UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES ROBERT ERNEST COWAN t _ Literature Series Number One Readings from California Poets SELECTED BY EDMUND RUSSELL PRICE, TWENTY-FIVE CENTS PUBLISHED BY THE WHITAKER & RAY CO. EDUCATIONAL. PUBLISHERS SAN FKAHGISCO Readings from California Poets SELECTED BY EDMUND RUSSELL SAN FRANCISCO THE WHITAKER & RAY Co. 1900 COPYRIGHT i too THE WHITAKER A. RAY Co. -n M PS. 5"7( VANCE CHENEY 302002 T^HIS collection grew out of a studio-evening de voted to California writers of verse. Most of the readings were new to those present ; and as it was found no collective representation had been made for more than twenty years, the compiler of this volume was interested to read further, and ar range those pieces that spoke best of California talent or were best suited to the technique of dramatic reading. It would seem that perhaps no other State in the Union could show more original and dramatic power. The glory of the eschscholtzia, the weird- ness of the madrone, the grandeur of the unsur passable redwoods, the awe of the desert mescal, blossom into a strange verse that can only belong to the Pacific Coast to California. The thanks of the compiler are tendered to authors, publishers and friends for their kind assist ance and interest. or INDEX OF AUTHORS SEDDIE E. ANDERSON Which is Best ? 99 GENEVIEVE LUCILLE BROWN Ballad of Lilies 48 JOHN VANCE CHENEY The Confession 34 Liolan 32 The Parting of Ilmar and Haadin 43 INA COOLBRITH California 9 La Flor del Salvador 79 The Music of Macbeth 85 The Years 78 CAPT. JACK CRAWFORD Rattlin' Joe's Bible 119 ELLA STERLING CUMMINS Mount Tamalpais 57 ROLLIN M. DAGGETT My New Year's Guests 19 EMMA FRANCES DAWSON Decoration Day 91 Old Glory 88 Lucius HARWOOD FOOTE A New Italy 26 El Vaquero 46 JOSEPH T. GOODMAN Abraham Lincoln 28 LYMAN GOODMAN The Fair Tamborinist 65 BRET HARTE On the Landing 121 San Francisco 117 The Song of the Bullet 31 SARAH EDWARDS HENSHAW The Telegram 108 The Tone of Voice 120 Vigils for Passion Week 53 NATHAN C. KOUNS Lex Scripta no MARY LAMBERT The Devil's Bride 123 EMILIE LAWSON Critic and Poet 97 CHARLES EDWIN MARKHAM Poetry 87 The Cricket 74 ADAH ISAACS MENKEN In Vain 44 JOAQUIN MILLER A Christmas Eve in the Palm Land ...... 66 Como 40 Finale 84 Illinois 38 Mother Egypt 36 Old California 15 Peter Cooper 82 The Isles of the Amazons 107 The Millionaire 83 The Passing of Tennyson 86 DANIEL O'CONNELL Mission Roses 63 AMIB S. PAGE The Miracle at Cana 55 The Supper at Emmaus 56 CHARLES HENRY PHBLPS Apache 118 INA LILLIAN PETERSON Humility 62 EDWARD POLLOCK Evening 24 The Chandos Portrait of Shakspeare 30 ALICE EDWARDS PRATT The Sleeping Princess 90 RICHARD REALF Indirection 51 J. H. ROGERS The Spirit Lover 47 CHARLES H. SHINN The Unborn Soul 23 MILICENT WASHBURN SHINH A Cycle 73 LILIAN HINMAN SHUEY Mendocino 60 EDWARD ROWLAND SILL The Fool's Prayer 96 Her Explanation 72 Five Lives 75 Morning 77 LORENZO Sosso Genesis 114 Ultima Thule 116 CHARLES WARREN STODDARD Exile 115 ANNIE LAKE TOWNSEND Sestina 68 To Clara Morris 50 CLARENCE URMY Graves 95 MADGE MORRIS WAGNER Rocking the Baby 109 To the Colorado Desert Si JOSEPHINE WALCOTT Santa Barbara 59 CARRIE STEVENS WALTER In the Shadow 7 Nirvana 49 Ojala 52 A Thought of Farewell 61 VIRNA WOODS Chorus of Amazons 80, 98 Chorus and Semi-Chorus 100 HEADINGS IN VERSE. B. P. AVKKY 57 RICHARD RBALF 38 KATE M. BISHOP no ANNA MORRISON RBBO 9 J. F. BOWMAN 75 HIRAM HOYT RICHMOND 36 JOHN VANCB CHBNKY 82 JOHN R. RIDGB 15, 19, 44, 118 INA COOI.BRITH 28, 56, 84, 91 E. R. SILL 26, 59, 68, 77 ANNA M. FITCH 88 PHILIP SHIRLEY 47 Lucius HOWARD FOOTB 23, 83 LORBNZO Sosso 34, 48, 61, 79, 119 IRBNR HARDY 66 CHARLKS WARREN STODDARD .... 24, 86 BRKT HARTB 51, 63, 78, 121 M. B. M. TOI.AND 114 SARAH EDWARDS HENSHAW 53 ANNIE LAKE TOWNSEND 32, 98 W. A. KENDALL 47. 73 JOSEPHINE WALCOTT 53 MARY LAMBERT 83 CARRIE STEVENS WALTER 70 JOAQUIN MILLER 9, 81, 96, 116, 113 C. H. WEBB 40, 108 DANIEL O'CONNBLL 31, 43 49, 120 VIRNA WOODS 59, 98, too Queen of the Coast, she sits there emerald crowned, Waiting her ships that sail in from the sea. Brighter than all the western world, to me, Seems this young goddess whom the years have found. Ocean and land, fraught with their treasures sweet, Vie as they bring their burdens to her feet. Jn her brave arms, she holds with proud content, The varied plenty of a continent ; In her fair face, and in her dreaming eyes, Shines the full promise of her destinies ; Winds kiss her cheek, while fret the restless tides She in their truth, with trust divine confides ; Watching the course of Empire's brilliant star, She looks with patient eyes, across the Bar. ANNA MORRISON REED. How beautiful she was ! why she Was inspiration ! She was born To walk God's summer hills at morn. JOAQUIN MILLER. CALIFORNIA. INA COOLBRITH. WAS it the sigh and shiver of the leaves ? Was it the murmur of the meadow brook, That in and out the reeds and water-weeds Slipped silverly, and on their tremulous keys Uttered her many melodies ? Or voice Of the far sea, red with the sunset gold, That sang within her shining shores, and sang Within the Gate, that in the sunset shone A gate of fire against the outer world? For ever as I turned the magic page Of that old song the old, blind singer sang Unto the world, when it and song were young The ripple of the reeds, or odorous, Soft sigh of leaves, or voice of the far sea A mystical, low murmur, tremulous Upon the wind, came in with musk of rose, The salt breath of the waves, and far, faint smell Of laurel up the slopes of Tamalpais. io EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. ' 'Am I less fair, am I less fair than these, Daughters of far-off seas ? Daughters of far-off shores bleak, over-blown With foam of fretful tides, with wail and moan Of waves, that toss wild hands, that clasp and beat Wild, desolate hands above the lonely sands, Printed no more with pressure of their feet : That chase no more the light feet flying swift Up golden sands, nor lift Foam fingers white unto their garment hem, And flowing hair of them. "For these are dead : the fair, great queens are dead The long hair's gold a dust the wind bloweth Wherever it may list ; The curved lips, that kissed Heroes and kings of men, a dust that breath, Nor speech, nor laughter, ever quickeneth ; And all the glory sped From the large, marvelous eyes, the light whereof Wrought wonder in their hearts desire and love 1 And wrought not any good : But strife, and curses of the gods, and flood, And fire and battle-death ! Am I less fair, less fair, Because that my hands bear Neither a sword, nor any flaming brand To blacken and make desolate my land, But on my brows are leaves of olive boughs, And in mine arms a dove ! CALIFORNIA POETS. . II 'Sea-born and goddess, blossom of the foam, Pale Aphrodite, shadowy as a mist Not any sun hath kissed ! Tawny of limb /roam, The dusks of forests dark within my hair ; The far Yosemite, For garment and for covering of me, Wove the white foam and mist, The amber and the rose and amethyst Of her wild fountains, shaken loose in air. And I am of the hills and of the sea : Strong with the strength of my great hills, and calm With calm of the fair sea, whose billowy gold Girdles the land whose queen and love I am ! Lo ! am I less than thou, That with a sound of lyres, and harp-playing, Not any voice doth sing The beauty of mine eyelids and my brow? Nor hymn in all my fair and gracious ways, And lengths of golden days, The measure and the music of my praise ? "Ah, what indeed is this Old land beyond the seas, that ye should miss For her the grace and majesty of mine? Are not the fruit and vine Fair on my hills, and in my vales the rose? The palm-tree and the pine Strike hands together under the same skies In every wind that blows. What clearer heavens can shine Above the land whereon the shadow lies 12 EDMUND RUSSELL S READINGS. Of her dead glory, and her slaughtered kings, And lost, evanished gods? Upon my fresh green sods No king has walked to curse and desolate : But in the valleys Freedom sits and sings, And on the heights above ; Upon her brows the leaves of olive boughs, And in her arms a dove ; And the great hills are pure, undesecrate, White with their snows untrod, And mighty with the presence of their God ! "Hearken, how many years I sat alone, I sat alone and heard Only the silence stirred By wind and leaf, by clash of grassy spears, And singing bird that called to singing bird. Heard but the savage tongue Of my brown savage children, that among The hills and valleys chased the buck and doe, And round the wigwam fires Chanted wild songs of their wild savage sires, And danced their wild, wierd dances to and fro, And wrought their beaded robes of buffalo. Day following upon day, Saw but the panther crouched upon the limb, Smooth serpents, swift and slim, Slip through the reeds and grasses, and the bear Crush through his tangled lair Of chapparal, upon the startled prey ! CALIFORNIA POETS. 13 "Listen, how I have seen Flash of strange fires in gorge and black ravine ; Heard the sharp clang of steel, that came to drain The mountain's golden vein And laughed and sang, and sang and laughed again, Because that 'now,' I said, 'I shall be known ! I shall not sit alone ; But reach my hands unto my sister lands ! And they ? Will they not turn Old, wondering dim eyes to me, and yearn Aye, they will yearn, in sooth, To my glad beauty, and my glad, fresh youth ! ' "What matters though the morn Redden upon my singing fields of corn ! What matters though the wind's unresting feet Ripple the gold of wheat, And my vales run with wine, And on these hills of mine The orchard boughs droop heavy with ripe fruit? When with nor sound of lute Nor lyre, doth any singer chant and sing Me, in my life's fair spring: The matin song of me in my young day? But all my lays and legends fade away From lake and mountain to the farther hem Of sea, and there be. none to gather them. "Lo ! I have waited long ! How longer yet must my strung harp be dumb, Ere its great master come? Till the fair singer conies to wake the strong, Rapt chords of it unto the new, glad song ! (4 EDMUND RUSSELL S READINGS. Him a diviner speech My song-birds wait to teach : The secrets of the field My blossoms will not yield To other hands than his ; And, lingering for this, My laurels lend the glory of their boughs To crown no narrower brows. For on his lips must wisdom sit with youth ; And in his eyes, and on the lids thereof, The light of a great love And on his forehead, truth ! " . . . Was it the wind, or the soft sigh of leaves, Or sound of singing waters? Lo, I looked, And saw the silvery ripples of the brook, The fruit upon the hills, the waving trees, And mellow fields of harvest ; saw the Gate Burn in the sunset : the thin thread of mist Creep white across the Saucelito hills ; Till the day darkened down the ocean rim, The sunset purple slipped from Tamalpais, And bay and sky were bright with sudden stars ! Yet, though the wayside all be strewn With sorrows and with graves. The glory of the race is shown By what it does and braves. ' Tis not the Hying that have won Alone the victory: But each dead soldier, too, has done His part as loftily. JOHN R. RIDGE. OLD CALIFORNIA. JOAQUIN MILLER. 5 HP IS a land so far that you wonder whether 1 E'en God would know it should you fall down dead ; 'Tis a land so far through the wilds and weather, That the sun falls weary and flushed and red, That the sea and the sky seem coming together, Seem closing together as a book that is read : Oh ! the nude, wierd West, where an unnamed river Rolls restless in bed of bright silver and gold ; Where white flashing mountains flow rivers of silver As a rock of the desert flowed fountains of old; By a dark wooded river that calls to the dawn, And makes mouths at the sea with his dolorous swan : Oh ! the land of the wonderful sun and weather, With green under foot and with gold over head, Where the sun takes flame and you wonder whether 'T is an isle of fire in his foamy bed : Where the ends of the earth they are welding together In rough-hewn fashion, in a forge-flame red. Commend me to the old Californian. I should say that an old gold hunter of '49, standing on a peak of the Sierras with the 16 EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. world behind him, storm -blown and beaten, yet with hands and heart open, unsullied by any sin of the populous world below, stands not far from God. They climb'd ihe rock-built breasts of earth, The Titan-fronted, billowy steeps That cradled Time . . . Where Freedom keeps Her flag of white-blown stars unfurl'd, They turn'd about, they saw the birth Of sudden dawn upon the world : Again they gazed ; they saw the face Of God, and named it boundless space. Ah, there have been clouds in the old Californian's life, storms and wrecks, and years of clouds. And even still there are more than enough in the West to make the sunset glorious. But the world is away off to him. He has memories a lock of hair in his hand, a little song in his heart. He lives alone in the past. Life, love all with him are over; but he does not com plain. May he strike it yet in the shaft he is still sinking, in the great tunnel he is still boring into the mountains, and go back to his waiting wife and babes. Alas ! his babes are full-grown ; he will never see his babies any more. It is to be allowed that these men were not at all careful of the laws, either ancient or modern, ecclesiastical or lay. They would curse. They would fight like dogs aye, like Christians in battle. But there was more solid honor among them than the world will ever see again in any body of men, I fear, till it approaches the millennium. Do you know where the real old Californian is? the giant, the world-builder? He is sitting by the trail high up on the mountain. His eyes are dim, and his head is white. His hands are not strong. His CALIFORNIA POETS. I'J pick and shovel are at his side. His feet are weary and sore. He is still prospecting. Pretty soon he will sink his last pros pect hole in the Sierra. Some younger men will come along, and lengthen it out a little, and lay him in his grave. The old miner will have passed on to prospect the outcroppings that star the floors of heaven. He is not numerous now ; but I saw him last summer high up on the head waters of the Sacramento. His face is set forever away from that civilization which has passed him by. He is called a tramp now. And the new, nice people who have slid over -the plains in a palace car and settled down there, set dogs on him sometimes when he comes that way. I charge you, treat the old Californian well wherever you find him. He has seen more, suffered more, practised more self- denial than can now fall to the lot of any man. I never see one of these old prospectors without, thinking of Ulysses, and wondering if any Penelope still weaves and un weaves, and waits the end of his wanderings. Will any old blind dog stagger forth at the sound of his voice, lick his hand, and fall down at his feet? No, he will never return. He has not heard from home for twenty years. And though he may die there in the pines on the mighty mountain, while still feebly searching for the golden fleece, do not forget that his life is an epic, noble as any handed down from out the dusty eld. I implore you treat him kindly. Some day a fitting poet will come, and then he will take his place among the heroes and the gods. But there is another old Californian, a wearier man, the suc cessful one. He, too, is getting gray. But he is a power in the land. He is a prince in fact and in act. What strange fate was it that threw dust in the eyes of that old Californian, sitting by 1 8 EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. the trail high up on the mountain, and blinded him so that he could not see the gold just within his grasp a quarter of a century ago? And what good fairy was it that led this other old Califor- nian, now the banker, the railroad king, or senator, to where the mountain gnomes had hidden their gold ? What accidental beggars and princes we have in the world to-day ! But whether beggar or prince, the old Californian stands a head and shoulders taller than his fellows wherever you may find him. This is a solid, granite truth. Our dead are the mighty majority of old Californians ! No one would guess how numerous they are. California was one vast battle- field. The knights of the nineteenth century lie buried in her bosom ; while here and there, over the mountain-tops, totters a lone survivor, still prospecting. The Crusades knew not braver Knight Than these brave men before her walls ; The noblest in the old-time fight Matched not the humblest here that falls. And never were there worn such scars As these won in these nobler wars. These bloodless wars, that bring not pain ; These priceless victories of Peace, Where Pride is slain, where Self is slain, Where Patience hath her victories ; Where, when at last the gates are down, You have not burned, but built a town. And well this Golden State shall thrive, if, tikf Its own Mount Shasta, Sovereign Law shall lift Itself in purer atmosphere. JOHN R. RIDGE. MY NEW YEAR'S GUESTS. ROLLIN M. DAGGETT. (Scene: A chamber in Virginia City, one of the pictures on the walls being the reduced photographs of over five hundred Californian Pioneers of 1849. Time : Midnight, December 31, 1881.) r I ""HE winds come cold from the southward, with incense of fir 1 and pine, And the flying clouds grow darker, as they halt and fall in line. The valleys that reach the deserts, the mountains that greet the clouds, Lie bare in the arms of Winter, which the gathering Night enshrouds. The leafless sage on the hillside, the willows low down the stream, And the sentry rocks above us have faded all as a dream. And the fall of the stamp grows fainter, the voices of night sing low, And spelled from labor, the miner toils through the drifting snow. As I sit alone in my chamber, this last of the dying year, Dim shades of the past surround me, and faint through the storm I hear Old tales of the castles builded under shelving rock and pine, Of the bearded men and stalwart, I greeted in forty-nine: The giants with hopes audacious, the giants with iron limb, The giants who journeyed westward, when the trails were new and dim: 2O EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. The giants who felled the forests, made pathways over the snows, And planted the vine and fig-tree where the manzanita grows; Who swept down the mountain gorges, and painted the endless night With their cabins rudely fashioned, and their camp-fires' ruddy light; Who builded great towns and cities, who swung back the Golden Gate, And hewed from a mighty ashlar the form of a sovereign State; Who came like a flood of waters to a thirsty desert plain, And where there had been no reapers grew valleys of golden grain. Nor wonder that this strange music sweeps in from the silent past, And comes with the storm this evening and blends into strains with the blast; Nor wonder that through the darkness should enter a spectral throng, And gather around my table with the old-time smile and song; For there on the wall before me, in a frame of gilt and brown, With a chain of years suspended, old faces are looking down; Five hundred all grouped together five hundred old Pioneers Now list as I raise the taper and trace the steps of the years ; Behold this face near the center; we met ere his locks were gray, His purse like his heart was open; he struggles for bread to-day. To this one the fates were cruel, but he bore his burden well, And the willow bends in sorrow by the wayside where he fell. Great losses and grief crazed this one, great riches turned this one' s head ; And a faithless wife wrecked this one, he lives, but were better dead. Now closer the light on this face; 'twas wrinkled when we were young; CALIFORNIA POETS. 21 His touch drew our footsteps westward; his name is on every tongue. Rich was he in lands and kindness, but the human deluge came, And left him at last with nothing but death and a deathless fame. 'Twas a kindly hand that grouped them, these faces of other years ; The rich and the poor together the hopes and the smiles and tears Of some of the fearless hundreds who went like the knights of old, The banner of empire bearing, to the land of blue and gold. For years have I watched these shadows, as others I know have done; As death touched their lips with silence, I have draped them one by one, Till, seen where the dark-plumed angel has mingled here and there, The brows I have flecked with sable cloud, the living every where. Darker and darker and darker these shadows will yearly grow As changing the seasons bring us the bud and the falling snow; And soon let me not invoke it ! the final prayer will be said, And strangers will write the record, ' ' The last of the group is dead." And then but why stand here gazing? A gathering storm in my eyes Is mocking the weeping tempest that billows the midnight skies ; And, stranger still, is it fancy ? are my senses dazed and weak ? The shadowy lips are moving as if they would ope and speak, And I seem to hear low whispers, and catch the echo of strains That rose from the golden gulches and followed the moving trains. The scent of the sage and desert, the path on the rocky height, The shallow graves by the road-side, all, all have come back to-night; 22 EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. And the mildewed years, like stubble, I trample under my feet, And drink again at the fountain, when the wine of life was sweet; And I stand once more exalted, where the white pine frets the skies And dream in the winding cafion, where early the twilight dies. Now the eyes look down in sadness, the pulse of the year beats low; The storm has been awed to silence; the muffled hands of the snow, Like the noiseless feet of mourners, are spreading a pallid sheet O'er the heart of dead December, and glazing the shroud with sleet. Hark! the bells are chiming midnight, the storm bends its listen ing ear, While the moon looks through the cloud-rifts and blesses the new-born year. Bar closely the curtained windows, shut the light from every pane, While free from the worldly intrusion and curious eyes profane I take from its leathern casket a dented old cup of tin, More precious to me than silver, and blessing the draught within, I drink alone and in silence to the "Builders of the West" 4 ' Long life to the tiearts still beating, and peace to tfie hearts at rest." Prometheus-like, must we with hopeless sighs, Chained and dejected, pace the weary round, Seeking with hungered hearts and eager eyes The something longed for, and yet never found? Lucius HARWOOD FOOTK. THE UNBORN SOUL. CHARLES H. SHINN. IFE! I have heard strange tales of you, Of your weird winds, and starlit dew, And temples wonderfully cold ; Your cities, full of loneliness ; Your twin souls, glad in one caress ; Your face's passion, worn and old. I have known souls that came from you With sad brows bound with weary rue, And after them a weeping came ; But some without a sound go by Crowned with unchallenged purity, And eyes intense with sudden flame. Blind cravings urge me in my dreams; I am not yet, but still it seems I shall be soon. The hidden source Of being seems to slowly fill ; I wait with passive yearning still For the great flood of human force. The souls, as yet ungarmented, Press round me without noise or head ; And there is one dear soul who saith That she will clothe herself ere long, And if I guide her through the throng We shall have love through life and death. O tkov, my best-beloved I my pride, my boasl; Stretching thy glorious length along thf 14'est; Within the girdle of thy sun-lit coast, from pine to palm, from palm to snowy crett. CHAKLES WARKBN STODBAKD. EVENING. EDWARD POLLOCK. '""THE air is chill, and the day grows late, 1 And the clouds come in through the Golden Gate : Phantom fleets they seem to me, From a shoreless and unsounded sea ; Their shadowy spars and misty sails, Unshattered, have weathered a"thousand gales ; Slow wheeling, lo ! in squadrons gray, They part and hasten along the bay, Each to its anchorage finding way. Where the hills of Saucelito swell, Many in gloom may shelter well ; And others behold ! unchallenged pass By the silent guns of Alcatraz : No greetings of thunder r.nd flame exchange, The arm6d isle and the cruisers strange. Their meteor flags, so widely blown, Were blazoned in a land unknown ; So, charmed from war, or wind, or tide, Along the quiet wave they glide. CALIFORNIA POETS. 25 What bear these ships? what news, what freight, Do they bring us through the Golden Gate? Sad echoes of words in gladness spoken, And withered hopes to the poor heart-broken. Oh, how many a venture we Have rashly sent to the shoreless sea ! How many an hour have you and I, Sweet friend, in sadness seen go by ; While our eager, longing thoughts were roving Over the waste, for something loving, Something rich, and chaste, and kind, To brighten and bless a lonely mind ; And only waited to behold Ambition's gems, affection's gold, Return as "remorse," and "a broken vow," In such ships of mist as I see now. The air is chill, and the day grows late, And the clouds come in through the Golden Gate, Freighted with sorrow, heavy with woe ; But those shapes that cluster, dark and low, To-morrow shall be all a-glow ! In the blaze of the coming morn these mists, Whose weight my heart in vain resists, Will brighten, and shine, and soar to heaven, In thin white robes, like souls forgiven ; For heaven is kind, and every thing, As well as a winter, has a spring. So, praise to God ! who brings the day, That shines our regrets and tears away ; For the blessed morn I can watch and wait, While the clouds come in through the Golden Gate. TTtis I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream ; There spread a cloud of dust along a plain ; And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged A furious battle, and men veiled, and su'ords Shocked upon swords und shields. A prince's bonnet Wavei ed, then stagget ed backwards, hemmed by foet. A craven hung along the battle's edge, And thought, "Had 1 a sword of keener stefl That blue blade that the king's son bears but this Blunt thing /" He snapt and flung it from Ins hand, And lowering crept away and left the field Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead, And weaponless, and saw the broken sword. Hilt-buried in the dry ana trodden sand, And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down, And saved a great cause that heroic day. KDWAKD ROWLAND SILL. A NEW ITALY. LUCIUS HARWOOD FOOTE. AWAY, upon the outmost verge of sight, The livelong day, at that far height, An eagle, resting on his wings, Wheels round and round in circling rings. In pensive mood, I turn my half-closed eyes Across the hazy lowlands, leagues away, Where dim ethereal ramparts, vast and gray, Rise Alps on Alps, against the vaulted skies. I mark the splendid sweep of plain below, The miles on miles of undulating hills, The darker gorges of the upland rills, The sinuous curves where tree-fringed rivers flow, In all methinks I see the counterpart Of Italy, without her dower of art. We have the lordly Alps, the fir-fringed hills, The green and golden valleys veined with rills, CALIFORNIA POETS. 27 A dead Vesuvius with its smouldering fire, A tawny Tiber sweeping to the sea. Our seasons have the same superb attire, The same redundant wealth of flower and tree, Upon our peaks the same imperial dyes, And day by day, serenely over all, The same successive months of smiling skies. These are the Alps, and these the Apennines ; The fertile plains of Lombardy between ; Beyond, Val d'Arno with its flocks and vines, These granite crags are gray monastic shrines, And far to seaward can be dimly seen The marble splendor of Venetian courts ; While one can all but hear the mournful beat Of white-lipped waves along the sea-paved street O childless mother of dead empires, we, The latest born of all the western lands, In fancied kinship stretch our infant hands Across the intervening seas to thee. Thine the immortal twilight, ours the dawn, Yet we shall have our names to canonize, Our past to haunt us with its solemn eyes, Our ruins, when this restless age is gone. O leader I tried and true, What words may speak of thee Last sacrifice divine-, L'fion our country's shrine t O man that ttnverfd above 1 hy fellow-men, with heart the tenderest, And " whitest soul the nation ever knew/" Uraveit and kindliest I We lay our sorrow down Bffore thee as a crown: We fold thee with our love In silence I Where are words to speak of thttf INA LOOLBKITH, ABRAHAM LINCOLN. JOSEPH T. GOODMAN. A nation lay at rest. The mighty storm That threatened their good ship with direful harm Had spent its fury; and the tired and worn Sank in sweet slumber, as the springtime morn Dawned with a promise that the strife should cease; And war's grim face smiled in a dream of peace. O ! doubly sweet the sleep when tranquil light Breaks on the dangers of the fearful night, And, full of trust, we seek the dreamy realm Conscious a faithful pilot holds the helm, Whose steady purpose and untiring hand, With God's good grace, will bring us safe to land And so the Nation rested, worn and weak From long exertion God ! what a shriek Was that which pierced to furthest earth and sky, As though all nature uttered a death-cry! Awake! arouse! ye sleeping warders, ho! Some dire calamity has passed o'erhead A world is shattered or a god is dead ! CALIFORNIA POETS. 2C, What ! the globe is unchanged ! the sky still flecked With stars? Time is? The universe not wrecked? Then look ye to the pillars of the State ! How fares it with the Nation's good and great? Since that wild shriek told no unnatural birth Some mighty soul has shaken hands with earth. Lo ! murder hath been done. Its purpose foul Hath stained the marble of the Capitol Where sat one yesterday without a peer ! Still rests he peerless but upon his bier. Ah faithful heart, so silent now alack! And did the Nation fondly call thee back, And hail thee truest, bravest of the land, To bare the breast to the assassin's hand? And yet we know if that extinguished voice Could be rekindled and pronounce its choice Between this awful fate of thine, and one Retreat from what thou didst or wouldst have done, In thine own sense of duty, it would choose This doom the least a noble soul could choose. There is a time when the assassin's knife Kills not, but stabs into eternal life; And this was such an one. Thy homely name Was wed to that of Freedom, and thy fame Hung rich and clustering in its lusty prime; The God of Heroes saw the harvest-time, And smote the noble structure at the root, That it might bear no less immortal fruit. 3O EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. Sleep ! honored by the Nation and mankind ! Thy name in History's brightest page is shrined, Adorned by virtues only, and shall exist Bright and adored on Freedom's martyr list. The time shall come when on the Alps shall dwell No memory of their own immortal Tell ; Rome shall forget her Caesars, and decay Waste the Eternal City's self away; And in the lapse of countless ages, Fame Shall one by one forget each cherished name, But thine shall live through time, until there be No soul on earth but glories to be free. THE CHANDOS PORTRAIT OF SHAKSPEARE. Lo ! on the wall, in mist and gloom high reared, A luminous Face adorns the structure hoary : Light-bearded, hazel-eyed, and auburn-haired And bright with a strange glory. Mightiest of all my master ! Dare but I Touch the shrunk chords thy hand divine hath shaken, How would the heroes of the days gone by Throng round me, and awaken I EDWARD POLLOCK. Though death should follow one kiss for the olden, The vanished May I And let it be sweet, as in sunsets golden The self-same way. DANIEL O'CONNELL. THE SONG OF THE BULLET. BRET HARTE. Ojoy of creation To be! rapture to fly And be free! Be the battle lost or won, Though its smoke shall hide the sun, 1 shall find my love the one Born for me! I shall know him where he stands, All alone, With the power in his hands, Not o'erthrown; I shall know him by his face, By his god-like front and grace; I shall hold him for a space, All my own! It is he O my love So bold! It is I all thy love Foretold ! It is I. O love! what bliss! Dost thou answer to my kiss! Oh sweetheart! what is this Lieth there so cold? Superb and as tvarm/v while She is stately and grand As the ivory Pallas wrought By Phidias' hand And each pose has the old-world ft act Of the Grecian land, ANNIK LAKE TOWNSBNO. LIOLAN. JOHN VANCE CHENEY. SHORN of her order robe, nigh nude, Slow up the long, wide aisle they led her, Gently led Ihe guardsmen rude, Breathless sat the multitude; Spotless or sullied, awe guards ever Such a shape of womanhood. As stands the solitary pine She stood, unmoved, casting her shadow; And the king saw each curved line Drunk so oft in costly wine, And with him gazed his mighty minions, Spelled by that dark shape divine. Only the queen stared cold as stone, Rigid with pride, steel-hard with hatred; Liolan had brought the throne To shame, now let her life atone For it. And this her lord had promised, For her honor and his own. CALIFORNIA POETS. . 33 To death the king doomed Liolan, But kings must doom in kingly fashion: 1 ' Woman, merciful, we plan To spare thy life if straight the man That sinned with thee appear before us. Bid him hither, Liolan." Low to the king bowed Liolan, Low bowed, and turned her to the courtiers: "You have heard. The king does plan To save me. If I bring the man, Remember that I go forth scathless, Not queen's maid, but Liolan. "The king has mercy; since so dear Is life, you, too, will mercy Show. A word in the king's ear, Then, if need be, instant here Shall be the one with me in evil." And the king bade her draw near. Lithe as the supple panther can, She glided, leaned her on the monarch. What the flash, the fire that ran The air through ! "Look," cries Liolan, Holding on high the jewelled dagger, "At your feet, knights, lies the man." To Judith Berolde. O tips that are cold, which alone could now blest it As once it was blessed! O hands that are still, which alone could caress it, As once they caressed. LORENZO Sosso. THE CONFESSION. JOHN VANCE CHENEY. FATHER, thy face were not more pale Did all thy flock together cry Their sin. Is it so hard a tale? God's servant, what if, when I die, I should behold Hell's red mouth foam With flutter of white souls thou hast chanted home? Hear me. The path in anguish trod, That night, I once had loved it so ! Now, every root and stone and sod, How it did sting me ! To and fro The wild trees gestured Arno's name I heard ! It came, and instantly a flame, Knife-bright, at one thrust halved the dark, The heavy-treading thunder crashed, Rushed up; my very blood stopt; stark I stood there, rooted. Loud and fast The thunder strode, while my crazed brain Made the thick drops my tears dashed back again. CALIFORNIA POETS. 35 How long it was I know not ; all I saw, heard all, her pleading low, His tender answers. White and small, She hung there. 'Twas her clinging so That set me on. Oh, her breath blew Against me fiercer than the blast! I drew Hark, hark ! Teach him to say amen. How long must he the moaning make? Between the thunders again again! Nay, my good hand, you will not shake, You had not got one little speck But for the pale thing clinging round his neck. - But I have told it, holding well To truth ; love, father, does not lie. Useful, perhaps, the tale to tell The goodly people by and by; Tell them I kneeled not, nor did bow My head, nor on my lips take any vow. Nay, let us have a brave farewell, And so forget the olden wrong. Tell them my story, father, tell How, glist'ning still, still bright and strong, Thou saw'st the good blade do it. Ay, 'T is to the hilt so so. Father, I die. O Egypt! hmr shall v/f approach thy face* HiKt- stral jtum thy dumb hpf one scrap o/ songf MIKAM HOVT RICHMOND. MOTHER EGYPT. JOAQUIN MILLER. DARK-BROWED she broods with weary lids Beside her Sphynx and Pyramids, With low and never-lifted head. If she be dead, respect the dead; If she be weeping, let her weep; If she be sleeping, let her sleep ; For lo, this woman named the stars ! She suckled at her tawny dugs Your Moses while you reeked in wars And prowled your woods, nude, painted thugs. Then back, brave England; back in peace To Christian isles of fat increase ! Go back ! Else bid your high priest take Your great bronze Christs and cannon make; Take down their cross from proud St. Paul's And coin it into cannon-balls ! You tent not far from Nazareth. Your camp spreads where his child-feet strayed. If Christ had seen this work of death ! If Christ had seen these ships invade ! I think the patient Christ had said, 41 Go back, brave men! Take up your dead; Draw down your great ships to the seas : Repass the gates of Hercules. CALIFORNIA POETS. 37 Go back to wife with babe at breast, And leave lorn Egypt to her rest." Is Christ then dead as Egypt is? Ah, Mother Egypt, torn to twain ! There's something grimly wrong in this So like some gray, sad woman slain. What would you have your mother do? Hath she not done enough for you? Go back ! And when you learn to read, Come read this obelisk. Her deed Like yonder awful forehead is, Disdainful silence. Like to this What lessons have you raised in stone To passing nations that shall stand? Like years to her's will leave you lone And level as yon yellow sand. St. George, your lions, whence are they? From awful, silent Africa, This Egypt is the lion's lair; Beware, young Albion, beware! I know the very Nile shall rise To drive you from this sacrifice. And if the seven plagues should come, The red seas swallow sword and steed. Lo ! Christian lands stand mute and dumb To see thy more than Moslem deed. 302002 Straight to his hrart the bullet crushed; Down from his breast the red blood gushed. And o'er his face a glory rushed, A sudden spasm shook his frame. And in his ears there went and came A sound as of devouring flame, Which in a moment ceased, and then The great light clasped his brows again. RICHARD KEALF. ILLINOIS. JOAQUIN MILLER. A pistol shot next my own garret nest, And with face like a god he lies dead and alone; Lies stark on his back ; a hand outthrown, As disdaining rest, on the vanquished breast, And a look of battle in his glorious eyes As one struck dead by a cannon shot. . . . Starved or dishonored? It matters not; Nor whether betrayed or otherwise. I only know that he fell last night; I only know that he fights no more ; I only know that he fell in the fight, Fighting as never fought man before. Shot dead in the fight ! Not a syllable known Of name or of place. But scratched on the wall With a nail, "Illinois" and that is all. Then deep in the window stands all alone And tattered and torn, like a flag in war, One starved stalk of corn in a broken jar. O banner of corn, with sweet memories Of mother of fields, and of fruitful trees ! CALIFORNIA POETS. 39 O boy from the furrows of Illinois ! boy with thy banner to the topmost wall, 1 will nourish this corn, poor, pitiful boy, Till I, too, vanquished, shall fighting fall. Good mother, that waits in the far corn-fields, He will never come back to your arms any more, Grow lilies for him; his battles are o'er. He is borne to his rest on his battle-shield. . . . Good mothers that wait, wherever you are, Oh ! pity us, pray for us every one That has left sweet fields for the smoke and dun Of the City's walls. In this ceaseless war, How oft we have cried : O Christ for the fight ! When soldiers in battle rode reckless down And stormed in a day and so took the town, Or, sword in hand, they were slain outright! ye in the beautiful fields of corn, Content and tranquil and far away, Lift up your hearts and be glad all day; Lift up moist eyes like the dews of morn ; For I tell you 'tis harder to win a town And to hold it for even a year your own, Than ever were gates when kings went down With armies and banners to win a throne. Then a tear for the soldier who fell last night, With banner of corn in a breach of the wall; For to every hundred that win this fight 1 tell you a hundred thousand fall. Hi 'i fool-face flushes not with lovr. And lie whispers a name in his -fine The white moon that looked from above And the stars knew the woman is mine. It were better he said a prayer: Were the man not a fool, he would feel A shudder of death in the air. And the sharp, tuddn tingle of steel. C. H. WBBB. COMO. JOAQUIN MILLER. THE red-clad fishers row and creep Below the crags, as half-asleep, Nor ever make a single sound. The walls are steep, The waves are deep ; And if a dead man should be found By these same fishers in their round, Why, who shall say but he was drown' d? The lakes lay bright as bits of broken moon Just newly set within the cloven earth ; The ripen' d fields drew round a golden girth Far up the steeps, and glittered in the noon ; And when the sun fell down, from leafy shore Fond lovers stole in pairs to ply the oar. The stars, as large as lilies, fleck' d the blue; From out the Alps the moon came wheeling through The rocky pass the great Napoleon knew. CALIFORNIA POETS. 4! A gala night it was, the season's prime. We rode from castled lake to festal town, To fair Milan my friend and I ; rode down By night, where grasses waved in rippled rhyme: And so, what theme but love at such a time? His proud lip curl'd the while with silent scorn At thought of love ; and then, as one forlorn, He sighed; then bared his temples, dash'd with grey; Then mock'd, as one outworn and well blasZ. A gorgeous tiger lily, flaming red, So full of battle, of the trumpet's blare, Of old-time passion, uprear'd its head. I gallop' d past. I lean'd, I clutch' d it there From out the long, strong grass. I held it high, And cried: " Lo! this to-night shall deck her hair Through all the dance. And mark ! the man shall die Who dares assault, for good or ill design, The citadel where I shall set this sign." O, she shone fairer than the summer star, Or curl'd sweet moon in middle destiny; More fair than sun-morn climbing up the sea, Where all the loves of Adriana are. Who loves, who truly loves, will stand aloof: The noisy tongue makes most unholy proof Of shallow passion. . . . All the while afar From out the dance I stood and watch' d my star, My tiger lily borne an oriflamme of war. 42 EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. Adown the dance she moved with matchless grace. The world my world moved with her. Suddenly I question' d whom her cavalier might be? 'Twas he! His face was leaning to her face! I clutch' d my blade; I sprang; I caught my breath, And so, stood leaning cold and still as death. And they stood still. She blush' d, then reach' d and tore The lily as she pass'd, and down the floor She strew'd its heart like jets of gushing gore. . . . 'Twas he said heads, not hearts, were made to break: He taught me this that night in splendid scorn. I learn' d too well. . . . The dance was done. Ere morn We mounted he and I but no more spake. . . . And this for woman's love ! My lily worn In her dark hair in pride, to then be torn And trampled on, for this bold stranger's sake! . . . Two men rode silent back toward the lake ; Two men rode silent down but only one Rode up at morn to meet the rising sun. The red-clad fishers row and creep Below the crags, as half-asleep, Nor ever make a single sound. The walls are steep, The waves are deep ; And if a dead man should be found By these same fishers in their round, Why, who shall say but he was drown' d? The morning breeze sweeps through the solemn room, And stirs the folds that wrap the dead around. DANIEL O'CONNELL. THE PARTING OF ILMAR AND HAADIN, JOHN VANCE CHENEY. A^D so I leave you, Ilmar. That queen brow Where diamond light were pale as mist, I yield it up to Death, unkissed. He took you from me his, his only, now. I will not share with Death, be his alone; I cannot lay on that still hand My hand, and you not understand ; Be what you were to me, all, all his own. Hark ! the night, with wet, dishevelled hair, On her black path at large, does groan For grief. From Haadin not a moan ; Great love meets not the loss too great to bear. A time, I thought this hand, so strong to slay, Would clutch at my dumb throat ; even so ; I was that weak. Nay, death shall know, He, too, I loved not in the common way. I cover so your face. Thus armed with love, Does Haadin, pagan, with his face Against the hated Christian race, Front, too, the Christian's God, who, from above, Can see and suffer it, the thing I do, Hiding this little head from sight. I cover it, so bright, so bright ! And leave you, Ilmar. No, not you, not you. To strew her tomb with roses Pure white, as virgins' tombs should be, J had not thought; but fate disposes Her soul was virgin unto me. J. R. RIDGE. IN VAIN. ADAH ISAACS MENKEN. I. O foolish tears go back ! Learn to cover your jealous pride far down in the nerveless heart that ye are Voices lor. Your sobbings mar the unfinished picture that my trembling life would fill up to greet its dawn. I know, poor heart, that you are reaching up to a Love that finds not all its demands in thy weak pulse. And I know that you sob up your red tears to my face; because- because others who care less for his dear Love may, each day, open their glad eyes his lightest wish to bless. But, jealous heart, we will not give him from drops that overflow thy rim. We will fathom the mysteries of earth, of air and of sea, to fill thy broad life with beauty, and then empty all its very depths of light deep into his wide soul ! ' ir. Ah ! When I am a cloud a pliant, floating cloud I will haunt the sun -god for some eternal ray of Beauty. I will wind my soft arms around the wheels of his blazing chariot, till he robes me in gorgeous trains of gold ! I will sing to the stars till they crown me with their richest jewels ! I will plead to the angels for the whitest, broadest wings that ever walled their glorious heights around a dying soul ! Then I will flaunt my light down the steep grooves of space into this old world, until Eyes of Love will brighten for me ! CALIFORNIA POETS. 45 III. When I am a flower a wild, sweet flower I will open my glad blue eyes to one alone. I will bloom in his footsteps, and muffle their echoes with my velvet lips. So near him will I grow that his breath shall mark kisses on all my green leaves ! I will fill his deep soul with all the eternal fragrance of my love! Yes, I will be a violet a wild, sweet violet and sigh my very life away for him ! IV. When I am a bird a white-throated bird all trimmed in plum age of crimson and gold, I will sing to one alone. I will come from the sea the broad, blue sea and fold my wings with olive-leaves to the glad tidings of his hopes! I will come from the forest the far old forest where sighs and tears of reckless loves have never mourned away the morning of poor lives. I will come from the sky, with songs of an angel, and flutter into his soul to see how I may be all melody to him ! Yes, I will be a bird a loving, docile bird and furl my wild wings, and shut my sad eyes in his breast 1 v. When I am a wave a soft, white wave I will run up from ocean's purple spheres, and murmur out my low, sweet voice to one alone. I will dash down to the cavern of gems and lift up to his eyes Beauty that will drink light from the sun ! I will bring blue banners that angels have lost from the clouds. Yes, I will be a wave a happy, dancing wave and leap up in the sunshine to lay my crown of spray-pearls at his feet. 46 EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. VI. Alas! poor heart, what am I now? A weed a frail, bitter weed growing outside the garden wall. All day straining my dull eyes to see the blossoms within, as they wave their crimson flags to the wind. And yet my dark leaves pray to be as glorious as the rose. My bitter stalks would be as sweet as the violet if they could. I try to bloom up into the light. My poor yearning soul to Heaven would open its velvet eyes to fire. Oh ! the love of beauty through every fibre of my lonely life is trembling ! Every floating cloud and flying bird draws up jealous envy and bleeding Love! So passionately wild in me is this burning, unspeakable thirst to grow all beauty, all grace, all melody to one and to him alone 1 EL VAQUERO. Tinged with the blood of Aztec lands, Sphinx-like, the tawny herdsman stands, A coiled reata in his hands. Devoid of hope, devoid of fear, Half brigand, and half cavalier, This Helot, with imperial grace, Wears ever on his tawny face A sad, defiant look of pain. Left by the fierce iconoclast A living fragment of the past, Greek of the Greeks he must remain. Lucius HARWOOD FOOT Diviner things may be, more high, more pure The glory of their presence is not mine ; Thou art of Deity all that form can take, And Iam Pagan for thy sake. \V. A. KENDALL. Lay his velvet-soft mouth close upon mine, hide ivith his hair my eyes. Wave thy dusky, wide wings over us both, shut out the starry skies. PHILIP SHIRLEY. THE SPIRIT LOVER. J. H. ROGERS. H E comes in the Night, Like a pure, soft light, And hovers around me while sleeping ; Though my eye-lids may close In their earthly repose, My soul knows the watch he is keeping. From the pure azure skies, When the sunbeams arise, I see his light spirit descending; In my garden of flowers He will linger for hours, His life with their loveliness blending. His soul comes to me, On life's troubled sea, When passion waves roll in their madness; I see through 'the storm His bright spirit form Folding my soul to his own in its sadness. Keep me not long from thet, my ou'n, for t Wait at the threshold of Lovf's golden gate; O let me enter in ere it be late, And the dim years, like stars, fade from the sky. LORENZO Sosso. BALLAD OF LILIES. GKNEVIEVE LUCILLE BROWN. " r^EHOLD us drooping on our stately stalks, 3 Fair flowers of grace in rapturous repose ; Plucked in Bermuda from cool, quiet walks, And seeking to thy bosom to disclose That which the vaunting, vain, voluptuous rose Could never to thy senses half convey ; A message, that with gentle gladness glows!" The snow-white, soft, sweet-scented lilies say. "Each flower the flaming fire of passion mocks, And bids thy hot hands, trembling, to unclose, Nor long to quiver in repeated locks And clasps, which but increase desire, with those That sent us but our mystic music throws About thee, murmuring low, love's langourous lay, That o'er thee like a day-dream dimly flows," The snow-white, soft, sweet-scented lilies say "Still e'er of lingering love each blossom talks, And tells he holds thee fairer than the snows, Untouched by human foot, where no man walks, He sends thee joy with every breeze that blows, And constantly with thee his fond heart goes. His thoughts are all for thee at dawn of day, Until the sinking sun portends its close," The snow-white, soft, sweet-scented lilies say. L' ENVOI. Oh lady, heed ! where this love lily grows, A heart is waiting has for many a day, For answer from thee, to the words he knows," The snow-white, soft, sweet-scented lilies say. Will your face, love, then be fairer; Will your voice be sweeter, rarer; Will your step be dearer, lighter; Will your eyes be bluer, brighter, After death f DANIEL O'CONNELL. NIRVANA. CARRIE STEVENS WALTER. I. TO cease the toil, the strife, the fierce endeavor, To close sad, tearful eyes, To fold the weary hands in restful stillness, After death's glad surprise. ii. To be enmantled by the cool green clover, In hush of dreamless rest, To heed no more the mystery of Day's dawning, Or red death in the west. in. To claim a kindred with the stoic mountain, In placid silentless, Or of the rocks, the clouds, the turf, the grasses, Which rain and wind caress. IV. To put aside the strife for worldly treasures, All passionate desire To be absolved into the womb of nature, One with creative fire. 5O EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. v. To be embodied in the trees and blossoms, Or winds and rainbow lights, The psychic essence of cloud-tints and sunshine, And grace of swallow-flights. VI. To see the end clasp hands with the beginning, Life's mystic circle wrought By plan Divine each earth-born link a symbol With deepest meaning fraught. TO CLARA MORRIS. We bear within a thwarted life's hard ache, But thou our pangs that dumbly writhe canst make A splendid, palpable, red agony. Our hearts are lighter by thy anguished cry. Thine all the senses' stormy symphonies, The crisis of our morbid modern thought, A panther's grace, convulsion overwrought, Malady's haggard apotheosis These things thine art, thy nature more than these. ANNIE LAKE TOWNSBND. This is the reed the dead musician dropped, With tuneful magic in its sheath, still hidden, The ptompt allegro of its music stopped, Its melodies unbidden. BRET HARTS. INDIRECTION. RICHARD REALF. FAIR are the flowers and the children, but their subtle sugges tion is fairer ; Rare is the roseburst of dawn, but the secret that clasps it is rarer ; Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that precedes it is sweeter ; And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning out-mastered the metre. Never a daisy that grows, but a mystery guideth the growing ; Never a river that flows, but a majesty sceptres the flowing ; Never a Shakespeare that soared, but a stronger than he did enfold him ; Nor never a prophet foretells, but a mightier seer hath foretold him. Back of the canvas that throbs the painter is hinted and hidden ; Into the statue that breathes, the soul of the sculptor is bidden ; Under the joy that is felt lie the infinite issues of feeling ; Crowning the glory revealed is the glory that crowns the revealing. 52 EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. Great are the symbols of being, but that which is symboled is greater ; Vast the create and beheld, but vaster the inward creator; Back of the sound broods the silence, back of the gift stands the giving ; Back of the hand that receives thrill the sensitive nerves of receiving. Space is nothing to spirit, the deed is outdone by the doing ; The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the heart of the wooing ; And up from the pits where these shiver, and up from the heights where those shine, Twin voices and shadows swim starward, and the essence of life is divine. OJALA! I wish I knew that from this wearying darkness, Through which I grope my way, I'd come at last to see the clear blue heavens, And great God's perfect day. ii. If some day I should turn from toil and sadness, To meet your clasping hand, And know at last that all my soul's deep longing Your own could understand, Could I but know in some far sweet morning We should stand side by side, And that hour find all Life's questions answered, 1 would be satisfied. CARRIE STEVENS WALTER. Yet dumb I sat and heard Thy precious truth denied, And walked in pleasant places, while Christs were crucified, JOSEPHINE WALCOTT. O' ' ershadowing all this sacred time Looms the great tragedy of Love. I feel it, as thy steps sublime, Toward Calvary begin to move. SARAH EDWARDS HENSHAW. VIGILS FOR PASSION WEEK. SARAH EDWARDS HENSHAW. VIGIL I PALM SUNDAY. TO-DAY o'er Olivet He rode While shouting crowds hosannas sung; They hailed Him King, Messiah, Lord, And palms of victory round Him flung; But when He saw the city proud, With groans and tears He wept aloud. VIGIL II MONDAY. To-day He gracious ate the feast In Bethany which Simon gave. There Lazarus sate O awesome guest! Lately a tenant from the grave. And Mary's spikenard, rich and rare, With costly fragrance filled the air. VIGIL III TUESDAY. To-day the traffickers He scourged, Who made of prayer and praise a gain; Sternly God's dwelling-place He purged Of greed and worldliness the stain. Thus scourge, O Lord ! my inmost sin ! Thus purge, O Lord ! my soul within. 54 EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. VIGIL IV WEDNESDAY. To-day He sought the barren tree, If haply fruit might on it grow, Though fresh, and green, and fair to see, Its promise was delusive show. "No fruit henceforth" its fearful meed; Soul ! O my Soul ! the lesson heed. VIGIL V THURSDAY. Himself the Paschal lamb divine, This eve the Passover they eat, He brake the bread, he bless' d the wine, He dipped the sop, the hymn rose sweet, And then, O then, Gethsemane! Then, Judas and his treachery. VIGIL VI GOOD FRIDAY. Slow beats my heart, low comes my breath, Thinking of what was this day done, Long day of insult, anguish, death, From morning gray to set of sun, For O to-day my Savior died ! To-day my Lord was crucified ! VIGIL VII SATURDAY. Despair is on His brethren now! "Alas," they sigh, "in death He lies! No scorching splendors decked His brow, No flaming angel venged His cries! Thus hoped we till all hope has fled! Now all is over ! He is dead ! CALIFORNIA POETS. 55 VIGIL VIII EASTER SUNDAY MORNING. O joy ! O joy ! O happy day ! His tomb is empty! Thanks we give! Angels have rolled the rock away ! Mary hath seen Him ! He doth live ! With rapture keen, with reverence meet Let us fall prostrate at His feetl THE MIRACLE AT CANA. Dear Lord, to me, This is Thy lesson taught in Galilee ; By gracious deeds, To fill the chalice of another's needs. Within to bear That beauty which transfigures, and makes fair The paths of men, Bidding life's desolate places to bloom again. No heed to take For the uncertain morrow, but to make Life more divine, Turning its simplest waters into wine. AMIE S PAGE. Was the snow white on fields and rocks. Whereon the shepherds watched their flocks In the mid-wintfr night t And saw the angel, clothed in white, The heavenly gates that opened wide, In midst whereof was One They dared not gone upon I Snow hither, thither, and afar. Beneath the new, mysterious start Snow upon Lebanon, Whose cedars stood, a crystal net Of frost-work, beautiful to seet Snow upon Olivet Snow upon Calvary t INA CooLBfUTH. THE SUPPER AT EMMAUS. (A Painting by Rembrandt) AMIE S. PAGE. NIGHT fell at Emmaus, and they sat at meat The one Beloved Guest Had broken bread, and blessed, And, faint with journeying, the twain did eat. Half doubting and half awed, The tender converse of the risen Lord Had moved their secret wonder. While they gaze, With reverent questioning, on the matchless face, A sudden stillness falls upon the place, And in their trembling hearts vague terror wakes. They search the empty air with rapt amaze, While, on the dazzled sight, Where dwelt the hallowed Presence lo ! there breaks Ineffable glory, and the nameless Light In scenes like this blind Ossian raised the note Of old, heroic, plaintive northern song. B. P. AVKRY. MOUNT TAMALPAIS. ELLA STERLING CUMMINS. HOME of the elements where battling bands Of clouds and winds the rocks defy Mute, yet great, old Tamalpais stands Outlined against the rosy sky. His darkened form uprising there commands The country round, and every eye From lesser hills he strangely seems to draw, With lifted glance that speaks of wonder and of awe. n. It is the awe that makes us reverence show To men of might, who proudly tower Above their fellow-men ; the glance that we bestow On one whose native force and power Have lifted him beyond the race below The pigmy mortals of the hour We almost bend the knee and bow the head To the mighty force that marks his kingly tread. EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS HI. And gazing on old Tamalpais, dark And grand in all his stately guise His head among the clouds a hierarch Of hills we envy him the size Of greatness, fame and glory's mark, When there appears before our eyes, Beneath the grandeur of his royal crest, That deep grand scar upon his weary breast rv. The night winds steal upon us from the sea, The fogs roll in like forms of white, The Mountain slowly fades from sight, The careless Heart breaks into jubilee. Then, why, O Heart, desire to carve a lofty name? Remember still the scars, as well as joys, of Fame. v. The sparks of lamp-light leap from hill to hill One brilliant star comes trembling forth, A cold wind blows from out the North, The careless Heart rejoices still. Then, why, O Heart, desire to feel the dazzling flame? Remember still the scars, as well as joys, of fame. VI. O Tamalpais ! Mount of Eloquence ! Gazing on us from afar, What gift gives Fame as recompense, For wearing of that deep-graved scar? S&y in its lucent splendor lifted, Higher than clouds can be ; Air with no breath of earth to stain it, Pure on the perfect sea. E. R. SILL. Like fields of clover rippled by the wind, Or like the crested foam on breaking waves. They come as white, as multitudinous. VIKNA WOODS. SANTA BARBARA. JOSEPHINE WALCOTT. FAIR is she : not as a priestess supernal fair, With calm, white splendor of a soul at peace ; Not as a chiseled goddess in the moveless air Of classic halls, or old, famed haunts of Greece ; But young, glad beauty, so lithesome and free, Her garments gemmed with pearls of the sea; Her hair unbound to the indolent breeze, My beautiful queen of the sunset seas. True is she : not as some problem difficult of old, That sages wrought through slow lapse of years ; Not with the dull precision of a tale oft told, Of tender hopes wrecked in a gulf of fears ; But true as the sunbeams that sandal her feet, My beautiful queen, so loyal and sweet, True as the light on her health-blowing hills, So tender her pledge, so fleet she fulfills. 6o EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. Pure is she : not as a saint, so isolate and white, In sacred atmosphere of vestal shrine, Where incensed tapers, waning, fling an astral light, And fretted walls of alabaster shine; But pure with the glitter of sea-blown things, With silvery ripple of fount and springs, With balms that waft over tropical seas, With calms that await by evergreen trees. Wise is she : with myth of Druid and sylvan faun And fabled wealth of Indian lore ; Her lavish olive slopes, her grain-land, and her corn, Oh golden fruitage on a golden floor ! Her opulent breath, the fragrance of wine, Her sceptre the sumbeams, her helmet the vine, She lingers and dreams of princes to be, My beautiful queen of the sunset sea. MENDOCINO. A vast cathedral by the western sea, Whose spires God reared in majesty on high, Peak after peak of forests to the sky, Blended in one vast roof of greenery. The nave, a river broadening to the sea. The aisles, deep canons of eternal build; The trancepts, valleys, with God's splendor filled; The shrines, white water-falls in leaf-laced drapery. The choir stands westward by the sounding shore, The cliffs, like beetling pipes set high in air, Roll from the beach the thunders crashing there; The high wind voices chord the breaker's roar ; And wondrous harmonies of praise and prayer Swell to the forest altars evermore. LILIAN HINMAN SHUHY. Jfas Life been fairer than it seems f And are those mighty orbs that shine, But splendid fragments of the dreams Jn other lives that once were minef Then life becomes indeed divine, And everlasting in its range ; And I can claim, each star as mine, Forever changing without change. LORENZO Soiso. A THOUGHT OF FAREWELL. CARRIE STEVENS WALTER. I think, my friend, the Hindoo version wrong, Which claims Nirvana is forgetfulness, That all experience of the ages gone Leaves not one memory to curse or bless. I love to call it by another name, . Nirvana "All-remembering" " All-divine," And think that in a grander, larger life, A clearer, broader memory will be mine. That all I've been, along the countless years Since first from Chaos' fount my being sprang, That all I've felt of joy or wept of tears, Or known of love or disappointment's pang, May stand to me in that clearer, larger life, For some grand purpose in the all-wise plan, With God's good reason for the life intense That fierce through all my forms of being ran. 62 EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. Then, in that time, I know that not the least Of memory's bonds that unto flower expand, Will be your friendship and your aid to me Through all the years, since first a kindly hand, - A helping hand, that was a guide and shield, You reached to me, a searcher for the light, An humble wayside gleaner in the field Wherein you labored with man's glorious might Then every cheering tone, your words of praise, And every kindly grasping of the hand, Will shine as stars in memory's firmament, That clasps the glory of Nirvana's land. HUMILITY. Ensainting all the visible world, the dim And reticent night upon the harvest lands In silent benediction lays its hands; Curved as the chine of a great beast, the grim Hill heaves against the sky its shaggy rim; One of the nights when Jupiter commands Stars as the sea's incalculable sands, Veiling their fires in fealty to him. Out of the shadow-land my spirit I send Into that giant scheme, if I may know The meaning and the majesty aright In vain, alas! I cannot comprehend, So turn me to the earth again, and, lo! A glow-worm proffering its friendly light INA LILLIAN PETERSON. A subtle flame in the lady's eye Unseen by the courtiers standing by Burned through his lace and titled wreath. Burned through his body s jeweled sheath. Till it touched the steel of the man beneath. BRET HARTK MISSION ROSES. DANIEL O'CONNELL. PADRE Mio, by the Carmel grows the pallid Mission roses, Snugly sheltered by the willows, where the shallow river flows ; Let me gather some, my father, for our pleasant home to night. See, the sun has but just vanished there is plenty time and light. ' ' I will shun the quicksand, father, and return to kiss you soon ; Mission roses should be gathered by the twilight or the moon. ' ' The Don Ramon's only daughter kissed the old man's with ered lips ; Deftly rolled the cigaretto in her dainty finger tips ; And Don Ramon, smiling, took it from her tiny dimpled hand, Wondering where could fairer woman be found in all the land. ' ' Mission roses should be gathered by the twilight or the moon," Hummed the old ranchero's daughter, to a gay Castilian tune, A roundelay that often, in proud, romantic Spain, Brought blushing face to lattice from the window-pane. 64 EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. But 'tis not to gather roses by the moon or waning light, That Inez, dark-eyed darling, leaves her father's porch to night ; Flowers of passion poisonous blossoms, fatal to a maiden's breast Flowers that wither when we grasp them, are the senorita's quest. Dense and tall the sheltering willows that line the Carmel's bank; Ferns and mosses grow between them among grasses long and dank; And 'mid all the Mission's roses, pure and pallid as the snow, Fill the air with tender fragrance by the current's quiet flow. " Inez, my own beauty, my alma !" And her face Is fondly then uplifted to meet his quick embrace. The hours wear on, she lingers till the August moonlight falls On the river, on the roses, on the Mission's massive walls. Flowers of passion ! Ah ! poor roses ' mid the willows you may bloom ; Never Inez's hand shall pluck you, by the twilight, or the moon. Many days and nights passed over, but never any more The erring feet of Inez passed Don Ramon's arched door, But long after, when the strong walls were leveled to the ground, And Mission bells were silent, and the house a nameless mound, CALIFORNIA POETS. 65 A woman, wan and stricken, prone upon the ruin lay, And moaned, and wept, and muttered, and kissed the crumbling clay, And sobbed out her life in sorrow for shame of twenty years When she left to gather roses, and found disgrace and tears. THE FAIR TAMBOURINIST. So beautiful, yet so frail, So willing, and yet so weak; O what if the heart should fail And a heavenly purpose break! And the dens and kennels and brothels of Hell Another poor victim hold, A celestial spark be quenched in the dark And an angel bartered for goldl No wonder the heart should fail And a heavenly purpose fade, The eye grow dim and cheek grow pale, When none stand ready to aid! No wonder the lairs and the cradles of Hell So many poor victims should hold, When the good are content to worship their God And the rich to worship their gold! LYMAN GOODMAN. So floated she, the earth witch, Circe bold; And still on islands in the streams of time She herds her droves, and singles out, as then, Princes of men to add unto her fold. IRENE HARDY. A CHRISTMAS EVE IN THE PALM LAND. JOAQUIN MILLER. THEIR priests are many, for many their sins, Their sins are many, for their land is fair ; The perfumed waves and the perfumed winds, The cocoa-palms and the perfumed air ; The proud old Dons, so poor and so proud, So poor their ghosts can scarce wear a shroud This town of Columbus has priests and prayer ; And great bells pealing in the palm land. A proud Spanish Don lies shriven and dead ; The cross on his breast, a priest at his prayer ; His slave at his feet, his son at his head A slave's white face in a mantle of hair ; A slave's white face, why, a face as white, As white as that dead man's face this night This town of Columbus can pray for the dead ; And great bells booming in the palm land. The moon hangs white up at heaven's white door, Quite dead in the isle of the great warm seas Lies the old proud Don, so proud and so poor, And two quite close by the bed on their knees ; The slave at his feet, the son at his head, And both in tears for the proud man dead This town of Columbus has tears if you please ; And great bells pealing in the palm land. CALIFORNIA POETS. 67 Aye, both are in tears ; for a child might trace In the face of the slave, as the face of the son, The same proud look of the dead man's face The beauty of one ; and the valor of one The slave at his feet, the son at his head, This night of Christ, where the Don lies dead This town of Columbus, this land of the sun Keeps great bells clanging in the palm land. The slave is so fair, and so wonderful fair ! A statue stepped out from some temple of old ; Why, you could entwine your two hands in her hair. Nor yet could encompass its ample, dark fold. And oh, that pitiful, upturned face ; Her master lies dead she knows her place. This town of Columbus has hundreds at prayer, And great bells booming in the palm land. The proud Don dead, and this son his heir ; This slave his fortune. Now what shall he do? Why, what should he do? or what should he care, Save only to cherish a pride as true ? To hide his shame as the good priests hide Black sins confessed when the damned have died. This town of Columbus has pride with her prayer And great bells pealing in the palm land. Lo, Christ's own hour in the argent seas, And she, his sister, his own born slave ! His secret is safe ; just master and she ; These two, and the dead at the door of the grave . . And death, whatever our other friends do, Why, death, my friend, is a friend most true This town of Columbus keeps pride and keeps prayer, And great bells booming in the palm land. L'ndme thy fillet, Love! I would no longer see: Cover my eyelids close awhile, And make me blind like thee. Then might I kiss her sunny face, And know not it was fair; Then might I hear her voice, nor guess Her starry eyes were there. Lend her thy fillet. Love! Let her no longer see: ff there is h'ipefor me at all, She must be blind like tliee. E. R. SILL. SESTINA. ANNIE LAKE TOWNSEND. BACK, salt and bitter fountain of my tears, Thou Marah in the desert of my heart. Hast thou slept sealed and bound these many years Now into passionate flood-tide to start? Now, when the hour of restfulness appears? Now, when fair love has bid all care depart ? Once into exile me Fate bade depart ; Unblest I fared, incapable of tears ; Still, in sleep, broken by convulsive start, I live in dreams again those weary years ; Though from those bitter days that racked my heart No shadow now upon my calm appears. To-day the current of my life appears Smooth as a summer-wasted brook. Depart Full lightly, down Time's sunny slope the years. Yet, yet, for slightest cause my wayward heart Burns and brims over with these torturing tears, The lax chords into strange vibrations start. CALIFORNIA POETS. 69 I urge my mind's swift coursers to the start; Perversely, bitterly beloved, appears Ambition's thong, cutting the wretched heart. The race begins, the blinding mist of tears Would dim the goal. The chariot wheels depart. Hail to the Future. Farewell, vanished years. But stronger than oblivion stand the years On whose gold background at a word will start The stately face where that strong love appears That kept me like a fortress. I depart Down Life's wild road, but, deeper than all tears That love throbs, living, in my stormy heart. And, but for that I would have slain thee, heart ! No helper thou to these my working years. The grasp, the poise, the force of thought depart When thine inexorable claim appears. An iron nerve shall yet control thy start, And a sealed stone the fountain of my tears. ENVOI. Sad source of tears, the weakness of my heart, At this new start, where all so vague appears, With the lost years I bid thee hence depart ! The sestina is the most complicated of all the old Provengal forms of verse. It was invented by Arnauld Daniel, a Provengal Troubador of the thirteenth century. It consists of six six-lined stanzas, each of which ends with the same six words, not rhyming, but arranged in a prescribed order, and it concludes with an envoi of three lines, containing all six of the final words, three in the middle of the lines and three at the end. There are but two known in the English language, Mr. Swinburne having written the first and Mr. Edmund Gosse the second. This is the third ever written in English. " The purple violfts, nntk dnvy lustre. So like to eyes I know ;' ' CARRIE STEVENS WALTER. IN THE SHADOW. (UN SUENO DE LA NOCHE.) CARRIE STEVENS WALTER. I. 'OU decked my breast with violets last night, Y' Their haunting sweetness thrills my pulses yet You clasped my eager hands with warm caress And kissed the sadness from my eyelids wet. n. My soul is sad at memory of your touch ; Your flowers' rich fragrance fills my heart with pain ; The look of pitying kindness in your eyes Will never come to gladden me again. in. For all the sweetness of that haunting scene, Your thrilling touch your violets' purple gleam The glance of kindness from your speaking eyes, Were but the offspring of a strange sweet dream. IV. I wake to know your hand can ne'er clasp mine This side of Life this side of Hope and Heaven; To know that not one kindly glance of yours Shall ever to my longing eyes be given. CALIFORNIA POETS. 7 1 V. I wake to take my burden up again, Forgot for one sweet hour of warning night, My weary burden of heart and brain, And do my duty with my woman's might VI. I would not look upon your face again, Your strong, grand face that is a god's to me, I would not hear the magic of your voice ; I would not think of you, nor hear, nor see VII. One spoken, written word that could recall Your memory ; for only thus to me Can come a strength to do my daily work, For which my spirit must be brave and free. VIII. You came into my life for one brief hour, Strong, noble, grand as any god could be, And all the currents of my being's tide, And life itself, henceforth were changed to me. IX. You came and passed. Now nevermore to me Can come the clasping of your firm true hand, May shine the tender glory of your eyes No more to me, this side of Heavenly Land. x. I pray for strength, I would be firm and brave To put your very memory away ; I pray for strength, and it is granted me To meet the burdens of the toilful day. 72 EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. XI. But dreaming mystery of Night Such visions come, sometimes of bliss and pain, That with the dawning of another day The hard-won battle must be fought again. XII. And yet until we both shall pass the bridge That spans the mystic gulf from shore to shore, There must remain between my soul and yours The bridgeless sea of silence evermore. HER EXPLANATION. I am a lost illusion. Some strange spell Once made your friend there, with his fine disdain Of fact, conceive me perfect. He would fain (But could not) see me always, as befell His dream to see me, plucking asphodel, In saffron robes, on some celestial plain. All that I was he marred and flung away, In quest of what I was not, could not be, Lilith, or Helen, or Antigone. SILL. In Indian Summer retrospect I view 1 lie gorgeous hours my wanton luxury slew. W. A. KENDALL. A CYCLE. MILICENT WASHBURN SHINN. I. QPRING-TIME is it spring-time? Why, as I remember spring, Almonds bloom and blackbirds sing ; Such a shower of tinted petals drifting to the clovery floor, Such a multitudinous rapture raining from the sycamore ; And among the orchard trees Acres musical with bees Moans a wild dove, making silence seem more silent than before. Yes, that is the blackbird' s note ; Almond petals are afloat ; But I had not heard or seen them, for my heart was far away. Birds and bees and fragrant orchards ah ! they cannot bring the May : For the human presence only That has left my ways so lonely, Ever can bring back the spring-time to my autumn of to-day. it. Autumn is it autumn? 1 remember autumn yields Dusty roads and stubble-fields ; Weary hills, no longer rippled o' er their wind-swept slopes with grain; Trees all gray with dust that gathers ever thicker till the rain ; 74 EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. And where noisy waters drove Downward from the heights above, Only bare white channels wander stonily across the plain. Yes, I see the hills are dry, Stubble-fields about me lie. What care I when in the channels of my life once more I see Sweetest founts long sealed and sunken bursting upward glad and free? Hills may parch or laugh in greenness, Sky be sadness or sereneness, Thou my life, my best beloved, all my spring-time comes with thee. # THE CRICKET. The twilight is the morning of his day : While Sleep drops seaward from the fading shore, With purpling sail and dip of silver oar, He cheers the shadowed time with roundelay, Until the dark east softens into gray. Now as the noisy hours are coming hark! His song dies gently it is getting dark His night with its one star, is on the way! Faintly the light breaks over the blowing oats Sleep, little brother, sleep: I am astir. Lead thou the starlit night with merry notes, And I will lead the clamoring day with rhyme: We worship Song, and servants are of her I iri the bright hours, thou in shadow-time. CHARLES EDWIN MARKHAM. When Jones was sixteen, he was bent On one clay being President, When from his toils he found release, He died a Justice of the Peace. J. F. BOWMAN. FIVE LIVES. EDWARD ROWLAND SILL. FIVE mites of monads dwelt in a round drop That twinkled on a leaf by a pool in the sun. To the naked eye they lived invisible ; Specks, for a world of whom the empty shell Of a mustard-seed had been a hollow sky. One was a meditative monad, called a sage ; And, shrinking all his mind within, he thought: "Tradition, handed down, for hours and hours, Tells that this globe, this quivering, crystal world, Is slowly dying. What if, seconds hence, When I am old, yon shimmering dome Come drawing down, and down, till all things end?" Then with a weazen smirk he proudly felt No otfter mote of God had ever gained Such giant grasp of universal truth. One was a transcendental mote ; thin And long and slim in the mind ; and thus he mused : "Oh, most unfathomable monad-souls! Made in the image" a hoarse frog croaks from the pool "Hark! 'twas some god, voicing his glorious thought In thunder-music ! Yea, we hear their voice, And we may guess their minds from ours, their work. 76 EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. Some taste they have like ours, some tendency To wriggle about, and munch a trace of scum." He floated up on a pin-point bubble of gas That burst, pinched by the air, and he was gone. One was a barren-minded monad, called A positivist ; and he knew positively : "There is no world beyond this certain drop. Prove me another ! Let the dreamers dream Of their faint gleams, and noises from without, And higher and lower ; life is life enough. ' ' Then swaggering half a hair's-breadth, hungerly He seized upon an atom of a bug, and fed. One was a tattered monad, called a poet ; And with shrill voice ecstatic thus he sang: "Oh, the little female monad's lips! Oh, the little female monad's eyes! Ah, the little, little, female, female monad!" The last was a strong-minded monadess, Who dashed among the infusoria, Danced high and low, and wildly spun and dove Till the dizzy others held their breath to see. v But while they led their wondrous little lives Ionian moments had gone wheeling by. The burning drop had shrunk with fearful speed; A glistening film 'twas gone; the leaf was dry. The little ghost of an audible squeak Was lost to the frog that goggled from his stone; Who, at the huge, slow tread of a thoughtful ox Coming to dinner, stirred sideways fatly, plunged, Launched backward twice, and all the pool was still. The tree-top, high above the barren field, Rising beyond the night' s gray folds of mist, Rests stirless where the upper air is sealed, To perfect silence, by the faint moon kissed. But the low branches, drooping to the ground t Sway to ana fro, as sways funereal plume, While from their restless depths low whispers sound " We fear, we fear the darkness and the gloom." . R. SILL. MORNING. EDWARD ROWLAND SILL. I ENTERED once, at break of day, A chapel, lichen-stained and gray, Where a congregation dozed and heard An old monk read from a written Word. No light through the window-panes could pass, For shutters were closed on the rich stained glass, And in a gloom like the nether night, The monk read on by a taper's light, Ghostly with shadows, that shrunk and grew As the dim light flared on aisle and pew ; And the congregation that dozed around Listened without a stir or sound Save one, who rose with wistful face, And shifted a shutter from its place. Then light flashed in like a flashing gem For dawn had come unknown to them And a slender beam, like a lance of gold, Shot to the crimson curtain-fold, Over the bended head of him Who pored and pored by the taper dim ; And I wondered that, under the morning ray, When night and shadow were scattered away, The monk should bow his locks of white By a taper's feebly flickering light Should pore and pore, and never seem To notice the golden morning beam. With never a flower save those that Kg On tht distant graves for love could buy No gift that was purer or truer. Bur HAKTE. THE YEARS. INA COOLBRITH. WHAT do I owe the years, that I should bring Green leaves to crown them King? Blown, barren sands, the thistle, and the brier, Dead hope, and mocked desire, And sorrow, vast and pitiless as the sea : These are their gifts to me. What do I owe the years, that I should love And sing the praise thereof: Perhaps, the lark's clear carol wakes with morn, And winds, amid the corn, Clash fairy cymbals ; but I miss the joys, Missing the tender voice Sweet as a throstle's after April rain That may not sing again. What do I owe the years, that I should greet Their bitter, and not sweet, With wine, and wit, and laughter? Rather thrust The wine- cup to the dust! What have they brought to me, these many years? Silence, and bitter tears. God! God.' who saith God/ Js it sea or air? Audibly above the sod Do I hear it everywhere In the air! LORENZO Sosso. LA FLOR DEL SALVADOR. INA COOLBRITH. T HE Daffodil sang: "Darling of the sun Am I, am I, that wear His colors everywhere." The Violet pleaded soft, in undertone: "Am I less perfect made, Or hidden in the shade So close and deep, that heaven may not see Its own fair hue in me?" The Rose stood up, full-blown, Right royal as a Queen upon her throne : "Nay, but I reign alone," She said, "with all hearts for my very own." One whispered, with faint flush, not far away, ' ' I am the eye of day, And all men love me;" and, with drowsy sighs, A Lotus, from the still pond where she lay, Bieathed, "I am precious balm for weary eyes.'* EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. Only the fair Lily, slim and tall, Spake not, for all ; Spake not and did not stir, Lapsed in some far and tender memory, Softly I questioned her, "And whatofthee?" And winds were lulled about the bended head, And the warm sunlight swathed her as in a flame, While the awed answer came, "Hath HE not said?" CHORUS OF AMAZONS. Oh! the sea was gray when the early mist Wrapped it heavily in a shroud; And the waves were red by the red dawn kissed, And myriad colors 'neath sun and cloud. The waters amber at blaze of noon, Turned crimson under the sunset bars, And pale and ghostly beneath the moon, And black, when the vapors had hid the stars. The blue and green of a cloudless day, Shifted and changed like the dolphin's hues; The billows that rose and floated away, Were tinted and dyed like the rainbow's dews. Oh! life is gray when the heart is sad, And aflame when hope is enthroned above, It has shifting colors when hours are glad, And is turned to gold by the light of love. It is pale and haggard with doubts and fears, It is crimson with passion and black with sin; It ebbs and flows with the tide of years, And none can fathom the deeps within. VIRNA WOODS. A star starts yonder like a foul afraid I It falls like a thought thro' the great profound JOAQUIN MlLLBR. TO THE COLORADO DESERT. MADGE MORRIS WAGNER. THOU brown, bare-breasted, voiceless mystery, Hot sphynx of nature, cactus-crowned, what hast thou done? Unclothed and mute as when the groans of chaos turned Thy naked burning bosom to the sun. The mountain silences have speech, the rivers sing, Thou answerest never unto anything. Pink-throated lizards pant in thy slim shade ; The horned toad runs rustling in the heat ; The shadowy gray coyote, born afraid, Steals to some brackish spring, and laps, and pro\\ '. Away, and howls and howls and howls and howls, Until the solitude is shaken with an added loneliness. Thy sharp mescal shoots up a giant stalk, Its century of yearning to the sunburnt skies, And drops rare honey from the lips Of yellow waxen flowers, and dies. Some lengthwise sun-dried shapes with feet and hands, And thirsty mouths pressed on the sweltering sands, Make here and there a gruesome graveless spot Where some one drank thy scorching hotness, and is not. God must have made thee in His anger, and forgot. Out on a world that's gone to weed! The great tall corn is still strong in his seed; Plant her breast with laughter, put song in your toil, The heart is still young in the good mother-soil: There's sunshine and bird-song, and red and while clover, And love lives yet, world under and over. The light 's white as ever, sow and believe ; Clearer dew did not glisten round Adam and Eve. Never bluer heavens nor greener sod Since the round world rolled from the hand of God: There 's a sun to go down, to come up again. There are new moons to fill when the old moons wane. JOHN VANCX CJUNEY. PETER COOPER. JOAQUIN MILLER. GIVE honor and love forevermore To this great man gone to rest ; Peace on the dim Plutonian shore, Rest in the land of the blest. I reckon him greater than any man That ever drew sword in war ; I reckon him nobler than king or khan, Braver and better by far. And wisest he in this whole wide land Of hoarding till bent and gray ; For all you can hold in your cold dead hand Is what you have given away. So, whether to wander the stars or to rest Forever hushed and dumb, He gave with a zest and he gave his best, And deserves the best to come. GOLD. Gold, gold! thou 'rt a curse yet a blessing with treasures untold. Old! cold! but waking the furious flames of desire! Leaving in ashes each heart that tastes of thy liquid fire. Dream of the youth and the sage, oh, beautiful, syren gold! MARY LAMBERT. Abu- H&riri world renowned Tells how a starving Arab found A diamond, lying on the ground. " Oh, if this shining stone, instead. Were but a single date," he said, "A cruse of oil, a crust of bread!" Lucius HARWOOD FOOTS. THE MILLIONAIRE. JOAQUIN MILLER. THE gold that with the sunlight lies In bursting heaps at dawn, The silver spilling from the skies At night to walk upon, The diamonds gleaming with the dew He never saw, he never knew. He got some gold, dug from the mud, Some silver, crushed from stones. The gold was red with dead men's blood, The silver black with groans. And when he died he moaned aloud, "God! but they've put no pocket in my shroud!" When the grass shall cover me, Hvlden close to earth's warm bosom; While I laugh, or weep, or sing, Nevermore, for anything, You will find in blade and blossom, Sweet small voices ordorous, Tender pleaders in my cause, That shall speak me as I was When the grass grows over me. INA COOLBRITH. "And yet did. ye stone your prophets? FI N ALE. JOAQUIN MILLER. WHEN ye have conned the hundredth time My sins and sagely magnified Your oft-told fictions into crimes Dark planned, and so turned all aside, Why then have done, I beg, I pray. These shadows ye have fashioned lie So heavily along my way. And I would fain have light : And I Would fain have love : Have love one little hour Ere God has plucked my day, a tearful flower. Ah me ! I mind me long agone, Once on a savage snow-bound height We pigmies pierced a king. Upon His bare and upreared breast till night We rained red arrows and we rained Hot lead. Then up the steep and slow He passed ; yet ever still disdained To strike, or even look below. We found the grizzly high 'mid clouds next morn And dead, in all his silent, splendid scorn. CALIFORNIA POETS. 85 So leave me, as the edge of night Comes on a little time to pass, Or pray. For steep the stony height And torn by storm, and bare of grass Or blossom. And when I lie dead Oh, do not drag me down once more. For Jesus' sake let my poor head Lie pillowed 'mid these stones. My store Of wealth is these. I earned them. Let me keep Still on alone, on mine own star-lit steep. THE MUSIC OF MACBETH. O Melody, what children strange are these From thy most vast, illimitable realm ! These sounds that seize upon and overwhelm The soul with shuddering ecstasy ! Lo, here The night is, and the deeds that make night fear; Wild winds and waters, and the sough of trees Tossed in the tempest; wail of spirits banned, Wandering, unhoused of clay in the dim land; The incantation of the Sisters Three, Nameless of deed and name the mystic chords; Weird repetitions of the mystic words; The mad, remorseless terrors of the Thane, And bloody hands, which bloody must remain; Last, the wild march, and battle hand to hand Of clashing arms in awful harmony, Sublimely grand, and terrible as grand! The clan cries; the barbaric trumpetry; And the one fateful note, that, throughout all, Leads, follows, calls, compels, and holds in thrall. To Edgar S. Kelly. INA COOLBRITH. Nvw Mars steals over the water; He is marching down from the sky Great Mars, with his golden helmet And the golden flame in his eye. CHARLES WAKKEN STODUARD. THE PASSING OF TENNYSON. JOAQUIN MILLER. WE knew it, as God's prophets knew; We knew it, as mute red men know, When Mars leapt searching heaven through With flaming torch, that he must go. Then Browning, he who knew the stars, Stood forth and faced insatiate Mars. Then up from Cambridge rose and turned Sweet Lowell from his Druid trees Turned where the great star blazed and burned, As if his own soul might appease. Yet on and on through all the stars Still searched and searched insatiate Mars. Then stanch Walt Whitman saw and knew; Forgetful of his "Leaves of Grass," He heard his "Drum Taps," and God drew His great soul through the shining pass, Made light, made bright by burnished stars, Made scintillant from flaming Mars. CALIFORNIA POETS. 87 Then soft- voiced Whittier was heard To cease; was heard to sing no more; As you have heard some sweetest bird The more because its song is o'er. Yet brighter up the street of stars Still blazed and burned and beckoned Mars. And then the king came ; king of thought, King David with his harp and crown. How wisely well the gods had wrought That these had gone and set them down To wait and welcome 'mid the stars All silent in the sight of Mars. All silent. . . . So, he lies in state. . Our redwoods drip and drip with rain. Against our rock-locked Golden Gate We hear the great sad sobbing main, But silent all. . . . He walked the stars That year the whole world turned to Mars. POETRY. She comes in husht beauty like the night, And sees too deep for laughter; Her touch is a vibration and a light, From world's before and after. (Prize Quatrain.) CHARLES EDWIN MARKHAM Sifitet on an unseen finger, Prophecy from heaven's own portal, Some by winged worlds immortal. ANNA M. FITCH. OLD GLORY. (Chant- RoyaL) EMMA FRANCES DAWSON. ENCHANTED web ! A picture in the air, Drifted to us from out the distance blue From shadowy ancestors, through whose brave care We live in magic of a dream come true With Covenanters' blue, as if were glassed In dewy flower-heart the stars that passed. O blood- veined blossom that can never blight 1 The Declaration, like a sacred rite, Is in each star and stripe declamatory, The Constitution thou shalt long recite, Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved "Old Glory!" O symphony in red, white, blue! fanfare Of trumpet, roll of drum, forever new Reverberations of the Bell, that bear Its tones of Liberty the wide world through ! In battle dreaded like a cyclone blast. Symbol of land and people unsurpassed, Thy brilliant day shall never have a night. On foreign shore no pomp so grand a sight, No face so friendly, naught consolatory Like glimpse of lofty spar with thee bedight, Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved "Old Glory!" CALIFORNIA POETS. 89 Thou art the one Flag, an embodied prayer, One, highest and most perfect to review ; Without one, nothing; it is lineal, square, Has properties of all the numbers, too Cube, solid, square root, root of root; best-classed It for His Essence the Creator cast. For purity are thy six stripes of white, This number circular and endless quite Six times, well knows the scholar wan and hoary, His compass-spanning circle can alight Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved "Old Glory 1'* Boldly thy seven lines of scarlet flare; As when o'er old centurion it blew (Red is the trumpet's tone, it means to dare!) God favored seven when creation grew; The seven planets; seven hues contrast; The seven metals ; seven days ; not last The seven tones of marvelous delight That lend the listening soul their wings for flight ; But why complete the happy category That gives thy thirteen stripes their charm and might? Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved "Old Glory 1" In thy dear colors, honored everywhere, The great and mystic ternion we view; Faith, Hope, and Charity are numbered there, And the three nails the Crucifixion knew. Three are offended when one has trespassed, God, and one's neighbor and one's self aghast; 90 EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. Christ's deity, and soul, and manhood's height; Father, Son, and Ghost may here unite, With texts like these, divinely monitory, What wonder that thou conquerest in fight, Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved "Old Glory!" ENVOI. O blessed Flag ! sign of our precious Past, Triumphant Present, and our Future vast, Beyond starred blue and bars of sunset bright Lead us to higher realm of Equal Right! Float on, in ever lovely allegory, Kin to the eagle, and the wind, and light, Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved "Old Glory!" THE SLEEPING PRINCESS. But half a century ago she lay All mutely beautiful, in rich attire, The sleeping Princess, California. Not yet had come the voice, not yet the touch, That was to thrill her waking soul with joy; Not yet the virgin lips had felt the kiss That was to bring her full ecstatic life. ALICE EDWARDS PKATT. Ah God! and yet we know It was no dream in those days long ago! It was no dream, the beat To arms, the steady tramp along the street. A0 dream the banners, flinging, fresh and fair, Their colors on the air, .\'ot stained and worn like these Returning witnesses, With sad, dumb lips, most eloquent of those Returning nevermore I INA COOLBBITH. They may not wake again! But from the precious soil, Born of their toil, Nursed with what crimsom rain, We pluck to-day the snow-white flower of peace. INA COOI.BRITH. DECORATION DAY. EMMA FRANCES DAWSON. "Not forgot, O Fingal, shall we ascend these winds? Our deeds are streams of light before the eyes of thirds." (OSSIAN'S FEMORA.) Music. WEIRD call of loon, Beneath the moon, O'er wind at sea a-swoon, Seems mystic tune, That fails too soon, Of the ghost- voiced bassoon. GHOSTS. "Comedown! Come up/ Float from far cloud-land space Fall into line by phantom fife and drum. For some of ^ls ' ' tis all of heaven's grace That once a year we come, Horse, Foot, we come, To swell the. marching columns whose regret Takes shape in lily, rose or violet. ' ' ;2 EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. Music. Hark ! the grum, Rolling thrum, Controlling hum Of the drum, Whose rumbling, seldom dumb, Or overcome, To muffling must succumb! Underneath the mourning pennon Bursts the thunder of the cannon ! MEN. "We bring the white tents of ihefaur /7 music swells out on the > if hi I It nir is a-tlnub with ftfifnni-, \N.I Jtf fert of the dancers jail light- Yet Death crouches low in the room. C. H. \\BliB. THE TELEGRAM. SARAH EDWARDS HENSHAW. DEAD! did you say? he! dead in his prime! Son of my mother ! my brother ! my friend ! While the horologe points to the noon of his time, Has his sun set in darkness? is all at an end? ( ' ' By a sudden accident. ' ' ) Dead ! it is not, it cannot, it must not be true ! Let me read the dire words for myself, if I can ; Relentless, hard, cold, they rise on my view They blind me ! how did you say that they ran? ("He zv as mortally injured" ) Dead ! around me I hear the singing of birds And the breath of June roses comes in at the pane; Nothing nothing is changed by those terrible words; They cannot be true ! let me see them again 1 ( ' 'And died yesterday. ' ' ) Dead ! a letter but yesterday told of his love ! Another to-morrow the tale will repeat; Outstripped by this thunderbolt flung from above, Scathing my heart, as it falls at my feetl ("Funeral to-morrow" ) CALIFORNIA POETS. 1 Oh ! terrible Telegraph ! subtle and still ! Darting thy lightnings with pitiless haste! No low morning thunders no storm-boding thrill But one fierce, deadly flash, and the heart iieth waste! ( ' ' Inform his friends. ' ' ) ROCKING THE BABY. I hear her rocking the baby, Slower and slower now, And I know she is leaving her good-night kiss On its eyes and cheek and brow. From her rocking, rocking, rocking, I wonder would she start, Could she know, through the wall between us, She is rocking on a heart. While my empty arms are aching For a form they may not press, And my emptier heart is breaking In its desolate loneliness, 1 list to the rocking, rocking, In the room just next to mine, And breathe a prayer in silence At a mother's broken shrine, For the woman who rocks the baby In the room just next to mine. MADGE MORRIS WAGNK*. The white gods, standing straight and sttO, Each in his niche of altar-stone. Look, with unfitting, sightless eyes. KATE M. BISHOP. LEX SCRIPTA. NATHAN C. KOUNS. "For the Letter killeth; but the Spirit giveth life." ST. PAUU THIS once I dreamed. Before me grandly stood One fashioned like a Deity his brow Still, massive, white calm as Beatitude, All passion sifted from its sacred glow, His eyes serenely fathomless and wise, His lips just fit to fashion words that fall Like silent lightning from the summer skies To kill without the thunder ; over all The sense of Thor's vast strength and symmetry of Saul. Clad with eternal youth, the ages brake Harmlessly over his majestic form, As the clouds break on Shasta. Then I spake Glad words, awe-struck, devotional, and warm : "Behold," I cried, "the promised One is come The Leader of the Nations, pure and strong ! He who shall make this wailing earth our Home, And guide the sorrowful and weak along To reach a Land of Rest where right has conquered wrong ! "Oh, He shall build in mercy, and shall found Justice as firmly as Sierra's base, And unseal founts of charity profound As Tahoe's crystal waters and erase CALIFORNIA POETS. Ill The lines of vice, and selfishness, and crime From the scarred heart of sad Humanity. Hail, splendid Leader! Hail, auspicious time! When might and right with holiness shall be Like bass and treble blent in anthems of the free!" Just then I heard a wailing, mocking voice Shiver and curse along the still, dark night, Freezing the marrow in my bones : "Rejoice; And may your Leader lead you to the Light ! He laid that perfect hand of His on me And left me what I am cursed, crushed, and blind A living, hopeless, cureless Infamy, Bound with such bonds as He alone can bind Bonds that consume the flesh and putrefy the mind." I looked, and saw what once had been a girl; A sense of beauty glinted round her frame, Like corpse-lights over rottenness that swirl To image putrid forms in ghastly flame. "Poor, tempted, weak, I did sin once," she cried, "And I was damned for it would I were dead! The partner of my guilt was never tried ; Your Leader there was on his side, and said That this was right and just." The woman spoke and fled. That wondrous Being did not move or speak, Did not regard that lost, accusing soul More than he did the night breeze on his cheek ; Smiled not nor frowned ; serene, sedate and cold. And while I wondered that no holy wrath Blazed from his eyes, a wretched creature came Cringing and moaning, skulking in the path A fierce, wild beast, that cruelty kept tame A lying, coward thing, for which there is no name. 112 EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. This whining, human, wretchedest complaint, Crouching, as from some unseen lash, thus spoke: "He held the poison to my lips; the taint Corrupts me through and through ! his iron yoke, Worn on my ankles, make me shuffle so. ' The criminal class ' ! Yea, that was the hot brand Which worked me such irremediable woe, Writ on my soul by his relentless hand A doom more fearful than the just can understand. " He careth nothing for the right or truth, Believes in nought save punishment and crime, Regardeth not the plea of sex, or youth, Nor hoary hair, nor manhood in its prime. That which is called ' respectable ' and ' rich ' Seems right to him ; and that he doth uphold With force implacable, calm, cruel, which Hath delegated all God's power to gold, Making the many weak, the few more bad and bold, " He never championed the weak ; no cause Was holy, just and pure enough to gain His aid without ' ' a momentary pause, Born of some superhuman throe of pain Let in a calm, grave voice, that quietly Pursued the swift indictment : "I declare Wherever right and wrong were warring, he Displayed his merciless, calm forces, where He might most aid the strong, and bid the weak despair. " He murdered Christ and Socrates, and set Rome's diadem upon the felon brows Of Caesars and Caligulas, and wet Zion's high altar with the blood of sows. CALIFORNIA POETS. For evermore the slaughter of mankind, Oppressions, sacrileges, cruelties, Thongs for the flesh, and tortures for the mind These are his works!" Astounded, dizzy, blind, I gathered up my soul, and cast all fear behind. "This grand but beautiful thing should die," I cried, " In God's great name, have at thee!" Then I sprung With superhuman strength and swiftness tried To seize, to strangle, and to kill, and flung All my soul's force to break and bear him down. The calm, strong being did not move or speak ; The grand face showed no trace of smile or frown ; The eyes burned not; the beautiful, smooth cheek Nor flushed nor paled, but I grew impotent and weak. A hand reached forth, as fair and delicate As any girl's, as if but to caress My throat; the steel-like fingers, firm as fate, Relentless, merciless, and passionless, Began to strangle me ; the chill of death Crept on me numbing brain and heart and eye. "Who art thou, Devil?" shrieked I, without breath. Before death came I heard his cold reply : "I am Lex Scripta, madman, and I cannot die." With joy me loved to watch creative powtr That added life to beauty every hour. M. B. M. TOLANO. GENESIS. LORENZO SOSSO. Ere Eve had eaten the fruit forbidden With man first born ; Whilst yet the light of the sun was hidden And day and morn ; I was, and am, and shall be forever Supremely willed ; The highest glory of man's endeavor, That ever thrilled The spirit of men in times and places With deepest bliss. The song of the Muses, the dance of the Graces, Of Venus the kiss. The Krishna placidly calm in beauty, The Incarnate ; Gautama teaching to men their duty, And Chance, and Fate. I was the Isis of Egypt's altars, The veiled divine : The spirit that followed the shawms and psalters, To Israel's shrine I was the god of the grottoes sunken In Thessaly. The wild Bacchantes their revels drunken Performed for me. CALIFORNIA POETS. I was with Christ in his holy mission From Nazareth ; I saw the terrible crucifixion, The beautiful death. The ponderous cenotaph's marble portal My hands did break, The soul immortal of Love's immortal I bade awake. And when the Evangels the visions splendid Of Christ had seen, I was the spirit that then attended The Nazarene. EXILE. Under heavy eyelids lie Glowing breadths of tropic sky; A cloud-like incense in the west; An isle upon the Ocean's breast ; Long, crested waves, that haste to reach And perish on a snow-white beach. A shining shallop, trim and frail, Borne down upon a spicy gale ; Two lovers in the ocean vast Two lovers loving well at last Within the shadow of the sail. Under heavy eyelids creep Fitful shadows fraught with sleep; Subtle odors in the air Pause and tremble everywhere; Melancholy night-birds sing ; Fire-flies are on the wing ; Fragrant delis of turf and fern Where the cactus blossoms burn ; Two lovers fleeing from the p;ut Two lovers loving well at last Shall never to the world return. * Mid hush and peacf. Far, fai as sea-lost star is sent, God's hand is Iftingfrom the s'as Som-~ Isle of splendor for my queen. Sing palm-set land in Gou's right hand, ... H 'itft opal sea and ardent sky, Where only thou and I may land May land and love for aye and eye; Thou and I, Chi ist, thou and I. JOAQOIN MILLER. ULTIMA THULE. LORENZO SOSSO. IF man might demand of the gods that for which all his spirit doth yearn To bless him and crown him forever in life, and the gods made return ; What boon would his incense arise like a cloud for, his spirit beseech; What glory to garland his soul of desire with of bliss within reach ? Is it Fame who has woven the brow of her lovers with thorns dipped in blood? Is it Wealth that has trampled Life's flowers to ashes ere grown from the bud ? Is it Beauty whose lips are a chalice of wine and whose words are a song? Is it Pleasure the naked Bacchante so frail in her joys yet so strong? What garland gives Fame unto man as he stands like a Christ on the cross? What treasures give Wealth unto man all whose treasures are only as dross ? What nectar gives Beauty to spirits that yearn for nepenthe or death? Or Pleasure, whose fragrance and flowers make faint with their poisonous breath? CALIFORNIA POETS. 117 The heavens that glow in their splendor and wonder of sunshine beyond; The earth with its marvellous life-crown, the oceans unfathomed respond; The oceans give voice to the earth, and the earth to the heavens above ; One glory alone do we ask of the gods, and that glory is Love ! SAN FRANCISCO. lion's whelp, that hidest fast In jungle growth of spire and mast, 1 know thy cunning and thy greed, Thy hard high lust and wilful 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. Hide well her faults, her sin and blame, With thy grey mantle cloak her shame. So shall she, cowle'd, sit and pray Till morning bears her sins away, Then rise, O fleecy Fog, and raise The glory of her coming days ; When all her throes and anxious fears Lie hushed in the repose of years ; When Art shall raise and culture lift The sensual joys and meaner thrift, And all fulfilled the vision, we Who watch and wait shall never see Who, in the morning of her race, Toiled fair or meanly in our place But, yielding to the common lot, Lie unrecorded and forgot. BRET HARTH No leaf that may bud By that dark, sullen flood; No flower that may bloom With its tomb-like perfume; No subtleized breath That may ripple that River of Death, Or vapory float in the desolate air, But is watched with a vigilant care, Lest it steal from the dust of the dead that aft then? For the elements aye are in league With a patience unknowing fatigue. To scatter mortality's mould And sweep from the graves, what they hold I JOHN R. RIDGE. APACHE. CHARLES HENRY PHELPS. FROM the awful desolation of the Llano Estacado I have traced my red dominions with your blood upon the sand. You may see its current tinging through the tawny Colorado ; Are you mad, that you imagine I shall stay my lifted hand ? I defy you and I hate you ! Do you threaten me with death ? Me, whose fervid spirit surges with the centuries' hot breath? Turn and ask this flaming desert, it has lain forever so ; It has scorched the helpless mesa with its seething overflow; Molten, pitiless, remorseless, ask it if I fear to die! I am one with this, immortal ! and the bloodshot suns of years Burn within my soul, as ages they have burned this alkali ; I shall be again the desert, what have I to do with fears? You shall die, and I shall clasp you to my heart with hot embrace, Whispering words of awful vengeance in your pallid, speechless face. But he who creates both the art and the Artist, so chooses, That we who fulfill all His purposes vast grow divine through their uses. LOKKNZO Soss>o. RATTLIN' JOE'S BIBLE. CAPTAIN JACK CRAWFORD. s ^ ow vou m y bible," said Joseph "Jist hand me them cards off that rack; I'll convince ye that this are a bible," And he went to work shufflin' the pack. He spread out the cards on the table, An' begun kinder pious-like : "Pards, If ye' 11 jist cheese yer racket an' listen, I'll show ye the pra'ar-book in cards. The 'ace', that reminds us of one GOD, The 'deuce', of the FATHER an' SON, The 'tray', of the FATHER and SON, HOLY GHOST, For, ye see, all them three are but one. The 'four-spot' is MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE and JOHN, The 'five-spot', the virgins who trimmed Their lamps while yet it was light of the day, And the five foolish virgins who sinned. The 'six-spot' in six days the Lord made the world, The sea and the stars in the heaven ; He saw it was good w'at he made, then he said, I'll jist go to rest on the 'seven'. The ' eight-spot ' is Noah, his wife an' three sons, An' Noah's three sons had their wives; God loved the hull mob, so bid 'em emb-ark In the freshet he saved all their lives. The ' queen ' war of Sheba in old Bible times. The 'king' represents old KING SOL. Now, the 'knave', that's the Devil, an' GOD, if yer please, Jist keep his hands offn poor BILL ! Kke the itngoveme That are melody whole, but a discord apart; DANIEL O'CoNNiu. THE TONE OF VOICE. SARAH EDWARDS HENSHAW. IT is not so much what you say, As the manner in which you say it; It is not so much the language you use, As the tones in which you convey it. ' ' Come here ! " I sharply said, And the baby cowered and wept ; "Come here!" I cooed, and he looked and smiled, And straight to my lap he crept. The words may be mild and fair ; And the tones may pierce like a dart ; The words may be soft as the summer air, And the tones may break the heart. For words but come from the mind, And grow by study and art ; But the tones leap forth from the inner self. And reveal the state of the heart. Whether you know it or not, Whether you mean or care, Gentleness, kindness, love and hate, Envy and anger are there. If, of all words of tongue and pen, The saddest are, "It might have been' More sad are those we daily see: 'It is, but hadn't ought to be." BKBT HARTE. ON THE LANDING. (AN IDYL OF THE BALUSTERS.) BRET HARTE. BOBHV, aetat 3%. JOHNNY, setat 4J. BOBBY. D O you know why they 've put us in the back room, Up in the attic close against the sky, And made believe our nursery is a cloak-room? Do you know why? JOHNNY. No more I don't, nor why that Sammy's mother What Ma thinks horrid, 'cause he bunged my eye, Eats an ice cream, down there like any other Nor more don't II BOBBY. Do you know why Nurse says it is 'nt manners For you and me to ask folks twice for pie, And no one hits that man with two bananas? Do you know why? JOHNNY. No more I don't, nor why that girl whose dress is Off her shoulders, don't catch cold and die, When you and me gets croup when we undresses ! No more don' 1 1 ! 122 EDMUND RUSSELL S READINGS. BOBBY. Perhaps she ain't as good as you and I is And God don't want her up there in the sky And lets her live to come in just when pie is Perhaps that's why? BOBBY. Do you know why Aunt Jane is always snarling At you and me because we tells a lie, And she do n' t slap that man that calls her darling? Do you know why? JOHNNY. rCo more I don't Nor why that man with Mamma Just kissed her hand. BOBBY. She hurt it and that's why He made it well the very way that Mamma Does do to I. JOHNNY. I feel so sleepy. . . . Was that Papa kissed us? What made him sigh and look up to the sky? BOBBY. We wer 'nt down stairs, and he and God had missed us, And that was why? From youth Right on, alone he silent wrought Nor answered us. And yet from us he kntia But th>~ust of lance that thrust him through and through, JOAQUIN MILLER. THE DEVIL'S BRIDE. MARY LAMBERT. r I ^HE Devil one day was sorely perplext 1 And thus to his henchmen said : "There's pride, and there's Lust, there is Anger and Sloth, The very best agents we've bred; And yet, there are souls whom I longingly wait, Who perversely refuse our bait ! The Devil then took a few pinches of fire And snuffed up his glowing red nose, Then roughly shook out all the kinks in his tail And thoughtfully looked at his toes. "Oh, master, there's one that will bring you these s'ouls, Tho' the others have tried in vain ; Just fix up a story for Slander to tell And season it well with pain ; Then send her to them while it's spicy and new And I'll wager she'll bring them to you." So straightway the Devil, his potion to mix, Dissected a maiden's fair name, Then drew out the blood from a mother's proud heart And mixed it all up with the shame. He burned the lot well and he seasoned with tears, Then gave it to Slander 'mid cheers. 124 EDMUND RUSSELL'S READINGS. She went to the souls where the others had failed And whispered the fiendish news ; They, wondering, heard, then asked her to dine, Lest some of the story they lose. She stayed and made friends with her smooth, oily tongue, And they felt not the fangs that stung. All those who had listened she smilingly kissed, Her kiss the red signet of hell ; And those who recounted her horrible tales Beneath her dread wasting fell ; The loathly contagion her breathing distilled Till each soul with the poison was filled. The Devil in jubilee capered about And gave her a seat at his side ; The red vaulted caverns of hell were aglow Where soul-dowered Slander was bride. EDITED BY HARR WAGNER DESIGNED ESPECIALLY FOR SUPPLEMENTARY WORK IN HISTORY AND NATURE STUDY IN OUR WESTERN SCHOOLS ALL FULLY AND BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED. EACH VOLUME CONTAINS FROM EIGHTEEN TO TWENTY-SIX FULL-PAGE PICTURES. FXTENSIVELY ADOPTED AND USED IN THE SCHOOLS OF THE PACIFIC COAST VOL. I.- PACIFIC HISTORY STORIES BY HARR WAGNER FOR FOURTH AND FIFTH GRADES During the short time that this book has been on the market its sale has been phenomenal. It is pronounced, by all of our leading educators, to be excellently adapted to the work for which it was intended a supplementary reader in history study in the Fourth and Fifth Grades. Fully two-thirds of the counties in California have this book on their supplemen- tary and library list. _ VOL. II. - PACIFIC NATURE STORIES BY HARR V/AQNER AND DAVID S. JORDAN AND OTHERS FOR FOURTH AND FIFTH QRADES A companion volume to the above. It contains some eighteen most interesting and instructive sketches of our wes_terr ani mal and vegetable life, all told in a delightfully flowing style and written by the greatest educators of the West. As a reading book in nature study it cannot be excelled. VOL. III. NATURE STORIES OF THE NORTHWEST BY HERBERT BASHFORD STATE LIBRARIAN OF WASHINGTON FOR SIXTH AND SEVENTH QRADES This book covers a more extended field than Volume II., and is not strictly confined to the Northwest. Among the inter esting stories will be found those of The Black Bear, The Kingfisher, The Clam, The Meadowlark, The Seals, etc., all of which are of interest to any pupil in the West. The illustrations are works of art and true to nature. VOL. IV. TALES OF DISCOVERY ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE BY MARGARET GRAHAM HOOD FOR THIRD AND FOURTH GRADES The Tale of History could not be more charmingly told than it is in this volume, which is intended for the lower grades. A Third or Fourth Grade pupil will read it easily, and with interest. Its eight chapters are devoted to the early history of our great western empire, and tell of characters and events but little touched upon by the general school history. The child here acquires a taste that leads him to further research. VOL. V. TALES OF OUR NEW POSSESSIONS, THE PHILIPPINES WRITTEN BY R. VAN BERGEN A THIRTY-YEAR RESIDENTOF THE ORIENT AUTHOR OF "STORY OF JAPAN," ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY P. N. BOERIHGER WAR ARTIST CORRESPONDENT AT MANILA FOR SAN FRANCISCO PAPERS FOR THE SIXTH, SEVENTH AND EIGHTH GRADES A timely book for the young. We employed to write this vol ume, a man whose thirty -year residence in the Orient made him thoroughly familiar with the people and their customs. Its thirty-eight chapters, all richly illustrated by the best artist we could secure, will give the pupil an excellent idea of our new country a knowledge which will prove of great finan cial value to him. VOL. VI.- STORIES OF OUR MOTHER EARTH BY HAROLD W, FAIRBANKS, PH. D. ILLUSTRATED BY MARY H. WELLMAN WITH 27 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS AN INTENSELY iNTERESTiNa AND INSTRUCTIVE WORK FOR THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH GRADES Can the study of Geology be made interesting to the young? It certainly can when written in the style of this book. It contains some thirty-eight chapters, every one laden with knowledge but all reading like a story book. The chapters on The Yosemite Valley, The San Francisco Bay and The Colo rado River in themselves alone warrant the purchase of the hook. *__ COMPLETE DESCRIPTIVE CIRCULAR, GIVING CONTENTS or EICH VOLUME, TESTIMONIALS, ETC., SENT ON APPLICATION PRICES SCHOOL EDITION, BOUND IN BOARD. LEATHBR BACK. HBT 50 CKNTS LIBRARY EDITION, BOUND IN CLOTH NET 60 CBNTS by THE WHITAKER & RAY CO. 723 Market Street, San Francisco FOUR GREAT BOOKS BY WESTERN AUTHORS PUBLISHED BY THE WH1TAKER & RAY CO. 723 MARKET STREET, SAN FRANCISCO. JOAQUIN MILLER'S COMPLETE POEMS EIGHT VOLUMES IN ONE INCLUDING " SONGS OF THE SIERRAS" " SONGS OF SUNLAND " " SONGS OF ITALY " SONGS OF THE SOUL" u SONGS OF THE MEXICAN SEAS" " CLASSIC SHADES " " OLIVE LEAVES " "JOAQUIN" eta.1. Price, Library Edition, postpaid $2.50 " Gift Edition, Leather $4.50 BY DAVID STARR JORDAN PRESIDENT LELAND STANFORD JR. UNIVERSITY "CARE AND CULTURE OF MEN" Price, Cloth, postpaid SI 50 " Half Levant, postpaid $3.50 "MATKA AND KOTIK" AN ALLEGORY OF THE FUR SEAL PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED Price, Cloth, postpaid S1.50 " Half Levant, postpaid S3. 50 "THE STORY OF THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY" AND OTHER SKETCHES ILLUSTRATED Price, Cloth, postpaid 51 25 ' Half Levant, postpaid $3.50 One Set of Jordan, 3 Vols. in box, Cloth, postpaid .... $ 4.00 One Set of Jordan, 3 Vols. in box, half Levant, postpaid . . $10.00 SEND POP COMPLETE DISOR1PTIVE PORTRAIT CIRCULAR OUR WESTERN PUBLICATIONS TEXT. SUPPLEMENTARY AND LIBRARY BOOKS Elementary Exercises in Botany, By Prof. Volney Rattan $o 75 Key lo West Coast Botany, By Prof. Volney Rattan I oo Complete Botany (above, two in one Volume) t 50 New Essentials of Bookkeeping, By Prof. C. W. Childs 90 Topical Analysis of U. S. History, By Prof. C. W. Childs I co Heart Culture, Lessons in Humane Education, By Emma E. Page . 75 Spanish in Spanish, By Luis Duque . . - Net. i 25 Patriotic Quotations, By Harr Wagner 40 Key to State Advanced Arithmetic, By A. M. Armstrong i oo New Manual of Shorthand, By A. J. Marsh Net : 25 Studies in Entomology, By H. M. Bland 75 Algebraic Solutions of Equations, By Andre and Buchanan . K *t. So Study of the Kindergarten Problem, By Fred'k L. Burke 50 Orthoepy and Spelling, By John W. Imes. (4 parts each) ?c Toyon A book of Holiday Selections, By Allie M. Felker Paper, 350. Board, 6oc. Cloth, i oo Supplement to State History, By Harr Wagner 25 Matka.a Taleof the Mist Islands, By David Starr Jordan (Schooled.) 75 MISCELLANEOUS LIBRARY BOOKS Sugar P,ne Murmurings, By KHz. S. Wilson I oo Adventures of a Tenderfoot, By H. H. Sauber i oo The Main Points, By Rev. C. R. Brown i 25 Life, By Hon. John R. Rogers I oo Lyrics of the Golden West, By Rev. W. D. Crabb i oo S jngs of Puget Sea, By Herbert Bashford i oo Dr. Jones' Picnic, By Dr. S. E- Chapman i co A Modern Argonaut, By Leela B. Davis i oo Percy or the Four Inseparables, By M. Lee i oo Personal Impressions of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado .... i 50 Some Homely Little Songs, By Alfred James Waterhouse i 25 Forget-me-nots By Lillian Leslie Pasre. Illuminated paper cover . 50 WESTERN SERIES OF PAPER BOOKS No. I. Songs of the Soul, By Joaquin Miller 25 No. 2. Dr. Jones' Picnic, By Dr. S. E. Chapman 25 No. 3. Modern Argonaut, By Leela B. Davis 25 No. 4. How to Celebrate Holiday Occasions Compiled 25 No. 5. Patriotic Quotations 35 WESTERN SERIES OF BOOKLETS No. I. California and the Californians, By David Starr Jordan ... 25 No. 2. Love and Law, By Thos. P. Bailey 25 No. 3. The Man Who Might Have Been, By Robert Whitaker . . 25 No. 4. Chants for the Boer, By Joaquin Miller . 25 WESTERN EDUCATIONAL HELPS. No. I. Civil Government Simplified, By J. J. Duvall 25 No 2. An Aid in the Study and Teaching of Lady of the Lake, Evangeline, and Merchant of Venice, By J. W. Graham. ... zs UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. fcc OCT 25W2 01SCHARGE-URC APR 24 1981 Form I/J-Series 444 T OF CALIFOKNJA AT LOS ANC8SLEB UBRABY 3 1158 00682 8767 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 001 344 977 2