Poems of Oregon.
The Pacific Monthly will publish from month to month poetry that is distinctive of the Pacific Coast, and which time and criticism have given a recognized standing. The poems published this month are two that are unique in conception and of unusual interest.
MEMALUSE ISLAND.
By SAM L. SIMPSON.
(The spot referred to in this poem is an island in the Columbia river above the Cascades, where the Chinook Indians buried their dead.)
Where the King of Hesperian rivers,
Columbia, with glimmering sweep,
And a passionate bosom that quivers,
In a dream of the mystical deep —
Exults in his empire eternal
And the myriad rush of his power,
Is an island of sadness supernal
Where the horseman has made him a bower,
And the eagles, that wheel there so slowly,
Are so pallid and patient and holy —
Like the vestals that cherish its dower!
An Avilion as fair as that other
Where the lances of Camelot rest —
The King and each chivalrous brother
With the plumage of fame in his crest —
Is the isle of our bountiful river,
In its calm where commotion is rife,
Like a finger of warning forever
On the murmurous lips of life!
And the waters around it intoning
Go sadly, and banish their moaning
With a crystalline paean of strife.
And a magical scene for its story
Around you enchants an appals
With the barbarous gloom and the glory
Of the bold and embattled walls,
Where the host of the waters, advancing
Through the desolate eons of time,
Has resoundingly marched, with the glancing
Of innumerous arms sublime; —
Where a whimscal shadow has faltered
On its grandeur undimmed and unaltered —
And has passed like a hurrying mime!
And the firs, with their banners uplifted,
Are delayed like an army in prayer,
While the vapors of battle are drafted
In the gloom of their Gothic hair.
And a mountain in mail uprising,
The Attila of Oregon lands,
Seems to stand like a chieftain advising
Witn his fierce and untamable bands —
And to threaten the valleys, the queenly,
That repose by Willamette serenely,
With a gesture of valorous hands.
I
In the days that have faded to gloaming,
In the plaintive, traditional years,
'Twas the end of a marvelous roaming,
A retreat from avenging spears.
It was here, when the moon was at setting
And the shadows were solemn and strange,
And the peaks in their silvery fretting
Were the proudest of a ghostly range —
That the fleets came wierdly sailing
With the songs of the dirge and the wailing
Of the dark, immemorial change.
For the warrior, all crimson from battle,
And the maid with her lingering smile,
And the child that had worshiped the rattle
Of the arrows — were borne to the isle!
And they died in a faith as uncertain
As the flickering funeral glare
Of the torches that painted the curtain
Of the sorrowful midnight air — ;
But the sombre and sailing eagle
Was the guard of a slumber as regal
As the Parian marbles declare.
And the spring never comes with the daisies
In the flame of her bivouac,
But she lingers about it and raises
A memorial arch on her track.
And the beautiful mists that surround it
With a lustre of beaded brows
Are renewing the flowers that found it
With the dew of their nightly vows;
And so tenderly passes the river
With the braid of the sun on his quiver
That the slumberers never arouse.
The romance of the red man is ended,
And the shade of his primitive bark
With the mists of eternity blended,
Is a part of the dusk and the dark;
And the spray of the thundering steamer
Is the ghost of our loftier dream,
And the plume of its vapory streamer
But a shadow of things that seem;
For the highway of trade and of science
Is only a trail — a reliance
For the wants that confusedly teem.
And I hear, in the song of the river ,
As it washes the funeral isle,
The response of this song— which is ever
The prophetic refrain of the Nile;
"O the lands may be braided together,
And the Bast lend its rose to the West,
But the nations will pause ana ask whether
The rewards they have sought are the best,
