Joaquin Miller Quotes

For the Right, through thickest night, Till the man-brute Wrong be driven From high places; till the Right Shall lift like some grand beacon light. For the Right! Love, Right and duty; Lift the world up, though you fall Heaped with dead before the wall; God can find a soul of beauty Where it falls, as gems of worth Are found by miners dark in earth.

Give a man five years, and, with unfortunate exceptions of course, he will find his level on the Pacific, and his place, whether high or low, as naturally as a stream of water.

Rugged! Rugged as Parnassus! Rude, as all roads I have trod — Yet are steeps and stone-strown passes Smooth o'er head, and nearest God. Here black thunders of my canyon Shake its walls in Titan wars! Here white sea-born clouds companion With such peaks as know the stars!

A face that lifted up; sweet face That was so like a life begun, That rose for me a rising sun Above the bended seven hills Of dead and risen old new Rome. Not that I deem'd she loved me. Nay, I dared not even dream of that. I only say I knew her; say She ever sat before me, sat All still and voiceless as love is, And ever look'd so fair, divine, Her hush'd, vehement soul fill'd mine, And overflowed with Runic bliss, And made itself a part of this.

O you had loved her sitting there, Half hidden in her loosen'd hair: Why, you had loved her for her eyes, Their large and melancholy look Of tenderness, and well mistook Their love for light of Paradise.

A grand old Neptune in the prow, Gray-hair'd, and white with touch of time, Yet strong as in his middle prime; A grizzled king, I see him now, With beard as blown by wind of seas, And wild and white as white sea-storm, Stand up, turn suddenly, look back Along the low boat's wrinkled track, Then fold his mantle round a form Broad-built as any Hercules, And so sit silently.

Is it worthwhile that we jostle a brother, Bearing his load on the rough road of life? Is it worthwhile that we jeer at each other, In blackness of heart — that we war to the knife? God pity us all in our pitiful strife.

O star-built bridge, broad milky way! O star-lit, stately, splendid span! If but one star should cease to stay And prop its shoulders to God's plan — The man who lives for self, I say, He lives for neither God nor man.

Dear, I took these trackless masses Fresh from Him who fashioned them; Wrought in rock, and hewed fair passes, Flower set, as sets a gem. Aye, I built in woe. God willed it; Woe that passeth ghosts of guilt. Yet I built as His birds builded — Builded singing as I built. All is finished! Roads of flowers Wait your loyal little feet. All completed? Nay, the hours Till you come are incomplete.

The sunlight of a sunlit land, A land of fruit, of flowers, and A land of love and calm delight; A land where night is not like night, And noon is but a name for rest, And love for love is reckoned best. Where conversations of the eyes Are all enough; where beauty thrills The heart like hues of harvest-home; Where rage lies down, where passion dies, Where peace hath her abiding place. . . .

Man's books are but a climbing stair, Lain step by step, like stairs of stone; The stairway here, the temple there — Man's lampad honor, and his trust, The God who called him from the dust.

Beside The grim old sea-king sits his bride, A sun-land blossom, rudely torn From tropic forests to be worn Above as stern a breast as e'er Stood king at sea or anywhere.

Where storm-born shadows hide and hunt I knew thee, in thy glorious youth, And loved thy vast face, white as truth; I stood where thunderbolts were wont To smite thy Titan-fashioned front, And heard dark mountains rock and roll; I saw the lightning's gleaming rod Reach forth and write on heaven's scroll The awful autograph of God!

Man's books are but man's alphabet, Beyond and on his lessons lie — The lessons of the violet, The large gold letters of the sky; The love of beauty, blossomed soil, The large content, the tranquil toil: The toil that nature ever taught, The patient toil, the constant stir, The toil of seas where shores are wrought, The toil of Christ, the carpenter; The toil of God incessantly By palm-set land or frozen sea.

He seem'd as lithe and free and tall And restless as the boughs that stir Perpetual topt poplar trees. And one, that one, had eyes to teach The art of love, and tongue to preach Life's hard and sober homilies; And yet his eager hands, his speech, All spoke the bold adventurer; While zoned about the belt of each There swung a girt of steel, till all Did seem a walking arsenal.