The Gold-Gated West/The Wizard Owl
THE WIZARD OWL
A New Year's Story in Rhyme
In Portland's far heroic day, When forest firs disputed sway, While but a mythic spear was set To show where spires would glimmer yet, And all a city's grace and sheen Arise o'er conquered ranks of green, A little lonely cabin stood Within the border of the wood.
Lowly it was, but not unsightly, For sombre firs, erect and knightly A marvellous dark background lent To cabin rude and roving tent, And in those bold, free-handed days Of earnest toil and homely ways, When no tall mansion rose to shut The sunlight from the meanest hut, The dweller here might chance to be The lordliest of the strong and free.
Yet 'twas not thus; almost unknown, He dwelt there quietly alone, A youth of manners smooth and mild, Who all his waking hours beguiled With books or gun and rod, and ne'er Seemed bent on other work or cheer.
The smoke that curled in wreaths of blue Above his chimney's ragged flue Was typical of peace within, A life devoid of care and sin, And those strange dreams his fancy wove Beneath the whispers of the grove When slow winds swept the trees, and bore Sad music down the wooded shore.
On many a fragrant summer day When Hood, exultant in his sway, Swung to the sky his golden shield, As if to call the battle-steeled To hew the wilderness, and build The empire from creation willed, The dreamer in his door would stand, And gaze upon the river's strand Until his thoughts would soar and soar Into the future dim and hoar. Then in a vision he could see Pale shadows of the things to be; And in the city built of mist, Afloat in tender amethyst, His own great mansion spread and towered, And lo! its portal, lotus-flowered Foretold a lulling life of ease Amid delightful harmonies; And then he turned and saw the town Along the river straggling down, And sought his cabin with a sigh To dream of far futurity! He could not see what force could change That park of stumps, a rude Stonehenge, And that wild forest sighing deep O'er centuries so long asleep, Into the city he had seen Portrayed on Fancy's lofty screen.
But they who toiled with hand and brain To open avenues of gain, And lay the keels and weave the sails Which some day, with fair Fortunes gales, Should bring them honor, wealth and ease From o'er the dim unresting sees, Had little time to think of one Who stood from all the strife apart, And so, alike in rain and sun, Kept to their tasks with loyal heart; While he among them came and went, Approving still their bold intent, But too half-hearted to begin The life that lives, the deeds that win. Time sped, and on a New Year's night, When all the stars were sprinkling light In showers of radiant golden rain Upon the wheeling world again, And mists, like scarfs of pearl, were laid Upon the mountains' armor-braid, The dreamer, by his lonely fire, Grew mournful over thoughts of home, And wondered that a vain desire Had ever led his steps to roam. "But life is full of waste and folly, Away with weary melancholy!" He cried, and filled the glass whose rays Are crimson with the art that slays, And drank to all things good and fair, To happy, happy other days, Dim vanishing down Memory's stair.
Once on a listless summer day A hapless owl became hi prey As, gun in hand, in idle mood, He loitered in the shady wood. This bird, alive, and passing well, And rife with bloody passions fell, Portrayed in cruel beak and grip, He thus in classic faith had borne Unto his cabin hearth forlorn, For mystical companionship. So, on this night of lonely longing, While shadows of the past were thronging With many a mute and wan reproof, Upon a table, half in shade, The owl, with all his eyes arrayed, To dulling slumber still aloof, Discreetly sat, as if he too Saw ghosts of things in long review. Under the great firs' tasselled tent, When dusk had come and dews were sprent, Again he plied his gory trade; Soft as a whisper in the dark He flit Led swiftly to his mark, And there was not a sound to tell What helpless victim instant fell.
The dark-haired dreamer drank once more A toast to pleasures gone before, Then from the headstones of the past, In rain and sunshine fading fast, Turned to the coming time to grace The portent of its misted face. What could he see in that dark glass? Only his pale conjectures pass, The old procession of his dreams, Fabrics of fleeting shades and beams Which drifted evermore away Before the Present's stern array—The stumps and canyons, and the town By fair Willamette straggling down. Thus fitfully, as Fancy soared, He darkly guessed and deeply pored Until unto himself he said, "It may be, in dim years ahead! But oh, the waiting! who shall say How many years must roll away Before this mountain camp shall be A mistress of the sail-swept sea, Waving her sinewy, jewelled hands In empire over boundless lands?" A gurgling flow of elfish laughter Echoed from rough log wall to rafter, A sound the trav'ller hears with dread In gloomy firs high overhead, When night and forest shake his soul With terror all beyond control. Startled, the moody dreamer turned, And lo! upon him glared and burned The owl's wide eyes, commingled rays Of yellow, purple, chrysoprase, Burned deep, burned wide, as ne'er before, As with Dodona's awful lore, When muffled kings sought her dark ways. "Aha! Those eyes that must have slept When Hector bled and Priam wept Are luminous this New Year's night And I am vainly asking light," He softly said, then paling, faltered, As one who with the unseen paltered; For, as when vapors black and gray From lilied dawn are swept away, A filmy curtain seemed to fade From mind and soul, and in those eyes, Lustrous with mighty destinies And flames of life, unfixed, unmade, He saw the wondrous Future rise;—Swiftly in panoramic view, The old times were displaced by new: The crested firs went down like knights Lance-struck in ringing olden fights, And all the century-furrowed land, The church, the school, the court, the mart, Temples of pleasure, toil and art, With glimmering spires and gleaming domes, Were set in landscape bright with homes—He saw the swarm of men like bees, The building of the pillared quays, The lordly ships with canvas furled, From seas that roll around the world, The thronging river craft that broke The lucid wave in spray and smoke; And from converging ways, strange steeds, With trailing plumes and shining mail, Flying in answer to the hail Of wider action, swifter needs ; He saw a city throned and shining, And fairer than his best divining In any roseate revery— A city in its regal power; Glowing and crescent, proud and free. All this with hints of things aside, The theatre of action wide;—The sable smoke of border wars, With hecatombs to stormy Mars—The sudden sparkling in the sun Of towns beginning and begun—Cleaving of mountains and fierce air Tossing the brown earth everywhere.
Then from those wondrous eyes the fire Went out; he saw the flame expire;—Then pausing with a flush elate, He lightly murmured, "I shall wait!" And once again from wall to rafter Echoed the gurgling elfish laughter. But when he looked, the wise-eyed owl, With whom his life was cheek by jowl, There in the firelight's fitful play, Sat bleakly staring, calm and gray.
The Old Year's closed and finished book Was shrined among the scrolls of Fame; Splendid in robes of gold and azure, And all untried in toil and pleasure, The New Year to his empire came, And from his diamond sceptre shook An all resplendent virgin flame. The dreamer, with an inward smile, Looked over gorge and stump and tree, And clothed them radiantly the while In purple-misted destiny. His ways change not; why should he toil When other forces heaped the spoil? He would evade the primal curse, For there was money in has purse To bide the day, foretold to come, When that forbidding slope should bloom With rose and myrtle and the glory Of life's exultant, changing story. The sapient bird he kept, and none His matchless secret ever won; And so the years rolled on and on Through dusky twilight to the dawn, And through its silvery, rising arch, To day's illumined, joyful march. 'Tis New Year's night again, the earth Is radiant o'er the royal birth, With star-drift and the flower of pearl: A robe of beauty and of light Around its wintry dusk to-night The woven snow-flakes softly furl. Bowed down in helplessness and gloom, A lodger in a squalid room Sits brooding by a rusted stove, In which a low fire, brooding, too, Drops into ashes, pale and rue, For some bird-haunted breezy grove. And in that bent and mournful form, Drooping to keep its thin blood warm—Those matted locks of iron gray, That sad and worn and wrinkled face—The feeble semblance you can trace Of one who knew another day; And, gray and tattered, like his master, With solitude and chill disaster, A quaint old owl, still staring wide, Sits on a table at his side. Through all the long eventful years, Rainbowed with joys, bedewed with tears, The man had kept his tryst with fate, True to his saying, "I shall wait." His purse and little stint of land Had vanished all, an idle hand And dreaming brain, that builded fair Its gorgeous tableaux in the air, But never in its mazy coil Had fixed the ritual of toil; And yet in all his dreary waiting, And vexed with troubles past relating, He had maintained the wizard bird Though unillumined and unheard. To-night the rounded fateful time Was trilling to its silvery chime, For all the vision of the past, In glorious truth arose at last—A queenly city on her throne Ruled where the olden firs made moan, But what was that to him? He stood Without the gates in solitude, A haunting shadow of the meed That answers manhood's ringing creed;
For Time may come with gems and flowers, But lo! they are not always ours!
He raised his head, the gray bird's gaze Kindled with deep prophetic blaze, And with a flush of glad surprise The master peered in those wild eyes, Fading again to filmy veil, And there, as in a desert pale, He saw himself in rags and woe—Only himself—deserted, lone, And closed his eyes no more to know, His life-long vigil closed and done; And o'er him gurgled elfish laughter—The owl's last rite—no more hereafter!