Part 1 (1/2)

Songs of the Mexican Seas

by Joaquin Miller

TO ABBIE

NOTE--The lines in this little book, as in all my others, ritten, or at least conceived, in the lands where the scenes are laid; so that whatever may be said of the imperfections of my work, I at least have the correct atmosphere and color I have now and then sent forth frohts as they rounded into fore Commencement, and elsewhere; but as a whole the book is new

From the heart of the Sierra, where I once more hear the awful heart-throbs of Nature, I now intrust the first reception of these lessons entirely to my own country And in to grow long, so of that consideration which, thus far, has been accorded alers?

Joaquin Miller

Mount Shasta, California, AD 1887

SONGS OF THE MEXICAN SEAS

THE SEA OF FIRE

In that far land, farther than Yucatan, Hondurian height, or Mahogany steep, Where the great sea, hollowed by the hand of reat seas follow in the grooves of men Down under the bastions of Darien:

In that land so far that you wonder whether If God would know it should you fall down dead; In that land so far through the wilds and weather That the lost sun sinks like a warrior sped,-- Where the sea and the sky seeether as a book that is read:

In that nude orld, where the unnaold; Where white flashi+ng mountains flow rivers of silver As a rock of the desert flowed fountains of old; By a dark wooded river that calls to the dawn, And calls all day with his dolorous swan:

In that land of the wonderful sun and weather, With green under foot and with gold over head, Where the spent sun flames, and you wonder whether 'Tis an isle of fire in his foaether By the great French e flame red,--

Lo! the half-finished world! Yon footfall retreating,-- It ht be the Maker disturbed at his task

But the footfall of God, or the far pheasant beating, It is one and the same, whatever theThe old sacred sermons, whatever you ask

The brown-muzzled cattle coh horns as trim As the elk at their side: their sleek necks are slim And alert like the deer They come, then they shrink As afraid of their fellows, of shadow-beasts seen In the deeps of the dark-wooded waters of green

It is arden, scarce wakened as yet From the sleep that fell on hiarden is plastic and wet From the hand that has fashi+oned its unpeopled shade; And the wonder still looks froh the wood like the light from the skies

And a shi+p now and then from some far Ophir's shore Draws in from the sea It lies close to the bank; Then a dull, muffled sound of the slow-shuffled plank As they load the black shi+p; but you hear nothing more, And the dark dewy vines, and the tall so flood

The black rant gu with streas like the shreds of a wreck; The long , there is never a breath: The river rolls still as the river of death

I

In the beginning,--ay, before The six-days' labors ell o'er; Yea, while the world lay incoe land for strong ainst that westmost sea One weird-wild land of mystery

A far white wall, like fallen moon, Girt out the world The forest lay So deep you scarcely saw the day, Save in the high-held middle noon: It lay a land of sleep and dreah like shoreless streams That stretch to where no man may say