Joaquin Miller Quotes

A thousand miles of mighty wood Where thunder-storms stride fire-shod; A thousand flowers every rod, A stately tree on every rood; Ten thousand leaves on every tree, And each a miracle to me; And yet there be men who question God!

Oh, great is the hero who wins a name, But greater many and many a time Some pale-faced fellow who dies in shame, And lets God finish the thought sublime. And great is the man with a sword undrawn, And good is the man who refrains from wine; But the man who fails and yet still fights on, Lo, he is the twin-born brother of mine.

I only saw her as she pass'd — A great, sad beauty, in whose eyes Lay all the loves of Paradise. . . . You shall not know her — she who sat Unconscious in my heart all time I dream'd and wove this wayward rhyme, And loved and did not blush thereat.

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.

Lo! all things moving must go by. The sea lies dead. Behold, this land Sits desolate in dust beside His snow-white, seamless shroud of sand; The very clouds have wept and died, And only God is in the sky.

In men whom men condemn as ill I find so much of goodness still. In men whom men pronounce divine I find so much of sin and blot I hesitate to draw a line Between the two, where God has not.

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.

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.

O woman, born first to believe us; Yea, also born first to forget; Born first to betray and deceive us, Yet first to repent and regret! O first then in all that is human, Lo! first where the Nazarene trod, O woman! O beautiful woman! Be then first in the kingdom of God!

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.

He rode as rides the hurricane; He seem'd to swallow up the plain; He rode as never man did ride, He rode, for ghosts rode at his side, And on his right a grizzled grim — No, no, this tale is not of him.

These be but men. We may forget The wild sea-king, the tawny brave, The frowning wold, the woody shore, The tall-built, sunburnt men of Mars. . . But what and who was she, the fair? The fairest face that ever yet Look'd in a wave as in a glass; That look'd as look the still, far stars, So woman-like, into the wave To contemplate their beauty there, Yet look as looking anywhere?

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.

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. . . .

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.