In the scene that ensued
I did not take a hand;
But the floor it was strewed

Like the leaves on the strand

With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding, In the game "he did not understand."

In his sleeves, which were long,
He had twenty-four packs—
Which was coming it strong,

Yet I state but the facts;

And we found on his nails, which were taper, What is frequent in tapers-that's wax.

Which is why I remark,

And my language is plain, That for ways that are dark,

And for tricks that are vain,

The heathen Chinese is peculiar

Which the same I am free to maintain.

CROTALUS

(The Rattle-snake)

No life in earth, or air, or sky;

The sunbeams, broken silently,

On the bared rocks around me lie,—

Cold rocks with half-warmed lichen scarred, And scales of moss; and scarce a yard

Away, one long strip, yellow-barred.

Lost in a cleft! 'Tis but a stride
To reach it, thrust its roots aside,
And lift it on thy stick astride!

Yet stay! That moment is thy grace!
For round thee, thrilling air and space,
A chattering terror fills the place!

A sound as of dry bones that stir
In the Dead Valley! By yon fir
The locust stops its noonday whir!

The wild bird hears; smote with the sound,
As if by bullet brought to ground,
On broken wing, dips, wheeling round!

The hare, transfixed, with trembling lip,
Halts, breathless, on pulsating hip,
And palsied tread, and heels that slip.

Enough, old friend!-'t is thou. Forget
My heedless foot, nor longer fret
The peace with thy grim castanet!

I know thee! Yes! Thou mayst forego
That lifted crest; the measured blow
Beyond which thy pride scorns to go,

Or yet retract! For me no spell

Lights those slit orbs, where, some think, dwell Machicolated fires of hell!

I only know thee humble, bold,
Haughty, with miseries untold,
And the old Curse that left thee cold,

And drove thee ever to the sun,

On blistering rocks; nor made thee shun
Our cabin's hearth, when day was done,

And the spent ashes warmed thee best;
We knew thee,-silent, joyless guest
Of our rude ingle. E'en thy quest

Of the rare milk-bowl seemed to be
Naught but a brother's poverty

And Spartan taste that kept thee free

From lust and rapine. Thou! whose fame Searches the grass with tongue of flame, Making all creatures seem thy game;

When the whole woods before thee run, Asked but-when all was said and doneTo lie, untrodden, in the sun!

WHAT THE BULLET SANG

O JOY of creation,

To be!

O rapture, to fly

And be free!

Be the battle lost or won,

Though the smoke shall hide the sun,
I shall find my love-the one

Born for me!

I shall know him where he stands

All alone,

With the power in his hands
Not o'erthrown;

I shall know him by his face,
By his godlike front and grace;
I shall hold him for a space
All my own!

It is he-O my love!
So bold!

It is I-all thy love

Foretold!

It is I-O love, what bliss!
Dost thou answer to my kiss?
O sweetheart! what is this

Lieth there so cold?

Joaquin Miller (1841-1913)

Miller's real name was Cincinnatus Heine Miller and he was born in Indiana. His parents were immigrants. He has said he was born in a covered wagon crossing the plains. When the boy was twelve years old his family trekked by wagon to Oregon from the Middle West. At about fourteen Miller ran away from home to become a gold miner and lived with the Indians. He returned to Oregon, studied law, was admitted to the bar, edited The Democratic Register, wrote a defense of the Mexican brigand, Joaquin Murietta, and took his first name for a pseudonym. He became judge of Grant County, Oregon, and visited England and Europe in 1870.

He had been discouraged by the reception in America of his first two books of verse. They had fallen perfectly flat. In London he printed privately a small edition of his Pacific Poems and distributed them for review. They proved the sensation of a London season. He became known as the "Byron of Oregon." The next year he published Songs of the Sierras and roamed about Europe. In 1887 he came back to live near Berkeley, California, as a picturesque hermit with ideas about founding a school for young writers and a belief in certain rituals of the open.

He produced some dozen volumes, among them several very poor novels. A collective edition of his poems appeared in California in 1897.

Miller wrote rhetorically, with wide melodramatic gestures, and an air of immense braggadocio. The greater part of his poetry will not live. But he expressed well a certain undeniably melodramatic atmosphere that clothed the early Far West; here and there he shows real descriptive ability, and occasionally his oratory is more than mere declamation, as in "Columbus." His faults of bombast and his inability truly to portray human nature are shown in the larger portion of his work. To the people of England, for a while, he typified the "odd Americans"; his work was, at the time, received as our most characteristic literary product. Miller was our literary Colonel Cody, with his "Wild West Show," though in most particulars the Colonel's show was much more authentic.