GIFT OF 
 MICHAEL REESE 
 
, 
 
 / 
 
 * 
 
rfi n n 
 
 REESE LIBRARY 
 
 OI Mil 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 CASE 
 
 v,> 
 
 REESE 
 
JIs it (Uas in Cbe Beginning. 
 
 A POEM 
 
 BY 
 
 JOAQUIN MILLER 
 
 DEDICATED TO 
 
 THE 
 MOTHERS OF MEN. 
 
REESt 
 
 Copyright, 1903, 
 In United States and Great Britain 
 
 by 
 JOAQUIN MILLER. 
 
153 
 
 rf 
 
 AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING. 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 
 
 And the earth was without form and void ; and darkness 
 was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved 
 upon the face of the waters. 
 
 " And God said, let there be light : and there was light." 
 
 I 
 
 They sat the sundown bank beside, 
 Beyond the rock-locked Gate of Gold * 
 So like that Golden Horn of old 
 When Sappho sang and Phaon plied 
 And silent watched the waning sun. 
 Ten thousand miles of mobile sea 
 This sea of all seas blent as one 
 Wide, unbound book of mystery, 
 Of "awe, of sibyl prophecy, 
 Ere yet a ghost or misty ken 
 Of God s far first beginning when 
 Vast darkness lay upon the deep, 
 And when God s spirit moved upon 
 Such waters cradled in such sleep 
 Such night as never yet knew dawn, 
 Such night as wierd atallaph weaves 
 But never mortal man conceives. 
 
 II 
 
 He said his face was leaned to hers, 
 As warmest of all worshippers : 
 1 In the beginning ? Where and when, 
 Before the fashioning of men 
 Swung first His high lamp to and fro, 
 To light us as we please to go ? 
 And where the waters, dark deeps when 
 God spake and said, Let there be light ? 
 
 3 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 They still house where they housed, as then 
 Dark curtained with majestic night 
 Dusk Silence in travail of light 
 That knew not man or man s, at all 
 Black battle-ship or steel-built wall. 
 
 Ill 
 
 " Aye, these, these were the waters when 
 God spake and knew His white first-born, 
 That far, first, new-born baby morn, 
 Such eons ere the noise of men. 
 Yon Southern Cross, high-built about 
 The deep, set in a town of stars, 
 Commemorates, forbids a doubt 
 That here first fell God s golden bars 
 Red bars, with soft, white silver blent, 
 Broad sown from sapphire firmament. 
 
 IV 
 
 Behold what wave-lights leap and run 
 Swift up the shale from out the sea ! 
 Inwove with silver, golden sun 
 Light lingers in the tawny mane 
 Of wild oats waving lazily 
 Far up the climbing poppy b plain, 
 Far up yon steeps of dusk and dawn 
 
 . Black night, white light, inwound as one. 
 But when, when fell that far, first dawn 
 With ways of gold to walk upon ? 
 
 I know not when, but only know 
 That darkness lay upon yon deep, 
 Lay cradled, as a child asleep, 
 And that God s spirit moved upon 
 These waters ere the burst of dawn 
 When first His high -lamps to and fro 
 Shone forth to guide which way to go. 
 
 4 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 VI 
 
 * I only know that Silence keeps 
 High court forever still hereon, 
 That Silence lords alone these deeps, 
 The silence of God s house and keeps 
 Inviolate yon water s face, 
 As if still His abiding place, 
 As ere that far, first burst of dawn 
 Ere fretful man set sail upon. 
 
 VII 
 
 1 The deeps," he mused, " are still as when 
 Dusk Silence kept her curtained bed 
 Low moaning for the birth of dawn, 
 When she should push that night aside, 
 As some dread nightmare most abhorred 
 When she might laughing look upon 
 God s first-born glory, holy Light, 
 As when fond Eve, exulting cried, 
 In mother-pain, with mother-pride, 
 
 * Behold the fair first-born of men, 
 Behold a man-child of the Lord ! 
 I gat a man-child of the Lord ! 
 
 VIII 
 
 ( * Aye, Silence seems some maid at prayer, 
 God s arm about her when she prays 
 And where she prays and everywhere, 
 Or storm-strewn days or sundown days 
 What ill to Silence can befall 
 Since Silence knows no ill at all ? 
 
 IX 
 
 1 Vast Silence seems some twilight sky 
 That leans as with her weight of stars 
 To rest, to rest, no more to roam, 
 But rest and rest eternally. 
 She loosens and lets down the bars, 
 She brings the kind-eyed cattle home, 
 She breathes the fragrant field of hay 
 And heaven is not far away. 
 
 5 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 X 
 
 The deeps of soul are still the deeps 
 Where stately silence ever keeps 
 High court with calm Nirvana, where 
 No shallows break the noisy shore 
 Or beat, with sad, incessant roar, 
 The fettered, fevered world of care 
 As noisesome vultures fret the air. 
 
 XI 
 
 The star-sown seas of thought are still, 
 
 As when God s plowmen scatter corn 
 
 Along the mellow grooves at morn, 
 
 In patient trust to wait His will. 
 
 The star-sown seas of thought are wide 
 
 But voiceless, noiseless, deep as night : 
 
 Disturb not these, the silent seas 
 
 Are sacred unto souls allied 
 
 As golden poppies unto bees. 
 
 Here, from the first, rude giants wrought, 
 
 Here delved, here scattered stars of thought 
 
 To grow, to bloom in years unborn, 
 
 As grows the gold-horned yellow corn." 
 
 XII 
 
 As one beholding some sweet nook 
 Of wild oats mantling yellow, pink, 
 So dewy new that never yet 
 E en timid rabbit s foot has set, 
 Will pass, then turn, return to look, 
 Then pass again to think and think, 
 Then try to not turn back again, 
 But try and try to quite forget 
 And sighing, try and try in vain ; 
 So you would turn and turn again 
 To her, her girlish woman s grace 
 Full-flowered yet fair baby s face. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Her wide, sweet "mouth, an opened rose, 
 Pushed out, reached out, as if to kiss ; 
 6 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 A mobile mouth in proud repose 
 This moment, then unlike to this 
 As storm to calm, as day to night, 
 As sullen darkness to swift light, 
 This new-made woman was, this sun 
 And surged sea inter wound in one. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Her proud and ample lips pushed out 
 As kissing sea- winds unaware ; 
 And then they arched in angry pout, 
 As if she cared yet did not care, 
 Then lightning lit her great, wide eyes, 
 As if black thunder walled the skies, 
 And all things took some touch of her, 
 The while she stood nor deigned to stir : 
 
 XV 
 
 Such eyes as compass all the skies, 
 That see all things yet naught have seen ; 
 Such eyes of love and sorrow s eyes 
 A martyr or a Magdalene. 
 How sad that all great souls are sad ! 
 How sad that gladness is not glad 
 That I^ove s sad sister is sweet Pain, 
 That only lips of beauty drain 
 Life s full-brimmed, glittering goblet dry, 
 And only drain the cup to die ! 
 
 XVI 
 
 The yellow of her poppy hair 
 Was as red gold is, when at rest ; 
 But when aroused was as the west 
 In sunset flame and then take care ! 
 Her tall, free-fashioned, supple form 
 Was now some sudden, tropic storm, 
 Was now some lily leaned at play. 
 What sea and sun, sunshine and shower 
 Full-flowered ere the noon of day, 
 Full June ere yet the noon of May, 
 
 7 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 This sun-born blossom of an hour 
 Precocious Californian flower ! 
 
 XVII 
 
 She answered not but looked away 
 
 With brown hand arched above her brow, 
 
 As peers a boatman from his prow, 
 
 To where white sea-doves wheeled at play. 
 
 She watched them long, then turned and sighed 
 
 And looking in his face she cried 
 
 While blushing prettily, Behold, 
 
 There is. no mateless dove, not one ! 
 
 And see ! not one unhappy dove. 
 
 Ten thousand circling in the sun, 
 
 Entangled as the mesh of fate, 
 
 Yet each remains as true as gold 
 
 And constant courts his pretty mate. 
 
 See here ! See there ! Below, above 
 
 I think yon dove would die for love." 
 
 XVIII 
 
 He watched the shallows spume the shore 
 Then far at sea his swift eyes swept 
 Where one tall, stately, snow-white sail 
 Its silent course majestic kept. 
 1 The shallows murmur and complain, 
 The shallows turn with wind and tide, 
 They fringe with froth and moil the main ; 
 They wail and will not be denied 
 Poor, puny babes, unsatisfied ! 
 
 XIX 
 
 " The light-house clings her beetling steep 
 Toward the rock-sown, ragged shore 
 Where Scylla and Charybdis roar 
 And dangers lurk and shallows keep 
 Mad tumult in the house of sleep. 
 The shallows moan and moan alway 
 The deeps have not one word to say. 
 8 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 XX 
 
 I reckon Silence as a grace 
 That was ere light had name or place ; 
 A saint enshrined ere hand was laid 
 To fashioning of man or maid. 
 For, storm or calm, or sun or shade, 
 Fair Silence never truth betrayed ; 
 For, ocean deep or dappled sky, 
 L,o ved Silence never told a lie." 
 
 / 
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 I 
 
 From out the surge of Sutro s steep, 
 Beyond the Gate a rock uprears 
 So sudden, savage, unawares 
 The very billows start and leap, 
 As frightened at its lifted face, 
 So shoreless, sealess, out of place ; 
 A sea-washed, surge-locked isle, as lone 
 As proud Napoleon on his throne, 
 His Saint Helena throne, where still s 
 The dazed world in dumb wonder turns 
 To his high- throned, imperious will 
 And incense burns and ever burns. 
 Here huge sea-lions climb and cling, 
 Despite of surge and seethe and shock, 
 The topmost Iftnit of the rock, 
 And one is named Napoleon, king. 
 Behold him lord the land, the sea, 
 In stern, unquestioned majesty ! 
 
 II 
 
 She saw, she raised her drooping head 
 With eager face and cheering said : 
 " What lusty, upheaved, bull-built, neck ! 
 What lungs to lift above the roar ! 
 What captain on his quarter deck 
 To mock the sea and scorn the shore 1 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 I like that gash across his breast, 
 I like his ardent, lover s zest ! " 
 
 III 
 
 The huge sea-beast uprose, uprose, 
 
 As if he now must topple down. 
 
 He reached his black and bearded nose 
 
 Above his harem, gray, black, brown, 
 
 Sleek, shining, wet, or steaming dry, 
 
 And mouthed and mouthed against the sky. 
 
 IV 
 
 What eloquence, what hot love pain ! 
 What land but this, what love but his ? 
 What isle of bliss but this and this 
 To roar and love and roar again ? 
 What land, what love but this his own, 
 Loud roaring from his slippery throne ! 
 
 V 
 
 At last her heart was moved and she 
 
 Raised her great eyes to his black beard, 
 
 Then sudden turned as if she feared 
 
 And threw her headlong in the sea, 
 
 Another Sappho, all for love, 
 
 While Phaon towered still above. 
 
 An instant only ; yet once more 
 
 That upheaved head, that great bull neck, \ 
 
 That sea-born, bossed, bull- throated roar 
 
 A poise, a plunge, a flash, a fleck, 
 
 And far down, caverned in the deep, 
 
 Where sea-green curtains swing and sweep 
 
 And vari-colored carpets creep, 
 
 Soft emerald or amethyst 
 
 Two lion lovers kept sweet tryst. 
 
 VI 
 
 She looked, looked long, then smiled, then sighed 
 A proud, pure soul unsatisfied. 
 
 10 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 She threw her backward, arms wide out, 
 
 And up the poppy spangled steep, 
 
 O er grass set cushions sown in gold, 
 
 As she would sleep yet would not sleep. 
 
 She reached her wide hands fast about 
 
 And grasses, gold and manifold, 
 
 Of lowly blossoms, pink and blue, 
 
 vShe gathered in and laughing threw, 
 
 With bare-armed, heedless, happy grace 
 
 Threw fragrant handfuls in his face 
 
 And then as if to sleep she lay, 
 
 A babe nursed at the breast of May 
 
 I/ay back with blue eyes to the skies 
 
 And clouds of wondrous butterflies : 
 
 Such Mariposa blooms in air, 
 
 Such bloomy, golden poppy hair ! 
 
 And which were hers or poppy s gold 
 
 Without your touch none could have told ; 
 
 And which were butterflies or bloom, 
 
 To guess, there was not guessing room, 
 
 The while, in quest of sweets or rest 
 
 They fanned her face, they kissed her breast. 
 
 VII 
 
 That face like to a lifted song, 
 A face of sea-shell tint, with tide 
 Of springtime flowing fast and strong 
 And fearless in its maiden pride 
 A red rose ambushed in such hair 
 Of heedless, wind-kissed, poppy gold, 
 Blown here, blown there, blown anywhere, 
 Soft-lifting, falling fold on fold, 
 As made gold poppies where she sat 
 Turn envious, turn green thereat : 
 A wise face yet a wilful face, 
 A face that would not be denied 
 No more than gipsy winds that race 
 The sea bank in their saucy pride, 
 A face that knew, and only knew, 
 The natural, the human, true, 
 ii 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 VIII 
 
 Those two round mounds of Nineveh, 
 
 What treasures of the past they knew ! 
 
 But these two round mounds here today 
 
 Hold treasures richer far than they, 
 
 And prophesies more truly true. 
 
 Old Nineveh s twin mounds are dust ; 
 
 They only know the ghostly past ; 
 
 But these two new mounds hold in trust 
 
 The awful future, hold the vast 
 
 And unborn empires, land or sea, 
 
 Henceforth, for all eternity. 
 
 I/et pass dead pasts ; far wiser turn 
 
 And delve the future ; love and learn. 
 
 IX 
 
 It seems she dreamed. She slept, we know, 
 
 A happy, quiet little space, 
 
 Then thrust a right limb far below 
 
 And half way turned aside her face, 
 
 And then she threw her arms wide out 
 
 In sleep and so reached blind about, 
 
 As if for something she might find 
 
 From fortune-telling, gipsy wind. 
 
 X 
 
 The soft, warm winds, from far away 
 Were weary and they crept so near, 
 They lay against her willing ear 
 As if they had so much to say, 
 And she, she seemed so glad to near 
 The while she loving, sleeping lay 
 And dreamed of love nor dreamed of doubt, 
 But laughing, thrust her form far out 
 And down the fragrant poppy steep 
 In playful, restless, happy sleep. 
 She sighed, she heaved her hilly breast, 
 As one who would but could not rest. 
 12 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 XI 
 
 How natural, how free, how fair 
 The while the happy winds on wing, 
 As larger butterflies, laid bare 
 A rippled, braided rim of white 
 And outstretched ankles exquisite 
 What ankles, legs, what everything 
 That makes great woman great and good 
 That makes for noblest motherhood ! 
 
 XII 
 
 Such legs as mount the steeps of morn, 
 Such legs as love, not lust, may share, 
 Such legs as God has shaped to bear 
 The weight of ages, worlds unborn; 
 Such legs as Lesbian shrines revealed 
 When comely, longing mothers kneeled ; 
 Such legs as Milo dared to hew 
 And all the clean world longed to view ; 
 Such legs as Millais loved to draw 
 When painting tall, Greek girls at play ; 
 Such legs as blind old Homer saw, 
 As Marlowe knew but yesterday 
 When Helen climbed once more for him 
 Her cloud-topt towers of Illium. 
 
 CANTO III. 
 
 I 
 
 Bright sea-gulls glistened in the sun 
 Ten thousand if a single one 
 And every sea-dove knew its mate. 
 Far, far at sea, the Farallones 
 Sent up a million plaintive moans 
 From sea-beasts moaning love or hate. 
 The sun sank weary, flushed and worn, 
 The warm sea-winds sank tattered, torn, 
 The sun and sea lay welded, wed ; 
 The day lay couched upon the deep 
 
 13 
 
AS IT WAS IN THK BEGINNING 
 
 Half closed, as eyes that close in sleep, 
 
 Half closed, as some good book just read. 
 
 The sea was an opal sea 
 
 Inlaid in scintillating light, 
 
 Yet close about and left and right 
 
 The sea lay banked and bossed in night 
 
 As black as ever night may be. 
 
 The sundown sea all sudden then 
 
 L,ay argent, pallid, white as death, 
 
 As when some great thing dies, as when 
 
 A god gasps in one final breath 
 
 And heaves full length his somber bed. 
 
 The sundown sea now shone, mobile, 
 
 Translucent, flaming, molten steel, 
 
 Red, green, then tenfold more than red, 
 
 And then of every hue, a hint 
 
 Of doubloons spilling from the mint, 
 
 Alternate, changing, manifold, 
 
 Yet melting, minting all to gold. 
 
 II 
 Far mountain peaks flashed flecks of gold 
 
 . And dashed with dappled flecks the skies. 
 
 11 Behold," said he, " the fleecy fold 
 Now slowly, surely, homeward hies. 
 Such cobalt blue, such sheep of gold, 
 Such gold as hath not place nor name 
 In elsewhere land, because no seer 
 Hath seen, or daring prophet told 
 Where stood the loom in past ral peace 
 That wove the fair, first golden fleece. 
 Behold, what gold-flecked flocks of light. 
 Ten million moving sheep of gold, 
 Wee lambs of gold that nudge their dams, 
 Great horned, wrinkled, heady rams. 
 
 Ill 
 
 * Slow-shepherded, the golden sheep, 
 With bent horns lowered to the deep, 
 Come home ; the hollows of the sea 
 
 14 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Receive and house them lovingly. 
 The little lambs of light come home 
 And house them in the argent foam, 
 The while He counts them every one, 
 And shuts the Gate, for day is done. 
 
 IV 
 
 * Aye, day is done, the dying sun 
 Sinks wounded unto death tonight ; 
 A great, hurt swan, he sinks to rest, 
 His wings all crimson, blood his breast ! 
 With wide, low wings, reached left and right 
 He sings, and night and swan are one. 
 What crimson breast, what crimson wings 
 The while he dies and dying sings ! 
 Yet safe is housed the happy fold, 
 The golden sheep, the fleece of gold 
 That lured the dauntless Argonaut, 
 The fleece that daring Jason sought. 
 Some far-off day the golden sheep 
 May rise from resting in the deep. 
 So let us joy to know the lambs 
 Of gold are resting with their dams 
 Where lord and lead the heady rams." 
 
 V 
 
 She waking sighed, soft murmuring 
 As waters from some wood-walled spring : 
 1 Oh happy, huge, horn-headed rams 
 To guide and lead the golden fleece, 
 To ward the fold of fat increase 
 Fast mated to your golden dams ! 
 What bridal gold, what golden bride, 
 What golden twin lambs, side and side ! 
 Oh happy, happy nudging lambs ! 
 Thrice happy, happy golden dams !" 
 
 VI 
 
 His face was still against the west ; 
 For still a flash of gold was there 
 That would not or that could not rest 
 
 15 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 But seemed some night bird of the air. 
 At last, with half averted head 
 And heedlessly, as dreaming said : 
 What banker gathers yonder gold 
 That sinks, sea-washed, beyond the deeps ? 
 Lie there no sands to house and hold 
 This sunset gold in countless heaps ? 
 There sure must be some far, fierce land, 
 Some Guinea shore, some Indus strand, 
 Some dreamy, palm-set, pathless spot 
 Where all this sunset gold is stored, 
 As misers gather hoard on hoard. 
 There sure must be beyond this sea 
 Some Argo s gold, some argosy, 
 Some golden fleece, long since forgot, 
 To wait the coming Argonaut. 
 
 VII 
 
 She sprang up sudden, savagely, 
 And flushed and paled, looked far away, 
 Grinding gold poppies with her heel. 
 She could not say, she could but feel. 
 She nothing said, because that they 
 Who really feel can rarely say. 
 And then she looked up, forth and far, 
 And pointed to the pale North Star, 
 The while her color went and came 
 From pink to white, from frost to flame. 
 
 VIII 
 
 For this, the one forbidden theme, 
 The one hard, dread, unquiet dream 
 That he should gp, lead forth and far 
 Below the tripple Arctic star 
 As he had planned ; and now to speak, 
 To hint she heard with pallid cheek. 
 Hard had she tried, had fain forgot 
 How strong, new men were trending far 
 Toward this still elusive star, 
 And he their Jason Argonaut ! 
 16 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 CANTO IV. 
 
 t 
 
 I 
 
 How passing fair, how wondrous fair 
 This daughter of the yellow sun ! 
 Her sunlit length and strength of hair 
 Seemed sun and gold inwound as one. 
 How strangely silent, unaware, 
 Unconscious quite of strength or grace 
 Or peril of her beauteous face, 
 She stood, the first-born of a race, 
 A, proud, new race, scarce yet begun. 
 How tall she stood, how debonair, 
 To comb her mighty Titian hair ! 
 
 II 
 
 So beautiful she was, as one 
 From out some priceless picture-book, 
 You could but love, you had no choice 
 But love and turn again to look. 
 How young she was, and yet how old ! 
 Red orange ripened in the sun 
 Where never hand had reached as yet. 
 The calm strength of her lifted face, 
 The low notes of her tuneful voice 
 Were mint-marks of that wondrous race 
 But scarcely born nor known as yet 
 Beyond yon yellow hills that fret 
 Warm sea-winds with their waving pine ; 
 A princess of that royal line 
 Of kings who came and silent passed, 
 Yet, passing, set bold, royal hand 
 And mighty signet on the land, 
 And set it there to last and last, 
 As if in bronzen copper cast. 
 
 III. 
 
 He, too, was born of giant men, 
 Of men who knew not tears or fears, 
 Of men full-sexed, yet men who knew 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Not sex till perfect manhood, when 
 Men gat great men who dared to do ; 
 Gat men of heart who dwelt apart, 
 As Adam dwelt, when giants grew 
 And men as gods drew ample breath 
 Tall Adams with their thousand years, 
 Ere drunkenness of sex had done 
 The silly world to willing death ; 
 Of royal parentage, of true 
 Nobility, of those who knew 
 The light, who chased the yellow sun 
 From sea to sea triumphantly, 
 And westward fought and westward won, 
 As never daring man had done. 
 
 IV 
 
 They housed with God upon the height, 
 Companioned with the peak, the pine, 
 They led the red lit firing line. 
 Walled round by room and room and room, 
 They read God s open book at night, 
 And drank His star-distilled perfume. 
 By day they dared their trackless west 
 And chased the battling sun to rest. 
 
 V 
 
 Such sad, mad marches to the sea, 
 
 Such silent sacrifice, such trust ! 
 
 Such months of battle, misery, 
 
 Such mountains heaped with heroes dust ! 
 
 Yet what stout thews the peerless few 
 
 Who won the sea at last, who knew 
 
 The cleansing fire and laid hold 
 
 To hammer out God s house of gold ! 
 
 VI 
 
 Their cities zone the sea of seas, 
 Their white tents top the mountain s crest. 
 The coward ? He trenched not with these. 
 The weakling ? He was laid to rest. 
 
 18 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Each man stood forth a man, such man 
 
 As God wrought not since time began, 
 
 Each man a hero, lion each. 
 
 Behold what length of limb, what length 
 
 Of life, of love, what daring reach 
 
 To deep-hived honeycomb ! What strength 
 
 This out-door Adam ! He is clean, 
 
 As virile nature s vernal green ; 
 
 He stands so tall, so clean, he hears 
 
 The morning music of the spheres. 
 
 VII 
 
 He loved her, feared her, far apart, 
 
 He kept his ways and dreamed his dreams ; 
 
 He sang strange songs, he tuned his heart 
 
 To music of the pines that preach 
 
 Such sermons on such holy themes 
 
 As only he who climbs can reach 
 
 Or comprehend, heart laid to heart ; 
 
 For art is heart, as heart is art. 
 
 VIII 
 
 He would not selfish pluck one rose 
 To wear upon his breast a day 
 And let its perfume pass away 
 With any wind that comes or goes, 
 Why, he might walk God s garden through 
 Nor touch a bud nor fright a bird. 
 The music of the spheres he heard, 
 The harmony he breathed, he knew. 
 He never marred God s harmony 
 With one harsh thought. The*favoredjfew 
 Who cared to live above the sod 
 And lift glad faces up to God 
 He knew loved all as well as he, 
 Had equal rights to rose or tree. 
 
 IX 
 
 And he must spare all to the day 
 Their willing feet should pass the way 
 God in his garden walked at eve. 
 
 19 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 And as for weaklings who by turn 
 Would jest or jeer, he could but grieve, 
 And pity all and silent say, 
 Let us lead forth, make fair the way, 
 By time and stress they, too, will learn 
 Which way to walk, to love, to turn." 
 
 X 
 
 The long, lean Polar bear uprose, 
 Outreached a claw and bare, black^sole 
 Above his battlement of snows 
 And showed his yellow teeth in vain, 
 Then round about his bleak North Pole 
 He dragged and clanked his icy chain. 
 And he who dared not pluck a rose, 
 As if in chorus with his pine, 
 Must up and lead the battle line, 
 Dare pluck the grizzled beard of Death, 
 Dare laugh at Death with joyous breath. 
 
 XI 
 
 No idle talk, no idle tears, 
 No airy sighs, no tales to tell ; 
 He knew God is, that all is well, 
 That faith is death to idle fears ; 
 That death is but a name, a date, 
 A milestone by the stormy road, 
 Where you may lay aside your load 
 And bow your face and rest and wait. 
 
 XII 
 
 Huge ships, black-bellied, lay below, 
 Broad, yellow flags from silken Chind, 
 Round, blood-red banners of Nippon, 
 I/ike to their Orient sun at dawn 
 Brave battle-ships as white as snow, 
 With bannered stars tossed to thejwind, 
 Warm as a kiss when love is kind. 
 20 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 \ 
 
 XIII 
 
 Twas night, such soft, sweet, maiden night 
 As only Californians know, 
 When nightingales are forth, and when 
 The Bay lies bathed in mellow light 
 Blown far from Honolulu s seas 
 From sundown seas in afterglow, 
 When Song sits at the feet of men 
 And pipes, low-voiced as mated dove, 
 For love to measure step with love. 
 
 XIV 
 
 And yet, for all the perfumed seas, 
 The peace, the silent harmonies, 
 The two stood mute, estranged before 
 Her high-built, stately, opened door 
 High up the terraced, plunging hill 
 As hushed as death, as white and still. 
 
 XV 
 
 The moon, amid her yellow fleet, 
 
 With full, white sail, moved on and on, 
 
 And drew, as loving hearts are drawn, 
 
 All seas of earth fast following, 
 
 As slow she sailed her sapphire seas. 
 
 Then as if pausing, pitying, 
 
 She poured down at their very feet 
 
 Broad silver ways to walk upon 
 
 Which way they would, or east or west, 
 
 Which way they would, or worst or best. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Her voice was low, low leaned her head, 
 Her two white hands the instant pressed 
 As if to hush her aching breast, 
 As if to bind her breaking heart 
 To silent bear its bitter part, 
 The while she choking, sobbing, said : 
 4 Then here, for all our poppy days, 
 Here, here, the parting of the ways ? 
 21 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 XVII 
 
 " Aye, so you will it. Here divide 
 The ways, forever and a day. 
 You, you you women lead the way, 
 You lead where loving men have died, 
 You women lead to hollow lands, 
 Of bloodless hearts and nerveless hands. 
 I will not rival, look on such, 
 Save but with pity and disgust, 
 Because, because I loved so much 
 Because, because I love you still. 
 You women lead because you will, 
 Men follow you because they must ; 
 Because they love as lovers when 
 Sierra States were born of men ; 
 When giants knew the land and came 
 With nerves of steel and souls of flame 
 Could you not wait within your Gate, 
 As their loves dared to wait and wait ? 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Her head sank lower still ; her hair, 
 Her heavy hair, great bars of gold, 
 Hung loosened, heedless, fold on fold, 
 As if she knew not, could not care ; 
 She tried to speak but nothing said ; 
 She could but press her aching heart, 
 Step back a pace and shudder, start, 
 The while she slowly moved her head, 
 As if to say, but nothing said. 
 
 XIX 
 
 His tongue was sudden loose with rage, 
 He strode before her, forth and back, 
 A lion strident in his cage, 
 Hard bound within his narrow track. 
 1 My father, yours, each Argonaut 
 An Alexander, to this sea 
 Came forth and conquered mightily. 
 An hundred thousand Didoes sat 
 22 
 
( I 
 
 AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Atlantic s sea-bank nor forgot, 
 But patient sat as Dido when 
 She waved her Eneas back again. 
 Yet you, you cannot, will not wait 
 My coming back through yonder Gate ! 
 
 XX 
 
 Hear me ! All Europe, rind to core 
 Is rotting, crumbling, base to top. 
 Withhold the gold and silver prop 
 Our dauntless fathers hewed of yore 
 From yonder seamed Sierra s core 
 And such a toppling you may hear 
 As never fell on mortal ear. 
 
 XXI 
 
 What s London town but sorrow s town 
 And sins, such as I dare not name ? 
 Such thousands creeping up and down 
 Its dirty streets in draggled shame ! 
 What s London but a market pen 
 Its hundred thousand hungry men ? 
 What s London but a town of stone, 
 Its thousand thousand women prone ? 
 
 XXII 
 
 What s Paris but a painted screen, 
 
 A gaudy gauze that scant conceals 
 
 The sensuous nakexlness between 
 
 The folds that but the more reveals ? 
 
 What s Paris but a circus, fair, 
 
 To tempt this west world s open purse 
 
 With tawdry trinkets, toys bizarre ? 
 
 Ah, would that she were nothing worse ! 
 
 What s Paris but a piteous mart 
 
 For west world mothers crazed to trade 
 
 Some silly, novel-reading maid 
 
 23 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 For thread-bare, out-at-elbow rank 
 To outworn, weak degenerate, 
 Whose bank is but the faro bank ; 
 Whose grave, his only real estate ; 
 Whose boast, whose only stock in trade 
 A duel and a ruined maid. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 "What s Berlin, Dresden, sorry Rome, 
 But traps that take you unaware ? 
 Behold those paintings, right at home, 
 Where nature paints with patient care 
 Such splendid pictures, sea and shore, 
 As all the world should bow before : 
 Such pictures hanging to the skies 
 Against the walls of Paradise, 
 From base to bastion, as should wake 
 Piave s painter from the dust: 
 Such walls of color crowned in snow, 
 Such steeps, such deeps, profoundly vast, 
 As old-time Art had died to know, 
 And knowing, died content, as he 
 Who looked from Nimo s steep to see, 
 Just once, the Promised Land, and passed ! 
 And yet, for all yon scene, this sea, 
 You will not bide, Penelope ? 
 
 XXIV 
 
 * Then go, since you so will it, go ! 
 My way lies yonder, forth and far 
 Beneath yon gleaming northmost star, 
 O er silent lands of trackless snow. 
 L,o, there leads duty, hope, as when 
 
 V 
 
 This westmost world demanded men ; 
 Such men as led the firing line 
 When blood ran free as festal wine ; 
 Such men as when, fast side by side, 
 Our fathers fought and fighting died. 
 
 24 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 XXV 
 
 But go Good bye ! Go see again 
 
 T!le noisy circus, since you must ; 
 
 Its painted women that disgust, 
 
 Its nauseating monkey men ; 
 
 But mark you, Miriam, the moth 
 
 That loves that luring, passing light 
 
 Nay, hear ! I am not wilful, wroth ; 
 
 I love with such exceeding might, 
 
 My Miriam, my all, my life, 
 
 I would not, could not take to wife 
 
 My lily tainted by the touch, 
 
 The breath, the willing sight of such. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Shall I see leprous apes lean o er 
 My rose, touch, breathe it if they may 
 With breath that is a very stench, 
 The while they bow and bend before, 
 Familiar, as with some weak wench, 
 And smirk in double-meaning French ? 
 
 XXVII 
 
 You shrink back angered ? Well, adieu ! 
 What, not a hand ? What, not a touch ? 
 My crime is that I love too much, 
 My crime is that I love too true, 
 Love you, love you, not part of you 
 Yea, how much less the rose that droops 
 In fevered halls where folly stoops ! 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Yon splendid, tripple, midnight star 
 Is mine, I follow fast and sure, 
 Because it guides so far, so far 
 From fevered follies that allure 
 Your soul, your splendid, spotless soul, 
 To wreck where syren billows roll 
 Good night ! What, turn aside your face 
 That I might never see again 
 
 25 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Its lifted glpry and proud grace, c 
 As some brave beacon light to men ? 
 Ha, ha ! Let s laugh lest one may weep 
 How steep your hill seems, steeps how steep ! 
 How deep down seems the silent town, 
 How lonej how dark, how distant down ! 
 The moon, too, turns her face, her light, 
 As you have turned your face tonight, 
 As you have turned your face from me, 
 My heartless, lost Penelope." 
 
 XXIX 
 
 She heard and yet she did not hear ; 
 All seemed as some mad, midnight dream, 
 A far sea sound was in her ear ; 
 Her eyes seemed hurt as by a beam 
 Of light that fell too bright to last 
 And left her blinded as it passed. 
 
 XXX 
 
 Then sudden .up she tossed her head. 
 She strode her porch and striding said : 
 Penelope ! To wait and weave ! 
 Penelope ! To wait and wait 
 As waits a dog within his gate, 
 To weave and unweave, grieve and grieve, 
 As some weak harem favorite 
 Tight fenced from love and life and light ! 
 
 XXXI 
 
 Why, I should not have sat one day 
 To that dull thud and thudding loom, 
 With cowards crowding fast for room 
 To say what brave men dared not say ! 
 Why, I had snatched down from the wall 
 His second sword that sad first day 
 And set its edge to end it all ! 
 Had hewn that loom to splinters, yea, 
 Had slashed the warp, enmeshed the woof, 
 And called that dog and put to proof 
 Each silly suitor hounding me 
 Then hoisted sail and bent to sea ! " 
 26 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 XXXII 
 
 * Penelope ! Penelope ! 
 Of all fool tales in historic 
 I think this thing the foolishest ! 
 Why, I, the favored of that land, 
 Had such fools come to seek my hand, 
 Had ranged in line the sexless list 
 And frankly answered with my fist ! 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 She instant paused. Each helpless hand 
 Fell down, fell heavy down as lead ; 
 She tried but could not understand. 
 At last she raised once more her head, 
 Set firm her lips, stepped forth a pace, 
 I/ooked long his far star in the face, 
 Stood stately, still, as fixed as fate, 
 Till all the east flushed sudden red. 
 Then as she turned within she said, 
 Said sad as night, yet glad as day, 
 Said firm, yet soft as love could say, 
 With one last word across the gate : 
 11 1 cannot and I will not wait." 
 
 CANTO V. 
 
 I 
 
 His tripple star led on and on, 
 L,ed up blue-bastioned Chilkoot c pass 
 To clouds, through clouds, above white clouds 
 That droop with snows like beaded strouds 
 Above a world of gleaming glass, 
 Where loomed such city of the skies 
 As only prophets look upon, 
 As only loving poets see, 
 With prophet ken of mystery. 
 
 II 
 
 What lone, white silence, left or right, 
 What whiteness, something more than white, 
 Such steel blue whiteness, van or rear 
 
 27 
 
AS IT WAS IX THE BEGIXNIXG 
 
 Such aVM^ as you could but hear 
 Above the sparkled, frosted rime, 
 As if the steely stars kept time. 
 
 Ill 
 
 What temples, towers, tombs of white, 
 White tombs, white tombstones, left and right, 
 That pushed the passing night aside 
 To ward where fallen stars had died 
 To ward white tombs where dead stars lay 
 White tombs more white, more bright than day ; 
 White tombs high heaped white tombs upon, 
 White Ossa piled on Pelion. 
 
 IV 
 
 Pale, steel stars flashed, rose, fell again, 
 Then leaning sang a silent rune 
 As if all heaven was in tune 
 And earth had never heard of pain. 
 They pxassed, returned, paled, flashed again, 
 Then paused, leaned low, as pitying, 
 And leaning so began to sing, 
 The while they rocked, with mother care, 
 The new moon s silver rocking-chair. 
 
 V 
 
 Night here, mid-year, is as a span, 
 Thor came, as comes a king of war, 
 Came only as a hero can ; 
 Thor stormed the battlements and Thor, 
 Far leaping, climbing high thereon, 
 Threw battle hammer forth and back 
 Until the wall blazed in his track 
 With sparks and it was sudden dawn 
 Dawn sudden sparkled as a gem, 
 A jeweled, frost-set diadem 
 Of diamond, ruby, radium. 
 
 VI 
 
 Two tallest, ice-tipt peaks took flame, 
 Took yellow flame, then flush, then pink, 
 
 28 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Then, ere you yet had time to think, 
 
 Took hues that never yet had name. 
 
 Then turret, minaret and tower, 
 
 As if to mark some mystic hour 
 
 Or ancient lost Masonic sign, 
 
 Took on a darkness like to night. 
 
 Deep night below that yellow light 
 
 That erstwhile seemed some snow-white tomb, 
 
 Then all was set in gray and gloom, 
 
 As some dim, lighted, storied shrine 
 
 As if the stars forgot to stay 
 
 At court when came the kingly day. 
 
 s 
 
 VII 
 
 And now the high- built shafts of brass, 
 Gate posts that guard the tomb-set pass 
 Put off their crowns, rich robes and all 
 Their sudden, splendid light let fall ; 
 And tomb and minaret and tower 
 Again gleamed as that midnight hour, 
 While day, as scorning still to wait, 
 Dashed fiercely through the ice-locked gate 
 That guards the arctic, outer hem 
 Of white, high-built Jerusalem. 
 
 VIII 
 
 To see, to guess the great white throne. 
 Behold Alaska s ice-built steeps 
 Where everlasting silence keeps 
 And white death lives, and lords alone : 
 Go see God s river born full grown 
 The gold of this stream it is good, 
 Here grows the Ark s white gopher wood 
 A wide, white land, unnamed, unknown, 
 A land of mystery and moan. 
 
 IX 
 
 Tall, trim, slim gopher trees incline, 
 A leaning, laden, helpless copse, 
 And moan and creak and intertwine 
 
 29 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Their laden, twisted, tossing tops. 
 The melancholy moose looks down 
 In overcoat of mousy brown, 
 While far against the gleaming blue, 
 High up a rock-topt ridge of snow 
 Where scarce a dream would care to go 
 Climb countless monk-clad caribou 
 In silent line till lost to view. 
 
 X 
 
 The rent ice surges, grinds and roars, 
 Then gorges, backs and climbs the shore, 
 Then breaks with sudden rage and roar 
 And plunging leaps huge toppled stones 
 Swift down the seething, surging stream 
 Mad hurdles of some monstrous dream. 
 
 XI 
 
 To see this river born full grown, 
 To see him burst the womb of earth 
 And leap, a giant at his birth, 
 Through shoreless whiteness with such shout, 
 Is as to know, no longer doubt, 
 Is as to know the great Unknown, 
 Aye, bow before the great white throne. 
 
 XII 
 
 White-hooded nuns, in gleaming white, 
 Kneel o er his cradle, left and right, 
 On ice-heaved summits where no thing 
 Has yet set foot or flashed a wing ; 
 On ice-built summits where the white 
 Wide world is but a sea of white 
 White kneeling nuns that kneel and feed 
 The new-born ice god in his greed 
 And feed, forever feed, man s soul. 
 The full grown river bounds right on 
 From out his birthplace tow rd the Pole ; 
 He knows no limit, no control, 
 
 30 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 He scarce is here till he is gone, 
 This sudden, mad ice-born Yukon. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Beyond white plunging Chilkoot Pass, 
 That trackless Pass of stately tombs, 
 Of midday glories, midnight glooms, 
 Of morn s great gate posts, girt in brass 
 This courtier, born to nature s court, 
 This comrade of white peaks still kept 
 Companion with his stars and leapt 
 And laughed, the gliding sea of glass 
 Beneath his feet in merry sport. 
 Then mute red men, the quick canoe 
 Then o er the ice god s breast and on, 
 Till gleaming snows, and steeps were gone, 
 Till wide, deep waters, swirling blue, 
 Received the sudden, swift canoe, 
 That leapt and laughed and laughing flew. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Then tall, lean trees, girth scarce a span, 
 With moss-set, moss-hung banks of mold, 
 Most rich in hue, more gorgeous than 
 Silk carpetings of Turkistan : 
 Deep, yellow mosses, rich as gold, 
 More gorgeous than the eye of man 
 Hath seen save in this wonderland 
 Then flashing, tumbling, headlong waves 
 Below white, ice-heaved, ice-built shores d 
 The river swept a seam of white, 
 Where basalt bluffs made day like night, 
 And then they heard no sound, the oars 
 Were idle, still, as grassy graves. 
 And then the mad, tremendous moon 
 Spilt silver seas to plunge upon, 
 Possessed the land, a sea of white ; 
 That white moon rivalled the red dawn 
 And slew the very name of night 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 And walked the grave of afternoon 
 That vast, vehement, stark mad moon ! 
 
 XV 
 
 Then wide, still waters, sedgy shore, 
 A lank, brown wolf, a hungry howl, 
 A lean and hungry midday moon : \ 
 And then again the red men s oar \ 
 A wide-winged, mute, white Arctic owl, 
 A black, red-crested, screeching loon 
 That knew not night from middle noon, 
 Nor gold-robed sun from lean, lank moon 
 That crazy, black, red-crested loon. e 
 
 XVI 
 
 Swift narrows now, and now and then 
 A broken boat with drowning men ; 
 Then wide, still marshes, dank as death, 
 Where conked the wild goose long and loud 
 With unabated, angry breath. 
 Black swallows twittered in a cloud 
 Above the broad mosquito marsh, 
 The wild goose conked, forlorn and harsh ; 
 Conked, fluttered, flew in warlike mood 
 Above his startled myriad brood. 
 The while the melancholy moose, 
 As mated to the conking goose, 
 Sank to his eyes, his great, sad eyes, 
 And watched boats pass in hushedrsurprise 
 Watched broken barge and drowning men 
 Drift, swirl and plunge the gorge again. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Again that great white Arctic owl, 
 As pitying, it perched the bank 
 Where swirled a barge and swirling sank 
 A drowned man swirling with white face 
 Low lifting from the swift whirlpool. 
 That distant, doleful, hilltop howl 
 That screaming, crimson-crested fool ! 
 
 32 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 v 
 
 And oh, that ghastly, death s head moon 
 
 That hung the cobalt tent of blue 
 
 And looked straight down to look you through - 
 
 That dead man swirling in his place, 
 
 The owl, the wolf, the human loon, 
 
 And oh, that death s head, hideous moon ! 
 
 XVIII 
 
 And this the* Yukon, night by night, 
 
 The yellow Yukon, day by day ; 
 
 A land of death, vast, voiceless, white, 
 
 A graveyard locked in icy clay, 
 
 A graveyard to the Judgment Day. 
 
 XIX 
 
 Again the swirling pool was gone, 
 
 Again the boat swept on, swept on, 
 
 That moon was as a thousand moons ! 
 
 Two dead men swirled, one swept, one sank 
 
 Two wolves, two owls, two yelling loons, 
 
 Three lank, black wolves along the bank 
 
 That watched the drowned men swirl or sink, 
 
 Three screeching loons along the brink 
 
 That moon disputing with the dawn 
 
 That dared the yellow, mad Yukon ! 
 
 XX 
 
 And why so like some lorn graveyard 
 Where only owls and loons may say 
 And life goes by the other way ? 
 Aye, why so hideous and so hard, 
 So deathly hard to look upon ? 
 Because this cold, white, wild Yukon, 
 Or gold-sown banks or sea-white waves, 
 Is but one land, one sea of graves ! 
 
 XXI 
 
 Behold where bones hang either bank ! 
 Great tusks of beasts before the flood 
 That floated here and floating sank 
 Mid ice-locked walls and moss-hung steep ! 
 
 33 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Lo, this is death-land ! Heap on heap, 
 The Yukon cleaves a graveyard strown 
 Three thousand miles of tusk and bone, 
 All strown and sown just as they lay 
 That time the fearful deluge passed, 
 Safe locked in ices to the last, 
 Safe locked, as records laid away, 
 To wait the final Judgement Day. 
 
 XXII 
 
 He landed, pierced the icy earth, 
 He burned it to the very bone 
 Burned and laid bare the deep bedstone 
 Placed at the building, at the birth 
 Of morn, and here, there, everywhere, 
 Such bones of bison, mastodon ! 
 Such tusky monsters without name ! 
 Great ice-bound bones with flesh scarce gone ; 
 So fresh the wild dogs nightly came 
 To fight about and feast upon. 
 And gold above the bedrock lay 
 So bounteous below the bones 
 Men barely need to turn the stones 
 To fill their skins within the day, 
 With rich red gold and go their way. 
 
 XXIII 
 " The gold of that place it is good." 
 
 L,o, here God laid the Paradise ! 
 
 I/), here each witness of the flood, 
 
 Tight jailed in ice eternal lies 
 
 To wait the bailiff s chorus call : 
 1 * Come into court, come one, come all ! 
 
 But why so cold, so deathly cold 
 
 The battered beasts, the scattered gold, 
 
 The pleasant trees of Paradise, 
 
 Deep locked in everlasting ice ? 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Hear, hear the red man s simple tale : 
 He says that once, o er hill and vale, 
 
 34 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Ripe fruits hung ready all the year ; 
 That man knew neither frost or fear, 
 That bison wallowed to the eyes 
 In grass, that palm trees touched the skies 
 Where birds made music all day long. 
 That then a great chief shaped a spear, 
 Bone-tipt and sharp and long and strong, 
 And also made a moon-shaped bow ; 
 That then, exultant, crazed, he slew 
 Ten bison, ten great bear and, too, 
 A harmless, long-limbed, shambling moose ; 
 That then the smell of blood let loose 
 The passions of all men and all 
 Uprose and slew, or great or small 
 Uprose and slew till hot midday, 
 All four-foot creatures in their way ; 
 Then proud, exulting, every one 
 Shook his red spear-point at the sun. 
 
 XXV 
 
 Then God said, through a mist of tears, 
 What would ye, men made red with blood ? 
 And then they shook their bone-tipt spears 
 And cried, " The sun it is not good ! 
 Too hot the sun, too long the day ; 
 Break off and throw the end away ! 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Then God, most angered instantly, 
 Drew down the day from out the sky 
 And brake the day across his knee 
 And hurled the fragments hot and high 
 And far down till they fell upon 
 The waters of the bronzed Yukon, 
 Nor spared the red men one dim ray 
 Of light to lead them on their way. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 And then the red men filled the lands 
 With wailing for just one faint ray 
 35 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Of light to guide them home, that they 
 
 Might wash once more their blood-red hands. 
 
 But God said, Yonder, far away 
 
 Down yon Yukon, your broken day ! 
 
 Go gather it from out the night ! 
 
 That fitful, fearful Northern Light, 
 
 Is all that ye shall ever know 
 
 To guide which way you will to go. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Ye shall not see my face again, 
 But ye shall see cold death instead, 
 This land hath sinned, this land is dead ; 
 Ye drenched your beauteous land in blood, 
 And now behold the wild, white rain 
 Shall fall until a drowning flood 
 Shall fill all things above, below, 
 And wash away the smell of blood 
 And weave a piteous shroud of snow, 
 In graveyard silence, ever so ! " 
 
 XXIX 
 
 The red men say that then the rain 
 Drowned all the fires of the world, 
 Then drowned the fires of the moon ; 
 That then the sun came not again, 
 Save in the middle summer noon, 
 When hot, red lances they had hurled 
 Are hurled at them like fiery rain, 
 Till Yukon rages as a main. 
 
 XXX 
 
 With bated breath these skin-clad men 
 Tell why the big-nosed moose foreknew 
 The flood ; how, bandy-legged he flew 
 Far up high Saint Elias, how, 
 Down in the slope of his left horn, 
 The raven rested, night and morn ; 
 How in the hollow of his right, 
 The dove-hued moose-bird nestled low 
 
 36 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Until they touched the utmost height ; 
 How dove and raven soon took flight 
 And winged them forth and far away ; 
 But how the moose did stay and stay, 
 His great, sad eyes all wet with tears, 
 And keep his steeps two thousand years. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 He heard the half nude red men say, 
 Close hudled to the flame at night, 
 How in the hollow of a palm 
 A woman and a water rat, 
 That dreadful, darkened, drowning day, 
 Crept close and nestled in their fright ; 
 And how a bear, tame as a lamb, 
 Came to them in the tree and sat 
 The long, long, drift-time to the sea, 
 The while the wooing water rat 
 Made love to her incessantly ; 
 How then the bear became a priest 
 And married them at last, how then 
 Of them was born the shortest, least 
 Of all the children of all men, 
 And yet most cunning and most brave 
 Of all who dare the bleak north wave. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 What tales of tropic fruit ! No tale 
 But of some soft, sweet, sensuous clime, 
 Of love and lovely maiden s trust 
 Some peopled, pleasant, palm-hung vale 
 Of everlasting summer time 
 And, too, the deadly sin of lust ; 
 Forbidden fruit, shame and disgust ! 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 And whence the story of it all, 
 The palm land, love land and the fall ? 
 Was t born of ages of desire 
 From such sad children of the snows 
 
 37 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 For something fairer, better, higher ? 
 God knows, God knows, God only knows. 
 But I should say, hand laid to heart 
 And head made bare, as I should swear, 
 These piteous, sad-faced children there 
 Knew Eden, the expulsion, knew 
 The deluge, knew the deluge true ! 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 And what though this be surely so ? 
 Just this : I know, as all men know, 
 As few before this surely knew 
 Just this, and count it great or small, 
 The best of you or worst of you, 
 The Bible, lid to lid, is true ! 
 
 CANTO VI. 
 
 t 
 
 I 
 
 The year waxed weary, gouty, old ; 
 The crisp days dwindled to a span, 
 The dying year it fell as cold 
 As dead feet of a dying man. 
 The hard, long, weary work was done, 
 The dark, deep pits probed to the bone, 
 And each had just one tale to tell. 
 Ten thousand miners all as one, 
 Agnostic, Christian, infidel, 
 All said, despite of creed or class, 
 All said as one, As surely as 
 The Bible is, the deluge was, 
 What e er the curse, what e er the cause ! " 
 
 II 
 
 What merry men these miners were, 
 And mighty in their pent-up force ; 
 They wrought for her, they thought of her, 
 Of her alone, or night or day, 
 In tent or camp, their one discourse 
 The Love three thousand miles away, 
 The Love who waked to watch and pray. 
 
 38 
 
X 
 
 AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 III 
 
 Yet rude were they and brutal they, 
 Their love a blended love and lust, 
 Born of this modern, lustful day ; 
 You could but love them for their truth, 
 Their frankness and their fiery youth, 
 And yet turn from them in disgust, 
 To loathe, to pity and mistrust. 
 
 IV 
 
 The Siege of Troy knew scarce such men ; 
 The cowards had not voyaged then, 
 The weak had died upon the way. 
 They sang, they sang some like to this, 
 Of love, as love has been, still is : 
 " I say risk all for one sweet kiss ; 
 I say t were better risk the fall, 
 Like Romeo, to venture all 
 And boldly climb to deadly bliss. 
 How brave that savage, Sabine way ; 
 What warriors, heroes, came of it ! 
 Their songs are ringing to this day, 
 Their loves the love of Juliet, 
 Of Portia, Desdemona, yea, 
 All storied loves yet sung or writ, 
 Of man s strong arm or woman s wit. 
 
 V 
 
 1 Then take her, lover, sword in hand, 
 Hot-blooded and red-handed, clasp 
 Her sudden, stormy, where you stand, 
 And lift her in your iron grasp 
 And kiss her, kiss her till she cries 
 From keen, sweet, happy, killing pain. 
 Aye, kiss her till she seeming dies : 
 Aye, kiss her till she dies, and then, 
 Why, kiss her back to life again. 
 
 VI 
 
 1 * I love all things that truly love, 
 I love the low-voiced turtle dove 
 
 39 
 
AS IT WAS IN THK BEGINNING 
 
 In wooing time, he woos so true ; 
 
 His soft notes fall so overfull 
 
 Of love they thrill me through and through ; 
 
 But when the thunder- throated bull 
 
 Upheaves his head and shakes the air 
 
 With eloquence and battle s blare 
 
 And roars and tears the earth to woo, 
 
 I like his warlike wooing too. 
 
 VII 
 
 " But best to love that lover is 
 Who loves all things beneath the sun 
 Then finds all fair things in just one, 
 And finds all fortune in one kiss. 
 How wisely born, how more than wise, 
 How wisely learned must be that soul 
 Who loves all earth, all Paradise, 
 All peoples, places, pole to pole, 
 Yet in one kiss includes the whole ! 
 
 VIII 
 
 * Give me a lover ever bold, 
 A lover, strong, keen, sword in hand, 
 Like to those white-plumed knights of old 
 Whose loves held honor in the land ; 
 Those men with hot blood in their veins 
 And hot, swift, iron hand to kill 
 Those women loving well the chains 
 That bound them fast against their will ; 
 Yet loved and lived are living still." 
 
 IX 
 
 Enough : the bronzed man launched his boat, 
 A faithful Dwarf clutched at the oar, 
 And Boreas began to roar 
 As if to break his burly throat. 
 Down, down by basalt palisade, 
 Down, down by bleakest ice-piled isle f 
 The mute, dwarf water rat afraid ? 
 The water rat it could but smile 
 
 40 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 To hear the cold, wild waters roar 
 Against his savage, Arctic shore. 
 
 X 
 
 But now he listened, gave a shout, 
 A startled cry, akin to fear. 
 The hand of God had reached swift out 
 And locked, as in an iron vise, , 
 
 The whole white world in blue, bright ice, 
 And daylight scarce seemed living more. 
 The day, the year, the world, lay dead, 
 With star-tipt candles foot and head ; 
 Great stars that burn a whole half year 
 Stood forth, five-horned, and near, so near ! 
 
 XI 
 
 The ghost-white day scarce drew a breath, 
 The dying day shrank to a span ; 
 There was no life save that of man 
 And woolly dogs man, dogs and death ! 
 The sun, a mass of molten gold, 
 Rolled feebly up, then sudden rolled 
 Right back as in a beaten track 
 And left the white world to the moon 
 And five-homed stars of gleaming gold ; 
 Such stars as sang in icy rune, 
 And oh, the cold, such killing cold 
 As few have felt and none have told ! 
 
 XII 
 
 And now he knew the sun s last light 
 Lay on yon ice-shaft, steep and far, 
 Where stood one bold, triumphant star, 
 And he would dare the gleaming height, 
 Would see the death-bed of the day, 
 Whatever fate might make of it. 
 A foolish thing, yet were it fit 
 That he who dared to love, to say, 
 To live, should look the last of light 
 Full in the face, then go his way 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 j 
 
 All silent into lasting night ; 
 
 As he had left her, on her height. 
 
 XIII 
 
 He climbed, he climbed, he neared at last 
 The Golden Fleece of flitting light ! 
 When sudden as an eagle s flight 
 An eagle frightened from its nest 
 That keeps the topmost, rock-reared crest 
 It swooped, it drooped, it, dying, passed 
 As on some sunny, poppy day 
 The Mariposa gathers gold 
 Then careless brushes it away, 
 Like star-dust when the day is old, 
 So passed his light and all was night. 
 Some stars or spattered flecks of gold 
 Flashed from the far and fading wings 
 That kept the sky, like living things 
 Then oh, the cold, the cruel cold ! 
 The light, the life of him had passed, 
 The spirit of the day had fled ; 
 The lover of God s first-born, Light, 
 Descended, mourning for his dead. 
 The last of light, the very last 
 He deemed that he should look upon 
 Until God s everlasting dawn 
 Beyond this dread half-year of night 
 Had fled forever from his sight. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Twas death to go, thrice death to stay, 
 Turn back, go southward, seek the sun ? 
 Yea, better die in search of light, 
 Die boldly, face set forth for day, 
 As many dauntless men have done, 
 Than wail at fate and house with night, 
 Slow waiting death in doleful plight. 
 
 XV 
 
 Some woolly dogs, a skin-clad chief 
 His trained thews stood him now in stead 
 
 42 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Broad snow-shoes, then a laden sled. . . 
 That moon was as a brazen thief 
 That robs to revel and carouse ! 
 It followed, followed everywhere ; 
 He hid his face, that moon was there. 
 Such painful light, such piteous pain ! 
 It broke into his very brain, 
 As breaks a burglar in a house, 
 To rob and revel and carouse. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Scarce seen, a change came, slow, so slow ! 
 The moon sank slowly to the right, 
 The lower world of gleaming white 
 Took on a somber band of woe, 
 A wall of umber round about, 
 So dim at first you could but doubt 
 That change there was day after day 
 Nay, nay, not day, I can but say 
 Sleep after sleep, sleep after sleep 
 That band grew darker, deep, more deep, 
 Until there girt a great dark wall, 
 A low, black wall of ebon hue, 
 Oppressive, deathlike as a pall ; 
 It walked with you, close compassed you, 
 While not one thread of light shot through, 
 Above the black a gird of brown 
 Soft blending into amber hue, 
 And then from out the cobalt blue 
 Great, massive, golden stars hung down 
 Like towered lights of mountain town. 
 
 XVII 
 
 And now the moon moved gaunt and slow, 
 Half veiled her hollow, hungry face 
 In amber, kept unsteady pace, 
 High up her star set wall of snow 
 Nor scarcely deigned to look below. 
 
 43 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 I 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Then far beyond, above the night, 
 Above the umber, amber hue, 
 Above the lean moon s blare and blight, 
 One mighty ice peak towered through. 
 One gleaming peak, as white, as lone 
 As one could think the great white^throne, 
 Stood up against the cobalt blue 
 And kept companion with the stars, 
 Despite black walls or prison bars ! 
 
 XIX 
 
 That wall, that hideous prison wall, 
 That blackness, umber, amber hue, 
 It follows you, encircles you, 
 It mantles as a hearse s pall, 
 Your eyes lift to the star-tipt sky, 
 You lift your frosted face, you pray 
 That e en the sickly moon might stay 
 A time, if but to see you die. 
 Yet how it blinds you, body, soul ! 
 You can no longer keep control, 
 Your feebled senses fall astray ; 
 You cannot think, you dare not say. 
 
 XX 
 
 And now such under gleam of light, 
 Such blazing, flaming, frightful glare ; 
 Some like a horrid, dread nightmare, 
 Such hideous light, born of such night ! 
 It burst, with changeful interval, 
 From out the ice beneath the wall, 
 From out the groaning, surging stream 
 That breathed, or tried to breathe, in vain, 
 That struggled, strangled, shrieked with pain ! 
 
 Twas as if he of Patmos read, 
 Sat by with burning pen and said, 
 With piteous and pathetic voice, 
 
 * The earth shall pass with rustling noise." 
 
 44 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 XXI 
 
 Swift out the ice-crack, fiery red, 
 
 Swift up the umber wall and black, 
 
 Then round and round, up, down and back, 
 
 The sudden lightning sped and sped, 
 
 Until the walls hung burnished red, 
 
 An instant red, then yellow, white, 
 
 With something more than earthly light. 
 
 XXII 
 
 It binds your eyes until they burn, 
 Until you dare not look or turn, 
 But cry with him who saw and told 
 The story of, the glory of 
 The jasper walls, the streets of gold 
 Where trail God s unseen garments hem 
 The holy New Jerusalem. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 Then while he trudged he tried to think, 
 And then another new born light, 
 Or red or yellow, blue or white, 
 Burst up from out the very brink 
 Of where he passed and, left or right, 
 It burnished yet again the walls ! 
 Then up, straight up against the stars 
 That seemed as jostled, rent with jars ! 
 Then silent night. Where next and when ? 
 Then blank, black interval, and then 
 And oh, those blank, dread intervals, 
 This writing on the umber walls ! 
 
 XXIV 
 
 The burning Borealis passed, 
 The umber walls fell down at last 
 And left the great cathedral stars, f 
 The five-horned stars, blent, burnished bars. 
 
 XXV 
 
 The moon resumed all heaven now, 
 She shepherded the stars below 
 
 45 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Along her wide, white steeps of snow, 
 Nor stooped nor rested, where or how. 
 She bared her full white breast, she dared 
 The sun e er show his face again. 
 She seemed to know no change, she kept 
 Carousal constantly, nor slept, 
 Nor turned a breath, nor spared 
 The fearful meaning, the mad pain, 
 The weary eyes, the poor, dazed brain 
 That came at last to feel, to see 
 The dread, dead touch, of lunacy. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 How more than beautiful the shroud 
 Of dead Light in the moon-mad north 
 When great torch-tipping stars stand forth, 
 Five-horned, as marshalled for the fight 
 Against glad resurrecting Light ! 
 
 XXVII 
 
 The moon blares as mad trumpets blare 
 To marshalled warriors long and loud : 
 The cobalt blue knows not a cloud, 
 But oh, beware that moon, beware 
 Her ghastly, graveyard, moon-mad stare ! 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Beware white silence more than white ! 
 Beware the groaning stream below, 
 Beware the wide, white seam of snow, 
 Where trees hang white as hooded nun 
 No thing not white, not one, not one. 
 All day, all day, all night, all night 
 Nay, nay, not yet or day or night, 
 Just whiteness, whiteness, ghastly white 
 Made doubly white by that mad moon, 
 And sweet stars jangled out of tune ! 
 
 XXIX 
 
 At last he saw, or seemed to see, 
 Above, beyond, another world. 
 46 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Far up the icy path there curled 
 
 A red- veined cloud, a canopy 
 
 That topped the fearful, ice-built peak 
 
 That seemed to prop the very porch 
 
 Of God ; and then, as if a torch 
 
 Burned dim, there flashed a fiery streak, 
 
 A flush, a blush on heaven s cheek ! 
 
 XXX 
 
 The dogs sat down, men sat the sled 
 
 And watched the flush, the blush of red. 
 
 The little woolly dogs they knew, 
 
 Yet scarce knew what they>were about. 
 
 They thrust their noses up and out, 
 
 They drank the light, what else to do ? 
 
 Their little feet, so worn, so true, 
 
 Could scarce keep quiet for delight. 
 
 They knew, they knew, how much they knew, 
 
 The mighty breaking up of night ! 
 
 Their bright eyes sparkled with such joy 
 
 That they at last should see the light ! 
 
 The tandem sudden broke all rule, 
 
 Swung back, each leaping like a boy 
 
 Let loose from some dark, ugly school 
 
 Leapt up and tried to lick his hand, 
 
 And stand as happy children stand. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 How suddenly God s finger set 
 A crimson flower on that height 
 Above the battered walls of night ! 
 A little space it flourished yet, 
 And then His angel, His first-born, 
 Burst through the bars, as primal morn ! 
 
 XXXII 
 
 His right hand held a sword of flame, 
 His left hand javelins of light, 
 
 47 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 And swift down, down, right down he came ! 
 His red wings wide as the wide sky, 
 And right and left, and hip and thigh, 
 He smote the marshalled hosts of night 
 With all his majesty and might. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 The scared moon paled and she forgot 
 
 Her force and place and turned to fly ; 
 
 The ice-heaved palisades, the high 
 
 Heaved peaks that propt God s house, the stars 
 
 That flamed above the prison bars, 
 
 As battle stars with fury frought, 
 
 Were burned to ruin and were not. 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 Then glad earth shook her raiment wide, 
 As some proud woman satisfied, 
 Tiptoed, exultant, till her form, 
 A queen above some battle storm, 
 Blazed with the glory, the delight 
 Of battle with the hosts of night. 
 And night was broken, Light at last 
 Lay on the Yukon. Night had past. 
 
 CANTO VII. 
 
 The days grew longer, stronger, yet 
 The strong man grew then as a child. 
 Too hard the tension and too wild 
 The terror ; he could not forget. 
 And now at last when Light was, now 
 He could not see, nor lift his eyes, 
 Nor lift a hand in any wise. 
 It was as when a race is won 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 By some strong favorite athlete 
 Who sinks down dying at your feet. 
 
 II 
 
 The red chief drew him on and on 
 To his own lodge up white Yukon 
 And housed him kindly as his own, 
 Blind, broken, dazed, and so alone ! 
 The low, round lodge was desolate, 
 And deathly cold by night, by day. 
 Poor, hungered children of the snows, 
 They heaped the fire as he froze, 
 Did all they could, yet what could they 
 But pity his most piteous fate, 
 And pitying, silent, stare and wait ? 
 
 Ill 
 
 His face was ever to the wall 
 
 Or buried in his skins ; the light 
 
 He could not bear the light of day 
 
 Nor bear the heaped-up flame at night 
 
 Not bear one touch of light at all. 
 
 There are no pains, no sharp death throes, 
 
 So dread as blindness of the snows. 
 
 IV 
 
 He thought of home, he thought of her, 
 Thought most of her, and pictured how 
 She walked in silent splendor where 
 Warm sea winds twined her heavy hair 
 In great Greek braids piled fold on fold 
 Or loosely blown, as poppy gold. 
 
 V 
 
 And then he thought of her afar 
 Mid follies, and his soul at war 
 With self, self will and iron fate 
 Grew as a blackened gulf of hate ! 
 And then he prayed forgiveness, prayed 
 As one in sin and sore afraid. 
 
 49 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 VI 
 
 And praying so he dreamed, he dreamed 
 She sat there looking in his face, 
 Sat silent by in that dread place, 
 Sat still, sat weeping silently. 
 He saw her tears and yet he knew, 
 The blind man knew he could not see ; 
 And then he seemed to hear her tears, 
 To hear them steal her loose hair through 
 And gently fall, as falls the dew 
 The still, small rain of summer morn, 
 That makes for harvest yellow corn. 
 
 VII 
 
 He raised his hand, he touched her hair ; 
 He did not start, he did not say ; 
 It seemed that she was surely there ; 
 He only questioned would she stay. 
 How glad he was ! Why, now, what care 
 For hunger, blindness, blinding pain, 
 Could he but touch her hair again ? 
 
 VIII 
 
 He heard her rise, give quick command 
 To patient, skin-clad, savage men 
 To heap the wood, come, go, and then 
 Go feed his woolly friends at hand, 
 To bring fresh stores, still heap fresh flame, 
 Then go, then come, as morning came. 
 
 IX 
 
 All seemed so real ! He dared not stir, 
 Lest he might break this dream of her. 
 How holy, holy sweet her voice, 
 Like benediction o er the dead ! 
 So glad he was, so grateful he, 
 In thanking God most fervently, 
 Forgot his plight, forgot his pain 
 And deep at heart did he rejoice ; 
 Yet prayed he might not wake again 
 To peril, blindness, piteous pain. 
 
 50 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 x 
 
 Then, as he hid his face, she came 
 And leaned quite near and took his hand. 
 Twas cold twas very cold, twas thin 
 And bony, black, just skin and bone, 
 Just bone and wrinkled mummy-skin. 
 She held it out against the flame, 
 Then pressed it with her two warm hands. 
 It seemed as she could feel the sands 
 6f life slow sift to shadow land. 
 Close on his hurt eyes she laid hand, 
 The while she wearied, nodded, slept. 
 The flame burned low, the wind s wild moan 
 Awakened her. Cold as a stone 
 His starved form, shrunken to a shade, 
 Stretched in the darkness and, dismayed, 
 She put the skins back and she crept 
 Close down beside and softly laid 
 Her warm, strong form to his and slept, 
 The while her dusk men vigil kept. 
 
 XI 
 
 That long, long night, that needed rest ! 
 Then flames at morn ; her precious store 
 Heaped hard by on the earthen floor 
 While mute, brown men, starved men, stood by 
 To wait the slightest breath or sigh 
 Or sign of wakening request 
 What silence, patience, trust ! What rest ! 
 Of all good things I say the best 
 Beneath the sun is sleep and rest. 
 
 XII 
 
 She slowly wakened from her sleep 
 To find him conscious in her keep ! 
 What food for all, what feast for all 
 To chief or slave, or great or small, 
 Around the flaming, glowing heap 
 Such reach of limb, such rest, such rest, 
 Such appetite, such hungry zest ! 
 
AS IT WAS IN THK BEGINNING 
 XIII 
 
 Why, he had gone, had gladly gone 
 In quest of His eternal Light, 
 Beyond all dolours, that dread night, 
 Had she not reached her hand and drawn, 
 Hard drawn jhim back and held him so, 
 Held him so hard he could not go. 
 And yet he lingered by the brink, 
 As dulled and dazed as you can think. 
 Long, long he lingered, helpless lay, 
 A babe, a broken pot of clay. 
 
 XIV 
 
 She made a broader couch, she sat 
 All day beside and held his hand 
 Lest he might sudden slip away. 
 And she all night beside him lay, 
 Lest the last grain of sinking sand 
 Might in the still night slip and pass, 
 With none at hand to turn the glass. 
 
 XV 
 
 And did the red men prate thereat ? 
 Why, they had laid them down and died 
 For her, these simple dusky sons 
 Of nature, children of the snows, 
 Born where the ice-bound river runs, 
 Born where the Arctic torrent flows. 
 Look you for evil ? Look for ill 
 Or good, you find just what you will. 
 
 XVI 
 
 He spake no more than babe might speak ; 
 His eyes were as the kitty s eyes 
 That open slowly with surprise 
 Then close as if to sleep a week ; 
 But still he held, as if he knew, 
 The warm, strong hand, the healthful hand, 
 The dauntless, daring hand and true, 
 Nor, while he waked, would his unfold, 
 
 52 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 But held, as drowning man might hold 
 Who hopes no more of life or land, 
 But, as from habit, clutches hand. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Once, as she thought he surely slept, 
 She slowly drew herself aside, 
 He thrust his hand as terrified, 
 Caught back her hand, kissed it and wept. 
 Then she, too, wept, wept tears like rain, 
 The very first, warm, welcome tears, 
 Drew in her breath, put by her fears 
 And felt she had not dared in vain. 
 Yet day by day, hard on the brink 
 He hung with half averted head, 
 As silent, listless as the dead, 
 As sad to see as she could think. 
 Their low lodge hung the terraced steep 
 Above the wide, wild, groaning stream 
 That, like some monster in a dream, 
 Cried out in broken, breathless sleep ; 
 And looking down, night after night, 
 She saw leap forth a sword of light. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 She guessed, she knew the flaming sword 
 
 That turned which way to watch and ward 
 
 And guard the wall and ever guard 
 
 The Tree of Life, as it is writ. 
 
 The hand, the hilt, she could not see, 
 
 Nor yet the true, life-giving tree, 
 
 Nor cherubim that cherished it, 
 
 But yet she saw the flaming sword, 
 
 As written in the Book, the Word. 
 
 XIX 
 
 She held his hand, he did not stir, 
 
 And as she nightly sat and sat 
 
 And silent gazed and guessed thereat. 
 
 53 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 His fancies seemed t6 come to her, 
 She could not see the Tree of Life, 
 How fair it grew or where it grew, 
 But this she knew and surely knew, 
 That gleaming sword meant holy strife 
 To keep and guard the Tree of Life. 
 
 XX 
 
 Oh, flaming sword, rest not nor rust ! 
 
 The Tree of Life is hewn and torn, 
 
 The Tree of Life is bowed and worn, 
 
 The Tree of Life is in the dust. 
 
 Hew brute man down, hew branch and root, 
 
 Till he may spare the Tree of Life, 
 
 The pale, the piteous woman wife 
 
 Till he shall know as know he must 
 
 Her name is not a name for lust. 
 
 XXI 
 
 She watched the wabbly moose at morn 
 Climb steeply up the further steep, 
 Huge, solitary and forlorn. 
 She saw him climb, turn, look and keep 
 Scared watch, this wild, ungainly beast, 
 This mateless, lost thing and the last 
 That roamed before and since the flood 
 That climbed and climbed the topmost hill / 
 As if he heard the deluge still. 
 
 XXII 
 
 The sparse, brown children of the snow 
 Began to stir, as sap is stirred 
 In springtime by the song of bird, 
 And trudge by, wearily and slow, 
 Beneath their load of dappled skins 
 That weighed them down as weighty sins. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 And oft they paused, turned and looked back 
 
 Along their desolate white track, 
 
 With arched hand raised to shield their eyes - 
 
 54 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Looked back as if for something lost 
 Or left behind, of precious cost, 
 Sad-eyed and silent, mutely wise, 
 As just expelled from Paradise. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 How sad their dark, fixed faces seemed, 
 As if of long-remembered sins ! 
 They listless moved, as if they dreamed, 
 As if they knew not where to go 
 In all their wide, white world of snow. 
 She could but think upon the day 
 God made them garments from the skins 
 Of beasts, then turned and bade them go, 
 Go forth as willed they, to or fro. 
 
 XXV 
 
 Between the cloud-capped walls of snow, 
 A wide-winged raven, croaking low, 
 Passed and repassed, each weary day, 
 And would not rest, not go, not stay, 
 But ever, ever to and fro, 
 As when forth form the ark of^old ; 
 And ever as he passed, each day 
 Let fall one note, so cold, so cold 
 It seemed to strike the ice below 
 And break in fragments hard as fate ; 
 It fell so cold and desolate. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 At last the sun hung hot and high, 
 Hung where that heartless moon had hung. 
 A dove-hued moose bird sudden sung 
 And had glad answering hard by ; 
 The icy steeps began to pour 
 Mad tumult down upon the deep. 
 The great Yukon began to roar, 
 As if with pain in broken sleep. 
 The breaking ice began to groan, 
 The very mountains seemed to moan, 
 
 55 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Then, bursting, like a cannon s boom, 
 The great stream broke its icy bands 
 And rushed and ran with outstretched hands 
 That laid hard hold the willow lands, 
 Rent wide the somber gopher gloom . 
 And roared for room, for room and room ! 
 
 XXVII 
 
 The stalwart moose climbed hard his steep, 
 Climbed till he wallowed, brisket deep, 
 In soft ning, sinking steeps of snow, 
 Then raging, turned to look below. 
 He tossed, shook his ungainly head, 
 Blew blast on blast through his huge nose, 
 Then, crazed with savage rage and fright, 
 He climbed, climbed to the highest height 
 As if he knew the flood once more 
 Had come to swallow sea and shore. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 The waters sank, the man uprose, 
 A boat of skins, an Eskimo, 
 Then down from out the world of snow 
 They passed to seas of calm repose 
 Where wide sails waited, warm sea wind, 
 For mango isles and tamarind. 
 
 CANTO VIII. 
 
 I 
 
 They passed to soft Samoas* seas 
 
 Where giants strode in naked strength, 
 
 Where long-limbed women loomed full length, 
 
 And loved beneath their tropic trees. 
 
 Hand still in hand, close side by side, 
 
 They sailed, they sailed which way they cared, 
 
 Nor questioned nor one wish denied, 
 
 Nor kept one sweetest scene unshared. 
 
 The while they sought and saw and knew 
 
 Just nature, beautiful and true : 
 
 56 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 And then the toy world, dwarf Japan 
 The childish soul, the baby man. 
 
 II 
 
 Of all fair trees to look upon, 
 Of all trees pleasant to the sight 
 Give me the Poet s tree in white 
 Pink cherry trees of blest Nippon 
 With lovers passing to and fro 
 Pink cherry lanes of Tokio : 
 Ten thousand cherry trees and each 
 Hung white with Poet s plaint and speech. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Of all fair lands to look upon, 
 To feel, to breathe, at Orient dawn, 
 I count this baby land the best, 
 Because here all things rest and rest 
 And all men love all things most fair 
 And beautiful and rich and rare ; 
 And women are as cherry trees 
 With treasures laden, brown with bees. 
 
 IV 
 
 Of all loved lands to look upon 
 
 Give me this love land of Nippon, 
 
 Its bright, brave men, its maids at prayer, 
 
 Its peace, its carelessness of care. 
 
 A mobile sea of silver mist 
 
 Sweeps up for morn to mount upon ; 
 
 Then yellow, saffron, amethyst 
 
 Such changeful hues has blessed Nippon ! 
 
 See but this sunrise then forget 
 
 All scenes, all suns, all lands save one, 
 
 Just matin sun and vesper sun ; 
 
 This land of inland seas of light ; 
 
 This land that hardly recks of night. 
 
 V 
 
 The vesper sun of blest Nippon 
 Sinks crimson in the yellow sea ; 
 
 57 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 The purple butterfly is gone, 
 The rainbow bird housed in his tree 
 Hushed, as the last loved, trembling note 
 Still thrills its sweet, inspired throat 
 Hushed as the harper s weary hand 
 Waits morn to waken and command. 
 
 VI 
 
 Fast homeward bound, brown, busy feet 
 In wooden shoon clang up the street ; 
 But not through all the thousand year 
 In Buddha s temple may you hear 
 One step, see hue of sun or sea, 
 Though wait you through eternity. 
 
 VII 
 
 Behold brown, kneeling penitents ! 
 What perfumed place of silent prayer ! 
 Burned santalum, sweet frankincense ! 
 Pale, yellow priests pass here and there 
 And silent lisp with bended head 
 The Golden Rule on scrolls of gold 
 As gentle, ancient Buddhists read 
 These precepts sacred unto them 
 And watched the world grow old, so old, 
 Ere yet the Babe of Bethlehem. 
 
 VIII 
 
 How leaps the altar s forky flame ! 
 How dreamful, dense, the sweet incense, 
 As pale priests burn, in Buddha s name, 
 Red-written sins of penitents 
 Mute penitents with bended head 
 And unsaid sins writ deep in red. 
 
 IX 
 
 Now slow a priest with staff and scroll, 
 Barefoot, as mendicant and old 
 You sudden start, you lift your head, 
 You hear and yet you do not hear, 
 
 58 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 A sound, a song, so sweet, so dear 
 It well might waken yonder dead. 
 His staff has touched the sacred bowl 
 Of copper, silver, shot with gold 
 And wrought so magic-like of old 
 That all sweet sounds, or east or west, 
 Sought this still hollow where to rest. 
 
 X 
 
 And you, you lean, lean low to hear ; 
 
 You doubt your ears, you doubt your eyes, 
 
 Your hand is lifted to your ear, 
 
 You fear, how cruelly you fear 
 
 The melody may die it dies 
 
 Dies as the swan dies, as the sun 
 
 Dies, bathed in dewy benison. 
 
 4 
 
 XI 
 
 It lives again ; you breathe again ! 
 What cadences that speak, that stir, 
 Take form and presence, as of her 
 Whom first you loved, ere yet of men. 
 It utters essence as a sound ; 
 As Santalum sends from the ground 
 For devotee and worshipper 
 Where saints lie buried, balm and myrrh. 
 
 XII 
 
 But now so low, so faint, so low 
 You lean to hear yet hardly hear. 
 Again your hand is to your ear, 
 Your lips are parted, leaning so, 
 And now again you catch your breath ! 
 Such breath as when you lie becalmed 
 At sea, and sudden start to feel 
 A cooling wave and quickened keel 
 And see your tall ship kiss the shore. 
 You hear, you more than hear, you feel, 
 As when the white wave shimmereth. 
 Your love is at your side once more, 
 
 59 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 An essence of some song embalmed, 
 hidden in the house of death. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Now low, so low, so soft, so still, 
 As when a single leaf is stirred, 
 As when some doubtful matin bird 
 Dreams russet morning decks his hill 
 Then nearer, clearer, lilts each note 
 And longer, stronger swells the wave 
 Ten thousand dead have burst the grave, 
 An angel s song in every throat ! 
 The forky flame turns and returns 
 To burn and burn red sins away ; 
 Such incense on the altar burns 
 As some may breathe but none may say, 
 Though cherished to their dying day. x 
 
 XIV 
 
 And now the sandaled pilgrims fall 
 
 With faces to the jeweled floor 
 
 The incense darkens as a pall, 
 
 As clouds that darken more and more. 
 
 You dare not lift your bended head 
 
 The silence is as if the dead 
 
 Alone had passed the temple door. 
 
 And now the melody, the song ! 
 
 So stronger now, so strong, so strong ! 
 
 XV 
 
 The black smokes of the ashen urn 
 Where pale priests burn red sins away 
 Begin to stir, to start to turn, 
 As turns some evil thing abhorred 
 To seek the huge bossed copper door 
 An evil thing that dares not stay. 
 The while the rich notes roll and roar 
 To drive dread, burned sins out before 
 Calm Dia-Busta, the adored, 
 As cherubim with: flaming sword. 
 60 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 XVI 
 
 And far, so far, such rich notes roll 
 That barefoot fishers far at sea 
 Fall prone and pray all silently 
 For wife and babes that wait the strand, 
 The tugging net clutched tight in hand, 
 The while they bow a space *to pray ; 
 For every asking, eager soul 
 Knows well the time and patiently 
 It lists, an hundred leagues away. 
 
 XVII 
 
 The thousand pilgrims girt in straw 
 That press Fujama s holy peak, 
 Prone, fasting, penitent and meek, 
 Hear notes as from the stars and pray 
 As we who know and keep the law 
 As we who walk Jerusalem 
 With pilgrim step and pallid cheek : 
 How earnestly they silent pray 
 To do no thing, or night or day 
 They would not others do to them ! 
 
 XVIII 
 
 And wee, brown wives on high, wild steeps 
 Of terraced plot and bamboo patch 
 Where toil, hard toil, incessant, keeps 
 Sweet virtue, sweet sleep and a thatch, 
 They hear and hold, with closer fold, 
 Their bare, brown babes against the cold. 
 They croon and croon, with soothing care, 
 To babes meshed in their mighty hair 
 And loving, crooning, breathe a prayer. 
 
 XIX 
 
 The great notes pass, pass on and on, 
 As light sweeps up the doors of dawn, 
 And now the strong notes are no more, 
 But feebler tones wail out and cry, 
 As sad things that have lost their way 
 61 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 At night and dare not bide the day 
 But turn back to the shrine to die 
 And steal in softly through the door, 
 And gently fade along the floor. 
 
 XX 
 
 The barefoot priest scarce moves a hand, 
 
 Faint and more faint the last notes fall ; 
 
 You hear them now, then not at all, 
 
 And now the last note of the land 
 
 Wails out as when a baby cries 
 
 At night, and at the altar dies. 
 
 How sweet, how sad, how piteous sweet 
 
 This last note at the bowed monk s feet 
 
 That dies as dies some holy light 
 
 A mist is rising to the eyes, 
 
 So loving sad, so tearful sweet, 
 
 This last, lost note, Good night, good night ! 
 
 CANTO IX. 
 
 I 
 
 They lay low-bosomed on the bay 
 Of Honolulu ; h soft the breeze 
 And soft the dreamful light that lay 
 On Honolulu s sabbath seas 
 The ghost of sunshine gone away, 
 Red roses on the grave of day. 
 
 II 
 
 Their dusky boatman set his face 
 From out the argent, opal sea 
 Tow rd where his once proud, warlike race 
 Lay housed in everlasting dust. 
 He sang low- voiced, sad, silently, 
 In listless chorus with the tide, 
 Because his race was not, because 
 His sun-born race had dared, defied 
 The highest, holiest of all laws 
 62 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 And so fell stricken and so died 
 Died stricken of dread leprosy 
 Begot of lust prone in the dust 
 Degenerating love to lust. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Sweet sandal-wood burned bow and stern 
 In colored, shapely crates of clay, 
 Sweet sandal-wood long laid away, 
 I/Dng caverned with dead battle kings 
 Whose dim ghosts rise betimes and burn 
 The torch, and touch sweet taro strings 
 
 Such giant, stalwart, stately kings ! 
 
 i 
 
 IV 
 
 \ 
 
 Sweet sandal- wood, long ages torn 
 From high -heaved, cloud-capped lava steep, 
 Then hidden where dead giants keep 
 Their sealed Walhalla, waiting morn 
 Deep-hidden, till such sweet perfume 
 Betrayed their long-forgotten tomb. 
 
 The sea s perfume and incense lay 
 About, above, lay everywhere ; 
 The sea swung incense up the air 
 The censer, Honolulu Bay 
 And then the song, the soft, low rune, 
 So sad, as if dead kings kept tune. 
 
 VI 
 
 The moon hung twilight from each horn, 
 
 Soft, silken twilight soft to touch 
 
 As baby lips and over much 
 
 Like to the baby breath of morn. 
 
 Huge, five-horned stars swung left and right 
 
 O er argent, opal, amber night. 
 
 63 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 VII 
 
 What changeful, dreamful, ardent light, 
 When Mauna Loa, far afield, 
 Uprose and shook his yellow shield 
 Below the battlements of night ; 
 Below the Southern Cross, o er seas 
 That sang deep, silent symphonies ! 
 
 VIII 
 
 Far lava peaks still lit the night, 
 Like holy candles foot and head, 
 That dimly burned above the dead, 
 Above the dead and buried Light. 
 There was such perfume of the sea, 
 Such Sabbath breath, soft, silently, 
 As when some burning censer swings, 
 As when some surpliced choir sings. 
 
 IX 
 
 He scarce had lived the whole long year, 
 But now yon mitred tongues of flame 
 That tipt the star-lit lava peak 
 Brought back such fervor to his cheek 
 He could but answer to his name. 
 He could but heed, he could but hear 
 That call across the lap of night 
 From tripple mitred tongues of Light, 
 That soulful, silent, perfumed night. 
 He said and yet he said no word : 
 No word he said, yet all she heard, 
 So close their souls lay, white, so white, 
 That holy Honolulu night. 
 
 X 
 
 Lies yonder Nemo s Mount, my sweet, 
 The Promised Land beyond, beyond 
 The grave of rest, the broken bond, 
 Where manly force must loose control, 
 Must press the grapes and fill the bowl, 
 Go round and round, rest, rise up, eat, 
 Tread grapes then wash the wearied feet ? 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 XI 
 
 I know I have enough of bliss, 
 I know full well I should not dare 
 To ask a deeper joy than this, 
 This scene, your presence, this soft air, 
 This incense, this deep sense of rest 
 Where long-sought, sweet Arcadia lies, 
 Against these gates of Paradise. 
 
 XII 
 
 " And yet, my own, I dare ask more. 
 Lone Adam had all Paradise 
 And yet how poor he was, how poor, 
 With all things his beneath the skies ! 
 Aye, sweet^it were to roam or rest, 
 To ever rest or ever roam 
 As you might reck or reckon best ; 
 But, Sweet, there comes a sense of home, 
 Of hearthstone, happy babes at play 
 And you and I not far away. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Nay, do not turn aside your face 
 Be fruitful ye and multiply 
 Meant all ; it meant the human race, 
 And he or she shall surely die 
 Despised and rot to nothingness 
 Who does not love the little dress, 
 The heaven in the mother s eyes, 
 His holy, secret, sweet surprise 
 The time she tells how truly blest, 
 With face laid blushing to his breast. 
 
 XIV 
 
 1 How flower-like the little frock 
 The daffodil forerunning spring 
 The doll-like shoes, socks, everything, 
 And each a secret, secret stored): 
 And yet each day the little hoard, 
 As careful merchants note their stock, 
 
 65 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Is noted with such happy care 
 As only angel mothers share. 
 
 XV 
 
 At last to hear her rock and rock 
 Behold her bowed Madonna face ! 
 She lifts her baby from its place, 
 Pulls down the crumpled, dampened frock, 
 And never Cleopatra guessed 
 The queenliness, the joy, the pride 
 She knows with baby to her breast 
 And his chub fists churned either side ! 
 The bravest breast faith ever bared 
 For brother, country, creed or friend, 
 However high the aim or end, 
 Was that brave breast a baby shared 
 With kicking, fat legs half unfrocked, 
 The while sweet mother rocked and rocked. 
 
 XVI 
 
 As when first blossoms ken first bees, 
 As when the squirrel hoists high sail 
 And leaps his world of maple trees 
 And quirks his saucy, tossy tail ; 
 As when Vermont s tall sugar trees 
 First feel sweet sap then don their leaves 
 In haste a million Mother Bves ; 
 As when strange winds stir sleeping ships 
 Long ice-bound fast in Arctic seas ; 
 So she, the strong, full woman now, 
 Felt new life thrilling breast and brow 
 And tingled to her finger tips. 
 Her limbs reached out, outstretched her head 
 As if to say she nothing said. 
 But something of the tender light 
 That lit her girl face that first night, 
 The time she pulling poppies sat 
 The sod and saw the golden sheep 
 Safe housed within the hollowed deep 
 Was hers ; and how she blushed thereat ! 
 Yet blushing so, still, silent, sat. 
 
 66 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 XVII 
 
 He paused ; the low, soft monotone 
 
 Of song, the half-dipt, heedless oar 
 
 Kept chorus, and, then as before, 
 
 For now he knew him not alone : 
 
 God s pity for the breasts that bear 
 
 A little babe then banish it 
 
 To stranger hands, to alien care, 
 
 To live or die as chance sees fit. 
 
 Poor, helpless hands, reached anywhere, 
 
 As God gave them to reach and reach, 
 
 With only helplessness in each ! 
 
 Poor little hands, pushed here, pushed there 
 
 And all night long for mother s breast. 
 
 Poor restless hands that will not rest 
 
 And gather strength to reach out strong 
 
 To mother in the rosy morn ! 
 
 Nay, nay, they gather scorn for scorn 
 
 And hate for hate the lorn night long 
 
 Poor dying babe ! to reach about 
 
 In blackness, as a thing cast out ! 
 
 XVIII 
 
 God s pity for the thing of lust 
 That bears a frail babe to be thrust 
 Forth from her arms to alien thrall, 
 As shutting out the light of day, 
 As shutting off God s very breath ! 
 But thrice God s pity, let us pray, 
 For her who bears no babe at all, 
 But gaily leads up Fashion s Hall 
 And grinning leads the dance of death. 
 That sexless, steel-braced breast of bone 
 Is like to some assassin cell, 
 A whited sepulcher of stone, 
 A graveyard at the gates of hell, 
 A mart where motherhood is sold, 
 A house of murders manifold ! 
 
 67 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 XIX 
 
 " Of all cursed things, thrice doubly cursed, 
 I count this painted thing the worst : 
 This barren, blighted, cursed fig tree, 
 This shameless, jeweled thing of shame 
 Who barters life for noisy name, 
 This unclean thing so more than she 
 Who trails the street in misery ! 
 
 XX 
 
 "And who the best, who best of all 
 The famed four hundred, great or small 
 Four hundred, thousand, million, aye, 
 Of all this broad, brave earth today ? 
 Why, such grand Gracchi Mother, she 
 Who knew not gem nor jewelry 
 Yet ranged her jewels at her side 
 With all a Roman Mother s pride, 
 And reckoned hers the richest home 
 On all the seven hills of Rome. 
 
 XXI 
 
 " I know the world is good, my love, 
 But weak, as man grown weak of mind, 
 And he who wishes well his kind 
 Will show respect unto its will, 
 And walk somewhat its way, will find 
 Some common ground, nor walk above, 
 Nor strangely turn and strangely talk, 
 But speak somewhat as others speak. 
 Man is not wicked, man is weak, 
 Is but as some poor tottling child 
 That cries out if not well beguiled 
 Starts terrified at honest talk 
 And falls, ere yet it knows to walk. 
 
 XXII 
 
 He who would save the world must stand 
 Hard by the world with steel mailed hand 
 68 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 And save by smiting hip and thigh. 
 
 The world needs truth, tall truth and grand, 
 
 And keen sword-cuts that thrust to kill. 
 
 The man who climbed the windy hill 
 
 To talk is talking, climbing still, 
 
 And would not help or hurt a fly. 
 
 The stoutest swimmer and most wise 
 
 Swims somewhat with the sweeping stream, 
 
 Yet leads, leads unseen as a dream. 
 
 The weak fool turns his back and flies, 
 
 The strong fool breasts the flood and dies. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 I know you scorn the narrow deeds 
 Of men who make their god of creeds 
 Yond men as narrow as the miles 
 That bank their rare acacia isles ; 
 But come, my Lone Star, come with me 
 To yon far church, high-built and fair, 
 For God is there, as everywhere, 
 Or Arctic snow or Argent sea ; 
 And if these learned men may not know, 
 For all their books and boast and show, 
 That here, right here, the womb of night 
 Gave us God s first-born, holy Light, 
 Why, pity, nor yet blame them quite : 
 Because they know not, cannot read, 
 Save as commanded by some creed. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 What eons they may have to wait 
 Within their wall, without the gate, 
 Nor once dare lift their eyes to look 
 Beyond their blinding creed and book 
 We know not, but we surely know 
 Yon lava-lifted, star-tipt height 
 Is bannered still by that first Light. 
 We know this phosphorescent glow 
 At every dip of dripping oar 
 Is but lost bits of Light below 
 
 69 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 The primal darkness rush and roar 
 Where moves God s spirit as of yore. 
 Aye, here, right here, from out the night, 
 God spake and sad : Let there be light. 
 
 XXV 
 
 And dare ask doubting, creed-made men 
 Why we so surely know and how ? 
 Why, here the waters, now as then 
 Why here the waters, then as now ? > 
 We know because we read, yet read 
 So little that we much may heed. 
 We read : God s spirit moved upon 
 The waters ere that burst of dawn. 
 What waters ? Why, The Waters, these, 
 These soundless, silent, sun-down seas. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 * The morning of the world was here, 
 Twas here He made dry land appear, 
 Here Darkness lay upon the deep. 
 What deep ? This deep, the deepest deep 
 That ever rolled beneath the sun 
 When night and day they were as one 
 And dreamless day lay fast asleep 
 Rocked in this cradle of the deep. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 " Hear me ! How happy, long I laid 
 My body, soul, at your brave feet ! 
 How long, how happy, Sweet, my Sweet, 
 Close at your side by death s cold door, 
 Or here where tropic passions pour : 
 And have you ever been betrayed ? 
 What hand, what finger have I laid 
 Against your garment s hem ? What word, 
 What sign have you yet seen or heard 
 That said you should not still remain 
 My Shrine, my Saint without a stain ? 
 70 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 XXVIII 
 
 Hear me ! How pitiful the plea 
 Of men who plead for temperance, 
 Of men who know not one first sense 
 Of self-control, yet, fire-shod, 
 Storm forth and rage intemperately 
 At sins that are but as a breath, 
 Compared with their low lives of death ! 
 
 XXIX 
 
 And oh, for prophet s tongue or pen 
 To scourge, not only, and accuse 
 The childless mother, but such men 
 As know their wives but to abuse ! 
 Give me the brave, child-loving Jew, 
 The full-sexed Jew of either sex, 
 Who loves, brings forth and nothing recks 
 Of care or cost, as Christians do 
 Dulled souls who will not hear or see 
 How Christ once raised His lowly head 
 And, as rebuking, gently said, 
 The while he took them tenderly, 
 little children come to me. 
 
 XXX 
 
 Go forth among this homeless race, 
 This landless race that knows no place 
 Or name or nation quite its own, 
 And see their happy babes at play, 
 Palace or Ghetto, rich or poor 
 As thick as birds about your door 
 At morn some sunny Vermont May 
 Then think of Christ and these alone. 
 Yet we deride, we jeer, we gibe 
 To see their plenteous babes ; we say 
 
 Behold the Jew and all his tribe ! 
 Yet Solomon upon his throne 
 Was not more kingly crowned than they, 
 More surely born to lord, to lead, 
 To sow the land with Abram s seed ; 
 

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Because their babes are healthful born 
 And welcomed as the welcome morn. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 4 Hear me this prophecy and heed ; 
 Bxcept we cleanse us kirk or creed, 
 Except we wash us word and deed 
 The Jew shall rule us, reign the Jew. 
 And just because the Jew is true, 
 Is true to nature, true to truth ; 
 Is clean, is chaste, as trustful Ruth 
 Who bore us David, Solomon 
 The Babe, that far, first Christmas dawn. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 11 You shrink, are angered at my speech ? 
 So be it then ; there lies the beach, 
 And up the beach the ways divide. 
 I would not leave the truth untold 
 To win the whole world to my side : 
 And yet, to win you for my bride 
 Would count down blood, as counting gold. 
 High yonder lifts the clear church light 
 For seamen, souls sea- tossed at night. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 1 I see the spiked Agave s plume, 
 The pepsin lane, acacia s blown 
 Far up beyond tall cocoa trees 
 That gird the pretty, peaceful town. 
 That lane leads up, the church looks down 
 There lie the ways, now which of these ? 
 Bear with me, I must dare be true. 
 The nation, aye, the Christian race, 
 Here fronts its Sibyl, face to face, 
 And I must say, say now to you, 
 Whate er the cost, of fortune, fame, 
 The Christian is a thing of shame 
 Must say because I know it true, 
 The better Christian is the Jew. 
 72 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 " Behold the pale, wan, piteous wife 
 Of him who pleads his perfect life ! 
 Her step is slow, she waits for death ; 
 How thin is she, how full is he ! 
 Hear her wan baby s hollow cry ! 
 He scarce can cry above his breath. 
 Poor babe ! begotten but to die, 
 Or, harder fate, live feebly on, 
 The shame of mother, curse of state 
 Half witted, worthless, jest of fate. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 4 Behold, God s image, fashioned tall 
 As heaven stooping down to crawl 
 Upon his belly as a snake, 
 Ere yet his sense is well awake, 
 Ere yet his force has come, ere yet 
 The child- wife knows but to regret. 
 And lo ! the greatest is the least ; 
 For man lies lower than the beast. 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 * Such pity that pure love should lie 
 Prone, strangled in its bed of shame 
 And no man dare to publish why ! 
 Such pity, that in slain Love s name 
 The weak bring forth the weaker, bring 
 The leper, idiot, anything 
 That lawless passion can beget ! 
 Sweet pity, pity for them all 
 The child that cries, child- wife that dies 
 Ere yet the soul has waked to see 
 The weaklings that may linger, yet 
 A feeble day to feebly fall 
 As food for sword or cannon ball, 
 For prison wall or charity 
 Or fruit of gruesome gallows tree ! 
 
 73 
 
AS IT WAS. IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 " But pity most poor man, blind man 
 Whose passsions stoop him to a span. 
 Why, man, each well-born man, was born 
 To dwell in everlasting morn, 
 To top the mountain as a tower 
 A thousand years of pride and power, 
 To face the four winds with the face 
 Of youth until full length he lies 
 Still God-like even as he dies. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 1 1 Could I but teach lorn man to live, 
 Could I but teach blind man to see, 
 But teach lost man to truly love, 
 And wisely, he would turn to me 
 And give great thanks, and ever give 
 Glad heed, as to some soft- voiced dove 
 That speaks as prophet from above. 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 " The burning cities of the plain, 
 The high-built harlot, Babylon, 
 The bannered mur ls of Rome undone, 
 That rose again and fell again 
 To ashes and to heaps of dust, 
 All died because man lived in vain ; 
 Because man sold his soul to lust, 
 Because man could not, would not love, 
 Live, stand erect and look above. 
 
 XL 
 
 1 And count what crimes have come of it ! 
 I say all sins, or said or writ, 
 Lie gathered here in this dark pit 
 Of man s unbridled, mad desire, 
 Where her frail form is ruthless thrown, 
 As on some sacrificial stone, 
 And burned as in a living fire 
 To leave but ashes, rue and ire. 
 
 74 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Aye, even crimes as yet unnamed 
 Are born of man s unbridled lust. 
 The wildest beast man ever tamed, 
 Or ever yet has learned to know, 
 The vilest beast would know disgust 
 Could it but know how low, how low 
 God s image sinks in muck and slime, 
 In crimes so deeper than all crime, 
 In slime that hath not yet a name, 
 And yet man knows no whit of shame ! 
 
 XLII 
 
 Poor, weak, mad man, so halt, so blind ! 
 Poor, weak, mad man that must carouse 
 And prostitute what he should house 
 And husband for his coming kind ! 
 Behold the dumb beasts at glad morn, 
 Clean beasts that hold them well in hand ! 
 How nobler thus to lord the land, 
 How nobler thus to love your race, 
 To house its health and strength and grace, 
 Than rob the races yet unborn 
 And build new Babylons to scorn ! 
 
 " I say that each man has aright, 
 The right the beast has to be born 
 Full-flowered, beauteous, free and fair 
 As wide-winged bird that rides the air ; 
 Not as a babe that cries all night, 
 Cries, cries in darkness for such light 
 As man should give it at its birth . 
 I say the poor babe has a right, 
 The right, at least, of a wild beast 
 Aye, red babe, black babe, west or east, 
 To rise at birth and lord the earth, 
 Strong-limbed, long-limbed and fair and free 
 As supple beast or tossing tree. 
 
 75 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 CANTO X. 
 
 I 
 
 Hear me, my Morning, May, my June 
 My Midnight, Midday, Afternoon 
 These truths I have from one who knew 
 The deeps of truth, from one who drew 
 My senses to his high control, 
 As tides turn to the high, white moon, 
 Because he was so pure so true, 
 So soulful, such unselfish soul, 
 With passions in one perfect whole. 
 
 II 
 
 He loved, he wooed, he won, he wed, 
 And that was all, aye, that was all 
 For days, for months, maybe for years. 
 He still would woo, put by her fears, 
 Make her his friend, let what befall, 
 And bide her will and bridal bed ; 
 Bide her sweet will and loving, bide 
 Blest dalliance with his maiden bride. 
 
 Ill 
 
 One night in May, such soulful night 
 Of cherry blossoms, birds, such birds 
 As burst with song, that sing outright 
 Because so glad they cannot keep 
 Their song, but sing out in their sleep ! 
 Such noisy night, a cricket s night, 
 A night of Katydids, of dogs 
 That bayed and bayed the vast, full moon 
 In chorus with the tuneful frogs 
 With May s head laid in lap of June. 
 How hot, how sultry hot the room ! 
 Their garden tree in perfect bloom 
 Gave out far Nippon s full perfume 
 The night grew warm and very warm, 
 And warm her warm, full-bosomed form ! 
 
 76 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 IV 
 
 How vital, virile, strong with life, 
 The world without, the maiden wife 
 How wondrous fair, full at his side 
 And ever still a maiden bride ! 
 The man uprose, caught close a skin, 
 A lion s skin, threw this about 
 His great, Herculean, pent-up form, 
 Thrust feet into his slippered shoes, 
 Then, with a careless, loosened gown 
 He strode the wide room up and down, 
 The skin s claws flapping at his thews. 
 He turned, he caught her suddenly 
 And instant wrapped her close within ; 
 Then down the stairs and back and out 
 Beneath a blossomed apple tree ; 
 Beneath the tree he pressed her form, 
 He was so warm, so very warm, 
 He held her close as close could be 
 Beneath the blossomed apple tree. 
 
 V 
 
 He held her in his strong right arm, 
 Held her so hard he shook the tree 
 Because he trembled mightily 
 And shook in his hard, happy pain 
 Because he quivered as a pine 
 When tropic storm sweeps up the line, 
 As when some swift horse, harnessed low, 
 Frets hard and bites the bit to go. 
 She laughed such low, sweet laugh, and said, 
 The while she raised her pretty head, 
 Please, please be gentle, good to me, 
 And please don t hurt the apple tree. 
 
 VI 
 
 11 The warm land lay as in a swoon, 
 Full length, the happy lap of June 
 A fair bride fainting with delight 
 And fond forgetfulness with night. 
 
 77 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 How warm the world was and how wise 
 The world is in its love of life, 
 Its hate of harshness, hate of strife, 
 Its love of Eden, peace that lies 
 In love-set, leaf-sown Paradise : 
 
 VII 
 
 How generous, how good is night ! 
 How warm this garden was, how warm 
 With life, with love, in any form ! 
 Two lowly crickets, clad in black, 
 Came shyly forth, shrank sudden back 
 Then chirped in chorus, side by side ; 
 And oh, their narrow world was wide 
 As oceans, light their hearts as air, 
 And oh, their little world was fair, 
 And oh, their little world was warm 
 Because each had a lover there, 
 Because they loved and didn t care. 
 
 VIII 
 
 1 How languid all things with delight, 
 With sensuous longings, sweet desire 
 That burned as with immortal fire, 
 Immortal love that burns to live 
 And lives to burn, to take, to give, 
 Create, bring forth, and loving share 
 With God the fruitage, flesh or flower 
 Just loving, loving, bud or bower, * 
 
 Or bee or birdling, small or great, 
 Just loving, loving to create, 
 With just one caution, just one care : 
 That all creation shall be fair. 
 
 IX 
 
 1 The very garden wall was warm 
 With happy sunshine gone away ; 
 Each vine, with eager, reaching arm, 
 Clung amorous, tiptoed to kiss, 
 With eager lips, the ardent clay 
 
 78 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 That held her to its breast of bliss. 
 White apple blossoms, basking lay, 
 A perfect pathway of perfume ; 
 The tiger lily scarce had room 
 For lilacs bending in a storm 
 Of laden sweetness more than sweet. 
 The moon leaned o er the garden wall 
 Then smiling tiptoed up her way 
 The while she let one moon beam fall 
 Ix)ve-laden in the sensuous heat. 
 So sweet, so warm, so still withall, 
 Love heard pink apple blossoms fall. 
 
 X 
 
 1 A Katydid laid his green thigh 
 Against another leaf-green form 
 And so began to sing and sigh, 
 As if it were his time to die 
 From stress and strain of passion s storm - 
 He, too, was warm and very warm. 
 
 XI 
 
 11 A tasseled hammock, rich and red, 
 Swung, hung hard by, and foot and head, 
 A maple tree, a cherry tree. 
 This famed tree of the Japanese, 
 Whatever other trees may be, 
 Is held most sacred of all trees ; 
 Not quite because of its perfume, 
 Not all because of its rich bloom, 
 But most because its blossomed boughs 
 Not only list to lover s vows 
 But true to lovers, ever true, 
 Refuse to let one moonbeam through. 
 
 XII 
 
 * 4 Here, close beneath this Nippon tree, 
 The sweetest tree of fair Japan, 
 The lover s tree of mystery, 
 Where not a thread of moonlight lay, 
 
 79 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 While waves of moonlight laughed and played 
 
 At hide and seek the other way, 
 
 He threw her, full length, from his arm ; 
 
 Full length, then raised her drooping head, 
 
 Threw back the skin and, blushing red, 
 
 He sought to say He nothing said ! 
 
 He nothing did but blush and blush 
 
 And feel his hot blood rush and rush 
 
 The very hammock bed was warm - 
 
 The while he leaned low from his place 
 
 And felt her warm breath in his face. 
 
 XIII 
 
 1 * Then, all abashed, he trembled so 
 He clutched the hammock hard and fast, 
 He held so hard it came, at last, 
 To shake, to swing fast to and fro. 
 Such awkwardness ! He clutched, let go, 
 Then clutched so hard he shook the tree 
 Till perfumed silence came to see 
 Till fragrance fell upon her hair, 
 Her midnight hair, a storm of snow. 
 How fair, how fair, how sensuous fair, 
 Half hidden in a great snow storm : 
 And yet how warm, how more than warm ! 
 
 XIV 
 
 * How shamed he was ! His great heart beat 
 As beats some signal for retreat. 
 This stupid, bravest of brave men, 
 Confused, dismayed, hung down his head, 
 Then turned and helplessly had fled, 
 Had she not reached a timid hand 
 And, half as pleading, half command 
 And half way laughing, shyly said, 
 From out her snood of snow and rain, 
 Please shake the Nippon tree again ! 
 
 XV 
 
 He shook the tree ; a snowy shower 
 On laughing face and loosened hair 
 80 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 A flash of perfume and of flower 
 
 Oh, she was fair and very fair ! 
 
 Then with a sudden strength he plucked 
 
 His red-ripe cherry from the tree, 
 
 Wound round the skin and loosely tucked 
 
 The folds about her modestly, 
 
 Then on and up with giant stride 
 
 He bore his blushing, maiden bride, 
 
 So cherry ripe, so cherry red, 
 
 And laid her in her bridal bed 
 
 Laid perfumed bride, laid flesh and flower. 
 
 What snows strewn in her ample hair, 
 
 What low, light laughter everywhere, 
 
 Or cherry tree, or step or stair ! 
 
 Just low, soft laughter, cherry bloom, 
 
 Just love and love s unnamed perfume. 
 
 XVI 
 
 " He tossed the lion s skin aside, 
 With folded arms leaned o er his bride, 
 Turned low the lamp, then stood full length, 
 Then strode in all his supple strength 
 The room a time, tossed back his hair, 
 Then to his bride, swift bent to her, 
 And kneeled as lowliest worshipper. 
 
 XVII 
 
 1 And then he threw him by her side, 
 His long, strong limbs thrown out full length, 
 His two fists full of housed-up strength. 
 What pride, what manly, kingly pride 
 That he had conquered, bravely slain 
 His baser self, was self again ! 
 
 XVIII 
 
 " He held a hand, exceeding small, 
 He breathed her perfume, thrend her hair 
 Across her breast with such sweet care 
 He scarce did touch her form at all. 
 Again he rose, strode to and fro, 
 Came back and turned the light quite low. 
 81 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 XIX 
 
 1 He bowed his face low to her feet ; 
 Now he would rise, then would not rise ; 
 He breathed, blushed to his very eyes, 
 Then sudden pushed aside the sheet 
 And kissed her pink and pearly toes. 
 Their perfume was the perfect rose 
 When perfect summer, passion, heat, 
 Points both hands of the clock straight up, 
 As when we lift and -drain the cup, 
 As when we lift two hands and pray, 
 When\eve have lived our little day, 
 The horologe of life may stop 
 With both hands pointing to the top. 
 
 XX 
 
 " Then suddenly, in strength and pride, 
 Full length he threw him at her side 
 And caught again her baby hand, 
 A bird that had escaped his snare. 
 He caught it hard, he held it there, 
 He begged her pardon, begged and prayed 
 She would forgive him, then he laid 
 His face to her face and the land 
 Was like to fairy land. They lay 
 As children when outworn at play. 
 As children bounding from their bed, 
 So rested, radiant, satisfied 
 With self and selfishness denied, 
 They laughed with early morn, they led, 
 So full of soul, of strength were they, 
 The laughing dance of life all day. 
 
 XXI 
 
 All day ? A month of days, and each 
 A song, a sermon, but to teach, 
 A holy book to teach the truth 
 Of endless, laughing, joyous youth. 
 82 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 XXII 
 
 At last, one springtime morning, she 
 Held close his hand without the door, 
 Would scarce let go, said o er and o er, 
 
 1 Good bye ! Come early back to me. 
 And then, close up beside, as one 
 Might eager seek some stout oak tree 
 When storm was sudden threatened, she 
 Put up her pretty, pouting mouth, 
 Half closed her laughing, saucy eyes 
 Such lips ! Such roses from the south, 
 The warm, south side of Paradise ! 
 He kissed her, kissed her crimson red, 
 Then, like some burglar, turned and fled. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 " Good bye ! Come early back to me. 
 Why, he heard nothing else all day, 
 Saw nothing else, knew naught but this, 
 Their fond, fond, first full-flowered kiss, 
 W herein she led the rosy way, 
 As is her right, as it should be. 
 He looked the clock hard in its face 
 A hundred times, he blushed, he smiled, 
 Did leave his desk and lightly pace 
 The floor, half laughing, as a child. 
 A million kisses ! He d had one, 
 Scarce one, his joy had just begun ! 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Come early ! He was at the gate 
 And through the door ere yet the day 
 Had kneeled down in the west to pray 
 Its vesper prayer, all brimming o er 
 And blushing that he could not wait 
 To kiss her just once more, once more ! 
 Take breath, then kiss her o er and o er^. 
 
 XXV 
 
 1 By some sweet chance he found her there, 
 Close fenced against the winding stair, 
 
 83 
 
AS IT WAS IN THK BEGINNING 
 
 With no escape, behind, before. 
 
 She put her lips up as to plead 
 
 She might be spared a little space ; 
 
 But there was mischief in her face, 
 
 A world of frolic and of fun, 
 
 And he could run as he could read, 
 
 Aye, he could read as he could run. 
 
 And then she pushed her red lips out : 
 
 You are so strong you hold so fast ! 
 
 You know I tried to lock the door 
 
 And then she frowned, began to pout 
 
 And sighed, Dear, dear, t is not well done ! 
 
 And then he caught her close, and then 
 
 He kissed her, once, twice, thrice again ! 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Then days and many days of this 
 
 Ah ! man, make merry and carouse 
 
 Upon your way, within your house, 
 
 Hold right there in your manly hand 
 
 Your snow-white maid who waits your kiss ; 
 
 Carouse on kisses and carouse 
 
 In soul, the livelong, busy day 
 
 When duty tears you well away, 
 
 To know what waits you at the gate, 
 
 And waiting loves and loves to wait. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 And how to kiss ? A thousand ways, 
 And each way new and each way true, 
 And each way true and each way new 
 Each day for thrice a thousand days. 
 How loyal he who loves, how grand ! 
 He does not tell her overmuch, 
 He does not sigh or seek to touch 
 Her garment s hem or lily hand ; 
 She is his soul, his life, his light, 
 His saint by day, his shrine by night. 
 84 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 XXVIII 
 
 " True love leads home his maiden bride 
 Low-voiced and tender, soft and true ; 
 He leans to her to woo, to woo, 
 As if she still turned and denied 
 No selfish touch, no sated kiss 
 To kill, and dig the grave of bliss. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 * True love will hold his maiden bride 
 As nobles hold inheritance ; 
 He will not part with one small pence 
 Of her fair strength and stately pride, 
 But wait serenely at her side, 
 Supremely proud, full, satisfied. 
 
 XXX 
 
 * Why, what a glorious thing to view ! 
 Each morn a maiden at your side, 
 The one fair woman, maid and bride, 
 With all her sweetness waiting you ! 
 How wise the miser, more than wise, 
 Who knows to count and keep such prize ! 
 
 XXXI 
 
 " How glad the coming home of him 
 Who knows a maiden waits and waits, 
 All pulsing, still, within his gates, 
 To kiss his goblet s golden brim ; 
 How joyous still to woo and woo, 
 To read the old new story through ! 
 
 XXXII 
 
 * Ah me, behold what heritage ! 
 What light by which to walk, to live 
 This age when lights resplendent burn, 
 This glorious, shining, new-born age, 
 When love can bravely give and give 
 And get thrice ten- fold in return, 
 If man will only live and learn. 
 
 85 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 XXXIII 
 
 * My Soul, my Life, you taught me all 
 I know, taught me to love, to live, 
 YOU gave me all I now would give 
 To man, to turn him from his thrall 
 To turn him from his selfish self, 
 Teach him to love and not to use, 
 To cherish, cherish, not abuse, 
 To count her precious, pure as dawn, 
 Aye, love her just to look upon, 
 As meanest miser loves his pelf, 
 
 Above all appetite and self. 
 
 ***** 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 * And now soft colors through the house 
 Began to slowly bud and bloom ; 
 The wise, the fair, far-seeing spouse 
 Began to deck the bridal room ; 
 Began to build, as builds a bird, 
 When first footfalls of spring are heard. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 The warm- toned colors of the wall, 
 Then gorgeous, grass-like carpetings 
 Strown, sown with lily, pink and all 
 That nature in her season brings ; 
 Then curtains of the Orient, 
 Then silken couch, soft as a kiss, 
 Then music such as science lent 
 But rarely to such loves as this : 
 Mute music, where not hand of man 
 Or foot of man is seen or heard, 
 Such soft, sweet sound as only can 
 In happy blossom time be*heard 
 Be heard from happy, nested bird. 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 " And now full twelve o clock, the noon 
 Of faithful, trustful wedded love, 
 The two hands pointing straight above. 
 86 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING , 
 
 Their noon was midnight and the moon 
 Came through the silken sheen and laid 
 A sword of silver at her side. 
 And peace, sweet perfect peace was hers 
 As when nor bird nor blossom stirs 
 And she was never more afraid ; 
 The moon surrendered to the maid, 
 Drew back and softly turned aside 
 As bridesmaid turning from the bride. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 "All voiceless, noiseless, tenderly 
 He pressed beside her, took her hand 
 He took her from the leaning moon, 
 And far beyond the amber sea, 
 While morning stars still sang in rune, 
 They sailed the seas of afternoon 
 The far, still seas, so grandly grand, 
 
 Until they came to Baby land. 
 
 ***** 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 4 And while the red stars sang in rune 
 Far down dim seas of afternoon, 
 Because of treasured strength and truth, 
 God trusted, kissed her tenderly 
 And loving took her soul to be 
 In partnership, to rear the youth, 
 The man-child mightily with Him 
 
 Or cherubim or seraphim." 
 
 ***** 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 He looked far up the mango lane 
 Below the wide-boughed banyan tree, 
 He looked to her, then looked again, 
 As one who tried yet could not see 
 But this one straight and upward way : 
 I said two ways, here seems but one, 
 Or set of moon or rise of sun, 
 
 87 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 But one way to the perfect day, 
 And you will go, and I must stay ? 
 She looked far up the steep of stone 
 And said : "I go, but not alone." 
 
 XL 
 
 The boat s prow pushed the cocoa shore, 
 The man spake not, but, leaning o er, 
 Strong-armed, he drew her to his side 
 And was not anywise denied. 
 He pointed to the failing fire 
 That still tipt lava peak and spire, 
 While stars pinned down the robe of night : 
 Twas here God said, Let there be Light ! 
 
 XLI 
 
 A little church, a lava wall, 
 A soft light looking gently down, 
 The Light of Christ, the second light, 
 Where two as one, passed up the town. 
 She gave her hand, she gave her all, 
 And said, as such proud woman might, 
 In ample right, in hallowed cause : 
 " As it in the beginning was, 
 So let the man-child be full born 
 Of Love, of Light, the Light of Morn !" 
 
 SIT LUX. 
 
 88 
 
NOTES 
 
 * Nine people in ten, even in California where you 
 find the widest traveled and best read people under 
 the path of the sun, will tell you that the Golden 
 Gate owes its name to the ingress and egress of the 
 Argonauts. 
 
 The facts are the Bay of San Francisco was discov 
 ered and named by a party of priests making a journey 
 of discovery from San Diego to the north. 
 
 And the Golden Gate was named and surveyed by 
 a party of sun-bronzed overland explorers with the 
 dust of three thousand miles travel on their leathern 
 habiliments, years before the discovery of gold. 
 
 John C. Fremont, in his book, " Memoirs of My 
 Life, writes : "To this gate I gave the name of 
 Chrysopylae or Golden Gate, for the same reasons 
 that the harbor of Byzantium (Constantinople) was 
 named the Golden Horn (Chrysoceras)." 
 
 b The California poppy, now the State Flower by 
 act of the Legislature, was called The Cup of Gold or 
 Holy Grail by the priests and Spanish explorers. 
 Long years later, after the discovery of Alaska and 
 her gold fields by a Danish navigator, Vitus Bering 
 in the service of Russia (1745-9), a Russian Prince 
 of culture, took the seed from Fort Ross, California, 
 where Russia was then trying to get a foot-hold in or 
 der to grow cereals for her gold miners in Alaska and 
 first exploited our poppy in the gardens of his Im 
 perial master at Saint Petersburg. Hence the flower 
 in botany now bears his name. It is a generous and 
 prolific plant, and nearly a quarter of a century ago 
 I was delighted to find it already getting a foothold 
 on the hillsides and along the mountain byways of 
 Italy and Southern France. 
 
 Mrs. Fremont says 4 The golden poppy is a poetical 
 expression from Mother Earth in California, of the 
 gold hidden in her bosom." 
 
 The golden poppy is God s gold, 
 
 The gold that lifts, nor weighs us down, 
 
 The gold that knows no miser s hold, 
 The gold that banks not in the town, 
 
 But singing, laughing, freely spills 
 
 Its hoard far up the happy hills ; 
 
 Far up, far down, at every turn, 
 
 What beggar has not gold to burn ! 
 
 89 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 c Few indeed are the survivors of the Chilcoot ter 
 rors, but they are loyal and loving as veterans of the 
 Civil War. Now and then a bent old man, with white 
 flags of truce fluttering from his temples, climbs my 
 steep and sits silently down and we repeat the lines : 
 
 And you, too, banged at the Chilcoot, 
 That rock-locked gate to the golden door ! 
 These thunder-built steeps have words built to suit, 
 And whether you prayed or whether you swore 
 T were one where it seemed that an oath was a 
 
 prayer 
 
 Seemed God couldn t care, 
 Seemed God wasn t there ! 
 
 And you, too, climbed to the Klondike 
 
 And talked, as a friend, to those five-horned stars ! 
 
 With muckluck shoon and with talspike 
 
 You, too, bared head to the bars, 
 
 The heaven-built bars where morning is born, 
 
 And drank with maiden morn 
 
 From Klondike s golden horn ! 
 
 And you, too, read by the North Lights 
 
 Such sermons as never men say ! 
 
 You sat and sat with the midnights 
 
 That sit and that sit all day : 
 
 You heard the silence, you heard the room, 
 
 Heard the glory of God in the gloom 
 
 When the icebergs boom and boom ! 
 
 Then come to my Sunland, my soldier, 
 
 Aye, come to my heart and to stay ; 
 
 3?or better crusader or bolder 
 
 Bared never a breast to the fray. 
 
 And whether you prayed or whether you cursed 
 
 You dared the best and you dared the worst 
 
 That ever brave man durst. 
 
 d From my Journal, Aug. <5, 1897. 
 
 Bravo ! We are now through the great canyon of 
 the upper Yukon and below the fearful White Horse 
 Palls. Captain McCormick, in charge of the barge, 
 has shot the canyon and the White Horse Falls, of the 
 upper Yukon this hour without loss or serious dam 
 age. The feat is the most remarkable thing that has 
 taken place in the history of this country. 
 
 The White Horse Falls has been the terror of all 
 travelers on this river. It has never been shot with 
 cargo, crew and passengers before. It is a truly ter 
 rible place, magnificently terrible. It is called the 
 slaughter pen. How many have perished here no one 
 can say, as these cataracts rarely give up their dead. 
 
 90 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 This is one of the portages, and all boats have always 
 stopped at the head of the canyon and falls to take 
 out effects, leave all passengers and all the crew that 
 can be spared or who do not care to take the chances, 
 and then the boats are, as a rule, let down and guided 
 by long, heavy cables. x 
 
 But many times strangers have been drawn in here 
 and made to take the shoot whether they would or 
 not. It is stated on good authority that twenty- three 
 men have perished here in these precipitous waters, 
 all having been strangers and drawn into the canyon 
 before knowing their peril. Of course there is no 
 such danger if the boat is emptied and the usual care 
 taken. But so great is the danger to strangers that 
 the Canadian government has set up red flags all along 
 either bank for more than a mile before reaching the 
 canyon and falls, and just at the entrance to the 
 " Slaughter Pen " is the peremptory order, " STOP ! " 
 We may all have to answer for what has been done, 
 but the divine audacity and the glorious sensation of 
 it is worth almost any sentence that can be imposed. 
 And all brute courage, do you say ? * Foolhardy 
 excitement?" Pardon me, nothing of the sort. 
 Never yet did men dare death for a higher purpose or 
 a nobler cause. There are thousands on their way to 
 the Klondike. There will be tens of thousands on 
 their way in the spring. Are there supplies in the 
 new mines ? Will men suffer if not informed by this 
 hasty and swift expedition ? And will tens of thou 
 sands sacrifice their small fortunes to rush to a false 
 field of discovery ? We were sent out to see and to 
 say. That is the situation. This is our reason for 
 the boldest captain and the best crew and some de 
 voted scribes taking their lives in their hands and 
 rushing on and on and on. To have stopped and 
 made the portage would have taken at least two 
 days to carry over our cargo time enough to lose or 
 win a Waterloo. 
 
 Let me tell you of our wild dash right here on the 
 banks of this regiment of wild and terrible white 
 horses, for it is from their resemblance to a great 
 band of plunging white battle steeds that the White 
 Horse Falls take their name. The Canadian officer 
 waited at the head of the canyon with another barge 
 and hailed us as we passed, pointing out to the cap 
 tain the point to land and unload, for the portage. 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 " I am going right through. They want me to go 
 through, and I am going." 
 
 "What ! What ! You ! , and then I heard, as 
 we flew on over the little whi^e hills that were grow 
 ing higher and bigger at each bound, the first real 
 hard swearing I have met with in this expedition. 
 I/oud and long above the roar of the canyon and falls 
 that dismayed officer called as he came running down 
 to the foaming river and up the steep bluff that looks 
 down into the foaming white canyon in its narrow, 
 perpendicular basalt walls. And as he ran the miners, 
 boatmen, other government officers and all ran after 
 him, leaving their boats and their packs and stores 
 and all to take care of themselves. 
 
 Men beckoned to us, but we could not hear their 
 cries above the roar of the mad, wild waters. Boom ! 
 Bang ! We were literally loaded into a cannon, shot 
 in and down and out as though out of a gun into a 
 very hell of waters, and then the shout that went up 
 from the hill top with the tossing arms and waving 
 hats ! It was hearty, heartful, human. A wild, 
 wild, Western shout from the strong Western men, 
 yet a shout with tears in it. 
 
 But the regiment of unbridled white horses still 
 plunged and leaped and charged in our narrow way. 
 Ten thousand gleaming white horses these must be 
 ridden down in one desperate dash. .There was no 
 old guard to follow if our first brave charge failed. 
 We must ride them down this instant or be ridden 
 down. The special expedition, all the time quietly 
 planning for this time-saving venture, had the day 
 before forgotten to take down the American flag, al 
 though on British soil, and with all respect to the 
 honest Britons. And never flew flag so gloriously 
 indeed sublimely beautiful. It is the only American 
 flag seen along the upper Yukon, although we are 
 never out of sight of boats. 
 
 And now, as we paused a second on the waves at 
 the lower end of the canyon, ready for the final and 
 more desperate charge, the excited people above us 
 suddenly caught sight of "Old Glory," and such a 
 shout and then they broke forth in a tempest of 
 cheers and song, Canadians and all, in which the 
 American Flag, " " Dixie, " " Marching Through 
 Georgia," and "John Brown" were heard ; anything 
 
 92 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 to give vent to the pent-up hearts as we rode the mad 
 charge into the flying white battle horses. 
 
 They smote us right in the breast till the waters 
 plunged ten feet in the air and drenched even the cap 
 tain away back at the helm. The oarsmen were 
 knocked down, but again they grasped their oars and 
 again we plunged on and again they were knocked 
 down and the boat was sent reeling to the right. And 
 then from our rear the rushing cateract came and we 
 spun almost like a top, drifting and tossing as if from 
 one white horse to another as a toy. The captain now 
 guided his boat from the bow. 
 
 Again the barge was knocked around and whirled 
 about in the white sea of white horses until the cap 
 tain once more stood in the stern. Of course there 
 was wild excitement with us some of us and 
 there were oaths from the grand old captain, for his 
 boatmen did not understand the nautical terms of the 
 old sea-dog and Alaska steamer captain ; and so con 
 fusion followed and the oaths often came like a thun 
 derstorm. 
 
 That is, in brief, the story of the most daring enter 
 prise in which I ever took part ; and I am no child in 
 either years or adventure. Our crew and passengers are 
 all Americans. One is an old Yankee soldier of 
 the Civil War. Two are from Illinois, and are 
 father and son, the boy but fifteen. It makes me 
 proud to be an American when I find such courage 
 and cool heads in a lot of men from far apart, who 
 were strangers but yesterday, and who are entirely, as 
 a rule, untrained to handling water craft. Captain 
 McCormick was born and reared on the shores of Lake 
 Erie. He is tall, strong, and has a voice like a lion. 
 But we did not know he had such a voice till we were 
 in the whirlpool and the foaming canyon, and had 
 charged into the camp of wild white battle horses. 
 
 We have no official survey of the canyon and falls 
 as yet, but the canyon is simrjly a white sea of foam 
 in a cleft of black basalt, and it is said to be, by moun 
 taineers and boatmen, eighty feet wide and three- 
 fourths of a mile long. Some idea of its velocity may 
 be had from the fact that the parties on the bluff 
 above, who were waiting to get their own boats 
 through, and hence were deeply interested, held their 
 watches on us from start to finish, and found that we 
 
 93 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 made the plunge and pass in one minute forty-five 
 seconds. The canyon and falls together make up a 
 dash of two and a half miles. The falls are counted 
 the more perilous because of the hidden rocks. While 
 I have been writing this, two more large boats, not 
 loaded, have come through. 
 
 Oh for England s old-time thunder ! 
 Oh for England s bold sea-men, 
 When we banged her over, under, 
 And she banged us back again ! 
 
 e Aug. 7. We tented in an aspen park, a world of 
 waters before us and behind us, and almost entirely 
 around us, for the river debouching into the lake is 
 many miles wide. Our beautiful camp, at the head 
 of beautiful Lake La Barge with its one island, was 
 also in a graveyard. Here we were not troubled by 
 mosquitoes ; they seem not to like the quaking and 
 restless aspen leaves. I learn that they are not found 
 in these sweet groves, as a rule. A dolorous loon 
 kept diving and disappearing between his melancholy 
 cries as some men with Winchesters took turns at try 
 ing to hit the red crown that blossomed from his 
 black head. And then a great white owl, as white 
 as his melancholy companion was black, and as 
 mournful as any board in the grass at the head of a 
 grave, came out to see with his great big eyes, if he 
 could see in the golden twilight, what the men- were 
 shooting at. I expected the men to turn loose on the 
 owl with a will. They did not. Quietly they sat 
 waiting for the loon to come back. Quietly they sud 
 denly sat down on the edge of the steep bluff by the 
 graves. Quietly they sat there with their guns in 
 their laps across their knees. The loon came back at 
 last, close by, too, but they did not lift a hand nor say 
 .a word. 
 
 The fact is, they had suddenly seen something else : 
 a white, white face upturned to the great white moon 
 from without the swirling water ; then another white 
 face, then another, swirling and sweeping around and 
 around and around. 
 
 They sat there in the golden, awe-inspiring Arctic 
 twilight, silent, a loon in the water, with his crimson 
 crown at their feet, a snow-white owl as big as a pil 
 low at their side, the six dead men in their graves 
 under the grass there, and none could say which of all 
 
 94 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 was the most silent the dead men under the grass, 
 the great owl out of the aspen grove at their side, the 
 crimson-crowned loon at their feet or the armed ar 
 gonauts with their rifles lying across their laps, with 
 their weary feet dipping to the dark, still waters. 
 
 Then the loon cried again and was gone, the owl 
 lifted like a little white cloud back into the aspen 
 trees and the men melted away one by one in silence 
 to their tents. 
 
 T is a land so far through the dead, white weather 
 That the sun falls weary and flushed and red : 
 
 T is a land so far that you wonder whether 
 If God would know it should you fall dead ; 
 That the sea and sky seem coming together, 
 Seem closing together as a book that is read. 
 
 1 1 named the great stars that seemed to perch on 
 the peaks and steeps close at either hand as we as 
 cended the ice floor of the Yukon, " Cathedral stars" 
 simply because they looked it at the time, although 
 Ordinarily they seemed to be normal stars, except that 
 ihey were incredibly large and their five horns far 
 brighter than rays of the sun. But when a seam or 
 stream of flame would burst from the edge of the 
 riWer s bed and suddenly take possession, for a few 
 seconds, of heaven and earth, they would flare up like 
 things of life, their five horns of gold pointing straight 
 ujj> like cathedral spires. Then as suddenly all would 
 bei black, umber, amber, cobalt, and the great, glit- 
 telfing stars again would be normal. I had, to my 
 dismay, as a hired scribe when trying to get from 
 Klondike to the Bering sea by way of the Yukon 
 1 89^ found the river closed at the edge of the Arctic 
 circle. It was nearly two thousand miles to the sea, 
 all ice and snow, with not so much as a dog-track 
 before me and only midnight round about me. There 
 was nothing to do but to try to get back to my^cabin 
 on the Klondike. In the line of my employment I 
 kept a journal of the solitary seventy-two days and 
 nighty mostly night spent in the silent and ter 
 rible Ascent of the savage sea of ice. But enough ; a 
 tithe ofr the scenes, the colors, the unnatural phenom 
 ena in these lines would be Weary work and dreary 
 reading^ Nor have I time or disposition, even in this 
 note, ta explain, urge or argue. I have resorted to 
 this forpi of expression only to give a few facts in a 
 
 95 
 
t 
 
 AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 matter of which I was forced to see much, and should 
 know a little something worth noting. 
 
 Briefly, then, "The Borealis race," as seen even by 
 Burns in vScotland, is a substance. It is not only vis 
 ible and varied, but it is tangible and subject to the 
 law of gravitation, although a certain sort of elec 
 tricity. It is born of friction ; yet it is as cold as the 
 electric force which we have harnessed is hot ; and I 
 believe that a full charge of it, when suddenly burst 
 ing from a rent or fissure in the ice, is deadly ; else 
 why do the dogs fall down and whine when they hear 
 and see it shoot up too near at hand ? 
 
 I can no more account for the manifold colors than 
 I can for the little gathering of cardinal hues when 
 you smite the transparent ice covering a lake or river. 
 I can only say that it would take the keen eyes of a 
 Lyons silk-weaver to distinguish and name the colors 
 that burst up through the ice from the groaning, grind 
 ing waters of the Yukon ; but the prevailing color is 
 positive ; that is, red, yellow, saffron, crimson and so 
 on. And these seem most forceful if they do not 
 burst forth at an angle and collide and carrom and 
 burnish the walls round about. They seem to in 
 fluence the stars, as they leap up, up and up. But 
 the colder colors seem more slow and heavy. I once 
 saw a slanting, steel-colored column break overhead 
 and fall to pieces right in my path. It lay like a dull, 
 mobile smoke on the snow for some seconds. As the 
 dogs sat down and whined, I jerked off a glove and 
 tried to take some of it in my hand. I may have fan 
 cied it, but it seemed to sting and tingle like a little 
 battery ; and it surely was as cold as death. 
 
 I spent some time with the Bishop of Selkirk, on 
 Mission Island, trying to get some light on all this, 
 for he had been hereabouts for near thirty years ; but 
 the good man seemed to depend on what he had read, 
 rather than what he had seen, contenting himself 
 with admiring the works of God and the glory of it all. 
 He gave 7 me his London book, ".The Bible Under 
 the Northern Lights, from which I have pilfered 
 generously. 
 
 When I told him that I had come to a positive con 
 clusion on the points set down, he said : * Well, 
 maybe it all comes from friction, but you must know 
 that the same phenomena is seen at Great Slave Lake, 
 
 96 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 as well as on the seas of northern Greenland. No, it 
 is as well to say that it is all the glory of -God." 
 
 I can only answer that the ice is groaning and grind 
 ing in the rise and fall of tides around Greenland and 
 like seabanks to the north, quite as well as along the 
 Yukon, only there the forces are not confined, and so 
 appear only in the heavens in variable bodies, in 
 stead of in sudden bursts and shafts, as here. But it 
 is not so easy to account for the Lights on Great 
 Slave Lake. I must leave the phenomena there for 
 those who care to look further. 
 
 s l Home is the hunter 
 
 Home from the hills, 
 
 Home is the sailor 
 
 Home from the sea." 
 
 Nothing proves more entirely to me the patent of 
 Robert Louis Stevenson to immortality, than his love 
 of Samoa, and his selection of this magnificent isolation 
 for his final home. As Napoleon will forever be Km- 
 peror of Saint Helena, so will Stevenson be Lord of 
 Samoa to the end. 
 
 Far, far away such cradled Isles 
 As Jason dreamed and Argos sought 
 Surge up from endless watery miles ! 
 And thou, the pale high priest of thought, 
 The everlasting high throned king 
 Of fair Samoa ! Shall I bring 
 Sweet sandal- wood ? Or shall I lay 
 Rich wreaths of California s bay 
 From sobbing maidens ? Stevenson, 
 Sleep well. Thy work is done ; well done ! 
 So bravely, bravely done ! 
 
 h The best hearted and most entirely just and gen 
 erous people I ever lived amongst are, or rather were 
 the Hawaiians, for they are fast passing to the beyond. 
 
 Our treatment of this dusky race, is one of the 
 crimes of the past century. 
 
 Fair land of flowers, land of flame, 
 Of sun-born seas, of sea-born clime, 
 Of clouds low shepherded and tame 
 As white pet sheep at shearing time, 
 Of great, white, generous high-born rain, 
 Of rainbows builded not in vain 
 Of rainbows builded for the feet 
 Of love to pass dry-shod and fleet 
 From isle to isle, when smell of musk 
 Mid twilight is, and one lone star 
 Sits in the brow of dusk. 
 
 97 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 Oh, dying, sad-voiced, sea-born maid ! 
 And plundered, dying, still sing on. 
 Thy breast against the thorn is laid 
 Sing on, sing on, sweet dying swan. 
 How pitiful ! And so despoiled 
 By those you fed, for whom you toiled ! 
 Aloha ! Hail you, and farewell, 
 Far echo of some lost sea-shell ! 
 Some song that lost its way at sea, 
 Some sea-lost notes of nature, lost, 
 That crying, came to me. 
 
 Dusk maid adieu ! One sea-shell less ! 
 
 Sad sea-shell silenced and forgot. 
 
 O Rachel in the wilderness, 
 
 Wail on ! Your children they are not. 
 
 And they who took them, they who laid 
 
 Hard hand, shall they not feel afraid ? 
 
 Shall they who in the name of God 
 
 Robbed and enslaved, escape His rod]? 
 
 Give me some after-world afar 
 
 From these hard men, for well I know 
 
 Hell must be where they are. 
 
 ***** 
 1 Ye Cyprians of fashion, ye whited, cursed mothers ! 
 Yea, as the Christ cursed the barren fig tree, 
 With your one sickly branch where a dozen should be 
 It were better ye never were born to be mothers, 
 Or, millstone at neck, ye be cast in the sea. 
 Ye are dried, wrinkled peppers in a dried-up pod, 
 Ye are hated of men and abhorred of God ! 
 
 Oh give me good mothers ! Yea, great, glad mothers, 
 Proud mothers of dozens, indeed, twice ten ; 
 Fair mothers of daughters and mothers of men, 
 With old-time clusters of sisters and brothers, 
 When grand Greeks lived like to gods, and when 
 Brave mothers of men, strong- breasted and broad, 
 Did exult in fulfilling the purpose of God. 
 
 Yea, give me grand mothers, old world mothers, 
 
 Who peopled strong, lusty, loved Germany, 
 
 Till she pushed the Frank from the Rhine to the sea. 
 
 Yea, give me mothers to love, and none others ; 
 
 Blessed, beautiful mothers of men for me, 
 
 For they, they have loved in the brave old way, 
 
 And for this all honor for aye and a day. 
 
 Oh ye of the West, ye ultimate mothers, 
 Ye firmest of foot and most mighty of hand, 
 Dominion is yours, through the whole wide land, 
 To the end of the world. For who but your brothers, 
 And men of your breasts led the Pioneer band, 
 Led west to the sea ? Who hewed the red way ? 
 Yea, who are the captains that lead us today ? 
 
 From " The Baroness of New York" London and New 
 York City, 1877, Pages 136-7. 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 A PREFATORY POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 When, like a sentinel on his watch tower, the 
 President, with his divine audacity and San Juan 
 valor, voiced the real heart of the Americans against 
 " race suicide," I hastened to do my part, in my own 
 way, ill or well, in holding up his hands on the firing 
 line. For I had wrought here and fought here while 
 he was still in school. See note ! on page 98? But 
 I was alone then, and as the stork had not so notably 
 disappeared from the homes of those best able to wel 
 come and entertain him, my book was no more wel 
 come to them then, than the stork is now. 
 
 However, I venture this new book with confidence, 
 not only because it is right, proper, clean, courageous, 
 but now seems opportune. " L,et the galled jade 
 wince ! " I give no quarter and ask none, except 
 pardon for errors incident to great haste. I cry aloud 
 from my mountain top, as a seer, and say : The cherry 
 blossom bird of Nippon must be more with us, else 
 another century and prolific Canada, like another 
 Germany from the north, may descend upon us and 
 take back train loads of tribute. We are coming to 
 be too entirely Frenchish. 
 
 A NEW ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF 
 
 The Complete Poetical Works 
 
 OF JOAQUIN MILLER. 
 
 This is the only Authorized Edition of his Poems 
 
 Library Edition Price $2.50 
 
 Gift Edition ^ Levant - Price 4.50 
 
 Author s Autograph Edition - Price 7.50 
 
 (Full Leather) / 
 
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 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA. 
 
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