 With the lion's heart and the heart of the dove. 
 Did walk in his naked great strength, and strode 
 In the sensuous air with his lion's skin 
 Flapping and fretting his knotted thews ; 
 Where Theseus did wander, and Jason 
 
 cruise, — 
 Yea, here let the life of all lives begin. 
 
 90 
 
Yea ! Here where the Orient balms breathe {.,, , ^^^^ 
 i.f MILLER 
 
 lire, 
 
 Where heaven is kindest, where all God's blue 
 
 Seems a great gate open'd to welcome you. 
 
 Come, rise and go forth, my empress, my wife." 
 
 Then spake her great soul, so grander far 
 
 Than I had believed on that outermost star ; 
 
 And she put by her tears, and calmly she said, 
 
 With hands still held to her bended head : 
 
 "I will go through the doors of death and wait 
 
 For you on the innermost side of death's gate. 
 
 "Thank God that this life is but a day's span. 
 But a wayside inn for weary, worn man — 
 A night and a day ; and, to-morrow, the spell 
 Of darkness is broken. Now, darling, farewell!" 
 I caught at her robe as one ready to die — 
 ** Nay, touch not the hem of my robe — it is red 
 With sins that your own sex heap'd on my 
 
 head! 
 Now turn you, yes, turn ! But remember how I 
 Wait weeping, in sackcloth, the while I wait 
 Inside death's door, and watch at the gate." 
 
 91 
 
JOAQUIN I cried yet again, how I cried, how I cried, 
 MILLER Reaching face, reaching hands as a drowning 
 
 man might. 
 She drew herself back, put my two hands aside, 
 Half turned as she spoke, as one turned to the 
 
 night : 
 Speaking low, speaking soft as a wind through 
 
 the wall 
 Of a ruin where mold and night masters all : 
 
 " I shall live my day, live patient on through 
 The life that man hath compelled me to. 
 Then turn to my mother, sweet earth, and 
 
 pray 
 She keep me pure to the Judgment Day ! 
 I shall sit and wait as you used to do. 
 Will wait the next life, through the whole life 
 
 through. 
 I shall sit all alone, I shall wait alway; 
 I shall wait inside of the gate for you. 
 Waiting, and counting the days as I wait ; 
 Yea, wait as that beggar that sat by the gate 
 Of Jerusalem, waiting the Judgment Day." 
 
 92 
 
THE WORLD IS A BETTER WORLD JOAQUIN 
 Aye, the world is a better old world to-day! MILLER 
 And a great good mother this earth of ours ; 
 Her white to-morrows are a white stairway 
 To lead us up to the star-lit flowers — 
 The spiral to-morrows that one by one 
 We climb and we climb in the face of the sun. 
 
 Aye, the world is a braver old world to-day ! 
 For many a hero dares bear with wrong — 
 Will laugh at wrong and will turn away ; 
 Will whistle it down the wind with a song — 
 Dares slay the wrong with his splendid scorn ! 
 The bravest old hero that ever was bom ! 
 
 THE LIGHT OF CHRISTS FACE 
 Behold how glorious ! Behold 
 The light of Christ's face ; and such light ! 
 The Moslem, Buddhist, as of old. 
 Gropes helpless on in hopeless night. 
 But lo ! where Christ comes, crowned v^th flame. 
 Ten thousand triumphs in Christ's name. 
 Ten thousand triumphs in Christ's name. 
 
 93 
 
But lo ! where Christ comes crowned with flame, 
 m 4 , 1 1 r- R ^^^ thousand triumphs in Christ's name, 
 Ten thousand triumphs in Christ's name. 
 
 Elijah's chariot of fire 
 Chained Hghtnings harnessed to his car ! 
 Jove's thunders bridled by a wire — 
 Call unto nations " here we are ! " 
 Lo ! all the world one sea of light. 
 Save where the Paynim walks in night, 
 Lo, all the world one sea of light, 
 Lo, all the world one sea of light. 
 Save where the Paynim walks in night. 
 Lo, all the world one sea of light. 
 
 What more ? What sermons like to these ; 
 This light of Christ's face, power, speed, 
 In these full rounded centuries. 
 To prove the Christ, the Christ in deed ? 
 Yea, Christ is life, and Christ is light. 
 And anti-Christ is death and night. 
 Yea, Christ is life, and Christ is light. 
 Yea, Christ is life, and Christ is light, 
 
 94 
 
And anti-Christ is death and night, JOAQUIN 
 
 Yea, Christ is life, and Christ is light. MILLER 
 
 OUR HEROES OF TO-DAY 
 With high face held to her ultimate star, 
 With swift feet set to her mountains of gold, 
 This new-built world, where the wonders are. 
 She has built new ways from the ways of old. 
 
 Her builders of worlds are workers with hands; 
 Her true world-builders are builders of these. 
 The engines, the plows; writing poems in sands 
 Of gold in our golden Hesperides. 
 
 I reckon these builders as gods among men : 
 I count them creators, creators who knew 
 The thrill of dominion, of conquest, as when 
 God set His stars spinning their spaces of blue. 
 
 A song for the groove, and a song for the wheel. 
 And a roaring song for the rumbling car; 
 But away with the pomp of the soldier's steel. 
 And away forever with the trade of war. 
 
 95 
 
JOAQUIN The hero of time is the hero of thought; 
 MILLER The hero who lives is the hero of peace; 
 And braver his battles than ever were 
 
 fought, 
 From Shiloh back to the battles of Greece. 
 
 The hero of heroes is the engineer ; 
 The hero of height and of gnome-built deep, 
 Whose only fear is the brave man's fear 
 That some one waiting at home might weep. 
 
 The hero we love in this land to-day 
 
 Is the hero who lightens some fellow-man's 
 load — 
 
 Who makes of the mountain some pleasant high- 
 way; 
 
 Who makes of the desert some blossom-sown 
 road. 
 
 Then hurrah ! for the land of the golden downs. 
 For the golden land of the silver horn ; 
 Her heroes have built her a thousand towns. 
 But never destroyed her one blade of com. 
 
 96 
 
FATHER DAMIEN JOAQUIN 
 
 The best of all heroes that ever may be, MILLER 
 
 The best and the bravest in peace or in war 
 Since that lorn sad night in Gethsemane — 
 Horns of the moon or the five-horned star? 
 Why, merely a Belgian monk, and the least, 
 The lowliest — merely a peasant-born priest. , 
 
 And how did he fight? And where did he fall? 
 With what did he conquer in the name of God ? 
 The cross ! And he conquered more souls than all 
 Famed captains that ever fought fire-shod. 
 Now, lord of the sapphire-set sea and skies, 
 Far under his Southern gold Cross he lies. 
 
 Far under the fire-sown path of the sun 
 He sleeps with his lepers ; but a world is his ! 
 His great seas chorus and his warm tides run 
 To dulcet and liquid soft cadences. 
 And, glories to come or great deeds gone, 
 I 'd rather be he than Napoleon. 
 
 He rests with his lepers, for whom he died ; 
 
 97 
 
TO AQUINThe lorn outcasts in their cooped up isle, 
 MlLLEpWhile Slander purses her lips in pride 
 
 And proud men gather their robes and smile. 
 They mock at his deeds in their daily talk, 
 Deriding his work in their Christian (?) walk. 
 
 But the great wide, honest, the wise, big world ; 
 
 Or sapphire splendors or midnight sun. 
 
 It is asking the while that proud lips are curled. 
 
 Why do not ye as that monk hath done ? 
 
 Why do not ye, if so braver than he. 
 
 Some one brave deed that the world might see? 
 
 LINCOLN PARK 
 Unwalled it lies, and open as the sun 
 When God swings wide the dark doors of the 
 
 East. 
 Oh, keep this one spot, still keep this one. 
 Where tramp or banker, layman or high priest, 
 May equal meet before the face of God : 
 Yea, equals stand upon that common sod 
 Where they shall one day equals be 
 Beneath, for aye, and all eternity. 
 
 98 
 
JOAQUIN tells us '* Olive Leaves" are poems JOAQUIN 
 written in fulfillment of a promise made in re- MILLER 
 sponse to an appeal from his brother, "who fell 
 in battle front upon the Delaware," for "some 
 gentler things — some songs for Peace. Mid all 
 your songs for men, one song for God." "The 
 promise given," he tells us, "The dark-browed 
 mother. Death, bent down her face to his, and 
 he was born to Him." 
 
 For tender sweetness and religious fervor, the fol- 
 lowing poems leave little to be desired. 
 
 THE LAST SUPPER 
 
 And when they had sung a hymn they went out into the 
 Mount of Olives. 
 
 What song sang the twelve with the Saviour 
 When finished the sacrament wine ? 
 Were they bowed and subdued in behavior, 
 Or bold as made bold with a sign ? 
 
 Were the hairy breasts strong and defiant ? 
 
 Were the naked arms brawny and strong ? 
 
 99 
 
JOAQUIN Were the bearded lips lifted reliant, 
 MILLER Thrust forth and full sturdy with song? 
 
 What sang they ? What sweet song of Zion 
 With Christ in their midst like a crown? 
 While here sat Saint Peter, the lion ; 
 And there like a lamb, with head down, 
 
 Sat Saint John, with his silken and raven 
 Rich hair on his shoulders, and eyes 
 Lifting up to the faces unshaven 
 Like a sensitive child's in surprise. 
 
 Was the song as strong fishermen swinging 
 Their nets full of hope to the sea ? 
 Or low, like the ripple wave singing 
 Sea songs on their loved Galilee ? 
 
 Were they sad with foreshadow of sorrows. 
 
 Like the birds that sing low when the breeze 
 
 Is tip-toe with tales of to-morrows, — 
 
 Of earthquakes and sinking of seas ? 
 
 100 
 
Ah! soft was their song as the waves are JOAQUIN 
 
 That fall in musical moans; MILLER 
 
 And sad I should say as the winds are 
 That blow by the white grave-stones. 
 
 FAITH 
 There were whimsical turns of the waters, 
 There were rhythmical talks of the sea, 
 There were gather'd the darkest-eyed daughters 
 Of men, by the deep Galilee. 
 
 A blowing full sail, and a parting 
 From multitudes, living in Him, 
 A trembling of lips and tears starting 
 From eyes that look'd downward and dim. 
 
 A mantle of night and a marching 
 Of storms, and a sounding of seas. 
 Of furrows of foam and of arching 
 Black billows ; a bending of knees ; 
 
 The rising of Christ — an entreating — 
 
 Hands reach'd to the seas as he saith, 
 
 101 
 
JOAQUIN *'Have Faith!" And all seas are repeating, 
 MILLER "Have Faith! Have Faith! Have Faith!" 
 
 HOPE 
 What song is vv^ell sung not of sorrovs^ ? 
 What triumph well won without pain ? 
 What virtue shall be, and not borrow 
 Bright luster from many a stain ? 
 
 What birth has there been without travail ? 
 What battle well won without blood ? 
 What good shall earth see without evil 
 Ingamer'd as chaff with the good? 
 
 Lo ! the Cross set in rocks by the Roman, 
 And nourish'd by blood of the Lamb, 
 And water'd by tears of the woman. 
 Has flourish'd, has spread like a palm ; 
 
 Has spread in the frosts, and far regions 
 Of snows in the North, and South sands. 
 Where never the tramp of his legions 
 
 Was heard, or reached forth his red hands. 
 
 102 
 
Be thankful; the price and the payment, JOAQUIN 
 
 The birth, the privations and scorn, MILLER 
 
 The cross, and the parting of raiment 
 Are finish'd. The star brought us mom. 
 
 Look starward ; stand far and unearthy, 
 Free soul'd as a banner unfurl'd. 
 Be worthy, O brother, be worthy ! 
 For a God was the price of the world. 
 
 CHARITY 
 
 Her hands were clasped downward and doubled, 
 Her head was held down and depressed. 
 Her bosom, like white billows troubled, 
 Fell fitful and rose in unrest ; 
 
 Her robes were all dust, and disorder'd 
 Her glory of hair, and her brow. 
 Her face, that had lifted and lorded, 
 Fell pallid and passionless now. 
 
 She heard not accusers that brought her 
 In mockery hurried to Him, 
 
 103 
 
JOAQUIN Nor heeded, nor said, nor besought her 
 MILLER With eyes lifted doubtful and dim. 
 
 All crush'd and stone-cast in behavior, 
 She stood as a marble would stand. 
 Then the Saviour bent down, and the Saviour 
 In silence wrote on in the sand. 
 
 What wrote He ? How^ fondly one lingers 
 And questions, what holy command 
 Fell down from the beautiful fingers 
 Of Jesus, like gems in the sand. 
 
 O better the scion uncherished 
 Had died ere a note or device 
 Of battle was fashion'd, than perish'd 
 This only line written by Christ. 
 
 He arose and look'd on the daughter 
 
 Of Eve, like a delicate flower. 
 
 And He heard the revilers that brought her; 
 
 Men stormy, and strong as a tower. 
 
 104 
 
And He said, "She has sinned; let the blame- JOAQUIN 
 
 less MILLER 
 
 Come forward and cast the first stone!" 
 But they, they fled shamed and yet shameless ; 
 And she, she stood white and alone. 
 
 Who now shall accuse and arraign us ? 
 What man shall condemn and disown ? 
 Since Christ has said only the stainless 
 Shall cast at his fellows a stone. 
 
 For what man can bare us his bosom. 
 And touch with his fore-finger there. 
 And say, *"Tis as snow, as a blossom"? 
 Beware of the stainless, beware ! 
 
 O woman, bom first to believe us ; 
 Yea, also born first to forget ; 
 Bom first to betray and deceive us ; 
 Yet first to repent and regret ! 
 
 O first then in all that is human. 
 Yea ! first where the Nazarene trod, 
 
 105 
 
JOAQUIN O woman! O beautiful woman, 
 MILLER Be then first in the Kingdom of God! 
 
 BEYOND JORDAN 
 
 And they came to him, mothers of Judah, 
 Dark eyed and in splendor of hair. 
 Bearing down over shoulders of beauty, 
 And bosoms half hidden, half bare ; 
 
 They brought him their babes and besought him 
 Half kneeling, with suppliant air. 
 To bless the brown cherubs they brought him, 
 With holy hands laid in their hair. 
 
 Then reaching his hands he said lowly, 
 "Of such is my Kingdom " ; and then 
 Took little brown babes in the holy 
 White hands of the Saviour of men ; 
 
 Held them close to his heart and caress'd them. 
 Put his face down to theirs as in prayer. 
 Put their hands to his neck, and so blessed them. 
 With baby hands hid in his hair. 
 
 106 
 
so HERE ENDETH JOAQUIN MILLER & GEORGE 
 WHARTON JAMES, AS DONE INTO A BOOK BY 
 THE ROYCROFTERS AT THEIR SHOP WHICH IS 
 IN EAST AURORA, N. Y., OCTOBER, A. D. MCMIII. 
 
DEC 
 
 -1 \9t*3