ALL THE WAY: BEING 
 
 THE COLLECTED POEMS 
 
 OF AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL 
 
GIFT OF 
 
 Oi. 
 
ALL THE WAY: BEING 
 
 THE COLLECTED POEMS 
 
 OF AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 A. M. ROBERTSON 
 1913 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1913, 
 BY BENJAMIN P. KURTZ 
 
 Printed by 
 
 Taylor, Nash & Taylor 
 San Francisco 
 
[iii] 
 
 Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 In Memoriam vii 
 
 THE SOUL S RUBAIYAT 
 
 The Soul s Rubaiyat, Part 1 3 
 
 The Soul s Rubaiyat, Part II 11 
 
 SONGS BY THE WAY 
 
 The Procession of the Dumb 21 
 
 At Pompeii 24 
 
 Sonnet 25 
 
 Palestine 26 
 
 The Aspen 27 
 
 God of the Human Heart 28 
 
 The Bronze Buddha 29 
 
 The Song of To-day 30 
 
 A Nubian Lion 31 
 
 Sonnet 33 
 
 The Song of a Christian Sojourner in America in the 
 
 Twentieth Century 34 
 
 Patmos 35 
 
 To "H. H." 36 
 
 On Presentation of a Loving Cup to the Former Eegent, 
 
 Mrs. Ashburner 37 
 
 In Memoriam 38 
 
 In Her Studio 39 
 
 To a Friendly Critic 40 
 
 Heart of a Rose Heart of a Man 41 
 
 Sent With Regrets 42 
 
 A Choice 43 
 
 Grievance 44 
 
 The Soul of a Kiss 45 
 
 "Men Kiss and Ride Away" 46 
 
 The Child in the Heart 47 
 
 "Love May Not Sing Again" 48 
 
 If Love Were All 49 
 
 Love Is Dead 50 
 
 302355 
 
[iv] 
 
 SONGS BY THE WAY Continued. Page 
 
 Dead Love 51 
 
 Truth 52 
 
 Truth 53 
 
 Vita Brevis 54 
 
 Love s Divination 55 
 
 De Profundis 56 
 
 The Gift 57 
 
 Sleep 58 
 
 Peace 59 
 
 The "Eeproachcs" 60 
 
 Easter 61 
 
 The Call 62 
 
 Transition 63 
 
 Stabat Mater 64 
 
 A Good Friday Devotion 66 
 
 The Mater Pia 67 
 
 The First Christmas 68 
 
 Love Is Saved 69 
 
 Farther Shores 70 
 
 In Bondage 71 
 
 The Waiting Note 72 
 
 A Kustic Bridge 73 
 
 Vespers . 74 
 
 L Envoi 75 
 
 SONGS OP THE PACIFIC 
 
 California s Hymn 79 
 
 The California Eschscholtzia 80 
 
 A Stanford Hymn 81 
 
 A Consecration for a Non-Sectarian Church ... 82 
 
 The Song of the Colorado Eiver 83 
 
 The Spirit of the Desert 84 
 
 San Francisco Bay 85 
 
 La Casa Grande . 86 
 
 The Pacific 87 
 
SONGS OF THE PACIFIC Continued. Page 
 
 The Yukon s Song of the Gold 88 
 
 The Malamute Dog of Alaska 90 
 
 ON THE SPANISH MISSIONS IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 Proem 93 
 
 San Diego 94 
 
 San Luis Rey de Francia 101 
 
 Pala 106 
 
 San Juan Capistrano 109 
 
 San Gabriel Arcangel Ill 
 
 San Bernardino 117 
 
 San Fernando Key de Espafia 118 
 
 The Christ of San Buena Ventura 120 
 
 Santa Barbara 122 
 
 Santa Ynez 126 
 
 San Luis Obispo de Tolosa 131 
 
 San Miguel Arcangel 134 
 
 San Carlos del Carmelo 135 
 
 Santa Cruz 141 
 
 The Last Sermon of Fray Junipero Serra .... 143 
 
 FRANCISCA REINA, OR SONGS AND BALLADS OF THE 
 GREAT FIRE IN SAN FRANCISCO, APRIL, 1906 
 
 Francisca Eeina 149 
 
 Francisca Dolorosa 151 
 
 Francisca Maclre 155 
 
 Francisca J s Thanksgiving 157 
 
 How We Went Out 159 
 
 Franeisca Diligente 166 
 
 The Simple Life on Sidewalks 168 
 
 The Simple Life in Tents 171 
 
 The Simple Life in Clubs 172 
 
 The Eeason Why 175 
 
 Francisca Gloriosa .... 177 
 
VI 
 
 TUNES OF WAR Page 
 
 The Salute of the * Immortalite " 181 
 
 Dewey in Waiting 184 
 
 Decoration Day 185 
 
 Espana Dolorosa 186 
 
 Eemembered " 188 
 
 Lexington Day, 1905 189 
 
 The Glory of "The White Man s Burden" .... 192 
 
 Victoria Kegina 194 
 
 Labor, the Prophet 195 
 
 The Spirit to the Spoilers 196 
 
 THE JONGLEUR S PRANKS 
 
 Yankee Doodle Up to Date 199 
 
 line Rastus to Marse Dewey 203 
 
 The Lady Eeconciled 205 
 
 An Old Bachelor 206 
 
 A Spinster 207 
 
 My Soul and I 208 
 
 A Grizzly in the Zoo 210 
 
 A Bilious Day 211 
 
 Triolet 212 
 
 Rondeau 213 
 
 Why? 214 
 
 The Discarded Lover 215 
 
 The Mess of It 216 
 
 Progressive Love 217 
 
 The Call of Science 218 
 
 Psychology Five 220 
 
 To College Girls 221 
 
 A Pre-Adamite on Evolution 223 
 
 Concerning Hoes 227 
 
[vii] 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 Amelia Woodward Truesdell, without being by pro 
 fession a poet, was yet so stirred by an imaginative sense 
 of the experiences that during a busy life came to her 
 no otherwise than they come to most of us, that she 
 naturally spoke of them in the heightened rhythms that 
 are poetry. She was vitally enough endowed to see the 
 things that happened to her in their general, human 
 significance; an unusually busy and practical concern 
 with material affairs never darkened that vision. 
 
 And when in the course of those happenings there 
 came to her such bereavements as come upon countless 
 millions of wives and mothers, this power of seeing the 
 general and the human in her own particular experi 
 ence was at once a keener pain and a vicarious comfort; 
 for that sight, or insight, became thus a Vision. 
 
 Those who have suffered will know the Visions in 
 this book when they come upon them among the poems 
 called Songs by the Way. 
 
 When, moreover, in the course of her life she also 
 had to make those readjustments between the outworn 
 faiths of one s parents and one s own youth on the one 
 hand, and the new ideas, on the other, of one s maturity, 
 which all thinking people must make in every age, she 
 made them so vitally and conceived them so strongly 
 that in them, too, she saw a general human meaning. 
 Again she was stirred by an imaginative sense of not 
 uncommon problems; and that, too, was poetry, 
 Rubdiydt of the Soul, to use her own words. 
 
 Then there were the little pleasures of life, and the 
 romantic places visited, and the friendships made, and 
 the lost causes espoused. These, also, were viewed with 
 that insight that had become habitual. Thus every 
 thing, with her, tended to transformation. 
 
[ viii ] 
 
 The poems called Francisco, Reina were written not 
 for an anthology, but to comfort and cheer an army of 
 men and women, she one of them, who had been made 
 homeless by the unparalleled disaster that prostrated 
 San Francisco in April of 1906. In a practical, human 
 itarian way, especially in connection with the Bed Cross 
 Society, Mrs. Truesdell was so intimately engaged at 
 that time that she had no leisure to polish verses upon 
 the disaster. That was her way in a great and un 
 common calamity. The songs she did sing then, for 
 she could not help singing, came hurried and breath 
 less, cheering many in the midst of the awful dust 
 and ruins of a great city. The songs were never 
 changed or overmuch corrected. But those who were 
 there will turn here to Francisco, Reina, and they will 
 remember. 
 
 And, last to speak of, but a constant merriment in 
 her life, was the ceaseless chattering of what she called 
 her Imps. And, of course, Imps of Verse they were, 
 humorous asides, caricatures and topsy-turvies, incon 
 sequential interruptions by the laughable and grotesque 
 in the midst of the serious and even sublime. Many 
 of them, indeed, scribbled themselves in the middle of the 
 Songs and Kubaiyat, with glee, she said, at their power 
 to distort the beautiful and put the sublime to the 
 ridiculous. She called them Pranks of the Jongleur; 
 they are at the end of the book. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Amelia Woodward Truesdell was born at Lowell, 
 Massachusetts, October 20, 1839. She graduated from 
 Mt. Holyoke College, July 27, 1858. In 1864 she came 
 to San Francisco, and was married to Orran P. Truesdell, 
 of whom she was bereaved in the year 1869. In 1873 
 
[ix] 
 
 she lost her first son. Ten years later she was left alone 
 by the death of her other son. 
 
 With unusual courage and initiative she then turned 
 to many things, and by sheer force of will created for 
 herself interests and responsibilities. As a business 
 manager, a member of clubs, an occasional lecturer and 
 writer, she was always at once vital and very kind. 
 Lest the march of knowledge should find her a straggler, 
 she had the ambition and bravery (for such it is) to 
 enroll herself at a somewhat advanced age as a student 
 in a university. She received a degree; but she prob 
 ably gave more than she received, for the way she bore 
 her years was always an inspiration to younger gener 
 ations. Young people loved her, and admired her eager 
 ness to learn, perhaps marvelled at such a great desire. 
 
 She died in November, 1912. 
 
 ******** 
 
 The present editor and friend was asked by Mrs. 
 Truesdell to place together those of her poems, pub 
 lished and unpublished, that to her had seemed nearest 
 worthy of preservation. And where she herself had 
 not made full selection, he was asked to use his own 
 judgment. This he has done, how well he cannot say, 
 for the loss of a most dear friend has been in his heart, 
 and when he reads these poems he hears her speaking; 
 he only knows the tones he loved best and thought 
 sweetest. 
 
 These, at any rate, are most of the songs she made, 
 from the beginning to the end of her loves and sorrows, 
 1 All the Way." 
 
 B. K. 
 
The Soul s Rubaiyat 
 
 U The Soul s Rubaiyat": 
 
 A. M. Robertson, San Francisco 
 
 1911] 
 
O Pars, awake! The humming -bird s a-wing; 
 
 Still thrills the nightingale s sweet welcoming. 
 
 Lo, from the hills the Spring, her hair snow-splashed! 
 
 Rose gardens ~burst to wildest blossoming. 
 
 But night owls hoot around Persepolis; 
 Where jeweled feet have trod, the serpents hiss; 
 To these dead halls there comes no Springtime bliss: 
 My time-old search for truth is but as this. 
 
 This quest sung he who took the Vine to Spouse; 
 Nay Pars, why from thy thousand dreams arouse f 
 If dark thine ancient doors, where divells the light? 
 In Omar s harp, why wake despair s carouse? 
 
[3] 
 The Soul s Rubaiyat 
 
 PART! 
 
 Of him who walked a thousand years ago 
 In Persian vales, and studied human woe 
 And the great Ruler s scheme to man, I read 
 And wondered if aught more to-day we know; 
 
 Aught more, life s puzzle-riddle solve than he; 
 The Whence, the Why, the Whither, and To-Be. 
 We still are groping for the Great Reply; 
 Through veils and forms, O God, we search for Thee. 
 
 II 
 
 He taught beneath the rose-trees of Iran, 
 This poet, seer, philosopher ; this man 
 Who spared not all his learning s treasure trove. 
 But vain his wisdom of the star-writ plan ! 
 
 Still would the multitude, like driven swine, 
 On superstition feed, and call it wine 
 Of life, though bitter with the creeds of men; 
 For sleek Tradition cried, "A draught divine!" 
 
 Ill 
 
 Tradition! Serpent-born at Eden s gate, 
 Still deifying fetish, faith, and fate; 
 On altars strange, his false lights burning yet, 
 Still blind men s eyes unto their high estate. 
 
 Tradition ! Keeper of the deadly keys 
 Where souls are locked in darkness, fed on lees 
 Of legends steeped in dreams, dank cloister weeds : 
 God, how could st Thou look and suffer these ? 
 
[4] 
 
 IV 
 
 From wading in the muck of daily care, 
 From midst the ashes of dead hopes despair, 
 Our souls still wait, with long endurance dull, 
 And lifting helpless hands cry, Master, where? 
 
 "A score of centuries since Jesus died, 
 And Sin our daily comrade still ? " we cried. 
 His life ! And could it be in vain ? Then weep, 
 Weep on, thou mother of the Crucified ! 
 
 I loved the high Ideal I called the Lord ; 
 I worshiped at that shrine with heart s accord. 
 Athwart the altar trailed a serpent Doubt, 
 And left envenomed there the name of God. 
 
 With the Almighty would you make a trade, 
 As with a huckster by the road-side paid ? 
 So much salvation for so much shed blood, 
 And thus your own just penalty evade? 
 
 The soul revolts at such a sacrifice, 
 
 Such banal temporizing with a vice ; 
 
 The sweetest life the world has ever known 
 
 Is lost to earth for me unworth the price? 
 
 Who then shall weigh the thing we call a sin ? 
 For ages God mayhap to man has been 
 More lenient than His sons. He knows so well 
 How weak He made him from without, within. 
 
VI 
 
 All consecration knows the scourge: the scorn 
 Of words which cuts the heart as did the thorn 
 The Master s brow ; and through a dolorous way 
 It mounts its calvary of crosses borne. 
 
 Vicarious ever is earth s pain; that pain, 
 The life-sweat of one body s loss or gain. 
 None stands alone. Each hapless child of sin 
 Is linked to me. See that tis not in vain. 
 
 VII 
 
 From Ark of the old faith my soul went out. 
 Philosophy she skimmed, that sea of doubt, 
 But eddying circles in a darkening whirl, 
 Maelstrom of words ! It was a sorry bout. 
 
 Where ancient Nilus and the Indus taught ; 
 Confucius with his measured wisdom wrought, 
 No foot-stay there, no olive-branch I found ; 
 But wreckage of a flood of surging thought. 
 
 Through mosque and Buddhist temple, silence-shod, 
 
 To fires of old Iran and budding rod 
 
 Of Aaron, back the devious way I trod; 
 
 And lo! I found me many a Sphinx-like god. 
 
 But all their lips in silence were and scorn, 
 
 At my poor search through shrines where ages gone 
 
 Had left their manual of a bootless quest : 
 
 For them, no star of some new faith unborn! 
 
[6 
 
 Altars and tombs showed man in tragic fray 
 Of creeds, but still the slave of yesterday ; 
 His dread of change, slow death unto the faiths. 
 Better a red-robed charlatan at play! 
 
 VIII 
 
 And still the Potter s wheel is turned by Fate : 
 He tosses out our shards of love and hate 
 As whirls the clay about. We wonder why 
 We hold such scraps and shreds for our estate. 
 
 Sharp-edged tools within an infant s hand! 
 These passions which we did not understand 
 Surprised us by their mastery. Then who 
 Had right for us, such dangers to command ? 
 
 Did Cain, that life was sacred comprehend ? 
 Then why distraught when he, without a friend, 
 Went forth ? Did Judas know his kiss of death 
 Would mark for him, of heaven and earth the end ? 
 
 IX 
 
 For Truth I searched a hundred seas and lands ; 
 I heard his call and ran with outstretched hands ; 
 But when I thought I had his footsteps traced, 
 He just had gone to walk on other strands. 
 
 All up and down the streets and country roads, 
 I asked for him. Men pointed to the loads 
 Upon their backs and dumbly plodded on. 
 These body needs accursed Eden goads! 
 
Within the dark I heard a voice one night, 
 And all the air was vibrant with the light, 
 Some thought that crashed its zigzag way ; and then 
 An Error s mocking laugh. The ribald wight! 
 
 I thought one day I d caught his beckoning glance ; 
 Covered with light Transfiguration s trance 
 I stood with souls in white. I raised my eyes, 
 Then hope was naught but memory of a chance. 
 
 XI 
 
 We read that Truth from one eternal place 
 To us shall ever turn a changeless face, 
 A phantom mirror in his hand, forsooth ; 
 Of yesterday, to-day reflects no trace. 
 
 For Science changes every hour her schemes ; 
 Empiric ! What to-day as fact she deems, 
 Next year is refuse by the wayside flung ; 
 For souls in mortal need, what good are dreams ? 
 
 XII 
 
 I questioned Nature for some comfort-screed; 
 For high analogies ; God s word and deed 
 Must blend in one great scheme of law. Quoth she, 
 * The individual is a worthless weed. 
 
 The specie life with its unbroken train 
 
 Is Nature s god; and this for souls in pain? 
 
 As cold as death she reads her cruel creed: 
 
 * * You re weak ? Then pass ; the strongest must remain. 
 
[8] 
 
 XIII 
 
 It is the old estate of me and thee ; 
 
 Dividual life lost in captivity 
 
 Unto the whole. "What means the world to me?" 
 
 Thus Omar cried. The end? Earth waits to see. 
 
 Since his red wine a thousand years of work ; 
 Its bold results our logic may not shirk. 
 But of God s mind to man, the Unit-Soul? 
 Says Nature s law, "Away with shrine and kirk." 
 
 XIV 
 
 Truth! Bemasked with smirk of every race 
 Thy brow ! How shall we know thine alien face 
 By strange device of old and new disguised ? 
 Yet souls distraught still seek thy dwelling-place. 
 
 We would believe thy hidden brow is bright, 
 Immortal reflex of the Essence, Light. 
 Why change thy raiment with the beggar Doubt, 
 With all her shams and trumpery bedight? 
 
 Too faint thy image is in science well, 
 
 Thy mark uncertain as the sagas tell. 
 
 O Truth, tear off thy masks, and pray make haste, 
 
 Or Doubt shall cast us into deepest hell. 
 
 XV 
 
 for Ithuriel s heaven-tempered spear ! 
 
 Some spirit talisman that s crystal-clear! 
 
 Encased within this casket of dull clay, 
 
 What chance has man the truth to know or hear? 
 
Silent, Thou God, as Thy unanswering sky. 
 Perhaps sometime, Thou It tell Thy creatures why 
 The true and false are dual-unity. 
 And now, have mercy if in sin w T e die. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Since Death turned down the Persian s empty glass, 
 The sun has seen the train of centuries pass ; 
 Uncertain-lipped, we question still the law, 
 And still to us the heavens are as brass. 
 
 And when the past has swallowed up to-day, 
 
 The future from us stolen nigh away, 
 
 We feel the shiver of the river-brink, 
 
 Ah, then forsooth we 11 grovel, whining, pray ! 
 
 Aye, pray to one we never have addressed ; 
 Reach for the cup our lips have passed unpressed ; 
 See heaven shrivel and shrink above our heads ; 
 Ye Moths ! my kin ! Where shall we then, unblessed ? 
 
 XVII 
 
 My soul go hence! This strife is idle hum; 
 
 This life the beating of an empty drum ; 
 
 A Holy Grail evanished is this Truth. 
 
 Back to thy nothingness ! Thou slave, be dumb. 
 
 And when again th Eternal Sakis use 
 
 This earthen bowl I found, but did not choose, 
 
 Still other bubbles in to pour, its clay 
 
 The flavor of mortality may lose. 
 
10 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Will its new lips be only formed to sigh? 
 Our questions, will it face with dreary eye? 
 Nay, nay, I Ve wept its tears, this beaten clay ; 
 For man will then have come the Great Reply? 
 
 Beneath this star-splashed, zodiac-painted bowl 
 Down-pressed, we crawl with smothering of soul; 
 Is it uplifted for the Sufi seer 
 Whose tragic songs to us through centuries roll ? 
 
 XIX 
 
 Omar ! Ah, do you yet the mystery know ? 
 Is Death a Fakir with no wonder-show? 
 Or have the Pleiads now no room for souls, 
 The I, the You, diffused in ether-flow? 
 
 Through space as winds Death s caravan its train, 
 Have you aught sweeter found than earth-love s pain? 
 Flesh-robe of sorrow must you wear again? 
 Why dream I, mad? All dreams for man are vain. 
 
[11] 
 
 The Soul s Rubaiyat 
 
 PART II 
 I 
 
 The I, the Creature Man, unto my soul: 
 
 " Would st look within the Ruler s great Earth-Scroll? 
 
 The folded centuries up-gather then; 
 
 By History s torch new-lit, the tale unroll. 
 
 * Tis travail and the sweat of blood for thee ; 
 The fixed stars of belief reel drunkenly ; 
 Thy sun is blotted out; thy God eclipsed; 
 Go find us life ; this chaos strangles me. 
 
 II 
 
 Rugged the mountains round thy pathway close; 
 From peak to peak, far-glittering with the snows 
 Of Reason s eyrie home. In what deep hell 
 Beside thee Doubt, with torch inverted, goes! 
 
 "Through legend- vales thou lt follow pale Despair; 
 Doubt s poisonous night-shade, but no hope-ray there. 
 When plaints the ringdove for her Yusuf lost, 
 Thou soul, alone, wilt echo Where, O where? 
 
 "But oh! through stress, lose not thy God! No God? 
 Rather I d be again my native clod ; 
 Would set thee free from this earth-hampered flight. 
 Make haste : I see too near the broken sod. 
 
 "Press on till bulbuls to the lark repeat 
 Thy prayer, thine incense for the heavenly seat ; 
 Till thou with morning s messenger canst sing 
 Tis there! red roses crushing at thy feet. 
 
[12 
 
 III 
 
 "Set up thine altar then, emblazoned Truth, 
 The In Hoc Solus of they faith forsooth; 
 And thy libations pour, my heart s best wine ; 
 There sacrifice the treasures of my youth. 
 
 "Thy Jesus Hominum Salvator too, 
 
 This shrine may prove, those altar-legends true; 
 
 As from the dying seed new breath suspires, 
 
 From faith s dead husks Christ-life may spring anew. 
 
 IV 
 
 "Stand up before thine altar now and swear, 
 Thou priestess Soul, that to our God Thou It bare 
 Thy brow unto whatever name be true ; 
 Forgotten be the seal it used to wear. 
 
 "Thou It flinch not when old altars fall to naught. 
 
 Theologies stripped to the quick of thought, 
 
 And faiths, the sinews of thy life, inwrought 
 
 With thy heart-threads, thou It give for freedom bought : 
 
 " Tis spirit-vision with the single view, 
 
 A talisman to test the false and true. 
 
 No double thought ; no judgment in reserve ; 
 
 Mammon or God; thou can st not serve the two. 
 
 * That thou wilt do all this for thee and me, 
 Swear it, as there is love twixt me and thee. 
 And as she passed, my heart wept bitterly : 
 Yet tis man s only hope that thought be free. 
 
13 
 
 But oh ! the hurt when old beliefs are rent 
 From lives by church-yard door-ways long content 
 O dogmas sacred as the mother s breast! 
 Make haste with healing lest the years be spent. 
 
 VI 
 
 She came. Her step scarce moved her vestments fold. 
 
 The law was written in her lips stern mould ; 
 
 I cried aloud, "0 my beloved speak." 
 
 Far off her voice ; her eyes were deep and old. 
 
 VII 
 
 t i Two graven tablets found I by the way : 
 One chiseled by the Past, one by To-day : 
 All faiths must read by these or else we say, 
 Perhaps the master-gravers were at play. 
 
 "History and science friendly scribes, if reads 
 The reader well; they mark man s changing meeds. 
 When Knowledge swings the world in line with law, 
 She ll show God s purpose to the human needs. 
 
 "For individual lives, encrusted long 
 In chrysalis of creeds, are with a song 
 And spread of wings outbursting to the hope 
 That Fear as fetish is a primal wrong. 
 
 VIII 
 
 "These crowds that with a nation s vigor burned, 
 Whose souls for truth of their Creator yearned ; 
 They sought a Christ but found Tradition s hell; 
 What wonder if to God-distrust they turned ? 
 
14] 
 
 4 But sons of God, the seal is on them all ; 
 Not potsherds set in rows against the wall. 
 With errors drugged, they stir as men in sleep ; 
 New life a-thrill, they would shake off the thrall. 
 
 IX 
 
 * Yea soul, but veinings of a leaflet s plan 
 Go read," I cried. "From it the Maker scan. 
 The individual, what is he to God? 
 O tragedy of him, the Unit-Man!" 
 
 X 
 
 And long I waited while she wandered where? 
 
 Far off I saw her, resurrection fair 
 
 Of form ; her face a glory from within ; 
 
 I knew she had with spirits swept the air. 
 
 " Tis Love," she cried. "A heart of love the key 
 That opens now the one life-truth to thee; 
 That God is love to man, and only love, 
 To His own children whom He would make free. 
 
 "In lights sur fine the tints from desert sands 
 Beside me stood a man with pierced hands, 
 His brightness shaded by the mantling sun; 
 His voice, no sound so sweet on summer strands. 
 
[15 
 
 XI 
 
 " Man is not left alone upon the sod 
 Of earth, his home, though often weary trod; 
 God s amulet of love, within he bears; 
 No heart that loves can ever lose its God. 
 
 " And when thou bearest to the river-brink 
 
 Thy talisman of love, thou shalt not shrink; 
 
 And there the Angel of eternal life 
 
 Shalt lift her Cup o er- flowed, and bid thee drink. 
 
 XII 
 
 "And he was gone. The Mother-Earth looked up, 
 A twilight on her face ; the hasty sup 
 Of sweetness, fragrant on the desert air ; 
 Earth sighed for yet a cup a brimming Cup. 
 
 "A tender mantle of his thought to thee 
 Fell on me as he passed. Love gives thee free 
 Salvation from the Body of this death, 
 The world-old fetish, dread of God s decree. 
 
 XIII 
 
 "Even as on Judea s mountain-side, 
 He spake. And then I knew with vision wide, 
 Not lore occult nor dogmas complicate 
 Made of the Nazarene, the Crucified. 
 
 "But patience meeting wrong with meekness mild; 
 Simplicity with wisdom of a child; 
 And charity s clean hand that cast no stone, 
 And raised the weeping Mary, undefined. 
 
16 
 
 "It is the spirit of the Master s thought; 
 
 Not deep developments, by scholars wrought 
 
 Of doctrines that would shrivel on the lips 
 
 Which Peace and good will from the manger brought. 
 
 "Spirit of love all human and divine; 
 One chalice ruby with his heart s red wine, 
 From lip to lip, the Rabbin then shall pass 
 In mosque-cathedral-temple, one pure shrine. 
 
 XIV 
 
 "And there shall come a time of Pentecost 
 To thee upon thy homeward way, but lost; 
 When tongues of fire, a spirit flame, the truth 
 For thee, shall heal thy heart, sore question-tossed. 
 
 "Then life shall be an Olivet of peace, 
 And from its height thy vision shall increase 
 To unknown kingdoms of His love and joy, 
 Till doubts like waves on a dead sea shall cease. 
 
 "Be it Love s Zion-heights immortalized, 
 Be it Gethsemanes pain-solemnized, 
 Be it the cross of life-hopes sacrificed, 
 Thine eyes shall see the fields emparadised. " 
 
 XV 
 
 She ceased. And from her eyes uplifted sight 
 A splendor filled the deepness of the night : 
 Oh, mantle of the hope that covered me ! 
 Truth, the glory of that desert light ! 
 
17] 
 
 XVI 
 
 "Accept defeat as to Creation s plan," 
 I cried. "There is no other peace for man. 
 The De Profundis of a life is this, 
 Would god be God if I His will could scan ? 
 
 "Now in the sun I set the bowl to-day: 
 What matter be it brazen bowl or clay ? 
 It gathered up the light of yesterday ; 
 To-morrow it shall draw a brighter ray. 
 
 XVII 
 
 "Once Ramoth scoffed and clashed the heavenly keys 
 One door defied his hand. What then are these? 
 Insult from Him ? he cried. Then Astrof el, 
 The mystery of His Godhead would st thou seize? 
 
 "So I, the Self, this terror-stricken lord 
 Of earth who is afraid to meet his God, 
 Upon th Eternal Sword would lay a hand, 
 And would compel th Almighty s final Word. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Forever vanished now the great god Fear ; 
 Released his captives, to the daylight-cheer. 
 Gone too, the little gods of fretting creeds ; 
 But Love remains and God is there is here. 
 
 "I see men perjured, mad with lust of fame; 
 I see them reeking with the gutter s shame. 
 Behold! they rise and call upon God s name; 
 For Fear lives not, but Love with eyes of flame." 
 
[18] 
 
 XIX 
 
 O Love, our refuge in earth s wildest storm ! 
 O Service, life-breath of a heart that s warm ! 
 A dual-unity, of heaven born ; 
 For love is service in its highest form. 
 
 Flame-tints that shimmer on the desert air! 
 Love-lights that make Life s sands a garden fair, 
 Where joy and pain sing softly to the soul 
 That God in man is Love in human care. 
 
Songs by the Way 
 
 [From "Francisco, Reina and Other Poems "; 
 
 A. M. Robertson, San Francisco 
 
 1912] 
 
Spirit of God that fills eternal space, 
 Somewhere ivithin the regions of thy grace 
 
 Must lurk the beauty that I seek. 
 
 Strengthen the vision that is weak; 
 Flow through my opened mind and leave its trace: 
 Aye, fill me with it in my humble place. 
 
[21] 
 
 The Procession of the Dumb 
 
 In deep thought-watches with the Night, a host 
 
 Passed by; a noiseless host, still souls, 
 
 Each brow embrand with pain; of thwarted lives 
 
 A dire processional. " Father of all, 
 
 These, too, are thine?" 
 
 And thus the prophet Night : 
 "Thou watcher by the gates of the unknown, 
 Dumb in the strife for immortality 
 Thy fellows seek a voice for their mute woe. 
 And these passed on and on, the hapless ones 
 Ill-shaped from stress of bodies ill-begot ; 
 In thrall of deathless circumstance, a crowd 
 To whom ideals are but a dream of pain; 
 And with them those, dead-lustred of the eye, 
 darkest spirits, they who have no dreams. 
 
 Came tearless mourners here, their all in one 
 Too dainty bit of clay, or tiny hand 
 Uptossing to their arms ; supreme of woe, 
 That their wide eyes are dry. And I for them 
 Must weep the speech of tears? Came lovers cold, 
 Who shivered at love s limitations found. 
 And they, the worshipful, who saw no God 
 Of joy in their unariswering skies. 
 
 train 
 
 Most pitiful, the artists of unskill! 
 The colorist to whom in mockery 
 Light s pageantries appear! The sculptor s touch 
 Which gives no marble breath ; the artisan 
 Whose fingers find no thought ! The voiceless songs ! 
 Benumbed of throat and hand, their lyres unstrung, 
 The poet souls that know not words delight, 
 
22 
 
 Ah, who shall tell the ecstasy of pain 
 That sleeps at last, its songs unsung? 
 
 And lo ! 
 
 A crowd whose likeness men saw not and lived. 
 The uncrowned throng of the ambitious, these, 
 Who ever for the laurel pluck the bay. 
 Who, unanointed with the altar-chrism 
 Of genius, yet see visions come and go. 
 One bound of foot would walk ; one drags a stone ; 
 Together chained, some rage as galley slaves; 
 The palsied limbs would keep apace ; the hands 
 Close tied would hide a wound ; a deathless worm 
 One slays in vain. And all make shift to smile. 
 flameless candle and the empty dish ! 
 
 Thus poverty and tasks unfit and bonds 
 Unloved! Fair tastes denied, and all the train 
 Of appetites, of passions, and disease, 
 Had left on every brow the unhealed brand 
 Of shame or multitudinous sin, dread stamp 
 Of disappointed lives. 
 
 Again the Night: 
 
 " Singer from hill-top shrines, the mountain air 
 Of life bear in thy sweeping garments down, 
 So breath may be in this dead place. Sing thou 
 Of growth for all the stultified, that he 
 Vampire despair, is dead. The souls long blind 
 That dwelt in error s darkened house, look forth 
 From opened windows to the light. Behold, 
 Twin stars dispel low-scudding clouds ! Now shrinks 
 Dead fear and shrivels in the dawn. Lo, truth 
 And knowledge from their star-dust are as suns ! 
 
[23] 
 
 A final state the universe has not ; 
 
 Nor knows all space the wrecking words Too late. 
 
 "Aye, shout aloud that these earth-appetites, 
 Of body born, are not of soul. Yea, cry 
 The clarion call thy spirit hears : When these 
 Clay lanterns of the flesh shall fall away, 
 Shall into pieces fall, the smothered fire 
 In purer air shall burst to brighter flame 
 And burn anew as lit from God s own light. 
 
[24] 
 
 At Pompeii 
 
 In sunless depths of old Pompeian halls, 
 In pose of life among the pictured walls 
 
 Were human bodies found, unchanged in mold 
 Since Grace was shocked to stillness, meeting Death. 
 A ray, a motion of the new life s breath, 
 
 To dust they fell, a heap of ashes cold. 
 
 Within our hearts are secret crypts which hide 
 
 Grief -forms unchanged through years. They still abide 
 
 As things of life, these hopes and dreams long dead. 
 If but to-day s sharp lights were bravely thrown 
 Upon those figures time-enshrined and lone, 
 
 To naught would fall the shapes of sainted dread. 
 
[25] 
 Sonnet 
 
 High in a Roman tower where white doves feed, 
 An artist toils alone. The plastic clay 
 He molds with living touch from day to day, 
 
 Till love s own dream of love his fond eyes read. 
 
 In work-shops bare, the artisans with speed 
 
 Of cunning hands their life-trained chisels ply ; 
 The model fair before the watchful eye 
 
 They reproduce with earnest, patient heed. 
 
 The Master s life ! Ideal so fair and high 
 
 To grasp, we with the Master s thought must vie. 
 
 The workmen we with rude or skillful hand 
 
 From out the record marble, statues make. 
 
 Alas, if idle blows that beauty break 
 Which for eternity arid time must stand. 
 
[26] 
 
 Palestine 
 
 Land, a-stoop with penitential years, 
 Thou tragedy of treason to thy God, 
 Where Sons of Allah hold with foot unshod 
 
 The altar-place of Judah s fruitless tears! 
 
 Moriah s hill ! Blood-sacrifice of old 
 
 When David slew on Oman s threshing floor; 
 
 Where Abram s knife was lifted, long before 
 The mornings flushed thy temple s dome of gold. 
 
 Thou Zion walls where Jacob s children pray 
 
 Above the vaults which hid a nation s shame ! 
 Syrian sun, how canst thou bare thy flame ? 
 
 Weep, Israel, weep! Alas for Calvary s day! 
 
 Thou Nazareth, we wonder at thy dower, 
 
 Thou Olivet and Lebanon afar, 
 
 Meek Bethlehem that stayed the wandering star, 
 We re dumb before the mystery of thy power. 
 
 Gethsemane, with olive twilight dim, 
 
 We stand where Jesus held the cup of woe; 
 We feel the angel forms still come and go 
 
 Among the changeless trees that sheltered Him. 
 
 Garden which saw love s sacrificial birth, 
 
 Where olives, bent with thrice a thousand years, 
 Still droop above our sacrament of tears, 
 
 O God ! to kneel upon the self -same earth ! 
 
[27] 
 The Aspen 
 
 A Legend of Palestine 
 
 O Aspen, why shiver thus in affright? 
 
 Have your leaves from eternal penance no rest? 
 Did you bide so long on some eerie quest 
 That a terrified, uninvited guest 
 On earth you seem ? 
 Does memory dream 
 
 Of the houris whose eyes were jewels of light ? 
 Do you tremble in fear or in hidden delight ? 
 Aspen, why shiver thus in affright? 
 
 mortal, speak never lightly of me ; 
 I stood on Calvary s hillside when 
 He was pierced in the side by the Roman men, 
 And the high priests scoffed beneath. Since then 
 That cruel jeer 
 Forever I hear; 
 
 Forever His crimson blood I see; 
 Forever no peace to my heart can be; 
 brother, speak never lightly of me. 
 
[28] 
 God of the Human Heart* 
 
 "God of the Open Air!" God of the Human Heart! 
 On heights, though Thou art there, of sorrow Thou art 
 
 part. 
 
 God of the forest arch ! God of the altar-flame ! 
 Beneath the skies or groined roof, Thou art the same. 
 
 Be it cathedral choir or swinging bird 
 
 Thou hearest singing in Thy praise, 
 
 They bring unto Thine ear the same sweet word 
 
 From gargoyled tower or copse of bending sprays. 
 
 In busy streets where we are smallest part 
 
 Of currents gushing from the city s heart, 
 
 In dens or gilded crypts of crime, some spark 
 
 Of light I find, some thought, some hope, some mark 
 
 Of Thee, illuminating with Thy sweet control 
 
 Some secret impulse of a sin-stained soul. 
 
 In death throes of the hopes that fall 
 
 When we to earth our dreams of service fling, 
 
 In bitterness of joys that pall, 
 
 In fruitless Autumn from a blossoming Spring, 
 
 Though we be dumb with failures, Thou art there, 
 
 Bringing life-buoyance of the open air. 
 
 In sickness when the pulse is low with midnight chill, 
 And death-moths flutter round the candle s flare, 
 Thou walkest softly on the night, and lo ! the thrill 
 Of life is in the light which follows where 
 Thy footsteps make our dawn, "God of the Open Air." 
 
 *With acknowledgments to Mr. Henry Van Dyke s poem, 
 "God of the Open Air." 
 
[29] 
 
 The Bronze Buddha 
 
 On the lotus blossom the Buddha is sitting, 
 
 With the cobra s hood on his head; 
 The sun and the moon behind him enfigured 
 
 In a bronze of gold and of red. 
 For the half of a thousand years he had sat there 
 
 When the Bethlehem hymn was sung ; 
 To Nirvana s passionless peace he was passing 
 
 When the Christ-Child s anthem rung. 
 
 On his forehead the spot of the chosen immortal, 
 
 Kevered as the seal divine ; 
 Ample-lipped is his mouth, but no human emotion 
 
 Breaks the fullness of curving line. 
 And narrow his eyes, but life-shot, and gazing 
 
 With a haunting calm to your own ; 
 On his lap the folded fingers are lying, 
 
 The labors of man to them unknown. 
 
 And the nerveless type of a dream he embodies, 
 
 The inertia of unpulsed soul ; 
 But a mystery vast as the years immemorial 
 
 Which into the silence roll. 
 And illusions as subtle as orient attars 
 
 Across the lulled senses creep, 
 Till my spirit is weighted with aeons and asons 
 
 Of stillness and dreamless sleep. 
 
[30] 
 
 The Song of To-day 
 
 The singers sing not the sweet songs to-day, 
 Their eyes are dull and their hearts are old ; 
 
 The butterfly s pastel wing is grey, 
 
 The altars are dumb and the lyrics are cold. 
 
 Then whither away has Poesy fled ? 
 
 She roams not the tinted depths of space, 
 The Pleiad crown she has cast from her head : 
 
 Where shall we, the desolate, find her place? 
 
 Go down to the room of the panting steam; 
 
 She looks in the face of the fluent steel, 
 And sweeter to her than Sappho s dream 
 
 Are the purring band and the humming wheel. 
 
 Tis the song of throttles and rivets and bonds, 
 The song of an age of inventive might : 
 
 The song of the man who sings with his hands 
 The poem God whispered to him in the night. 
 
 She has caught the flash from the era s brain, 
 She smiles at the soot on her folded wings ; 
 
 She has struck the key to the world s refrain, 
 Lo, Matter is crowned and sits with the kings ! 
 
[31] 
 A Nubian Lion 
 
 Monarch dethroned, with eyes where smouldering fires 
 Seem ever bursting into memory, 
 Whose brows are but captivity s despair, 
 What tragedy of other life has left 
 Such majesty upon thy wrinkled front? 
 
 Why plungest at thy cage? Dost see thy foes, 
 Princes who smote thy sires in Babylon 
 Or in Persepolis? Thou art avenged; 
 Thine ancestors have cast for centuries 
 Their moonlight silhouettes upon the floors 
 And peristyles of their dead palaces. 
 
 Thou criest from thy sleep ; dost hear in dreams 
 The priestess maidens singing by the Nile ? 
 Does their low chant drive thy dumb being mad 
 With memory of life in Philaa s groves? 
 
 Whose entity thus paces to and fro? 
 
 Does Alexander pant for worlds? Thy roar, 
 
 Is it some Caasar s fury at duress? 
 
 In thy dun hide, does he of Marathon 
 
 Brood in thy sullen wrath? Thy whimpering whine? 
 
 Is Xerxes weeping still for Salamis? 
 
 Their peoples are as naught while thou? Thy race 
 
 Is yet the jungle s prince ; the desert s king. 
 
 But what is heritage to thee in chains? 
 And what to thee is aught save liberty 
 And the wild smell of hidden lairs, where calls 
 Thy lonely mate across the Nubian night? 
 
32 
 
 Know this, thou prince of Pers or priest of Nile, 
 In bondage and revolt thou rt not alone. 
 O fellow captive, rest ! Perhaps for us, 
 For thee and me, may wait still other forms; 
 With kings we yet may walk among the stars. 
 
[33] 
 
 Sonnet 
 
 What owe I to my sister of the poor ? 
 
 Or to my brother with blood-dripping hands? 
 
 To him the golden largess of fair lands? 
 To her the gauze and girdled gems allure? 
 Or shall I from God s mountain summits pure 
 
 Bend down with pity of His love divine 
 
 But still as largess from some far off shrine 
 To heal the bruises which to life innure? 
 
 Nay, nay ; a brotherhood that knows its own, 
 Which passing, calls in no uncertain tone, 
 While it extends the even hand of friend, 
 "Hail, comrade hail! We fare the self -same way; 
 Come, let us walk together for the day; 
 Together we may find the wished-f or end. 
 
[34] 
 
 The Song of a Christian Sojourner in 
 America in the Twentieth Century* 
 
 If Christ be God, I Him adore; 
 If Christ be man, I love Him more; 
 God-gotten One of heavenly fame, 
 Or Mary s son without a name; 
 Messiah, King, or Nazarene, 
 To me the same all titles mean; 
 Still at His feet my all I lay, 
 In life or death, I m His alway; 
 Nor Sin nor Hell shall come between. 
 
 *With acknowledgments to Richard Watson Gilder and his 
 poem, "The Song- of a Heathen Sojourner in Galilee A. D. 32," 
 which follows: 
 
 "If Jesus Christ is a man, 
 
 "And only a man, I say 
 "That of all mankind I cleave to him, 
 
 "And to him will I cleave alway. 
 
 "If Jesus Christ is a God, 
 
 "And the only God, I swear 
 "I will follow him through heaven and hell, 
 
 "The earth, the sea, and the air." 
 
[35] 
 
 Patmos 
 
 O Patmos! Island of the visioned skies, 
 Where John beheld the wonders of the Sevens,- 
 The thunders, trumpets, and the vials of wrath 
 Poured out: the awful star-way of their path 
 To earth, from mysteries beyond the heavens! 
 spread for us those fields of Paradise ! 
 
[36] 
 
 To"H. H." 
 
 Helen Hunt Jackson, author of Eamona. 
 
 Her art, though beaten gold it lies, 
 Her words atint with nature s dyes, 
 Her deepest thought, the under flow 
 Of ocean-silences below: 
 Twas not for these we loved her so. 
 
 Not even for the gentle grace 
 
 That followed her in homeward place 
 
 As perfume does a swaying flower; 
 
 Not for her kindness gracious dower; 
 
 Not for the magic of her glance, 
 
 When beauty s glint made sudden trance; 
 
 Nor her quick ear for nature s cry, 
 
 From "Hedge-row things" to human sigh; 
 
 Not for her courage in the face 
 
 Of death, when with a royal grace, 
 
 As kings unto their equals yield 
 
 A sword well worn on worthy field, 
 
 She gave her body to the hand 
 
 Which holds the Maker s last command. 
 
 "How she loved us": her voice we hear. 
 "It was for this she was so dear" 
 Her words a flower upon her bier. 
 
[37] 
 
 On Presentation of a Loving Cup to the 
 Former Regent,* Mrs. Ashburner 
 
 Sister, by many acts endeared, 
 As Daughters of a Cause revered 
 Which held our sires in strongest band 
 This cup we offer to your hand. 
 Sweeter than garlands on its rim, 
 Glowing like wine within its brim, 
 The sentiments from every soul 
 Shall make of it a flowing bowl. 
 Flowing and full it comes to you, 
 Flowing with love which years renew, 
 Love of the Cause which made sublime 
 The conflicts of our fathers time ; 
 And may this Cause of human kind 
 Our hearts as theirs, forever bind. 
 
 *Sequoia Chapter, D. A. R., San Francisco, January 9, 1905. 
 
[38] 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 Mrs. Jane Lathrop Stanford and Mrs. Ellen Mason Colton 
 Sequoia Chapter, D. A. R.* 
 
 True builders of the state were they, 
 The sisters whom we mourn to-day ; 
 Builders who laid foundations wide 
 In homes, the state s defense and pride; 
 In homes whence high ideals might flow, 
 Quickening all life to brighter glow ; 
 Builders who laid foundations deep 
 In works which still their purpose keep ; 
 In works for public weal outwrought, 
 Rich in the fruits of anxious thought, 
 Rich in the stores of wealth outpoured 
 For human good, a sacred hoard. 
 
 Such builders of the state were they 
 As were their fathers in the day 
 When this young nation made its own 
 Th Atlantic wilderness unknown. 
 On houseless shores these women stood 
 And wrought in faith of future good ; 
 True pioneers with steady tread, 
 When sacrifice was daily bread ; 
 Worthy their names to live beside 
 Their fathers who in service died. 
 Unto their ashes honor be 
 From every child of liberty. 
 Each daughter of Sequoia lays 
 Upon their names her meed of praise; 
 We reverence give unto their lives, 
 As toilers, friends as mothers, wives. 
 
 *San Francisco, March 1, 1905. 
 
[39] 
 
 In Her Studio* 
 
 Within her shadowed room, the hush 
 Of silence where erst was heard 
 The sweetness of the welcoming word ; 
 Upon the easel lies the brush 
 
 And hangs the palette bright, now dull and dry. 
 Her chair is empty, but the hands 
 Of skill have left their glowing trace 
 On canvas rich with many a place 
 Interpreted from far-off lands, 
 
 In tones like pastels from the orient sky. 
 
 Here pictured shrines of Philae s shore, 
 Here Karnak s sphinx and templed halls ; 
 The smooth-kissed stones of Zion s walls 
 Where Israel s sons their wails out-pour; 
 
 And here the sun-smit tombs of Judah s kings. 
 In cabinets of crusted bowls 
 Whose rose hues flush to life the clay, 
 Soft lights on tinted ivories play; 
 For hers was of those cosmic souls 
 
 Whose media lay in all material things. 
 
 *In memory of Susan Merrill Farnham; read before the 
 Sequoia Chapter of the D. A. R., April 19, 1908. 
 
[40] 
 
 To a Friendly Critic 
 
 Vision so high that I am dazzled in my sight 
 With searching for the ether s utmost star 
 That was not meant to cast its beam so far 
 
 As this small earth-bound range of semi-night! 
 
 Half blind, rejoicing in the awful height, 
 For me no lesser sun can ever shine. 
 But oh, to reach that height and make it mine ! 
 
 O God ! the beauty of that far-off light ! 
 
 The glimmered splendor of its slender ray 
 To twilight dim turns every nearer day; 
 
 When flashes its full glory on my eyes, 
 
 I faint upon the floor of paradise. 
 Better than love, better than life, a friend 
 Who will not let me choose ignoble end. 
 
[41] 
 
 Heart of a Rose 
 Heart of a Man 
 
 A flurry of snow on the heart of a rose ! 
 
 Ah me! Who knows 
 The chill that can strike to the heart of a rose? 
 
 On the heart of a man, a cruel tone! 
 
 Hast ever known 
 The thrust that can come from a cruel tone? 
 
 To the heart of the rose a sun-ray s gleam! 
 
 A smile s bright beam 
 To the heart of a man is a sun-ray s gleam. 
 
[42] 
 
 Sent With Regrets 
 
 Drink to me with a song, dear friends, 
 When lips on love-notes dwell, 
 And while the wine with music blends 
 Till lovely bosoms swell. 
 
 And when the feast is at its flow 
 And hearts are swinging free, 
 Then drink with love-light all aglow, 
 One sweet good night to me. 
 
[43] 
 
 A Choice 
 
 An angel stooped down from the hill-side; 
 
 He was holding a golden thread 
 All strung with the jewels of promise, 
 
 Just swaying above my head. 
 
 Of love there were blood red rubies, 
 And the pearls of peace were there. 
 
 As I reached for the gems in my rashness, 
 Spake a voice, " Beware, beware." 
 
 "But one canst thou choose," said the angel, 
 "Nor again shall I pass this way." 
 
 And I clasped a single treasure; 
 But it burnt with a changeless ray. 
 
 In my hand I gathered this jewel 
 That blazed beyond all compare; 
 
 And I laughed and I wept as I held it, 
 For the heart of a friend lay there. 
 
[44] 
 
 Grievance 
 
 One time I grieved; I shivered as in fright 
 At cold words spoke by love s usurped right. 
 To me all trembling, spake the faithful Night: 
 "Why grieve that Love in ardor spake so stern; 
 The purest flame may in its white heat burn; 
 Not in your wrath, God s noblest blessing spurn." 
 
[45] 
 
 The Soul of a Kiss 
 
 Just the breath of a kiss that passed and vanished, 
 
 Like a sunbeam stolen away, 
 But the soul of a kiss to lips that were famished 
 
 For its life that lives for aye. 
 
 Somewhere in the reach of the vast eternal, 
 
 The soul of that kiss again 
 Will call to me from the heights supernal 
 
 With its solemn, sweet Amen. 
 
 And my soul shall answer softly, 
 
 Softly and low of tone; 
 No height nor depth nor ages 
 
 But my soul shall know its own. 
 
[46] 
 
 "Men Kiss and Ride Away" 
 
 While yet in maidens throats the chords are swelling, 
 
 Men ride away. 
 While yet within their hearts the song is welling, 
 
 Men ride away. 
 
 From stirrup-cups with hasty love-foam rimming, 
 From lips that pout with kisses still a-brimming, 
 Men ride away. 
 
 With love-tones on the riders lips still ringing, 
 Their horses hoof -notes to the music swinging, 
 Men ride away. 
 
 From eyes that woke at love s too tender pleading, 
 
 Men ride away. 
 From hearts where love a-faint lies dumb and bleeding, 
 
 Men ride away. 
 
[47] 
 
 The Child in the Heart 
 
 There s a child in my heart that sings and sings, 
 life is love and life is fair;" 
 When my heart has peace and the spirit has wings, 
 Then I know that the child is singing there. 
 
 When the restless, midnight vigils I keep, 
 And suffer for trifles which pass away, 
 I know that the child in my heart is asleep. 
 Ah me! Will it wake another day? 
 
 When I fret at the burden of hourly strife, 
 I know that the child from my soul has fled. 
 Woe is me for the joy that is lost to my life, 
 If ever the child in my heart be dead ! 
 
[48] 
 
 w Love May Not Sing Again " 
 
 Love may not sing again ! Awake, awake, 
 
 My heart, and one more draught of rapture take ; 
 
 Quaff deep while to your lip the joy is pressed ; 
 Drink, drink before the golden bowl shall break. 
 
 It is a god would sup with you to-night; 
 
 Lose not in dreams his forehead s visioned sight. 
 
 Not vain upon your threshold poured his wine, 
 It would to an immortal feast invite. 
 
 Heart awake! Too soon Love s song is passed; 
 Too soon his goblet to the ground is cast; 
 
 An instant lost, remains the desert waste, 
 Nor tears, nor blood, nor prayers recall the last. 
 
 Awake, awake! Love may not sing again; 
 Not every day within your spirit s ken 
 
 You ll hear the wizard voice of Love s delight: 
 O Soul! Lift up and cry "Amen, Amen." 
 
[49] 
 If Love Were All 
 
 If love were all, the way were fair. 
 
 Love reads its own by surest signs; 
 
 But life slips in between the lines 
 Its elegies of carp and care. 
 
 Comes policy with narrowed eye, 
 
 And Friendship masked in Duty s smile; 
 
 Their sophistries the heart beguile. 
 Love be brave ; the world defy ! 
 
 song of love the sky-lark s call! 
 O light that pales the morning star, 
 And makes a heaven look dim and far! 
 
 O halcyon days, if love were all. 
 
[50] 
 Love Is Dead 
 
 A form across my threshold lies; 
 The light has fled from its dull eyes; 
 Is that what means this pulse of pain? 
 That Love, by its own hand, lies slain, 
 The only way Love ever dies. 
 
[51] 
 Dead Love 
 
 Of all that s cold in Arctic skies, 
 Of all that s dead in mother-earth, 
 There s naught so cold as love that dies; 
 Nor dead as love that once had birth. 
 
[52] 
 Truth 
 
 "What then is truth?" Twas Pilate s jeer, 
 This greatest question of all time. 
 And centuries would pause to hear 
 The answer to the Roman s sneer, 
 This greatest question of all time. 
 
[53] 
 Truth 
 
 A jewel hidden in the depths, 
 
 A star adrift in space; 
 Then laugh the gods that mortal man 
 
 Should think to know his place. 
 
[54] 
 
 Vita Brevis 
 
 Unless as part of some great thought, 
 
 Why struggle on? 
 
 Our single roles are far too short; 
 
 And life is done, 
 
 Work just begun. 
 
[55] 
 Love s Divination 
 
 For love alone must conquer doubt; 
 
 Reason in vain may flout 
 
 Her cause, effect and sequence fine; 
 
 Our hearts the voice must hear, 
 
 And only love s own ear 
 
 Truth s finest cadence may divine. 
 
[56] 
 
 De Profundis 
 
 My Soul! 
 
 Can this as truth abide, 
 
 That in the light which beamed 
 
 From riven tomb and manger-altar side 
 
 I have but dreamed? 
 
 Alas! 
 
 Was there no Holy Child 
 
 In Bethlehem s stable born? 
 
 No sacrifice on Calvary s dark hillside, 
 
 Nor Easter morn? 
 
 Awake ! 
 
 God of our fathers, speak; 
 
 Savior long-promised, come! 
 
 Where shall we find the truth our spirits seek, 
 
 If thou art dumb? 
 
 Behold! 
 
 Nature flows on apace, 
 
 Unchanged and undisturbed; 
 
 Science reveals each year a nobler grace; 
 
 From Thee, no word. 
 
 A-f aint ! 
 
 We stagger towards the end; 
 
 A close-locked door we meet; 
 
 Father," we call Thee, but we find no friend. 
 
 wandering feet! 
 
 Woe ! Woe ! 
 
 Passed is the faith of yore; 
 
 Our graves yawn very nigh; 
 
 And like the millions who have loved before, 
 
 We only die. 
 
[57] 
 
 The Gift 
 
 Because I cannot speak the word 
 
 The greatest human lips have known; 
 
 Because my ear may not have heard 
 The mightiest of God s thunder-tone; 
 
 Because I could not probe the heart 
 
 To depths which God alone should see, 
 
 I have despised the humbler part 
 With which the Master trusted me. 
 
 bastard gifts of unknown birth! 
 
 soul that cannot read the skies! 
 Avaunt thy offerings, little worth! 
 
 Deaf ears accursed and blinded eyes! 
 
[58] 
 
 Sleep 
 
 To sleep ! To float upon a dreamless wave ! 
 To feel the wind-swept senses softly close 
 Their portals from the currents of the day! 
 Delicious languor of the drooping lids! 
 A healing darkness on the aching eyes, 
 When sounds become but dying cadences 
 Which murmur into wooing silences; 
 The soft sweet wonder of forgetfulness 
 That creeps with its narcotic on each nerve: 
 Then slips the soul her anchor from all thought; 
 On each receding tide of consciousness, 
 She drifts away upon oblivion s sea, 
 Far out to calm upon the ocean s night. 
 
[59] 
 Peace 
 
 Peace! Is it the dull 
 
 Low ache that follows in the lull 
 
 Of pain? Is it the sob 
 
 Of waning senses when the startled throb 
 
 Of passion s pulse has passed? Is it the glow 
 
 Of sorrow s aftermath? Or yet the slow 
 
 Benumbing torpor of too satisfied desire? 
 
 Or is it hearth-stone vesper by the fire? 
 
 Is it the Autumn fruitage, or the thrill 
 Of promise in the opening bud of Spring? 
 Is it the folded or the spreading wing? 
 Or is it yet the pliant will 
 To suffer and be still? 
 
 Nay, it is none of these, I know. 
 
 What is it thus I seek, turned to and fro? 
 
 It flees me like the holy grail 
 
 That vanished over hill and mere and vale. 
 
 And faint as hymning of the angel forms which bore 
 
 That jewel-cup forever on before, 
 
 There comes a voice: Let wandering cease; 
 
 In thine own place, thy soul shall find its peace." 
 
[60] 
 
 The "Reproaches" 
 
 "0, my people! why my sorrow hanging on the bitter 
 
 tree? 
 Why for all the gain I wrought ye, gave ye but such 
 
 pain to me? 
 
 " Though I flayed the pride of Egypt, scourged ye me 
 
 with cruel rod; 
 Though I slew her first-born for thee, fell my blood 
 
 on Calvary s sod; 
 
 "For the fiery pillars standing behind ye at Egypt s 
 
 sea, 
 Pillar of the flagellation, 0, my children ! gave ye me ; 
 
 "Led I ye from your tormentors, gave ye me unto my 
 
 foe; 
 Though I gave ye mighty sceptre, crown of thorns 
 
 mocked my great woe; 
 
 "Though in deserts with sweet fountains and white 
 
 manna ye I fed, 
 Vinegar unto my thirst ye gave when faintness bowed 
 
 my head." 
 
[61] 
 
 Easter 
 
 O soul, be still! Scourge not thyself with doubt. 
 
 Tear not thy little life about 
 
 With fever of a baffling quest 
 
 For what the angels seek, thou temporary guest. 
 
 Even as thou, the primal man was dumb 
 When from dead husks he saw new beauty come, 
 And when from nerveless grubby things, 
 The while he looked, bright crumpled wings 
 Burst forth in haste to meet the sun. Not thou 
 To-day hast more with thy demanding brow 
 Of this earth-mystery of life from death, 
 This master-question of creation s breath, 
 When out of seeming death unfold 
 New lives more fair than were the old. 
 
 Go read the life-bloom scattered wide 
 
 On hill and field at Easter-tide. 
 
 From death comes life, the wonder-promise spread 
 
 For man before he had his stranger-being read. 
 
 And when my heart is with the silent band, 
 And thou for mine shalt lift another hand, 
 Thou 11 see new roses from each winter dead 
 In garlands wreathed about some maiden s head, 
 Their petals tinted from the petals shed. 
 
 Each Spring-time answers to thy riddle-making strife, 
 "Recurrent resurrection is eternal life." 
 
[62] 
 
 The Call 
 
 And God said "Come"; and all 
 
 The rose leaves fell to earth, 
 And sorrow s smothering pall 
 
 Hushed every sound of mirth; 
 
 Then the stars went out by night, 
 And the sun grew dim by day, 
 
 For the souls that I loved, from my sight 
 Had fled away and away. 
 
 In the realm where I may not follow 
 Though I stand on the border land 
 
 They re safe in the sacred hollow 
 Of His dear overshadowing hand. 
 
 But as they passed on they threw me 
 A smile so aglow with heaven s light, 
 
 That from my despair it might woo me 
 And glorify all my night. 
 
 Though I walk through strange dark places 
 While I wait for the coming day, 
 
 I know that their radiant faces 
 Are not so far away, 
 
 For I feel the effulgent glory 
 
 Of that smile when I watch in the night, 
 Like a benison pure and holy 
 
 Turning all my gloom to light. 
 
[63] 
 Transition 
 
 O lay again thy hand in mine, 
 The day is done; 
 
 say again all joys divine 
 And earthly from my eyelids shine. 
 
 The sands are run. 
 
 1 see the gleam of some far land 
 
 Where bright ones dwell; 
 Like presence of that angel-band, 
 I hear thy voice and feel thy hand. 
 
 Dear heart, farewell. 
 
 Love will not die but grow more fair 
 
 When earth is gone; 
 As I pass hence, I know not where, 
 Speak on dear voice through ambient air 
 And be one tone familiar there. 
 
 Dear voice, speak on. 
 
[64] 
 
 Stabat Mater 
 
 Thou Mournful Mother, standing by the cross with 
 
 eyes uplift 
 Where thy stricken Son was hanging when doubt s 
 
 sword thine own heart rift! 
 
 Vain man s cry of Stabat Mater, wailing down the 
 
 mournful years, 
 To rehearse thy living anguish and the meaning of 
 
 thy tears; 
 
 If on earth one knew thy woe, some mother like thy 
 self twould be, 
 
 Wrung by pangs for which twere vain to seek words 
 idle pageantry. 
 
 Such with pain transfixed stand as thou beside the 
 
 struggling clay, 
 Dumb and lifting helpless hands in heritage of Eden s 
 
 day. 
 
 And to these thou showest near the might of thy 
 
 stupendous pain 
 Woe supremest save the cry that rent the temple s veil 
 
 in twain. 
 
 Such alone the fiery baptism which may give thy grief 
 
 to know, 
 Thou who art the ideal Mother sacred to earth s 
 
 holiest woe. 
 
 Lovely type of purest sorrow! Solitude thy fitting 
 
 shrine, 
 For the giddy world has nothing for an anguish such 
 
 as thine. 
 
65 ] 
 
 And thy face with woe transfigured tells from altars 
 
 grand or rude, 
 How a mother s pain may be a soul s sublime 
 
 beatitude. 
 
[66] 
 
 A Good Friday Devotion 
 
 (Written during service, April, 1909.) 
 
 Lo, even now, the sky s far rim, 
 
 By seraphs flecked and full of song; 
 Darkness and silence were not long; 
 
 The end of woe has come for Him. 
 
 O Mother! Look unto the dawn; 
 
 Draw out the sword that pierced thy heart; 
 
 He has fulfilled the cruel part; 
 Forever more tis Easter Morn. 
 
[67] 
 
 .,f 
 
 The Mater Pia 
 
 Softly the fading moon dies in the sky; 
 Softly sigh night winds their sweet lullaby; 
 Star-eyes of angels are watching with me, 
 Lullaby, lullaby, God is with thee. 
 
 O Babe, a tear-drop in thy sleep ! 
 
 Israel s wayward, lagging feet! 
 Why linger thy Messiah to greet? 
 
 Rachel, do mothers always weep? 
 
 What mean this transport and this pain? 
 God of my sires, across my sight 
 A vision drifts of storm and light, 
 
 A flaming crown, a victim slain. 
 
 Sleep on, sweet Babe; awhile to me 
 Is given to hush thy human cry; 
 
 1 worship with the lullaby, 
 And give the reverent breast to thee. 
 
 Softly the fading moon dies in the sky; 
 Softly sigh night winds their sweet lullaby ; 
 Star-eyes of angels are watching with me, 
 Lullaby, lullaby, God is with thee. 
 
[70] 
 
 Farther Shores 
 
 Their ships sailed on sailed on; was left 
 
 My bark to struggle with the storm; 
 And of their beckoning smiles bereft, 
 
 I sat till twilight wrapped my form. 
 And still I sail and sail mid stress 
 
 Of seas and change of day and night; 
 Though tossed upon the waves distress, 
 
 Somehow I glide into the light. 
 
 I know not how the skies grow clear, 
 
 Nor do I see the guiding hand, 
 As midst the changing floods I steer, 
 
 My eyes upon a distant band 
 Of light that shows a nearing shore. 
 
 I think it is the gleam of day, 
 Where they await me evermore 
 
 Whose ships sailed on and far away. 
 
71 
 
 In Bondage 
 
 Better than I thou Lord dost know 
 The heart beneath this crust of earth, 
 The trammels of the fleshly birth, 
 The clay which crowds and binds us so. 
 
 This strong-weak body from my soul 
 Importunate its will demands; 
 And scarce the service of my hands 
 Can its infirmities control. 
 
 Thou knowest all the winged thought 
 Which panting, bound, would fly to Thee. 
 Accept the worship that would be, 
 And which in washing, still is wrought. 
 
[72] 
 
 The Waiting Note* 
 
 In the full celestial chorus 
 
 Lacks one strain that waits for me, 
 Note of that immortal measure 
 
 From earth s death-note ever free. 
 May I with my heart s own spirit 
 
 Catch that harmony divine; 
 Strike the chord with tone unerring, 
 
 Knowing it as only mine. 
 
 Mine with not a broken cadence; 
 
 Mine for God s eternal chime, 
 Keyed to heavenly diapason 
 
 When the worlds He swung in time; 
 In majestic majors swelling, 
 
 Mine where men and angels meet, 
 And the spheres in grand crescendo 
 
 Lay their worship at His feet. 
 
 *Dedicated to President Susan L. Mills of Mills College and 
 sung by the surpliced choir of young lady students at the 
 celebration of her eighty-fifth birthday. 
 
[73] 
 
 A Rustic Bridge 
 
 A rustic bridge; the copse at dawn 
 Adrip with sweetness of the night; 
 From out the reaches of the lawn, 
 A lark rose up beyond my sight. 
 The air was quivering with his song s wild lay 
 That shook and sparkled in the sunbeam s ray. 
 
 I hear across the chasmed years 
 The buoyance of that song to-day; 
 Hast thou the note dispelling tears, 
 To leave when thou art far away? 
 
 Yea soul, love s word can thrill from planets far; 
 
 God s love can ring from star to utmost star. 
 
[74] 
 Vespers 
 
 Though I be old, alone, and dying fast, 
 Weary of limb, infirm of step and slow, 
 Before my darkened eyes fair visions go: 
 
 Just now I heard the angels as they passed. 
 
 Thou eager Soul, canst bear with lagging Death 
 For yet awhile, as Day endures the Night? 
 Keep clear thy vision for the inner sight, 
 
 And our new form shall have immortal breath. 
 
 I feel thee flutter with the life to be, 
 
 Soul, as thou would st try thy fledging wings. 
 
 Be still! Hush thou thine ear for farther things! 
 Not long this fading form will hinder thee. 
 
[75] 
 L Envoi 
 
 Deep heart of love where never sound is heard, 
 Beneath the wash and wave of any word, 
 From out our vision shut the earthly day 
 And we shall see God s ocean gardens sway, 
 
 Fair lives cut off in promise of their flower; 
 
 Beauty in bud; manhood despoiled of power; 
 And there, into immortal beauty grown, 
 Loves which on earth were but in shadow thrown. 
 
Songs of the Pacific 
 
 [From "Francisco, Reina and Other Poems 
 A. M. Robertson, San Francisco 
 1912] 
 
[79] 
 
 California s Hymn 
 
 Before us lie the seas which bring the east unto the west ; 
 
 The oriental Sphinx has bared the secrets of her breast, 
 
 And calls on us for answer to her riddles all unguessed 
 
 Since stars went rolling on. 
 
 Half -blinded with the gold dust from our smitten moun 
 tain coves, 
 
 For years we wandered dreaming in our fig and orange 
 groves, 
 
 While the placers of our wheat fields gleamed with 
 golden treasure-troves, 
 
 And we went gaily on. 
 
 Garden- valley ed are our hillsides softest hand that 
 
 gloves the steel 
 But the will is rock beneath them for our country s 
 
 righteous weal; 
 Our heritage of birthright we will guard with deathless 
 
 zeal, 
 
 As the peoples go marching on. 
 
 For our children s souls shall answer with a spark of 
 
 holy fire 
 
 When smitten on the anvil of a pure and bold desire, 
 Till the blows become the key-note of the world s advanc 
 ing choir, 
 
 As the future goes marching on. 
 
[80] 
 
 The California Eschscholtzia 
 
 The orange hue of the rainbow 
 
 Is not so deep as thine ; 
 More rich than a golden goblet 
 
 Influshing with sun-lit wine. 
 
 On its calyx of pink thy corolla 
 Catches sheen from the passing sun, 
 
 As if powder of pearls were dusted 
 And gleamed thy soft gold upon. 
 
 Of a truth, the dainty fay-maidens 
 Must have crimped thine edge so thin 
 
 Alike to some fairyland pattern, 
 On thy stamen for golden pin. 
 
 Deep down in the cup of thy petals 
 One spot of a purple stain, 
 
 Where the elves forgot in their revels 
 The last bright drop to drain. 
 
 As the scintillant dust of amber 
 In the sun does thy pollen shine ; 
 
 Such powder Queen Mab might covet 
 To burnish her locks divine. 
 
 At dusk thou modestly closest 
 Thy petals with jealous fold; 
 
 All night thou cosily sleepest 
 In a tent of the cloth of gold. 
 
[81] 
 
 A Stanford Hymn* 
 
 Against the night, the skies disclose 
 Their beauty shadow-fraught ; 
 
 From out the night, a star arose; 
 Through sorrow, gleamed a thought. 
 
 But for the grief which sat by death, 
 And dreamed its dream alone, 
 
 Our Alma ne er had felt God s breath 
 Turning to life the stone, 
 
 God s breath of love, to purpose warm 
 
 Transmuting human loss ; 
 Revealing life s ideal form 
 
 To those beneath the cross. 
 
 Stanford, look unto the height! 
 
 Athene-like, thy youth ! 
 Led by thy star, seek thou thy might 
 
 In time s advancing truth! 
 
 *Written for the Stanford Annual, THE QUAD, 1904. 
 
[82] 
 
 A Consecration for a Non-Sectarian 
 Church* 
 
 Before this new-made altar, Lord, 
 
 Passions and cavilings we lay, 
 
 All prejudices which would stay 
 
 Our spirits from a sweet accord 
 
 With love, that love which wrought man s good, 
 
 Not in the controversial creeds, 
 
 But shone, by serving daily needs, 
 
 Divine in human brotherhood. 
 
 O sweet home-love ! This love divine, 
 Interpreting with sorrow s art, 
 How hast thou, on a broken heart, 
 Upreared the spirit s sacred shrine, 
 That other souls may reach the height 
 Of temples builded without hand, 
 Wherein eternal law shall stand 
 And God himself shall be the light. 
 
 *At the dedication of the Memorial Church, Stanford 
 University, January 25, 1903. 
 
[83] 
 
 The Song of the Colorado River* 
 
 To my own again in the Salton Sea, 
 
 As the Indians sagas of old have said, 
 When times and a time of my exile shall be, 
 
 I will leap again from my rock-bound bed. 
 
 For ages that deep dry sea was mine, 
 
 For me she unbarred her ocean gates ; 
 And forever my sea shells and corallines shine 
 
 On her brow, uncrowned by the envious fates. 
 
 How that land was fair when I lay on her breast 
 With verbenas aflame and green with the palms ! 
 
 Ten thousand ages of beauty and rest 
 
 In the glow of her bloom and her passionate charms ! 
 
 But a jealous Titan earthward bent, 
 
 And the rocks he smote both far and wide ; 
 
 I slipped from her arms through the mountain rent; 
 Ah, then on her forehead the garlands died. 
 
 For a3ons she lay with her sands unsought; 
 
 I was chafing and bound in my narrow bed ; 
 But the times and a time their days have wrought, 
 
 And I come again as the sagas have said. 
 
 Though again I be bound I will come from afar, 
 To the sea and the land of my heart s desire; 
 
 My gates of rock I will thrust ajar, 
 
 For the Indian sagas are written in fire. 
 
 "The Indians of the South have a tradition that the 
 Colorado River first went through the Indio basin to the Gulf, 
 and that the miles of desert which now lie so far below the 
 sea level were lake, and that the whole country was most fertile 
 and had a mild climate. They also have a legend that the 
 river will surely return to its old bed from which it was turned 
 by a comparatively recent convulsion of nature. When the 
 late break in the banks of the Colorado made the Salton Sea, 
 there was great rejoicing among them, since, according to the 
 legend, the return presaged great benefit to the natives. 
 
[84] 
 
 The Spirit of the Desert 
 
 An Indian rides across the plain ; 
 
 And crushed beneath his pony s tread 
 The alkali s white crystals shine; 
 
 Red wheels the sun high overhead. 
 
 Stolid of face and sombre-eyed; 
 
 His mustang s bridle trails aground ; 
 The sullen lassitude of heat, 
 
 Of smothering light, enfolds them round. 
 
 Hot hazes rise ; in shimmering veil, 
 The panting breath of parched earth, 
 
 Their silhouette grows dim; a speck 
 They fade into the desert-dearth. 
 
[85] 
 
 San Francisco Bay 
 
 Grandest bay! upon whose bosom navies of the world 
 
 might rest, 
 Gently boldest thou a mirror to the white gull s snowy 
 
 breast, 
 
 And thy deep arterial currents, drawn from ocean s 
 
 throbbing heart, 
 Bear as light the iron monster or the white skiff to thy 
 
 mart ; 
 
 Rainbows quiver neath thy surface; heaven repeats 
 
 itself below ; 
 As a spirit to a substance, softer there its colors glow. 
 
 Leagues to northward, leagues to southward, wanders 
 
 thy adventurous strand, 
 And thy sinuous arms extending gather wealth from all 
 
 the land; 
 
 Wide thy Golden Gate stands open to all nations of the 
 
 world ; 
 Free between its stately portals all flags are in peace 
 
 unfurled. 
 
 Beauteous Gate, when loitering sunset covers thee with 
 
 burnished gold ! 
 Mighty Gate, when surging ocean thy strong cliffs alone 
 
 withhold ! 
 
 Treach rous Gate, deceiving many with a name most fair 
 
 to see! 
 Blessed Gate, where millions find the golden boon of 
 
 liberty ! 
 
[86] 
 La Casa Grande 
 
 On the Grila s sun-burnt plain 
 Where naught but the mesquit grows, 
 And the fevered breath of the sullen simoon 
 From off the desert blows; 
 
 Where the earth s dry lips are athirst 
 And the Gila monsters crawl, 
 Stands a house of adobe alone and despoiled 
 By the years which scatter all. 
 
 The Indian as wrinkled and sere 
 As the leaf that rustles aground, 
 Has no legend-torch its grey depth to light, 
 And echo can find no sound. 
 
 No house of its kin on the plain; 
 Life refuses its brotherhood now; 
 Even Death has laid a reluctant hand 
 On La Casa Grande s brow. 
 
[87] 
 
 The Pacific 
 
 The monarch of waters! the giant Pacific! 
 
 How dwells he forever in kingly estate ! 
 One mighty hand grasping the Orient hoary, 
 
 The other wide-spanning the Golden Gate! 
 Far beyond the white cliffs of Thor and of Odin, 
 
 The centuries snows are a crown for his head ; 
 Borealis, his torch-bearer, lights his state chambers, 
 
 And the icebergs their flame-tinted canopies spread. 
 
 To his warm heart he presses his bride with her graces, 
 Low responses she gives through her forests deep 
 
 chimes 
 To his wooing, in softest tide-cadences uttered, 
 
 While their love-tale the minstrel wind bears to all 
 
 climes. 
 High lifts she aloft the gigantic Sequoia, 
 
 To catch on her brow the smile of his face ; 
 And the moons that are whitest and the suns that are 
 
 clearest 
 For ages have looked on their loving embrace. 
 
 California, bride of the princely Pacific ! 
 
 All proudly we gaze on the stores that are thine; 
 Not the gold that was torn from thy breast with thy 
 
 crying, 
 But a greater boon ask from thy treasures deep 
 
 mine 
 
 E en a throb from thy life when thy soul was awaking, 
 When the darkness was smitten ere dawned had the 
 
 day; 
 When the light of the cross with the sabre s flash 
 
 mingled, 
 And the chaos of change in thy morn rolled away. 
 
[88] 
 
 The Yukon s Song of the Gold 
 
 Lo! We are the waters that come from afar, 
 From the heart of the earth so young, so old, 
 Whose life-blood flows from the granite and spar, 
 The heart that lies under the northern star; 
 And we bring you the song of the ancient gold, 
 The waters song of the gold. 
 
 In the cavern-retorts of the master-smith Time, 
 It seethed in the heat and crumbled in cold; 
 When the forests uplifted their giant prime 
 And the saurians trailed through the ooze and slime, 
 He still was annealing the molten gold, 
 The unsunned and the nameless gold. 
 
 Ere Thor was a thought or Odin spoke, 
 The gleaming quartz into billows rolled; 
 Then eternal silence in echoes awoke, 
 When the billows uplifted to crags and broke 
 In the terrible song of the crashing gold, 
 The song of the grinding gold. 
 
 We scraped it down with the glaciers might 
 From cranny and crevice of mountain fold; 
 When the altar-flame of Auroral light 
 To a temple had turned the Arctic night, 
 Then the ether throbbed with our chant of the gold, 
 The psalm of our votive gold. 
 
 In the ice-dark caves our soul was stirred 
 As men called for our help in the canon s hold; 
 Deep under the glaciers our name we heard, 
 In the secret springs we leaped at the word; 
 We shouted and sung the wild song of the gold, 
 The song of our waiting gold. 
 
89 
 
 From the benches wash in the river-sluice 
 A primitive man scooped the shining mould; 
 But our pebbles have taught you the riffles use; 
 Rejoicing, we make you a play-day truce 
 To hunt from your sluice-box toys the gold, 
 Your trifle of captured gold. 
 
 Our strength we chain to their narrow bound, 
 But we scoff when you say we are bought and sold; 
 With a plunge and a flash, far below we are found 
 In the river our home; and the hills resound 
 With our fetterless song while you sweep up the gold, 
 While you gloat on the virgin gold. 
 
 When the pick on the river s bank is still 
 And men come not to the snow-lapped wold, 
 Then our song that was loosed at the primal thrill 
 Of chaos pulsed with the infinite Will, 
 Shall ring as at first through cafions of gold, 
 The canons of unsought gold. 
 
[90] 
 
 The Malamute Dog of Alaska 
 
 Thou, ruler and slave of the frozen plain! 
 Thou, Malamute dog with the voice of pain ! 
 Is it thine or a spirit s, that demon howl, 
 That snap and snarl, and whimpering growl 
 Which chills like the curse of the slain? 
 
 Thou wolf -faced thing with the jaws of steel 
 And the fangs that the blood-red lips reveal; 
 With appealing eyes which seem to entreat; 
 With thy thieving heart, and thy patient feet 
 For the trail where the snows congeal! 
 
 Thou wonder of blended good and ill! 
 What gives to thy tones that human thrill? 
 For war on the gods, condemned to thy form 
 Do vikings and dwarfs in the Arctic storm 
 Purgatorial penance fulfill? 
 
 Strange creature! Thy cry on the northern night 
 Wails forth beneath the Auroral light, 
 As if earth heard again, the wild shriek of her woe 
 When Odin s life-blood stained the halls of snow, 
 The snow-halls on Valhalla s height. 
 
On the Spanish Missions 
 in California 
 
 I Selections from" A California Pilgrimage": 
 
 Samuel Carson & Co., San Francisco 
 
 1884] 
 
[90] 
 
 The Malamute Dog of Alaska 
 
 Thou, ruler and slave of the frozen plain! 
 Thou, Malamute dog with the voice of pain ! 
 Is it thine or a spirit s, that demon howl, 
 That snap and snarl, and whimpering growl 
 Which chills like the curse of the slain? 
 
 Thou wolf -faced thing with the jaws of steel 
 And the fangs that the blood-red lips reveal; 
 With appealing eyes which seem to entreat; 
 With thy thieving heart, and thy patient feet 
 For the trail where the snows congeal! 
 
 Thou wonder of blended good and ill! 
 What gives to thy tones that human thrill? 
 For war on the gods, condemned to thy form 
 Do vikings and dwarfs in the Arctic storm 
 Purgatorial penance fulfill? 
 
 Strange creature! Thy cry on the northern night 
 Wails forth beneath the Auroral light, 
 As if earth heard again the wild shriek of her woe 
 When Odin s life-blood stained the halls of snow, 
 The snow-halls on Valhalla s height. 
 
On the Spanish Missions 
 in California 
 
 [ Selections from "A California Pilgrimage " : 
 
 Samuel Carson & Co., San Francisco 
 
 1884] 
 
/ questioned thus with the spirit: 
 
 "0, how can I do this thing? 
 The pattern is long and hard," I said, 
 
 "My thought but a slender string." 
 
 "0, faithless child," quoth the spirit, 
 "Begin but to weave, nor doubt; 
 
 While the other end of the skein we hold, 
 How can the thread give out?" 
 
[93] 
 Proem 
 
 Tells the cumbrous page historic how the Missions rose 
 
 and fell, 
 Founded by the Frays Franciscan long their souls in 
 
 heaven dwell ! 
 
 How in wretched caravels the padres came from 
 
 Mejico, 
 Churchly gifts and treasures bearing o er the long 
 
 waves dipping slow; 
 
 How when midst the dreary voyage storms hissed o er 
 
 the blackened sea, 
 Calm their Regina mingled with that fearful 
 
 minstrelsy. 
 
 Fair as vale of Andalusia to their ocean-weary eyes, 
 California spread her beauties neath a tent of cloud 
 less skies. 
 
 Eich as Spain s oft-chanted vecfas lay her valleys 
 
 undefiled, 
 And recalled their own Nevadas, white Sierras far and 
 
 wild. 
 
 To them seemed the mountain torrents, rushing down 
 
 the canons deep, 
 As loved Tagus or as Darro from Granada s rugged 
 
 steep. 
 
[94] 
 
 San Diego 
 
 In the College San Fernando, in the State of Mejico, 
 Hangs a canvas dim with shadows thrown a century 
 ago; 
 
 From it looks a monk Franciscan, in his order s robe 
 
 complete, 
 Cowled serge and hempen girdle falling to his sandaled 
 
 feet; 
 
 In his hand he holds a stone with which to beat his 
 
 naked breast; 
 Near him lie a skull and scourge, and stands the chalice 
 
 ever blessed; 
 
 Scintillant neath glowing faith, burns zeal as deathless 
 
 and as bright 
 As the fire on Aztec temples through a fervid tropic 
 
 night : 
 
 Such was Padre Serra preaching, as they say who 
 
 knew him well, 
 Fray Junipero whose labors now but ruined altars tell. 
 
 Serra thence all blindly wandered, dreaming not the 
 
 stores of fate, 
 O er the place which should be later by his brothers 
 
 consecrate ; 
 
 O er the land where Coronado and De Nic,a sought 
 
 in vain 
 For the seven-storied city the Quivira of the plain, 
 
95 
 
 Where the marigolds upspringing o er the hasty graves 
 
 should tell, 
 By a miracle of verdure, where the faithful friars fell; 
 
 Where procession of the murdered should pace o er 
 
 the blood-stained sand, 
 Each one bearing through night s darkness torch 
 
 flamboyant in his hand, 
 
 While before them cross majestic, borne by unseen ones 
 
 along, 
 Should cast such unearthly radiance on the chanting 
 
 white-robed throng, 
 
 They should seem as flaming spirits, purging desecrated 
 
 ground 
 With their versicles and incense, broken altars round 
 
 and round; 
 
 Till these pagans, sorely frighted at the phantom night 
 
 by night, 
 Should flee hasty leagues far southward from the weird 
 
 avenging sight. 
 
 Hence out-straying from his course to borders of the 
 desert-land, 
 
 Where the cacti and mesquit yet mingle with the drift 
 ing sand; 
 
 Where shrink from the dry lakes sand-choked, e en the 
 
 bitter streams away, 
 And dead craters, with their burnt lips, lap the red 
 
 sun s blasting ray; 
 
96 
 
 Still they toiled the hot earth o er, where sea-shells 
 
 gleamed on waves of sand; 
 Swept o er them the dread sirocco neath the fierce light 
 
 of that land. 
 
 Then with guile a strange mirage raised fevered moun 
 tains in their sight; 
 
 Rose such walls as once on Patmos lay against supernal 
 light; 
 
 Sprung tall minarets from temples tipped with balls of 
 
 golden glow, 
 Casting spires of waving shadow on the bird-flecked 
 
 lakes below. 
 
 Toiled they on through Arizuma, land as wondrous 
 winter fair ; 
 
 But the spring-time s life had withered and the sum 
 mer death was there. 
 
 Onward, though the red simoon still sullen o er the 
 
 white dunes roll; 
 Spake the soldiers, "God in heaven! hath this hideous 
 
 place a soul?" 
 
 Then quoth Serra, "Lo! the answer," pointing where 
 
 their eager eyes 
 Saw from whorl of spiked cactus, tall white tree of 
 
 blossoms rise.* 
 
 *The Yucca, or Spanish Bayonet. 
 
97 
 
 Shaft, as marble of Carrara graved as with a sculp 
 tor s care; 
 
 Carven tower of polished petals, graced with stamens 
 waxen fair. 
 
 Spake he, "Children, let your lives be e en thus rich 
 
 in holy deeds, 
 Blooming in the fiery desert which would stifle common 
 
 weeds. 
 
 Thus encouraged, toiled they onward, till from height 
 
 of sea-girt shore, 
 Saw they ship masts upward pointing, telling their long 
 
 journey o er; 
 
 For the rude ships from La Paz, which sought Vis- 
 caino s Monterey, 
 
 Lay with sailors sick or dead in San Diego s close- 
 locked bay. 
 
 Three moons Serra s friends had waited for his band 
 
 they mourned as dead, 
 Roaming o er the coast and mesa where Spring s 
 
 blazonry was spread 
 
 Turquoise stars and stars of sapphire laid she on her 
 
 burnished green, 
 Sweetly decking, fitly matching lawns of every hue and 
 
 sheen ; 
 
 Honeysuckle s conscious sweetness white petunia s 
 
 graceful cup, 
 Blue-eyed, meek forget-me-nots that never for a maid 
 
 looked up. 
 
[98 
 
 The ambitious pigmy thistles tiny heads with plumed 
 
 hair 
 And the oxalis white-petaled, with her nun-like grace, 
 
 were there ; 
 
 Censers all unblessed with incense wild Eschscholtzias 
 
 golden bowls; 
 Rose they call Castile, from mem ries planted deep in 
 
 homesick souls. 
 
 Sick and dying, from their vessels came the Spaniards 
 
 to such land, 
 But ere Serra saw it, ravished shorn by Summer s 
 
 scorching hand. 
 
 But naught quenched his deathless ardor; pealed his 
 
 bells from scrubby tree 
 Glad as if from storied turret, told they Christmas 
 
 jubilee. 
 
 When at length th impatient soldiers, with their 
 
 suff rings reckless grown, 
 And despairing of th Antonio, storm-bound long in 
 
 seas unknown, 
 
 Goaded fierce with cruel hunger, measure set for their 
 
 delay, 
 Saying, " Leave we on Saint Joseph s, if she come not 
 
 ere that day/ 
 
 All night at the altar lay he, till th appointed dawn, 
 
 when, lo! 
 Saw they by vouchsafed vision in the clouds a good 
 
 ship go. 
 
[ 99 
 
 Still prayed on th undoubting Serra; when the fourth 
 
 day nigh was done, 
 O er the tide a ship bread-laden sailed athwart the 
 
 setting sun. 
 
 All his life the grateful father, for deliv ranee of that 
 
 day, 
 Celebrated mass memorial on the feast of San Jose. 
 
 And some tell that still they see in San Diego s sunny 
 
 sky, 
 On this day, through phantom clouds, a phantom ship 
 
 go sailing by. 
 
 And they named the first young Mission for the 
 
 humblest of the saints, 
 Eremite at tender age, when life her richest colors 
 
 paints ; 
 
 Didacus, the Andalusian, who came from his hermit 
 
 cave 
 To serve Alcala s sick beggars, eager life s worst ills to 
 
 brave. 
 
 Then was reared the once fair structure, which to-day 
 
 a ruined pile, 
 Stolid sits upon the hillside, frowning at the valley s 
 
 smile ; 
 
 Frowning e en upon the river, where the hill its current 
 
 hems, 
 Shining thread of curling tinsel twisted round the olive 
 
 stems ; 
 
100 
 
 Olives weird and ever moon-lit flecking all the plain with 
 light, 
 
 Till the groining of their shadows mocks the artist s cun 
 ning rite. 
 
 Armed cacti, as defending, by the garden wall now 
 
 stand ; 
 But the gentle palms, desponding, scarcely lift protesting 
 
 hand. 
 
 Gone all sign of churchly usage gone the trace of 
 
 padres care; 
 Bells nor cross proclaim the story that His worship e er 
 
 was there. 
 
 Not a saint nor altar standing; not a mural legend dear; 
 In the windows deep embrasure dismal owls hold orgies 
 drear. 
 
 Mass of sun-burnt bricks adobe, half embanked in red 
 
 decay ; 
 Walls and roof proclaim its story dust to dust and 
 
 clay to clay. 
 
 Parent Mission, well beloved! built in faith, baptized in 
 
 tears ! 
 Man sees only Time s fruition God looks farther than 
 
 the years! 
 
[101] 
 
 San Luis Rey de Franeia 
 
 Wide these Margarita Mountains open cafions wild and 
 
 deep, 
 Leading to San Luis Valley, then to eastward boldly 
 
 sweep ; 
 
 Low they crouch that o er their shoulders Santa Eosa s 
 head may rise, 
 
 Reaching toward one dream-like vision of the sea- 
 reflected skies; 
 
 Circling arms they interlace, till to San Luis hills they 
 
 reach ; 
 These to westward, boldly stretching, hide the gleam of 
 
 shell-bright beach. 
 
 Down the canon runs the river Luis called for kingly 
 
 saint 
 Winter current bold and rapid, summer stream with 
 
 languor faint; 
 
 Ere its bent course meets the ocean, to a vale the hills 
 expand 
 
 Lonely mountain-circled valley, once the padres pleas 
 ant land. 
 
 Here they built a stately structure on a southward 
 
 sloping hill 
 Castle with its guns commanding all the valley, wide and 
 
 still; 
 
 Once most splendid of the Missions," as the chronicler 
 
 relates ; 
 Now Destruction keeps each portal Death e en at the 
 
 altar waits. 
 
[102 
 
 Once "most splendid of the Missions/ * and to-day its 
 
 roods appear 
 In their utter desolation, than the Sodom plains more 
 
 drear. 
 
 Neath the roof of flaming frescoes to the wall a pulpit 
 
 clings 
 And a canopy above it, like a bat with outspread wings. 
 
 In a chancel grandly lighted by a stately lifted dome, 
 Three great altars tarnished splendor tells e en yet the 
 hand of Rome. 
 
 Now appears of former wealth but one old silver crucifix, 
 And at masses burn the tapers in quaint silver candle 
 sticks. 
 
 Worship rarely wakes the echoes, burial service yet is 
 said, 
 
 Marriage, baptism, and the masses for the rest of faith 
 ful dead. 
 
 Then through high round arches springing from the 
 
 frescoed columns nigh, 
 Weird old music throbs in anthems from the gall ry old 
 
 and high; 
 
 Indian voices and old viols cadences which haunt the 
 
 brain 
 Drear as wail of ghosts returned, their own death-mass 
 
 to chant again; 
 
103 
 
 And the Dominus Vobiscum and responses dismal sung, 
 Meeting o er the low-bent kneelers, hang like pall above 
 them flung; 
 
 Till the prayer, the Dies Irce, in the ferial monotone, 
 Sobs like backward drifting sigh of those who waited 
 Christ s last moan. 
 
 But the curling incense rises with as subtle grace of line, 
 As e er marked its spiral circles round La Sainte 
 Chapelle s fair shrine. 
 
 Borne upon the chant s intoning, drifts it through the 
 
 doorway wide, 
 Falling soft as benediction on the sleepers side by side. 
 
 In the corridors adjoining, paced the priests at even 
 tide, 
 
 Looking o er the broken valley and their garden reach 
 ing wide; 
 
 Garden once of toilsome labors, miles of wall and arched 
 
 gateway, 
 Tiled steps to a lake descending lake deep-fringed 
 
 with willow spray, 
 
 Now a marsh where shrieking wild fowl come storm- 
 driven from the sea; 
 
 Stalk the cranes mong cacti hedges desolation s 
 revelry. 
 
104 
 
 One tall palm in tropic splendor blessed where wrath 
 
 on all is poured 
 Lingers, as last guest departing from a banquet s 
 
 ravished board. 
 
 Unloved seems this lonely valley, wind-swept from the 
 
 ocean near; 
 Rank weeds claim its sweeping acres e en its homes 
 
 look dark and drear; 
 
 And the Pilgrims heard a legend which o ercast the 
 
 sacred place, 
 As might doubt of final mercy dim the light of saint-like 
 
 face. 
 
 For tis said that godless aliens, on a midnight storm- 
 hid quest, 
 
 Tore its paves for use unhallowed and its bricks for 
 walls unblessed. 
 
 E en from out the tabernacle, holy things in haste were 
 
 borne ; 
 Stood accursed the sacrilegious scathed as trees by 
 
 lightning torn. 
 
 And thereafter when black storm-clouds caught the stars 
 
 from watching eyes, 
 O er the garden s fringed lakelet, noisome vapors would 
 
 arise, 
 
 Rise and shape to human figures, draped in penitential 
 
 serge ; 
 On their knees in dread procession, wrought they to the 
 
 blast s wild dirge. 
 
105 
 
 Semblance bright of silver vessels, some bore with aton- 
 
 ing hand, 
 While weird light from cross and chalice lit the dark 
 
 tile-laden band. 
 
 Up the garden s paved steps toiling gate and walls no 
 
 hindrance gave 
 Resting not for rugged hill-side, till through desecrated 
 
 nave 
 
 Passed they, laying on the altar what each thence had 
 seized before, 
 
 While strove some, with bootless labors, walls and pave 
 ments to restore. 
 
 Rang their shrieks from castigations, self-imposed be 
 fore the fane, 
 
 Through the dim church dome and arches, mingling 
 with the wind s refrain. 
 
 And e en yet the Indians whisper when lights gleam 
 
 through blinding storms, 
 " Tis the spirits doomed to penance look not on their 
 
 cursed forms." 
 
[106] 
 Pala 
 
 Chapel of San Luis Eey de Francia 
 
 Here is brooding silence broken by the ground quail s 
 warning cry, 
 
 When he watches young flock feeding, breast white- 
 ringed and proud crest high ; 
 
 Plain-robed mother, through the sages, speeds her brood 
 
 with cunning feet, 
 Then uplifts with whir pretentious far from safe leaf- 
 
 hid retreat. 
 
 Here the flocks of blackbirds rising, whiz upon the 
 
 morning air; 
 Far aloft the shy deer listens; to his covert bounds the 
 
 hare; 
 
 Here the Pala Sparkling Water springs forth with 
 
 immortal birth, 
 Down the canon greedy quicksands drink it from the 
 
 thirsty earth; 
 
 And the natives fear to gather roots from near the living 
 
 spring, 
 Lest from genii that dwell there curse of drought the 
 
 act should bring. 
 
 Here the time-defying olive to the morn its slim leaves 
 
 turns, 
 And in colors of the sunset, all its burnished silver 
 
 burns. 
 
[107] 
 
 Still pomegranates spread their blossoms, strangled by 
 
 the tall weeds rank, 
 And the fruited Aztec cacti grow against th adobe bank ; 
 
 Here the princely aloe raises penciled tree-top gainst 
 the sky, 
 
 Rugged leaves, like faithful subjects, round their mon 
 arch abject lie. 
 
 And the rudest mural paintings decorate the dismal 
 
 hall; 
 Wings of bats by cross and chalice; palms beside the 
 
 arrows tall; 
 
 One old tarnished copper censer lies upon the gaping 
 
 floor, 
 And the few poor churchly treasures wait within yon 
 
 creaking door; 
 
 Down this weird barbaric chamber flames the Virgin s 
 silver dress, 
 
 As a ray of morn to wand rers lost in some dim wilder 
 ness. 
 
 Sometimes now a godly father tells a mass in this rude 
 hut; 
 
 Loose the rite on savage natures! dry husk on time- 
 hardened nut! 
 
 Still their wizard incantations tell they at the mortal 
 
 hour; 
 From the priest to wild magician, turn they for the 
 
 healing power. 
 
108 
 
 O er them stands a belfry tower, winter-stained and 
 
 dark with moss; 
 On its crest one bird-brought cactus grows around the 
 
 broken cross. 
 
 Lonely ruined tower of Pala ! dark with shadows of the 
 
 past! 
 Like Death s signet art thou set on shrines which must 
 
 be his at last! 
 
[109] 
 
 San Juan Capistrano 
 
 Onward from "Las Flores" rancho, following the shore 
 line steeps, 
 
 Ten leagues distant from San Luis, midst the hills a 
 fair vale sleeps ; 
 
 Here the Coast Range, northward trending, opens in a 
 tiny gate, 
 
 Where without, the chafing billows centuries for en 
 trance wait. 
 
 Where th arroyo, called "Viejo," finds Trabuco s 
 
 loit ring stream, 
 And as young explorers seek they ocean-world s alluring 
 
 gleam, 
 
 Stands the Mission Capistrano in a spot which well 
 
 beguiles 
 From th impassioned sun departing, all his hoarded 
 
 farewell smiles ; 
 
 Spot which mildest moons illumine, where stars scin 
 tillating rise 
 
 With soft semi-tropic lustre light unknown to colder 
 skies. 
 
 In this calm and restful valley stands a shrine to one 
 
 whose head 
 Knew no rest, when as Franciscan, poverty and war he 
 
 wed; 
 
 He who from the Turks accursed, strove to tear the 
 
 shrines profaned 
 By the touch of infidels, and by the turbaned shadows 
 
 stained ; 
 
110] 
 
 Who great riches, for the Master, with devoted life laid 
 
 down, 
 Grieving he was "deemed unworthy" to receive a 
 
 martyr s crown. 
 
 Blend the olive and the orange round his shrine their 
 
 shaded green; 
 Tender bloom of gnarled vines, tells boundless wealth 
 
 that once was seen. 
 
 And they say that sometimes voices chant within this 
 
 lonely shrine, 
 And at midnight spectral tapers round its burning 
 
 crosses shine; 
 
 Melt such phantoms at the dawning with the shadows 
 from its slope, 
 
 Gleams on it the morning sunlight, but for it no morn 
 ing hope! 
 
 Soft gainst ocean s hoarse boom falls the hum of hours 
 
 in idle flight, 
 As a picture s darker background brings the tender 
 
 shades to light. 
 
 Mountain perfumes and sea-odors to a sweet narcotic 
 
 blend, 
 And each day with languor ravished, slowly loiters to 
 
 its end; 
 
 Till life seems an old man dreaming, and with evening s 
 
 wond rous glow 
 Flash the ruins as old faces gleam with thoughts of long 
 
 ago. 
 
till] 
 
 San Gabriel Arcangel 
 
 Veil of the Sierra Madre! sheen of light to tell whose 
 
 gleam, 
 Earthly words opaque and dull-hued as a child s clay 
 
 image seem; 
 
 Sunbeams pale before the shimmer of the opalescent 
 
 gauze, 
 Where the rainbow hue diffused, round Sierra Madre 
 
 draws 
 
 Veil of glowing iridescence, woven from light s loosened 
 
 rays 
 Smit by fine prisms atmospheric in a thousand devious 
 
 ways; 
 
 And methinks, when Spanish Fathers named the town 
 
 Los Angeles, 
 That the grateful patron angels, loit ring on the sunlit 
 
 breeze, 
 
 Mantles dropped of heav nly brightness, whose soft 
 
 splendors never fail, 
 And they draped the Mother s mountain in their robes 
 
 this lustrous veil. 
 
 Such the light through which Sierra looks towards plain 
 
 of Gabriel; 
 Such the air which throbs responsive to its morn or 
 
 evening bell. 
 
 Soft bloom, that seems air transmuted, flecks the clus 
 tered grapes with light, 
 
 Deepens on the downy umbels of the gardens, tropic 
 bright. 
 
112 
 
 Fair as Aztec princess wears the orange-tree her royal 
 
 green, 
 Through lace mantle of white blossoms, golden jewels 
 
 flash their sheen. 
 
 Such the place by padres chosen for the patron angel s 
 
 shrine, 
 Angel of th Annunciation to the maid of David s line. 
 
 Farthest here once Mission farm lands spread o er hills 
 
 on every side; 
 Farthest roamed their good herds seeking food from 
 
 mountain to the tide. 
 
 Most the Virgin loved this Mission, to her herald 
 
 dedicate, 
 Near her vale as "Queen of Angels," where the 
 
 "Mother s Mountains" wait; 
 
 Early she its cause espoused, when before her banner 
 
 flung 
 Without hands upon the free winds where a vision 
 
 bright it hung 
 
 Dusky warriors backward started, smit by grace of 
 
 godlike mien, 
 As once Romans in a garden, back from face of 
 
 Nazarene ; 
 
 And the ones who came to slaughter, stayed strange 
 
 worship to repeat, 
 Gifts from their poor riches leaving, with their weapons, 
 
 at her feet. 
 
113 ] 
 
 Long the smile of peace thus given rested on the Mission 
 
 young, 
 Till it grew to strength gigantic all its humble sons 
 
 among. 
 
 Once the richest of the Missions," now its desecrated 
 
 feet 
 In pueblo Mejicano stand mid squalor of the street. 
 
 Here dwelt she whose oft-told story brings the tear of 
 sympathy ; 
 
 Who at six score years said sadly, God must have for 
 gotten me;" 
 
 Kind to life, but no more loving, when the tardy 
 
 messenger 
 Found her, eager to rejoin the swarthy tribes awaiting 
 
 her. 
 
 Still a few old Indians linger squatting in the blazing 
 
 sun, 
 Crooning of the Mission s splendors when atole lacked 
 
 for none; 
 
 And they tell of Padre Serra, crossing dark brows at 
 
 his name, 
 Tales of miracles their fathers told them of his holy 
 
 fame; 
 
 How once lost upon the mountains came he to Mojave s 
 
 plain, 
 Wand ring with his people till the fever woke in blood 
 
 and brain. 
 
114 
 
 And through all the wildered journey told he ever way 
 side mass, 
 
 Though with thirst and famine fainting, ne er without 
 it day might pass; 
 
 That once from his trembling fingers, fell the cup of 
 holy wine, 
 
 And with godless haste the dry ground drank the crim 
 son drops divine; 
 
 When lo! from the earth s parched lips, red with the 
 
 stain of Precious Blood, 
 Sprang a fountain of pure waters, sweet as Horeb s 
 
 smitten flood; 
 
 And when Serra, with thanksgiving, would have done 
 
 some penance still, 
 Spake an angel in a vision, "Nay, it was the Master s 
 
 will." 
 
 Crossed themselves again the speakers, lapsing to a 
 
 broken dream; 
 Passed the Pilgrims seeing dimly, what to these this life 
 
 must seem. 
 
 But there lingers through this dark room echo none of 
 
 sweet notes hymned; 
 Drear it seems as soul where doubts have faith and hope 
 
 too early dimmed. 
 
 Slow upon the numbed spirit creeps a horror in this 
 
 gloom, 
 As if sigh from shrouded sleeper smote one wandering 
 
 in a tomb. 
 
115 J 
 
 Midst this gray dusk watches still a group of saints 
 
 on pillars old, 
 Faces dull and garments battered, names and sorrows 
 
 long untold. 
 
 Stands San Gabriel, the patron, high above the other 
 shrines, 
 
 E en from face of faded statue, still some angel bright 
 ness shines; 
 
 He most honored messenger of all that stood before the 
 throne, 
 
 When God would, unto His creatures, speak some pur 
 pose of His own. 
 
 He th interpreter of visions to the captive prophet sent ; 
 He who sat at Eden s portal, whence our ling ring 
 parents went; 
 
 Who came to the second Woman to announce the time 
 
 as near, 
 When through her th Avenger promised to the first 
 
 Eve should appear, 
 
 Whose high message, "Hail! thou blessed in divine 
 
 maternity, 
 Lifted to the throne in heaven pains accursed at Eden s 
 
 tree, 
 
 Stands with ample gathered wings, as if he still were 
 
 charged to greet, 
 With perpetual song the maid who stands enshrined 
 
 at his feet. 
 
116 
 
 Simple priestess-maid Judean ! who should in thy 
 
 humble place 
 Deify to all the ages mother love and mother grace ; 
 
 Round this dreary shrine thy roses blossom in the month 
 
 of May ; 
 Light this gloom pale votive tapers, when is kept thy 
 
 festal day; 
 
 Then the choir s soft Incarnatus trembles round thy 
 
 vestal shrine, 
 As the new hope of the promise fluttered in thy soul 
 
 divine ; 
 
 And the eve s Magnificat breaks forth in glad trium 
 phant tone, 
 
 As thy faith received the glory of the promise as thine 
 own. 
 
 Maid "most pure!" Maid "gloriosa!" Woman with a 
 
 loving heart! 
 Though thyself of mothers saddest, mothers comforter 
 
 thou art! 
 
 Patroness of every virtue! Almoner unto mankind! 
 * Queen of men and angels ! " in thee, Lady Merciful, 
 we find! 
 
 Pure impersonation of earth s sublimated joy and pain! 
 Of that love most kin to God s own, stand st thou 
 Mother of the Slain! 
 
 Motherhood beatified woke in thy canticle of praise; 
 Let the JEons antiphone it, till Time sees the end of 
 days! 
 
[117] 
 San Bernardino 
 
 Chapel of San Gabriel. 
 
 Long one strays with dreamful fancies that thy heart 
 
 may whisper low 
 Some strong thought for hopeful living from that life 
 
 of long ago; 
 
 But thy desolation palls one with a chill and nameless 
 
 dread, 
 As if faith were shaken in the resurrection of the dead. 
 
[118] 
 
 San Fernando Rey de Espaiia 
 
 Here the mountains burn at sunset, with that light 
 
 drawn from the skies 
 Trail of glory drifting backward from the young 
 
 world s sacrifice 
 
 When the Bactrian high priest called to earth celestial 
 
 splendors down, 
 And bade mortals worship fire as holy light from 
 
 Mithra s crown. 
 
 In this vale a host angelic floated thwart the ebbing 
 
 day, 
 Sent to point the fathers to a shrine for San Fernando 
 
 Rey. 
 
 Pointed they to distant mountain set in opalescent haze, 
 Where it looked adown the valley through the evening s 
 crimson blaze; 
 
 Pointed they, then upward floated, and a cloud around 
 
 them shone, 
 Soft as smoke of curling incense from the swinging 
 
 censer thrown. 
 
 When the Morn dismissed the night-guard from the 
 border-land of day, 
 
 Smiled she to behold the fathers far upon their heaven 
 sent way. 
 
 But the gardens which they planted, fairest here of all 
 
 remain, 
 Neath the mountain named for royal Ferdinand, the 
 
 Saint of Spain. 
 
[119 
 
 Olive trees still stand gigantic which a hundred years 
 
 have crowned, 
 Triple avenues denning all the garden s widest bound. 
 
 To their peaceful arms presents its thorny breast the 
 
 cactus tree, 
 And the noble aloes lift their coronets of filigree. 
 
 High among the storied olives, saintly palms their 
 
 heads upraise, 
 And they mingle sighs together for the changed and 
 
 loveless days; 
 
 Grieve they for the glebe unbroken, for the reservoirs 
 long dry, 
 
 For the aqueducts where sere leaves in the tiny whirl 
 winds fly; 
 
 Grieve they for the life departed, for the ruined church 
 
 hard by, 
 Where they see its cross no longer outlined gainst the 
 
 cloudless sky. 
 
 And the only chant that ever sounds within the dreary 
 
 pale, 
 Is the fierce, hot wind of summer sweeping down this 
 
 lonely vale. 
 
[120] 
 
 The Christ of San Buena Ventura 
 
 Ghastly Christ on rude cross lifted, while behind the 
 
 clear-carved face, 
 All the symbols of His sorrow, on the wall your tears 
 
 may trace 
 
 Cursed rods and cruel nails that once were hid in holy 
 
 flesh; 
 Crown of thorns and mocking palm-branch; spear that 
 
 drew His life-blood fresh; 
 
 Sponge upheld in vile derision; robe of scorn they bade 
 
 Him wear; 
 Chalice of the blessed promise that His life His own 
 
 should share! 
 
 Meet the place for requiem masses which in holy week 
 
 are said, 
 When the prostrate priest bewails the sorrows of the 
 
 princely Dead; 
 
 Round this shrine the Crucifixus from the organ s dirge 
 
 floats down, 
 Drear as once the noonday darkness fell on Calvary s 
 
 awful crown. 
 
 But at festivals returning, Christmas joy or Paschal 
 
 glee, 
 Fresh young voices flood the dark nave with their tide 
 
 of minstrelsy; 
 
 And the rippling light- waves sparkle gainst the Cru 
 cifix dull gloom, 
 
 Bright as that first Easter sunlight flashed on Joseph s 
 garden tomb. 
 
121 
 
 What are names to hearts that love Him ! one same hope 
 
 is for us all! 
 Jesus lay within the dark tomb grief for Him our 
 
 common pall! 
 
 Why the strifes that vex the Master! the same themes 
 
 our tongues employ; 
 Christ was raised from out the shadows love for Him 
 
 our common joy. 
 
[122] 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 Here the soft sweet airs distilling seem a necromancer s 
 balm, 
 
 Wearied soul and body lull they till life seems a dream 
 ful calm. 
 
 Looked the padres on the rich land sloping toward the 
 
 toiling sea 
 Working waves of molten silver into fine wrought filigree ; 
 
 (lazing from the Mission hillside, strangers pause to hear 
 a tale 
 
 Of the ghosts that haunt yon islands with their flam 
 beaux far and pale: 
 
 Phantom skiffs like tule shadows, and their rowers tall 
 
 and stark, 
 Flit with torches cross the channel, through the hollow 
 
 of the dark, 
 
 From the Ana Capa to the Santa Cruz steep jagged 
 
 shore, 
 And from Santa Rosa backward, through the still night 
 
 o er and o er, 
 
 Back and forward to the mainland, to the Missions white 
 
 and still, 
 Barbara s and far Ventura s faintly limned against the 
 
 hills; 
 
 Long the rites upon the islands, as if there were celebrate 
 The returning day of burial of some savage potentate; 
 
[123 
 
 And the torchlights white and spectral swept the In 
 dians swart lines, 
 
 Till the shapes seemed ghouls of fable, feasting round 
 some charnel shrines. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Built they when the spring-time brightened with star- 
 flowers the rugged slopes ; 
 
 Patron chose a maid whose spring-time beamed with 
 martyr s star-bright hopes ; 
 
 And the Mission of their rearing lifts its comely head to 
 day, 
 
 Smiling down on resting valley, hills, and town, and 
 sweeping bay. 
 
 Round it broken walls are crumbling, which but lend a 
 
 rougher grace, 
 As a rustic frame which heightens beauty of a pictured 
 
 face. 
 
 Walls of stone from pave to turret, strong as tower on 
 
 armed field, 
 Roof of tiles uplift to heaven tiles the weight of 
 
 warrior s shield. 
 
 Massive towers defend the portal, and the bells still tell 
 
 their tale : 
 "God and truth go on forever, tis the faith of man doth 
 
 fail." 
 
124 
 
 Ent ring through a great stone doorway, distant taper 
 greets the sight, 
 
 Like a star of promise burning through life s sorrow- 
 clouded night. 
 
 Dim light from the small high windows, shrouds in gloom 
 
 the outlines, where 
 Slow appears a monk Franciscan, kneeling at a shrine of 
 
 prayer ; 
 
 Friar in a long gray garment, hooded folds of heavy 
 
 serge, 
 At the waist with white cord girdled, heavy knotted as a 
 
 scourge 
 
 Shadow-like he moves to greet us, and the rosary falls 
 
 down 
 Where the naked foot in sandal shows beneath the heavy 
 
 gown. 
 
 Shows he silver pyx and chalice ; precious thuribles gold- 
 lined ; 
 
 Mite of True Cross fondly cherished, by Faith s eyes 
 alone defined; 
 
 And old saints that stood dejected, as if from the altar 
 
 cast, 
 Round a crucifix as saying, "True our love e en to the 
 
 last;" 
 
 Crucifix of cunning carving, where a matchless hand has 
 shown 
 
 Tale of Olivet s grand passion, with a grace some mas 
 ter s own, 
 
[125] 
 
 Such the vivid truth of line, the heart swells with a sud 
 den throe; 
 
 Seems Gethsemane s low moan to throb once more 
 through midnight woe ; 
 
 Seems the cry of Calvary to ring through sounding years 
 
 again 
 Cry wrung from a soul s great anguish which surpassed 
 
 all fleshly pain. 
 
 Mute with thought, through long dim cloisters, grope we 
 
 to yon spot of day, 
 As our spirits blindly stumble through earth s doubts 
 
 toward heavenly ray. 
 
[126] 
 
 Santa Ynez 
 
 Still upon these cragged slopes the deer feed in the twi 
 light glow, 
 
 While the bear and mountain lion keep at bay the com 
 mon foe. 
 
 Here Madrono, masquerader, makes the shrubby forest 
 
 gay; 
 Hangs the Manzanita shyly, berries bright by mountain 
 
 way. 
 
 On the creeks the plant of Gilead finds the bay s funereal 
 
 tree; 
 Heaven s healing on Death s footstep follows, if we will 
 
 but see. 
 
 Of these hills the herds unconquered, ownership with 
 
 grizzlies claimed, 
 Ruled the bullock o er the mountain, as some savage 
 
 prince untamed. 
 
 Often here the wild rodeo tore the dust from ev ry hill, 
 And the bellowing of cattle made the very tree-tops thrill. 
 
 Proud rode forth the brave vaquero, horse and rider 
 
 moved as one, 
 Pawed the ground th impatient mustang, eager for the 
 
 fray begun. 
 
 Dashed they in mong fierce bands surging, wild as bil 
 lows winter-lashed; 
 
 Like white boats o er waves wind-driven, their sun- 
 bright sombreros flashed ; 
 
127 
 
 Parting rightward, parting leftward, that each ranch its 
 own might gain; 
 
 Savage bullocks with their wide horns, plowed the trem 
 bling earth in vain ; 
 
 For the hissing keen riatas level circles small or great, 
 Seized upon the maddened captives, like a fierce pursu 
 ing fate; 
 
 Supple dropped on horns defiant, sinuous caught the 
 
 flying feet; 
 Swayed each rider in his saddle, with a movement bold 
 
 and fleet; 
 
 Backward braced the foaming mustang, rolled the con 
 quered to the ground, 
 
 Helpless neath the branding iron, firmly by the skilled 
 noose bound. 
 
 Gone the wild herds from the mountains ; ride forth few 
 
 vaqueros now; 
 Hang the braided lithe riatas useless on the saddle-bow ; 
 
 For the droves in paltry numbers, tame as barn-yard 
 
 bovines stand, 
 In their bondage scare rebelling at the hot iron s servile 
 
 brand. 
 
 Where the mountain s veil is bluest, like bones bleach 
 ing in the sun 
 
 Lie stark ruins of the work built late ere padres time 
 was done; 
 
[128 
 
 Stands a corridor of arches, turned to greet the rising 
 
 sun; 
 One waits for his benediction, when for us his work is 
 
 done. 
 
 Through the fathers stone-paved chambers rings the 
 
 heel s half-shrinking tread, 
 Drear as mem ries through a heart which knows all 
 
 hopes of earth are dead. 
 
 Iron doors and cloisters bolted; rusty locks resist the 
 
 hand; 
 What is this whose blackness threatens where the barred 
 
 gateways stand! 
 
 Dungeon sunless as the sorrow which its walls have 
 
 echoed back; 
 Soldier life and priestly ruling, here have left a certain 
 
 track. 
 
 Judge not, by the light we live in, men who wrought in 
 
 greater gloom; 
 Leave to Him whose vision reaches from earth s cradle 
 
 to its tomb. 
 
 God alone can sift the gleanings which the years have 
 
 gathered in, 
 Horrors marked with holy purpose; good, with serpent 
 
 trail of sin. 
 
 Sweet the story of Our Lady who on Guadalupe s site, 
 Showed her pure face to an Indian, late redeemed from 
 pagan rite ; 
 
129 
 
 While he wandered through the cactus, pondering her 
 virtues rare, 
 
 Lo ! upon the hill before him, stood her semblance pass 
 ing fair; 
 
 And she softly spoke unto him, while he sank upon the 
 
 earth, 
 "Fear not, son of Montezuma, chosen thou e en from 
 
 thy birth ; 
 
 Bear my message to the fathers, that a house they build 
 
 me here, 
 And my glory shall rest on it : Son, depart with heart 
 
 of cheer." 
 
 And her smile, a radiant blessing, fell upon his spirit s 
 
 strife, 
 Soft as sweet dew of the manna feeding with the bread 
 
 of life; 
 
 Then a darkness smote his dim soul, and a dread doubt 
 
 on him fell; 
 Thrice repeated was the vision ere he dared the tale to 
 
 tell. 
 
 Spake the fathers, gravely doubting, "Lo! the winter 
 
 time perceive; 
 Bring us now the Mother s flowers, and thy message 
 
 we ll believe." 
 
 Went he forth to sunlight darkened, prostrate at his 
 
 rocky shrine, 
 When a voice like soft air pulsing, spake in cadences 
 
 divine ; 
 
130] 
 
 Paused the smitten earth to listen, wheeled the birds and 
 
 hung in air; 
 "Son, behold yon barren rock and thence my sacred 
 
 roses bear." 
 
 When before the bishops his rough tilma laid he on the 
 
 ground, 
 Stood rebuked unto their servant, prelates deep in lore 
 
 profound ; 
 
 On the robe of aloe thread, neath mystic roses piled as 
 
 May, 
 Was the Dame of Guadalupe, pictured in a wond rous 
 
 way. 
 
 Stands to-day an altar where her blessed feet made holy 
 
 ground, 
 And the homes of Guadalupe throng the Mother s doors 
 
 around. 
 
[131] 
 San Luis Obispo de Tolosa 
 
 When the fathers passed to southward from Antonio s 
 
 new-made shrine, 
 Just within the shelt ring steeps which bend to skirt the 
 
 sea-coast line, 
 
 Full two score of leagues their journey, as the bee his 
 pathway grades; 
 
 Many score they wandered blindly in and out mong un 
 known glades. 
 
 Once within a deep, lone canon, when night found them 
 
 without bread, 
 Came toward them o er wooded hill-side shadowed 
 
 glories round his head 
 
 One who led them in sweet converse, and laid bread upon 
 
 their board; 
 Found the morn their guest departed, and their hampers 
 
 newly stored. 
 
 And a radiant youth oft met them, offering flask of 
 
 grateful wine, 
 And they felt its sweet refreshment, knowing not the 
 
 gift divine. 
 
 On these rugged cliffs to seaward, opened are the graves 
 
 today, 
 Where the unbaptized were buried with their vessels 
 
 of coarse clay. 
 
[132] 
 
 Hence a mountain-crowded canon reaches inward from 
 
 the sea, 
 Till it meets two pointed summits lifting heaven s 
 
 canopy ; 
 
 Here for Louis of Toulouse they set the bishop s crosier 
 down, 
 
 Gave his name to dreamful valley, river, and the moun 
 tain s crown; 
 
 He who to the throne of Naples for Christ s love gave 
 
 up his claim; 
 Who barefooted, unattended, prelate to Tolosa came. 
 
 ******** 
 
 This the corridor historic, by the tales the people tell 
 Be they verity or legend of strange scenes which here 
 befell; 
 
 For once paced a sad procession grieved the morning 
 
 at the sight 
 Bent forms draped in sombre garments, dark against the 
 
 Mission s white. 
 
 Bowed heads, with rebozos covered, followed where Ra- 
 
 mona led 
 Brave Ramon a de Pacheco, lifting proud uncovered head. 
 
 Came sefioras leading children, from a night of prayer 
 
 and grief, 
 Seeking from young Fremont pardon for Don Jesus 
 
 Pico, chief. 
 
133] 
 
 To their slow half-smothered footsteps sighed the corri 
 dor s cold stone, 
 
 As they passed with woeful mien, by prayers and weep 
 ing to atone. 
 
 As of old came Roman matrons, seeking for their city s 
 life, 
 
 At his feet knelt these untiring. Stern the soldier s in 
 ward strife. 
 
 Tolled the Mission bells the moments ; paced the sentries 
 
 to and fro; 
 Flung the sun his bloody banners; still the pleaders 
 
 would not go. 
 
 Came the word to stay the sentence: "Gracias Dios" 
 
 checked their tears ; 
 As alcalde of the country, lived Don Jesus many years. 
 
 Gone the plaza and the fountains; Spain s delights for 
 
 aye are fled; 
 E en the square of consecration now receives no more 
 
 the dead ; 
 
 Gone the neophytes who wondered while the unknown 
 
 God they praised; 
 Aliens till their rolling valleys strangers hold the 
 
 walls they raised. 
 
 Where were laid the Mission gardens, the young city s 
 
 streets are led, 
 Midst them apricot or pear tree, lank and sere, lift 
 
 outcast head. 
 
[134] 
 San Miguel Arcangel 
 
 O ye oaks! Ye guardian genii of the broad leagues up 
 
 and down! 
 Tell us of the scenes ye witnessed or with smile or angry 
 
 frown. 
 
 In your tops we hear a murmur; is it thus brave deeds 
 
 are sung? 
 For the alien suppliants deign to speak in coarser 
 
 human tongue. 
 
 Answers not your whispered cadence ; is it worship blent 
 
 with sighs? 
 Droop ye lower o er the ruin lifted dark against the 
 
 skies ? 
 
 Hold this truth, fading shrine! tis all that s left to 
 
 light thy day: 
 ? Tis the soul that may illume e en wasted lines of dying 
 
 clay. 
 
 Awful silence broods around thee, and the noonday hazes 
 
 thrill 
 With a pulse which seems a mem ry of the life that now 
 
 is still. 
 
 Fare-thee-well ! Such desolation seems of Time s own 
 
 death a part; 
 Leave we thee to dreams and shadows; turn we to the 
 
 world s great heart. 
 
[135] 
 San Carlos del Carmelo 
 
 Pause upon the gentle hillside, view San Carlos by the 
 
 sea, 
 Gainst pale light a shape Morisco wrought in faded 
 
 tapestry. 
 
 Neath Mt. Carmers brooding shadow, peaceful lies the 
 
 storied pile, 
 And the white-barred river near it sings a requiem all the 
 
 while. 
 
 Why was name, to Christian precious, found within this 
 
 lonely place, 
 Borne by stream which mirrored only swarthy brow or 
 
 deer s shy grace? 
 
 Band of friars Carmelite, came with Viscaino long before, 
 Salves chanting to their Lady by this far and fabled 
 shore ; 
 
 And their name on stream and mountain brightened all 
 
 the unblessed place, 
 As the mem ry of a sweet smile lightens up a sombre 
 
 face. 
 
 Now remains of many labors by the loyal sons of Spain, 
 Not a tropic leaf reminding of the Andalusian plain. 
 
 Where were roofs of tiles or thatches, roughest mounds 
 
 mark every side, 
 And where once the busy court-yard, searching winds 
 
 find crevice wide. 
 
[136 
 
 Gone all trace of padres dwelling, and midst ruin yet 
 remains 
 
 But the church front in its beauty, arabesqued with win 
 ter stains ; 
 
 High two Moorish belfry towers lift the sign of Calvary, 
 Tell the deep-worn steps ascending oft their sweet bells 
 woke the sea. 
 
 O er the door a star embrasured tells the tale of Beth 
 lehem, 
 Far more eloquent to Indian than the priestly apothegm. 
 
 See from neath the low carved doorway flowers blos 
 som through the nave, 
 
 er debris from roof and pillars heaped upon the square 
 tiled pave. 
 
 Where were altars, wild doves twitter o er them drops 
 
 the roof away ; 
 Where burnt type of Eeal Presence, sunshine streams this 
 
 many a day. 
 
 Softly tread the sanctuary, where the reverend sleepers 
 
 lie, 
 Neath the spot where oft they lifted sacrificial Host on 
 
 high. 
 
 Guards them there an earnest priest who deems their 
 
 shrine a sacred trust 
 He whose search in musty volumes found what place 
 
 held Serra s dust. 
 
137 
 
 Yearly here the Indians gather on San Carlos holy day ; 
 Sad memorial to the man who would have died for such 
 as they. 
 
 Weirdly echo their responses for the saint they do not 
 
 know; 
 But they know their hopes are broken, arid that Serra lies 
 
 below. 
 
 And they tremble when they tell you that at midnight 
 
 of that day 
 Will arise their buried kindred in a ghostly dumb array ; 
 
 Round the ruin in procession with their torches white and 
 
 stiU, 
 Passing through the shadowy doorway from their graves 
 
 beneath the hill; 
 
 And that Serra, like a god, although his burial stone 
 moves not, 
 
 Will lead them in mass majestic on the drear but hal 
 lowed spot; 
 
 With strange aspergill will scatter o er their forms a 
 
 phantom spray, 
 While Crespi will swing the censer through air unpulsed 
 
 by its sway; 
 
 And the altar s spectral tapers will gleam on their faces 
 
 white, 
 And the Crucifix soft splendor fill the dark nave with 
 
 its light; 
 
[138] 
 
 Hoarse will sob the surf responsive, moan the wind in 
 
 minor strain, 
 Mingling with the faint far echoes, some celestial choir s 
 
 refrain ; 
 
 Night winds will not stir the garments of the kneelers on 
 
 the ground, 
 To the voiceless Pax Vobiscum, lips will answer without 
 
 sound ; 
 
 And will cross the brows unearthly, hands which leave no 
 shadow there, 
 
 As the forms and lights phantasmal melt into the mid 
 night air. 
 
 Such the shadow thrown upon the Campos Santos neath 
 the hill, 
 
 Where the rulers of the young land many graves un 
 noticed fill. 
 
 At this Mission long dwelt Serra padre of the padres 
 
 he; 
 Hence o er hill and desert went he through his apostolic 
 
 see. 
 
 Thence returning worked he humbly with the Indians 
 
 while he taught, 
 Bearing burdens as St. Francis when at Damian he 
 
 wrought. 
 
 Showed he, too, by dread example torches to his flesh 
 
 applied, 
 Beaten breast with stones and scourges woes for those 
 
 who godless died. 
 
139 ] 
 
 Told he mass at shrine most humble, not within the walls 
 
 we see ; 
 Neath a low, thatched roof uncomely, served he altar 
 
 ministry. 
 
 And when fell upon his brow a shadow from the farther 
 land, 
 
 Thitherward turned he all gladly, lifting patient, long 
 ing hand; 
 
 Seeing naught midst heaven s glories his pure spirit 
 
 more besought 
 Than a "grander gift of prayer," for poor souls for 
 
 whom he wrought. 
 
 When from self-imposed retreat he came forth to the 
 sacrament, 
 
 Rung his Salutaris Hostia, though his form with weak 
 ness bent; 
 
 Rose his Tantum Sacramentum in a tone that mocked all 
 
 pain, 
 While the voice of priests and kneelers died in tears at 
 
 the refrain ; 
 
 Laid he then tired head in rapture on the breast of 
 
 mother earth 
 Dumb bequest of his poor body to the heart that gave it 
 
 birth, 
 
 Chill embrace which he felt not, Faith s glowing robe 
 
 was round him cast; 
 Proved he true to poverty and to St. Francis to the last. 
 
140] 
 
 Bore the waiting ones his spirit, and their anthem s joy 
 ous swell 
 
 Mingled with the notes funereal of the solemn passing 
 bell. 
 
 And the boom of dreary cannon told above the moaning 
 
 sea 
 How the earth had lost a soldier and The Church a 
 
 devotee. 
 
 And the angel voices answered that The Church in heaven 
 
 had found 
 One whose welcome should re-echo through the welkin s 
 
 farthest bound. 
 
 And they laid him by Crespi, the friend whose toils were 
 
 sooner o er. 
 At the feet of Dolorosa and beneath the chancel floor. 
 
 Lie their crypts in desolation sun and storm upon 
 
 them beat ; 
 Desolation is aboiit them sun and storm upon them 
 
 beat. 
 
[141] 
 
 Santa Cruz 
 
 Hail thou Cross of adoration! was t in Eden thou had st 
 
 birth, 
 When the new-blessed parted waters found the corners of 
 
 the earth! 
 
 Mystic sign in far-passed ages, when with bashful hand 
 the Morn 
 
 First enwrapped with rosy mantle young Atlantis, ocean- 
 born, 
 
 Is t by thee that man, an exile, keeps sad mem ry of that 
 
 land? 
 Or was t thou God s pledge of peace, when Eve bewailed 
 
 her lifted hand? 
 
 Thou e er deemed by God-taught sages, emblem of some 
 
 strange new life, 
 Since man first on record tablets wrought his faith with 
 
 cunning knife ; 
 
 Borne by sculptured gods and monarchs, carved on tem 
 ple, shaft and urn, 
 
 Thou was t old when Egypt found thee ; Persia young, of 
 thee would learn. 
 
 Bars of death most ignominious, when disgrace was 
 
 heaped on crime; 
 The accretion of man s venom gathered from the crypts 
 
 of time. 
 
 Man s first promise to the future, in which life and death 
 
 types meet; 
 Heritage of all the ages when ye lay at Jesus feet. 
 
142 
 
 Hail thou sign of life immortal ! symbol of a death pro 
 fane! 
 
 Waited st thou MESSSIAH CHRIST-MAN, to unite thy 
 meanings twain ! 
 
[143] 
 
 The Last Sermon 
 of Fray Junipero Serra 
 
 "O, brothers grieve not that the old gives place to new, 
 That the present s rushing purpose to the past forgets 
 its due; 
 
 God endures to see the lily drop its petals one by one : 
 Shall not we abide the death of that whose work for earth 
 is done? 
 
 "Gone our Missions life midst conflicts, but the truth 
 
 we sought to tell 
 Shall resist the strife of ages, for with God its might 
 
 doth dwell; 
 
 * Truth of God s great love to mortals shown in Type of 
 
 holy life, 
 Whose humility majestic should rebuke man s pride of 
 
 strife. 
 
 "Doubt not that such love shall conquer though some 
 
 faith-built altars fall, 
 That the sacrifice was perfect, made but once and made 
 
 for all. 
 
 "By the holy saints and martyrs whose great lives shall 
 
 burn sublime, 
 Heaven-set torches ever flaming down the corridors of 
 
 time; 
 
 "By His Mother s seven sorrows; by the twelve stars 
 
 on her brow; 
 By her present adoration, in which e en the seraphs 
 
 bow; 
 
[144] 
 
 "By His holy incarnation; by that Power which healed 
 
 all pain ; 
 By the Hand that burst the tomb when once came forth 
 
 the mighty Slain; 
 
 "By the glorious Presence Real, the Eucharist s grand 
 
 mystery, 
 Doubt not that the love shall triumph sealed with blood 
 
 on Calvary. 
 
 "He who makes man s fury praise Him, the remainder 
 shall restrain; 
 
 On wrath s ruin, temple nobler shall uplift its fair do 
 main, 
 
 "Temple grand enough to gather all the faithful of all 
 
 time ; 
 Then shall Jubilate Deo blend in tongues of every clime. 
 
 "If we know not such proportions, see our measuring 
 
 line too small; 
 Be sure God s love spans the millions as His sun shines 
 
 over all. 
 
 "Then grieve not at altars broken, or at mould on cher 
 ished shrine. 
 
 God is greater than the ages! Truth is as His life 
 divine!" 
 
 And the Holy Cross in blessing lifted o er their bowed 
 heads 
 
 Was in substance as the lustre which heaven s open por 
 tal sheds; 
 
[145 
 
 Neath its soft suffused glory, blent their outlines with 
 
 pure light, 
 As at the Transfiguration heavenly forms were lost from 
 
 sight. 
 
Francisca Reina, or 
 
 Songs and Ballads of the Great Fire 
 
 in San Francisco 
 
 April, 1906 
 
 Francisca Reina " : Richard G. Badger 
 Boston, 1908] 
 
The horror which surpassed all telling; 
 The memories still welling, welling, 
 
 -Exhaustless fountain of our pain 
 
 Let us forget. 
 
 The nights that made us gray ere mornings, 
 The desolation of those dawning s, 
 
 Whose like, no suns of fire-red stain 
 Had seen before nor may again, 
 Let us forget. 
 
 The losses which have made us brothers; 
 The sufferings, our own and others , 
 
 The wrecking of a life s long toil, 
 
 Let us forget. 
 
 Lest we grow hard and unforgiving, 
 Lest we lose that great joy of living 
 
 The might to wrest from out the soil 
 The wealth that is our rightful spoil - 
 Let us forget. 
 
 Lest we get low and weary-hearted 
 Thinking of old and new thus parted 
 
 A gulf whose bridge is hope alone 
 
 Let us forget. 
 
 Let us look onward to the morrows; 
 As monuments o er buried sorroivs 
 
 Piling the best the world has known 
 Of iron strength and carven stone, 
 
 Let its forget. 
 Lord God! Help us forget. 
 
[149] 
 
 Francisca Reina 
 
 A stricken queen, but still a queen of queens, 
 
 She sat upon the sloping of her hills 
 
 Where wreck and fire had danced the dance of death. 
 
 Her forehead bowed upon her knees she sat, 
 
 An instant stunned by her transcendant woe. 
 
 The smoke still burnt her eyelids, and her throat 
 
 Quivered with pungent acids of the flame. 
 
 The acrid vapors of the steaming muck 
 
 Were in her nostrils, and her slackened breath 
 
 Was spent through ashes on her bleeding lips. 
 
 A while all paralyzed, then slow her head 
 
 Upraised. Her eyes were dim. She saw through mists 
 
 The vista of her hills all gray and still. 
 
 When would they laugh again? Ten thousand homes 
 
 Had burnt their hearthstones into monuments 
 
 For her as dead. That cup unveiled she saw 
 
 Which fate has ready for the desolate, 
 
 The black wine of despair each hour new pressed 
 
 From envy of the nether gods. This cup, 
 
 Scorned lightly in her pride, he thrust at her 
 
 With coward jeers: "Drink, drink, thou boastful dame. 
 
 Dost mock it now? There s nothing more for thee. " 
 
 One glance ! The vision came ! Her spirit s light 
 
 Broke forth in aureole about her head 
 
 Glory immortal of a risen soul. 
 
 Upright she stood. Hot cinders burnt her feet 
 
 She knew it not. With fingers tense, the cup 
 
 She seized and, like one born to her own house, 
 
 That black wine of despair she tossed aloft 
 
 Upon the embers and the blistering rocks. 
 
150] 
 
 " Tis not for me, a queen, this dastard draught. 
 For lo! They come my children from the sea 
 Of fire each man a king. Their garments smoke. 
 Their brows deep seamed, but bright with hope. Their 
 
 eyes 
 
 Are brave, their faces set to conquer death. 
 My sons! My sons!" With touch of its old joy 
 Her voice rang out among the blackened tombs. 
 "Come near, ye bruised ones. Unflinching hearts, 
 Together make we sacrificial vows 
 With orisons unto the rising sun." 
 
[151] 
 
 Francisca Dolorosa 
 
 Fore-doomed the horror of the age to bear, 
 
 By Fate hand-gripped, we went forth from our homes. 
 
 From mornings to the ending days we fared, 
 
 And from three midnights to their dawns again 
 
 From place to place ; the while, a demon crazed, 
 
 Destruction followed in a pact with Death. 
 
 And yet a song was on our lips. We smiled 
 
 Into each other s eyes in comradeship. 
 
 The great heart of humanity awoke 
 
 With throbs which stilled the consciousness of self. 
 
 And we went forth to night that was as day, 
 To day that was as night, for time was not. 
 The parrot clinging to his master s sleeve 
 Forgot his chattering. The songless birds 
 Shivered upon the perch. Dumb creatures eyes 
 Were pleading unto us. Go forth? Whither? 
 To pavements choked with people dazed by shock, 
 Smoke-strangled, bent beneath their burdened backs, 
 Half dumb and goblin-like in flame-lit smoke; 
 Streets harsh with scrapings of a hasty flight, 
 Ashriek with dragging things that blocked our feet. 
 The mountains called and from the docks the cry, 
 * This way for life ! To save your life, this way. 
 For hours, the sea, far out, had roared its pain. 
 
 But, now, the bay, unmindful of the wounds 
 Of Mother Earth, said, "Come, I know a shore 
 Of rest : and thousands followed it to peace, 
 On waves resplendent in a world of fire, 
 The light from an Immortal s flaming nest. 
 
152 ] 
 
 We smelled the smoke of things revered. Our mouths 
 
 Were bitter with the char of household gods. 
 
 We trod the cinders from the city s heart, 
 
 Our city, loved as hearthstones are. Whither? 
 
 The parks ! A woman s cry. There stood strong men 
 
 Shoulder to shoulder, their broad backs a wall 
 
 Around one stricken ere her time, her bed 
 
 The street. Aye, aye, men s backs a hasty wall 
 
 To guard that moment holy, from the crowd. 
 
 Instinct of manhood unto motherhood, 
 
 God! The glory and the pain of it! 
 
 The gentleness of those rough hands which bore 
 
 To sheltering that prostrate form ! face 
 
 Newborn, adust with ashes of its home! 
 
 Whither? Unto the hills still green with spring? 
 The slender fingers of a jewelled dame 
 Spread out her fluffy down in silken sheath, 
 Beneath the forehead of a negro child. 
 Her store of dainties hasty seized, she brake 
 As bread unto God s homeless multitude; 
 And seemed it to increase, as did the loaves 
 Of Him w r ho fed the crowds in Galilee. 
 
 While tongues of dogs unknown licked up the crumbs 
 From off our hands in brotherhood of woe. 
 
 The millioniare s swift motor-car became 
 
 A thing of life, the while the man s own hands 
 
 Were black with gathering waifs and strays. This car 
 
 Was God s fleet messenger unto the maimed. 
 
 It flew filled with sweet faces of the nuns 
 
 To minister beside the narrow cot; 
 
 With the red crosses of the brotherhood 
 
153 
 
 Aglow, it flew unto the service field 
 
 Of skill and love ; then black with priestly robes 
 
 Which held within the sacred vest the sealed 
 
 Viaticum to cheer the way to death. 
 
 Piled with the fallen and the halt it flew; 
 
 Then comfort-nigh for hungry, shivering forms. 
 
 This pleasure-thing, built for the rich man s toy! 
 
 And thus unto the sand dunes and the tides 
 We fled, alone or in some brother s care; 
 And that red glare beat on us yet for days, 
 Till hearts grew strong with giving others cheer. 
 
 No strangers then! All races were akin 
 
 By God s one fatherhood to all. A man 
 
 Was but a man unto a man. Enough! 
 
 One brand of pain was on us all. I knew 
 
 My sister by the grime upon her hands. 
 
 My mother ! Was not she that babbling one 
 
 Who tottered from the doorway of her shack 
 
 With smoking garments, prone upon my feet? 
 
 Not mine? Those children dragging at my skirts? 
 
 My brother from the hill of palaces, 
 
 His softened features gray with cinder dust 
 
 Of mansions, now forgetting his own loss, 
 
 Tender as to the firstborn of his house, 
 
 He wraps within his coat of sable warmth 
 
 The sleeping child he found upon the street. 
 
 The holy joy of such a fellowship ! 
 
 The angels must have wept and worshipped God. 
 
 Thou city of our hearts ! With that first rage 
 Of passion primitive we loved, we loved, 
 Yet helpless saw thee struggle, gasp and fall. 
 
[154 
 
 What meant the song upon our lips? The uplift 
 Of shock? The nervous power of pain supreme? 
 Nay, nay ! The angel hands were blinding us, 
 Lest knowing we go mad before the chrism 
 Of hope, their fingers touched upon our eyes. 
 The solemn joy of newborn faith in life, 
 And faith born of catastrophe is strength. 
 Extremity like thine revealed to us 
 That thou wert of God s plan unto the world 
 To civilize. We saw that thou must rise 
 In evolution of His purposes 
 From thy baptism of fire to higher life. 
 Thus meant the song unconscious on our lips ; 
 A Resurrexit in a Requiem Chant. 
 
[155] 
 
 Francisca Madre 
 
 New Year, 1907 
 
 What cheer, Francisco Madre, what of cheer 
 
 For this, the world s expectant year? 
 
 Struggles uncanny hast thou now 
 
 While still upon thy cheek the tear. 
 
 The laborer s sweat is on thy brow; 
 
 Thy hands have changed the timbrels for the spade ; 
 
 Thy feet that danced go firm and unafraid. 
 
 With front of light thou f arest to and fro 
 
 Among a city full 
 
 Of wrecks, each stone a shrine to memory dear, 
 
 When smites all ruthlessly upon thy face 
 
 The crime of blood, while from thy noble place 
 
 Greed s hooked fingers reach to thy disgrace. 
 
 With such unnatural foe 
 
 Thy courage is more pitiful 
 
 Than thy first woe. 
 
 O life that riots in the Western breast ! 
 Despair it knows not, no, nor rest, 
 But in Fate s challenge finds its best. 
 Through all the pulses of thy throbbing mart, 
 It thrills thee, city of the bleeding heart ; 
 Thrills thee with promise of the coming year. 
 
 Francisca of our love, what cheer? 
 
 On every side we hear 
 
 The hammer and the chisel ply, 
 
 And creaking of the wains that thrust us by. 
 
 The carven stone had been thy creed, 
 
 But to thy children s sudden need 
 
 Thou offerest with averted eve 
 
156] 
 
 A sheath of iron and wood; 
 They answer through a stifled cry, 
 "Yea, mother, this is good!" 
 And pledge thee for a glad New Year. 
 
 Francisca, watcher of the night, what cheer? 
 
 By day, thou paintest in the future s glow, 
 
 The fair dream city which the world shall know. 
 
 But when thou gazest through the chill 
 
 Of night from hill to blackened hill, 
 
 Travail of tasks gigantic must o erfill 
 
 Thy soul. Tis then thou shudderest with the pain 
 
 Of Memory and Hope in mortal strain. 
 
 But Hope, the strong twin-sister of the Dawn, 
 
 Forever young, smiles with each rising sun 
 
 Upon the yet wreck- jagged slopes, and lo ! 
 
 The broken hearthstones flush in rosy glow, 
 
 Above new homes that nestle at thy feet, 
 
 Like the swift-lighted gulls of gray. And thou, 
 
 Dear mother, liftest thy rejoicing brow, 
 
 As the fleet-footed moments run, 
 
 Foreshadowed splendors of the year to greet. 
 
 Thou hast rich welcome for the hovering Year 
 That poises on thy threshold half in fear. 
 There s a cheer, Francisca Madre, THERE is CHEER. 
 
[157] 
 Franciscans Thanksgiving 
 
 When the hordes of barbarian Persians 
 Laid the beauty of Athens in waste, 
 With her sons came their women and children 
 Making vows to the gods, and in haste 
 Bearing stones for the walls and the turrets, 
 Till a city arose at whose shrine 
 The centuries kneeled in unlading 
 Their argosies purple and wine. 
 Then ^Eschylus, reading his vision, 
 Sang the song of the city s new morn ; 
 Myron felt for the soul of the marble 
 Which in Phidias later was born. 
 
 By a power more dread than an army 
 
 Destruction has come to our gates, 
 
 And it struck with a terror and blindness 
 
 Which tossed us like toys of the Fates. 
 
 But give thanks that man s greatest is left us, 
 
 The strength and the courage to do, 
 
 A purpose as grim as our fathers 
 
 Who builded good cites and true. 
 
 Give thanks for the grain s golden harvest, 
 
 Sun-garner of wind-rippled fields; 
 
 For the opened storehouse of the mountains 
 
 Where each year its new treasure up-yields. 
 
 True children of Argonauts are we, 
 
 And our struggles to theirs are akin; 
 
 Though the trials be hosts like the Persians, 
 
 An Athenian valor shall win. 
 
 Then Art shall rise from the ashes, 
 
 An immortal unhurt by her scars; 
 
 And a voice shall be heard in the ruins 
 
158 
 
 With a song that shall quicken the stars. 
 As with vows, the builders of Athens 
 Made a shrine of each wall they upraised, 
 So may we make our city a temple 
 To the God whom our fathers have praised. 
 
 Then spread we the feast of Thanksgiving 
 With a hymn for the days of old; 
 Cheers shall ring for the arduous Present 
 And the triumphs the Future shall hold. 
 
[159] 
 How We Went Out 
 
 She wore five skirts, he wore two hats, 
 
 He led the dog, she carried cats; 
 
 A blanket, soldierwise, about 
 
 Each waist was coiled, they both were stout. 
 
 He had a bundle on his back 
 
 And dragged a trunk along the track. 
 
 She bore a hat box and a grip ; 
 
 The squirming kittens made her trip, 
 
 Those catlings yowled beneath her weight; 
 
 He picked her up and swore at Fate. 
 
 In baleful glare of reddish light, 
 
 They knew not were it day or night 
 
 They plodded towards the Golden Gate, 
 
 Then sat upon their trunk to wait. 
 
 Was this the end, or should they go 
 
 Still farther to the "Westward Ho!" 
 
 They found a waif fast strapped on skates 
 
 Crying by the Presidio gates; 
 
 He d lost his pa and on his head, 
 
 Top-heavy, bore the family bed. 
 
 She cheered him with a mother squeeze, 
 
 And fed him of the bread and cheese, 
 
 With other pets around their knees. 
 
 The flames had reached a hotel dome ! 
 
 A lady rich in mines of Nome 
 
 Rushed down the stairs to find the street, 
 
 Rolling her packs before her feet. 
 
 Her latest hat she had assumed 
 
 To save its owlet, newly plumed. 
 
 A skirt above her robe de nuit 
 
 Was all the dress that one could see; 
 
 Her Paris gowns of great expense 
 
 Were not just then in evidence 
 
[ 160 
 
 Save by a cuff or bit of lace 
 Exuding from a pillow case. 
 She dragged her bundles in this plight, 
 Half consciously she felt them light, 
 One backward glance ! A wretched wrack 
 Of nameless garments marked her track. 
 A rubber bag the long-necked kind 
 Was crawling like a worm behind. 
 A passer cried or was it craze? 
 "Madam, your hat is all ablaze." 
 She dashed it down upon the pave, 
 That bird must go her life to save. 
 One back despairing look she cast, 
 The sight will haunt her to the last, 
 That owl s glass eyes in vengeful ire 
 Glared at her from a wreath of fire. 
 
 A forty-niner, camped in town, 
 
 Had watched the city burning down; 
 
 The dignity of one tiled hat 
 
 He d reached through suffering, and that 
 
 To save, he d make a sacrifice, 
 
 And so he wore it; awful price! 
 
 An outgrown baby cart he found, 
 
 And started prospecting new ground, 
 
 Unconsciously he took the word 
 
 Of time s old slogan, long unheard 
 
 Since he went broke upon the Trust; 
 
 "Pardner, we ll make Twin Peaks or bust." 
 
 A house by hotel-swelldom kept: 
 Italian virtuosos slept 
 Far up and dreamed of Italy, 
 Vendettas of dear Sicily, 
 
[161 
 
 Vesuvius and her latest tricks, 
 
 When suddenly the rattling bricks 
 
 Made nightmare of the passing dream; 
 
 Vesuvius, still the latest theme, 
 
 Came first to mind, as down the stair 
 
 They rushed upon the facing square. 
 
 Cried one with vast dramatic air, 
 
 Arms waving wildly in despair, 
 
 "0 thou, Vesuvius, my own! 
 
 A shake like this thou ne er hast known ! 
 
 Why did I leave my mountain thus? 
 
 Heart of my heart, Vesuvius! 
 
 Oh, give me my Vesuvius ! 
 
 This tragic artist wore the while 
 
 Pajamas of the latest style. 
 
 What man, think you, it was would do so ? 
 
 His name? The rhyme demands Caruso? 
 
 In garments anything but fresh, 
 She rolled in amplitude of flesh 
 From one to other of her brood, 
 Asweat with love and packing food. 
 "Here, Jakey, come and lif dis pile; 
 Don t go yourself away a mile, 
 Stay wid your pa and help to pull 
 Dat trunk, for it is plenty full. 
 
 "Here, Bruder Abe, you re high and strong 
 To push your gran pa s chair along. 
 Now go him slow or you make wrong. 
 Vere s Zolomons? Vot for you vait? 
 I tells you keep dat puggy straight. 
 Der papy! She is pack inside; 
 Now give your little sister ride. 
 
[ 162 
 
 Don t look aroun , but mind your feet. 
 How much times must I tole you so? 
 You mischief poy, now dare she go! 
 You spills mine papy in der street!" 
 
 "0 God of Israel!" groaned the sire, 
 "Found Father Abram once a fire? 
 Had Yacob in der vilderniss 
 Pulled ever such a load like this?" 
 From puffy pores the sweat oozed out, 
 For he was greasy, short, and stout. 
 
 "You look just like those pack mules, Jim, 
 When we came down from Washbowl Rim : 
 The grips were strapped all over him. 
 "All right, my girl, you can t say much 
 About appearances and such; 
 Give me another pack before 
 I wedge you through the big front door. 
 You are so trussed up with these things 
 You cannot spread your angel wings, 
 But you re an angel and dead game; 
 Let s hit the trail in search of fame." 
 " ! hush, you boy, it is a crime 
 To joke at such an awful time. 
 Our home ! How can we let it go ! 
 
 Here Eddy died Jim, you know " 
 
 "Don t cry, old girl; if I break up 
 I might collapse that painted cup. 
 The mines at Washbowl still are rich; 
 Oh, luck, we ll get the diamond hitch." 
 Whence but from guardian angel s power 
 Come cheer and courage in such hour? 
 
[ 163 
 
 Giuseppe swore this was not Rome; 
 He sweat, he wept, and thought of home 
 On Tiber s bank, but quite forgot 
 That sometimes there the meals were not 
 As frequent as the classic shade. 
 Nor was the bundle he had made 
 At leaving Rome too great to bear. 
 Of goods to-day, if he d been there, 
 How easy he d ha,ve dragged his share. 
 
 He met the barber, old Frangois : 
 They lauded, in their two patois, 
 The beauties of the old countrie, 
 But chose to burn and still be free. 
 
 "Now, Biddy, give yourself a hunch 
 
 And get the childer in a bunch, 
 
 The soldier orthers us to go." 
 
 Now Biddies argue well, you know, 
 
 And Paddy had a bad half hour 
 
 Explaining military power ; 
 
 And not until appeared once more 
 
 A gun which seemed to fill the door, 
 
 Its dreaded threat would she obey; 
 
 "0 Pat, begorra is the day 
 
 I left ould Ireland for you, 
 
 As granny said, i faith tis thrue." 
 
 When she begun, it was a whirl, 
 
 She loaded down each boy and girl ; 
 
 Hitched up to go-carts full of duds, 
 
 They pulled and frisked like Shetland studs. 
 
164 
 
 She harnessed Pat to homemade fills, 
 
 And pushed behind to cross the hills. 
 
 "And is t to lave the dare ould place!" 
 
 She cried. "0 Mary, full of grace! 
 
 Mother o God, look down the day ! 
 
 Pat, mind the childer," and away 
 
 Within the church s toppling door 
 
 One precious moment on the floor 
 
 She told her beads with Aves o er. 
 
 That church, fire-doomed ! Her prayer its last ! 
 
 O faith God-blest for ages past! 
 
 An auto piled with silken puffs 
 
 And glittering Oriental stuffs 
 
 Drove down upon the sand, wave-damp, 
 
 Seeking in haste a midnight camp. 
 
 A group of Chinamen was near, 
 
 Each man an Oriental seer, 
 
 Calm in his fatalistic cheer. 
 
 With rice-bag parcels banked around, 
 
 They stood or squatted on the ground. 
 
 Quick spoke the leader of the crew, 
 
 "My boys! you like they helpee you?" 
 
 "Thanks, John, these ladies are so cold;" 
 
 The stranger said, and offered gold; 
 
 "Me helpee you, no likee pay; 
 
 Me alle same white man to-day." 
 
 Then with deft, long-fingered hands, 
 
 They improvised upon the sands 
 
 A tent of Persian prayer-cloths made 
 
 With priceless rugs for carpet laid; 
 
 A couch of fluffy pillows piled, 
 
 Those heads to doubtful rest beguiled. 
 
[165] 
 
 When morning dawned, red-flushed but chill, 
 
 Pulses were slow and voices still; 
 
 Within the tent all cheer had died; 
 
 A squeaky treble piped outside, 
 
 " Madam, she likee bowl of rice? 
 
 I think she find him belly nice." 
 
 Fluffy and white each kernel stood, 
 
 A thing alone, a steaming food, 
 
 Cooked by this wrinkled Chinaman, 
 
 Cooked as Celestials only can. 
 
 The native dames were unsurprised, 
 
 The Eastern ladies recognized 
 
 A yellow angel, but disguised. 
 
[166] 
 
 Francisca Diligente 
 
 May to August, 1906 
 
 No more Indifferent to Fate 
 She sits beside the Golden Gate;" 
 But casts about with watchful eyes 
 If Diligence perchance surprise 
 Some wandering relief supplies; 
 We thought we had no public squares, 
 But she has found them everywheres; 
 They showed up quick with army tents 
 And shacks and cooking implements; 
 While from a bread line improvised 
 Good things she duly authorized, 
 With life no longer simplified 
 To coffee and a bacon side. 
 She mothers well these refuge camps; 
 And watches all the flickering lamps. 
 
 South Market Street in peace abides 
 
 Indefinite upon the sides 
 
 Of hilly parks whose sacred green 
 
 Had never such despoiling seen. 
 
 In vain the neighbors may protest 
 
 That this continuance is no jest, 
 
 For mighty ones serenely say, 
 
 These camper folk have come to stay;" 
 
 While vicious wags, "Ah, ha! The boats 
 
 Political are steered by votes!" 
 
 She gives them tent-schools every day; 
 
 The bands for them on Sunday play; 
 
 Sermons and hymns, each to his mind, 
 
 Assorted here the pious find. 
 
167 
 
 A table d hote she has essayed 
 Beneath the park trees ready shade; 
 Till those who toil for bread and cheese 
 Have sometimes envied refugees. 
 Who would attack a pile of brick 
 When soup was waiting hot and thick? 
 Who likes the mortar-laden breeze 
 While seats are empty under trees? 
 And yet, her naughty children cried: 
 "0 Ma, such eggs! They ain t half fried. 
 Hear that, ye hapless ones who pay 
 And humbly take what comes your way. 
 Ingratitude was such surprise 
 That poor Francisca wiped her eyes, 
 And thought of her reduced supplies; 
 Not being learned in landlord lore 
 Of showing grumblers to the door. 
 
 Far from indifferent, of late 
 She oftentimes consults with Fate 
 In watchings round the Golden Gate. 
 
[168] 
 
 The Simple Life on Sidewalks 
 
 April, 1906 
 
 A lady, dainty, young, and fair, 
 
 Was cooking in the open air; 
 
 She wore a sweater for a waist, 
 
 Her Easter hat her head begraced, 
 
 Her husband also with a hat, 
 
 A silken tile demurely sat 
 
 Coatless upon the curb; his feet 
 
 Adorned the gutter of the street. 
 
 Their stove was but a pile of bricks, 
 
 Flung down by recent chimney tricks 
 
 Of taking headers through the air; 
 
 These were a honeymooning pair 
 
 And found first housekeeping no joke; 
 
 Her eyes were streaming with the smoke, 
 
 The while the sputtering ham she fried; 
 
 The chips he diligently plied 
 
 To flames that blew four ways at once; 
 
 He softly swore he was a dunce 
 
 Who never built a stove before; 
 
 "My love," he cried, "it needs a door." 
 
 And then a moment all went well, 
 
 While west winds had a lucid spell; 
 
 "Now hurry, Jack, while things are hot; 
 
 You take the pot, 
 
 I ve got the pans. There come patrols, 
 
 You d best stamp out those burning coals. 
 
 Then up the front steps they d run, 
 
 Laughing as if such life were fun. 
 
 The life indoors was simpler still, 
 
 And all day long a midnight chill 
 
 Wrapped her like hydropathic sheet; 
 
 She went outdoors to warm her feet; 
 
[169] 
 
 No spark upon the hearthstone cheered, 
 
 For if a curl of smoke appeared, 
 
 A bayonet six feet long or more 
 
 Came flashing through the opened door. 
 
 And water was a luxury rare 
 
 To be conserved with greatest care, 
 
 For when Jack brought it from afar, 
 
 Where things escaped the recent jar, 
 
 To heat it for her selfish use 
 
 Was of his kindness an abuse. 
 
 The evenings were in simple life 
 
 Devoid of interesting strife. 
 
 If through the streets they took a turn, 
 
 Because indoors no lights could burn, 
 
 The omnipresent khakis said, 
 
 * * Tis time good folks were all in bed ; 
 
 The simple life at night was dark, 
 
 For if escaped one little spark 
 
 From hidden candle after eight, 
 
 There came a rattling at the gate, 
 
 "Put out that light!" a stern voice cried. 
 
 "All right," he amiably replied. 
 
 He tried to imitate the mouse, 
 
 But tumbled things about the house 
 
 Till echoes rang, for every chair 
 
 Seemed placed just right to make him swear. 
 
 Against the door he bumped his head, 
 
 Then tumbled crossways into bed. 
 
 It was a morning s task to find 
 
 The garments he had cast behind. 
 
? ? 
 
 170] 
 
 You teachers, try this simple life 
 You call " devoid of nervous strife. 
 See how you feel the soul s spent wings 
 Flutter amid such simple things. 
 See how the dross, by spirit fire 
 Is sublimated from desire, 
 That lust for comfort of the flesh; 
 Mark me, you ll know yourselves afresh. 
 This gleeful couple did their best 
 To jollify the long-drawn test; 
 But daily trial recognized 
 By moonlight they philosophized 
 That life somewhat more civilized 
 Was worth the burdens it disguised. 
 
[171] 
 
 The Simple Life in Tents 
 
 Ten thousand khaki tents or more, 
 
 The parks green hillsides scattered o er, 
 
 To the idealist might seem 
 
 Idyllic as a shepherd s dream. 
 
 As landscape gardening, they re not bad; 
 
 Worse picnic places may be had ; 
 
 As summer camps a month or more 
 
 One may endure the flapping door 
 
 And drafts that sweep across the floor; 
 
 The dust and odors in the clothes 
 
 To tent flaps pinned in swinging rows ; 
 
 Wall shadows cast by careless lamps 
 
 Betraying secrets to the camps: 
 
 As habitations to endure 
 
 They should be studied for a cure. 
 
 The simple life in them pursued 
 
 Proves both disquieting and crude; 
 
 That which in art is picturesque, 
 
 For living proves a coarse burlesque. 
 
[172] 
 
 The Simple Life in Clubs 
 
 April, 1906 
 
 From various junketings with fate 
 
 Six club men sat in dreary state; 
 
 Millions they d lost, each man a few, 
 
 A few were left to start anew. 
 
 "No hard-luck stories, now, you boys." 
 
 Each man was gray. "Let s tell our joys. 
 
 A deep voice growled, "My throat s so dry, 
 
 There s one old joy I d like to try. 
 
 You see those tumblers upside down, 
 
 And not a lemon in the town?" 
 
 He groaned at such unnatural woe 
 
 Who d seen unmoved his millions go. 
 
 One sufferer bounded from his seat, 
 
 Flew down the stairs as light and fleet 
 
 As wings of youth were on his feet. 
 
 For this hour saved from fire and shock, 
 
 An office stood upon the dock. 
 
 A man of venerable mien 
 
 Writing alone could there be seen; 
 
 And thither came our millionaire, 
 
 Familiar and most debonair. 
 
 "Say, Mac, those fellows at the club! 
 
 You know they ve had an awful rub." 
 
 Behind his spectacles gold rim, 
 Relaxed a bit Mac s visage grim; 
 These words appealed right up to him. 
 The office door he gently locked, 
 His visitor seemed nothing shocked. 
 Respectable and quite correct 
 A safe stood there; who would suspect 
 
[173 
 
 That comfort, contraband, could hide 
 
 Within its little black inside? 
 
 From double depths all cool and dark 
 
 That host drew forth a glinting spark, 
 
 The which his eager guest received 
 
 As writ of life to the reprieved. 
 
 "Come here, you love/ he softly cried, 
 
 "My coat s got loose enough to hide 
 
 A dozen such. Let s take a ride." 
 
 Then forth upon the dock they walked, 
 
 These Innocents at home, and talked 
 
 With manners grave and dignified, 
 
 How life must be more simplified; 
 
 On reconstruction well discoursed, 
 
 That forces must be reinforced, 
 
 Until they reached the auto, where 
 
 The cops passed by with guiltless air. 
 
 Mac whispered then, "Now speed that road 
 
 As if you had a red-cross load." 
 
 What general or potentate 
 
 Triumphant from the field or state, 
 
 Could with this hero be compared, 
 
 This dear old swell who loved and dared? 
 
 And when he set that bottle down, 
 Those clubmen seized the Bourbon crown 
 As rebels often had before. 
 The hero was ordained to pour 
 Into each glass the precious store. 
 Reverent they watched the sacred rite, 
 Then held their crystals to the light, 
 And how they read its golden glow, 
 Tis the elect alone can know. 
 They passed the nectar to and fro 
 
174] 
 
 Beneath each expert nostril s play- 
 Delicious test of its bouquet; 
 So lovers revel in delay. 
 And then a solemn moment fell 
 Each glass was drained, its dainty well 
 A heaven no futile pen may tell. 
 
 The cork they toasted to the cheer, 
 And hung it on the chandelier; 
 Beribboned there it swings, the first 
 To break the record of the thirst. 
 
[175] 
 
 The Reason Why 
 
 Up and down the face of Telegraph Hill 
 While our city was swept by flames, 
 
 An Italian tore, and he prayed and he swore, 
 And he called all his saints by name. 
 
 When, deaf or afar, they answered him not, 
 
 He dissolved into filial tears; 
 In the red-black sky still the pyre blazed high 
 
 Of the city he d loved for years. 
 
 Then a sudden thought lit his swarthy face, 
 "The Patron! St. Francis, the blest!" 
 
 In relief from despair, he plunged down the long stair 
 To his house with its relic chest. 
 
 Quoth he, as a banner of silk he unfurled, 
 
 "This is Francis Assisi s hour; 
 A saint of such fame must defend his name, 
 
 Our homes he must save by his power/ 
 
 That banner he waved that Assisi might see, 
 
 But still the flames rolled on; 
 "0 Francis! behold the folk and the gold!" 
 
 But by morning the city was gone. 
 
 All night he had borne St. Francis on high 
 
 From each point of that rampart-wall. 
 "What s the use of a saint !" With his blaspemous plaint 
 
 Pie collapsed, Assisi and all. 
 
 Next day, quite limp from the shock to his faith, 
 
 That banner he found where it lay 
 On a roof, with the face staring up in disgrace, 
 
 Half buried in ashes of gray. 
 
[176] 
 
 That face ! Tis Francis of Sales ! " he cried : 
 
 "0 Mother of God!" he wailed; 
 "What s the patron about that he didn t watch out? 
 
 Or in penance, perhaps, I have failed." 
 
 * Francis Asis ! How did Sales get in ? 
 
 Tis not he has the charge of our town; 
 How dare a saint rob a saint of his job 
 
 And let all the houses burn down?" 
 
 He seized the staff of that banner defamed, 
 
 As anger burst forth from despair; 
 "If this Frenchman likes fire he shall have his desire; 
 
 San Francisco s fate let him share." 
 
 As a living coal dropped down at his feet 
 
 To its sacrificial flame 
 He touched the fold of that silk and gold, 
 
 And he burned it, the face and the name. 
 
 That martyr ablaze he wigwagged aloft 
 With jeers that were pious complaints; 
 
 For another s mistake. Sales dropped at the stake, 
 As is often the habit of saints. 
 
 So that s why the City of Francis was burned; 
 
 The wrong saint was called to defend. 
 If Assisi d been there he d have heard the wild prayer, 
 
 And mayhap would have changed the end. 
 
[177] 
 
 Francisca Gloriosa 
 
 A crown on her head and triumphant, Francisca shall 
 
 mount to her seat; 
 Her sceptre, a shaft of the lightning, all enemies under 
 
 her feet; 
 The ocean of oceans her conquest, the nations their 
 
 tribute shall bring 
 To her ashes abloom like an Eden, the home of perpetual 
 
 Spring. 
 And the Orient s stores of the ages and the northland s 
 
 frozen gold, 
 Still red with the fires of Aurora, where it burnt on her 
 
 altars of old, 
 Shall build her a house of such splendor that masters 
 
 of progress shall own 
 Her a queen among cities, her prowess, that spirit 
 
 sublimed which is known 
 To the souls that, like metal concentrate, have passed 
 
 through the crucible s test. 
 Then the world shall unite with her children to hail her, 
 
 "Francisca the Blest!" 
 
Tunes of War 
 
 [ From ff Francisca Reina and Other Poems 
 A. M. Robertson, San Francisco 
 1912} 
 
[181] 
 
 The Salute of the w Immortalite " 
 
 (Manila Bay, August 12, 1898.) 
 
 The coming dawn flung out her pennants grey 
 Above Manila, where, like baffled tigers hid, 
 Lay crouched the war ships of the children of the Cid, 
 While Dewey s fleet held Europe s wolves at bay. 
 
 The morning, with her sudden orient hand, 
 
 A shower of sunbursts cast where brooding seas 
 
 Crooned softly to the shore. 
 
 The waiting land 
 
 Looked up in dread if yet the breeze 
 
 Were laden with the war-blasts roar ; 
 
 Looked toward our fleet of spars 
 
 With stripes of fire sun-trimmed and burning stars. 
 
 The armed silence of our flag defiance hurled, 
 
 Where from the Olympiads peak its bannered fold, 
 
 Unbound upon aerial waves of gold, 
 
 Flung out its daring message to the world, 
 
 Our final word, the lifted rod of power. 
 
 O Spain! hast thou the prescience of thy fateful hour? 
 
 These tides upbore the English prows of steel; 
 Far off the scowling Kaiser turned his keel; 
 Mikado s sun flushed red before the Russian s frown, 
 While they whose sires had scoffed at Louis ancient 
 
 dower 
 In haste before the Czar bent down. 
 
 Still hunt of kings upon Manila s bay ! 
 
 A muffled danger breathed upon the main. 
 
 Ready to spring our ocean bloodhounds lay. 
 
 The Lion ! Did he proclaim a strange or friendly land 
 
[182 
 
 When toward Cavite swept his proud command ? 
 The Nations sentries jostled in the strain. 
 Aghast the Eagle and the Bear that day! 
 
 From out the British prows in open view 
 The Immortalite came forth alone 
 The Lion s flag-ship by its legends known, 
 Two crosses blazed upon a field of blue ; 
 With storied symbol of its power unfurled, 
 Our ships it faced in presence of a world. 
 crucial hour ! Was the Olympia now to meet 
 The standard of a hostile or a friendly fleet ? 
 
 Britannia s ship with signal flags bedight, 
 
 Passed down our opened lines. 
 
 At full salute, she toward our flag-ship swung 
 
 Before the array of royal battle signs. 
 
 Agape and hushed, the nations at the sight! 
 
 Then from the English deck out-rung 
 
 Our country s anthem, which the winds bore wide 
 
 To jealous kings across the listening tide. 
 
 Ye lands, upon the eve of battle stayed, 
 
 Under all Europe s hungry guns 
 
 It was our own Star Spangled Banner flung 
 
 A-breeze by Briton s sons, 
 
 Beneath Saints George and Andrew s shade: 
 
 Her child-republic s place acknowledged to the world 
 
 On this portentous day by Albion s flag unfurled. 
 
 Outbursting from those flag-ships twain, a cry 
 Woke all the dreaming hazes in reply. 
 With brow uncovered our Commander stood 
 Beneath Old Glory s loosened fold, 
 Amidst his staff of loyal brotherhood. 
 
[183 
 
 Then from the Olympia burst that paean loved of old, 
 
 God Save the Queen. No men that bide 
 
 Upon the seas have ever poured a nation s pride 
 
 Through brazen horns so triumph filled 
 
 As those glad trumpets which that day out cast 
 
 A mother s hymn beneath a daughter s mast. 
 
 The watching squadrons with forebodings thrilled. 
 
 Across the waves the stormy Prussian frowned ; 
 Looked forth the crouching Bear, 
 Scowling at him whose flowery islands rise 
 Where Fujiyama s snows are ever fair. 
 And they of France, in dumb surprise 
 They looked for him, the man they found 
 When Dewey s flag above Manila s gate 
 Untangled yet another knot of fate. 
 
 England ! tis for deeds like this, to thee 
 
 Our hearts are turned. Across the wrathful years 
 
 Thy offered hand : the rancor and the tears 
 
 Forgotten in the blessing which shall be 
 
 When side by side those brother flags are furled, 
 
 Till Anglo-Saxon peace shall lead the world. 
 
[184] 
 
 Dewey in Waiting 
 
 (Manila, May 1- August 13, 1898.) 
 
 God of our fathers! guard his ways 
 Who bore the strain through many days; 
 Who held within a single hand 
 The honor of his native land; 
 Whose ward ceased not with tropic light, 
 Whose thoughts engarrisoned the night, 
 Whose vigilance forestalled the dawn 
 And still patrolled each unknown morn ; 
 Who stood alone and unafraid, 
 And the aggressive nations stayed 
 With tact more potent than the might 
 That took an empire in a night. 
 What but the hollow of Thy hand 
 O ershadowed him in that far land, 
 When error meant a name defamed, 
 Imperiled cause, a country shamed ? 
 
[185] 
 
 Decoration Day 
 
 There are graves on many hill-sides, 
 White stones in shining rows, 
 
 Where half a hundred winters 
 Have spread their velvet snows. 
 
 To each the Springtime priestess 
 Her Paschal flowers will bear; 
 
 Each Summer s offered incense 
 Will breathe a people s prayer. 
 
 Over seas in tropic jungles 
 
 Of Cuba and Luzon, 
 The tangled thickets cover 
 
 What mothers called their own. 
 
 But snows shall never whiten 
 The graves wide scattered there ; 
 
 Above them alien blossoms 
 Their censers swing in air. 
 
[186] 
 
 Espana Dolorosa 
 
 There were tears in Andalusia, 
 
 There was wailing in Castile, 
 Leon was dark with sorrow, 
 
 In Aragon the peal 
 Of dirge funereal sounded ; 
 
 For now the flag of Spain, 
 From four hundred years of waving, 
 
 Would never rise again 
 Where the Pearl of the Antilles 
 
 Makes the isle of sweet delights, 
 On the Carribean waters 
 
 And Morro s battled heights. 
 
 For the Senor Castellanos 
 
 With no sceptre in his hand, 
 Gave the keys of power ancestral 
 
 To a hated victor land, 
 From the Palace of Havana, 
 
 Where crime had had its sway; 
 Where the sins of generations 
 
 Bow the shoulders of to-day. 
 
 He looked not back in weakness 
 
 With a quiver for the past, 
 Nor upward to the turret 
 
 Where an alien flag was cast. 
 One cried, "Espana viva!" 
 
 His heart shook with surprise; 
 They saw one sudden tremor, 
 
 One unbrushed tear-drop rise; 
 But he trod the marble stairway 
 
 With a martial step and bold, 
 Left the Palace of Havana 
 
 With its secrets all untold. 
 
187 
 
 Ah, woe to thee, Granada! 
 
 Thy sins are at thy door; 
 The suffering of the ages 
 
 Returns to thy own shore. 
 Hist! thy children s " Miserere, "- 
 
 It is history s fate-wrung chimes, 
 And the blood-sweat of their foreheads 
 
 Is the dripping of thy crimes. 
 
 Ah, woe is thee, Alhama! 
 
 The blood-stain still is there; 
 Haste, haste to purge thy spirit 
 
 With penance and with prayer! 
 
 Ai, Espana! read the writing 
 Of the hand upon the wall; 
 
 Ai, Espana Dolor osa! 
 
 Beware lest worse befall ! 
 
[188] 
 
 " Remembered " 
 (Havana, January 1, 1899.) 
 
 Three Jackies went rowing far out in the bay, 
 Far out in the bay when the sun was high ; 
 
 And those laddies they did a deed that day 
 
 Which should make them beloved forever and aye. 
 
 For they placed our flag on the wave-washed wreck, 
 On the wave-washed wreck of the storied Maine ; 
 
 Those Jackies, they climbed on the rocking deck 
 To flaunt that flag in the face of Spain. 
 
 They swung it high over davit and beams, 
 
 Over davit and beams for the love of her name, 
 
 And for love of the lads, who from sleep and dreams, 
 Went to dreamless sleep and unconscious fame. 
 
 And it waved beneath the Morro s height, 
 
 The Morro s height in Havana bay; 
 Not a Spaniard looked on the daring sight, 
 
 But thought of another winter s day ; 
 
 Of a salient day not a year agone, 
 
 Not a year agone, but oh ! for the change ! 
 
 A kingdom lost and a nation born, 
 
 And Columbia s flag with an ocean range. 
 
 Then ho! for the lads who rowed out in the bay, 
 Rowed out in the bay with the stripes and stars; 
 
 Bless God for the thought in their hearts that day, 
 The brave true hearts of the jolly tars. 
 
[189] 
 
 Lexington Day, 1905* 
 
 On the hundred and thirtieth Lexington day, 
 
 What can there remain for a daughter to say 
 
 Not already said for a score of times 
 
 In loftiest epic or lyrical rimes? 
 
 From the year seventy-five to the year eighty-three 
 
 We have sung every deed that helped make us free. 
 
 From the Puritan fathers who climbed Plymouth rocks 
 
 And the deified women who mended their socks, 
 
 To the squire s cocked hat and our grandmothers stays, 
 
 We ve told all we know of colonial days. 
 
 We ve sung the wild ride of the young Paul Revere. 
 And the famous doings of Boston town; 
 For the Lexington dead we have dropped the tear ; 
 We ve clambered old Bunker Hill up and down ; 
 In feathers and paint we have made our salt tea ; 
 British Stamps have bestrewed the Atlantic shore; 
 Connecticut s charter we ve hid in the tree, 
 Proclamations of freedom we ve made by the score. 
 The Delaware crossing has not lacked its fame; 
 Valley Forge has become as a sacred name. 
 We ve toasted the mothers who loaded the guns 
 And then wove the homespun for husbands and sons ; 
 While of Betty s red petticoat cut into flags, 
 Even now every feminine one of us brags. 
 From Georgia to Maine of the battles we ve gained, 
 To make modest mention, we ve never refrained. 
 In short, Young Liberty s torches and caps 
 We ve painted all over the country s new maps. 
 
 In the North and the South we have found our great men 
 And called them by name till the world should hear ; 
 
 *Read before the Daughters of the American Revolution, 
 Sequoia Chapter. 
 
190 
 
 We ve sorted them out with discriminate pen 
 From Washington down to the last volunteer, 
 Not forgetting the heroes from over the sea, 
 Whose banners bore eagles and French fleur de Us. 
 
 In our ancestors homely life we have shared, 
 
 And their foibles, too, we never have spared; 
 
 Those Puritan whims we Ve delighted to tease, 
 
 Aye, the penalties dire for a Sunday kiss ; 
 
 In a climate where everything else would freeze 
 
 They thought to forbid this tropical bliss. 
 
 With sly little thrusts we Ve made them our game, 
 
 Note that wooer by proxy, Miles Standish by name. 
 
 The sins of our fathers, we ve dragged to the light, 
 
 But with filial devotion we Ve made them our own ; 
 
 We claim all their valor, but shirk not the sight 
 
 Of pillories, burnings, and casting a stone. 
 
 To their times we maintain that their errors were due, 
 
 That their virtues were many, their faults were but few ; 
 
 Though we shrink from some facts of our country s 
 
 rough youth, 
 We propose to accept the historical truth. 
 
 Thus the good and the bad, in loving refrain 
 We have sung to the world again and again, 
 So what is there left for us now to rehearse 
 But back to return by the way that we came, 
 And in rhythmical prose or prosaical verse 
 To vary our song though the theme be the same. 
 
 So from Yorktown back to the first of the days 
 In the year seventy-five on April nineteen, 
 When the people stood at the parting of ways, 
 
[191] 
 
 And made their choice on the village green, 
 Each year let us tell, like the sacred beads 
 On a rosary great as the nation s name, 
 The string of all those glittering deeds 
 Well worthy to shine in a nation s fame. 
 
 Then here s to the day, the beginning of power, 
 When the choice was made which gave us the dower 
 Of our right to be free, by the eight lives sealed, 
 By the hearts hot blood on Lexington field. 
 And here s to the six-score years and ten 
 Of a nation s life which have passed since then; 
 And here s to the future our children must brave, 
 A problem as great as their fathers e er knew, 
 This land, from prosperity s dangers to save ; 
 A debt to their vast inheritance due. 
 So here s to our sires, our sons and our land, 
 And here s to the power, which today we wield! 
 May our fathers God be the might of our hand, 
 To our sons may He be their buckler and shield ! 
 
[192] 
 
 The Glory of "The White Man s Burden 
 
 (With acknowledgments to Rudyard Kipling.) 
 
 Aye, take "The White Man s Burden," 
 
 And glory in the place 
 Mutations of strange peoples 
 
 Have thrust upon your race. 
 Reck not the price it costs you, 
 
 Though it be the "best ye breed," 
 For Freedom is no phantasm, 
 
 Nor Liberty mere creed. 
 
 Strong in your might of master, 
 
 Strong in your brawn and pride, 
 Ye have the hand unflinching 
 
 "In patience to abide." 
 Cleave prison walls of darkness, 
 
 The former centuries dower; 
 Let in the light of knowledge, 
 
 Though blows seem cruel power. 
 
 Despair not of the burden; 
 
 God s prophet felt the stress, 
 The murmurs of weak Israel 
 
 Still in the wilderness. 
 The promised land s true blessing 
 
 Those "fluttered folk" shall know, 
 When they behold their country 
 
 To nobler measure grow. 
 
 Accept "The White Man s Burden 
 As duty s master-stroke; 
 
 The freeman s high ideal 
 
 "Your weariness shall cloak." 
 
 > > 
 
t 193 ] 
 
 And future years shall show it 
 To those who give you jeers, 
 
 There is a verdict higher 
 
 Than The judgment of your peers. ! 
 
 Kich generations gave you 
 
 The brain to think and plan ; 
 Grudge not the seons blessings 
 
 To this "child-devil" man. 
 Hold fast "The White Man s Burden," 
 
 Though grudged the patriot s meed; 
 For Freedom is no phantasm, 
 
 Nor Liberty mere creed. 
 
[194] 
 
 Victoria Regina 
 
 The earth is full of tears. The Queen is dead ! 
 Ye men, with crepe upon your king s array, 
 Why make ye pageant over weary clay? 
 
 If ye have loved her, do the things she said. 
 
 She rests from strifes which broke her heart at last; 
 That heart in love with peace stunned by the roar 
 Which crashed upon the Imperial Island s shore ; 
 
 She sees God s purpose now, with view more vast. 
 
 Sing hallelujah ! Let the requiems cease ! 
 As angels are, all young of form and fair, 
 So she, to-day; half wondering to be where 
 
 War blazons not, and life abides in peace. 
 
 Tear off the purple bands! Cast them away! 
 
 Hushed is love s parting sob the years refrain. 
 
 She who was widowed, walks in white again ; 
 Stain not with grief your Lady s nuptial day. 
 
 Ye passing bells, a Jubilate ring! 
 
 Sound, bugles, sound! Ye heralds, cry the hour! 
 
 Your Queen approaches now the Gracious Power, 
 Received into the Presence of The King. 
 
[195] 
 
 Labor, the Prophet 
 
 I am grim Labor, I who boldly stand 
 
 And over God s brown acres raise my hand. 
 
 Tyrants, ye heard the marching of my feet 
 
 Down through all time towards the oppressor s seat; 
 
 Ye tremble when before your face I raise 
 
 My hands all grimy with the forge s blaze. 
 
 My heralds shout upon the hills afar; 
 
 The firmament is shaken by the star 
 
 Of despots hurled from heaven into the sea. 
 
 No longer shall the winds of vengeance be 
 
 Held back by angels lest they hurt the earth; 
 
 The vials are full, the hour is come to birth. 
 
 Masters, ye shudder at the nearing roar 
 Of angry waves that break upon your shore. 
 Each drop of that tumultuous sea is mine. 
 Behold, that sea reflects the face divine! 
 The people are the sea; athwart your path 
 They surge before God s tidal breath of wrath. 
 
 Across the raging of the storm I hear 
 The angels of the new life coming near; 
 Their trumpets sound above the tempest s roar: 
 "The toilers bands are loosed f orevermore. " 
 And I, grim Labor, I shall wear the crown 
 Which kings and priests in terror will cast down 
 
[196] 
 
 The Spirit to the Spoilers 
 
 Spoilers of men, beware the dawning hour; 
 Heed ye the shapes that haunt your dreams of power. 
 The ghosts of centuries of wrong arise, 
 Their oriflammes of death before your eyes. 
 They point with ghastly fingers to your brows of Cain ; 
 They cry, Behold the earth-encumbering heaps of 
 slain." 
 
 And who are these ? These dead that gape unto the skies ? 
 Was here a battle where men stood with equal chance, 
 Fell face to face, each man, his effort like a lance 
 Full set to do its honest worst unto his foe? 
 See ye the helmet and the sword receive the blow, 
 When each one strives alike to wreck or save a life? 
 See ye the weapons of an honorable strife? 
 
 Ye traffic princes, monarchs of red gold, 
 Beware the fate of kings of old, 
 For ye are one with them in sceptred power ; 
 Forget not years have brought the toilers hour. 
 The centuries accuse ye. But a new one springs 
 From God with promise on its wings ! 
 
 Go haste to loose your brothers bands before 
 The sounds of woe are heard within your door. 
 The angel of a waiting vengeance stands, 
 The golden censer in his lifted hands ; 
 It smokes with fire from off the altar ta en 
 Where ye have cast atoning gems in vain. 
 Haste, haste; he flings the censer to the floor 
 Of earth; he swears your time shall be no more. 
 
The Jongleur s Pranks 
 
 I From "Francisco, Reina and Other Poems 
 A. M. Robertson, San Francisco 
 1912] 
 
199 
 
 Yankee Doodle Up to Date* 
 
 I 
 
 Old Spain took Cuba by the hair 
 And fearfully abused her; 
 Said Uncle Sam, "Hold on, my Dons, 
 Too long you have misused her." 
 
 Yankee Doodle help her out, 
 
 Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
 "As friendly neighbors don t you think 
 Free Cubans would be handy?" 
 
 When Dons blew up the Yankee Maine, 
 Said Uncle Sam, "I swear it, 
 My boys shall clear that Spanish main; 
 Let him object who dare it." 
 
 Yankee Doodle, seize their ships, 
 
 Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
 "Before our reckoning s done they ll find 
 It is no school-boy pandy." 
 
 II 
 
 Then arm in arm, our Uncle sailed 
 With Dewey round Manila, 
 Said he, "Now, Dewey, tell me where 
 Is Spain s renowned flotilla?" 
 
 Yankee Doodle, shell em out, 
 
 Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
 
 "You sunk em? sho! you must have found 
 That harbor bottom handy." 
 
 *Written to be sung at entertainments given in the camps 
 of volunteers around San Francisco. The boys in blue joined 
 in the chorus, which accounts for the frequent refrain. Written 
 piecemeal as the war progressed. 
 
200 
 
 Said he, "Now, Dewey, keep your hold 
 While I run home a minute, 
 I ll send you loads of soldier boys, 
 They re dyin to be in it." 
 
 Yankee Doodle hurry up, 
 
 Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
 "For Dons and Aguinaldo s tribes 
 My blue coats will come handy." 
 
 Ill 
 
 Then Schley went hunting Spanish ships 
 Around that ocean-lodgin ; 
 Said Uncle then, "I think you ll find 
 Them occupied in dodgin !" 
 
 Yankee Doodle hunt them out, 
 
 Yankee Doodle Dandy; 
 "They ll bob up here and bob up there, 
 At bobbin they are handy." 
 
 "We bottled up Cervera s fleet," 
 Said Uncle Sam to Hobson, 
 "We ll find a higher place for you; 
 You ve done a clever job, Son." 
 
 Yankee Doodle sink the ship, 
 
 Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
 "For shutting up the harbor mouth 
 The Merrimac proved handy." 
 
 Said Sampson to the Spanish Don, 
 "Why don t you come and fight, Sir?" 
 "Caramba," said that high Senor, 
 "You ve shut me up too tight, Sir." 
 
[201 
 
 Yankee Doodle fire away, 
 
 Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
 We ll stop the guns and hold the fort, 
 No more brave words we ll bandy." 
 
 When shot were the Virginius men, 
 Twas Santiago did it; 
 Our boys have settled that old score 
 Just with the town that bid it. 
 
 Yankee Doodle pay your debts, 
 
 Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
 At Caney and at San Juan ridge, 
 Bough Rider lads were handy. 
 
 IV 
 
 When Miles to Porto Rico went, 
 He climbed right up and took it; 
 The natives cried, "Dear Uncle Sam, 
 We re good, though we don t look it." 
 
 Yankee Doodle what a brood! 
 
 Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
 Said Uncle Sam, "These new possess 
 Look just like lasses candy." 
 
 Then he from Porto Rican hills 
 Reviewed the situation; 
 He frowned and puzzled on the job 
 Of foreign occupation. 
 
 Yankee Doodle thought a while, 
 
 Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
 Said he, all pensive-like and bland, 
 And stroked his chin so handy, 
 
202 
 
 "I hear that sweets are not held good 
 For Uncle Sam s digestion; 
 You re wrong, my boys, you ll see me thrive 
 On that Hawaiian question." 
 
 Yankee Doodle hoist the flag, 
 
 Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
 "Now don t forget, your Uncle Sam 
 Is fond of sugar candy." 
 
 "Now Dewey s finished up the job, 
 Just what he undertook to ; 
 I think I ll put him at the head, 
 He s pretty safe to hook to." 
 
 Yankee Doodle keep your grip, 
 
 Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
 "We won t go back on Dewey s prize; 
 My Dewey is a dandy." 
 
 "Now Miles," said he, "Let s count em up; 
 Here s Cuba n Porto Eico; 
 Hawaii in the other pond, 
 Ladrones and Philippine." 
 
 Yankee Doodle keep your head, 
 
 Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
 "For stepping stones around the world, 
 Those islands will come handy. 
 
[203] 
 
 Unc Rastus to Marse Dewey 
 
 My Dear Mars Dewey : We sutney is please 
 
 Ter heah yo s aridin de hom ard seas, 
 
 But I laid off ter give yo a wud in yer year, 
 
 Fer I s feared yo s gwine ter hev trouble right here. 
 
 Twas jes ter say dis when yo comes f m de Souf, 
 Wharev r yo goes, don t open yer mouf, 
 Fer talkin too much s ben de cuss an de bane 
 O de heroes what comes f m de conq rin o Spain. 
 
 Dey tole secret t ings Marse Kaiser denied, 
 With strong sinervations dat somebody lied; 
 Dey writ de long letters chuck full o advice, 
 Bout pussons in hammocks what et up de ice; 
 Bout de quarters an rations dat "roun -robin" 
 game. 
 
 Den de dinners! Lord! de battles o Spain 
 
 Wan t a circumstance t all when t come ter champagne; 
 
 De fumes was wus dan de smell o de powder, 
 
 An dat big twel -inch, he don talk no louder; 
 
 Dar s all kin o enemies hid in dat wine, 
 
 Dey s thicker dan guns in de firm line. 
 
 So twar quoilin an fussin in spisable ways, 
 
 All aimin ter git de bulk o de praise 
 
 Away f m de turr, like dey s chickens dat foun 
 
 Dar wou n t be wurrum ernuff ter go roun . 
 
 But spite o it all we hed a gre t fight, 
 
 Dis country, she s leadin ter lef an ter right; 
 
 Hit don t mek no diffence on Ian er on sea, 
 
 Dat s a sho nuff fac when yo b longs ter de free; 
 
 De blue er de gray, de black er de white, 
 
 Dey s all kin-folks when Ole Glory s in sight. 
 
[204 
 
 If I s brash in persumin ter speak out so bole, 
 It s case I s preacher an toler ble ole, 
 But we sees right smart hin de gent men s chairs, 
 An I jes lowed ter give yo a hint ter bewares. 
 
 Dey ll mek percessions ter tote yo roun 
 
 Wid jubilee fixin s in ebery town, 
 
 Twel de row s es loud es a big camp meetin , 
 
 An yo s natchelly bleeged ter git shet o dat treatin , 
 
 I tek noticement how yo s refused so far, 
 
 But sometime de home-comin s de tug-o -de-war. 
 
 So don t tek no fense at de marks o a friend 
 
 Wot s bragged on yer doin s f m b ginnin ter end; 
 
 Yo s leadin de row, yo s top o de pot, 
 
 Yo s de onliest Admur l we all s got, 
 
 An we wants yo ter stay at de head o de winners. 
 
 Dat s huccome we say: " Fight shy o dem dinners." 
 
 So dear Marse George, when yo comes f m de Souf, 
 
 Wharev r yo goes, don t open yer mouf, 
 
 Fer talkin too much s ben de cuss an de bane 
 
 O de heroes what comes f m de conq rin o Spain. 
 
[205 ] 
 
 The Lady Reconciled 
 
 A lady and a tiger held 
 
 The birthright of an ancient f ued ; 
 Said he, "Pray let our wrath be quelled; 
 
 Fair dame, I fear I ve been too rude. 
 
 "In future peace let us abide; 
 
 In pledge, let s forth our friends to greet; 
 Behold my shining, fulvous hide; 
 
 You ll find my back a pleasant seat." 
 
 When they came back from that rash ride, 
 The tiger wore his blandest smile. 
 
 Quoth he, "The lady rides inside; 
 Tis thus our foes we reconcile. 
 
 If Science offer subtle schemes, 
 
 My faith, be not too soon beguiled; 
 
 Strange friendships may be tempting dreams ; 
 Beware the lady reconciled. 
 
[206] 
 An Old Bachelor 
 
 O love is a jade of a wayward life; 
 
 Sometimes she is gone at the whiff of a breath; 
 Again she survives the most savage strife; 
 
 Then often she scoffs in the face of death. 
 
 Sometimes she will fight at the drop of the hat ; 
 
 And then she will take your cuffs and blows 
 As tame as a household tabby-cat, 
 
 And likes to be led by a string in her nose. 
 
 Sometimes at the turn of hand, she is dead; 
 
 Again at your tears she will laughingly flout. 
 She s enough to drive a man out of his head ; 
 
 As for me, I will not have the creature about. 
 
[207] 
 
 A Spinster 
 
 Why have you come, love, so near, 
 
 Come but to pass me by? 
 I sought you not, but found you here; 
 
 Turn hence your trifling eye. 
 
 And in your vagrant wandering, 
 
 Pray take some other path ; 
 Your talk it is but maundering 
 
 To rouse contempt and wrath. 
 
 Forever on some changing quest, 
 With manners quite too gay, 
 
 You are a fickle-minded guest. 
 
 What s that ? You Ve come to stay ? 
 
 I don t believe a word you say; 
 
 You said the same another day; 
 I know your tricks : go way ; go way ; 
 
 Whenever did you come to stay? 
 
[208] 
 
 My Soul and I 
 
 "Why don t I die and set you free?" 
 You saucy Soul, don t talk to me; 
 I am not half so old as you 
 Who saw the Pharoah beat the Jew. 
 
 You helped to build a pyramid; 
 Once in a Brahmin you were hid; 
 I know because you whispered me 
 How sweet the Hindoo maids could be. 
 
 For Babylon you sometimes weep 
 When I am tossing in my sleep; 
 If of Iran I make a verse, 
 You Zoroaster s lines rehearse. 
 
 Please don t forget that Chinese queue, 
 Though worn upon a throne tis true; 
 And next, as one of Canton s girls, 
 You made the tea for sampan churls. 
 
 You were a Turkish red-fez man, 
 You babble still of Hafed s khan; 
 I stood within blind Nydia s door; 
 Quoth you, "I ve seen this house before. 
 
 When the old Britons placed the rood, 
 You with the ensigned Romans stood; 
 Though you became her queen by right, 
 I found you worn and weary quite. 
 
 You ve been worse off ; more civil speak, 
 Since you are such a varied freak. 
 I have not kept you near so long 
 As that black slave of Intermong. 
 
 5 > 
 
209 
 
 You ve tried the old world s worst and best, 
 And thought it better to come west : 
 Then you were very glad to find 
 My infant form just to your mind. 
 
 The west has set the whole world-pace; 
 You re still in time to join the race: 
 A new sensation you will note, 
 You soon will cast a woman s vote. 
 
[210] 
 A Grizzly in the Zoo 
 
 A shame to your kin, you good-natured bear, 
 
 You show no regrets for your lost mountain lair. 
 
 At play in the cage of your traveling zoo 
 
 "With the child who throws peanuts and apples at you! 
 
 The lion is wroth and the tiger is sly, 
 But you eat, and twinkle your small black eye ; 
 From the top of your pole you look down as if man 
 Were a brother who does what a brother can. 
 
 Do you never dream of Sierra s height 
 Where your comrades hunt on the trail all night? 
 Do you think such hide and muscles were meant 
 To accept a pampered and slavish content? 
 
 Eesistance that fails is better by far 
 Than submission that fondles its cage and its bar. 
 Break some fetter that binds; go tear up the earth, 
 And show yourself worthy your savage birth. 
 
 The tiger s snarl and the lion s roar, 
 That pierce unavailing their iron door, 
 Less ignoble seem than the pitiful play 
 Of the mighty paw that was meant to slay. 
 
[211] 
 
 A Bilious Day 
 
 One day I stalked, when Fate had balked 
 
 And things were in a fix, 
 With brows of gloom and thoughts of the tomb, 
 
 On the shores of the river Styx. 
 
 "I m dead," said I; "No more I ll try 
 
 This hatefnl race to win; 
 So Charon, dear, your boat bring here 
 
 And kindly take me in." 
 
 Contemptuously he said to me, 
 
 With eyes askance the while, 
 "A healthy ghost! Back to your post, 
 
 A potion take for bile." 
 
 The advice was good and it has stood 
 
 The test of many a friend; 
 And so for you when you are blue, 
 
 The same I ll recommend. 
 
[212] 
 
 Triolet 
 
 How dared he do it, 
 To kiss those girls! 
 But he will rue it; 
 How dared he do it ! 
 Fate led him to it 
 With smiles and curls; 
 How dared he do it, 
 To kiss those girls ! 
 
[213] 
 Rondeau 
 
 Jack, don t tease me every day, 
 Go talk to Grace or Nell or May; 
 Why, every time I tell you nay, 
 It only makes you still more bold, 
 As if you never had been told. 
 
 Dear heart! That little word I pray, 
 The word which never can grow old, 
 Makes darkness bright and sorrow gay, 
 For which a world is gladly sold, 
 
 That little word, "I love." 
 
 That word is but an idle play, 
 
 Or else another name for gold. 
 
 The changes on that word you ve rolled 
 
 Till tired of being so cajoled; 
 
 I ve only one thing left to say, 
 
 That little word, "I love." 
 
[214] 
 Why? 
 
 What makes you ask Dan Cupid "Why? 
 And what did you get for a saucy reply 
 But another arrow straight in the eye ? 
 So never ask the little god "Why?" 
 For Love never knows the reason why. 
 
[215] 
 The Discarded Lover 
 
 O love is illusion and passion a snare; 
 
 Of the promise they make you, beware, beware ; 
 
 They ll put up a job to break your heart; 
 
 If you would have peace, with them you must part. 
 
[216] 
 The Mess of It 
 
 The gods made a sorry old mess of it 
 The results we can t even guess of it 
 When the caldron they mixed for the young world 
 
 youth ; 
 
 The joy and the sorrow they cast indiscriminate, 
 The false from the true they did not eliminate, 
 But left man to add love as the test of the truth. 
 
[217] 
 
 Progressive Love 
 
 Who says that a second is not as good? 
 
 That a third should never be had? 
 Let him try a fourth in an Alpine hood ; 
 
 And a fifth is not half bad. 
 
 Then here s to the latest; there ll be no last, 
 Till Death cries Ho, you re mine;" 
 
 Love s eternal youth has no future or past, 
 And its present is fire divine. 
 
[218] 
 
 The Call of Science 
 
 He Speaks: 
 
 "My girl/ quoth he, "I feel each cell 
 Of all my being towards you swell ; 
 These cells, you know, make up the tissue 
 That vibrates with each latest issue. 
 
 "That vital energy which fills 
 
 These cells, gives strange and wondrous thrills; 
 
 This energy is said to be 
 
 The substance of the graces three. 
 
 This energy life universal 
 Condensed from nothing has rehearsal 
 In concrete lives, by heat electric, 
 In waves invisible but hectic. 
 
 "That your vibrations harmonize 
 With mine, I read in violet eyes; 
 Color and light are nature s rhythm; 
 Sphere-music old is scarcely with em. 
 
 "To think, your atoms charged have whirled 
 Through space until the insensate world, 
 Condensed, such treasure could receive! 
 JBons lost we can t retrieve! 
 
 * And only now I find you here ; 
 So young, so old, so ever dear; 
 But still I always felt you coming, 
 Through galaxies of stars a-humming." 
 
219 
 
 She Speaks: 
 
 "Yes, dear, I ve had my share of trouble, 
 Working through world-dust full of rubble ; 
 Gainst Mars and many moons a-bumping ; 
 At last upon this globe down-plumping. 
 
 "Through all I felt your vital force 
 That drew me to its nearing source ; 
 I knew this involuting notion, 
 Condensed by vibratory motion, 
 
 "Concentrates in the heart s fine cells 
 Till they become emotion s wells. 
 Then evolution s working power 
 Develops lives of perfect flower. 
 
 "Our lives concentric thus shall fill 
 Thought-pulses of the rhythmic will. 
 He caught her in his arms vibrations, 
 All wrapped in tangled concentrations, 
 
 Like wires in spiral circles bound; 
 Then, lines of least resistance found, 
 In scarlet lips evolved the blisses 
 Of true magno-electric kisses. 
 
 Rejoice, Dan Cupid! you re not in it, 
 For science changes every minute; 
 Nature unwound her spiral force; 
 Currents reversed for their divorce. 
 
[220] 
 
 Psychology Five 
 
 Adapted from the French of Baunis 
 
 11 Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 
 Tears from the depths of some divine despair." 
 
 Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 No more of despair you poets; 
 
 We are farther than that today. 
 Your tears do but flush the nerve-centers 
 
 And wash the debris away. 
 
 When you re hurt in the heart as you call it, 
 
 The vessels engorge with blood, 
 And the nerves make a poison deposit 
 
 Which is carried away by the flood 
 
 Of tears, which lovers and poets 
 Have wrought into idyls of song; 
 
 But these tears as peripheral action 
 To Psychology Five belong. 
 
 And your tears no longer are "idle"; 
 
 They re a part of economy s wealth; 
 "This stock-theme of lyrics," says science, 
 
 "Only means sanitation and health." 
 
[221] 
 
 To College Girls 
 
 The college girls of a former day 
 Were earnest, sweet, demure and prim ; 
 Calisthenics mild was their wildest fray, 
 While to mission strands they sang their way 
 With many a gospel hymn. 
 
 They wore no golf-skirts trimmed in red, 
 Nor did they twang the archer s bow ; 
 Butler and logic were daily bread, 
 And their manners left us naught to dread; 
 Those girls of long ago. 
 
 But the modern girl! Alas for the hour 
 Which rigged her out in togs of state; 
 Which gave her gladiatorial power, 
 With equal suffrage as her dower; 
 This maid that s up to date! 
 
 The rostrum waits on her rosy lip 
 And the baton knows her practised hand; 
 While her arguments for man s comradeship 
 Make many a rash opponent trip ; 
 
 This girl that holds the land ! 
 
 She s taller than her brothers are, 
 And swings along with a noble gait; 
 She beats them over the vaulting bar; 
 In running and swimming, she leaves them afar ; 
 This last "Try-out" of fate. 
 
222 
 
 But the blood throbs warm in the lifted chest, 
 Whatever her trend to the passing show; 
 And as long as her gowns are the tailor s best, 
 We know that a feminine heart s in the breast 
 As surely as long ago. 
 
 But the world shall be glad for the new as the old, 
 And hearth-stones as bright as they were of yore ; 
 For love flutters alike neath the kerchief s fold 
 Or the sweater that s lettered in blue or gold ; 
 So a toast to the girls both new and old, 
 Of today and the years before ! 
 
[ 223 ] 
 
 A Pre- Adamite on Evolution 
 
 An aged king of gorillas sat 
 
 By the side of his wrinkled spouse; 
 
 Beneath a drooping banana tree 
 They renewed his birthday vows. 
 
 Quoth he, while a bunch of the fruit he plucked 
 
 To lay at her royal feet; 
 "To burden this day with forebodings of state, 
 
 I know that it is not meet; 
 
 "But my heart is sore for the future youth, 
 
 For our tribe and the very race. 
 A nation s weakness approaches fast 
 
 In the changes of form and face. 
 
 "Of seven full generations now 
 
 Patriarchal chief am I. 
 Not a son has the strength his father had ; 
 
 They carry their heads too high. 
 
 "There goes our cousin Chimpanzee, the knave; 
 
 Ignominious shelter he makes, 
 To hide himself from the foe and the storm, 
 
 With a shelter of brushes and brakes. 
 
 "0 degenerate sons of the future gorilla, 
 Can you hurl great rocks at the foe; 
 
 Can you lash them with trees ? Can you frighten 
 
 the beasts 
 With a voice they have learned to know?" 
 
224 
 
 And he beat his great breast with concussion 
 
 profound, 
 
 At his people s evolving disgrace; 
 But his queen held her peace till his wrath should 
 
 abate ; 
 This dame knew her proper place. 
 
 "Does my lord forget," she ventured at last, 
 
 "When he came a-courting of me, 
 That I was more fair than my mother had been,- 
 
 He deemed it most good to see? 
 
 "And the fathers find nothing more worthy today 
 
 In the stories of ancient wives, 
 Than the deed of a modern gorilla maid 
 
 Whose tact saved a hundred lives. 
 
 "Has your highness a stride less majestic and firm 
 Than his sires who went on all four? 
 
 And we lack not the berries and betel nuts 
 Though we swing in the tree tops no more. 
 
 1 And recall how our foes have been vanquished 
 By the traps our children designed; 
 
 Perhaps Nature may reach compensation at last 
 In a race of a subtler mind." 
 
 But he shook his grey head in a muttering storm : 
 
 "Such degeneration will bring 
 The noble race of Gorillas ere long 
 
 To a pale-faced naked thing. 
 
[225] 
 
 "A creature so weak and enfeebled he ll be 
 
 That in two generations he s old; 
 His short arms may drop off altogether, I fear, 
 
 Like the tails of which we are told. 
 
 "A weakling, short-armed and bald-headed 
 
 forsooth ! 
 
 Afraid of the cold and the heat! 
 When the mermaids at twilight are singing their 
 
 psalms, 
 He ll do for the shore s front seat. 
 
 "Ha! The females of that generation!" he roared 
 
 Again, as if struck with new woes: 
 "Will they stalk through the forest, unblushing 
 and bold? 
 
 Who ll marry such creatures as those!" 
 
 "Perhaps," said his listening target again, 
 
 "Those fair Gorillitas might twine 
 For their shivering bodies some cover of grace 
 
 With the leaves of the clinging vine. 
 
 "And then there s the plantain, and fig leaf so 
 broad, 
 
 And the frond-bordered fern and the brake." 
 Thus early did instincts Parisian appear 
 
 The masculine scorn to awake. 
 
 "A female in plantains and fig leaves beswaddled, 
 And tied round with twisted sticks!" 
 
 Sneered her lord. "Have you, my dear Madam, 
 
 I pray, 
 Been trying such ladylike tricks?" 
 
226 
 
 "My tribe in banana leaves bandaged and hid, 
 Whose arms scarce hold their own weight, 
 
 And sleeping in shelter of rushes and ferns, 
 Call you this a higher estate? 
 
 "Don t tell me of better conditions again; 
 
 I m sick of this twaddle, quite! 
 I say if this fad of evolving goes on 
 
 Our race will be out of sight. " 
 
 He had asked for his lady s opinion, tis true; 
 
 Then scornfully threw it away ; 
 But the world has evolved to such blessed estate, 
 
 That the male never does so to-day. 
 
 But this king, undeveloped and crude of mind, 
 
 Into fury had lashed his wrath ; 
 And he crashed through the forest despoiling at 
 will 
 
 Every helpless thing in his path. 
 
 His queen, whose inherited kingdom he ruled, 
 To the shade of their household tree, 
 
 On her back bore the nuts and banana-branch ; 
 Nor dreamed that her kind could be free. 
 
[227] 
 Concerning Hoes 
 
 You have heard of that over-worked man with the hoe, 
 Whom lords and rulers conspire to rob; 
 Who s supposed to concentrate all human woe 
 And stand to the world, for the lot, in one job. 
 
 This idealized victim of possible wrong ! 
 
 Perhaps his griefs are humanity s fad; 
 
 A good hoe is a theme for ethical song ; 
 
 At an every day hoe, the heart should be glad. 
 
 From the Labor Prince with his sceptre-spade, 
 
 To the man who can claim the LL.D., 
 
 This life has a hoe for every grade, 
 
 And it means hard work as the right to be. 
 
 "And now for my hoe," the actor-man said, 
 
 As he took up his cue with grimace or frown. 
 
 Quoth the author, This thought that s buzzing my head 
 
 Will prove a good hoe to get bread and renown." 
 
 * That hoe-man of song found an easy fame, 
 Sighed the lawyer pressed with his clients sins, 
 * Compared to the man who would gain a name 
 Where tis money rather than merit that wins." 
 
 As the miner shouldered his pick and pan 
 He thought of the hoe-song he heard one day, 
 And he grumbled, He hain t got it all, that man, 
 He never mushed out on a tundra lay." 
 
 The emperor said to his friend, the king, 
 "Old chap, these sceptres used to be ours; 
 But these hoe-men are getting inside the ring, 
 We d better accept them as Allied Powers." 
 
[228 
 
 Thus the thought had dawned, and the earth rejoiced, 
 That the ox and his brother were not alone, 
 And only that man had a woe to be voiced 
 Who did not possess a hoe of his own. 
 
 So hoe-men we are, both great and small, 
 If we rule or serve or buy or sell, 
 And the world demands but this thing of us all, 
 Whenever we hoe be sure to hoe well. 
 
 L Envoi 
 
 Then, comrades, your hoes! to your hoes and to work! 
 For the fields are broad and brief are the years; 
 And Nature has made no place for a shirk, 
 Nor ripens life s harvest with penitent tears. 
 
YC 16709 
 
 302355 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY