By the Pacific Ocean

Here room and kingly silence keep Companionship in state austere; The dignity of death is here, The large, lone vastness of the deep; Here toil has pitched his camp to rest: The west is banked against the west. Above yon gleaming skies of gold One lone imperial peak is seen; While gathered at his feet in green Ten thousand foresters are told: And all so still! so still the air That duty drops the web of care. Beneath the sunset’s golden sheaves The awful deep walks with the deep, Where silent sea doves slip and sweep, And commerce keeps her loom and weaves The dead red men refuse to rest; Their ghosts illume my lurid West.

Collection: 
English
Joaquin Miller

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