Lone Mountain

This is that hill of awe
That Persian Sindbad saw,
The mount magnetic;
And on its seaward face,
Scattered along its base,
The wrecks prophetic.

Here come the argosies
Blown by each idle breeze,
To and fro shifting;
Yet to the hill of Fate
All drawing, soon or late,
Day by day drifting;

Drifting forever here
Barks that for many a year
Braved wind and weather;
Shallops but yesterday
Launched on yon shining bay,
Drawn all together.

This is the end of all:
Sun thyself by the wall,
O poorer Hindbad!
Envy not Sindbads fame:
Here come alike the same
Hindbad and Sindbad.

Bret Harte

Bret Harte was an American author and poet, renowned for his works about pioneering life in California. Born on August 25, 1836, he gained national fame with his short stories and poetry depicting life in the early mining camps. His most famous works include 'The Luck of Roaring Camp' and 'The Outcasts of Poker Flat.' Harte's writings played a crucial role in shaping the Western genre in American literature. He passed away on May 5, 1902.

Bret Harte

The Birds of Cirencester

Bret Harte, Simple Poetry

To the Pliocene Skull

Bret Harte, Simple Poetry

The Old Major Explains

Bret Harte, Simple Poetry

Further Language from Truthful James

Bret Harte, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Sea And The Hills

Who hath desired the Sea?, the sight of salt wind-hounded,
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber win hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing,
Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing,
His Sea in no showing the same his Sea and the same 'neath each showing:
His Sea as she slackens or thrills?
So and no otherwise, so and no otherwise, hillmen desire their Hills!

Who hath desired the Sea?, the immense and contemptuous surges?
The shudder, the stumble, the swerve, as the star-stabbing bow-sprit emerges?
The orderly clouds of the Trades, the ridged, roaring sapphire thereunder,
Unheralded cliff-haunting flaws and the headsail's low-volleying thunder,
His Sea in no wonder the same his...

Rudyard

Crotalus

No life in earth, or air, or sky;
The sunbeams, broken silently,
On the bared rocks around me lie,

Cold rocks with half-warmed lichens scarred,
And scales of moss; and scarce a yard
Away, one long strip, yellow-barred.

Lost in a cleft! Tis but a stride
To reach it, thrust its roots aside,
And lift it on thy stick astride!

Yet stay! That moment is thy grace!
For round thee, thrilling air and space,
A chattering terror fills the place!

A sound as of dry bones that stir
In the dead Valley! By yon fir
The locust stops its noonday whir!

The wild bird hears; smote with the sound,
As if by bullet brought to ground,
On broken wing, dips, wheeling round!

The hare, transfixed, with trembling lip,
Halts, breathless, on ...

Bret Harte

Fate

The sky is clouded, the rocks are bare,
The spray of the tempest is white in air;
The winds are out with the waves at play,
And I shall not tempt the sea to-day.

The trail is narrow, the wood is dim,
The panther clings to the arching limb;
And the lions whelps are abroad at play,
And I shall not join in the chase to-day.

But the ship sailed safely over the sea,
And the hunters came from the chase in glee;
And the town that was builded upon a rock
Was swallowed up in the earthquake shock.

Bret Harte

To a Sea-Bird

Sauntering hither on listless wings,
Careless vagabond of the sea,
Little thou heedest the surf that sings,
The bar that thunders, the shale that rings,
Give me to keep thy company.

Little thou hast, old friend, thats new;
Storms and wrecks are old things to thee;
Sick am I of these changes, too;
Little to care for, little to rue,
I on the shore, and thou on the sea.

All of thy wanderings, far and near,
Bring thee at last to shore and me;
All of my journeyings end them here:
This our tether must be our cheer,
I on the shore, and thou on the sea.

Lazily rocking on oceans breast,
Something in common, old friend, have we:
Thou on the shingle seekst thy nest,
I to the waters look for rest,
I on the shore, and thou on the sea.

Bret Harte

San Francisco

Serene, indifferent of Fate,
Thou sittest at the Western Gate;

Upon thy height, so lately won,
Still slant the banners of the sun;

Thou seest the white seas strike their tents,
O Warder of two continents!

And, scornful of the peace that flies
Thy angry winds and sullen skies,

Thou drawest all things, small, or great,
To thee, beside the Western Gate.

O lions whelp, that hidest fast
In jungle growth of spire and mast!

I know thy cunning and thy greed,
Thy hard high lust and willful deed,

And all thy glory loves to tell
Of specious gifts material.

Drop down, O Fleecy Fog, and hide
Her skeptic sneer and all her pride!

Wrap her, O Fog, in gown and hood
Of her Franciscan Brotherhood.

H...

Bret Harte

A Desolate Shore

A desolate shore,
The sinister seduction of the Moon,
The menace of the irreclaimable Sea.

Flaunting, tawdry and grim,
From cloud to cloud along her beat,
Leering her battered and inveterate leer,
She signals where he prowls in the dark alone,
Her horrible old man,
Mumbling old oaths and warming
His villainous old bones with villainous talk -
The secrets of their grisly housekeeping
Since they went out upon the pad
In the first twilight of self-conscious Time:
Growling, hideous and hoarse,
Tales of unnumbered Ships,
Goodly and strong, Companions of the Advance,
In some vile alley of the night
Waylaid and bludgeoned -
Dead.

Deep cellared in primeval ooze,
Ruined, dishonoured, spoiled,
They lie where the lean water-worm
...

William Ernest Henley