Classic Poem

My city sits amid her palms;
The perfume of her twilight breath
Is something as the sacred balms
That bound sweet Jesus after death,
Such soft, warm twilight sense as lies
Against the gates of Paradise.

Such prayerful palms, wide palms upreached!
This sea mist is as incense smoke,
Yon mission walls a sermon preached —
White lily with a heart of oak.
And O, this twilight! O the grace
Of twilight on yon lifted face!

I love you, twilight, — love with love
So loyal, loving fond that I
When folding these worn hands to die,
Shall pray God lead me not above,
But leave me, twilight, sad and true,
To walk this tonesome world with you.

Yea, God knows I have walked with night;
I have not seen, I have not known
Such light as beats upon His throne.
I know I could not bear such light;
Therefore, I beg, sad sister true,
To share your shadow-world with you.

I love you, love you, maid of night,
Your perfumed breath, your dreamful eyes,
Your holy silences, your sighs
Of mateless longing; your delight
When night says, Hang on yon moon's horn
Your russet gown, and rest till morn.

The sun is dying; space and room,
Serenity, vast sense of rest,
Lie bosomed in the orange west
Of orient waters. Hear the boom
Of long, strong billows; wave on wave,
Like funeral guns above a grave.

Now night folds all; no sign or word;
But still that rocking of the deep —
Sweet mother, rock the world to sleep:
Still rock and rock; as I have heard
Sweet mother gently rock and rock
The while she folds the little frock.

Broad mesa, brown, bare mountains, brown,
Bowed sky of brown, that erst was blue;
Dark, earth-brown curtains coming down —
Earth-brown, that all hues melt into;
Brown twilight, born of light and shade;
Of night that came, of light that passed.
How like some lorn, majestic maid
That wares not whither way at last!

Now perfumed Night, sad-faced and far,
Walks up the world in somber brown.
Now suddenly a loosened star
Lets all her golden hair fall down —
And Night is dead Day's coffin-lid,
With stars of gold shot through his pall.
I hear the chorus, katydid;
A katydid, and that is all.

Some star-tipt candles foot and head;
Some perfumes of the perfumed sea;
And now above the coffined dead
Dusk draws great curtains lovingly;
While far o'er all, so dreamful far,
God's Southern Cross by faith is seen
Tipt by one single blazing star,
With spaces infinite between.
. . . . . .

Come, love His twilight, the perfume
Of God's great trailing garment's hem;
The sense of rest, the sense of room,
The garnered goodness of the day,
The twelve plucked hours of His tree,
When all the world has gone its way
And left perfection quite to me
And Him who, loving, fashioned them.

I know not why that wealth and pride
Win not my heart or woo my-tale.
I only know I know them not;
I only know to cast my lot
Where love walks noiselessly with night
And patient nature; my delight
The wild rose of the mountain side,
The lowly lily of the vale;

To live not asking, just to live;
To live not begging, just to be;
To breathe God's presence in the dusk
That drives out loud, assertive light —
To never ask, but ever give;
To love my noiseless mother, Night;
Her vast hair moist with smell of musk,
Her breath sweet with eternity.

I

A hermit's path, a mountain's perch,
A sandaled monk, a dying man —
A far-off, low, adobe church,
Below the hermit's orange-trees
That cap the clouds above the seas,
So far, its spire seems but a span.

A low-voiced dove! The dying Don
Put back the cross and sat dark-browed
And sullen, as a dove flew out
The bough, and circling round about,
Was bathed and gathered in a cloud,
That, like some ship, sailed on and on.

But let the gray monk tell the tale;
And tell it just as told to me.
This Don was chiefest of the vale
That banks by San Diego's sea,
And who so just, so generous,
As he who now lay dying thus?

But wrong, such shameless Saxon wrong,
Had crushed his heart, had made him hate
The sight, the very sound of man.
He loved thelonely wood-dove's song;
He loved it as his living mate.
And lo! the good monk laid a ban
And penance of continual prayer —
But list, the living, dying there!

For now the end was, and he lay
As day lies banked against the night —
As lies some bark at close of day
To wait the dew-born breath of night;
To wait the ebb of tide, to wait
The swift plunge through the Golden Gate:

The plunge from bay to boundless sea —
From life through narrow straits of night,
From time to bright eternity —
To everlasting walks of light.
Some like as when you sudden blow
Your candle out and turn you so
To sleep unto the open day:
And thus the priest did pleading say:

" You fled my flock, and sought this steep
And stony, star-lit, lonely height,
Where weird and unnamed creatures keep
To hold strange thought with things of night
Long, long ago. But now at last
Your life sinks surely to the past.
Lay hold, lay hold, the cross I bring,
Where all God's goodly creatures cling.

" Yea! You are good. Dark-browed and low
Beneath your shaggy brows you look
On me, as you would read a book:
And darker still your dark brows grow
As I lift up the cross to pray,
And plead with you to walk its way.

" Yea, you are good! There is not one,
From Tia Juana to the reach
And bound of gray Pacific Beach,
From Coronado's palm-set isle
And palm-hung pathways, mile on mile,
But speaks you, Senor, good and true.
But oh, my silent, dying son!
The cross alone can speak for you
When all is said and all is done.

" Come! Turn your dim, dark eyes to me,
Have faith and help me plant this cross
Beyond where blackest billows toss,
As you would plant some pleasant tree:
Some fruitful orange-tree, and know
That it shall surely grow and grow,
As your own orange-trees have grown,
And be, as they, your very own.

" You smile at last, and pleasantly:
You love your laden orange-trees
Set high above your silver seas
With your own honest hand; each tree
A date, a day, a part, indeed,
Of your own life, and walk, and creed.

" You love your steeps, your starset blue:
You watch yon billows flash, and toss,
And leap, and curve, in merry rout,
You love to hear them laugh and shout —
Men say you hear them talk to you;
Men say you sit and look and look,
As one who reads some holy book —
My son, come, look upon the cross?

" Come, see me plant amid your trees
My cross, that you may see and know
'T will surely grow, and grow, and grow,
As grows some trusted little seed;
As grows some secret, small good deed;
The while you gaze upon your seas,
Sweet Christ, now let it grow, and bear
Fair fruit, as your own fruit is fair.

" Aye! ever from the first I knew,
And marked its flavor, freshness, hue
The gold of sunset and the gold
Of morn, in each rich orange rolled.

" I mind me now, 't was long since, friend,
When first I climbed your path alone,
A savage path of brush and stone,
And rattling serpents without end.

" Yea, years ago, when blood and life
Ran swift, and your sweet, faithful wife —
What! tears at last; hot, piteous tears
That through your bony fingers creep
The while you bend your face, and weep
As if your heart of hearts would break —
As if these tears were your heart's blood,
A pent-up, sudden, bursting flood —
Look on the cross, for Jesus' sake. "

II

'T was night, and still it seemed not night.
Yet, far down in the canon deep,
Where night had housed all day, to keep
Companion with the wolf, you might
Have hewn a statue out of night.

The shrill coyote loosed his tongue
Deep in the dark arroyo's bed;
And bat and owl above his head
From out their gloomy caverns swung:
A swoop of wings, a cat-like call,
A crackle sharp of chaparral!

Then sudden, fitful winds sprang out,
And swept the mesa like a broom;
Wild, saucy winds that sang of room!
That leapt the canon with a shout
From dusty throats, audaciously
And headlong tore into the sea,
As tore the swine with lifted snout.

Some birds came, went, then came again
From out the hermit's wood-hung hill;
Came swift, and arrow-like, and still,
As you have seen birds, when the rain —
The great, big, high-born rain, leapt white
And sudden from a cloud like night.

And then a dove, dear, nun-like dove,
With eyes all tenderness, with eyes
So loving, longing, full of love,
That when she reached her slender throat
And sang one low, soft, sweetest note,
Just one, so faint, so far, so near,
You could have wept with joy to hear.

The old man, as if he had slept,
Raised quick his head, then bowed and wept
For joy, to hear once more her voice.
With childish joy he did rejoice;
As one will joy to surely learn
His dear, dead love is living still;
As one will joy to know, in turn,
He, too, is loved with love to kill.

He put a hand forth, let it fall
And feebly close; and that was all.
And then he turned his tearful eyes
To meet the priest's, and spake this wise: —

Now mind, I say, not one more word
That livelong night of nights was heard
By monk or man, from dusk till dawn;
And yet that man spake on and on.

Why, know you not, soul speaks to soul?
I say the use of words shall pass.
Words are but fragments of the glass;
But silence is the perfect whole.

And thus the old man, bowed and wan,
And broken in his body, spake —
Spake youthful, ardent, on and on,
As dear love speaks for dear love's sake.

" You spake of her, my wife; behold!
Behold my faithful, constant love!
Nay, nay, you shall not doubt my dove,
Perched there above your cross of gold!

" Yea, you have books, I know, to tell
Of far, fair heaven; but no hell
To her had been so terrible
As all sweet heaven, with its gold
And jasper gates, and great white throne,
Had she been banished hence alone.

" I say, not God himself could keep,
Beyond the stars, beneath the deep,
Or 'mid the stars, or 'mid the sea,
Her soul from my soul one brief day,
But she would find some pretty way
To come and still companion me.

" And say, where bide your souls, good priest?
Lies heaven west, lies heaven east?
Let us be frank, let us be fair;
Where is your heaven, good priest, where?

" Is there not room, is there not place
In all those boundless realms of space?
Is there not room in this sweet air,
Room 'mid my trees, room anywhere,
For souls that love us thus so well,
And love so well this beauteous world,
But that they must be headlong hurled
Down, down, to undiscovered hell?

" Good priest, we questioned not one word
Of all the holy things we heard
Down in your pleasant town of palms
Long, long ago — sweet chants, sweet psalms,
Sweet incense, and the solemn rite
Above the dear, believing dead.
Nor do I question here tonight
One gentle word you may have said.
I would not doubt, for one brief hour,
Your word, your creed, your priestly power,
Your purity, unselfish zeal,
But there be fears I scorn to feel!

" Let those who will, seek realms above,
Remote from all that heart can love,
In their ignoble dread of hell.
Give all, good priest, in charity;
Give heaven to all, if this may be,
And count it well, and very well.

" But I — I could not leave this spot
Where she is waiting by my side.
Forgive me, priest; it is not pride;
There is no God where she is not!

" You did not know her well. Her creed
Was yours; my faith it was the same.
My faith was fair, my lands were broad.
Far down where yonder palm-trees rise
We two together worshiped God
From childhood. And we grew in deed,
Devout in heart as well as name,
And loved our palm-set paradise.

" We loved, we loved all things on earth,
However mean or miserable.
We knew no thing that had not worth,
And learned to know no need of hell.

" Indeed, good priest, so much, indeed,
We found to do, we saw to love,
We did not always look above
As is commanded in your creed,
But kept in heart one chiefest care,
To make this fair world still more fair.

" 'T was then that meek, pale Saxon came;
With soulless gray and greedy eyes,
A snake's eyes, cunning, cold and wise,
And I — I could not fight, or fly
His crafty wiles at all; and I —
Enough, enough! I signed my name.

" It was not loss of pleasure, place,
Broad lands, or the serene delight
Of doing good, that made long night
O'er all the sunlight of her face.
But there be little things that feed
A woman's sweetness, day by day,
That strong men miss not, do not need,
But, shorn of all can go their way
To battle, and but stronger grow,
As grow great waves that gather so.

" She missed the music, missed the song,
The pleasant speech of courteous men,
Who came and went, a comely throng,
Before her open window, when
The sea sang with us, and we two
Had heartfelt homage, warm and true.

" She missed the restfulness, the rest
Of dulcet silence, the delight
Of singing silence, when the town
Put on its twilight robes of brown;
When twilight wrapped herself in night
And couched against the curtained west.

" But not one murmur, not one word
From her sweet baby lips was heard.
She only knew I could not bear
To see sweet San Diego town,
Her palm-set lanes, her pleasant square,
Her people passing up and down,
Without black hate, and deadly hate
For him who housed within our gate,
And so, she gently led my feet
Aside to this high, wild retreat.

" How pale she grew, how piteous pale
The while I wrought, and ceaseless wrought
To keep my soul from bitter thought,
And build me here above the vale.
Ah me! my selfish, Spanish pride!
Enough of pride, enough of hate,
Enough of her sad, piteous fate:
She died: right here she sank and died.

" She died, and with her latest breath
Did promise to return to me,
As turns a dove unto her tree
To find her mate at night and rest;
Died, clinging close against my breast;
Died, saying she would surely rise
So soon as God had loosed her eyes
From the strange wonderment of death.

" How beautiful is death! and how
Surpassing good, and true, and fair!
How just is death, how gently just,
To lay his sword against the thread
Of life when life is surely dead
And loose the sweet soul from the dust!
I laid her in my lorn despair
Beneath that dove, that orange-bough —
How strange your cross should stand just there!

" And then I waited hours, days:
Those bitter days, they were as years.
My soul groped through the darkest ways;
I scarce could see God's face for tears.
. . . . . . .

" I clutched my knife, and I crept down,
A wolf, to San Diego town.
On, on, amid my palms once more,
Keen knife in hand, I crept that night.
I passed the gate, then fled in fright;
Black crape hung fluttered from the door!

" I climbed back here, with heart of stone:
I heard next morn one sweetest tone;
Looked up, and lo! there on that bough
She perched, as she sits perching now.
. . . . . . .

" I heard the bells peal from my height,
Peal pompously, peal plously:
Saw sable hearse, in plumes of night
With not one thought of hate in me.

" I watched the long train winding by,
A mournful, melancholy lie —
A sable, solemn, mourning mile —
And only pitied him the while.
For she, she sang that whole day through:
Sad-voiced, as if she pitied, too.

" They said, " His work is done, and well."
They laid his body in a tomb
Of massive splendor. It lies there
In all its stolen pomp and gloom —
But list! his soul — his soul is where?
In hell! In hell! But where is hell?

" Hear me but this. Year after year
She trained my eye, she trained my ear;
No book to blind my eyes, or ought
To prate of hell, when hell is not.
I came to know at last, and well,
Such things as never book can tell.

" And where was that poor, dismal soul
Ye priests had sent to paradise?
I heard the long years roll and roll,
As rolls the sea. My once dimmed eyes
Grew keen as long, sharp shafts of light.
With eager eyes and reaching face
I searched the stars night after night;
That dismal soul was not in space!

" Meanwhile my green trees grew and grew;
And sad or glad, this much I knew,
It were no sin to make more fair
One spot on earth, to toil and share
With man, or beast, or bird; while she
Still sang her soft, sweet melody.

" One day, a perfumed day in white —
Such restful, fresh, and friendlike day, —
Fair Mexico a mirage lay
Far-lifted in a sea of light —
Soft, purple light, so far away.
I turned yon pleasant pathway down,
And sauntered leisurely tow'rd town.

" I heard my dear love call and coo,
And knew that she was happy, too,
In her sad, sweet, and patient pain
Of waiting till I came again.

" Aye, I was glad, quite glad at last;
Not glad as I had been when she
Walked with me by yon palm-set sea,
But sadly and serenely glad:
As though 't were twilight like, as though
You knew, and yet you did not know
That sadness, most supremely sad
Should lay upon you like a pall,
And would not, could not pass away
Till you should pass; till perfect day
Dawns sudden on you, and the call
Of birds awakens you to morn —
A babe new-born; a soul new-born.

" Good priest, what are the birds for? Priest,
Build ye your heaven west or east?
Above, below, or anywhere?
I only ask, I only say
She sits there, waiting for the day,
The fair, full day to guide me there.
. . . . . . . . . .

" What, he? That creature? Ah, quite true!
I wander much, I weary you:
I beg your pardon, gentle priest.
Returning up the stone-strewn steep,
Down in yon jungle, dank and deep,
Where toads and venomed reptiles creep,
There, there, I saw that hideous beast!

" Aye, there! coiled there beside my road,
Close coiled behind a monstrous toad,
A huge flat-bellied reptile hid!
His tongue leapt red as flame; his eyes,
His eyes were burning hells of lies —
His head was like a coffin's lid:

" Saint George! Saint George! I gasped for breath.
The beast, tight coiled, swift, sudden sprang
High in the air, and, rattling, sang
His hateful, hissing song of death!

" My eyes met his. He shrank, he fell,
Fell sullenly and slow. The swell
Of braided, brassy neck forgot
Its poise, and every venomed spot
Lost luster, and the coffin head.
Cowed level with the toad, and lay
Low, quivering with hate and dread:
The while I kept my upward way.

" What! Should have killed him? Nay, good priest.
I know not what or where's your hell.
But be it west or be it east,
His hell is there! and that is well!

" Nay, do not, do not question me;
I could not tell you why I know;
I only know that this is so,
As sure as God is equity.

" Good priest, forgive me, and good-by,
The stars slow gather to their fold;
I see God's garment hem of gold
Against the far, faint morning sky.

" Good, holy priest, your God is where?
You come to me with book and creed;
I cannot read your book; I read
Yon boundless, open book of air.
What time, or way, or place I look,
I see God in His garden walk;
I hear Him through the thunders talk,
As once He talked, with burning tongue,
To Moses, when the world was young;
And, priest, what more is in your book?

" Behold! the Holy Grail is found,
Found in each poppy's cup of gold;
And God walks with us as of old.
Behold! the burning bush still burns
For man, whichever way he turns;
And all God's earth is holy ground.

" And — and — good priest, bend low your head,
The sands are crumbling where I tread,
Beside the shoreless, soundless sea.
Good' priest, you came to pray, you said;
And now, what would you have of me? "

The good priest gently raised his head,
Then bowed it low and softly said:
" Your blessing, son, despite the ban. "
He fell before the dying man;
And when he raised his face from prayer,
Sweet Dawn, and two sweet doves were there.