Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A SONG OF CREATION: BOOK 2, CANTO 3, by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A SONG OF CREATION: BOOK 2, CANTO 3, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The days grew longer, stronger, yet
Last Line: Red, pink, and brown with nippon bees.
Alternate Author Name(s): Miller, Joaquin
Subject(s): Creation


I

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
By some strong favorite athlete,
Then sinks down dying at your feet.

II

The red chief led him on and on
To his high lodge by gorged Yukon
And housed him kindly as his own,
Blind, broken, dazed, and so alone!

III

The low bark 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, watch and wait?

IV

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.

V

He thought of home, he thought of her,
Thought most of her, and pictured how
She walked in springtime splendor where
Warm sea winds twined her heavy hair
In great Greek braids piled fold on fold,
Or loosely blown, as poppy's gold.

VI

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 thing of hate!
And then he prayed forgiveness, prayed
As one in sin, and sore afraid.

VII

And praying so he dreamed, he dreamed
She sat there looking in his face,
Sat silent by in that dread place,
Sat silent weeping, so it seemed,
Sat still, sat weeping silently.
He saw her tears and yet he knew,
The blind man knew he could not see,
Scarce hope to see for years and years.
And then he seemed to hear her tears,
To hear them steal her loose hair through
And gently fall, as falls the dew
And still, small rain of summer morn,
That makes for harvests, yellow corn.

VIII

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?

IX

He heard her rise, give quick command
To patient, skin-clad, savage men
To heap the wood, come, go, and then
Go feed their woolly friends at hand,
To bring fresh stores, still heap fresh flame,
Then go, then come, as morning came.

X

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,
And 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.

XI

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
Of 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 robes 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.

XII

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 God's sun is rest, and -- rest.

XIII

She slowly wakened from her sleep
To find him sleeping, silent, deep!
What food for all, what feast for all,
To chief or slave, or great or small,
Ranged round the flaming, glowing heap --
Such lank, lean flank, such hungry zest!
Such reach of limb, such rest, such rest!

XIV

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 him 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.

XV

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 these last grains of sinking sand
Might in the still night slip and pass,
With none at hand to turn the glass.

XVI

And did the red men prate thereat?
Why, they had laid them down and died
For her, those 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.

XVII

He spake no more than babe might speak:
His eyes were as the kitten'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,
But held, as drowning man might hold
Who hopes no more of life or land,
But, as from habit, clutches hand.

XVIII

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,
Her first warm, welcome happy tears,
Drew in her breath, put by her fears
And knew she had not dared in vain.

XIX

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 you can think.
Their lorn lodge sat 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 that sword of Light.

XX

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.

XXI

She held his hand, he did not stir,
And as she nightly sat and sat,
She silent gazed and guessed thereat,
His fancies seemed to 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.

XXII

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 learn, as learn he must,
To lift her fair face from the dust.

XXIII

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.

XXIV

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.

XXV

And oft they paused, turned and looked back
Along their desolate white track,
With arched hand raised to shield their eyes --
Looked back as if for something lost
Or left behind, of precious cost,
Sad-eyed and silent, mutely wise,
As just expelled from Paradise.

XXVI

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 and fro.

XXVII

Between the cloud-capt 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 from the ark of old;
And ever as he passed, each day
Let fall one croak, so cold, so cold
It seemed to strike the ice below
And break in fragments hard as fate;
It fell so cold, so desolate.

XXVIII

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 answerings hard by;
The icy steeps began to pour
Mad tumult down the rock-built steep.
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.

XXIX

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, for room!

XXX

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.

XXXI

He tossed, shook high his antlered head,
Blew blast on blast through his huge nose,
Then, wild with savage rage and fright,
He climbed, climbed to the highest height,
As if he felt the flood once more
Had come to swallow sea and shore.

XXXII

The waters sank, the man uprose,
A boat of skins, his Eskimo,
Then down from out the world of snow
They passed tow'rd seas of calm repose
Where wide sails waited, warm sea wind,
For mango isles and tamarind.

XXXIII

What wonders ward these Arctic seas!
What dread, dumb, midnight days are these!
A wonder world of night and light;
A land of blackness blent with white,
A land of water, ices, snow,
Where ice is emperor and floe
And berg and pack and jam and drift
Forever grind and gnaw and lift
And tide about the bleak North Pole --
Where bull whales bellow, blow and blow
Great rainbows in their lover's quest
With all a sunland lover's zest!
A land of contradictions and
A desolated dead man's land!
A land of neither life nor soul;
A land where isles on isles of bone
And totem towns lie lifeless, lone --
Their tombstones just a totem pole.

XXXIV

Their cedar boat deep ballasted
With bags of bleak, Koyukuk's gold,
An ancient Bedford salt at head,
Drives through the ice floes, jolly, bold!
What isles! Saghalien beyond,
Bleak, blown Saghalien, where bear
And wild men are as one and share
Their caves and shaggy coats of hair
In close affection, warm and fond.
At least, so ran the jolly tale
Of him who steered them on and on
Tow'rd Saghalien from far Yukon --
This Bedford salt who lassoed whales,
Or said he did, of largest size,
And so, according, made his tales
Of whales to fit in size his lies,
The while they sailed tow'rd Saghalien.

XXXV

What worlds, these wild Aleutian Isles!
What wonder worlds, unnamed, unknown!
They lift a thousand icy miles
From Unalaska, bleak and lone
And bare as icebergs anywhere,
Save where the white fox, black fox, red,
Starts from his ice and snow-built bed,
And like some strange bird flits the air.
You sometimes see the white sea bear,
A mother seal with babe asleep
Held close to breast in careful keep,
And here a thousand sea birds scream
And see the wide-winged albatross
In silence bear his shadow cross
As still and restful as a dream --
Naught else is here; here life is not;
'Tis as the land that God forgot.

XXXVI

And yet it was not always so;
This old salt tells a thousand tales
Of love and joy, of weal and woe,
That happened in the long ago
When reindeer ranged the mossy vales
That dot this thousand miles of isles;
That here the fond Aleutian maid,
With naught to fright or make afraid,
Lived, loved and silent went her way
As yon swift albatross in grey.
But totem towns have naught to say
Of all her tears and all her smiles.

XXXVII

And this, one of so many tales,
This Bedford salt in quest of whales!
He tells of one once favored isle
Far out, a full five hundred mile,
Where dwelt a Russian giant, knave,
A pirate, priest, and all in one,
With many wives, and reindeer white
As Saint Elias in the sun;
Yet every wife was as a slave
To herd his white deer night by night
And day by day to pluck away
Each hair that was not perfect white.

XXXVIII

"And," says this bearded Bedford salt,
This man of whales and wondrous tales
Of seas of ice and Arctic gales,
This truthful salt without one fault --
"White reindeer's milk is yellow gold
And he who drinks it lives for aye;
He will not drown, he cannot die,
Nor hunger, thirst, nor yet grow cold,
But live and live a thousand lives --
Ten thousand deer, two thousand wives."

XXXIX

"And what the end?" He turns his quid,
This ancient, sea-baked, Bed ford man --
"The thing blowed up, you bet it did,
A bloomin's big volcano, and
So bright that you can stand and write
Your log most any bloomin' night,
Five hundred miles away to-day.
Them deers? They're now the milky way."
But now enough of hairy men,
Of monstrous beasts before the flood,
White Arctic chine, black gopher wood,
Of flower-fed skies, of ice-sown seas;
Come, let us court love-land again.
Behold, how good is love, how fair!
Behold, how fair is love, how good!
A sense of burning sandalwood
Is in my nostrils and the air
Is redolent of cherry trees
Red, pink, and brown with Nippon bees.





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