SELECT POETRY.

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 228, 13 June 1872, Page 9

SELECT POETRY.

FROM' SEA TO SEA.

BY JOAQUIN MILLEB. (From "Scribner*B MonMy")

I. 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 curled, And kiss white palms to the caps of gold ! A girth of biass and a breast of steel, A breath of fire and a flaming mane, An iron hoof and a steel-clad heel, A ilfexican bit and a massive chain Well tied and wrought in an iron reign ; And away l.away ! with a shout and a yell That had stricken a legion of old with fear, That had startled the dead in their graves whilere, And startled the damned in Hades as well.

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

111. r^P^seas in a land ! O, lakes of mine ! * By the love I bear and the sougs I bring Be glad with me I lift your waves and sing A song in the reed that surrounds 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 passed ; For the hope there is and the rest at last.

IV. O, heart of the world's heart I West ! my West ! Look up ! look out ! There are fields of kine, There are clover-fields that are red as wine ; a world of kine in the fields take rest, ruminate in the shade of trees That are white with blossoms or brown with bees, There are emerald seas of corn and cane ; There fire cotton-fields like a foamy main. To the far-off South where the sun was born, Where the fair have birth and the lovers new mornThere are isles of oak and a harvest plain, Where brown men bend to the beuding grain ; Theie are temples of God and towns new-born, And beautiful homes of bpautiful brides ; And the hearts of oak and the hands of horn Have fashioned them all and a world besides. > A yell like the jell of the Iroquis, And out of Eden— and Illinois.

V. A rush of rivers and a brush of tiees, And a breath blown far from Mexican seas. And over the great heart vein of earth ! By the South-Sun-land of the Cherokee. By the scalp-lttrige of the tall Pawnee, And up the La Placta. What a weary dearth Of the homes of men J What a sense of seas, Wheie the seas are not j What a salt-like bieeze ! What dust and taste of quick alkali 2 Then hill, green, brown, then black like nipht, All fierce and defiant against the sky !

VIAt Inst ! at last I O »teed new-born. Born strong of the will of the strong New World, We shoot to the summit with the shafts of morn Of the mounts of Thunder,* where the clouds are cut led ■ Below in a splendour of the sun-clad seas : And 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. The hare leaps low in the storm-bent grass, The mountain ram from his cliff looks back, And the brown deer hies to the tamarack ; And afar to the South with the sound of the main. 801 l buffalo herds from the peak to the plain. We are over the summit and on 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 blowing to heaven white billows of clouds.

VII. 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 uttered his truths, and when His hand 'has lifted the things to fame From the mass of filings to be known no more ; When creeds have perished and have passed away, Opinions that lorded their little day — A monument set in the desert sand, A pyramid reared in an island shore. And their architects — shall have place and name, O sea, land lost ! O, desolate land, Made brown with grain, and made green with bay ; . Let mock who will, gainsay it who may, No little thing lias it been to rear A resting place in the desert here, For Fathers bound to a Fatheriand ; No little thing with a foe at hand That has knowu no peace, save with these strong men, And the peace unbroken with the blameless Pen. Let the wise be just, let the brave forbear, Forgive their follies, nor forget thei • care.

VIII. The Huraboldtt De&ert and the Digger Land, And the seas of sage and arid sand That stretch away till the strained eye wearies, Are far in the rear, and the grand Sierras Are under our feet, and the heart beats high, And tho blood comes quick, but the lips are still With awe and wonder, and all the will Is bowed with the grandeur that frets the sky.

IX. A flash of lakes through the fragrant trees, A eong of birds and a sound of bees Above in the boughs of the sugar-x>ine ; The pick-aie stroke in the placer mine, And the boom of blasts in the gold-ribbed hills, Tne grizzly's growl in the gorge below, Are dying away, and the, sound of rills F^m the far-off shimmering crest of snow, A yellow stream and a cabin'g smoke, And brow-bent Mils and the shepherd's call. And hills of vines and of fruits, and all The sweets of Eden are here, and we hook out and afar to a-liuiitless sea:

X. We have lived an age in a half-moon wane ; We have seen a world. We have chased the sun From sea w sea, but the tiisk is done, A.v-1 we descend to the great white main— To the King of Seas ; and with temples hare? And a tropic breath on the hrow and hair, AH hushed with wonder, and apart : the knees Go down in worship on the golden sands ; V. it j faces feaward, and with folded hands, Y. -i gaz3 on the "beautiful Balboa seas.

* The telegraph poles along the summit of the Jpcky Mountains, with scarce an exception, ace splintered and torn by lightning.