Joaquin Miller.
Mount Shasta, California,
A.D. 1887.
[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 man
Hears deep come calling across to deep;
Where the great 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 seem closing together,
Seem closing together as a book that is read:
In that nude warm world, where the unnamed rivers
Roll restless in cradles of bright buried gold;
Where white flashing 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
’T is an isle of fire in his foamy bed:
Where the oceans of earth shall be welded together
By the great French master in his forge flame red,—
Lo! the half-finished world! Yon footfall retreating,—
It might be the Maker disturbed at his task.
But the footfall of God, or the far pheasant beating,
It is one and the same, whatever the mask
It may wear unto man. The woods keep repeating
The old sacred sermons, whatever you ask.
The brown-muzzled cattle come stealthy to drink,
The wild forest cattle, with high 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.