Bret Harte

  • Popularly Known as “The Heathen Chinee”

    WHICH I wish to remark—
      And my language is plain—
    That for ways that are dark
      And for tricks that are vain,
    The heathen Chinee is peculiar:
      Which the same I would rise to explain.

    Ah Sin was...

  • I Reside at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James:
    I am not up to small deceit or any sinful games;
      And I ’ll tell in simple language what I know about the row
      That broke up our Society upon the Stanislow.

    But first I would remark, that ’t is not a...

  • 1856
            DOW’S Flat. That ’s its name.
              And I reckon that you
            Are a stranger? The same?
              Well, I thought it was true,
    For thar isn’t a man on the river as can’t spot the place at first view.

            It was called...

  • Jim

    Say there! P’r’aps
      Some on you chaps
      Might know Jim Wild?
    Well,—no offence:
    Thar ain’t no sense
      In gettin’ riled!

    Jim was my chum
      Up on the Bar:
    That ’s why I come
      Down from up thar,
    Lookin’ for Jim....

  • A Geological Address
       “A human skull has been found in California, in the pliocene formation. This skull is the remnant, not only of the earliest pioneer of this State, but the oldest known human being…. The skull was found in a shaft one hundred and fifty feet deep, two miles from...

  • Refugio Mine, Northern Mexico
      DRUNK and senseless in his place,
      Prone and sprawling on his face,
    More like brute than any man
          Alive or dead,—
      By his great pump out of gear,
      Lay the peon engineer,
      Waking only just to hear,...

  • Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting,
        The river sang below;
    The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting
        Their minarets of snow.

    The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted
        The ruddy tints of health
    On haggard face and form that...

  • Beautiful! Sir, you may say so. Thar isn’t her match in the county,—
    Is thar, old gal? Chiquita, my darling, my beauty!
    Feel of that neck, sir,—thar ’s velvet! Whoa! Steady—ah, will you? you vixen!
    Whoa! I say. Jack, trot her out; let the gentleman look at her paces....

  • I ’m sitting alone by the fire,
    Dressed just as I came from the dance,
    In a robe even you would admire,—
    It cost a cool thousand in France;
    I ’m bediamonded out of all reason,
    My hair is done up in a cue:
    In short, sir, “the belle of the season”...