Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FROM SEA TO SEA, by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FROM SEA TO SEA, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Shake hands! Kiss hands in haste to the sea
Last Line: We gaze on the boundless, white balboa seas.
Alternate Author Name(s): Miller, Joaquin
Subject(s): Sea; Ocean


Lo! here sit we by the sun-down seas
And the White Sierras. The sweet sea-breeze
Is about us here; and a sky so fair
Is bending above, so cloudless, blue,
That you gaze and you gaze and you dream, and you
See God and the portals of heaven there.

Shake hands! kiss hands in haste to the sea,
Where the sun comes in, and mount with me
The matchless steed of the strong New World,
As he champs and chafes with a strength untold, --
And away to the West where the waves are curl'd,
As they kiss white palms to the capes of gold!

A girth of brass and a breast of steel,
A breath of flame and a flaming mane,
An iron hoof and a steel-clad heel,
A Mexican bit and a massive chain
Well tried and wrought in an iron rein;
And away! away! with a shout and yell
That had stricken a legion of old with fear,
They had started the dead from their graves whilere,
And startled the damn'd in hell as well.

Stand up! stand out! where the wind comes in
And the wealth of the sea pours over you,
As its health floods up to the face like wine,
And a breath blows up from the Delaware
And the Susquehanna. We feel the might
Of armies in us; the blood leaps through
The frame with a fresh and a keen delight
As the Alleghanies have kiss'd the hair,
With a kiss blown far through the rush and din,
By the chestnut burrs and through boughs of pine.

O seas in a land! O lakes of mine!
By the love I bear and the songs I bring
Be glad with me! lift your waves and sing
A song in the reeds that surround your isles! --
A song of joy for this sun that smiles,
For this land I love and this age and sign;
For the peace that is and the perils pass'd;
For the hope that is and the rest at last!

O heart of the world's heart! West! my West!
Look up! look out! There are fields of kine,
There are clover-fields that are red as wine;
And a world of kine in the fields take rest,
As they ruminate in the shade of trees
That are white with blossoms or brown with bees.

There are emerald seas of corn and cane;
There are isles of oak on the harvest plain,
Where brawn men bend to the bending grain;
There are temples of God and towns new born,
And beautiful homes of beautiful brides;
And the hearts of oak and the hands of horn
Have fashion'd all these and a world besides. . .

A rush of rivers and a brush of trees,
A breath blown far from the Mexican seas,
And over the great heart-vein of earth!
. . . By the South-Sun-land of the Cherokee,
By the scalp-lock-lodge of the tall Pawnee,
And up La Platte. What a weary dearth
Of the homes of men! What a wild delight
Of space! of room! What a sense of seas,
Where the seas are not! What a salt-like breeze!
What dust and taste of quick alkali!
. . . Then hills! green, brown, then black like night,
All fierce and defiant against the sky!

At last! at last! O steed new-born,
Born strong of the will of the strong New World,
We shoot to the summit, with the shafts of morn,
On the mount of Thunder, where clouds are curl'd,
Below in a splendor of the sun-clad seas.
A kiss of welcome on the warm west breeze
Blows up with a smell of the fragrant pine,
And a faint, sweet fragrance from the far-off seas
Comes in through the gates of the great South Pass,
And thrills the soul like a flow of wine.
The hare leaps low in the storm-bent grass,
The mountain ram from his cliff looks back,
The brown deer hies to the tamarack;
And afar to the South with a sound of the main,
Roll buffalo herds to the limitless plain. . . .

On, on, o'er the summit; and onward again,
And down like the sea-dove the billow enshrouds,
And down like the swallow that dips to the sea,
We dart and we dash and we quiver and we
Are blowing to heaven white billows of clouds.

Thou "City of Saints!" O antique men,
And men of the Desert as the men of old!
Stand up! be glad! When the truths are told,
When Time has utter'd his truths and when
His hand has lifted the things to fame
From the mass of things to be known no more,
A monument set in the desert sand,
A pyramid rear'd on an inland shore,
And their architects shall have place and name.

The Humboldt desert and the alkaline land,
And the seas of sage and of arid sand
That stretch away till the strain'd eye carries
The soul where the infinite spaces fill,
Are far in the rear, and the fierce Sierras
Are under our feet, and the hearts beat high
And the blood comes quick; but the lips are still
With awe and wonder, and all the will
Is bow'd with a grandeur that frets the sky.

A flash of lakes through the fragrant trees,
A song of birds and a sound of bees
Above in the boughs of the sugarpine.
The pick-ax stroke in the placer mine,
The boom of blasts in the gold-ribbed hills,
The grizzly's growl in the gorge below
Are dying away, and the sound of rills
From the far-off shimmering crest of snow,
The laurel green and the ivied oak,
A yellow stream and a cabin's smoke,
The brown bent hills and the shepherd's call,
The hills of vine and of fruits, and all
The sweets of Eden are here, and we
Look out and afar to a limitless sea.

We have lived an age in a half moon-wane!
We have seen a world! We have chased the sun
From sea to sea; but the task is done.
We here descend to the great white main --
To the King of Seas, with its temples bare
And a tropic breath on the brow and hair.

We are hush'd with wonder, we stand apart,
We stand in silence; the heaving heart
Fills full of heaven, and then the knees
Go down in worship on the golden sands.
With faces seaward, and with folded hands
We gaze on the boundless, white Balboa seas.





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