Part 5 (1/2)

”Who comes?” The sentry's warning cry Rings sharply on the evening air: Who comes? The challenge: no reply, Yet something motions there.

A woman, by those graceful folds; A soldier, by that martial tread: ”Advance three paces. Halt! until Thy name and rank be said.”

”My name? Her name, in ancient song, Who fearless from Olympus came: Look on me! Mortals know me best In battle and in flame.”

”Enough! I know that clarion voice; I know that gleaming eye and helm; Those crimson lips,--and in their dew The best blood of the realm.

”The young, the brave, the good and wise, Have fallen in thy curst embrace: The juices of the grapes of wrath Still stain thy guilty face.

”My brother lies in yonder field, Face downward to the quiet gra.s.s: Go back! he cannot see thee now; But here thou shalt not pa.s.s.”

A crack upon the evening air, A wakened echo from the hill: The watch-dog on the distant sh.o.r.e Gives mouth, and all is still.

The sentry with his brother lies Face downward on the quiet gra.s.s; And by him, in the pale moons.h.i.+ne, A shadow seems to pa.s.s.

No lance or warlike s.h.i.+eld it bears: A helmet in its pitying hands Brings water from the nearest brook, To meet his last demands.

Can this be she of haughty mien, The G.o.ddess of the sword and s.h.i.+eld?

Ah, yes! The Grecian poet's myth Sways still each battle-field.

For not alone that rugged war Some grace or charm from beauty gains; But, when the G.o.ddess' work is done, The woman's still remains.

Address.

Opening of the California Theatre, San Francisco, Jan. 19, 1870

Brief words, when actions wait, are well The prompter's hand is on his bell; The coming heroes, lovers, kings, Are idly lounging at the wings; Behind the curtain's mystic fold The glowing future lies unrolled,-- And yet, one moment for the Past; One retrospect,--the first and last.

”The world's a stage,” the master said.

To-night a mightier truth is read: Not in the s.h.i.+fting canvas screen, The flash of gas, or tinsel sheen; Not in the skill whose signal calls From empty boards baronial halls; But, fronting sea and curving bay, Behold the players and the play.

Ah, friends! beneath your real skies The actor's short-lived triumph dies: On that broad stage, of empire won Whose footlights were the setting sun, Whose flats a distant background rose In trackless peaks of endless snows; Here genius bows, and talent waits To copy that but One creates.

Your s.h.i.+fting scenes: the league of sand, An avenue by ocean spanned; The narrow beach of straggling tents, A mile of stately monuments; Your standard, lo! a flag unfurled, Whose clinging folds clasp half the world,-- This is your drama, built on facts, With ”twenty years between the acts.”

One moment more: if here we raise The oft-sung hymn of local praise, Before the curtain facts must sway; _Here_ waits the moral of your play.

Gla.s.sed in the poet's thought, you view What _money_ can, yet cannot do; The faith that soars, the deeds that s.h.i.+ne, Above the gold that builds the shrine.

And oh! when others take our place, And Earth's green curtain hides our face, Ere on the stage, so silent now, The last new hero makes his bow: So may our deeds, recalled once more In Memory's sweet but brief encore, Down all the circling ages run, With the world's plaudit of ”Well done!”

The Lost Galleon.

In sixteen hundred and forty-one, The regular yearly galleon, Laden with odorous gums and spice, India cottons and India rice, And the richest silks of far Cathay, Was due at Acapulco Bay.

Due she was, and over-due,-- Galleon, merchandise, and crew, Creeping along through rain and s.h.i.+ne, Through the tropics, under the line.

The trains were waiting outside the walls, The wives of sailors thronged the town, The traders sat by their empty stalls, And the viceroy himself came down; The bells in the tower were all a-trip, _Te Deums_ were on each father's lip, The limes were ripening in the sun For the sick of the coming galleon.

All in vain. Weeks pa.s.sed away, And yet no galleon saw the bay: India goods advanced in price; The governor missed his favorite spice; The senoritas mourned for sandal, And the famous cottons of Coromandel;