EL CANALO.*

Now saddle El Canalo!—the freshening wind of

morn

Down in the flowery vega is stirring through the

corn;

The thin smoke of the ranches grows red with coming day,

And the steed's impatient stamping is eager for the way!

My glossy-limb'd Canalo, thy neck is curved in pride,

Thy slender ears prick'd forward, thy nostril straining wide,

And as thy quick neigh greets me, and I catch thee by the mane,

I'm off with the winds of morning-the chieftain of the plain!

I feel the swift air whirring, and see along our track,

From the flinty-paved sierra, the sparks go streaming back;

And I clutch my rifle closer, as we sweep the dark defile,

Where the red guerilla watches for many a lonely mile.

They reach not El Canalo; with the swiftness of a dream

We've pass'd the bleak Nevada, and Tule's icy stream;

But where, on sweeping gallop, my bullet backward sped,

The keen-eyed mountain vultures will circle o'er the dead!

On! on, my brave Canalo! we've dash'd the sand

and snow

From peaks upholding heaven, from deserts far

below -

We've thunder'd through the forest, while the crackling branches rang,

And trooping elks, affrighted, from lair and covert sprang!

We've swum the swollen torrent, we've distanced

in the race

The baying wolves of Pinos, that panted with the chase;

And still thy mane streams backward, at every thrilling bound,

And still thy measured hoof-stroke beats with its morning sound!

The seaward winds are wailing through Santa Barbara's pines,

And like a sheathless sabre, the far Pacific shines, Hold to thy speed, my arrow!—at nightfall thou shalt lave

Thy hot and smoking haunches beneath his silver wave!

My head upon thy shoulder, along the sloping

sand

We'll sleep as trusty brothers, from out the mountain land;

* El Canalo, or the cinnamon-coloured, is the name of the choicest breed of the Californian horse.

The pines will sound in answer to the surges on the shore,

And in our dreams, Canalo, we'll make the jour ney o'er!

THE BISON-TRACK.

STRIKE the tent! the sun has risen; not a cloud has ribb'd the dawn,

And the frosted prairie brightens to the westward, far and wan:

Prime afresh the trusty rifle-sharpen well the hunting-spear

For the frozen sod is trembling, and a noise of hoofs I hear!

Fiercely stamp the tether'd horses, as they snuff the morning's fire,

And their flashing heads are tossing, with a neigh of keen desire;

Strike the tent-the saddles wait us! let the bridlereins be slack,

For the prairie's distant thunder has betray'd the bison's track!

See a dusky line approaches; hark! the onwardsurging roar,

Like the din of wintry breakers on a sounding wall of shore!

Dust and sand behind them whirling, snort the foremost of the van,

And the stubborn horns are striking, through the crowded caravan.

Now the storm is down upon us-let the madden'd horses go!

We shall ride the living whirlwind, though a hundred leagues it blow!

Though the surgy manes should thicken, and the red eyes' angry glare

Lighten round us as we gallop through the sand and rushing air!

Myriad hoofs will scar the prairie, in our wild, resistless race,

And a sound, like mighty waters, thunder down the desert space:

Yet the rein may not be tighten'd, nor the rider's eye look back

Death to him whose speed should slacken, on the madden'd bison's track!

Now the trampling herds arc threaded, and the chase is close and warm For the giant bull that gallops in the edges of the

storm:

Hurl your lassoes swift and fearless-swing your rifles as we run!

Ha! the dust is red behind him. shout, my brothers, he is won!

Look not on him as he staggers-'tis the last shot he will need;

More shall fall, among his fellows, ere we run the bold stampede

Ere we stem the swarthy breakers-while the wolves, a hungry pack,

Howl around each grim-eyed carcass, on the bloody bison-track!

BEDOUIN SONG.

FROM the Desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind

In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,

And the midnight hears my cry:

I love thee, I love but thee,

With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,

And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!

Look from thy window and see
My passion and my pain;

I lie on the sands below,

And I faint in thy disdain.

Let the night-winds touch thy now
With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
Of a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,

And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!

My steps are nightly driven,
By the fever in my breast,
To hear from thy lattice breathed
The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,

And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!

Full of passion and sorrow is he,
Dreaming where the beloved may be.
And when the warm south-winds arise,
He breathes his longing in fervid sighs-
Quickening odors, kisses of balm,

That drop in the lap of his chosen palm.
The sun may flame and the sands may stir,
But the breath of his passion reaches her.
O Tree of Love, by that love of thine,
Teach me how I shall soften mine!
Give me the secret of the sun,
Whereby the wooed is ever won!

If I were a King, O stately Tree,
A likeness, glorious as might be,
In the court of my palace I'd build for thee!
With a shaft of silver, burnished bright,
And leaves of beryl and malachite⚫
With spikes of golden bloom a-blaze,
And fruits of topaz and chrysoprase:
And there the poets, in thy praise,
Should night and morning frame new lays-
New measures sung to tunes divine;
But none, O Palm, should equal mine!

KUBLEH;

A STORY OF THE ASSYRIAN DESERT.

The dewy air

THE black eyed children of the Desert drove
Their flocks together at the set of sun.
The tents were pitched; the weary camels bent
Their suppliant necks, and knelt upon the sand
The hunters quartered by the kindled fires
The wild boars of the Tigris they had slain
And all the stir and sound of evening ran
Throughout the Shammar camp.
Bore its full burden of confused delight
Across the flowery plain, and while afar,
The snows of Koordish Mountains in the ray
Flashed roseate amber, Nimroud's ancient mound
Rose broad and black against the burning West.
The shadows deepened and the stars came out,
Sparkling in violet ether; one by one
Glimmered the ruddy camp-fires on the plain,
And shapes of steed and horseman moved among
The dusky tents with shout and jostling cry,
And neigh and restless prancing. Children "an
To hold the thongs while every rider drove
His quivering spear in the earth, and by his door
Tethered the horse he loved. In midst of all
Stood Shammeriyah, whom they dared not touch,→
The foal of wondrous Kubleh, to the Sheik
A dearer wealth than all his Georgian girls.
But when their meal was o'er,-when the red fires
Blazed brighter, and the dogs no longer bayed,-
When Shammar hunters with the boys sat down
To cleanse their bloody knives, came Alimàr,
The poet of the tribe, whose songs of love
Are sweeter than Bassora's nightingales,--
Whose songs of war can fire the Arab blood

Like war itself: who knows not ALIMAR?
Then ask'd the men: "O poet, sing of Kubleh!"
And boys laid down the knives half burnish'd, say.
ing:

"Tell us of Kubleh, whom we never saw-
Of wondrous Kubleh!" Closer flock'd the group
With eager eyes about the flickering fire,
While ALIMAR, beneath the Assyrian stars,
Sang to the listening Arabs:

"Gun is great!
O Arabs, never yet since MAHMOUD rode
The sands of Yemen, and by Mecca's gate
The winged steed bestrode, whose mane of fire
Blazed up the zenith, when, by ALLAH call'd,
He bore the prophet to the walls of heaven.
Was like to Kubleh, SOFUK's wondrous mare:
Not all the milk-white barbs, whose hoofs dash'd
flame

In Bagdad's stables, from the marble floor-
Who, swath'd in purple housings, pranced in state
The gay bazaars, by great AL-RASCHID back'd:
Not the wild charger of Mongolian breed
That went o'er half the world with TAMERLANE:
Nor yet those flying coursers, long ago
From Ormuz brought by swarthy Indian grooms
To Persia's kings-the foals of sacred mares,
Sired by the fiery stallions of the sea

Who ever told, in all the Desert Land.

The many deeds of Kubleh? Who can tell Whence came she, whence her like shall come again?

O Arabs, like a tale of SCHEREZADE

Heard in the camp, when javelin shafts are tried On the hot eve of battle, is her story.

Far in the Southern sands, the hunters say, Did SOFUK find her, by a lonely palm. The well had dried; her fierce, impatient eye Glared red and sunken, and her slight young limbs Were lean with thirst. He check'd his camel's pace, And while it knelt, untied the water-skin, And when the wild mare drank, she follow'd him. Thence none but SorUK might the saddle gird Upon her back, or clasp the brazen gear About her shining head, that brook'd no curb From even him; for she, alike, was royal.

"Her form was lighter, in its shifting grace, Than some impassion'd Almée's, when the dance Unbinds her scarf, and golden anklets gleam Through floating drapery, on the buoyant air. Her light, free head was ever held aloft; Between her slender and transparent ears The silken forelock toss'd; her nostril's arch, Thin-drawn, in proud and pliant beauty spread, Snurfing the desert winds. Her glossy neck Curved to the shoulder like an eagle's wing, And all her matchless lines of flank and limb Seem'd fashion'd from the flying shapes of air By hands of lightning. When the war-shouts rang From tent to tent, her keen and restless eye Shone like a blood-red ruby, and her neigh Rang wild and sharp above the clash of spears. The tribes of Tigris and the Desert knew h SOFUK before the Shammar bands she bore To meet the dread Jebours, who waited not To bid her welcome; and the savage Koord,

Chased from his bold irruption on the plain,
Has seen her hoofprints in his mountain snow.
Lithe as the dark-eyed Syrian gazelle,
O'er ledge and chasm and barren steep, amid
The Sindjar hills, she ran the wild ass down.
Through many a battle's thickest brunt she storm'd
Reeking with sweat and dust, and fetlock-deep
In curdling gore. When hot and lurid haze
Stifled the crimson sun, she swept before
The whirling sand-spout, till her gusty mane
Flared in its vortex, while the camels lay
Groaning and helpless on the fiery waste.

"The tribes of Taurus and the Caspian knew her.
The Georgian chiefs have heard her trumpet-neigh
Before the walls of Teflis. Pines that grow
On ancient Caucasus, have harbour'd her,
Sleeping by SOFUK in their spicy gloom.
The surf of Trebizond has bathed her flanks,
When from the shore she saw the white-sail'd bark
That brought him home from Stamboul. Never yet,
O Arabs, never yet was like to Kubleh!

"And SoFUK loved her. She was more to him Than all his snowy-bosom'd odalisques. For many years, beside his tent she stood, The glory of the tribe.

"At last she died: Died, while the fire was yet in all her limbsDied for the life of SOFUK, whom she loved. The base Jebours-on whom be ALLAH's curse!Came on his path, when far from any camp, And would have slain him, but that Kubleh sprang Against the javelin-points and bore then down, And gain'd the open desert. Wounded sore, She urged her light limbs into maddening speed And made the wind a laggard. On and on The red sand slid beneath her, and behind Whirl'd in a swift and cloudy turbulence, As when some star of Eblis, downward hurl'd By ALLAH'S bolt, sweeps with its burning hair The waste of darkness. On and on, the bleak, Bare ridges rose before her, came and pass'd; And every flying leap with fresher blood Her nostril stain'd, till SOFUK's brow and breast Were fleck'd with crimson foam. He would have

turn'd

To save his treasure, though himself were lost,
But Kubleh fiercely snapp'd the brazen rein.
At last, when through her spent and quivering frame
The sharp throes ran, our distant tents arose,
And with a neigh, whose shrill excess of joy
O'ercame its agony, she stopp'd and fell.
The Shammar men came round her as she lay,
And SoFUK raised her head and held it close
Against his breast. Her dull and glazing eye
Met his, and with a shuddering gasp she died.
Then like a child his bursting grief made way
In passionate tears, and with him all the tribe
Wept for the faithful mare.

"They dug her grave
Amid Al-Hather's marbles, where she lies
Buried with ancient kings; and since that time
Was never seen, and will not be again,
O Arabs, though the world be doom'd to live
As many moons as count the desert sands,
The like of wondrous Kubleh. Gon is great!"

CHARMIAN.

O DAUGHTER of the Sun!

Who gave the keys of passion unto thee? Who taught the powerful sorcery

Wherein my soul, too willing to be won, Still feebly struggles to be free,

But more than half undone?

Within the mirror of thine eyes,

--

Full of the sleep of warm Egyptian skies -
The sleep of lightning, bound in airy spell,
And deadlier, because invisible,-

I see the reflex of a feeling
Which was not, till I looked on thee:

A power, involved in mystery.

That shrinks, affrighted, from its own revealing.

Thou sitt'st in stately indolence,

Too calm to feel a breath of passion start The listless fibres of thy sense,

The fiery slumber of thy heart.

Thine eyes are wells of darkness, by the val
Of languid lids half-sealed: the pale
And bloodless olive of thy face,

And the full, silent lips that wear

A ripe serenity of grace,

Are dark beneath the shadow of thy hair.
Not from the brow of templed ATHOR beams
Such tropic warmth along the path of dreams;
Not from the lips of hornéd Isis flows
Such sweetness of repose!

For thou art Passion's self, a goddess to,
And aught but worship never knew;

And thus thy glances, calm and sure,
Look for accustomed homage, and betray
No effort to assert thy sway:
Thou deem'st my fealty secure.
O Sorceress! those looks unseal

The undisturbéd mysteries that press
Too deep in nature for the heart to feel
Their terror and their loveliness.
Thine eyes are torches that illume

On secret shrines their unforeboded fires,
And fill the vaults of silence and of gloom
With the unresting life of new desires.
I follow where their arrowy ray
Pierces the vail I would not tear away,
And with a dread delicious awe behold
Another gate oilfe unfold,
Like the rapt neophyte who sees
Some march of grand Osirian mysteries.
The startled chambers I explore,

And every entrance open lies,

Forced by the magic thrill that runs before

Thy slowly-lifted eyes.

I tremble to the centre of my being

Thus to confess the spirit's poise o'erthrown, And all its guiding virtues blown

Like leaves before the whildwind's fury fleeing.

But see! one memory rises in my soul,

And, beaming steadily and clear, Scatters the lurid thunder-clouds that roll Through Passion's sultry atmosphere. An alchemy more potent borrow

From the dark eyes, enticing Sorceres.

For on the casket of a sacred Sorrow Their shafts fell powerless.

Nay, frown not, ATHOR, from thy mystic shrine
Strong Goddess of Desire, I will not be
One of the myriad slaves thou callest thine,
To cast my manhood's crown of royalty

Before thy dangerous beauty: I am free'

THE POET IN THE EAST.

THE poet came to the land of the East,
When Spring was in the air:
The earth was dressed for a wedding feast,
So young she seemed, and fair;
And the poet knew the land of the East-
His soul was native there.

All things to him were the visible forms
Of early and precious dreams-
Familiar visions that mocked his quest

Beside the western streams,

Or gleamed in the gold of the cloud unrolled
In the sunset's dying beams.

He looked above in the cloudless calm,
And the Sun sat on his throne;
The breath of gardens deep in balm,
Was all about him blown,

And a brother to him was the princely Palm,
For he cannot live alone.

His feet went forth on the myrtled hills,
And the flowers their welcome shed;
The meads of milk-white asphodel
They knew the Poet's tread,
And far and wide, in a scarlet tide,
The poppy's bonfire spread.

And, half in shade and half in sun,
The Rose sat in her bower,
With a passionate thrill in her crimson heart
She had waited for the hour!
And, like a bride's, the Poet kissed

The lips of the glorious flower.

Then the Nightingale who sat above
In the boughs of the citron-tree,
Sang: We are no rivals, brother mine,
Except in minstrelsy;

For the rose you kissed with the kiss of love,
Is faithful still to me.

And further sang the Nightingale :
Your bower not distant lies.

I heard the sound of a Persian lute
From the jasmined window rise,
And like two stars, through the lattice-bars,
I saw the Sultana's eyes.

The Poet said; I will here abide,

In the Sun's unclouded door; Here are the wells of all delight

On the lost Arcadian shore: Here is the light on sea and land,

And the dream deceives no more.

KILIMANDJARO.

HAIL to thee, monarch of African mountains,
Remote, inaccessible, silent, and lone-
Who, from the heart of the tropical fervors,
Liftest to heaven thine alien snows,
Feeding forever the fountains that make thee
Father of Nile and Creator of Egypt!

The years of the world are engraved on thy forehead;
Time's morning blushed red on thy first-fallen

snows;

Yet lost in the wilderness, nameless, unnoted,
Of Man unbeholden, thou wert not till now.
Knowledge alone is the being of Nature,
Giving a soul to her manifold features,
Lighting through paths of the primitive darkness
The footsteps of Truth and the vision of Song.
Knowledge has born thee anew to Creation,
And long-baffled Time at thy baptism rejoices.
Take, then, a name, and be filled with existence,
Yea, be exultant in sovereign glory,

While from the hand of the wandering poet
Drops the first garland of song at thy feet.
Floating alone, on the flood of thy making,
Through Africa's mystery, silence, and fire,
Lo! in my palm, like the Eastern enchanter,
I dip from the waters a magical mirror,
And thou art revealed to my purified vision.
I see thee. supreme in the midst of thy co-mates,
Standing alone 'twixt the Earth and the Heavens,
Heir of the Sunset and Herald of Morn.
Zone above zone, to thy shoulders of granite,
The climates of Earth are displayed, as an index,
Giving the scope of the Book of Creation.
There, in the gorges that widen, descending
From cloud and from cold into summer eternal,
Gather the threads of the ice-gendered fountains-
Gather to riotous torrents of crystal,

And, giving each shelvy recess where they dally
The blooms of the North and its evergreen turfage,
Leap to the land of the lion and lotus!
There, in the wondering airs of the Tropics
Shivers the Aspen, still dreaming of cold:
There stretches the Oak, from the loftiest ledges,
His arms to the far-away lands of his brothers,
And the Pine-tree looks down on his rival the Palm.

Bathed in the tenderest purple of distance,
Tinted and shadowed by pencils of air,
Thy battlements hang o'er the slopes and the
Seats of the Gods in the limitless ether, [forests,
Looming sublimely aloft and afar.

Above them, like folds of imperial ermine,
Sparkle the snow-fields that furrow thy forehead-
Desolate realms, inaccessible, silent,

Chasms and caverns where Day is a stranger, Garners where storeth his treasures the Thunder, The Lightning his falchion, his arrows the Hail! Sovereign Mountain, thy brothers give welcom:9: They, the baptized and the crowned of ages, Watch-towers of Continents, altars of Earth, Welcome thee now to their mighty assembly. Mont Blanc, in the roar of his mad avalanches Hails thy accession; superb Orizaba,

Belted with beech and ensandalled with palm;

Chimborazo, the lord of the regions of noonday,-
Mingle their sounds in magnificent chorus
With greeting august from the Pillars of Heaven,
Who, in the urns of the Indian Ganges,
Filter the snows of their sacred dominions,
Unmarked with a footprint, unseen but of God.
Lo! unto each is the seal of his lordship,
Nor questioned the right that his majesty giveth
Each in his awful supremacy forces
Worship and reverence, wonder and joy.
Absolute all, yet in dignity varied,
None has a claim to the honors of story,
Or the superior splendors of song,
Greater than thou, in thy mystery mantled-
Thou, the sole monarch of African mountains,
Father of Nile and Creator of Egypt!

AN ORIENTAL IDYL.

A SILVER javelin which the hills
Have hurled upon the plain below,
The fleetest of the Pharpar's rills,
Beneath me shoots in flashing flow.

I hear the never-ending laugh

Of jostling waves that come and go, And suck the bubbling pipe, and quaff The sherbet cooled in mountain snow. The flecks of sunshine gleam like stars Beneath the canopy of shade; And in the distant, dim bazaars

I scarcely hear the hum of trade.
No evil fear, no dream forlorn,

Darkens my heaven of perfect blue;
My blood is tempered to the morn—
My very heart is steeped in dew.
What Evil is I cannot tell;
But half I guess what Joy may be;
And, as a pearl within its shell,
The happy spirit sleeps in me.

I feel no more the pulse's strife,-
The tides of Passion's ruddy sea,-
But live the sweet, unconscious life
That breathes from yonder jasmine-tree

Upon the glittering pageantries

Of gay Damascus streets I look As idly as a babe that sees

The painted pictures of a book. Forgotten now are name and race;

The Past is blotted from my brain;
For Memory sleeps, and will not trace
The weary pages o'er again.

I only know the morning shines,
And sweet the dewy morning air,
But does it play with tendrilled vines?
Or does it lightly lift my hair
Deep-sunken in the charmed repose.
This ignorance is bliss extreme:
And whether I be Man, or Rose,

O, pluck me not from out my dream!