The Gold-Gated West/The Campfires of the Pioneers

by Samuel Leonidas Simpson

For other versions of this work, see The Campfires of the Pioneers.

THE CAMPFIRES OF THE PIONEERS

Vincere est vivere!

Striking at ease his epic lyre,
The laurelled Mantuan has sung
Beleaguered Troy's illustrious pyre—
The daring sail Æneas flung
To wayward gales, the voyage long
That tracked the silver waves of song
Until the worn and weary oar
Has kissed the far Lavinian shore;
The Argo's classic pennon streams
Along a fairer sea of dreams,
The Mayflower now has furled her wings,
And restfully at anchor swings—
Columbia chants to columned seas
The triumph of the Genoese—
And yet, stout hearts, no fitting meed
Of panegyric crowns your deed,
From which a stately empire springs.
The minions of a perfumed age
Already crowd upon the stage,—
The massive manhood of the past
In many a graceful mould is cast;
And yet with calm and kindly eyes
You view the feast for others spread,
And hail the blue benignant skies
Resigned and grandly comforted.
It was for this you broke the way
Before the sunset gates of Day—
For this, with God-like faith endued,
You scaled the mystic crags of Fate,
And with resounding labors hewed
The Doric pillars of the state.

There is no task for you to do—
Your tents are furled, the bugle blown—
But yet another day, and you
Will live in clustered fame alone.
The fir will chant a song of rue,
The pine will drop a wreath, maybe,
And o'er the dim Cascades the stars
Will nightly roll their gleaming cars
You followed well from sea to sea.
Before your scarred battalions wheel
Into the mystic realm of shade,
And on your grizzled brows the seal
Of mystery is softly laid,
Once more around your old campfires,
That smoulder like fulfilled desires,
Rehearse the story of your toil—
Set forth the hero crowned with spoil—
The glimmer of triumphant steel,
Beneath the garland and the braid.

O further than the legiona bora
The eagles of imperial Rome,
Three thousand miles, a weary march,
You followed Hesper's golden torch,
Until it stooped on this green shore
And lit the rosy fires of home.
The sad and solemn morn you turned
And quenched the sacred flames that burned
On hearths endeared for years and years;
It seemed your very souls grew dark
With those sweet fires, the latest spark
Was drowned in bitter, bitter tears.
A softer, sweeter sunlight wrapt
The forms of all familiar things,
And as each chord of feeling snapped
Another angel furled its wings:
The lights and shadows in the lane,
The oak beside the foot-worn stile,
Whose wheeling shade a weary while
Had told the hours of joy and pain—
The vine that clambered o'er the door
And many a purple cluster bore—
The vestal flowers of household love—
The sloping roof that wore the stain
Of summer sun and winter rain,
And smoky chimney tops above—
The beauty of the orchard trees,
Bedecked with blossoms, glad with bees—
The brook that all the livelong day
Had many things to sing and say—
All these upon your vision dwell
And weave the sorrow of farewell.
And now the last good-bye is said—
Good-bye! the living and the dead
In those sad words together speak,
And all the chosen ways are bleak!

Forward! The cracking lashes send
A thrill of action down the train,
Their brawny necks the oxen bend
With creaking yoke and clanking chain;
The horsemen gallop down the line,
And swerve around the lowing kine
That straggle loosely on the plain,
And lift glad hands to babes that laugh,
And dash the buttercups like chaff.
Hurrah! the skies are jewel blue;
In softest green and braided gold
The robes of April are unrolled,
And hopes are high and hearts are true!
Hurrah! Hurrah! The bold, the free!
The sudden sweep of ecstasy
That lifts the soul on wings of fire
When fears consume and doubts expire
And life in one swift torrent speeds
To the great tide of stirring deeds.

And now the sun is dropping down,
The lights and shadows, red and brown,
Are weaving sunset's purple spell:
The teams are freed, the fires are made,
Like scarlet night-flow'rs in the shade,
And pleasant groups before, between,
Are thronging in the fitful sheen—
The day is done and all is well.

So pass the days, so fall the nights,
A banquet of renewed delights—
The old horizons lift and pass
In magic changes like a dream,
And in heaven's azure glass
To-morrow's jasper arches gleam
With many a vale and mountain mass
And many a singing, shining stream.
The past is dead and daisied now—
Its shadow fades from heart and brow—
The air is incense, and the breeze
Is sweet with siren melodies,
And all the castled hills before
In blooming vistas sweep and soar.
Like silver lace the clouds are strewn
Along the distant, dreamy zone;
It is a happy, happy time
As wayward as a poet's rhyme,
And ever as the sun goes down
The West is shut with rosy bars,
When Night puts on her ebon crown
And lights the watch fires of the stars.

***

A hundred nights, a hundred days;
Nor folded cloud nor silken haze
Mellow the sun's midsummer blaze.
Along the brown and barren plain
In silence drags the wasted train;
The dust starts up beneath your tread,
Like angry ashes of the dead,
To blind you with a choking cloud
And wrap you in a yellow shroud.
There are no birds to sing your joy,
You have no joy for birds to sing,—
A hundred fangs your hearts destroy—
A thousand troubles fret and sting.
The desert mocks you all the while
With that dry shimmer of a smile
That dazzles on a bleaching skull;—
The bloom is withered on your cheek,
You slowly move and lowly speak,
And every eye is dim and dull.
Alas, it is a lonesome land
Of bitter sage and barren sand,
Under a bitter, barren sky
That never heard the robin sing,
Nor kissed the lark's exultant wing,
Nor breathed the rose's fragrant sigh!
A weary land—alas! alas!
The shadows of the vultures pass—
A spectral sign across your path;
The gaunt, gray wolf, with head askance,
Throws back at you a scowling glance
Of cringing hate and coward wrath,
And like a wraith accursed and banned
Fades out before your lifted hand.
A dim, sad land, forgot, forsworn,
By all bright life that may not mourn,
And crazed with glistening ghost of seas
In broideries of flowers and trees,
And rivers, blue and cool, that seem
To ripple as in fevered dream
Only to taunt the thirst and fly
From withered lip and lurid eye.
A hundred days, a hundred nights,—
The goal is further than before,
And all the changing shades and lights
Are wrought in Fancy's woof no more.
The sun is weary overhead,
And pallid deserts round you spread
A sorrowful eternity;
And if some grizzly mountains here
Confront your march with forms of fear,
You turn aside and pass them by.
And all are over-worn—the flesh
Is now a frayed and faded mesh
That will not mask the inward flame;
There is no longer any care
To round the speech, or speak men fair,
Or any gentle sense of shame;
The hearts of all are sifted through—
The grain drops through the windy husks,
And false lights flickering round the true
Are quenched at last in dews and dusks.
And some are silent, some are loud,
And rage like beasts among the crowd,—
And some are mild, and some are sharp
In word and deed, and snarl and carp,
And fret the camp with petty broils ;
While some of temper sweet and bland
Do seem to bear a magic wand
That wins the secret of their toils—
Rare souls that waste like sandal-wood
In many a fragrant deed and mood;
And some invoke the wrath of God,
Or feign to kiss the scourging rod,—
And some, maybe with better prayers,
Stand up in all their griefs and cares
And clench their teeth, and do and die,
Without a whine, a curse or cry.
And so the dust and grit and stain
Of travel wears into the grain,
And so the hearts and souls of men
Were darkly tried and tested then,
So that in happy after years,
When rainbows gild remembered tears,
Should any friend enquire of you
If such or such an one you knew—
I hear the answer, terse and grim,
"Ah, yes, I crossed the plains with him!

And lo! a moaning phantom stands
To greet you in the lonely lands,
Among all lesser shadows dight,
With spoils of death; his meagre hands
Salute you as you pass, and claim
The sacrifice that feeds his flame.
The march has broken into flight,
And wreck and ruins strew the road
The flaming phantom has bestowed;
The ox lies gasping in his yoke,
Beside the wagon that he drew,—
Where the forsaken campfires smoke
To hopeless skies of tawny blue;
And here are straight, still mounds that mark
The flight of life's delusive spark—
The sombre points of pause that lie
So thick in human destiny.
And O, so dark on this bleak page
Of drifting sand and dreary sage!
The sultry levels of the day
The night with weird enchantment fills,
And frowning forests stretch away
Along the slopes of shadow hills;
And in the solemn stillness breaks
The wild wolf-music of the plain,
As if a deeper sorrow wakes
The dreary dead in that refrain
That swells and gathers like a wail
Of woe from Pluto's ebon pale,
And sinks in pulseless calm again.

A change at last! An opal mist
Along the faint horizon's rim
Is banked against the amethyst
Of summer's sky,—so far, so dim,
You shade your eyes and gaze and gaze
Until there wavers into sight
A swinging, swaying strand of white,
And then the sapphire walls and towers
That break the light in quivering showers
And float and fade in diamond haze—
It is the mountains! Grand and calm
As God upon his awful throne,
They build you strength and breathe you balm,
For all their templed might of stone
Is one eternal sculptured psalm!
And now your western course is led
Where grassy pampas spread and spread,
The pastures of the buffalo;
And like the sudden lash of foam
When tropic tempests smite the sea,
And masts are stripped to ward the blow,
A ragged whirl of dust descried
Upon the prairie's sloping side
Portends a storm as swift and free,—
And lo, the herds, they come! they come!
A sweeping thundercloud of life
Loud as Niagara, and grand
As they who rode with plume and brand
On Waterloo's red slope of strife;
Wild as the rush of tidal waves
That roar among their crags and caves,
The trampling bison hurl along,
A black and bounding, fiery mass
That withers, as with flame, the grass—
O! terrible—ten thousand strong!
Meanwhile the dusty teams are stopped,
The wagon tongues are deftly propped,
And drivers by their oxen stand
And soothe them with soft speech and hand,
But, yet, with horn tossed free, and eyes
Ablaze with purple depths of ire,
A thousand servile years expire
And flashes of old nature rise,
As if a sudden spirit woke
That would not brook the chain and yoke,—
And then, the stormy pageant passed,
They bow their calloused necks at last,
And with a heavy stride and slow
The dream of liberty forego.
Alas! it is a land of shades
And mystic visions, swift alarms;
The fretted spirit flames and fades
With changing calls to prayers or arms.

***

The day is dying, and the sun
Hangs like a jewel rich with fire
In the deep West of your desire.
And o'er the wide plateau is rolled
A surge of crinkled sunset gold,
Bordered with shadows gray and dun,—
A horseman, with loose waving hair,
Black as the blackness of despair,
Wheels into sight and gives you heed,
And on his haunches reins his steed,
All quivering like a river reed,
And sits him like a statue there,
Transfigured in the sunset sea—
A bronze, bare sphinx of mystery!
A moment thus, in wonder lost,
His eagle plumes all backward tossed,
Then wheels again, as swift as wind,
The wild hair floating free behind,
And sunset's crinkled surges pour
Along an empty waste once more.
But you, since that fantastic shade
Across your desert path has played,
Distrust the very ground you tread,
And shiver with a nameless dread
Till stars drop crimson and the sky
Is wan with heartless treachery.

***

For many days a form of white
Has flashed and faded in your sight
In fleeting glimpses as of wings;
Our God's bright palm in beckonings.
It is a secret nursed of each—
You dare not give the thought in speech,
So weirdly solemn is the sign,
As if upon the western stairs
The angel of a thousand prayers
Were come with sacned bread and wine.
Again the still, enchanted hour
Of sunset burns in crimson flower,
And purple-hearted shadows sleep
Like clustered pansies, warm and deep.
Eastward of wreathen crag and wall
The trail that wound and wound all day
In many a dark and devious way
At last with one swift curve ascends
A rolling plain, that breaks and bends
Westward, till rosy curtains fall
O'er mountains massed and magical.
Resplendent as a pearly tent,
Upon the fir-fringed battlement,
Serene in sunset gold and rose,
A pyramid of splendor glows,
So vast and calm and bright, your dream
Is dust and ashes in its gleam.
A maiden speaks—"He led us far—
It is the golden western star!"
And then a youth—"Our goal is won,—
'Tis the pavilion of the sun!"
A gray sage then, in undertone,
"It must be Hood, so grand and lone—
The shining citadel and throne
Of Terminus, that Roman god,
Who marked the line the legions trod,
And set the limits of the world,
Where Caesar's battle flags were furled!
O, for the dark-eyed prophetess
Who sang in Sinai's wilderness
The gilded chariots' overthrow,
To lead for us the cymballed song
To Him, the Merciful, the Strong,
Who dashed the brimming cup of woe
And was our cloud and flame so long!"
Forward! The crested mountains kneel
To patient toils of fire and steel—
A way is hewn, and you emerge
Upon the Cascades' frozen verge,
And far beneath you and away
To ocean's shining fringe of foam
And summer veil of floating spray,
Behold the land of your emprise,
Serene as tender twilight skies
When day is swooning into gloam!
It is the morning twilight now
That wraps the valley's misted brow;
The bourgeoning of blooming dawn—
The reveille of Oregon!
How brightly on your vision first
The pictured vales and woodlands burst,—
The lakelets set like twinkling gems
Along the prairie's pleated hems,—
The silver brooks and rippled sweeps
Of loit'ring rivers here and there,
And many a waterfall that leaps
In rainbow garlands through the air,—
The skirted maples and the groves
Of oak, the mild home-spirit loves,—
Enamelled plains and crenelled hills
And tangled skeins of brooks and rills,
Imperial forest of the fir,
All redolent of musk and myrrh,
That fling and furl their banners old,
And still their gloomy secret hold
As Time his cloudy censer fills.

***

Where the foothills are wooing the meadow
In the dimples that dally and pass,
And the oak swings an indolent shadow
On the daisies that dial the grass,—
In the crescents of rivers, in hollows
Red-lipped in the strawberry time,
And the slope where the forest path follows
A brooklet's melodious rhyme,
On the sun-rippled knolls and the prairies,
Beloved of the wandering kine,
In the skirts of the woodlands that fairies
Embroider with rose and with vine,
There are tents, and the smoke that is curling
Above in the beautiful dome
Like a guardian spirit is furling
Soft wings o'er the temple of home.

And the axe of the woodman is ringing
All day in sylvestrian halls,
Where the chipmunk is playfully springing
And the bluejay discordantly calls;
As the red chips are fitfully flying
On the asters that sprinkle the moss;
Where the beauty of summer is dying,
And the sun lances glimmer across;
There's a bird that is spectrally knocking
On a pine that is withered and bare,
For the fir-top is trembling and rocking
In the blue of the clear upper air;
There's a crackling of fibre, the crashing
Of a century crushed at a blow,
While the fir trees are wringing and lashing
Their hands in a frenzy of woe.

A pheasant whirs up from the thicket
In the hush that comes after the fall,
When the squirrel retires to his wicket,
And the blue-bird renounces his call,
And the panther is crouched by the boulder
In the gloom of the canyon anear,
As the brown bear looks over his shoulder,
And the buck blows a signal of fear;
But there's never a pause in your duty,
For the echoing axe is not still
As you waste the green temples of beauty
For the puncheons and rafter and sill
That are wrought in the cabin so lowly
That the trees may clasp hands overhead,
But the heart calls it home, and the holy
Love-light on its hearthstone is shed.

It is staunch and rough-hewn, and the ceiling
Of the fragrant red cedar is made,
With an edging of silver revealing
A picture of sunlight and shade.
And the Word has its place, not a trifle,
Obscured in a pageant of books;
And above the broad mantle your rifle
Is hung on accessible hooks.
O, the freshness of Hope and of Fancy
That illumine the home and the heart
With the grace of a bright necromancy
That excels the adorning of art!
And you rise and look forth, and the glory
Of Hood is before you again,
And the sun weaves a gold-threaded story
In the purple of mountain and glen.
Stand up, and look out of the mansion
That adorns the old scene of the past,
On the fruitage of hope—the expansion
Of the future your vigils forecast!
While the shadows of Hood have been wheeling
Away from the face of the sun,
What a glamour of change has been stealing
O'er the fields that you painfully won!
Like the castles that fade at cock-crowing
The enchantments arise and advance
Where the cities of commerce are glowing
Like pearls in the braid of Romance;
For a state, in her shimmering armor,
Like Pallas Athena has come,
And her aegis is fringed with the wanner
Refulgence that circles our home.

As for you, you are gray, and the thunder
Of the battle has smitten each brow
Where the freshness of youth was turned under
By Time's immemorial plow;
But the pictures of Memory linger
Like the shadows that turn to the east,
And will point with a tremulous finger
To the things that have perished and ceased;
For the trail and the foot-log have vanished,
The canoe is a song and a tale,
And the flickering church-spire has banished
The uncanny redman from the vale;
The cayuse is no longer in fashion,
He is gone with a flutter of heels,
And the old wars are dead, and their passion
In the crystal of culture congeals;
And the wavering flare of the pitchlight,
That illumines your banquets no more,
Will return, like a wandering witchlight,
And encrimson the fancies of yore—
When you danced the "Old Arkansas" gaily
In brogans that had followed the bear,
And quaffed the delight of Castaly
From the fiddle that wailed like despair;
And so lightly you wrought with the hammer,
And so truly with axe and with plow,
And you blazed your own trails through the grammar,
As the record must fairly allow;
But you builded a state in whose arches
Shall be carven the deed and the name,
And posterity lengthen its marches
In the glow of your honor and fame!