The trees clash in vain their naked swords against the door. I go not forth while the low murmur of your voice is drifting all else back to silence. The Darkness presses his black forehead close to the window-pane, and beckons me without. Love holds a lamp in this little room that hath power to blot back Fear. But will the lamp ever starve for oil? Will its blood-red flame ever grow faint and blue? Will it grow pallid and motionless? Will it sink rayless to everlasting death? Answer me Oh! answer me ! Look at these tear-drops: See how they quiver and die on your open hands. Fold these white garments close to my breast, while I question you. Would you have me think that from the warm shelter of your heart I must go to the grave? And, when I am lying in my silent shroud, will you love me? When I am buried down in the cold wet earth, will you grieve that you did not save me? Will your tears reach my pale face through all the withered leaves that will heap themselves upon my grave? Will you repent that you loosened your arms to let me fall so deep, and so far out of sight? Will you come and tell me so when the coffin has shut out the storm? Answer me Oh! answer me ! JOAQUIN MILLER. [Born about 1840 in California. Known in literature as "Joaquin," but in society as "Cincinnatus H. Miller." Has passed a rough adventurous life in his native district and the regions of Western and Central America; gaining the experiences which he has now begun to embody in very striking and picturesque poems] ARIZONIAN. "And I have said, and I say it ever, As the years go on and the world goes over, In tending of cattle and tossing of clover, While we wish, yearn, and do pray in vain, I would woo her, win her, and wear her only, And never go over this white sea wall For gold or glory or for aught at all.” He said these things as he stood with the Squire By the river's rim in the fields of clover, While the stream flowed under and the clouds flew over, With the sun tangled in and the fringes afire. So the Squire leaned with a kind desire To humour his guest, and to hear his story; His brow was browned by the sun and weather, There were hoops of gold all over his hands, And the belts of gold were bright in the sun. Brighter even than balls of fire, As he said, hot-faced, in the face of the Squire :- "The pines bowed over, the stream bent under, Was what it could know in its clime but calm: By sabre-stroke in the young world's prime 1 These are the lines as given in the later American edition: the last two are far from perspicuous. The earlier English edition says merely, "It looked as if broken by bolts of thunder, And a life is a love and a love is a dream ; "She stood in the shadows as the sun went down, Fretting her curls with her fingers brown, As tall as the silk-tipped tasselled cornStood strangely watching as I weighed the gold We had washed that day where the river rolled; And her proud lip curled with a sun-clime scorn, As she asked, 'Is she better or fairer than I ?— She, that blonde in the land beyond, Where the sun is hid and the seas are highThat you gather-in gold as the years go on, And hoard and hide it away for her As a squirrel burrows the black pine-burr?' "Now the gold weighed well, but was lighter of weight Than we two had taken for days of late; So I was fretted, and, brow a-frown, I said, 'She is fairer, and I loved her first, And shall love her last, come the worst to worst.' As I said this thing: and higher and higher "She turned from the door and down to the river, And mirrored her face in the whimsical tide ; Then threw back her hair, as if throwing a quiver, As an Indian throws it back far from his side And free from his hands, swinging fast to the shoulder, Then, smitten, it turned, bent, broken, and doubled, "I lay in my hammock. The air was heavy A shout of warning, a rushing of wind, And the rolling of clouds, and a deafening din, "One time in the night as the black wind shifted, |