Sam L. Simpson.

Courtesy of "OREGON NATIVE SONS."

To Editor Pacific Monthly

Since the death of Oregon's gifted poet, S. L. Simpson, I notice a revival of interest in his charming poesy. To help it along, I enclose some specimens that I believe have never been in print. During the winter of 1879 I had the honor and pleasure of enter

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of his best poems were written on that occasion, with anything but poetical surroundings to inspire his verse, so that when he left Josephine county he carried with him a completed volume of resplendent song. My own valued usufruct of the performance consisted in several first-draft copies of the new pieces. This will explain how I came to be custodian of so much of his manuscript. finished product which he intended for publication, of course, was often different from the first-draft copy, but in the absence of the ripened fruit some idea of its quality may be formed from the specimens we have at our command. But his book, so far as I am advised, never saw the light of publication day. The printing-house that undertook its publication, I believe, failed, after it had the entire volume in type.

"Dashings of the Oregon" was to have been the title of the book, suggested by Bryant's beautiful lines:

"Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound Save its own dashings."

His preface you will find enclosed with this communication. Very truly yours,

Wm. W. Fidler. Grant's Pass, Feb. 20, 1900.

quarters on Williams creek, Josephine county, and he then and there, through my urging and advice, undertook and carried through the work of collecting and preparing a volume of his poems for publication. He did not have in his possession a single scrap of the many gems he had scattered bro dcast to our Western breezes. I had many of his choicer poems, however, carefully pasted away in a scrapbook, which, with others procured from different sources, formed the nucleus for an interesting volume.

It was a part of the programme that he was to indite some new pieces to go with it; but so dilatory was he in getting his muse in right temper for the fray, that I began to think the additions from this source would not be large. When he did get down to work, however, his industry was what amazed me. I thought he would never stop. Many

Simpson.

Where the kings of the mountains are lifted
In an armor of silver and pearl,
And the shadows of ages are drifted
In the banners the forests unfurl,
Where the Oregon's gathering waters
Go down to the strife of the sea,
And Willamette meanders and loiters
By many a rose-clustered lea,
In the regions of Hesper-the starlands
Abloom in the gold-gated West,

I have crowned a wild muse with these garlands

The rue-leaves along with the rest.
In the chaplets of verse that I bring her
Some strain you may haply prolong;
Then to me is the joy of the singer,
And to you-the delight of the song.

Love Will Surely Come To-morrow.

In a chamber rich with wedded color
A maiden loosed her lustrous hair,
Like a young moon meshed in threaded sun-
light

Her beauty throbbed in the tressy snare.
Oh, she was fair as a rose-lipped lily-

A rosy marble of molded song,

And around her lips fond thoughts were humming

Like sweet-faint bees that feast too long. Love will surely come tomorrow,

Even now his glowing feet

Dash the dappled shore of darkness
Into blushes warm and sweet,
And his wavering, ruby arrow
Pledges heaven to me tomorrow.

Awhile she stood in the rippled splendor
Of amber tresses all unbound,

And the irised clouds of castled dreamland
Ever her sea-deep soul surround.

And the dear eyes drooped with a sudden languor,

And over her curving lips a shade
Of far, faint trouble fell and flitted,

As she gathered her hair in a careless braid.
Love will surely come tomorrow;
But if love inconstant be
Death had better wear my favor
As a faithful knight to me;
Better, if love assail with sorrow,
Death should be my guest tomorrow.

And the twin-sphered bosom, like camelias,
White-clustered round twin buds of rose,
Now loose a gilded swarm of star-beams

To feed upon her sweet repose;
As the lashes. brown as twilight shadows,
Droop softly o'er the sapphire eyes,
And around her lips the bashful dimple
Of love's young hope entranced lies.
Love will surely come tomorrow;
All the roses at the gate
Lean their dewy heads together

As they whisper, "Dream and wait!" Many maids a wreath will borrow When they greet their loves tomorrow."

And the moon uprose; her slender sickle
From steep to steep was handed on,
And all the harvest gold of midnight
In sheafy splendor showered down;,
An angel, from the fretted casement

Of one far star, on wings of pearl,
Kept tryst with her, upon her bosom
One moment lay his fragrant curl.
Love will surely come tomorrow;
Whom the angels kiss at night.
'Neath the vermeil arch of morning
Ever find their soul's delight-
Never more a doubt will harrow,
Love will surely come tomorrow.

And the morning broke, its beryl billow
Fringed with scarlet foam outspread,
And the day had burst its dewy calyx,
And flamed in blossom overhead;
But the maiden, pale as some wan flower,
In whose pure chalice love had burned
Its magic perfumes, lay unlitten

Heart and hope to ashes turned.
Death will often claim the morrow
We have wreathen with desire,
Often hope but decks the altar
Where her flames at last expire.
Yet, if love assail with sorrow,
Death were truer king tomorrow.

Forever.

The temples of youth are decaying
In Beulah, the beautiful vale,
And my life has been wearily straying
Away from its beautiful pale,
Where the waters of Marah are sobbing
The sorrow of desolate years—

The sorrow and tremulous throbbing
Of hopes that have darkened to fears.
Forever, forever, forever,

The dolorous song of the river,
The wail of the river of tears.

In Beulah, a ring-belted river,
That danced in a garland of pearl,
First sang the refrain of forever
With many a wimple and swirl,
And the flag-flowers bent in the rushes
For a touch of the fanciful stream,
And the roses in redolent blushes
Were aflame with the magical dream.
Forever, forever, forever,

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Was the song of the ring-belted river, The refrain of a beautiful theme.

And love, with red lips, in the pauses
Of passion took up the refrain,
And the birds, in their rapturous clauses
Of silence to listen were fain;
But the leaves in a silvery quiver

Of mystery whispered the breeze
That a rainbow of crimson would ever
Rekindle the blossom of ease.

Forever, forever, forever.

Was the song of the jubilant river, In the odorous haunts of the bees.

Where the mountains, in desolate places,
Are kneeling, bare-kneed, in the sand,
And my Sphinxes, with mystical faces,
Are gazing in revery grand-
The garlands I twined by the river
Are fillets of flame on my brow,
And the crystalline chime of forever
Is the dirge of Elysium now.

Forever, forever, forever,
Alas, for the musical river
That sang me the treacherous vow.

The stars, on their cold eminences, May weave immortelles of the light, But my soul, in its vapor of senses,

Is crowned with the sorrow of night; And the oceans may chant, as they follow The glittering shield of the moon, But their music is weary and hollowA gloomy, unsyllabled rune.

Forever, forever, forever,

Is a lonesome refrain, if it sever A soul from the loves of its June.

There's an odor of death in the flowers That droop in this chaplet of mine; Believe me, in sunnier hours

They breathed an aroma divineAnd so I shall wear them forever, Thus drying in garlands of death, As I turn with sick lips and a shiver From the kiss of a following wraith. Forever, forever, forever,

Is the song of a shadowless river That shall heal the old sorrows of faith.

IN THE legendary lore of the Tlahtsops all objects, the air, the water, the earth and rocks and trees are endowed with life and intelligence.

For instance, the roar of the sea was not to them the sound of the waves breaking upon the shore, but the voice of a spirit chained in depths of the ocean who clamored to be free. When the wind was from the south the captive spirit roared for storm. When it veered to the north he roared for fair weather. The story of his captivity was this:

In the beginning the earth was inhabited by mighty giants-cheatcos-who were man monsters. This spirit was a cheatco, but in the days when he lived in that form his race had all but vanished, and the sight of him filled the minds of men with terror. When they heard him passing through the distant forest on a still day, striking down trees with his staff made of dead men's bones, they were like to die of fear. At last a young warrior, braver than his fellows, plotted to free the land from the presence of this terrible monster. The warrior was aided in this undertaking by the friendly elements, and the cheatco was cleverly lured into a tide stream and carried out to sea, where he was securely fettered, but with the privilege of roaming from north to south and back again along the coast. And you can hear him to this day, on a still afternoon, or a breathless

morning, drag his clanking chains. through the heavy surf. It is a sound that always portends a change in the weather.

Of the winds themselves, who were spirits, the Tlah-tsops had many traditions. The contention of the northwest wind, the southwest and the east wind, with their sons and daughters, was a sto ry told in many chapters, and drawn out by good story-tellers to a great length. Of the storms, too, and the clouds, and the thunder bird whose eye flashed lightning, and whose outspread wings darkened the sky, they told countless tales. They gave minute descriptions of the nest of the thunder bird on the summit of Swalla-la-chast and told of its excursions to the sea where it fished for whales.

But the stories of the rocks, those lonely sentinels along the seashore or river stretches, now shrouded in mist or curtained in cloud, or again gilded and resplendent in the sunlight, were perhaps the favorite subjects of all. Each had its legend. They were said to be human souls fixed in these rude rock forms in punishment for some transgression.

A group of rocks off Tillamook Head were a man and his family, who had committed some unpardonable folly and were turned to stone by the exasperated power. A rock off Chinook was a girl who shamelessly bathed in the river. There was a higher power, not highest, but

greater than the wind or the water or the sun, who wrought these transformations. This power, whose work was hidden and who left no trace, they called the Fox, Tallapus. He was simply a necessity of thought, but once conceived he became the main hero of native mythology; shrewd, cunning, humorous, often getting himself into difficulty and working wonders to get himself out again, but on the whole, just and benevolent. Tallapus could not be the highest power since, according to Indian logic, he who found it necessary or expedient to transform things could not have made them. The Supreme Being was to them the god of fire, the builder of mountains, whose voice shook the earth to its foundations and whose anger blazed to heaven.

There is the graceful legend of the waterfall and the two rocks. The waterfall was a maiden with flowing hair and the rocks her two lovers. She would accept neither, but dallied with

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both till as a punishment for her coquetry she was fixed to the mountain side, ever fleeing but never getting away, and the two lovers, one on either side of the river, were immured in stone; the one who hoped to win by wiles laid low in the waves, the one who hoped to win by bravery raised on high.

In the native Indian mind was ever the double conception-the thing and the spirit of the thing. And the thing is conceived as but the show of the spirit within. There is much that must be left untold concerning these people. These Tlah-tsops of the lower river, but there is nothing concerning them that is not of interest. For the children of Celiast, the daughter of Kobaiway, are honored citizens and useful members of society today.

(The end.)

Note. In the story of Kobaiway's Revenge, it should have been the Cascade Indians instead of the Cayuses, that were nearly annihilated.

IN THE year 1769, in the month of July, on the bank of the little stream that is dignified by the title of river, was founded the mission of San Diego de Alcala. And this was the beginning of education in California. For the old missions where the Indians were taught by the gentle Franciscan fathers were the first schools in the Golden state, whose institutions of learning now rival in excellence those of any commonwealth in the land.

It is a far cry from the simple walls that sheltered the brown-hued savage to the magnificence of Stanford, and the beauty of Berkeley, but it may be accepted as a proof and a recognition of the eternal fitness of things that Stanford's splendid quadrangle retains the motif of the early mission, and has preserved in enduring stone an architectural type which is, above all others, in harmony with the blue, unclouded skies and sunshine-flooded hills of California.

They were mainly industrial, those first schools. The Indians were given religious instruction, it is true, but they were also taught to plant and sow, to spin and weave, and, all things considered, they were apt pupils.. That chapter of the history of the West reads like a romance, and can be viewed only through the golden mists that hallow half-forgotten ideals.

To speak of education in California is to bring before the mind's eye a vision. of the two great universities that have given the state a name and a fame dimming the glory of her age of gold. And yet these are but the natural results of an educational system that is unrivaled in its soundness, its thoroughness, and its spirit of progression.

The first American school was opened in San Francisco in 1849, following immediately the gold discovery, and was supported by subscription. In this year, also, plans were begun for the establishment of the College of California, which

But

was primarily a school for boys in Oakland, but which grew into a recognized college in 1860, and opened its doors with but four students enrolled. from this modest beginning sprang the University of California, with its magnificent site, its annual income of six hundred and twenty-five thousand doiars, its fifteen hundred students, and faculty consisting of a hundred and tni zy professors. It is a notable fact that Dr. Martin Kellogg, the former president, was one of the first professors in the College of California.

The best evidence of the vital interest which the people of the state take in educational progress is to be found in the laws which they have made and the obligations which they have imposed upon themselves to the end that means shall never be lacking wherewith to secure the best in regard to instruction and appliances.

"The state has a permanent school fund. of $4,000,000, invested in United States, state, county and city bonds, the interest of which goes into its annual school fund. Every male citizen between the ages of twenty-one and sixty years is required to pay a poll tax of two dollars for the support of the schools. Five percent. of all collateral inheritances is also added to the state school fund, and an ad valorem state school tax, amounting to seven dollars for each child in the state over five and under seventeen years of age is annually levied. . . . This is supplemented by a county tax of at least six dollars for each child of the school age. City charters provide for the levying of school taxes in their respective limits, in addition to the state and county taxes. School districts are authorized by a vote of the people to levy additional taxes for school purposes" within a certain limit. All of which goes to explain why California is in the van of educational progress, with her hundred and twelve high schools,