AN ALTAR OF THE WEST (Point Lobos, the southern boundary of Carmel Bay.)

Beauty, what dost thou here? Why hauntest thou this empery of pain Where men in vain Long for another sphere? Art not an exile shy, A dreamer ’mid the swords, Upon this iron world where men defy Time and its hidden lords? Thou waitest with a splendor on thy brow. And seem’st to watch with compensating eyes Each jest our dwarfing Fates devise; And after all the strife, ’Tis thou Who standest where the slayers’ feet have trod— Perchance a portion of this dream of God That will not go from life. All that man’s yearning finds beyond its reach Thou hast in promise, giving to his heart A rapturous sadness all too wild for speech,— A glory past the thresholds of his art, Tho Nature tell it with the wind And beckon him to find. Thou dost reward our barren years: Our very tears— The dews of memory— Were lovely as the dew, could Grief but see. What marvel fills Thine evenings, dawns and noons!— The dryad-haunted hills And gold of reeds that wait the lips of Pan; Silence and silver one in wasting moons; The stains Of mornings beautiful ere Time began, And wine-souled Autumn and the ghostly rains; A bird In moonlit valleys of enchantment heard; The fall of sunsets past the sea, And shadow of celestial pearls to be Where meet in day The night’s last star, the morning’s youngest ray. On thine incarnate face could we but look, Would not we die, Desiring overmuch? And yet we sigh, Who find on land and sea thy radiant touch And dream thou hast on earth a secret nook— A glade supremely blest In woodlands where thou wanderest unseen. Hath not the snowy North Or star-concealing ocean of the West A court wherein thou sittest queen, A temple whence thou goest forth, An altar for our quest? Goddess, one such I know, And fain would praise, Tho less the gift my words bestow Than tapers ’mid the blaze Of peaceless stars that gather at thy throne. Yet seems it most thine own. Past Carmel lies a headland that the deep— A Titan at his toil— Has graven with the measured surge and sweep Of waves that broke ten thousand years ago. Here winds assoil That blow From unfamiliar skies And isolating waters of the West. Deep-channelled by the billows’ rage it lies, As tho the land Thrust forth a vast, tree-shaggy hand To bar the furious ocean from its breast. Here Beauty would I seek, For this I deem her home, And surely here The sea-adoring Greek, Poseidon, unto thee Thy loftiest temple had been swift to rear, Of chosen marble and chalcedony, Pure as the irrecoverable foam. Ere evening from this granite bulwark gaze, Above the deeper sapphire that the winds Drag to and fro. A zone Of coldest chrysoprase Tells where the sunlight finds The glimmering shoal. How slow Yon clouds, like giants overthrown Sink to the ocean’s western verge, From whence incessant roll Thro unresponding years The waves whose anthem challenges the soul— The everlasting surge Whose ancient salt is in our blood and tears. Listen, with sight made blind, And dream thou hearest on the according wind The music of the gods again, The murmur of their slain And firmamental echo of great wars. See how the wave in sudden anger flings White arms about a rock to drag it down! No siren sings, But in that pool of crystal gleams her crown, Flung on a rocky shelf— Grey jewels cold and agates of the elf That in yon scarlet cavern still is hid, ’Mid shells that mock the dawn. Here, where the northern surge is swayed Upon a beach of amber where a faun Might clasp the beauty of a Nereid, Translucent waters cover loops of jade. Beyond, the sea-scourged walls uphold A mount of granite, steep and harsh, where cling Along its rugged length The cypress legions, melancholy, old. O’er wasting cliff and strand In terraced emerald they stand Against the sky, Each elder tree a king Whose fame the wordless billows magnify. A thousand winters of achieving storm Moulded each mighty form To beauty and to strength: A thousand more shall raven ere they die. But wander to the verge again Where the immeasurable main Below the red horizon rears its wall, The day’s enormous pyre Whence oft, in mighty sunsets of the West, The world seems menaced by invading fire. Dost hear no call From these hesperian Islands of the Blest That wait the quest Of galleys of adventure, launched at dawn And seaward on the tides of peril drawn? The sky-line’s crimson harbors seem to hold, At dusk, their prows of gold. Now, ere the stars come out along the wind, The veering sea-birds find The refuge that they crave On cliffs above the weedy mouth Of some reverberant cave In which the ocean’s monstrous chuckle wakes. Fast comes the night; The west witholds at last Those last red relics of departing light That once were noon. Hark how the billow breaks, Forever cast On reefs round which wild waters and the moon Weave silver garlands—foamy fillets strewn Along her shining pathway to the South! The stars arise, And westward now the Eagle holds their van. See how the Pleiades, Like hounds in leash before Aldebaran, Strain up the shifting skies! The cypress trees, Drenched in the milk o’ the moon, conspirant seem, The surf a chant of giants heard afar, While seaward gleam The lamps of Lyra and the evening star.... The midnight hushes all; The winds are dumb; Eastward, Orion treads the mountain-wall. But lo! what visitant is on the gloom? Beauty and mystery and terror meet At this her chosen seat: The writhing fog is come, White as the moon’s cold hands Laid on a marble tomb. Slow swarm the dragon-bands— Those pallid monsters of the mist that nose The granite bare And glide along the flanks Of hill and headland where the cypress ranks Are crouched like silent foes, Relentless and aware. Far to the sombre hills they roam Like winds that have no home, And creep, Unhasting and intent, Along the muffled deep, As tho malignly sent From Lethe’s murmur and the starless foam. They pass, and now again the moon is free, Slow pacing with the Signs about her head; Soon shall the dawn arise and find her fled From yon blue battlement, As tho a pearl were hidden by the sea. Beauty, what dost thou here? Why hauntest thou the House where Death is lord And o’er thy crown appear The inexorable shadow and the sword? Art not a mad mirage above a grave? The foam foredriven of a perished wave? A clarion afar? A lily on the waters of despond? A ray that leaping from our whitest star Shows but the night beyond? And yet thou seemest more than all the rest That eye and ear attest— A watch-tower on the mountains whence we see On future skies The rose of dawn to be; The altar of an undiscovered shore; A dim assurance and a proud surmise; A gleam Upon the bubble, Time; The vision, fleet, sublime, Of sorrowed man, the brute that dared to dream. Ah! those, and more! Made veritable tho the heart descry No path to thy demesne And Music builds, unseen, Her Heaven we shall not enter tho we die. Still must thou speak, August and consecrate, Of that Reality we can but seek, Tho seeking fail— That Sun eternal and inviolate, Whereof thou art the portent and the veil.