The Gold-Gated West
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The Gold-Gated West
This volume is published by the sister and sons of the author
The
Gold-Gated West
Songs and Poems
By Samuel L. Simpson
Edited, with an Introductory Preface, by
W. T. BURNEY
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1910
Copyright, 1910
By J. B. Lippincott Company
Published June, 1910
Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company
The Washington Square Press, Philadelphia, U.S.A.
TO JULIA
O she was fair as a red-lipped lily,
A rosy marble of moulded song.
Beauty is regnant in all God's looms.
Even the thistle has purple blooms.
PREFACE
Samuel L. Simpson, the author of this collection of poems, was born in the State of Missouri on the 10th day of November, 1845, and was the second son of Hon. Ben Simpson and Nancy Cooper Simpson. In 1846 Ben Simpson organized and conducted an emigrant train across the plains to Oregon. The trials, hardships and triumphs of that great undertaking are most interestingly told in the poem entitled "The Campfires of the Pioneers."
Sam Simpson, as he was familiarly known, was taught the alphabet by his mother at the age of four years, from copies traced in the ashes on the hearthstone of their pioneer home. He attended the country schools of the time and was reputed precocious in his earlier life. He has left one gem, a reminiscence of his school-days, "The Lost Path."
At the age of fifteen he was employed in the sutler's store, owned by his father, on the Grande Ronde Indian Reservation, a military post at that time. Here the precocious boy met and became the flattered protégé of Grant, Sheridan, and others of that post. General Sheridan presented him a copy of Byron's poems, which he prized very highly and read with great interest.
He entered, at sixteen, the Willamette University, at Salem, Oregon, from which he was graduated in the class of '65. He immediately took up the study of the law, and passed the required examination for admission to practice in 1866, but, not being of the required age, he was not admitted until 1867.
His prospects in the practice were reasonably good, though his characteristic timidity qualified his deserved success. In 1870 he abandoned the practice of law, assumed the editorial charge of the "Corvalis Gazette," and entered on a general journalistic career, which he pursued through the rest of his life.
In 1868 he married Miss Julia Humphrey, to whom these poems are dedicated. She was noted for her beauty and enrapturing voice in music his "sweet-throated thrush," of whom he writes :
Lurlina, Heaven flies not
From souls it once has blessed;
First love may fade, but dies not,
Though wounded and distressed.
"Though after-days deride us
With Hymen's broken rings,
We know that once beside us
An angel furled his wings."
And, though after-days did deride him with Hymen's broken rings, he never faltered or wavered in his devotion to his first and only love. There were born to Mr. Simpson and wife two sons, Eugene H. and Claude L.
Samuel L. Simpson died in the city of Portland on the 14th day of June, 1900, and was buried in Lonefir Cemetery.
Simpson has been classed by his Western admirers with Burns and Poe, and in many of his poems he portrays that keen appreciation of the grandeur and beauty of nature and that matchless rhythmic style which certainly render the comparison not uncomplimentary to those immortal bards. And he too, as they, labored within the bonds of a habit that has no kindred seal of woe, and to this limitation was attributable the failures he so bitterly bemoans in the poems "Quo Me, Bacche?", "Wreck," and others of like sentiment.
The Angel of Silence has now brushed him with his wings and the pining is hushed. Life's stormy seas have baffled and shipwrecked many a divine genius, who bravely faced the gale with little thought of anchor or the safe bestowal of his sail; to whom the flag at the peak was more important than a strong hand at the helm. Such a sailor was Sam Simpson; but he has left us many a beautiful strain of music, caught from the song of wind and tide; many a picture glowing with the gold of sunset or the rose of blossoming spring. We, who knew him best, know that he never reached the achievement that was possible to his talents. His poems breathe rather of pathos and shadow than of joy, for they take their tint from a mind oftentimes world weary. And we who knew him will judge him gently, and prize the treasures he brought home from many voyages of fancy, in air and sea and sky.
W. T. Burney.
CONTENTS
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Preface
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7 |
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Salutation
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15 |
POEMS ON NATURE
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19 |
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21 |
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22 |
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25 |
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26 |
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28 |
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30 |
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33 |
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Sullied Waters
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34 |
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The Sisters
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39 |
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The Lost Path
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40 |
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Oregon in Summer
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42 |
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The First Fall of the Snow
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45 |
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The Oregon Chinook
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48 |
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The Feast of Apple Bloom
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50 |
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Falls of the Willamette
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52 |
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The Maple at the Gate
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53 |
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Oregon Rain
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56 |
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The King Disrobed
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60 |
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The Mystic River
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62 |
CHRISTMAS CHIMES
THE EVE OP CHRIST 67
THE CHRIST STAR 69
TO-NIGHT 72
THE MATCHLESS STORY 74
CHRISTMAS EVE 79
THE DEATHLESS LEGEND 81
NEW YEAR'S EVE 82
MILLIARIUM AUREUM 84
HISTORICAL AND NARRATIVE POEMS
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91 |
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108 |
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"Portland"
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118 |
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121 |
MEMORIES OF THE WEST
RED LACY 127
THE MOTHER'S VIGIL 132
SHASTA JOHN 136
THE FATE OF MISSISSIP 140
IN THE SISKIYOUS 145
THE SPOTTED CAYUSE 147
THE BALLAD OF KANGAROO 150
MEMALUSE ISLAND 155
AT LINNTON'S SHAMBLES 160
A LEGEND OF ARIZONA 164
OCCASIONAL POEMS
HAEC OLIM MEMINISSE JUVABIT (PLANTING OF THE PINE) 169 POEM READ BEFORE THE ALUMNI OF WILLAMETTE UNIVER- SITY, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25TH, 1873 178 ASHES OF ROSES 187
SEQUOIA SEMPERVIRENS 196
THE FEAST OF THE FLOWER MOON 199
POEMS OF SENTIMENT
AT PARTING 207
ONLY A FEATHER 209
ADIEU 211
FOREVER 213
LURLINA 215
SINCE IT MUST BE So 218
A MAIDEN'S SONG 220
POEMS OF PATRIOTISM
"LIGHTS Our" 225
THE SONG OF THE SWORD 226
THE ROUNDED AGE 228
BATTLE FLOWERS 237
BATTLE DAWN 238
MISCELLANEOUS
THE WRECK OF THE WRIGHT 243
Quo ME, BACCHE ? 245
THE GORGE OF AVERNUS 248
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250 |
NEPENTHE 253
THEY ARE SINGING THAT SONG TO-NIGHT 254
Now TRULY WILL IT PAY ? 256
TURNED DOWN 258
DISILLUSION 260
BY THE FIRESIDE 262
13 IN MEMORIAM
AN OREGON PIONEER 267
THE NYMPHS OP THE CASCADES 269
"ALLIE" 272
SLAIN BY THE SEA 273
THE CROWNING OF BURNS 276
BURNS 279
THE DYING MINER 282
LIFE AND DEATH
THE LEGEND OF LIFE 287
WRECK 296
WHAT DEATH MAY BE 304
A VIEW OF DEATH . 305 In a lustre of silver and pearl,
And the shadows of ages are drifted
In the banners the forests unfurl,—
Where the Oregon's gathering waters
Go down to the strife of the sea,
And Willamette meanders and loiters
By many a rose-clustered lea,—
In the regions of Hesper, the star-lands,
Abloom in the gold-gated West,
I have crowned a wild muse with these garlands—
Some rue-leaves along with the rest;—
If perchance in the chaplets I bring her
There is something your heart will prolong,
Then to me is the joy of the singer,
And to you the delight of the song.