803. By the Pacific Ocean by Joaquin Miller. Stedman, Edmund Clarence, ed. 1900. An American Anthology, 1787-1900

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

803. By the Pacific Ocean

By Joaquin Miller


HERE room and kingly silence keep
Companionship in state austere;
The dignity of death is here,
The large, lone vastness of the deep;
Here toil has pitched his camp to rest:	5
The west is banked against the west.

Above yon gleaming skies of gold
One lone imperial peak is seen;
While gathered at his feet in green
Ten thousand foresters are told:	10
And all so still! so still the air
That duty drops the web of care.

Beneath the sunset’s golden sheaves
The awful deep walks with the deep,
Where silent sea doves slip and sweep,	15
And commerce keeps her loom and weaves
The dead red men refuse to rest;
Their ghosts illume my lurid West.