magnificent descriptions of cañons and mountain-chains, feeble as well as false, full of cheap heroics, atrocious taste and impossible men and women. (See Preface.) One or two individual poems, like Crossing the Plains" and parts of his apostrophes to the Sierras, the Pacific Ocean and the Missouri river may live; the rest seem doomed to a gradual extinction. 66 From 1872 to 1886, Miller traveled about the Continent. In 1887 he returned to California, dwelling on the Heights, helping to found an experimental Greek academy for aspiring writers. He died there, after a determinedly picturesque life, in sight of the Golden Gate, in 1913. BY THE PACIFIC OCEAN 1 Here room and kingly silence keep Above yon gleaming skies of gold That duty drops the web of care. 1 Permission to reprint this poem was granted by the Harr Wagner Publishing Co., San Francisco, California, publishers of Joaquin Miller's Complete Poetical Works. Beneath the sunset's golden sheaves CROSSING THE PLAINS 1 What great yoked brutes with briskets low, With round, brown, liquid, pleading eyes, Two sullen bullocks led the line, Their great eyes shining bright like wine; And even now they crush'd the sod 1 Permission to reprint this poem was granted by the Harr Wagner Publishing Co., San Francisco, California, publishers of Joaquin Miller's Complete Poetical Works. With stolid sense of majesty, FROM "BYRON" In men whom men condemn as ill I do not dare to draw a line Between the two, where God has not. Edward Rowland Sill Edward Rowland Sill was born at Windsor, Connecticut, in 1841. In 1861 he was graduated from Yale and shortly thereafter his poor health compelled him West. After various unsuccessful experiments, he drifted into teaching, first in the high schools in Ohio, later in the English department of the University of California. His uncertain physical condition added to his mental uncertainty. Unable to ally himself either with the lethargic, conservative forces whom he hated or with the radicals whom he distrusted, Sill became an uncomfortable solitary; half rebellious, half resigned. During the last decade of his life, his brooding seriousness was less pronounced, a lighter irony took the place of his dark reflections. The Hermitage, his first volume, was published in 1867, a later edition (including later poems) appearing in 1889. His two posthumous books are Poems (1887) and Hermione and Other Poems (1899). Sill died, after bringing something of the Eastern culture to the West, in 1887. SOLITUDE All alone-alone, Calm, as on a kingly throne, Take thy place in the crowded land, The narrow ways of the lesser mind: Let the noisy crowd go by: In thy lonely watch on high, Far from the chattering tongues of men, Sitting above their call or ken, Free from links of manner and form Thou shalt learn of the wingéd stormGod shall speak to thee out of the sky. DARE YOU? Doubting Thomas and loving John, "Tell me now, John, dare you be One of the minority? To be lonely in your thought, Never visited nor sought, Shunned with secret shrug, to go To be singled out and hissed, If you dare, come now with me, Thomas, do you dare to be To be only, as the rest, With Heaven's creature comforts blessed; To accept, in humble part, Truth that shines on every heart; Never to be set on high, Where the envious curses fly; Never name or fame to find, Still outstripped in soul and mind; Sidney Lanier Sidney Lanier was born at Macon, Georgia, February 3, 1842. His was a family of musicians (Lanier himself was a skilful performer on various instruments), and it is not surprising that |