Brown foundling of the Western wood,
  Babe of primeval wildernesses!
Long on my table thou hast stood
  Encounters strange and rude caresses;
Perchance contented with thy lot,
  Surroundings new and curious faces,
As though ten centuries were not
  Imprisoned in thy shining cases!

Thou bring'st me back the halcyon days
  Of grateful rest; the week of leisure,
The journey lapped in autumn haze,
  The sweet fatigue that seemed a pleasure,
The morning ride, the noonday halt,
  The blazing slopes, the red dust rising,
And then—the dim, brown, columned vault,
  With its cool, damp, sepulchral spicing.

Once more I see the rocking masts
  That scrape the sky, their only tenant
The jay-bird that in frolic casts
  From some high yard his broad blue pennant.
I see the Indian files that keep
  Their places in the dusty heather,
Their red trunks standing ankle deep
  In moccasins of rusty leather.

I see all this, and marvel much
  That thou, sweet woodland waif, art able
To keep the company of such
  As throng thy friend's—the poet's—table:
The latest spawn the press hath cast,—
  The "modern Pope's," "the later Byron's,"—
Why e'en the best may not outlast
  Thy poor relation,—Sempervirens.

Thy sire saw the light that shone
  On Mohammed's uplifted crescent,
On many a royal gilded throne
  And deed forgotten in the present;
He saw the age of sacred trees
  And Druid groves and mystic larches;
And saw from forest domes like these
  The builder bring his Gothic arches.

And must thou, foundling, still forego
  Thy heritage and high ambition,
To lie full lowly and full low,
  Adjusted to thy new condition?
Not hidden in the drifted snows,
  But under ink-drops idly spattered,
And leaves ephemeral as those
  That on thy woodland tomb were scattered.

Yet lie thou there, O friend! and speak
  The moral of thy simple story:
Though life is all that thou dost seek,
  And age alone thy crown of glory,—
Not thine the only germs that fail
  The purpose of their high creation,
If their poor tenements avail
  For worldly show and ostentation.

A Sanitary Message

Last night, above the whistling wind,
  I heard the welcome rain,—
A fusillade upon the roof,
  A tattoo on the pane:
The key-hole piped; the chimney-top
  A warlike trumpet blew;
Yet, mingling with these sounds of strife,
  A softer voice stole through.

"Give thanks, O brothers!" said the voice,
  "That He who sent the rains
Hath spared your fields the scarlet dew
  That drips from patriot veins:
I've seen the grass on Eastern graves
  In brighter verdure rise;
But, oh! the rain that gave it life
  Sprang first from human eyes.

"I come to wash away no stain
  Upon your wasted lea;
I raise no banners, save the ones
  The forest wave to me:
Upon the mountain side, where Spring
  Her farthest picket sets,
My reveille awakes a host
  Of grassy bayonets.

"I visit every humble roof;
  I mingle with the low:
Only upon the highest peaks
  My blessings fall in snow;
Until, in tricklings of the stream
  And drainings of the lea,
My unspent bounty comes at last
  To mingle with the sea."

And thus all night, above the wind,
  I heard the welcome rain,—
A fusillade upon the roof,
  A tattoo on the pane:
The key-hole piped; the chimney-top
  A warlike trumpet blew;
But, mingling with these sounds of strife,
  This hymn of peace stole through.

The Copperhead
(1864.)

There is peace in the swamp where the Copper head sleeps,
Where the waters are stagnant, the white vapor creeps,
Where the musk of Magnolia hangs thick in the air,
And the lilies' phylacteries broaden in prayer;
There is peace in the swamp, though the quiet is Death,
Though the mist is miasm, the Upas tree's breath,
Though no echo awakes to the cooing of doves,—
There is peace: yes, the peace that the Copperhead loves!

Go seek him: he coils in the ooze and the drip
Like a thong idly flung from the slave-driver's whip;
But beware the false footstep,—the stumble that brings
A deadlier lash than the overseer swings.
Never arrow so true, never bullet so dread,
As the straight steady stroke of that hammershaped head;
Whether slave, or proud planter, who braves that dull crest,
Woe to him who shall trouble the Copperhead's rest!

Then why waste your labors, brave hearts and strong men,
In tracking a trail to the Copperhead's den?
Lay your axe to the cypress, hew open the shade
To the free sky and sunshine Jehovah has made;
Let the breeze of the North sweep the vapors away,
Till the stagnant lake ripples, the freed waters play;
And then to your heel can you righteously doom
The Copperhead born of its shadow and gloom!

On a Pen of Thomas Starr King

This is the reed the dead musician dropped,
  With tuneful magic in its sheath still hidden;
The prompt allegro of its music stopped,
  Its melodies unbidden.

But who shall finish the unfinished strain,
  Or wake the instrument to awe and wonder,
And bid the slender barrel breathe again,—
  An organ-pipe of thunder?

His pen! what humbler memories cling about
  Its golden curves! what shapes and laughing graces
Slipped from its point, when his full heart went out
  In smiles and courtly phrases!

The truth, half jesting, half in earnest flung;
  The word of cheer, with recognition in it;
The note of alms, whose golden speech outrung
  The golden gift within it.

But all in vain the enchanter's wand we wave:
  No stroke of ours recalls his magic vision;
The incantation that its power gave
  Sleeps with the dead magician.

Lone Mountain
(Cemetery, San Francisco.)

This is that hill of awe
That Persian Sindbad saw,—
  The mount magnetic;
And on its seaward face,
Scattered along its base,
  The wrecks prophetic.

Here come the argosies
Blown by each idle breeze,
  To and fro shifting;
Yet to the hill of Fate
All drawing, soon or late,—
  Day by day drifting;—

Drifting forever here
Barks that for many a year
  Braved wind and weather;
Shallops but yesterday
Launched on yon shining bay,—
  Drawn all together.

This is the end of all:
Sun thyself by the wall,
  O poorer Hindbad!
Envy not Sindbad's fame:
Here come alike the same,
  Hindbad and Sindbad.

California's Greeting to Seward
(1869.)

We know him well: no need of praise
  Or bonfire from the windy hill
To light to softer paths and ways
  The world-worn man we honor still;

No need to quote those truths he spoke
  That burned through years of war and shame.
While History carves with surer stroke
  Across our map his noon-day fame;

No need to bid him show the scars
  Of blows dealt by the Scaean gate,
Who lived to pass its shattered bars,
  And see the foe capitulate;

Who lived to turn his slower feet
  Toward the western setting sun,
To see his harvest all complete,
  His dream fulfilled, his duty done,—

The one flag streaming from the pole,
  The one faith borne from sea to sea,—
For such a triumph, and such goal,
  Poor must our human greeting be.

Ah! rather that the conscious land
  In simpler ways salute the Man,—
The tall pines bowing where they stand,
  The bared head of El Capitan,

The tumult of the waterfalls,
  Pohono's kerchief in the breeze,
The waving from the rocky walls,
  The stir and rustle of the trees;

Till lapped in sunset skies of hope,
  In sunset lands by sunset seas,
The Young World's Premier treads the slope
  Of sunset years in calm and peace.

The Two Ships

As I stand by the cross on the lone mountain's crest,
  Looking over the ultimate sea,
In the gloom of the mountain a ship lies at rest,
  And one sails away from the lea:
One spreads its white wings on a far-reaching track,
  With pennant and sheet flowing free;
One hides in the shadow with sails laid aback,—
  The ship that is waiting for me!

But lo, in the distance the clouds break away!
  The Gate's glowing portals I see;
And I hear from the outgoing ship in the bay
  The song of the sailors in glee:
So I think of the luminous footprints that bore
  The comfort o'er dark Galilee,
And wait for the signal to go to the shore,
  To the ship that is waiting for me.

The Goddess
For the Sanitary Fair

"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 grass:
Go back! he cannot see thee now;
  But here thou shalt not pass."

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

The sentry with his brother lies
  Face downward on the quiet grass;
And by him, in the pale moonshine,
  A shadow seems to pass.

No lance or warlike shield 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 goddess of the sword and shield?
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 goddess' work is done,
  The woman's still remains.