JOAQUIN MILLER.
“THE POET OF THE SIERRAS.”
N the year 1851, a farmer moved from the Wabash district in Indiana to the wilder regions of Oregon. In his family was a rude, untaught boy of ten or twelve years, bearing the unusual name of Cincinnatus Hiner Miller. This boy worked with his father on the farm until he was about fifteen years of age, when he abandoned the family log-cabin in the Willamette Valley of his Oregon home to try [♦]his fortune as a gold miner.
[♦] ‘this’ replaced with ‘his’
A more daring attempt was seldom if ever undertaken by a fifteen year old youth. It was during the most desperate period of Western history, just after the report of the discovery of gold had caused the greatest rush to the Pacific slope. A miscellaneous and turbulent population swarmed over the country; and, “armed to the teeth” prospected upon streams and mountains. The lawless, reckless life of these gold-hunters—millionaires to-day and beggars to-morrow—deeming it a virtue rather than a crime to have taken life in a brawl—was, at once, novel, picturesque and dramatic.—Such conditions furnished great possibilities for a poet or novelist.—It was an era as replete with a reality of thrilling excitement as that furnished by the history and mythology of ancient Greece to the earlier [♦]Greek poets.
[♦] ‘Greeks’ replaced with ‘Greek’
It was into this whirlpool that the young, untaught—but observant and daring—farmer lad threw himself, and when its whirl was not giddy and fast enough for him, or palled upon his more exacting taste for excitement and daring adventure, he left it after a few months, and sought deeper and more desperate wilds. With Walker he became a filibuster and went into Nicaragua.—He became in turn an astrologer; a Spanish vaquero, and, joining the wild Indians, was made a Sachem.
For five years he followed these adventurous wanderings; then as suddenly as he had entered the life he deserted it, and, in 1860 the prodigal returned home to his father’s cabin in Oregon. In his right arm he carried a bullet, in his right thigh another, and on many parts of his body were the scars left by Indian arrows. Shortly after returning home he begun the study of law and was admitted to practice within a few months in Lane County, Oregon; but the gold fever or spirit of adventure took possession of him again and in 1861 we find him in the gold mines of Idaho; but the yellow metal did not come into his “Pan” sufficiently fast and he gave it up to become an express messenger in the mining district. A few months later he was back in Oregon where he started a Democratic Newspaper at Eugene City which he ran long enough to get acquainted with a poetical contributor, Miss Minnie Myrtle, whom he married in 1862—in his usual short-order way of doing things—after an acquaintance of three days. Where “Joaquin” Miller—for he was now called “Joaquin” after a Spanish brigand whom he had defended—got his education is a mystery; but through the years of wandering, even in boyhood, he was a rhymester and his verses now began to come fast in the columns of his paper.
JOAQUIN MILLER’S STUDY, OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA.
In 1862, after his marriage he resumed the practice of law, and, in 1866, at the age of twenty-five, was elected Judge of Grant County. This position he held for four years during which time he wrote much poetry. One day with his usual “suddenness” he abandoned his wife and his country and sailed for London to seek a publisher. At first he was unsuccessful, and had to print a small volume privately. This introduced him to the friendship of English writers and his “Songs of the Sierras” was issued in 1871. Naturally these poems were faulty in style and called forth strong adverse criticism; but the tales they told were glowing and passionate, and the wild and adventurous life they described was a new revelation in the world of song, and, verily, whatever the austere critic said, “The common people heard him gladly” and his success became certain. Thus encouraged Miller returned to California, visited the tropics and collected material for another work which he published in London in 1873 entitled “Sunland Songs.” Succeeding, the “Songs of the Desert” appeared in 1875; “Songs of Italy” 1878; “Songs of the Mexican Seas” 1887. Later he has published “With Walker in Nicaragua” and he is also author of a play called “The Danites,” and of several prose works relating to life in the West among which are “The Danites in the Sierras,” “Shadows of Shasta” and ’49, or “The Gold-seekers of the Sierras.”
The chief excellencies of Miller’s works are his gorgeous pictures of the gigantic scenery of the Western mountains. In this sense he is a true poet. As compared with Bret Harte, while Miller has the finer poetic perception of the two, he does not possess the dramatic power nor the literary skill of Harte; nor does he seem to recognize the native generosity and noble qualities which lie hidden beneath the vicious lives of outlaws, as the latter reveals it in his writings. After all the question arises which is the nearer the truth? Harte is about the same age as Miller, lived among the camps at about the same time, but he was not, to use a rough expression, “one of the gang,” was not so pronouncedly “on the inside” as was his brother poet. He never dug in the mines, he was not a filibuster, nor an Indian Sachem. All these and more Miller was, and perhaps he is nearer the plumb line of truth in his delineations after all.
Mr. Miller’s home is on the bluffs overlooking the San Francisco Bay in sight of the Golden Gate. In July, 1897, he joined the gold seekers in the Klondike regions of Alaska.
THOUGHTS OF MY WESTERN HOME.
WRITTEN IN ATHENS.
IERRAS, and eternal tents
Of snow that flashed o’er battlements
Of mountains! My land of the sun,
Am I not true? have I not done
All things for thine, for thee alone,
O sun-land, sea-land, thou mine own?
From other loves and other lands,
As true, perhaps, as strong of hands,
Have I not turned to thee and thine,
O sun-land of the palm and pine,
And sung thy scenes, surpassing skies,
Till Europe lifted up her face
And marveled at thy matchless grace,
With eager and inquiring eyes?
Be my reward some little place
To pitch my tent, some tree and vine
Where I may sit above the sea,
And drink the sun as drinking wine,
And dream, or sing some songs of thee;
Or days to climb to Shasta’s dome
Again, and be with gods at home,
Salute my mountains—clouded Hood,
Saint Helen’s in its sea of wood—
Where sweeps the Oregon, and where
White storms are in the feathered fir.
MOUNT SHASTA.
O lord all Godland! lift the brow
Familiar to the noon,—to top
The universal world,—to prop
The hollow heavens up,—to vow
Stern constancy with stars,—to keep
Eternal ward while [♦]eons sleep;
To tower calmly up and touch
God’s purple garment—hems that sweep
The cold blue north! Oh, this were much!
Where storm-born shadows hide and hunt
I knew thee in my glorious youth,
I loved thy vast face, white as truth,
I stood where thunderbolts were wont
To smite thy Titan-fashioned front,
And heard rent mountains rock and roll.
I saw thy lightning’s gleaming rod
Reach forth and write on heaven’s scroll
The awful autograph of God!
[♦] ‘cons’ replaced with ‘eons’
KIT CARSON’S RIDE.
UN? Now you bet you; I rather guess so.
But he’s blind as a badger. Whoa, Paché boy, whoa!
No, you wouldn’t think so to look at his eyes,
But he is badger blind, and it happened this wise;—
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 Camanches are hot on the track
When once they strike it. Let the sun go down
Soon, very soon,” muttered bearded old Revels
As he peered at the sun, lying low on his back,
Holding fast to his lasso; then he jerked at his steed,
And sprang to his feet, and glanced swiftly around,
And then dropped, as if shot, with his ear to the ground,—
Then again to his feet and to me, to my bride,
While his eyes were like fire, his face like a shroud,
His form like a king, and his beard like a cloud,
And his voice loud and shrill, as if blown from a reed,—
“Pull, pull in your lassos, and bridle to steed,
And speed, if ever for life you would speed;
And ride for your lives, for your lives you must ride,
For the plain is aflame, the prairie on fire,
And feet of wild horses, hard flying before
I hear like a sea breaking hard on the shore;
While the buffalo come like the 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 lassos, seized saddle and rein,
Threw them on, sinched them on, sinched them over again,
And again drew the girth, cast aside the macheer,
Cut away tapidaros, loosed the sash from its fold,
Cast aside the catenas red and spangled with gold,
And gold-mounted Colts, true companions for years,
Cast the red silk serapes to the wind in a breath
And so bared to the skin sprang all haste to the horse.
Not a word, not a wail from a lip was let fall,
Not a kiss from my bride, not a look or low call
Of love-note or courage, but on o’er the plain
So steady and still, leaning low to the mane,
With the heel to the flank and the hand to the rein,
Rode we on, rode we three, rode we gray nose and nose,
Reaching long, breathing loud, like a creviced wind blows,
Yet we spoke 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.
Gray nose to gray nose and each steady mustang
Stretched neck and stretched nerve till the hollow earth rang
And the foam from the flank and the croup and the neck
Flew around like the spray on a storm-driven deck.
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 looked to my right,
But Revels was gone; I glanced by my shoulder
And saw his horse stagger; I saw his head drooping
Hard 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.
To right and to left the black buffalo came,
In miles and in millions, rolling on in despair,
With their beards to the dust and black tails in the air.
As a terrible surf on a red sea of flame
Rushing on in the rear, reaching high, reaching higher,
And he rode neck to neck to a buffalo bull,
The monarch of millions, with shaggy mane full
Of smoke and of dust, and it shook with desire
Of battle, with rage and with bellowings loud
And unearthly and up through its lowering cloud
Came the flash of his eyes like a half-hidden fire,
While 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 he fell and was lost, as we rode two and two.
I looked 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 look of despair,
And a pity for me, as she felt the smoke fold her,
And flames reaching far for her glorious hair.
Her sinking steed faltered, his eager ears fell
To and fro and unsteady, and all the neck’s swell
Did subside and recede, and the nerves fell as dead.
Then she saw that my own steed still lorded his head
With a look of delight, for this Paché, you see,
Was her father’s and once at the South Santafee
Had won a whole herd, sweeping everything down
In a race where the world came to run for the crown;
And so when I won the true heart of my bride,—
My neighbor’s and deadliest enemy’s child,
And child of the kingly war-chief of his tribe,—
She brought me this steed to the border the night
She met Revels and me in her perilous flight,
From the lodge of the chief to the north Brazos side;
And said, so half guessing of ill as she smiled,
As if jesting, that I, and I only, should ride
The fleet-footed Paché, so if kin should pursue
I should surely escape without other ado
Than to ride, without blood, to the north Brazos side,
And await her,—and wait till the next hollow moon
Hung her horn in the palms, when surely and soon
And swift she would join me, and all would be well
Without bloodshed or word. And now as she fell
From the front, and went down in the ocean of fire,
The last that I saw was a look of delight
That I should escape,—a love,—a desire,—
Yet never a word, not a look of appeal.—
Lest I should reach hand, should stay hand or stay heel
One instant for her in my terrible flight.
Then the rushing of fire rose around me and under,
And the howling of beast like the sound of thunder,—
Beasts burning and blind and forced onward and over,
As the passionate flame reached around them and wove her
Hands in their hair, and kissed hot till they died,—
Till they died with a wild and a desolate moan,
As a sea heart-broken on the hard brown stone,
And into the Brazos I rode all alone—
All alone, save only a horse long-limbed,
And blind and bare and burnt to the skin.
Then just as the terrible sea came in
And tumbled its thousands hot into the tide,
Till the tide blocked up and the swift stream brimmed
In eddies, we struck on the opposite side.
“Sell Paché—blind Paché? Now, mister! look here!
You have slept in my tent and partook of my cheer
Many days, many days, on this rugged frontier,”
For the ways they were rough and Comanches were near;
“But you’d better pack up, sir! That tent is too small
For us two after this! Has an old mountaineer,
Do you book-men believe, get no tum-tum at all?
Sell Paché! You buy him! a bag full of gold!
You show him! Tell of him the tale I have told!
Why he bore me through fire, and is blind and is old!
... Now pack up your papers, and get up and spin
To them cities you tell of.... Blast you and your tin!”
JOAQUIN MILLER’S ALASKA LETTER.
As a specimen of this author’s prose writing and style, we present the following extract from a syndicate letter clipped from the “Philadelphia Inquirer.”
Head of Lake Bennett, Alaska, August 2, 1897.
WRITE by the bank of what is already a big river, and at the fountain head of the mighty Yukon, the second if not the first of American rivers. We have crossed the summit, passed the terrible Chilkoot Pass and Crater Lake and Long Lake and Lideman Lake, and now I sit down to tell the story of the past, while the man who is to take me up the river six hundred miles to the Klondike rows his big scow, full of cattle, brought from Seattle.
THE BEAUTY AND GRANDEUR OF CHILKOOT PASS.
All the pictures that had been painted by word, all on easel, or even in imagination of Napoleon and his men climbing up the Alps, are but childish playthings in comparison with the grandeur of Chilkoot Pass. Starting up the steep ascent, we raised a shout and it ran the long, steep and tortuous line that reached from a bluff above us, and over and up till it lost itself in the clouds. And down to us from the clouds, the shout and cry of exultation of those brave conquerers came back, and only died away when the distance made it possible to be heard no longer. And now we began to ascend.
It was not so hard as it seemed. The stupendous granite mountain, the home of the avalanche and the father of glaciers, melted away before us as we ascended, and in a single hour of brisk climbing we stood against the summit or rather between the big granite blocks that marked the summit. As I said before, the path is not so formidable as it looked, and it is not half so formidable as represented, but mark you, it is no boy’s play, no man’s play. It is a man’s and a big strong man’s honest work, and takes strength of body and nerve of soul.
Right in the path and within ten feet of a snow bank that has not perished for a thousand years, I picked and ate a little strawberry, and as I rested and roamed about a bit, looking down into the brightly blue lake that made the head waters of the Yukon, I gathered a little sun flower, a wild hyacinth and a wild tea blossom for my buttonhole.