Page:The Pacific Monthly volumes 1-3.djvu/423



The Pacific Monthly will publish from month to month poetry that is distinctive of the Pacific Coast, and which time and criticism have given a recognized standing. The poems published this month are two that are unique in conception and of unusual interest.

(The spot referred to in this poem is an island in the Columbia river above the Cascades, where the Chinook Indians buried their dead.)

Where the King of Hesperian rivers, Columbia, with glimmering sweep, And a passionate bosom that quivers, In a dream of the mystical deep — Exults in his empire eternal And the myriad rush of his power, Is an island of sadness supernal Where the horseman has made him a bower, And the eagles, that wheel there so slowly, Are so pallid and patient and holy — Like the vestals that cherish its dower!

An Avilion as fair as that other Where the lances of Camelot rest — The King and each chivalrous brother With the plumage of fame in his crest — Is the isle of our bountiful river, In its calm where commotion is rife, Like a finger of warning forever On the murmurous lips of life! And the waters around it intoning Go sadly, and banish their moaning With a crystalline paean of strife.

And a magical scene for its story

Around you enchants an appals

With the barbarous gloom and the glory

Of the bold and embattled walls,

Where the host of the waters, advancing

Through the desolate eons of time,

Has resoundingly marched, with the glancing

Of innumerous arms sublime; —

Where a whimscal shadow has faltered

On its grandeur undimmed and unaltered —

And has passed like a hurrying mime!

And the firs, with their banners uplifted, Are delayed like an army in prayer, While the vapors of battle are drafted In the gloom of their Gothic hair. And a mountain in mail uprising, The Attila of Oregon lands, Seems to stand like a chieftain advising Witn his fierce and untamable bands — And to threaten the valleys, the queenly, That repose by Willamette serenely, With a gesture of valorous hands.

I In the days that have faded to gloaming, In the plaintive, traditional years, 'Twas the end of a marvelous roaming, A retreat from avenging spears.

It was here, when the moon was at setting And the shadows were solemn and strange, And the peaks in their silvery fretting Were the proudest of a ghostly range — That the fleets came wierdly sailing With the songs of the dirge and the wailing Of the dark, immemorial change.

For the warrior, all crimson from battle,

And the maid with her lingering smile,

And the child that had worshiped the rattle

Of the arrows — were borne to the isle!

And they died in a faith as uncertain

As the flickering funeral glare

Of the torches that painted the curtain

Of the sorrowful midnight air — ;

But the sombre and sailing eagle

Was the guard of a slumber as regal

As the Parian marbles declare.

And the spring never comes with the daisies

In the flame of her bivouac,

But she lingers about it and raises

A memorial arch on her track.

And the beautiful mists that surround it

With a lustre of beaded brows

Are renewing the flowers that found it

With the dew of their nightly vows;

And so tenderly passes the river

With the braid of the sun on his quiver

That the slumberers never arouse.

The romance of the red man is ended, And the shade of his primitive bark With the mists of eternity blended, Is a part of the dusk and the dark; And the spray of the thundering steamer Is the ghost of our loftier dream, And the plume of its vapory streamer But a shadow of things that seem; For the highway of trade and of science Is only a trail — a reliance For the wants that confusedly teem.

And I hear, in the song of the river ,

As it washes the funeral isle,

The response of this song— which is ever

The prophetic refrain of the Nile;

"O the lands may be braided together,

And the Bast lend its rose to the West,

But the nations will pause ana ask whether

The rewards they have sought are the best,