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 journey 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 are 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-'t is 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!

Lies with its mournful woods-why art thou dead, When Earth demands that thou shalt call her fair? Why art thou dead? O glorious child of Song, Whose brother spirit ever dwells with mine, Feeling, twin-doom'd, the burning hate of Wrong, And Beauty's worship, deathless and divine! Thou art afar: wilt thou not soon return,

To tell me that which thou hast never toldTo grasp my throbbing hand, and by the shore Or dewy mountain-fern

Pour out thy heart as to a friend of old,
Tearful with twilight sorrow? Nevermore!

Why art thou dead? My years are full of pain,
The pain sublime of thought that has no word;
And Truth and Beauty sing within my brain
Diviner songs than men have ever heard.
Wert thou but here, thine eye might read the strife,
The solemn burthen of immortal song-
And hear the music, that can find no lyre:
For thou hast known a life

Lonely, amid the poets' mountain-throng—
Whose cloudy snows conceal'd eternal fire.
I could have told thee all the sylvan joy

Of trackless woods; the meadows, far apart,
Within whose fragrant grass, a lonely boy,
I thought of God; the trumpet at my heart,
When on bleak mountains roar'd the midnight storm,
And I was bathed in lightning, broad and grand:
Oh, more than all, with low and sacred breath

And forehead flushing warm,

I would have led thee through the summer land Of my young love, and past my dreams of Death. In thee, immortal brother! had I found

That voice of Earth for which my spirit pinesThe awful speech of Rome's sepulchral ground, The dusky hymn of Vallombrosa's pines. From thee, the noise of ocean would have taken A grand defiance round the moveless shores, And vocal grown the mountain's silent head. Canst thou not still awaken, Beneath the funeral cypress? Earth implores Thy presence for her son-why art thou dead? I do but rave-for it is better thus:

Were once thy starry heart reveal'd to mine, In the twin life which would encircle us

My soul would melt, my voice be lost in thine. Better to mask the agony of thought

That through weak human lips would make its way,

By lone endurance, such as men must learn:
The poet's soul is fraught

With mightiest speech, when loneliest the day, And fires are brightest that in midnight burn.

ARIEL IN THE CLOVEN PINE.

Now the frosty stars are gone;
I have watched them, one by one,
Fainting on the shores of dawn.
Round and full the glorious sun
Walks with level step the spray,
Through his vestibule of Day;
While the wolves that howled anon
Slink to dens and coverts foul,
Guarded by the demon owl,
Who, last night, with mocking croon
Wheeled athwart the chilly moon,
And, with eyes that blankly glared,
On my direful torment stared.

The lark is flickering in the light-
Still the nightingale doth sing:
All the isle, alive with Spring,
Lies, a jewel of delight,

On the blue sea's heaving breast;
Not a breath from out the west
But some balmy smell doth bring
From the sprouting myrtle-buds,
Or from meadows wide, that lie
Each a green and dazzling sky,
Paved with yellow cowslip-stars,
Cloud-like, crossed by roseate bars
Of the bloomy almond woods,
And lit, like heaven, with fairest sheen
Of the sun that hangs between.
All is life that I can spy,

To the farthest sea and sky,
And my own the only pain
Within this ring of Tyrrhene main.

In the gnarled and cloven Pine
Where that hell-born hag did chain me,
All this orb of cloudless shine-
All this youth in Earth's old veins,
Tingling with the Spring's sweet wine,
With a sharper torment pain me.
Pansies, in soft April rains
And April's sun, from Thea's lap
Fill their stalks with honeyed sap,
But the sluggish blood she brings
To the tough Pine's hundred rings,
Closer locks their cruel hold,
Closer draws the scaly bark
Round my prison, lightning-riven;
So when Winter, wild and dark,
Vexes wave and writhing wold,
And with murk vapour swathes the heaven,
I must feel the vile bat creep
In my narrow cleft, to sleep.
By this coarse and alien state
Is my dainty essence wronged:
The fine sense that erst belonged
To my nature, chafes at Fate,
Till the happier elves I hate,
Who in moonlight dances turn
Underneath the palmy fern,
Or in light and twinkling bands
Follow on with linked hands
To the ocean's yellow sands.

The primrose-bells each morning ope
In their cool, deep beds of grass;
Violets make the airs that pass
Tell-tales of their fragrant slope.
I can see them where they spring,
Never brushed by fairy wing.
All those corners I can spy
In the island's solitude,
Where the dew is never dry,
Nor the miser bees intrude.
Cups of rarest hue are there,
Full of perfumed wine undrained-
Mushroom banquets, ne'er profaned,
Canopied by maiden-hair.
Pearls I see upon the sands,
Never touched by other hands,
And the rainbow bubbles shine
On the ridged and frothy brine,
Tenantless of voyager
Till they burst in vacant air.
Oh the songs that sung might be
And the mazy dances woven,

Had that witch ne'er crossed the sea
And the Pine been never cloven!

Many years my direst pain

Has made the wave-rocked isle complain.
Winds, that from the Cyclades
Came, to ruffle with foul riot
Round its shore's enchanted quiet,
Bore my wailings on the seas:
Sorrowing birds in autumn went
Through the world with my lament.
Still the bitter fate is mine
All delight unshared to see,
Smarting in the cloven Pine
While I wait the tardy axe,
Which, perchance, shall set me free
From the damned witch, Sycorax.

While the majestic sorrows of her tongue

From Tyre to Indus roll'd:

"Mourn with me, sisters, in my realm of wo, Whose only glory streams

From its lost childhood, like the arctic glow
Which sunless Winter dreams!

In the red desert moulders Babylon,
And the wild serpent's hiss
Echoes in Petra's palaces of stone
And waste Persepolis!

"Gone are the deities who ruled enshrined
In Elephanta's caves,

And Brahma's wailings fill the odorous wind That stirs Amboyna's waves!

The ancient gods amid their temples fall, And shapes of some near doom Trembling and waving on the Future's wall, More fearful make my gloom!"

Then from her seat, amid the palms embower'd
That shade the Lion-land,

Swart AFRICA in dusky aspect tower'd-
The fetters on her hand!

Backward she saw, from out her drear eclipse,

The mighty Theban years,

And the deep anguish of her mournful lips
Interpreted her tears:

"Wo for my children, whom your gyves have bound Through centuries of toil;

The bitter wailings of whose bondage sound
From many a stranger-soil!

Leave me but free, though the eternal sand
Be all my kingdom now-

Though the rude splendours of barbaric land
But mock my crownless brow!"

There was a sound, like sudden trumpets blown,
A ringing, as of arms,

When EUROPE rose, a stately Amazon,

Stern in her mailed charms.
She brooded long beneath the weary bars
That chafed her soul of flame,

And like a seer, who reads the awful stars,
Her words prophetic came:

"I hear new sounds along the ancient shore,
Whose dull old monotone

Of tides, that broke on many a system hoar,
Wail'd through the ages lone!

I see a gleaming, like the crimson morn
Beneath a stormy sky,

And warning throes, my bosom long has borne,
Proclaim the struggle nigh!"

O radiant-brow'd, the latest born of Time!
How waned thy sisters old

Before the splendours of thine eye sublime,
And mien erect and bold!

Pure, as the winds of thine own forests are,

Thy brow beam'd lofty cheer,

And day's bright oriflamme, the morning star,
Flash'd on thy lifted spear.

"I bear no weight," so rang thy jubilant tones, "Of memories weird and vast

No crushing heritage of iron thrones,
Bequeath'd by some dead Past;

But mighty hopes that learn'd to tower and soar
From my own peaks of snow;
Whose prophecies in wave and woodland roar,
When the free tempests blow!

"Like spectral lamps, that burn before a tomb, The ancient lights expire;

I wave a torch, that floods the lessening gloom

With everlasting fire!

Crown'd with my constellated stars, I stand Beside the foaming sea,

And from the future, with a victor's hand, Claim empire for the free!"

THE FIGHT OF PASO DEL MAR.

GUSTY and raw was the morning,

A fog hung over the seas,
And its gray skirts, rolling inland,

Were torn by the mountain trees;
'No sound was heard, but the dashing

Of waves on the sandy bar, When PABLO of San Diego

Rode down to the Paso del Mar.

The pescador, out in his shallop,
Gathering his harvest so wide,
Sees the dim bulk of the headland

Loom over the waste of the tide;
He sees, like a white thread, the pathway
Wind round on the terrible wall,

Where the faint, moving speck of the rider

Seems hovering close to its fall!

Stout PABLO of San Diego

Rode down from the hills behind;
With the bells on his gray mule tinkling,
He sang through the fog and wind.
Under his thick, misted eyebrows,
Twinkled his eye like a star,
And fiercer he sang, as the sea-winds
Drove cold on the Paso del Mar.

Now BERNAL, the herdsman of Corral,
Had travell'd the shore since dawn,
Leaving the ranches behind him-

Good reason had he to be gone!
The blood was still red on his dagger,

The fury was hot in his brain, And the chill, driving scud of the breakers Beat thick on his forehead in vain. With his blanket wrapp'd gloomily round him, He mounted the dizzying road, And the chasms and steeps of the headland Were slippery and wet as he trode; Wild swept the wind of the ocean

Rolling the fog from afar, When near him a mule-bell came tinkling, Midway on the Paso del Mar! "Back!" shouted BERNAL, full fiereely, And "Back!" shouted PABLO, in wrath; As his mule halted, startled and shrinking, On the perilous line of the path. The roar of devouring surges

Came up from the breakers' hoarse war;

And "Back, or you perish!" cried BERNAL, "I turn not on Paso del Mar!"

The gray mule stood firm as the headland:
He clutch'd at the jingling rein,
When PABLO rose up in his saddle

And smote till he dropp'd it again.
A wild oath of passion swore BERNAL,
And brandish'd his dagger, still red,
While fiercely stout PABLO lean'd forward
And fought o'er his trusty mule's head.
They fought, till the black wall below them
Shone red through the misty blast;
Stout PABLO then struck, leaning farther,
The broad breast of BERNAL at last.
And, frenzied with pain, the swart herdsman
Closed round him with terrible clasp,
And jerk'd him, despite of his struggles,
Down from the mule, in his grasp.
They grappled with desperate madness
On the slippery edge of the wall;
They sway'd on the brink, and together
Reel'd out to the rush of the fall!
A cry of the wildest death-anguish

Rang faint through the mist afar, And the riderless mule went homeward From the fight of the Paso del Mar!

KUBLEH:

A STORY OF THE ASSYRIAN DESERT.

THE black-eyed Children of the Desert drove Their flocks together at the set of sun. The tents were pitch'd; the weary camels bent Their suppliant necks, and knelt upon the sand; The hunters quarter'd 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. The dewy air Bore its full burden of confused delight Across the flowery plain, and while, afar, The snows of Koordish mountains in the ray Flash'd roseate amber, Nimroud's ancient mound Rose broad and black against the burning west. The shadows deepen'd and the stars came out, Sparkling through violet ether; one by one Glimmer'd 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 ran To hold the thongs, while every rider drove His quivering spear in the earth, and by his door Tether'd the horse he loved. In midst of all Stood Shammeriyah, whom they dared not touchThe 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 bay'dWhen Shammar hunters with the boys sat down To cleanse their bloody knives, came ALIMAR, The poet of the tribe, whose songs of love Are sweeter than Balsora'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:

"Gon 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 SoFUK 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, Snuffing 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.

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 limbs-
Died 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 them 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. GoD is great!"