From Lone Mountain to Twin Peaks In Memory of Richard Realf UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES ROBERT ERNEST COWAN From LONE MOUNTAIN to TWIN PEAKS "Poet, Social Pioneer, Emancipator" PEOPLE'S LIBRARY, 2079 SUTTER STREET SAN FRANCISCO 1918 Colonel Richard Realf, "poet, orator, journalist, workman," as he declared himself in his last will, and "soldier for freedom and laureate for liberty", as he might well have added, was buried on the 31st of October (1878), the services being conducted by the Grand Army comrades of Oakland and San Francisco. The Rev. J. K. Xoble, Chaplain, officiated. Col. J. J. I. yon, "his personal friend, read the poet's "Swan Song". "Dc mortuis nil nisi bonum." The remains were interred in one of the highest portions of the Lone Moun tain cemetery, overlooking and embracing the Golden Gate and Bay of San Francisco. From "Poems by Richard Realf, Poet, Soldier, Work man", by my old friend, Colonel Richard J. Hinton, of Washington, D. C. This volume, with the extended life of Realf, is published by Funk & Wagnalls. Xew York (1898), and I am indebted to it for all the selections I have presumed to make from Realf's poems. In my tribute to Realf. I have used the name "Lone Mountain", in the ric sense employed by Hinton and the eld San Franciscans and not as the specific name applied to the single eminence known today as Lone Mountain. The peculiar significance of Richard Realf to San Francisco is that he connects us directly with Old John Brown of Harper's Ferry, in whose cabinet Realf was the selected and designated "Secretary of State." Thru his personal friendship with Lady Byron in England in his youth, he serves also as an historical link between San Francisco and Lord Byron, thus bringing us nearer to John Brown and to Byrrm. two men who, like Realf himself, "wrought for liberty with sword and song", or "speech that rushed up hotly from the heart." WILLIAM McDEVITT. (October 28, 1918, fortieth anniversary of the death of Real;'.) (PS From LONE MOUNTAIN to TWIN PEAKS 'New Liberty and Old Romance' Forgot of the green generations, He sleeps in the pale of the Past, Brave heart that could never surrender To Sorrow, but broke at the last. "He sl"eeps"? Nay, he holds his last outpost I 7 ar-found on Lone Mountain's great breast, As ever, the Valiant, defending The Grand Army Line at its crest. As one for whom Memory dowers The land that grew free thro' his deeds, His "Song of his Sword" all my spirit. Awakens and quickens and leads. So there on Lone Mountain I seek him, To hear, like a call from the heights, His echoing song-pulses throbbing And thrilling for nobler new rights. 1 Then visions of Realf and his Captain, Old John of the marching great soul! Arouse and allure and uplift me Aloft to Twin Peaks' topmost goal. Oh! here the world-page of new epic Lies open, beneath us, all-round! While there stands the Golden Gate pontiff With golden tiara sun-crowned! The ling'ring light's easeful languor Beguiles to Romance's domain; My reveries vault the vast decades; I'm revenant now in Old Spain! Is't fancy, that wistful far chiming? O voice from the South that can thrill ! O vesper-vague bells of the Mission, What pictures with pageants ye fill! Enraptured my gaze as Portala's! Encharmed as of old those old Vales! All language again is all legend The Mission retells its rare tales! Its love-laden glamorous magic Again into tendrils and leaves, Again into buds and brave blossoms, The burgeoning fancy enweaves: 2 Each name an old legend endearing; Each legend a page of old Past; Each page a tapestried pageant From dreams that all dreaming outlast. "Dolores, Guerrero, Valencia!" O litany's lilt that allures! "Dolores, Guerrero, Valencia!" How melody's mem'ry endures! "Dolores!" Guerrero, "Valencia!" Romance that shall never grow cold ! "Guerrero!" Dolores, "Guerrero!" Thy lover that never grew old ! D.olores, the light of the home land! Guerrero, the knight of dear Spain ! Valencia, the sun-loving province Of wine and of fruit-laden wain ! Dolores, Guerrero, Valencia! The Maid and the Man and the Clime ! Of these is the Kingdom of love-tales "Camino Real" of old rime! Ah! soon may some late Mission minstrel, New Stoddard, this idyl restore! For never Romance stirred so instant From magical casement of yore. 3 Not mine, tho, the lute of love's legend Nor lay of Valencia's delight: Dolores, thy true troubador Some day shall repledge his true plight, Ail-gallantly ride as to tourney, Thy favor aflame on his lance, And gaily with ballad immortal Thy beauty permain in romance. (Recessional) It's darkling: I turn to Lone Mountain, My tribute is Richard's to-day. Not Richard the proud Coeur-de-Lion, But Coeur de tous hommes Revoltes. For He was a soldier, Dolores! A lover, Guerrero, all heart ! Nor even Valencia's Knighthood More chivalrous champions gart. "De Mortuis nil nisi bonum," His anguishing threnody runs : The "good" of thy laureates, Freedom, Endureth while' er thou hast sons. L'Envoi Where Age makes Romance, and where Freedom, The light of our breed, is reborn, Old sunsets will gild the old glories, New liberty gild the new morn! William McDevitt. 4 SELECTIONS FROM RICHARD REALF'S SONGS Symbolisms O Earth! thou hast not any wind that blows, Which is not music; every weed of thine, Pressed rightly, flows in aromatic wine And every humble hedgerow flower that grows, And every little brown bird that doth sing, Hath something greater than itself and bears, A living word to every living thing: Albeit it holds the Message unawares. All shapes and sounds have something which is not Of them; a Spirit broods amid the grass; Vague outlines of the Everlasting Thought Lie in the melting shadows as they pass; The touch of an Eternal Presence thrills The fringes of the sunset and the hills. -5- Love's Marvel I think that Love makes all things musical, As, melted in the marvel of its breaths, Our barren lives to blossoming lyrics swell, And the new births shine upward from old deaths; Witching the world with wonder. Thus to-day, Watching the crowding people in the street, I thought the ebbing and the flowing feet, Moved to a delicate sense of rhythm alway, And that I heard the yearning faces say, "Soul, sing me this new song!" The Autumn leaves, Throbbed subtly to me an immortal tune. And when a warm shower wet the roofs at noon, Low melodies seemed to slide down from the eaves, Dying delicious in a dreamy swoon. 6 David Swing Wherefore albeit thine enemies howl and hiss, Remain thou silent, till thine hour is full. Until thine hour is come. For there shall come, A moment, when, with clarified, soft eyes, Men shall behold thy stature and stand dumb, Stricken with large and beautiful surprise. But this is not thy glory; the broad gaze, Of seeing natures, the sweet sobs and shouts Of glad, freed thralls, who in new-throbbing praise, Do penance for the evil of old doubts. The home in good men's hearts; the wider faith, The benedictions poured along thy path. The prayers that run like couriers at thy side, The dear beliefs of childhood's innocence, These are as naught, that thou hast justified Thy soul with love, is thy soul's recompense. 7- Written on the Night of His Suicide De mortnis nil nisi bonum. When For me, this end has come, and I am dead, And the little voluble, chattering daws of men. Peck at me curiously, let it then be said, By some one brave enough to speak the truth: Here lies a great soul killed by cruel wrong, Down all the balmy days of his fresh youth, To his bleak, desolate noon, with sword and song, And speech that rushed up wildly from his heart, He wrought for liberty, till his own wound, (He had been stabbed) concealed with painful art, Through wasting years, mastered him and he swooned, And sank there where you see him lying now, With the word "Failure" written on his brow. But say he succeeded. If he missed World's honors and world's plaudits, and the wage, Of the world's deft lackeys, still his lips were kissed, Daily by those high angels who assuage The thirsting of the poets for he was Born unto singing and a burthen lay Mightily on him, and he moaned because He could not rightly utter to the day What God taught in the night. Sometimes nathless Power fell upon him, and bright tongues of flame And blessings reached him from poor souls in stress, And benedictions from black pits of shame, And little children's love and old men's prayers And a great Hand that led him unawares. So he died rich. And if his eyes were blurred With big films silence! he is in his grave: Greatly he suffered; greatly too he erred; Yet broke his heart in trying to be brave. Nor did he wait till Freedom had become The popular shibboleth of courtier's lips; He smote for her when God Himself seemed dumb, And all His arching skies were in eclipse. He was a-weary, but he fought his fight, And stood for simple manhood, and was joyed, To see the august broadening of the light And new earth's heaving heavenward from the void. He loved his fellows, and their love was sweet, Plant daisies at his head and at his feet. 9 My Sword Song Day in, day out, through the long campaign, I march in my place in the ranks, And whether it shine or whether it rain, My good sword cheerily clanks; It clanks and clanks in a knightly way, Like the ring of an armored heel; And this is the song, which day by day, It sings with its lips of steel. O friend from whom a hundred times, I have felt the strenuous grip Of the all-renouncing love that climbs To the heights of fellowship; Are you tired of all the weary miles? Are you faint with your swooning hymns? Do you hunger back for the olden smiles? And the lilt of olden hymns? Has your heart grown weak since that rapt hour, When you leapt, with a single bound, From dreaming ease to sovereign power Of a living soul world crowned? Behold! the aloes of sacrifice Are better than radiant wine, And the bloody-sweat of a cause like this Is agony divine. 10- Under the wail of the shuddering world, A moan for its fallen sons; Over the volleying thunders hurled From the throats of the wrathful guns, Above the roar of the plunging line, That rocks with the fury of hell, Runs the absolute voice O Earth of mine, Be patient, for all is well. Thus sings my sword to my soul, and I, Albeit the way is long, As soiled clouds darken athwart the sky Still keep my spirit strong: Whether I live, or whether I lie On the stained ground, ghastly and stark, Beyond the carnage, I shall descry,. Love's shine across the dark. 11 Of Liberty and Charity O wherefore should ill ever flow from ill, And pain still keener pain forever breed? We all are brethren; even the slaves who kill For hire are men; and to avenge misdeed On the misdoer, doth but misery feed With her own broken heart Shelley. So sang the wondrous singer all compact Of inspiration and prophetic fire, All built of instincts whose divineness tracked Music to its first springs, and did acquire The secret of the Everlasting Fact. To which the poets of the world aspire, And made the land which chased him o'er the seas Drunk with the wine of his fierce melodies. II He being dead, yet speaketh. His great songs Run up and down the listening universe, Whitening the cheeks of Tyrannies and wrongs, Smiting oppression with a lyric curse; Fusing the alien thought of alien throngs, So that they dwell in spiritual intercourse; And breathing like a sweet wind of the south On warm lip wasted by the troublous drouth. 12 . Ill While lasts the language, his high hymns shall last; While stirs the heroic impulse, he shall stir The hearts of many like a high blast; And as the steed doth quicken to the spur, Men's souls shall quicken, when his strains have passed Into the pulses, and grown worthier Of that ineffable beauty which he saw With his clear eyes of tenderness and awe. IV On him the sense of human brotherhood Lay like a Prophet's burden; if there ran Immortal maledictions in his blood For whatsoever desecrated man Nathless a lute-like voice of pity wooed The foolish evil-doer. His stern ban Was for the sin upon the sinner's lips He laid the kisses of clean fellowships. To him the stature of a man was as The stature of an angel he could see Albeit but dimly as through darkened glass Gleams of a dread and awful sanctity, Crowning the spotted foreheads, which alas! Scarce felt their solemn crowning. Equally He looked on kings and beggars; on the attaint As on the hero and the praying saint. 13 VI He saw Heaven's rivers of compassion roll To the uttermost end of Being; and he strove, With all the hoarded splendor of his soul, To make the lean earth bless itself with love, And crown itself with Love's grand aureole; Whereby the rhythmic garlands which he wove, Were wonderful for beauty iris-hued With the great glow of Love's infinitude. VII Thou winged-spirit, eagle-plumed for power, And flight beyond the daring of the eye! We have sore need for thee in this dark hour, When all the wells of kindness are drained dry, And popular passion rages to deflower The popular conscience, and make Victory The procuress of Vengeance, and the lusts Of dragon-eyed suspicion and mistrusts. VIII Let Liberty run onward with the years, And circle with the seasons; let her break The tyrant's harshness, the oppressor's spears; Bring ripened recompenses that shall make Supreme amends for sorrow's long arrears; Drop holy benison on hearts that ache; Put clearer radiance into human eyes And set the glad earth singing to the skies. 14 IX Let her voice thunder at the door of kings, And lighten in black dungeons. Let her breath Stir the dry bones of peoples, till there springs Life's fruitful vigor out of barren death; And roused, vast millions clap triumphant wings O'er the mean devils which have hindered failh; And men's tall growth of excellence express Invincible, puissant nobleness. .'111839 From Realfs Best-Known Poem, INDIRECTION Great are the symbols of being, but that which is symboled is greater; Vast the created and beheld, but vaster the inward creator; Back of the sound broods the silence, back of the gift stands the giving; Back of the hand that receives thrill the sensitive nerves of receiv ing. Space is as nothing to spirit, the deed is outdone by the doing; The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the heart of the wooing; And up from the pits where these shiver, and up from the heights where those shine, Twin voices and shadows swim starward, and the essence of life is divine. 16 "There never will be an end to the Troubador ; and now and then it would seem that the jingle of their guitars will drown the sound of the muffled blows of the pick-axes and trip-hammers of all the workers of the world." O. HENRY'S closing lines of his story, "The Last of the Troubador s." 22 8 B UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below -.-.- . !K2t01) LOS ANGELES LIBRARY UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000120548 3