Classic Poem

I' VE wandered over Western plains where naught
Of moving life will choose itself a home,
Save creatures of grotesque or hateful breed,
Rattlesnakes and hairy tarantulas,
And red-rock lizards, with their kindred huge,
The gila-monsters, whose envenom'd breath
Shrivels the crawling centipede, they say,
And curls in death the silent scorpion
E'er he can sting, yet passes o'er unharm'd
The horned toads that slumber 'mid the sands
There glimmering hot beneath the rainless skies.

And yet upon those plains so desolate
No spear of grass for any season comes,
Where e'en the arid sage-brush ventures not,
Those plants uncouth I've seen that clearly show
Nor stem nor leaf, but structur'd all in one,
Perennial grow in rooted shapes perverse
As ever Dante dreamed or Dore drew.
Some tall as palms rear cloven pinnacles
Proudly through the torrid atmosphere;
And some like mimic reptiles spread and sprawl
Their prickly arms along the parched ground.
Some squat and round, and deckt with hoary hair,
Dwell hermit-like among the sunset rocks,
Or lean above the canyon's beetling verge,
Where down — sheer down a thousand feet below —
The twilight green is fleckt with pallid foam
Flung from the rapid Rio as it rolls
Between abysmal walls outrageously.

And thus in regions dry and damnable
They hold the juice of life, well armed about
With myriad thorns like bayonets at the charge,
Lest any luckless beast upon these wilds
From them should seek precarious sustenance.
And some do keep within themselves a cool
Sweet reservoir of waters, gathered up
In those brief seasons when relenting skies
Resolve at last the roaring thunder clouds
In sudden, unrestrained relief to rain.
But for them all there comes a time of bloom,
When their distorted bodies wake and thrill,
And feel within themselves a revelling
Of splendid passion culminate at last
In wealth of gorgeous blossoms. Nonchalant
They dance and flirt with every passing breeze,
And riot 'mid the spiny bayonets
Like odalisques, luxuriant to fill
With orient odor and high carnival
Those waste and unaccustom'd solitudes.

Some lift a scarlet glory to the sun,
While all day long their golden stamens swell
With velvet pollen, drifting o'er their mate
Until her last desire be satisfied.
Some, virgin-like, await the veiled hours
Of one long chosen eve, when pure and pale
With perfect rapture they at length unfold
Their loveliness beneath the Southern stars,
And all exhaust in one voluptuous night
The yearned-for bliss, perchance, of patient years.

E'en so, those quenchless, isolated sparks
Of that recurrent fire that men call Life
In such odd guise do there express themselves,
With virtues individual and rare.

In all that valiant fibre what's involved?
God knows! But surely Character, whose vim
Will hold thro' every shape that bodies it
In striving up the stony tracts of Time.

Let that be as it will! But I have known
Some fellows of my own so gifted with
A like persistent faith, they would extract
From circumstance to wither other hearts
A very elixir of faith and hope.

And so I call to mind an old-time friend:
A granite Presbyterian he was,
Of thorny doctrine and contracted creed,
Whose soul as in a desert pitiless
Dwelt far removed from pleasant ways of men,
Despair'd for deeds that he had never done,
And fear'd all things beneath the brassy skies
Foredoom'd unto inevitable Hell.
Yet there were times — we ne'er could tell for why —
When o'er his dour old face would fall a glint
Of sunny humor and of transient peace,
As if his straiten'd soul, in very stress
Of its own native sweetness, had put forth
Some fair quaint flower to bloom incongruous
Upon the barren branches of his faith.
E'en such a time it seem'd to me when once
In San Francisco, years ago, I stroll'd
With him along the water front and saw
A drunken sailor on a sudden halt
Before a wounded cur that yelping lay
Upon the road. No passer-by took heed,
But, muttering words of maudlin sympathy,
The sailor stoop'd unsteadily and caught
The mongrel creature in his arms. At once
It stopt its cries, and, in brute gratitude,
'Gan lick the fellow's foolish bearded face,
While he, flinging a customary curse or two
Upon the jeering urchins of the street,
Stagger'd from our sight with his new charge:
A homeless, worthless pair, whether they sought
The refuge of some dingy lodging house,
Or forecastle of some tramp merchantman,
Or tarry little schooner on the bay.

But my dour friend look'd after, as in doubt,
Bewilder'd to approve that nondescript
Haphazard deed whose vagrant influence
Yet warm'd his aged heart like rare good wine:
Then, smiling, murmur'd slowly to himself:
" Ah, Tam — I'm maybe thinkin', lad, that yon
Poor vagabond Samaritan and a'
Wee feckless dogs and daftlike sailormen
Maun no stop aye in Hell — nor no for long! "
And tho' he said no more I felt the glow
Of white compassion that encompass'd him;
A radiance straight from some eternal shrine
Beyond the bounds of aught his creed confess'd.

I had another friend of different sort:
Gentle born and led in luxury
Thro' childhood's days, life open'd fair until
Death robb'd him of the friends he needed most,
And faithless guardians left him penniless.
Yet early for himself an envied place
Above the shrewd, competing throng he gain'd
On one great city's mart, where sweeps the tide
And traffic of her richest merchandise.
And if he dream'd of riches then his dreams
Were founded well. But other things he dream'd,
For in his blood was more than bargaining,
And he had soul too great to hold himself
Penurious on the road to mean success.

The days went by. And so it was that in
That rosy-vision'd time — the June of youth —
When all things beckon'd him, he thought he found
One woman's face more fair than all his dreams —
One woman's heart beyond the price of gold.
Alas! When to another's arms she went,
Loveless 'mid all lovely circumstance,
The star that lit the perfect way for him
Went darkly out, and from the waste of years
His promis'd happiness forever pass'd,
Like as a momentary, bright mirage
Pictur'd on an endless wilderness.
And tho' he went undaunted through all lands,
Grappling with a perverse destiny,
Everywhere the way to him was barr'd,
And everywhere he found a harder lot:
It seem'd as Fate a single vengeance wreak'd
On him for follies of a score of lives.
Yet when he came amongst us in the West,
Altho' his shaggy hair was streakt with grey,
He spoke like some fresh-hearted, plucky boy,
Ready for new adventure anywhere.
A surly, thwarted, hopeless set we were,
Stranded in that barren mining camp,
But soon for him we found a welcome place,
Won over by the wholesome, cheery way
He settled down to that rough life of ours.
He work'd with me a wasted season through
Upon the poorest claim of one poor creek,
With temper cool and even all the while,
And when I had no heart to sing he'd sing
And twang on his old banjo by the fire
To drive away the loneliness of night;
He had the knack somehow to make me feel
That any luck was good enough for us,
That with it all a man could be a man,
And come up smiling from the hardest blow
That Fate knew how to give. Poor old Jack!
We loved him for his sunny, careless ways,
And there was no better fellow in the West!
The fever 'twas that took him off at last,
And in the shifting sands we buried him.
We roll'd a boulder there to mark his grave,
And on it scrawl'd his name and when he died,
But made no show of service over him,
For there was no man of us could say a word.
Yet when the rest had gone I linger'd still,
And sat upon that old, striated stone
To stare in stolid mood against the West,
Wherein the ruddy Sun had sunken low: —
Sat brooding on the tangle of our lives,
That seem so gone awry and objectless,
Till out of the wreck of unrelated things
One of the moments came that come to me
Drifting loose from Time, and wonderful
With alien fragrance and Elysian airs,
While absently I mutter'd words of him,
Witless for all I know — but no one knows:
" His drowsy spirit dreams of me, " I said,
" Among the outer glades of Paradise! "
And I arose, yet ere I went away,
Upon that grave, for lack of better thing,
I planted cactus for a covering.