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Complete Poetical Works
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THE STAGE-DRIVER'S STORY

     It was the stage-driver's story, as he stood with his back to the        wheelers,     Quietly flecking his whip, and turning his quid of tobacco;     While on the dusty road, and blent with the rays of the moonlight,     We saw the long curl of his lash and the juice of tobacco descending.     "Danger!  Sir, I believe you,—indeed, I may say, on that subject,     You your existence might put to the hazard and turn of a wager.     I have seen danger?  Oh, no! not me, sir, indeed, I assure you:     'Twas only the man with the dog that is sitting alone in yon wagon.     "It was the Geiger Grade, a mile and a half from the summit:     Black as your hat was the night, and never a star in the heavens.     Thundering down the grade, the gravel and stones we sent flying     Over the precipice side,—a thousand feet plumb to the bottom.     "Half-way down the grade I felt, sir, a thrilling and creaking,     Then a lurch to one side, as we hung on the bank of the canyon;     Then, looking up the road, I saw, in the distance behind me,     The off hind wheel of the coach, just loosed from its axle, and        following.     "One glance alone I gave, then gathered together my ribbons,     Shouted, and flung them, outspread, on the straining necks of my        cattle;     Screamed at the top of my voice, and lashed the air in my frenzy,     While down the Geiger Grade, on THREE wheels, the vehicle thundered.     "Speed was our only chance, when again came the ominous rattle:     Crack, and another wheel slipped away, and was lost in the darkness.     TWO only now were left; yet such was our fearful momentum,     Upright, erect, and sustained on TWO wheels, the vehicle thundered.     "As some huge boulder, unloosed from its rocky shelf on the mountain,     Drives before it the hare and the timorous squirrel, far leaping,     So down the Geiger Grade rushed the Pioneer coach, and before it     Leaped the wild horses, and shrieked in advance of the danger        impending.     "But to be brief in my tale.  Again, ere we came to the level,     Slipped from its axle a wheel; so that, to be plain in my statement,     A matter of twelve hundred yards or more, as the distance may be,     We traveled upon ONE wheel, until we drove up to the station.     "Then, sir, we sank in a heap; but, picking myself from the ruins,     I heard a noise up the grade; and looking, I saw in the distance     The three wheels following still, like moons on the horizon whirling,     Till, circling, they gracefully sank on the road at the side of the        station.     "This is my story, sir; a trifle, indeed, I assure you.     Much more, perchance, might be said—but I hold him of all men most        lightly     Who swerves from the truth in his tale.  No, thank you— Well, since     you ARE pressing,     Perhaps I don't care if I do: you may give me the same, Jim,—no        sugar."

A QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE

REPORTED BY TRUTHFUL JAMES     It was Andrew Jackson Sutter who, despising Mr. Cutter for remarks        he heard him utter in debate upon the floor,     Swung him up into the skylight, in the peaceful, pensive twilight,        and then keerlessly proceeded, makin' no account what WE did—     To wipe up with his person casual dust upon the floor.     Now a square fight never frets me, nor unpleasantness upsets me, but        the simple thing that gets me—now the job is done and gone,     And we've come home free and merry from the peaceful cemetery,        leavin' Cutter there with Sutter—that mebbee just a stutter     On the part of Mr. Cutter caused the loss we deeply mourn.     Some bashful hesitation, just like spellin' punctooation—might have        worked an aggravation on to Sutter's mournful mind,     For the witnesses all vary ez to wot was said and nary a galoot will        toot his horn except the way he is inclined.     But they all allow that Sutter had begun a kind of mutter, when        uprose Mr. Cutter with a sickening kind of ease,     And proceeded then to wade in to the subject then prevadin': "Is        Profanity degradin'?" in words like unto these:     "Onlike the previous speaker, Mr. Sutter of Yreka, he was but a        humble seeker—and not like him—a cuss"—     It was here that Mr. Sutter softly reached for Mr. Cutter, when the        latter with a stutter said: "ac-customed to discuss."     Then Sutter he rose grimly, and sorter smilin' dimly bowed onto the        Chairman primly—(just like Cutter ez could be!)     Drawled "he guessed he must fall—back—as—Mr. Cutter owned the        pack—as—he just had played the—Jack—as—" (here Cutter's gun        went crack! as Mr. Sutter gasped and ended) "every man can see!"     But William Henry Pryor—just in range of Sutter's fire—here        evinced a wild desire to do somebody harm,     And in the general scrimmage no one thought if Sutter's "image" was        a misplaced punctooation—like the hole in Pryor's arm.     For we all waltzed in together, never carin' to ask whether it was        Sutter or was Cutter we woz tryin' to abate.     But we couldn't help perceivin', when we took to inkstand heavin',        that the process was relievin' to the sharpness of debate,     So we've come home free and merry from the peaceful cemetery, and I        make no commentary on these simple childish games;     Things is various and human—and the man ain't born of woman who is        free to intermeddle with his pal's intents and aims.

THE THOUGHT-READER OF ANGELS

REPORTED BY TRUTHFUL JAMES     We hev tumbled ez dust       Or ez worms of the yearth;     Wot we looked for hez bust!       We are objects of mirth!     They have played us—old Pards of the river!—they hev played us for        all we was worth!     Was it euchre or draw       Cut us off in our bloom?     Was it faro, whose law       Is uncertain ez doom?     Or an innocent "Jack pot" that—opened—was to us ez the jaws of the        tomb?     It was nary!  It kem       With some sharps from the States.     Ez folks sez, "All things kem       To the fellers ez waits;"     And we'd waited six months for that suthin'—had me and Bill Nye—in        such straits!     And it kem.  It was small;       It was dream-like and weak;     It wore store clothes—that's all       That we knew, so to speak;     But it called itself "Billson, Thought-Reader"—which ain't half a        name for its cheek!     He could read wot you thought,       And he knew wot you did;     He could find things untaught,       No matter whar hid;     And he went to it, blindfold and smiling, being led by the hand like        a kid!     Then I glanced at Bill Nye,       And I sez, without pride,     "You'll excuse US.  We've nigh       On to nothin' to hide;     But if some gent will lend us a twenty, we'll hide it whar folks        shall decide."     It was Billson's own self       Who forked over the gold,     With a smile.  "Thar's the pelf,"       He remarked.  "I make bold     To advance it, and go twenty better that I'll find it without being        told."     Then I passed it to Nye,       Who repassed it to me.     And we bandaged each eye       Of that Billson—ez we     Softly dropped that coin in his coat pocket, ez the hull crowd        around us could see.     That was all.  He'd one hand       Locked in mine.  Then he groped.     We could not understand       Why that minit Nye sloped,     For we knew we'd the dead thing on Billson—even more than we        dreamed of or hoped.     For he stood thar in doubt       With his hand to his head;     Then he turned, and lit out       Through the door where Nye fled,     Draggin' me and the rest of us arter, while we larfed till we        thought we was dead,     Till he overtook Nye       And went through him.  Words fail     For what follers!  Kin I       Paint our agonized wail     Ez he drew from Nye's pocket that twenty wot we sworn was in his own        coat-tail!     And it WAS!  But, when found,       It proved bogus and brass!     And the question goes round       How the thing kem to pass?     Or, if PASSED, woz it passed thar by William; and I listens, and        echoes "Alas!     "For the days when the skill       Of the keerds was no blind,     When no effort of will       Could beat four of a kind,     When the thing wot you held in your hand, Pard, was worth more than        the thing in your mind."

THE SPELLING BEE AT ANGELS

(REPORTED BY TRUTHFUL JAMES)     Waltz in, waltz in, ye little kids, and gather round my knee,     And drop them books and first pot-hooks, and hear a yarn from me.     I kin not sling a fairy tale of Jinnys1 fierce and wild,     For I hold it is unchristian to deceive a simple child;     But as from school yer driftin' by, I thowt ye'd like to hear     Of a "Spelling Bee" at Angels that we organized last year.     It warn't made up of gentle kids, of pretty kids, like you,     But gents ez hed their reg'lar growth, and some enough for two.     There woz Lanky Jim of Sutter's Fork and Bilson of Lagrange,     And "Pistol Bob," who wore that day a knife by way of change.     You start, you little kids, you think these are not pretty names,     But each had a man behind it, and—my name is Truthful James.     There was Poker Dick from Whisky Flat, and Smith of Shooter's Bend,     And Brown of Calaveras—which I want no better friend;     Three-fingered Jack—yes, pretty dears, three fingers—YOU have five.     Clapp cut off two—it's sing'lar, too, that Clapp ain't now alive.     'Twas very wrong indeed, my dears, and Clapp was much to blame;     Likewise was Jack, in after-years, for shootin' of that same.     The nights was kinder lengthenin' out, the rains had jest begun,     When all the camp came up to Pete's to have their usual fun;     But we all sot kinder sad-like around the bar-room stove     Till Smith got up, permiskiss-like, and this remark he hove:     "Thar's a new game down in Frisco, that ez far ez I can see     Beats euchre, poker, and van-toon, they calls the 'Spellin' Bee.'"     Then Brown of Calaveras simply hitched his chair and spake,     "Poker is good enough for me," and Lanky Jim sez, "Shake!"     And Bob allowed he warn't proud, but he "must say right thar     That the man who tackled euchre hed his education squar."     This brought up Lenny Fairchild, the schoolmaster, who said     He knew the game, and he would give instructions on that head.     "For instance, take some simple word," sez he, "like 'separate:'     Now who can spell it?"  Dog my skin, ef thar was one in eight.     This set the boys all wild at once.  The chairs was put in row,     And at the head was Lanky Jim, and at the foot was Joe,     And high upon the bar itself the schoolmaster was raised,     And the bar-keep put his glasses down, and sat and silent gazed.     The first word out was "parallel," and seven let it be,     Till Joe waltzed in his "double l" betwixt the "a" and "e;"     For since he drilled them Mexicans in San Jacinto's fight     Thar warn't no prouder man got up than Pistol Joe that night—     Till "rhythm" came!  He tried to smile, then said "they had him        there,"     And Lanky Jim, with one long stride, got up and took his chair.     O little kids, my pretty kids, 'twas touchin' to survey     These bearded men, with weppings on, like schoolboys at their play.     They'd laugh with glee, and shout to see each other lead the van,     And Bob sat up as monitor with a cue for a rattan,     Till the Chair gave out "incinerate," and Brown said he'd be durned     If any such blamed word as that in school was ever learned.     When "phthisis" came they all sprang up, and vowed the man who rung     Another blamed Greek word on them be taken out and hung.     As they sat down again I saw in Bilson's eye a flash,     And Brown of Calaveras was a-twistin' his mustache,     And when at last Brown slipped on "gneiss," and Bilson took his chair,     He dropped some casual words about some folks who dyed their hair.     And then the Chair grew very white, and the Chair said he'd adjourn,     But Poker Dick remarked that HE would wait and get his turn;     Then with a tremblin' voice and hand, and with a wanderin' eye,     The Chair next offered "eider-duck," and Dick began with "I",     And Bilson smiled—then Bilson shrieked!  Just how the fight begun     I never knowed, for Bilson dropped, and Dick, he moved up one.     Then certain gents arose and said "they'd business down in camp,"     And "ez the road was rather dark, and ez the night was damp,     They'd"—here got up Three-fingered Jack and locked the door and        yelled:     "No, not one mother's son goes out till that thar word is spelled!"     But while the words were on his lips, he groaned and sank in pain,     And sank with Webster on his chest and Worcester on his brain.     Below the bar dodged Poker Dick, and tried to look ez he     Was huntin' up authorities thet no one else could see;     And Brown got down behind the stove, allowin' he "was cold,"     Till it upsot and down his legs the cinders freely rolled,     And several gents called "Order!" till in his simple way     Poor Smith began with "O-r"—"Or"—and he was dragged away.     O little kids, my pretty kids, down on your knees and pray!     You've got your eddication in a peaceful sort of way;     And bear in mind thar may be sharps ez slings their spellin' square,     But likewise slings their bowie-knives without a thought or care.     You wants to know the rest, my dears?  Thet's all!  In me you see     The only gent that lived to tell about the Spellin' Bee!                                 –     He ceased and passed, that truthful man; the children went their way     With downcast heads and downcast hearts—but not to sport or play.     For when at eve the lamps were lit, and supperless to bed     Each child was sent, with tasks undone and lessons all unsaid,     No man might know the awful woe that thrilled their youthful frames,     As they dreamed of Angels Spelling Bee and thought of Truthful James.

ARTEMIS IN SIERRA

DRAMATIS PERSONAE     Poet.  Philosopher.  Jones of Mariposa.POET     Halt!  Here we are.  Now wheel your mare a trifle       Just where you stand; then doff your hat and swear     Never yet was scene you might cover with your rifle       Half as complete or as marvelously fair.PHILOSOPHER     Dropped from Olympus or lifted out of Tempe,       Swung like a censer betwixt the earth and sky!     He who in Greece sang of flocks and flax and hemp,—he       Here might recall them—six thousand feet on high!POET     Well you may say so.  The clamor of the river,       Hum of base toil, and man's ignoble strife,     Halt far below, where the stifling sunbeams quiver,       But never climb to this purer, higher life!     Not to this glade, where Jones of Mariposa,       Simple and meek as his flocks we're looking at,     Tends his soft charge; nor where his daughter Rosa—         (A shot.)       Hallo!  What's that?PHILOSOPHER                             A—something thro' my hat—     Bullet, I think.  You were speaking of his daughter?POET     Yes; but—your hat you were moving through the leaves;       Likely he thought it some eagle bent on slaughter.     Lightly he shoots—  (A second shot.)PHILOSOPHER                          As one readily perceives.      Still, he improves!  This time YOUR hat has got it,     Quite near the band!  Eh? Oh, just as you please—       Stop, or go on.POET                       Perhaps we'd better trot it     Down through the hollow, and up among the trees.BOTH     Trot, trot, trot, where the bullets cannot follow;       Trot down and up again among the laurel trees.PHILOSOPHER     Thanks, that is better; now of this shot-dispensing       Jones and his girl—you were saying—POET                                             Well, you see—     I—hang it all!—Oh! what's the use of fencing!       Sir, I confess it!—these shots were meant for ME.PHILOSOPHER     Are you mad!POET                   God knows, I shouldn't wonder!       I love this coy nymph, who, coldly—as yon peak     Shines on the river it feeds, yet keeps asunder—       Long have I worshiped, but never dared to speak.     Till she, no doubt, her love no longer hiding,       Waked by some chance word her father's jealousy;     Slips her disdain—as an avalanche down gliding       Sweeps flocks and kin away—to clear a path for ME.     Hence his attack.PHILOSOPHER                        I see.  What I admire       Chiefly, I think, in your idyl, so to speak,     Is the cool modesty that checks your youthful fire,—       Absence of self-love and abstinence of cheek!     Still, I might mention, I've met the gentle Rosa,—       Danced with her thrice, to her father's jealous dread;     And, it is possible, she's happened to disclose a—       Ahem!  You can fancy why he shoots at ME instead.POETYOU?PHILOSOPHER          Me.  But kindly take your hand from your revolver,       I am not choleric—but accidents may chance.     And here's the father, who alone can be the solver       Of this twin riddle of the hat and the romance.     Enter JONES OF MARIPOSA.POET     Speak, shepherd—mine!PHILOSOPHER                            Hail!  Time-and-cartridge waster,       Aimless exploder of theories and skill!     Whom do you shoot?JONES OF MARIPOSA                        Well, shootin' ain't my taste, or       EF I shoot anything—I only shoot to kill.     That ain't what's up.  I only kem to tell ye—       Sportin' or courtin'—trot homeward for your life!     Gals will be gals, and p'r'aps it's just ez well ye       Larned there was one had no wish to be—a wife.POET     What?PHILOSOPHER           Is this true?JONES OF MARIPOSA                          I reckon it looks like it.       She saw ye comin'.  My gun was standin' by;     She made a grab, and 'fore I up could strike it,       Blazed at ye both!  The critter is SO shy!POET     Who?JONES OF MARIPOSA           My darter!PHILOSOPHER                       Rosa?JONES OF MARIPOSA                              Same!  Good-by!

JACK OF THE TULES

(SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA)     Shrewdly you question, Senor, and I fancy     You are no novice.  Confess that to little     Of my poor gossip of Mission and Pueblo          You are a stranger!     Am I not right?  Ah! believe me, that ever     Since we joined company at the posada     I've watched you closely, and—pardon an old priest—          I've caught you smiling!     Smiling to hear an old fellow like me talk     Gossip of pillage and robbers, and even     Air his opinion of law and alcaldes          Like any other!     Now!—by that twist of the wrist on the bridle,     By that straight line from the heel to the shoulder,     By that curt speech,—nay! nay! no offense, son,—          You are a soldier?     No?  Then a man of affairs?  San Sebastian!     'Twould serve me right if I prattled thus wildly     To—say a sheriff?  No?—just caballero?          Well, more's the pity.     Ah! what we want here's a man of your presence;     Sano, Secreto,—yes, all the four S's,     Joined with a boldness and dash, when the time comes,          And—may I say it?—     One not TOO hard on the poor country people,     Peons and silly vaqueros, who, dazzled     By reckless skill, and, perchance, reckless largesse,        Wink at some queer things.     No?  You would crush THEM as well as the robbers,—     Root them out, scatter them?  Ah you are bitter—     And yet—quien sabe, perhaps that's the one way          To catch their leader.     As to myself, now, I'd share your displeasure;     For I admit in this Jack of the Tules     Certain good points.  He still comes to confession—          You'd "like to catch him"?     Ah, if you did at such times, you might lead him     Home by a thread.  Good!  Again you are smiling:     You have no faith in such shrift, and but little          In priest or penitent.     Bueno!  We take no offense, sir; whatever     It please you to say, it becomes us, for Church sake,     To bear in peace.  Yet, if you were kinder—          And less suspicious—     I might still prove to you, Jack of the Tules     Shames not our teaching; nay, even might show you,     Hard by this spot, his old comrade, who, wounded,          Lives on his bounty.     If—ah, you listen!—I see I can trust you;     Then, on your word as a gentleman—follow.     Under that sycamore stands the old cabin;          There sits his comrade.     Eh!—are you mad?  You would try to ARREST him?     You, with a warrant?  Oh, well, take the rest of them:     Pedro, Bill, Murray, Pat Doolan.  Hey!—all of you,          Tumble out, d—n it!     There!—that'll do, boys!  Stand back!  Ease his elbows;     Take the gag from his mouth.  Good!  Now scatter like devils     After his posse—four straggling, four drunken—          At the posada.     You—help me off with these togs, and then vamos!     Now, ole Jeff Dobbs!—Sheriff, Scout, and Detective!     You're so derned 'cute!  Kinder sick, ain't ye, bluffing          Jack of the Tules!

IV. MISCELLANEOUS

A GREYPORT LEGEND

(1797)     They ran through the streets of the seaport town,     They peered from the decks of the ships that lay;     The cold sea-fog that came whitening down     Was never as cold or white as they.       "Ho, Starbuck and Pinckney and Tenterden!       Run for your shallops, gather your men,         Scatter your boats on the lower bay."     Good cause for fear!  In the thick mid-day     The hulk that lay by the rotting pier,     Filled with the children in happy play,     Parted its moorings and drifted clear,       Drifted clear beyond reach or call,—       Thirteen children they were in all,—         All adrift in the lower bay!     Said a hard-faced skipper, "God help us all!     She will not float till the turning tide!"     Said his wife, "My darling will hear MY call,     Whether in sea or heaven she bide;"       And she lifted a quavering voice and high,       Wild and strange as a sea-bird's cry,         Till they shuddered and wondered at her side.     The fog drove down on each laboring crew,     Veiled each from each and the sky and shore:     There was not a sound but the breath they drew,     And the lap of water and creak of oar;       And they felt the breath of the downs, fresh blown       O'er leagues of clover and cold gray stone,         But not from the lips that had gone before.     They came no more.  But they tell the tale     That, when fogs are thick on the harbor reef,     The mackerel fishers shorten sail—     For the signal they know will bring relief;       For the voices of children, still at play       In a phantom hulk that drifts alway         Through channels whose waters never fail.     It is but a foolish shipman's tale,     A theme for a poet's idle page;     But still, when the mists of Doubt prevail,     And we lie becalmed by the shores of Age,       We hear from the misty troubled shore       The voice of the children gone before,         Drawing the soul to its anchorage.

A NEWPORT ROMANCE

     They say that she died of a broken heart       (I tell the tale as 'twas told to me);     But her spirit lives, and her soul is part       Of this sad old house by the sea.     Her lover was fickle and fine and French:       It was nearly a hundred years ago     When he sailed away from her arms—poor wench!—       With the Admiral Rochambeau.     I marvel much what periwigged phrase       Won the heart of this sentimental Quaker,     At what gold-laced speech of those modish days       She listened—the mischief take her!     But she kept the posies of mignonette       That he gave; and ever as their bloom failed     And faded (though with her tears still wet)       Her youth with their own exhaled.     Till one night, when the sea-fog wrapped a shroud       Round spar and spire and tarn and tree,     Her soul went up on that lifted cloud       From this sad old house by the sea.     And ever since then, when the clock strikes two,       She walks unbidden from room to room,     And the air is filled that she passes through       With a subtle, sad perfume.     The delicate odor of mignonette,       The ghost of a dead-and-gone bouquet,     Is all that tells of her story; yet       Could she think of a sweeter way?     I sit in the sad old house to-night,—       Myself a ghost from a farther sea;     And I trust that this Quaker woman might,       In courtesy, visit me.     For the laugh is fled from porch and lawn,       And the bugle died from the fort on the hill,     And the twitter of girls on the stairs is gone,       And the grand piano is still.     Somewhere in the darkness a clock strikes two:       And there is no sound in the sad old house,     But the long veranda dripping with dew,       And in the wainscot a mouse.     The light of my study-lamp streams out       From the library door, but has gone astray     In the depths of the darkened hall. Small doubt       But the Quakeress knows the way.     Was it the trick of a sense o'erwrought       With outward watching and inward fret?     But I swear that the air just now was fraught       With the odor of mignonette!     I open the window, and seem almost—       So still lies the ocean—to hear the beat     Of its Great Gulf artery off the coast,       And to bask in its tropic heat.     In my neighbor's windows the gas-lights flare,       As the dancers swing in a waltz of Strauss;     And I wonder now could I fit that air       To the song of this sad old house.     And no odor of mignonette there is,       But the breath of morn on the dewy lawn;     And mayhap from causes as slight as this       The quaint old legend is born.     But the soul of that subtle, sad perfume,       As the spiced embalmings, they say, outlast     The mummy laid in his rocky tomb,       Awakens my buried past.     And I think of the passion that shook my youth,       Of its aimless loves and its idle pains,     And am thankful now for the certain truth       That only the sweet remains.     And I hear no rustle of stiff brocade,       And I see no face at my library door;     For now that the ghosts of my heart are laid,       She is viewless for evermore.     But whether she came as a faint perfume,       Or whether a spirit in stole of white,     I feel, as I pass from the darkened room,       She has been with my soul to-night!
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