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No general account of American literature can be complete without some mention of Joaquin Miller. Cincinnatus Hiner Miller, was born in the Wabash District, Ind., November 10, 1841. From 1854 on he lived in Oregon or California, being an editor in Oregon and for four years County Judge there. Having visited Europe in 1870, he published Songs of the Sierras. Other volumes have followed, among them The Danites, which has a merit that seems now unusual for a literary play, that of being successful on the stage.

Almost from the very outset of Miller's career, it was evident that his genius was larger than his literary surroundings. His earlier Californian verse was the prelude to the wider, richer note of Songs of the Sierras and Songs of the Sunlands. Among Miller's poems it is not easy, both on account of his range and of his prolificness, to make a choice for the purpose of commentary. Among other productions may well be selected, however, his pictures of the flying journey by rail across the American continent, his tales of pioneer adventure, and his idyl, the scene of which is laid upon the Amazon. Miller's power

would not have been shown but for his longer poems, although the more critical reader may prefer the shorter ones. Of the latter, In Yosemite Valley is onomatopoetic, keenly descriptive, and strongly, though perhaps a little dimly, reverential. Charity is an original treatment of a favorite subject in painting and poetry and contains some fine single lines. On the whole, Miller's poems show a genius which even yet has probably not fully developed itself.

AT BETHLEHEM.

"In the desert a fountain is springing,

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In the wild waste there still is a tree."

Though the many lights dwindle to one light,
There is help if the heavens have one."

Change lays not her hand upon truth."

With incense and myrrh and sweet spices,
Frankincense and sacredest oil

In ivory, chased with devices

Cut quaint and in serpentine coil;

Heads bared and held down to the bosom ;
Brows massive with wisdom and bronzed;
Beards white as the white may in blossom,
And borne to the breast and beyond,—
Came the Wise of the East, bending lowly
On staffs, with garments girt round
With girdles of hair, to the Holy

Child Christ, in their sandals. The sound
Of song and thanksgiving ascended-
Deep night! Yet some shepherds afar
Heard a wail with the worshiping blended
And they then knew the sign of the star.

IN YOSEMITE VALLEY.

Sound! sound! sound!

O colossal walls as crown'd

In one eternal thunder!

Sound! sound! sound!

O ye oceans overhead,

While we walk, subdued in wonder,
In the ferns and grasses, under
And beside the swift Merced!'

Fret fret! fret!

Streaming, sounding banners, set
On the giant granite castles
In the clouds and in the snow!
But the foe he comes not yet,—
We are loyal, valiant vassals,
And we touch the trailing tassels
Of the banners far below.

Surge! surge! surge!

From the white Sierra's verge,
To the very valley blossom.

Surge! surge! surge!

1 Merced, a river in California, rising in the Sierra Nevadas, and flowing into the San Joaquin.

Yet the song-bird builds a home,
And the mossy branches cross them,
And the tasselled tree-tops toss them,
In the clouds of falling foam.

Sweep! sweep! sweep!

O ye heaven-born and deep,
In one dread, unbroken chorus !
We may wonder or may weep,—
wait on God before us;

We may

We may shout or lift a hand,-
We may bow down or deplore us,
But may never understand.

Beat! beat! beat!

We advance, but would retreat
From this restless, broken breast
Of the earth in a convulsion.
We would rest, but dare not rest,
For the angel of expulsion

From this Paradise below

Waves us onward and—we go.

CHARITY.

Her hands were clasped downward and doubled.
Her head was held down and depressed,
Her bosom, like white billows troubled,
Fell fitful and rose in unrest.

Her robes were all dust and disorder'd
Her glory of hair and her brow,
Her face, that had lifted and lorded,
Fell pallid and passionless now.

She heard not accusers that brought her
In mockery hurried to Him,

Nor heeded, nor said, nor besought her
With eyes lifted doubtful and dim.

All crush'd and stone-cast in behavior,
She stood as a marble would stand,
Then the Saviour bent down, and the Saviour
In silence wrote on in the sand.

What wrote He? How fondly one lingers
And questions, what holy command

Fell down from the beautiful fingers
Of Jesus, like gems in the sand.

O better the Scian 1uncherished
Had died ere a note or device
Of battle was fashioned, than perished
This only line written by Christ.

He arose and he look'd on the daughter
Of Eve, like a delicate flower,

And he heard the revilers that brought her-
Men stormy and strong as a tower;

And he said: "She has sinn'd; let the blameless
Come forward and cast the first stone!"
But they, they fled shamed and yet shameless ;
And she, she stood white and alone.

1 Scian, Homer, the greatest Greek poet, born perhaps at Chios, on the island of Scio.

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