Works

His footprints have failed us,
Where berries are red,
And madro'os are rankest,
The hunter is dead!

The grizzly may pass
By his half-open door;
May pass and repass...

Where the cocoa and cactus are neighbors,
Where the fig and the fir tree are one;
Where the brave corn is lifting bent sabres
And flashing them far in the sun;

Where maidens blush red in their tresses...

Rugged! Rugged as Parnassus!
Rude, as all roads I have trod
Yet are steeps and stone-strewn passes
Smooth o'erhead, and nearest God.
Here black thunders of my canyon
Shake its walls in Titan wars!...

The city sits amid her palms;
The perfume of her twilight breath
Is something as the sacred balms
That bound sweet Jesus after death,
Such soft, warm twilight sense as lie
Against the gates of Paradise....

Serene and satisfied! Supreme! As lone
As God, they loom like God's archangels churl'd;
They look as cold as kings upon a throne;

A line of battle-tents in everlasting snow.

The sun is dying; space and room.
Serenity, vast sense of rest,
Lie bosomed in the orange west
Of Orient waters. Hear the boom
Of long, strong billows; wave on wave,
Like funeral guns above a grave.