Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MY NEW YEAR'S GUESTS, by ROLLIN MALLORY DAGGETT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MY NEW YEAR'S GUESTS, by                    
First Line: The winds come cold from the southward, with incense of fir and pine
Last Line: "long life to the hearts still beating, and peace to the hearts at rest!"
Subject(s): Guests; Holidays; New Year; Visiting


(Midnight, December 31, 1881, in Virginia City. On the wall photographs of five
hundred California pioneers)

THE winds come cold from the Southward, with incense of fir and pine,
And the flying clouds grow darker as they halt and fall in line.
The valleys that reach the deserts, the mountains that greet the clouds,
Lie bare in the arms of Winter, which the gathering night enshrouds.
The leafless sage on the hillside, the willows low down the stream,
And the sentry rocks above us have faded all as a dream.
And the fall of the stamp grows fainter, the voices of night sing low,
And spelled from labor the miner toils through the drifting snow.
As I sit alone in my chamber, this last of the dying year,
Dim shades of the past surround me, and faint through the storm I hear
Old tales of the castles builded under shelving rock and pine,
Of the bearded men and stalwart, I greeted in 'forty-nine:
The giants with hopes audacious, the giants with iron limb,
The giants who journeyed Westward, when the trails were new and dim:
The giants who felled the forests, made pathways over the snows,
And planted the vine and fig-tree where the manzanita grows;
Who swept down the mountain gorges, and painted the endless night
With their cabins rudely fashioned, and their camp fires' ruddy light;
Who builded great towns and cities, who swung back the Golden Gate,
And hewed from a mighty ashlar the form of a sovereign state;
Who came like a flood of waters to a thirsty desert plain
And where there had been no reapers grew valleys of golden grain.
Nor wonder that this strange music sweeps in from the silent past,
And comes with the storm this evening and blends into strains with the blast;
Nor wonder that through the darkness should enter a spectral throng,
And gather around my table with the old time smile and song;
For there on the wall before me, in a frame of gilt and brown,
With a chain of years suspended, old faces are looking down;
Five hundred all grouped together—five hundred old Pioneers—
Now list as I raise the taper and trace the steps of the years;
Behold this face near the center; we met ere his locks were gray,
His purse like his heart was open; he struggles for bread today.
To this one the fates were cruel, but he bore his burden well,
And the willow bends in sorrow by the wayside where he fell.
Great losses and grief crazed this one; great riches turned this one's head;
And a faithless wife wrecked this one—he lives but were better dead.
Now closer the light on this face; 'twas wrinkled when we were young;
His touch drew our footsteps Westward, his name was on every tongue.
Rich was he in land and kindness, but the human deluge came,
And left him at last with nothing, but death and deathless fame.
'Twas a kindly hand that grouped them, these faces of other years;
The rich and the poor together,—the hopes and the smiles and tears
Of some of the fearless hundreds who went like the knights of old,
The banner of empire bearing to the land of blue and gold.
For years have I watched these shadows, as others I know have done,
As death touched their lips with silence, I have draped them one by one,
Till, seen where the dark-plumed angel has mingled here and there,
The brows I have flecked with sable cloud, the living everywhere.
Darker and darker and darker these shadows will yearly grow
As changing the seasons bring us the bud and the falling snow;
And soon—let me not invoke it!—the final prayer will be said,
And strangers will write the record, "the last of the group is dead."
And then—but why stand here gazing? A gathering storm in my eyes
Is mocking the weeping tempest that billows the midnight skies;
And, stranger still, is it fancy?—Are my senses dazed and weak?
The shadowy lips are moving as if they would ope and speak,
And I seem to hear low whispers, and catch the echo of strains
That rose from the golden gulches, and followed the moving trains,
The scent of the sage and desert, the path on the rocky height,
The shallow graves by the roadside, all, all have come back tonight;
And the mildewed years, like stubble, I trample under my feet;
And drink again at the fountain when the wine of life was sweet;
And I stand once more exalted, where the white pine frets the skies
And dream in the winding canyon where early the twilight dies.
Now the eyes look down in sadness, the pulse of the year beats low;
The storm has been awed to silence; the muffled hands of the snow,
Like the noiseless feet of mourners, are spreading a pallid sheet
O'er the heart of dead December, and glazing the shroud with sleet.
Hark! the bells are chiming midnight, the storm bends its listening ear,
While the moon looks through the cloud rifts and blesses the new-born year.
Bar closely the curtained windows, shut the light from every pane,
While free from the worldly intrusion and curious eyes profane
I take from its leathern casket a dented old cup of tin,
More precious to me than silver, and blessing the draught within,
I drink alone and in silence to the "Builders of the West"—
"Long life to the hearts still beating, and peace to the hearts at rest!"





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