A ragged and broken story it is, with long deserts, with alkali and ashes, yet it may, like the land it deals of, have some green places, and woods, and running waters, where you can rest.... Three times now I have ranged the great West in fancy, as I did in fact for twenty years, and gathered unknown and unnamed blossoms from mountain-top, from desert level, where man never ranged before, and asked the world to receive my weeds, my grasses, and blue-eyed blossoms. But here it ends. Good or bad, I have done enough of this work on the border. The Orient promises a more grateful harvest. I have been true to my West. She has been my only love. I have remembered her greatness. I have done my work to show to the world her vastness, her riches, her resources, her valor and her dignity, her poetry and her grandeur. Yet while I was going on, working so in silence, what were the things she said of me? But let that pass, my dear parents. Others will come after us. Possibly I have blazed out the trail for great minds over this field, as you did across the deserts and plains for great men a quarter of a century ago. JOAQUIN MILLER. LAKE COMO, Italy. [Illustration ] THE SHIP IN THE DESERT. I. A Man in middle Aridzone Stood by the desert's edge alone, And long he look'd, and lean'd. He peer'd, Above his twirl'd and twisted beard, Beneath his black and slouchy hat ... Nay, nay, the tale is not of that. A skin-clad trapper, toe-a-tip, Stood on a mountain top, and he Look'd long and still and eagerly. "It looks so like some lonesome ship That sails this ghostly lonely sea,-- This dried-up desert sea," said he, "These tawny sands of Arazit" ... Avaunt! the tale is not of it. A chief from out the desert's rim Rode swift as twilight swallows swim, Or eagle blown from eyrie nest. His trim-limb'd steed was black as night, His long black hair had blossom'd white, With feathers from the koko's crest; His iron face was flush'd and red, His eyes flash'd fire as he fled, For he had seen unsightly things; Had felt the flapping of their wings. A wild and wiry man was he, This tawny chief of Shoshonee; And O his supple steed was fleet! About his breast flapp'd panther skins, About his eager flying feet Flapp'd beaded, braided moccasins: He rode as rides the hurricane; He seem'd to swallow up the plain; He rode as never man did ride, He rode, for ghosts rode at his side, And on his right a grizzled grim-- No, no, this tale is not of him. An Indian warrior lost his way While prowling on this desert's edge In fragrant sage and prickly hedge, When suddenly he saw a sight, And turn'd his steed in eager flight. He rode right through the edge of day, He rode into the rolling night.