GOLDEN SONGS OF THE GOLDEN STATE 
 
GOLDEN SONGS 
 
 gf \the 
 
 GOLDEN// STATE 
 
 by 
 E 
 WILKINSON 
 
. 
 
 Copyright 
 
 A. C McClurg & Co. 
 1917 
 
 Published November, 1917 
 
 W. F. HALL PRINTING COMPANY, CHICAGO 
 
To L. J. M., A. M. L. AND R. G. L. 
 
 AND TO OTHER FRIENDS IN SANTA BARBARA WHO 
 TAUGHT ME THE LOVELINESS OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 369862 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Part One 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PIONEER VOICES . i 
 
 Part Two 
 
 VOICES OF THE GREAT SINGERS 29 
 
 Part Three 
 LIVING VOICES .... .61 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 IN PREPARING this collection of verse for publi 
 cation, I have had two purposes : first, to make an 
 interesting book the ancient and ever-living pur 
 pose of all makers of good literature and second, 
 to give to all who may desire it a volume of poems 
 that sing and celebrate the traditions, the life, and 
 the natural beauty of one of the greatest common 
 wealths in the union. The romance and hardship, 
 the gayety and the heroism of the days of the padres 
 and the later pioneers, the adventurous dash and 
 flare of the forty-niners, the rich, golden health and 
 prosperity of all the days that have followed the 
 pioneer period all these things are most vivid and 
 colorful history and tradition and have had no small 
 part in creating for Calif ornians that heritage of 
 naive and fierce affection belligerent devotion to 
 their commonwealth and its life and customs by 
 which they are known and with which they startle 
 the quieter and cooler hearts of men and women of 
 more staid and sober states. All of these things have 
 inspired California poets and visiting poets, as read 
 ers of the following pages will know. But, most of 
 all, I think, the poets love California for that unique 
 natural beauty often obscured rather than suggested 
 
 ix 
 
Introduction 
 
 by the trite and dull effusions in praise of it. Her 
 mountain peaks chiselled singly, clean and hard 
 against the sky, or ranged in an august uneven line 
 of power and beauty; her lovable foothills sloping 
 in steep curves to the coast ; her mild, sweet-scented 
 valleys with their straitly confined orchards of 
 almond, orange and plum, with their crisp fields of 
 barley stubble in summertime and their riot of wild 
 mustard in the spring; her winding trails leading 
 always into El Camino Real or into the desert 
 beyond the mountains; her gusty distances of desert 
 or sea shore; her forests born before Christ; her 
 hundreds of species of wild birds; her tawny sum 
 mers and green winters; her sharp, exquisite lights 
 and shadows and keen colors these things no poet, 
 no lover of beauty can forget. Nowhere else can 
 one climb higher or plumb deeper the depths and 
 heights of varied beauty. 
 
 Many songs of many singers bear witness to this 
 beauty. A large anthology could be made of the 
 poems that have been written about one flower 
 the escholtzia, or California poppy. It is the duty of 
 the anthologist to choose the coins of best metal, 
 best minted in this treasury of verbal expression. 
 And that is what I have tried to do. Critics are cer 
 tain to tell me that I have left out many poems just 
 as good as many that I have included, and they will 
 be telling the truth. George Sterling has written 
 
Introduction xi 
 
 many poems as good as those that I have chosen, but 
 I could not choose them all. Other critics are sure 
 to blame me for including poems with imperfections 
 or poems of a type and kind not to their taste. If I 
 might gently disarm such criticism I would say, first 
 of all, that poems with imperfections, like people 
 with imperfections, are not necessarily valueless. 
 F As we know few perfect human beings, we know few 
 perfect poems. And just as it sometimes happens 
 that the man or woman with no vices is a man or 
 woman with no aggressive virtues, so it sometimes 
 happens that poems with faults and flaws are so 
 vigorously and sincerely written as to be superior 
 to creations more artificial and correct. Such poems 
 and there are quite a number of them are in 
 cluded in this book because they seem to me to 
 give the real zest and flavor of the scene or event 
 described, in spite of their faults, of course, and not 
 because of them. It seems fair, also, to tell critics 
 and others who may be interested, that I have tried 
 not to be governed overmuch by personal taste 
 in the making of this book. All anthologists are 
 tempted to be autocratic. But this is the day of 
 democracy. I have included in this book two or 
 three poems I shall never tell which that I, 
 myself, can not read without acute mental suffering. 
 Let me tell why. 
 
 One evening, while I was deliberating about one 
 
xii Introduction 
 
 poem which I dislike, but which has been exceed 
 ingly popular, I entered the public library in New 
 york City. And while I was standing at the desk, 
 awaiting my turn to ask for much needed informa 
 tion, a quiet, plainly dressed, little woman with tired 
 eyes turned to the attendant at the desk and asked 
 for the very poem I had in mind. " I want to get it 
 and copy it for my sister," she said, "and I don t 
 know what book to find it in and I have looked and 
 looked .... I read it a long time ago and never 
 forgot it." ( The attendant was young and had never 
 heard of the poem.) I told her that I would find it 
 for her and I did. Very gratefully she thanked me. 
 Then I said, " Do you like that poem very much?" 
 "Oh, yes; yes, indeed," she said humbly; "it is a 
 great poem a very great poem." When I left her 
 I copied it and put it with those for this book. 
 
 Perhaps a few readers will be surprised to find 
 in this book poems by poets who have only visited 
 on the coast. In answer I can only say that I have 
 felt that in a sense California belongs to us all not 
 only to the native sons and daughters, but to the 
 many who have been refreshed and strengthened 
 and healed by sojourning there. And I have felt, 
 also, that all the poems inspired by California belong 
 to California and may rightly be used in a book of 
 this kind. But whenever it has been possible I have 
 given the preference to poems by western poets who 
 
Introduction xiii 
 
 have made their reputations in the West or who are 
 now living there and definitely associated with the 
 West. 
 
 The first poem in the book is one of the old folk 
 songs of the days of the padres, a dialogue folksong 
 with much of the naive spirit of childhood and play 
 in it. It was always sung in Spanish in the early 
 days but has recently been translated into English 
 by Eleanor Hague, who learned it from Mrs. Fran- 
 cisca de la Guerra Dibblee of Santa Barbara, and 
 has included it with a number of other Spanish 
 California folksongs in a book which will soon be 
 published by The Folklore Society. The second 
 poem, " The Song," is taken from a long poem called 
 " Juanita," written by Lauren E. Crane in the very 
 early days of California literature and published in 
 one of the early numbers of the Overland Monthly. 
 It deserves especial mention, for it is most gracefully 
 written with every appearance of spontaneity, and 
 yet keeps true to a complicated rhyme scheme that 
 would tax the skill of any poet. The three long 
 lines in each stanza are thrice rhymed, having two 
 internal rhymes and one end rhyme each. This 
 is surely one of the cleverest and most effective 
 rhymed lyrics ever written by an American, for the 
 art disguises itself and the poem loses no warmth 
 and charm, and gains melody from the rhyming. I 
 saw it first in that helpful book by Ella Sterling 
 
xiv Introduction 
 
 Cummins (Mrs. Mighels), The Story of the Files, 
 to which book I recommend all readers who wish to 
 know more of many poets whose work is found in 
 these pages. The third poem, " The Days of Forty- 
 nine," is an old folk ballad of the days of the gold 
 rush, and no California anthology is complete with 
 out it. Nobody knows who wrote it, and several 
 versions are extant, but, in so far as I know, all 
 have the same chorus, 
 
 For the Days of Old, the Days of Gold 
 And the Days of Forty-nine. 
 
 The other poems included in the collection seem to 
 me to require no comment. Suffice it to say that I 
 have tried to represent all types and kinds of poetry 
 that have been written in the state by at least one 
 selection. 
 
 The matter of classification has been very diffi 
 cult, for almost all of the poems included in the book 
 have been written since 1870 and almost all of the 
 poets have lived in the day and generation that we 
 know or that was known to our mothers and fathers, 
 and are therefore contemporaries. Therefore I have 
 decided to name in a group together those poets 
 whose reputations are national and international, 
 Joaquin Miller, Ina Coolbrith, Edwin Markham 
 and the others called " Voices of the Great Singers " ; 
 and to classify the others in two groups " Pioneer 
 
Introduction xv 
 
 Voices" those whose singing is done or whose 
 work belongs to the period that prepared the way 
 for the great singers and "Living Voices" 
 those who are still singing or whose work by its 
 type and kind belongs to today. I very much regret 
 that it is impossible to include in this volume any 
 poems by Ambrose Bierce, who should be one of the 
 " Pioneer Voices." He was or is the pioneer lit 
 erary critic of the coast, the first to insist on the intel 
 lectual values in literature as opposed to the purely 
 sentimental values, and he has done much to influence 
 the younger Calif ornians of today and even the great 
 singers. I can best describe him in the words of 
 Bailey Millard, himself a clever California critic. 
 Writing in the Bookman, Mr. Millard says of Am 
 brose Bierce : " He revered nobody s opinion but his 
 own, and in this idea he was upheld by a flattering 
 literary coterie who acknowledged him as master. 
 These constituted an esoteric cult whose adulation 
 Bierce accepted as a matter of course. They laid 
 their literary work before him, rejoiced in his praise, 
 however stinted, and received his harshest criticism 
 without a murmur For technically his pen 
 craft was of the purest, as is shown on nearly every 
 page. He prided himself on being ruled wholly by 
 intellect, never by emotion." 
 
 Robert Cameron Rogers is classified with " Living 
 Voices," although he died several years ago. He 
 
xvi Introduction 
 
 belonged rather more to the present generation than 
 to the pioneers, and would not be a very old man if 
 he were living today. 
 
 Special attention should be called to the fact that 
 five poems included in this volume are taken from 
 The Stanford Book of Verse, a college anthology of 
 unusual merit published last year by The English 
 Club of Stanford University-. They are the poems 
 by Marjorie Charles Driscoll, Dare Stark, Maxwell 
 Anderson, James Leo Duff, and Geroid Robinson. 
 
 Many poems have been taken from the files of 
 the Overland Monthly, a magazine with a glorious 
 history and many great names to its credit. Many 
 others have been printed for the first time in Sunset, 
 which is now the best known of western magazines. 
 Others several of the most finished and crafts- 
 manlike poems have been taken from that bright 
 little magazine edited by Gelett Burgess and called 
 the Lark, one of the gayest and wittiest of Ameri 
 can magazines and of great reputation, although its 
 history was only two years long. In that magazine 
 Gelett Burgess made the " purple cow " famous. A 
 number of excellent poems also have been printed 
 for the first time in the Los Angeles Graphic, 
 which, under the editorship of Samuel Travers 
 Clover, was the best literary periodical in the South 
 west for several years. And Poetry, A Magazine of 
 Verse, although it is published in Chicago, has pub- 
 
Introduction 
 
 XVll 
 
 lished some of the best poems about California 
 included in the section called "Living Voices." 
 Other periodicals and publishers will find that I have 
 given them due credit for poems used from their 
 files in the pages directly following. 
 
 It remains only to thank those who have read 
 this introduction for the interest which has carried 
 them thus far and to hope that they may find pleasure 
 in the reading of the pages that are to follow. This 
 book is not the only California Anthology. Read 
 ers who are interested in the literature of the Golden 
 State will wish to read also the collections of verse 
 compiled by Oscar Schuck, Edmond Russell, and 
 Augustin Macdonald. They will find poems in those 
 books which I have not included in mine. And they 
 will find poems in mine which are not in the others. 
 To their kindly attention and interest I commend 
 this collection of representative California poems. 
 
 MARGUERITE WILKINSON. 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 The thanks of the compiler of this collection of 
 poems are due to the following publishers and pro 
 prietors of material used in this book, for their kind 
 permission to reprint it. 
 
 To A. M. Robertson for "The Black Vulture" from 
 The House of Orchids by George Sterling, and for " The 
 Voice of the Dove " and " The Last Days " from Beyond 
 the Breakers by George Sterling, and for " A California 
 Song " and " Forest Couplets " from A California Trouba 
 dour by Clarence Urmy, and for " As I Came Down Mount 
 Tamalpais " from A Vintage of Verse by Clarence Urmy, 
 and for " Nero " from The Star Treader and Other Poems 
 by Clark Ashton Smith. 
 
 To Houghton Mifflin Company for " El Canelo " from 
 The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor, for " The Angelus/ 
 " Reveille," and " What the Bullet Sang " from The Poet 
 ical Works of Bret Harte, for "On a Picture of Mount 
 Shasta by Keith" from the Poetical Works of Edward 
 Rowland Sill, for "California" and "When the Grass 
 Shall Cover Me " from Songs from the Golden Gate by 
 Ina Coolbrith, and for " Windy Morning " from A Lonely 
 Flute by Odell Shepard. 
 
 To Doubleday, Page & Company for " The Man with 
 the Hoe " and " Joy of the Hills " from The Man with the 
 Hoe and Other Poems by Edwin Markham and for " The 
 Heart s Return " from The Shoes of Happiness by Edwin 
 Markham. 
 
 To The Century Co. for " El Poniente " and " St. John 
 of Nepomuc " from The Night Court and Other Verses 
 by Ruth Comfort Mitchell, and for " The White Feet of 
 Atthis " by Henry Anderson Lafler. 
 
 xix 
 
xx Acknowledgments 
 
 To Harr Wagner Publishing Company, publishers of 
 Joaquin Miller s Complete Works, for " In Yosemite Val 
 ley " and the short lyrics by Joaquin Miller included in this 
 volume, and for " To the Colorado Desert " from The Lure 
 of the Desert by Madge Morris Wagner, and for " Night in 
 Camp " and " Morning in Camp " from Songs from Puget 
 Sea by Herbert Bash ford. 
 
 To Small, Maynard & Company for " The Bed of Fleur- 
 de-Lys " from In This Our World by Charlotte Perkins 
 Oilman, and for " California of the South " from Sea Drift 
 by Grace Ellery Channing. 
 
 To Little, Brown and Company for " A Ballad of the 
 Gold Country " from Poems by Helen Hunt Jackson. 
 
 To Funk & Wagnalls Company for " Indirection " from 
 Poems by Richard Realf. 
 
 To Frederick A. Stokes Company for "Coyote " and 
 "Presidio Hill" from At the Silver Gate by John Vance 
 Cheney. 
 
 To The Macmillan Company for " Let Us Go Home to 
 Paradise " from Calif ornians by Robinson Jeffers. 
 
 To the John Lane Company for " The Rosary " from The 
 Rosary and Other Poems by Robert Cameron Rogers. 
 
 To Charles Scribner s Sons for "In the States" from 
 A Child s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, for 
 " The Bells of San Gabriel " from Poems of Charles War 
 ren Stoddard, edited by Ina Coolbrith, and for " Western 
 Blood " by Juliet Wilbur Thompkins. 
 
 To Mitchell Kennerley for " In the Valley " from From 
 the Eastern Sea by Yone Noguchi. 
 
 To Elder & Shepard for " A Wedding-Day Gallop " from 
 Poems by Irene Hardy. 
 
 To Paul Elder & Co. for "To Paleolithic Man" from 
 Out of Bondage by Fanny Hodges Newman. 
 
 To Raphael Weill for "El Vaquero " by Lucius Har- 
 wood Foote. 
 
 To the Overland Monthly and to The J. B. Lippincott 
 Company for " Evening " by Edward Pollock. 
 
Acknowledgments xxi 
 
 To The English Club of Stanford University for 
 "Youth s Songs" by Maxwell Anderson, "Amateurs" by 
 Geroid Robinson, " The Song of Thomas the Rhymer " by 
 Marjorie Charles Driscoll, "Mater Dolorosa" by James 
 Leo Duff, and " Luck " by Dare Stark, all these being 
 taken from A Book of Stanford Verse. 
 
 To Franz Boas and The Folklore Society for Eleanor 
 Hague s translation of " O Blanca Virgen a Tu Ventana ! " 
 
 To Sunset Magazine for " The Years " and " A Califor 
 nia Easter Mass " by Charles K. Field, for " The Camp- 
 fire " by Margaret Adelaide Wilson, for " Song of Cradle- 
 Making " by Constance Lindsay Skinner, for " Wireless " 
 by Henry Anderson Lafler, for " Indirection " by Richard 
 Realf, for " El Dorado: A Song" by Charles Mills Gayley, 
 for " An Abalone Shell " by Grace MacGowan Cooke. 
 
 To the Overland Monthly for "The Song" (from 
 "Juanita") by Lauren E. Crane, for "My New Year s 
 Guests " by Rollin M. Daggett, for " Night in Camp " and 
 " Morning in Camp " by Herbert Bashford, for " In the 
 Mojave" by Charles F. Lummis, for "Midsummer East 
 and West" by Virna Woods and for "Evening" by 
 Edward Pollock. 
 
 To the owners of the following poems, originally printed 
 in the Lark, " To Virginia " by Henry Atkins, " The Creed 
 of Desire " by Bruce Porter, " A Song for the New Year " 
 and " Ebb Tide at Noon " by Gelett Burgess. 
 
 To Poetry, A Magazine of Verse, for " St. John of 
 Nepomuc " by Ruth Comfort Mitchell, " Neither Spirit nor 
 Bird " by Mary Austin, " Santa Barbara Beach " by Ridge- 
 ley Torrence, " To My Mountain " by Mahdah Payson, " In 
 the Mohave" by Patrick Orr, "The Water Ouzel" by 
 Harriet Monroe, and " To the Summer Sun " by Marguerite 
 Wilkinson. 
 
 To the Los Angeles Graphic for the series of poems 
 called " In a Garden " by Pauline Barrington, and for 
 " With the Trees " by Marguerite Wilkinson. 
 
 To the Boston Pilot for " Old Glory " by Emma Frances 
 Dawson. 
 
XX11 
 
 Acknowledgments 
 
 To the ten-Bosch Company for "The Trail" from 
 Field Notes by David Atkins. 
 
 In every case where it has been possible, permis 
 sion to use poems has been secured not only from the 
 owners of copyrights, but from the authors of poems. 
 The following poems are used by special permission 
 of the poets who made them : 
 
 " The Mountain " by Edward Robeson Taylor. 
 "Bells of San Juan Capistrano," "The Child Heart" 
 and "Pescadero Pebbles" by Charles Keeler. 
 " Iphigenia in Aulis " by Charles Phillips. 
 " In Tehachapi " by David Starr Jordan. 
 " In an Alameda Field " by Anna Catherine Markham. 
 " Each in His Own Tongue " by William Herbert Car- 
 ruth. 
 
 Just California" by John S. McGroarty. 
 
 * When Zephyrs Blow " by Samuel Travers Clover. 
 
 In Carmel Bay " by Madge Clover. 
 
 When Almonds Bloom " by Milicent Washburn Shinn. 
 
 The Cauldron" by Francis Walker. 
 
 Wind of the South " by Jennie McBride Butler. 
 
 California Poppies " and " California " by Mary Caro 
 lyn Davies. 
 
 " Yosemite Strophes " by Charles Wharton Stork. 
 " At the Stevenson Fountain " by Wallace Irwin. 
 " Gold-of-Ophir Roses " by Grace Atherton Dennen. 
 
 To the Youth s Companion and to Warren Cheney, I am 
 indebted for the use of " January," and to Herbert Heron 
 and the Bookman for " To William Vaughn Moody." 
 
ioneer 
 
O BLANCA VIRGEN A TU VENTANA! 
 
 (A folksong of the days of the padres, translated by 
 Eleanor Hague from the Spanish as sung by Francisca de 
 la Guerra Dibblee of Santa Barbara) 
 
 He. O fairest maiden, approach thy window ! 
 Come to thy railing and turn thy ear, 
 While gentle breezes waft of my singing 
 The eternal echoes of thee to hear ! 
 
 She. Vain are these murmurs of all thy singing; 
 The eternal echoes stir not my heart. 
 A nest my heart is, of love and rapture ; 
 I live in a heaven, I live in a heaven of love 
 apart. 
 
 He. Then to an eagle my life I ll alter, 
 Up to thy heaven swift I shall fly. 
 
 She. Then to a fish of the sea I ll change me, 
 Hidden beneath the waves I ll lie. 
 
 He. Within the ocean, I ll quickly seek thee, 
 The waves will help me to find thee there. 
 
 1 
 
Golden Songs of 
 
 She. Then to a bird I ll turn my being, 
 
 My flight shall take me, my flight shall take 
 me from flower to flower. 
 
 She. A live oak I ll be amid the boulders. 
 
 He. As clinging ivy I ll clasp thee near. 
 
 She. As a nun, hood and cowl I ll be wearing. 
 
 He. Saintly confessor, thy voice I ll hear. 
 
 She. Through convent portal, if thou shouldst 
 
 enter, 
 Dead thou wilt find me among the flowers. 
 
 He. Among the flowers, if dead I find thee, 
 
 To earth I ll turn me, to earth I ll turn me, and 
 mine thou lt be. 
 
The Golden State 
 
 THE SONG 
 
 (From "Juanita") 
 
 TO-NIGHT the stars are flowing gold; 
 The light South wind is blowing cold, 
 
 Esta es mi luchaf 
 The bright, bent moon is growing old, 
 
 Escucha! 
 
 Now test thy pride, and fearless prove, 
 Now blest my bride my peerless dove, 
 
 Juanita, 
 Come rest beside me here, sweet love, 
 
 Eres bendita! 
 
 Through tall and silent trees there seems 
 To fall the promise of fair dreams. 
 
 Querida! 
 How all the starry white air gleams. 
 
 Mi vida! 
 
 What dream, Juanita fancied bliss 
 Could seem so sweet a trance as this ? 
 
 Dulcura, 
 Or beam warm as thy glance or kiss ? 
 
 Alma pur a! 
 
Golden Songs of 
 
 What bliss to hold my fairy prize, 
 One kiss ! yon star-gold, wary eyes, 
 
 Que gloria! 
 Saw this in far-old Paradise, 
 
 Memorial 
 
 But Eden held no face like thine ; 
 Nor creed in perfect grace like mine. 
 
 Que pascion! 
 To read thy tender ways divine 
 
 Es mi adoration! 
 
 Adieu ! I linger here too long; 
 For you my fingers sweep too strong. 
 
 Que Diosa! 
 Be true to singer and to song ! 
 
 Adios! Hermosa! 
 
 Lauren E. Crane. 
 
 "THE DAYS OF FORTY-NINE" 
 
 You are looking now on old Tom Moore, 
 
 A relic of bygone days; 
 A bummer, too, they call me now, 
 
 But what care I for praise ? 
 For my heart is filled with the days of yore, 
 
 And oft I do repine, 
 
The Golden State 
 
 For the Days of Old, and the Days of Gold 
 And the Days of Forty-nine. 
 
 Refrain. 
 
 Oh, my heart is filled with the days of yore 
 
 And oft do I repine 
 For the Days of Old, the Days of Gold, 
 
 And the Days of Forty-nine. 
 
 I had comrades then who loved me well, 
 
 A jovial saucy crew : 
 There were some hard cases I must confess, 
 
 But they all were brave and true ; 
 Who would never flinch, whate er the pinch, 
 
 Who never would fret nor whine, 
 But like good old bricks they stood the kicks 
 
 In the Days of Forty-nine. 
 
 Refrain. 
 
 Oh, my heart is filled with the days of yore, etc. 
 
 There was Monte Pete I ll ne er forget 
 
 The luck he always had. 
 He would deal for you both day and night, 
 
 So long as you had a scad. 
 He would play you Draw, he would Ante sling, 
 
 He would go you a hatful blind 
 
6 Golden Songs of 
 
 But in a game with Death Pete lost his breath 
 In the Days of Forty-nine. 
 
 Refrain. 
 
 Oh, my heart is filled with the days of yore, etc. 
 
 There was New York Jake a butcher boy, 
 
 That was always a-getting tight; 
 Whenever Jake got on a spree, 
 
 He was spoiling for a fight. 
 One day he ran against a knife 
 
 In the hands of old Bob Cline 
 So over Jake we held a wake 
 
 In the Days of Forty-nine. 
 
 Refrain. 
 
 Oh, my heart is filled with the days of yore, etc 
 
 There was Rackensack Jim, who could outroar 
 
 A buffalo bull, you bet! 
 He would roar all night, he would roar all day, 
 
 And I b lieve he s a-roaring yet ! 
 One night he fell in a prospect hole 
 
 Twas a roaring bad design 
 For in that hole he roared out his soul 
 
 In the Days of Forty-nine. 
 
 Refrain. 
 
 Oh, my heart is filled with the days of yore, etc. 
 
The Golden State 
 
 There was poor lame Ches, a hard old case 
 
 Who never did repent. 
 Ches never missed a single meal, 
 
 Nor he never paid a cent. 
 But poor lame Ches, like all the rest, 
 
 Did to Death at last resign, 
 For all in his bloom he went up the flume 
 
 In the Days of Forty-nine. 
 
 Refrain. 
 
 Oh, my heart is filled with the days of yore, etc. 
 
 And now my comrades all are gone, 
 
 Not one remains to toast ; 
 They have left me here in my misery, 
 
 Like some poor wandering ghost. 
 And as I go from place to place, 
 
 Folks call me a " Travelling Sign/ 
 Saying " There goes Tom Moore, a bummer, sure, 
 
 From the Days of Forty-nine." 
 
 Refrain. 
 
 Oh, my heart is filled with the days of yore, 
 
 And oft do I repine 
 For the Days of Old, the Days of Gold, 
 
 And the Days of Forty-nine. 
 
 Author Unknown. 
 
Golden Songs of 
 
 A BALLAD OF THE GOLD COUNTRY 
 
 DEEP in the hill the gold sand burned ; 
 
 The brook ran yellow with its gleams; 
 Close by, the seekers slept, and turned 
 
 And tossed in restless dreams. 
 
 At dawn they waked. In friendly cheer 
 Their dreams they told, by one, by one; 
 
 And each man laughed the dreams to hear, 
 But sighed when they were done. 
 
 Visions of golden birds that flew, 
 Of golden cloth piled fold on fold, 
 
 Of rain which shone and filtered through 
 The air in showers of gold ; 
 
 Visions of golden bells that rang, 
 
 Of golden chariots that rolled, 
 Visions of girls that danced and sang, 
 
 With hair and robes of gold; 
 
 Visions of golden stairs that led 
 
 Down golden shafts of depths untold, 
 
 Visions of golden skies that shed 
 Gold light on seas of gold. 
 
The Golden State 
 
 " Comrades, your dreams have many shapes," 
 Said one who, thoughtful, sat apart : 
 
 " But I six nights have dreamed of grapes, 
 One dream which fills my heart. 
 
 " A woman meets me crowned with vine ; 
 
 Great purple clusters fill her hands ; 
 Her eyes divinely smile and shine, 
 
 As beckoning she stands. 
 
 " I follow her a single pace ; 
 
 She vanishes, like light or sound, 
 And leaves me in a vine-walled place, 
 
 Where grapes pile all the ground." 
 
 The comrades laughed: "We know thee by 
 This fevered, drunken dream of thine." 
 
 " Ha, ha," cried he, " never have I 
 So much as tasted wine! 
 
 " Now follow ye your luring shapes 
 
 Of gold that climbs and gold that shines; 
 
 I shall await my maid of grapes, 
 And plant her trees and vines." 
 
 All through the hills the gold sand burned ; 
 
 All through the lands ran yellow streams 
 To right, to left, the seekers turned, 
 
 Led by the yellow gleams. 
 
10 Golden Songs of 
 
 The ruddy hills were gulfed and strained; 
 
 The rocky fields were torn and trenched; 
 The yellow streams were drained and drained, 
 
 Until their sources quenched. 
 
 The gold came fast; the gold came free; 
 
 The seekers shouted as they ran, 
 " Now let us turn aside and see 
 
 How fares that husbandman ! " 
 
 " No mine as yet, my friends, to sell ; 
 
 No bride to show," he smiling said : 
 " But here is water from my well, 
 
 And here is wheaten bread." 
 
 "Is this thy tale?" they jeering cried; 
 
 "Who was it followed luring shapes? 
 And who has won ? It seems she lied, 
 
 Jhe maid of purple grapes ! " 
 
 " When years have counted up to ten," 
 
 He answered gaily, smiling still, 
 " Come back once more, my merry men, 
 
 And you shall have your fill 
 
 "Of purple grapes and sparkling wine, 
 And figs and nectarines like flames, 
 
 And sweeter eyes than maid s shall shine 
 In welcome at your names." 
 
The Golden State 11 
 
 In scorn they heard; to scorn they laughed 
 The water and the wheaten bread; 
 
 " We ll wait until a better draught 
 For thy bride s health," they said. 
 
 The years ran fast. The seekers went 
 All up, all down the golden lands : 
 
 The streams grew pale; the hills were spent; 
 Slow ran the golden sands. 
 
 And men were beggars in a day, 
 
 For swift to come was swift to go; 
 
 What chance had got chance flung away 
 On one more chance s throw. 
 
 And bleached and seamed and riven plains, 
 And tossed and tortured rocks like ghosts, 
 
 And blackened lines and charred remains, 
 And crumbling chimney posts, 
 
 For leagues their ghastly records spread 
 Of youth and years and fortunes gone, 
 
 Like graveyards whose sad, living dead 
 Had hopeless journeyed on. 
 
 The years had counted up to ten : 
 
 One night, as it grew chill and late, 
 
 The husbandman marked beggarmen 
 Who leaned upon his gate. 
 
12 Golden Songs of 
 
 "Ho here! good men," he eager cried, 
 Before the wayfarers could speak; 
 
 " This is my vineyard. Far and wide 
 For laborers I seek. 
 
 " This year has doubled on last year; 
 
 The fruit breaks down my vines and trees ; 
 Tarry and help till wine runs clear, 
 
 And ask what price you please." 
 
 Purple and red, to left, to right, 
 
 For miles the gorgeous vintage blazed ; 
 
 And all day long and into night 
 The vintage song was raised. 
 
 And wine ran free all thirst beyond, 
 And no hand stinted bread or meat; 
 
 And maids were gay and men were fond, 
 And hours were swift and sweet. 
 
 The beggarmen they worked with will; 
 
 Their hands were thin, and lithe, and strong ; 
 Each day they ate two good days fill, 
 
 They had been starved so long. 
 
 The vintage drew to end. New wine 
 
 From thousand casks was dripping slow, 
 
 And bare and yellow fields gave sign 
 For vintagers to go. 
 
The Golden State 13 
 
 The beggarmen received their pay, 
 
 Bright, yellow gold, twice their demand; 
 
 The master, as they turned away, 
 Held out his brawny hand, 
 
 And said : " Good men, this time next year 
 
 My vintage will be bigger still; 
 Come back, if chance should bring you near, 
 
 And it should suit your will." 
 
 The beggars nodded. But at night 
 
 They said: " No more we go that way; 
 
 He did not know us then ; he might 
 Upon another day!" 
 
 Helen Hunt Jackson. 
 
 MY NEW YEAR S GUESTS 
 
 (Midnight, December 31, 1881, in Virginia City. On 
 the wall photographs of five hundred California pioneers) 
 
 THE winds come cold from the Southward, with 
 
 incense of fir and pine, 
 And the flying clouds grow darker as they halt and 
 
 fall in line. 
 The valleys that reach the deserts, the mountains 
 
 that greet the clouds, 
 
14 Golden Songs of 
 
 Lie bare in the arms of Winter, which the gather 
 ing night enshrouds. 
 The leafless sage on the hillside, the willows low 
 
 down the stream, 
 And the sentry rocks above us have faded all as a 
 
 dream. 
 And the fall of the stamp grows fainter, the voices 
 
 of night sing low, 
 And spelled from labor the miner toils through the 
 
 drifting snow. 
 As I sit alone in my chamber, this last of the dying 
 
 year, 
 Dim shades of the past surround me, and faint 
 
 through the storm I hear 
 Old tales of the castles builded under shelving rock 
 
 and pine, 
 
 Of the bearded men and stalwart, I greeted in forty- 
 nine: 
 The giants with hopes audacious, the giants with 
 
 iron limb, 
 The giants who journeyed Westward, when the 
 
 trails were new and dim : 
 The giants who felled the forests, made pathways 
 
 over the snows, 
 And planted the vine and fig-tree where the manza- 
 
 nita grows ; 
 Who swept down the mountain gorges, and painted 
 
 the endless night 
 
The Golden State 15 
 
 With their cabins rudely fashioned, and their camp 
 
 fires ruddy light; 
 Who builded great towns and cities, who swung 
 
 back the Golden Gate, 
 And hewed from a mighty ashlar the form of a 
 
 sovereign state; 
 Who came like a flood of waters to a thirsty desert 
 
 plain 
 And where there had been no reapers grew valleys 
 
 of golden grain. 
 Nor wonder that this strange music sweeps in from 
 
 the silent past, 
 And comes with the storm this evening and blends 
 
 into strains with the blast ; 
 Nor wonder that through the darkness should enter 
 
 a spectral throng, 
 And gather around my table with the old time smile 
 
 and song; 
 For there on the wall before me, in a frame of gilt 
 
 and brown, 
 With a chain of years suspended, old faces are 
 
 looking down; 
 Five hundred all grouped together five hundred 
 
 old Pioneers 
 Now list as I raise the taper and trace the steps of 
 
 the years; 
 Behold this face near the center; we met ere his 
 
 locks were gray, 
 
16 Golden Songs of 
 
 His purse like his heart was open ; he struggles for 
 
 bread today. 
 To this one the fates were cruel, but he bore his 
 
 burden well, 
 And the willow bends in sorrow by the wayside 
 
 where he fell. 
 Great losses and grief crazed this one; great riches 
 
 turned this one s head ; 
 And a faithless wife wrecked this one he lives but 
 
 were better dead. 
 Now closer the light on this face; twas wrinkled 
 
 when we were young; 
 His touch drew our footsteps Westward, his name 
 
 was on every tongue. 
 Rich was he in land and kindness, but the human 
 
 deluge came, 
 And left him at last with nothing, but death and 
 
 deathless fame. 
 Twas a kindly hand that grouped them, these faces 
 
 of other years; 
 The rich and the poor together, the hopes and the 
 
 smiles and tears 
 Of some of the fearless hundreds who went like the 
 
 knights of old, 
 The banner of empire bearing to the land of blue 
 
 and gold. 
 For years have I watched these shadows, as others 
 
 I know have done, 
 
The Golden State 17 
 
 As death touched their lips with silence, I have 
 
 draped them one by one, 
 Till, seen where the dark-plumed angel has mingled 
 
 here and there, 
 The brows I have flecked with sable cloud, the living 
 
 everywhere. 
 Darker and darker and darker these shadows will 
 
 yearly grow 
 As changing the seasons bring us the bud and the 
 
 falling snow; 
 And soon let me not invoke it ! the final prayer 
 
 will be said, 
 And strangers will write the record, "the last of 
 
 the group is dead." 
 
 And then but why stand here gazing? A gather 
 ing storm in my eyes 
 Is mocking the weeping tempest that billows the 
 
 midnight skies; 
 And, stranger still, is it fancy? Are my senses 
 
 dazed and weak ? 
 The shadowy lips are moving as if they would ope 
 
 and speak, 
 And I seem to hear low whispers, and catch the 
 
 echo of strains 
 That rose from the golden gulches, and followed the 
 
 moving trains, 
 The scent of the sage and desert, the path on the 
 
 rocky height, 
 
18 Golden Songs of 
 
 The shallow graves by the roadside, all, all have 
 
 come back tonight ; 
 And the mildewed years, like stubble, I trample 
 
 under my feet; 
 And drink again at the fountain when the wine of 
 
 life was sweet; 
 And I stand once more exalted, where the white 
 
 pine frets the skies 
 And dream in the winding canyon where early the 
 
 twilight dies. 
 Now the eyes look down in sadness, the pulse of 
 
 the year beats low ; 
 The storm has been awed to silence; the muffled 
 
 hands of the snow, 
 Like the noiseless feet of mourners, are spreading 
 
 a pallid sheet 
 O er the heart of dead December, and glazing the 
 
 shroud with sleet. 
 Hark! the bells are chiming midnight, the storm 
 
 bends its listening ear, 
 While the moon looks through the cloud rifts and 
 
 blesses the new-born year. 
 Bar closely the curtained windows, shut the light 
 
 from every pane, 
 While free from the worldly intrusion and curious 
 
 eyes profane 
 I take from its leathern casket a dented old cup of 
 
 tin, 
 
The Golden State 19 
 
 More precious to me than silver, and blessing the 
 
 draught within, 
 I drink alone and in silence to the " Builders of the 
 
 West" 
 "Long life to the hearts still beating, and peace 
 
 to the hearts at rest ! " 
 
 Rollin M. Daggett. 
 
 EVENING 
 
 THE air is chill, and the day grows late, 
 
 And the clouds come in through the Golden Gate ; 
 
 Phantom fleets they seem to me, 
 
 From a shoreless and unsounded sea; 
 
 Their shadowy spars and misted sails, 
 
 Unshattered, have weathered a thousand gales ; 
 
 Slow wheeling, lo ! in squadrons gray, 
 
 They part, and hasten along the bay; 
 
 Where the hills of Saucelito swell, 
 
 Many in gloom may shelter well, 
 
 And others behold unchallenged pass 
 
 By the silent guns of Alcatraz : 
 
 No greetings of thunder and flame exchange 
 
 The armed isle and the cruisers strange. 
 
 Their meteor flags, so widely blown, 
 
 Were blazoned in a land unknown ; 
 
20 Golden Songs of 
 
 So charmed from war or wind or tide, 
 Along the quiet wave they glide. 
 
 What bear these ships ? what news, what freight 
 
 Do they bring us through the Golden Gate? 
 
 Sad echoes to words in gladness spoken, 
 
 And withered hopes to the poor heart-broken. 
 
 Oh, how many a venture we 
 
 Have rashly sent to the shoreless sea! 
 
 How many an hour have you and I, 
 
 Sweet friend, in sadness seen go by, 
 
 While our eager, longing thoughts were roving 
 
 Over the waste for something loving 
 
 Something rich and chaste and kind, 
 
 To brighten and bless a lonely mind ; 
 
 And only waited to behold 
 
 Ambition s gems, affection s gold, 
 
 Return as " remorse," and " a broken vow " 
 
 In such ships of mist as I see now. 
 
 The air is chill and the day grows late 
 
 And the clouds come in through the Golden Gate, 
 
 Freighted with sorrow, heavy with woe ; 
 
 But these shapes that cluster dark and low 
 
 Tomorrow shall be all a-glow! 
 
 In the blaze of the coming morn these mists, 
 
 Whose weight my heart in vain resists, 
 
 Will brighten, and shine and soar to heaven, 
 
The Golden State 21 
 
 In thin white robes like souls forgiven; 
 For Heaven is kind, and everything, 
 As well as a winter, has a spring. 
 So praise to God ! Who brings the day 
 That shines our regrets and fears away ; 
 For the blessed morn I can watch and wait, 
 While the clouds come in through the Golden Gate, 
 
 Edward Pollock. 
 
 INDIRECTION 
 
 FAIR are the flowers and the children, but their subtle 
 suggestion is fairer; 
 
 Rare is the roseburst of dawn, but the secret that 
 clasps it is rarer; 
 
 Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that pre 
 cedes it is sweeter; 
 
 And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning out- 
 mastered the meter. 
 
 Never a daisy that grows, but a mystery guideth 
 
 the growing; 
 Never a river that flows, but a majesty scepters the 
 
 flowing; 
 Never a Shakespeare that soared, but a stronger 
 
 than he did enfold him, 
 Nor ever a prophet foretells, but a mightier seer 
 
 hath foretold him. 
 
22 Golden Songs of 
 
 Back of the canvas that throbs, the painter is hinted 
 
 and hidden ; 
 Into the statue that breathes, the soul of the sculptor 
 
 is bidden; 
 Under the joy that is felt, lie the infinite issues of 
 
 feeling; 
 Crowning the glory revealed is the glory that crowns 
 
 the revealing. 
 
 Great are the symbols of being, but that which is 
 
 symboled is greater; 
 Vast the create and beheld, but vaster the inward 
 
 creator ; 
 Back of the sound broods the silence, back of the 
 
 gift stands the giving; 
 Back of the hand that received thrill the sensitive 
 
 nerves of receiving. 
 
 Space is as nothing to spirit, the deed is outdone by 
 
 the doing; 
 The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the 
 
 heart of the wooing; 
 And up from the pits where these shiver and up 
 
 from the heights where those shine 
 Twin voices and shadows swim starward, and the 
 
 essence of life is divine. 
 
 Richard Realf. 
 
The Golden State 23 
 
 EL CANELO 
 
 
 
 Now saddle El Canelo! the freshening wind of 
 morn, 
 
 Down in the flowery vega, is stirring through the 
 corn; 
 
 The thin smoke of the ranches grows red with com 
 ing day 
 
 And the steed is fiercely stamping, in haste to be 
 away. 
 
 My glossy-limbed Canelo, thy neck is curved in 
 
 pride, 
 Thy slender ears pricked forward, thy nostrils 
 
 straining wide ; 
 And as thy quick neigh greets me and I catch thee 
 
 by the mane, 
 I m off with the winds of morning, the chieftain 
 
 of the plain! 
 
 I feel the swift air whirring and see along our track, 
 
 From the flinty-paved sierra, the sparks go stream 
 ing back ; 
 
 And I clutch my rifle closer as we sweep the dark 
 defile, 
 
 Where the red guerillas ambush for many a lonely 
 mile. 
 
24 Golden Songs of 
 
 They reach not El Canelo; with the swiftness of a 
 
 dream 
 We ve passed the bleak Nevada, and San Fernan- 
 
 do s stream ; 
 But where, on sweeping gallop, my bullet backward 
 
 sped, 
 The keen-eyed mountain vultures will wheel above 
 
 the dead. 
 
 On! on, my brave Canelo! we ve dashed the sand 
 and snow 
 
 From peaks upholding heaven, from deserts far 
 below, 
 
 We ve thundered through the forest, while the crack 
 ling branches rang, 
 
 And trooping elks, affrighted, from lair and covert 
 sprang. 
 
 We ve swum the swollen torrent we ve distanced 
 in the race 
 
 The baying wolves of Pinos, that panted with the 
 chase ; 
 
 And still thy mane streams backward at every thrill 
 ing bound, 
 
 And still thy treasured hoof -stroke beats with its 
 morning sound. 
 
 The seaward winds are wailing through Santa 
 Barbara s pines, 
 
The Golden State 25 
 
 And like a sheathless sabre, the far Pacific shines; 
 Hold to thy speed, my arrow, at nightfall thou shalt 
 
 lave 
 Thy hot and smoking haunches beneath its silver 
 
 wave. 
 
 My head upon thy shoulder along the sloping sand, 
 
 We ll sleep as trusty brothers, from out the moun 
 tain land; 
 
 The pines will sound in answer to the surges on 
 the shore, 
 
 And in our dreams, Canelo, we ll make the journey 
 o er. Bayard Taylor. 
 
 EL VAQUERO 
 
 TINGED with the blood of Aztec lands, 
 Sphinx-like the tawny herdsman stands, 
 A coiled reata in his hands. 
 Devoid of hope, devoid of fear, 
 Half brigand and half cavalier, 
 This Helot, with imperial grace, 
 Wears ever on his tawny face 
 
 A sad, defiant look of pain. 
 Left by the fierce iconoclast 
 A living fragment of the past, 
 
 Greek of the Greeks he must remain. 
 
 Lucius Harwood Foote. 
 
of tfje <reat linger* 
 
CALIFORNIA 
 
 WAS it the sigh and shiver of the leaves? 
 Was it the murmur of the meadow brook, 
 That in and out the reeds and water weeds 
 Slipped silverly, and on their tremulous keys 
 Uttered her many melodies? Or voice 
 Of the far sea, red with the sunset gold, 
 That sang within her shining shores, and sang 
 Within the Gate, that in the sunset shone 
 A gate of fire against the outer world? 
 
 For ever as I turned the magic page 
 
 Of that old song the old, blind singer sang 
 
 Unto the world when it and song were young 
 
 The ripple of the reeds, or odorous, 
 
 Soft sigh of leaves or voice of the far sea 
 
 M mystical, low murmur, tremulous 
 
 Upon the wind, came in the musk of rose, 
 
 The salt breath of the waves, and far, faint smell 
 
 Of laurel up the slopes of Tamalpais. 
 
 " Am I less fair, am I less fair than these, 
 
 Daughter of far-off seas? 
 Daughter of far-off shores bleak over-blown 
 
 29 
 
30 Golden Songs of 
 
 With foam of fretful tides, with wail and moan 
 Of waves that toss wild hands, that clasp and beat 
 Wild desolate hands above the lonely sands, 
 Printed no more with pressure of their feet : 
 That chase no more the light feet flying swift 
 
 Up golden sands, nor lift 
 Foam fingers white unto their garments hem, 
 
 And flowing hair of them. 
 
 "For these are dead: the fair, great queens are 
 
 dead, 
 The long hair s gold a dust the wind bloweth 
 
 Wherever it may list; 
 
 The curved lips, that kissed 
 Heroes and kings of men, a dust that breath, 
 Nor speech, nor laughter, ever quickeneth; 
 
 And all the glory sped 
 
 From the large, marvellous eyes, the light whereof 
 Wrought wonder in their hearts desire and love! 
 
 And wrought not any good : 
 But strife, and curses of the gods, and flood, 
 
 And fire and battle-death! 
 
 Am I less fair, less fair, 
 
 Because that my hands bear 
 Neither a sword, nor any flaming brand 
 To blacken and make desolate my land, 
 And on my brows are leaves of olive boughs, 
 
 And in mine arms a dove? 
 
The Golden State 31 
 
 " Sea-born and goddess, blossom of the foam, 
 Pale Aphrodite, shadowy as a mist 
 
 Not any sun hath kissed ! 
 
 Tawny of limb I roam, 
 The dusk of forests dark within my hair; 
 
 The far Yosemite, 
 For garment and for covering of me, 
 
 Wove the white foam and mist, 
 The amber and the rose and amethyst 
 Of her wild fountains shaken loose in air. 
 And I am of the hills and of the sea, 
 Strong with the strength of my great hills, and calm 
 With calm of the fair sea, whose billowy gold 
 Girdles the land whose queen and love I am ! 
 
 Lo ! am I less than thou, 
 That with a sound of lyres and harp-playing, 
 
 Not any voice doth sing 
 The beauty of mine eyelids and my breast 
 Nor hymn in all my fair and gracious ways, 
 
 And lengths of golden days, 
 The measure and the music of my praise? 
 
 "Ah, what indeed is this 
 Old land beyond the seas, that ye should miss 
 For her the grace and majesty of mine? 
 
 Are not the fruit and vine 
 Fair on my hills, and in my vales the rose ? 
 
 The palm-tree and the pine 
 
32 Golden Songs of 
 
 Strike hands together under the same skies 
 
 In every wind that blows. 
 
 What clearer heavens can shine 
 Above the land whereon the shadow lies 
 Of her dead glory and her slaughtered kings 
 
 And lost, evanished gods? 
 
 Upon my fresh green sods 
 No king has walked to curse and desolate : 
 But in the valley Freedom sits and sings, 
 
 And on the heights above; 
 Upon her brows the leaves of olive boughs, 
 
 And in her arms a dove ; 
 And the great hills are pure, undesecrate, 
 
 White with their snows untrod ! 
 And mighty with the presence of their God ! 
 
 " Hearken, how many years 
 I sat alone, I sat alone and heard 
 
 Only the silence stirred 
 By wind and leaf, by clash of grassy spears, 
 And singing bird that called to singing bird, 
 
 Heard but the savage tongue 
 Of my brown, savage children, that among 
 The hills and valleys chased the buck and doe, 
 
 And round the wigwam fires 
 Chanted wild songs of their wild savage sires, 
 And danced their wild weird dances to and fro, 
 And wrought their beaded robes of buffalo. 
 
The Golden State 33 
 
 Day following upon day, 
 Saw but the panther crouched upon the limb, 
 
 Smooth serpents, swift and slim, 
 Slip through the reeds and grasses, and the bear 
 
 Crush through his tangled lair 
 Of chaparral upon the startled prey! 
 
 " Listen, how I have seen 
 
 Flash of strange fires in gorge and black ravine; 
 Heard the sharp clang of steel, that came to drain 
 
 The mountain s golden vein 
 And laughed and sang, and sang and laughed again, 
 Because that Now, I said, I shall be known ! 
 
 I shall not sit alone; 
 But reach my hands unto my sister lands ! 
 
 And they, will they not turn 
 Old, wondering dim eyes to me, and yearn 
 
 Aye, they will yearn, in sooth, 
 To my glad beauty and my glad, fresh youth ! 
 
 " What matters though the morn 
 Redden upon my singing fields of corn! 
 What matters though the wind s unresting feet 
 
 Ripple the golden wheat, 
 
 And my vales run with wine, 
 
 And on these hills of mine 
 The orchard boughs droop heavy with ripe fruit? 
 
 When with nor song of lute 
 
34 Golden Songs of 
 
 Nor lyre, doth any singer chant and sing 
 
 Me, in my life s fair spring: 
 The matin song of me in my young day? 
 But all my lays and legends fade away 
 From lake and mountain to the farther hem 
 Of sea, and there be none to gather them. 
 
 " Lo ! I have waited long ! 
 How longer yet must my strung harp be dumb 
 
 Ere its great master come? 
 Till the fair singer comes to wake the strong, 
 Rapt chords of it unto the new, glad song! 
 
 Him a diviner speech 
 
 My song birds wait to teach: 
 
 The secrets of the field 
 
 My blossoms will not yield 
 
 To other hands than his; 
 
 And lingering for this, 
 My laurels lend the glory of their boughs 
 
 To crown no narrower brows. 
 For on his lips must wisdom sit with youth ; 
 And in his eyes, and on the lids thereof, 
 
 The light of a great love 
 
 And on his forehead, truth ! " 
 
 Was it the wind, or the soft sigh of leaves, 
 Or sound of singing waters? So, I looked, 
 And saw the silvery ripples of the brook, 
 
The Golden State 35 
 
 The fruit upon the hills, the waving trees, 
 The mellow fields of harvest; saw the Gate 
 Burn in the sunset : the thin- thread of mist, 
 Creep white across the Saucelito hills; 
 Till the day darkened down the ocean rim, 
 The sunset purple slipped from Tamalpais, 
 And bay and sky were bright with sudden stars ! 
 
 Ina Coolbrith. 
 
 WHEN THE GRASS SHALL COVER ME 
 
 WHEN the grass shall cover me, 
 Head to foot where I am lying, 
 When not any wind that blows, 
 Summer-blooms nor winter-snows, 
 Shall awake me to your sighing: 
 Close above me as you pass, 
 You will say, " How kind she was," 
 You will say, "How true she was," 
 When the grass grows over me. 
 
 When the grass shall cover me, 
 Holden close to earth s warm bosom, 
 
 While I laugh, or weep, or sing, 
 
 Nevermore for anything, 
 You will find in blade and blossom, 
 
 Sweet, small voices odorous, 
 
 Tender pleaders in my cause, 
 
36 Golden Songs of 
 
 That shall speak me as I was 
 When the grass grows over me. 
 
 When the grass shall cover me ! 
 Ah, beloved, in my sorrow 
 
 Very patient, I can wait, 
 
 Knowing that, or soon or late, 
 There will dawn a clearer morrow: 
 
 When your heart will moan: "Alas! 
 
 Now I know how true she was; 
 
 Now I know how dear she was" 
 
 When the grass grows over me! 
 
 Ina Coolbrith. 
 
 THE ANGELUS 
 (Heard at the Mission Dolores in San Francisco, 1868) 
 
 BELLS of the past, whose long forgotten music 
 
 Still fills the wide expanse, 
 Tingeing the sober twilight of the present 
 
 With color of romance! 
 
 I hear your call, and see the sun descending 
 
 On rock and wave and sand, 
 As down the coast the Mission voices blending 
 
 Girdle the heathen land. 
 
The Golden State 37 
 
 Within the circle of your incantation 
 
 No blight nor mildew falls ; 
 Nor fierce unrest, nor lust, nor low ambition 
 
 Passes those airy walls. 
 
 Borne on the swell of your long waves receding, 
 
 I touch the farther Past, 
 I see the dying glow of Spanish glory, 
 
 The sunset dream, and last ! 
 
 Before me rise the dome-shaped Mission towers, 
 
 The white Presidio; 
 The swart commander in his leathern jerkin, 
 
 The priest in stole of snow. 
 
 Once more I see Portala s cross uplifting 
 
 Above the setting sun; 
 And past the headland, northward, slowly drifting, 
 
 The freighted galleon. 
 
 O solemn bells! whose consecrated masses 
 
 Recall the faith of old 
 O tinkling bells ! that thrilled with twilight music 
 
 The spiritual fold. 
 
 Your voices break and falter in the darkness, 
 Break, falter, and are still; 
 
38 Golden Songs of 
 
 And veiled and mystic, like the Host descending, 
 The sun sinks from the hill ! 
 
 Bret Harte. 
 
 THE REVEILLE 
 
 HARK ! I hear the tramp of thousands, 
 
 And of armed men the hum; 
 Lo ! a nation s hosts have gathered 
 Round the quick-alarming drum, 
 Saying, " Come, 
 Freemen, come! 
 
 Ere your heritage be wasted," said the quick-alarm 
 ing drum. 
 
 " Let me of my heart take counsel : 
 
 War is not of life the sum; 
 Who shall stay and reap the harvest 
 When the autumn days are done?" 
 But the drum 
 Echoed : " Come ! 
 
 Death shall reap the braver harvest," said the sol 
 emn-sounding drum. 
 
 " But when won, the coming battle, 
 
 What of profit springs therefrom? 
 What if conquest, subjugation, 
 
The Golden State 39 
 
 Even greater ills become?" 
 But the drum 
 Answered, "Come, 
 
 You must do the sum to prove it," said the Yankee- 
 answering drum. 
 
 " What, if mid the cannon s thunder, 
 
 Whistling shot and bursting bomb, 
 When my brothers fall around me, 
 
 Should my heart grow cold and numb?" 
 But the drum 
 Answered, " Come ! 
 
 Better there in death united than in life a recreant, 
 Come!" 
 
 Thus they answered hoping, fearing, 
 Some in faith, and doubting some 
 Till a triumph-voice proclaiming, 
 Said : " My chosen people, come ! " 
 Then the drum 
 Lo ! was dumb ; 
 
 For the great heart of the nation, throbbing, an 
 swered, " Lord, we come ! " 
 
 Bret Harte. 
 
40 Golden Songs of 
 
 WHAT THE BULLET SANG 
 
 O JOY of creation, 
 To be! 
 
 rapture, to fly 
 And be free ! 
 
 Be the battle lost or won, 
 
 Though its smoke shall hide the sun, 
 
 1 shall find my love the one 
 
 Born for me ! 
 
 I shall know him where he stands 
 
 All alone, 
 With the power in his hands 
 
 Not o erthrown; 
 I shall know him by his face, 
 By his godlike front and grace; 
 I shall hold him for a space 
 
 All my own ! 
 
 It is he O my love! 
 
 So bold! 
 It is I all thy love 
 
 Foretold ! 
 
 It is I O love, what bliss ! 
 Dost thou answer to my kiss ? 
 O sweetheart ! what is this 
 
 Lieth there so cold? 
 
 Bret Harte. 
 
The Golden State 41 
 
 BELLS OF SAN GABRIEL 
 
 THINE was the corn and the wine, 
 
 The blood of the grape that nourished; 
 The blossom and fruit of the vine 
 
 That was heralded far away. 
 These were thy gifts; and thine, 
 
 When the vine and the fig-tree flourished, 
 The promise of peace and of glad increase 
 
 Forever and ever and aye. 
 What then wert thou, and what art now? 
 
 Answer me, O, I pray! 
 
 And every note of every bell 
 
 Sang Gabriel ! rang Gabriel ! 
 In the tower that is left the tale to tell 
 
 Of Gabriel, the Archangel. 
 
 Oil of the olive was thine; 
 
 Flood of the wine-press flowing; 
 Blood o the Christ was the wine 
 
 Blood o the Lamb that was slain. 
 Thy gifts were fat o* the kine 
 
 Forever coming and going 
 Over the hills, the thousand hills, 
 
 Their lowing a soft refrain. 
 What then wert thou, and what art now ? 
 
 Answer me, once again! 
 
42 Golden Songs of 
 
 And every note of every bell 
 Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel! 
 
 In the tower that is left the tale to tell 
 Of Gabriel, the Archangel. 
 
 Seed o the corn was thine 
 
 Body of Him thus broken 
 And mingled with blood o the vine 
 
 The bread and the wine of life; 
 Out of the good sunshine 
 
 They were given to thee as a token 
 The body of Him, and the blood of Him, 
 
 When the gifts of God were rife. 
 What then wert thou, and what art now, 
 
 After the weary strife? 
 
 And every note of every bell 
 Sang Gabriel ! rang Gabriel ! 
 
 In the tower that is left the tale to tell 
 Of Gabriel, the Archangel. 
 
 Where are they now, O bells? 
 
 Where are the fruits o the Mission? 
 Garnered, where no one dwells 
 
 Shepherd and flock are fled. 
 O er the Lord s vineyard swells 
 
 The tide that with fell perdition 
 
The, Golden State 43 
 
 Sounded their doom and fashioned their tomb 
 
 And buried them with the dead. 
 What then wert thou, and what art now? 
 
 The answer is still unsaid. 
 
 And every note of every bell 
 
 Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel! 
 In the tower that is left the tale to tell 
 
 Of Gabriel, the Archangel. 
 
 Where are they now, O tower ! 
 
 The locusts and wild honey? 
 Where is the sacred dower 
 
 That the bride of Christ was given? 
 Gone to the builders of power, 
 
 The misers and minters of money; 
 Gone for the greed that is their creed 
 
 And these in the land have thriven. 
 What then wert thou, and what art now, 
 
 And wherefore hast thou striven? 
 
 And every note of every bell 
 
 Sang Gabriel ! rang Gabriel ! 
 In the tower that is left the tale to tell 
 
 Of Gabriel, the Archangel. 
 
 Charles Warren Stoddard. 
 
44 Golden Songs of 
 
 IN THE STATES 
 
 WITH half a heart I wander here 
 
 As from an age gone by, 
 A brother yet though young in years, 
 
 An elder brother, I. 
 
 You speak another tongue than mine, 
 Though both were English born. 
 
 I toward the night of time decline, 
 You mount into the morn. 
 
 Youth shall grow great and strong and free, 
 
 But age must still decay: 
 Tomorrow for the States for me, 
 
 England and Yesterday. 
 
 Robert Louis Stevenson. 
 
 IN YOSEMITE VALLEY* 
 
 SOUND! sound! sound! 
 O colossal walls as crown d 
 In one eternal thunder! 
 
 Sound! sound! sound! 
 
 Permission to use the poems by Joaquin Miller secured from 
 The Harr Wagner Publishing Co., San Francisco, California, pub 
 lishers of Joaquin Miller s complete works. 
 
The Golden State 45 
 
 O ye oceans overhead, 
 While we walk, subdued in wonder, 
 In the ferns and grasses, under 
 And beside the swift Merced! 
 
 Fret! fret! fret! 
 
 Streaming, sounding banners, set 
 On the giant granite castles 
 In the clouds and in the snow ! 
 But the foe he comes not yet, 
 We are loyal, valiant vassals, 
 And we touch the trailing tassels 
 Of the banners far below. 
 
 Surge! surge! surge! 
 From the white sierra s verge, 
 To the very valley blossom. 
 
 Surge! surge! surge! 
 Yet the song bird builds a home, 
 And the mossy branches cross them, 
 And the tasseled tree-tops toss them, 
 In the clouds of falling foam. 
 
 Sweep ! sweep ! sweep ! 
 O ye heaven-born and deep 
 In one dread, unbroken chorus ! 
 We may wonder or may weep, 
 
46 Golden Songs of 
 
 We may wait on God before us; 
 iWe may shout or lift a hand, 
 We may bow down or deplore us, 
 But may never understand. 
 
 Beat! beat! beat! 
 We advance but would retreat 
 From this restless, broken breast 
 Of the earth in a convulsion. 
 We would rest, but dare not rest, 
 For the angel of expulsion 
 From this Paradise below 
 Waves us onward and we go. 
 
 Joaquin Miller. 
 
 LYRICS 
 (Written in London in 1871) 
 
 COME to my sun land! Come with me 
 To the land I love ; where the sun and sea 
 Are wed forever : where palm and pine 
 Are filled with singers ; where tree and vine 
 Are voiced with prophets ! O come, and you 
 Shall sing a song with the seas that swirl 
 And kiss their hands to the cold white girl, 
 To the maiden moon in her mantle of blue. 
 
 Joaquin Miller. 
 
The Golden State 47 
 
 ROOM ! Room to turn round in, to breathe and be 
 
 free, 
 
 And to grow to be giant, to sail as at sea 
 With the speed of the wind on a steed with his mane 
 To the wind, without pathway, or route, or a rein. 
 Room ! Room to be free where the white-bordered 
 
 sea 
 
 Blows a kiss to a brother as boundless as he; 
 And to east and to west, to the north and the sun, 
 Blue skies and brown grasses are welded as one, 
 And the buffalo come like a cloud on the plain, 
 Pouring on like the tide of a storm-driven main, 
 And the lodge of the hunter to friend or to foe 
 Offers rest; and unquestioned you come or you go. 
 My plains of America! Seas of wild lands! 
 From a land in the seas in a raiment of foam, 
 That has reached to a stranger the welcome of home, 
 I turn to you, lean to you, lift you my hands. 
 
 Joaquin Miller. 
 
 ON A PICTURE OF MOUNT SHASTA 1 
 BY KEITH* 
 
 Two craggy slopes, sheer down on either hand, 
 Fall to a cleft, dark and confused with pines. 
 
 * Used by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton 
 Mifflin Company. 
 
48 Golden Songs of 
 
 Out of their sombre shade one gleam of light 
 Escaping toward us like a hurrying child, 
 Half laughing, half afraid, a white brook runs. 
 The fancy tracks it back through the thick gloom 
 Of crowded trees, immense, mysterious 
 As monoliths of some colossal temple, 
 Dusky with incense, chill with endless time: 
 Through their dim arches chants the distant wind, 
 Hollow and vast, and ancient oracles 
 Whisper and wait to be interpreted. 
 Far up the gorge denser and denser grows 
 The forest; columns lie with writhen roots in air, 
 And across open glades the sunbeams slant 
 To touch the vanishing wing-tips of shy birds; 
 Till from a mist-rolled valley soar the slopes, 
 Blue-hazy, dense with pines to the verge of snow, 
 Up into cloud. Suddenly parts the cloud, 
 And lo! in heaven as pure as very snow, 
 Uplifted like a solitary world 
 A star, grown all at once distinct and clear, 
 The white earth-spirit, Shasta ! Calm, alone, 
 Silent it stands, cold in the crystal air, 
 White-bosomed sister of the stainless dawn, 
 With whom the clouds hold converse, and the storm 
 Rests there, and stills its tempest into snow. 
 
 Once you remember ? we beheld that vision, 
 But busy days recalled us, and the whole 
 
The Golden State 49 
 
 Fades now among my memories like a dream. 
 
 The distant thing is all incredible, 
 
 And the dim past as if it had not been. 
 
 Our world flees from us ; only the one point, 
 
 The unsubstantial moment, is our own. 
 
 We are but as the dead, save that swift mote 
 
 Of conscious life. Then the great artist comes, 
 
 Commands the chariot wheels of Time to stay, 
 
 Summons the distant, as by some austere 
 
 Grand gesture of a mighty sorcerer s wand, 
 
 And our whole world again becomes our own. 
 
 So we escape the petty tyranny 
 
 Of the incessant hour; pure thought evades 
 
 Its customary bondage, and the mind 
 
 Is lifted up, watching the moon-like globe. 
 
 How should a man be eager or perturbed 
 Within this calm? How should he greatly care 
 For reparation, or redress of wrong, 
 To scotch the liar, or spurn the fawning knave, 
 Or heed the babble of the ignoble crew? 
 Seest thou yon blur far up the icy slope, 
 Like a man s footprint ? Half thy little town 
 Might hide there, or be buried in what seems 
 From yonder cliff a curl of feathery snow. 
 Still the far peak would keep its frozen calm, 
 Still at the evening on its pinnacle 
 Would the one tender touch of sunset dwell, 
 
50 Golden Songs of 
 
 And o er it nightlong wheel the silent stars. 
 So the great globe rounds on, mountains and vales, 
 Forests, waste stretches of gaunt rock and sand, 
 Shore, and the swaying ocean, league on league ; 
 And blossoms open, and are sealed in frost; 
 And babes are born, and men are laid to rest. 
 What is this breathing atom, that his brain 
 Should build or purpose aught or aught desire, 
 But stand a moment in amaze and awe, 
 Rapt on the wonderfulness of the world? 
 
 Edward Rowland Sill. 
 
 THE MAN WITH THE HOE* 
 (Written after seeing Millet s world-famous painting) 
 
 BOWED by the weight of centuries he leans 
 Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, 
 The emptiness of ages in his face, 
 And on his back the burden of the world. 
 Who made him dead to rapture and despair, 
 A thing that grieves not and that never hopes, 
 Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox ? 
 Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw? 
 Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow ? 
 
 * Used by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Double- 
 day, Page & Company. 
 
The Golden State 51 
 
 Whose breath blew out the light within this brain ? 
 
 Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave 
 
 To have dominion over sea and land; 
 
 To trace the stars and search the heavens for power ; 
 
 To feel the passion of Eternity? 
 
 Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns 
 
 And marked their ways upon the ancient deep? 
 
 Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf 
 
 There is no shape more terrible than this 
 
 More tongued with censure of the world s blind 
 
 greed 
 
 More filled with signs and portents for the soul 
 More fraught with menace to the universe. 
 
 What gulfs between him and the seraphim! 
 
 Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him 
 
 Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades? 
 
 What the long reaches of the peaks of song, 
 
 The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose? 
 
 Through this dread shape the suffering ages look; 
 
 Time s tragedy is in that aching stoop; 
 
 Through this dread shape humanity betrayed, 
 
 Plundered, profaned and disinherited, 
 
 Cries protest to the Judges of the World, 
 
 A protest that is also prophecy. 
 
 O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, 
 Is this the handiwork you give to God, 
 
52 Golden Songs of 
 
 This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched? 
 
 How will you ever straighten up this shape, 
 
 Touch it again with immortality; 
 
 Give back the upward looking and the light ; 
 
 Rebuild in it the music and the dream ; 
 
 Make right the immemorial infamies, 
 
 Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes? 
 
 O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, 
 How will the future reckon with this Man? 
 How answer his brute question in that hour 
 When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world? 
 How will it be with kingdoms and with kings 
 With those who shaped him to the thing he is 
 When this dumb Terror shall reply to God, 
 After the silence of the centuries? 
 
 Edwin Mark ham. 
 
 THE JOY OF THE HILLS * 
 
 I RIDE on the mountain tops, I ride ; 
 I have found my life and am satisfied. 
 Onward I ride in the blowing oats, 
 Checking the field-lark s rippling notes 
 
 * Used by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Double- 
 day, Page & Company. 
 
The Golden State 53 
 
 Lightly I sweep 
 
 From steep to steep: 
 Over my head through the branches high 
 Come glimpses of a rushing sky; 
 The tall oats brush my horse s flanks; 
 Wild poppies crowd on the sunny banks ; 
 A bee booms out of the scented grass ; 
 A jay laughs with me as I pass. 
 
 I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget 
 
 Life s hoard of regret 
 
 All the terror and pain 
 
 Of the chafing chain. 
 
 Grind on, O cities, grind: 
 
 I leave you a blur behind. 
 I am lifted elate the skies expand : 
 Here the world s heaped gold is a pile of sand. 
 Let them weary and work in their narrow 
 
 walls : 
 I ride with the voices of waterfalls! 
 
 I swing on as one in a dream I swing 
 Down the airy hollows, I shout, I sing ! 
 The world is gone like an empty word : 
 My body s a bough in the wind, my heart a 
 bird! 
 
 Edwin Markham. 
 
54 Golden Songs of 
 
 THE HEART S RETURN * 
 
 WHEN darkened hours come crowding fast, 
 A thought and all the dark is past. 
 For I am back a boy again, 
 Knee-deep in heading barley in a Mendocino glen. 
 
 I can not ever be so sad 
 But one thing still will make me glad 
 That hid spring in the Suisun hills: 
 My heart keeps going back to it thru all the earthly 
 ills. 
 
 How often when the brood of care 
 Would hold me in a hopeless snare, 
 My soul springs winged and away, 
 Remembering that wild duck s nest above Benicia 
 bay. 
 
 Or when night finds me toiling still, 
 I am back again on the greening hill, 
 A shepherd boy at set of sun, 
 
 Folding his happy sheep and knowing all his tasks 
 are done. 
 
 Edwin Markham. 
 
 *Used by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Double- 
 day, Page & Company. 
 
The Golden State 55 
 
 THE LAST DAYS 
 
 THE russet leaves of the sycamore 
 
 Lie at last on the valley floor 
 
 By the autumn wind swept to and fro 
 
 Like ghosts in a tale of long ago. 
 
 Shallow and clear the Carmel glides 
 
 Where the willows droop on its vine-walled sides. 
 
 The bracken rust is red on the hill; 
 
 The pines stand brooding, somber and still; 
 
 Gray are the cliffs, and the waters gray, 
 
 Where the sea-gulls dip to the sea-born spray. 
 
 Sad November, lady of rain, 
 
 Sends the goose-wedge over again. 
 
 Wilder now, for the verdure s birth, 
 Falls the sunlight over the earth; 
 Kildees call from the fields where now 
 The banding blackbirds follow the plow; 
 Rustling poplar and brittle weed 
 Whisper low to the river-reed. 
 
 Days departing linger and sigh : 
 Stars come soon to the quiet sky ; 
 Buried voices, intimate, strange, 
 Cry to body and soul of change; 
 
56 Golden Songs of 
 
 Beauty, eternal fugitive, 
 
 Seeks the home that we cannot give. 
 
 George Sterling. 
 
 THE VOICE OF THE DOVE 
 
 Hear I the mourning-dove, 
 As now the swallow floats 
 Low o er the shadowed oats? 
 
 Soft as the voice of love, 
 Hear I her slow and supplicating notes? 
 
 O fugitive! O lone! 
 
 O burden pure and strong 
 That summer noons prolong! 
 
 O link in music shown 
 Between the silence and an angel s song ! 
 
 The dulcimer and lute 
 
 Hoard not so swoonless woe. 
 
 What grief of long ago 
 Would now thy tones transmute 
 To what we sought afar and could not know ? 
 
 Thy yearnings yet elude 
 Our quest and scrutiny, 
 Tho mortals echo thee 
 Thy moan in solitude 
 For dreams that are not nor shall ever be. 
 
The Golden State 57 
 
 So broken waters hold 
 A voice to sorrow set 
 A world s foreknown regret, 
 Immutable, untold. 
 
 So seas remember, tho our souls forget. 
 
 George Sterling. 
 
 THE BLACK VULTURE 
 
 Aloof upon the day s immeasured dome, 
 
 He holds unshared the silence of the sky. 
 
 Far down his bleak, relentless eyes descry 
 The eagle s empire and the falcon s home 
 Far down, the galleons of sunset roam; 
 
 His hazards on the sea of morning lie; 
 
 Serene, he hears the broken tempest sigh 
 Where cold Sierras gleam like scattered foam. 
 
 And least of all he holds the human swarm 
 Unwitting now that envious men prepare 
 To make their dream and its fulfilment one, 
 When, poised above the caldrons of the storm, 
 Their hearts, contemptuous of death, shall 
 
 dare 
 
 His roads between the thunder and the sun. 
 
 George Sterling. 
 
Htbtng 
 
EL DORADO: A SONG 
 
 Largius hie campos aether, et lumine vestit 
 Purpureo, solemque suum, sua sidera norunt. 
 
 OH, THE fields aflame with poppies, 
 
 Buttercups and columbine ! 
 Oh, the haze on glade and coppice, 
 
 Haunt of clematis and vine! 
 Slopes of green and skies propitious, 
 And the air a draft delicious, 
 
 One ethereal anodyne. 
 
 Oh, the sweet acacia flinging 
 
 Golden tassels to the breeze; 
 And the wild canaries singing 
 
 In and out the almond trees! 
 Spires of apricot and cherry 
 Lanes of lilies and the merry 
 
 Meadowlark upon the leas ! 
 
 Oh, the purpling hills, the mountains, 
 Towns that hallow bight and bay, 
 
 Creeks and canyons, vales and fountains 
 But to tell them is to pray! 
 
 For their names fulfill the chorus 
 61 
 
62 Golden Songs of 
 
 Of a thousand saints that o er us 
 Swing their censers, night and day. 
 
 Oh, the sun, his chariot turning, 
 
 Hither wheels precipitate, 
 Royal bannered, westward burning, 
 
 Glorifies the Golden Gate ! 
 Sinks behind the Farallones, 
 Where his trans-Elysian throne is, 
 
 Where he keeps nocturnal state. 
 
 Lo, the stars a purer argent 
 Furrow fields a deeper blue! 
 
 And the city from the margent 
 Of the ocean leaps in view, 
 
 Climbs the hills of heaven untiring 
 
 Lilies, poppies, flushing, firing 
 All the West with bloom anew. 
 
 Charles Mills Gayley. 
 
 PRESIDIO HILL 
 
 SABRE and cross on this historic crown 
 
 Began the conquest of our Western sward, 
 
 Advancing, while they builded fort and town, 
 The Kingdom of the Lord. 
 
The Golden State 63 
 
 The whale calved, then, in San Diego Bay, 
 And in the kelp beds off the Loman shore, 
 
 The otter bred. Tales of that deedful day 
 Leap to men s lips no more; 
 
 But yonder pair, the Parent Palms, oft tell 
 
 Two things, as of them all their dreams were 
 made: 
 
 How first rang out the branch-swung Mission bell, 
 How Padre Serra prayed. 
 
 The while they speak, the old winds softer blow 
 Past palsied Old Town, drowsing in the sun, 
 
 Breathing some pertinent burden, "Long ago 
 The padre s work was done ! " 
 
 Come whence we may, memorial murmurs find 
 The heart of us who on these grasses tread; 
 
 Tis benediction, not the warm sea-wind, 
 The breath on the bowed head, 
 
 First felt here when pale Serra bowed, his lip 
 Quivering with victory, in the Master s name, 
 
 As, with the sight of trust, he saw the ship 
 Far in the sun s low flame, 
 
 And the Lord s gate was safe. This mother hill, 
 Under clear skies, beside the Peaceful Sea, 
 
64 Golden Songs of 
 
 Her voices all, when winds are loud or still, 
 Are sweet with memory. 
 
 At this dark hour scarce voice enough to tell 
 Whether it be of silence or of sound 
 
 The day is saying once again, "Farewell, 
 God s unforgotten ground!" 
 
 The trusting toil, the courage of it all ! 
 
 The votive grasses tremble and grow still : 
 The heavens are bending low tis evenfall 
 
 On old Presidio Hill. 
 
 John Vance Cheney. 
 
 COYOTE 
 
 A DIM lithe shape moves over the mesa, 
 Roves with the night wind up and down; 
 
 The light-foot ghost, the wild dog of the shadow. 
 Howls on the level beyond the town. 
 Cry, cry Coyote! 
 
 No fellow has he, with leg or wing, 
 
 No mate has that spectre in fur or feather; 
 
 In the sage brush is whelped a fuzzy thing, 
 And mischief itself helps lick him together. 
 Up, cub Coyote! 
 
The Golden State 65 
 
 The winds come blowing over and over, 
 The great white moon is looking down ; 
 
 In the throat of the dog is devil s laughter. 
 Is he baying the moon or baying the town ? 
 Howl, howl, Coyote! 
 
 The shadow-dog on the windy mesa, 
 
 He sits, and he laughs in his devil s way, 
 Look to the roost and lock up the lambkin ; 
 A deal may happen twixt now and the day. 
 Ha, ha, Coyote! 
 
 John Vance Cheney. 
 
 WIRELESS 
 
 THE high stars glimmer in thine iron net, 
 
 And winds go whimpering along the wires ; 
 
 Vast on the dark thy Titan bulk aspires 
 A watcher on a lonely parapet! 
 And far, from hidden isles in ocean set, 
 
 Invisibly, yet thrall to thy desires, 
 
 They come, on wings nor storm nor darkness 
 
 tires 
 
 Words that the far-off hearts of men beget. 
 Gaunt harvester of desperate gulfs of night, 
 
 Strange winnower in wide dim vales of air, 
 Wilt thou yet garner by thy mystic might 
 
66 Golden Songs of 
 
 Some word to still our ancient long despair? 
 A whisper from the infinite? a breath 
 Caught from the far unfathomed gulf of death? 
 
 Henry Anderson Lafler. 
 
 THE WHITE FEET OF ATTHIS 
 
 THEN Atthis to her lover-poet said : 
 
 " Why dost thou never murmur of my feet 
 
 A little song and sweet? 
 
 For surely they are worth a fragile rhyme 
 
 To cast in the teeth of Time." 
 
 From that imperious countenance, behold, 
 
 He looked along the dais stained with gold 
 
 Where bright her silver garments gleamed and, lo ! 
 
 A little drift of snow 
 
 Was newly fallen there, 
 
 Nor fled in the dim air. 
 
 Gazing, a mist about his eyelids fell ; 
 
 As strokes of a loud bell 
 
 His heart beat : loveliness 
 
 Surged in his brain and did his soul possess, 
 
 And earth s white shapes, a cavalcade of dreams, 
 
 Hurried their phantom-streams ; 
 
 [Yet came no vision out of lands or seas 
 
The Golden State 67 
 
 So per feet- fair as these 
 
 So white, so slight, so pale, so frail, so sweet 
 
 Were her unsandaled feet. 
 
 Ah, grieved was his heart 
 
 That ever in mead or mart 
 
 Aught carved so fragilely and slender-round 
 
 Should tread the dark, cold ground. 
 
 " Such white hath not the curds 
 Drawn of the dreamy herds, 
 Nor white breasts of white birds, 
 Nor marble women folded in their stone, 
 Still, sunless, and unknown. 
 
 " White of a moonlit garden of pale roses, 
 
 And blossomy orchard-closes, 
 
 Or shroud that wreathes a girl s virginity * * 
 
 Her cold inviolacy 
 
 Or viewless foam of far, enchanted seas 
 
 Nay, not any of these 
 
 Is whiter " 
 
 Suddenly, 
 
 With petulant bright mouth a-question, she 
 Shattered to air that weaving reverie 
 
 " Tak st thou so long to see that they are fair, 
 So mute thou standest there ? 
 
68 Golden Songs of 
 
 A song I d have to quell the singing birds, 
 
 Of soft and colored words, 
 
 All woven together in a gleaming rhyme 
 
 Seven silver bells a-chime 
 
 To ring and murmur in all maidens ears 
 
 Through the unceasing years : 
 
 Her feet were smallest, fairest. They must be 
 
 Forever hating me." 
 
 Then he from all his dreams awakened, 
 
 His grave eyes lifted, said: 
 
 "O Beautiful, mine all-allegiance 
 
 Bowed to the emerald shadows of thy glance, 
 
 And thine unconquered mouth 
 
 (A scarlet poppy out of the warm South), 
 
 And till thou bad st them see 
 
 Mine eyes knew not so far a falsity 
 
 Unto thy face, O Sweet, 
 
 As one small, fleeting glance unto thy feet ! " 
 
 Thereat she laughed in her high queenly mood, 
 And said : " Thy words are of thy poethood, 
 And wilt thou bring some slight immortal rhyme 
 In morrow s morning-time?" 
 
 He leaned, and Atthis yielded to his lips 
 Her cold, sweet finger-tips. 
 
 Henry Anderson Lafler. 
 
The Golden State 69 
 
 THE TRAIL 
 
 IN SOLEMN rank on either hand 
 
 The patient, upright cedars stand. 
 
 The trail, worn smooth by countless feet, 
 
 Is older than an old-world street; 
 
 But no old streets hold such a bower 
 
 Encircled by high fern and flower 
 
 Whose shadows play on mossy ground; 
 
 And no old streets know such a sound 
 
 As rises when the constant stream, 
 
 Chanting its season-varied theme, 
 
 Is colored by the last clear note 
 
 From some brave singer s pulsing throat, 
 
 Who holds the last branch lit by sun 
 
 And dares deny that day is done. 
 
 Yet, different as the old world seems, 
 
 E en here youth waits and weaves her dreams, 
 
 And lo ! the makers of the trail 
 
 Pass once again before the veil, 
 
 Strange in their garb of ancient days. 
 
 And strange, too, that they go their ways 
 
 Turning their heads no whit to gaze 
 
 Upon the glory of her bower, 
 
 Resplendent at the evening hour 
 
 With beauty and the light of youth 
 
 They are but phantom folk in truth ! 
 
 Noiseless, a savage hunter, first, 
 
70 Golden Songs of 
 
 Marks where the antlered deer has burst 
 From out his covert fringed with ferns, 
 And through the quiet air returns 
 The fading turmoil of his flight. 
 With laughter low and footsteps light, 
 A youth and maid in happy plight 
 Walk slowly on, arm linking arm, 
 Unconscious of impending harm 
 In this last sunset of their sway. 
 Close- folio wing the long-trod way, 
 A travel-stained priest with pendant cross, 
 Comes, the first herald of their loss; 
 And in his steps a ruffian band 
 Sent out of Spain to burn and brand; 
 Then, swiftly, seeking to be first, 
 Heedless of hunger, scorning thirst, 
 A whole world s venturers, led by dreams 
 Of rich and undiscovered streams, 
 Whose waters, clear, and swift and cold, 
 Sweep over nests of virgin gold ; 
 Behind these, seeking what they left, 
 Close searching every narrow cleft 
 And washing over twice-washed sand, 
 An alien and more patient band, 
 Whose narrow, Orient eyes, and keen, 
 Follow their path and leave it clean ; 
 Last, walking slowly where these toiled, 
 And scanning close the banks despoiled, 
 
The Golden State 71 
 
 The searchers of the sources pass, 
 Marking each loose stone in the grass, 
 Noting the contour of the ground, 
 The color of the soil, the sound 
 Of certain rock that, like a bell, 
 Will speak and its long secret tell. 
 Before these vanish from her sight 
 A clear voice wakes the birds to flight; 
 And with his greeting die away 
 All visions of an earlier day. 
 
 In solemn rank on either hand 
 
 The patient, upright cedars stand. 
 
 The trail, worn smooth by countless feet, 
 
 Leads .... home, like any old-world street. 
 
 David Atkins. 
 
 TO VIRGINIA 
 
 SPRING and the daffodil again 
 
 I heard the lark at dawn, 
 A liquid cadence through the rain 
 
 Across my lawn. 
 
 The wet red roses all around 
 
 Stir in the breeze, 
 The first white trillium breaks the ground 
 
 Under the canyon trees. 
 
72 Golden Songs of 
 
 I bring the wild white flower of spring, 
 
 Above all others thine, 
 As he whom with the gift I bring 
 
 Thy Valentine. 
 
 Henry Atkins. 
 
 OLD GLORY <. : 
 
 ENCHANTED web ! A picture in the air, 
 
 Drifted to us from out the distance blue 
 From shadowy ancestors, through whose brave care 
 
 We live in magic of a dream come true 
 With Covenanters blue, as if were glassed 
 In dewy flower-heart the stars that passed. 
 
 O blood-veined blossom that can never blight! 
 
 The Declaration, like a sacred rite, 
 Is in each star and stripe declamatory, 
 
 The Constitution thou shalt long recite, 
 Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved " Old Glory " ! 
 
 O symphony in red, white, blue! fanfare 
 
 Of trumpet, roll of drum, forever new 
 Reverberations of the Bell, that bear 
 
 Its tones of liberty the wide world through! 
 In battle dreaded like a cyclone blast, 
 Symbol of land and people unsurpassed, 
 
 Thy brilliant day shall never have a night. 
 
 On foreign shore no pomp so grand a sight, 
 
The Golden State 73 
 
 No face so friendly, naught consolatory 
 
 Like glimpse of lofty spar with thee bedight, 
 Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved " Old Glory " ! 
 
 Thou art the one Flag, an embodied prayer, 
 One, highest and most perfect to review; 
 
 Without one, nothing; it is lineal, square, 
 Has properties of all the numbers, too, 
 
 Cube, solid, square root, root of root; best classed 
 
 It for His Essence the Creator cast, 
 
 For purity are thy six stripes of white, 
 This number circular and endless quite, 
 
 Six times, well knows the scholar wan and hoary 
 His compass spanning circle can alight, 
 
 Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved "Old Glory"! 
 
 Boldly the seven lines of scarlet flare, 
 
 As when o er old centurion it blew 
 (Red is the trumpet s tone, it means to dare!) 
 
 God favored seven when creation grew; 
 The seven planets ; seven hues contrast ; 
 The seven metals ; seven days, not last 
 
 The seven tones of marvellous delight 
 
 That lend the listening soul their wings for flight ; 
 But why complete the happy category 
 
 That gives the thirteen stripes their charm and 
 
 might ? 
 Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved "Old Glory"! 
 
74 Golden Songs of 
 
 In thy dear colors, honored everywhere, 
 
 The great and mystic ternion we view ; 
 Faith, Hope, and Charity are numbered there 
 
 And the three nails the Crucifixion knew. 
 Three are offended when one has trespassed, 
 God, and one s neighbor and one s self aghast; 
 
 Christ s deity and soul and manhood s height ; 
 
 Father, and Son and Ghost may here unite, 
 [With texts like these divinely monitory, 
 
 What wonder that thou conquerest in the fight, 
 Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved " Old Glory " ! 
 
 Envoy 
 
 O blessed Flag! sign of our precious Past, 
 
 Triumphant Present and our Future vast, 
 
 Beyond starred blue and bars of sunset bright, 
 Lead us to higher realm of Equal Right! 
 
 Float on in ever lovely allegory, 
 
 Kin to the eagle, and the wind, and light, 
 
 Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved "Old Glory"! 
 
 Emma Frances Dawson. 
 
The Golden State 75 
 
 WHEN ALMONDS BLOOM 
 
 WHEN almond buds unclose, 
 Soft white and tender rose, 
 A swarm of white moth things, 
 With sunset on their wings, 
 That fluttering settle down 
 On branches chill and brown; 
 When all the sky is blue, 
 And up from grasses new 
 Blithe springs the meadow lark, 
 Sweet, sweet, from dawn to dark, * 
 When all the young year s way 
 Grows sweeter day by day; 
 When almond buds unclose, 
 Who doubts of May s red rose ? 
 
 Milicent Washburn Shinn. 
 
 AN ABALONE SHELL 
 
 THE sun went down in fog tonight, 
 Dropped like a plummet in the bay; 
 
 Only the East was faintly bright, 
 
 While all the West was wide and gray. 
 
 The glories from the sky are stripped, 
 The long, smooth breakers meet the land, 
 
76 Golden Songs of 
 
 Foam-stricken, gray-green, sullen-lipped ; 
 I hold the sunset in my hand. 
 
 Grace MacGowan Cooke, 
 
 A WEDDING-DAY GALLOP 
 (Early California) 
 
 GALLOP with me, love, away and away, 
 
 To the infinite blue at the end of the day. 
 
 Here at the gate 
 
 Crimhild and Brunswicker wistfully wait; 
 Up to the saddle, away and away, 
 Far away, far, to the end of the day. 
 
 Here by the river and there by the plain, 
 Here in the sunlight and there in the rain ; 
 Off round the mountain s bewildering base, 
 Off and away, love. 
 
 There by the sea, along the gray shore, 
 Across the dim desert, miles score and score; 
 Away and away and always with me. 
 Gallop and gallop forever with me. 
 
 Now by the sea ! 
 Feet on the sand keeping time with the waves, 
 
 Smile on the lips and flush on the cheek. 
 Now a smile, just a glance, all our happiness saves 
 
 Each for the other ; that language we speak 
 
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 As we gallop and gallop o er weed and o er shell. 
 Hark to the waves as they rise and they swell, 
 
 At the swing of the berylline sea. 
 Now the waves gallop on like hounds at our feet, 
 And ever the wavering moments repeat 
 Crimhild s and Brunswicker s gallopings fleet, 
 
 Along by the sea, 
 The chalcedonine, wavering, berylline sea. 
 
 The dun desert now! 
 
 Level sand, ever sand, not a hillock or cleft; 
 Lizard here, squirrel there, hurries right, scurries 
 
 left; 
 
 Sagebrush and bitterwood mingle and flow, 
 Wavelike and serpentine, on as we go. 
 Shadow as scant as the dews and the damp 
 
 Ware, there, good Crimhild ! a snake coils 
 
 to spring! 
 
 Ah, her foot cleaves him dead with a metrical stamp, 
 With a flash of the eye like the flare of a lamp. 
 
 Now a lift of white mane like the beat of a 
 
 wing, 
 
 Neck to neck she is matching black Bruns 
 wicker s swing. 
 
 A palm-shadowed pool, 
 Deeply dark, deeply cool, 
 
78 Golden Songs of 
 
 Desert-girt, green jeweled, alone in the land, 
 Like the emerald engraven I ve set on this hand. 
 Rest, rest in its shade here, thou heart of my 
 
 heart. 
 Here s a cup from my scrip. Here is fruit ripe and 
 
 rare. 
 
 Juice of citron, bread of snow, yellow figs in a rime 
 Of sweet dust; jellied cherries, white once on a 
 
 time 
 
 Dost remember? in bloom overhead 
 iWhen hearkened thy heart to the word that mine 
 
 said. 
 
 Dim lie the blue mountains ; and there waits the dusk 
 With a star in her forehead, a home, O my 
 
 heart, 
 To enfold us and hold us; a gardened 
 
 repose 
 Of lilies in alleys, and roses, and musk 
 
 Of ripe grapes from the vineyard, all agleam 
 
 and apart, 
 In green oaken glades as my heart sees and 
 
 knows. 
 
 As my heart sees and knows, 
 There s thy window, netted around with a jasmine 
 
 that gropes, 
 Overclimbing the purple of low heliotropes, 
 
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 To look with its numberless stars on thy face, 
 And sweeten the garden with new-gathered grace. 
 
 There shines the home-candle, through alley and 
 
 vine. 
 
 Home, home, at last, love, thine, thine ! And mine 
 Only so ! Wide the gate, dear and blessed the door. 
 Now enter, and dwell, be at rest, heart and thought, 
 
 evermore. 
 
 So endeth our gallop, our days of all days, 
 Through the land, by the sea, 
 
 Through the desert wild ways, 
 
 Together, together, and always to be. 
 
 Irene Hardy. 
 
 NEITHER SPIRIT NOR BIRD 
 (Shoshone Love Song) 
 
 NEITHER spirit nor bird 
 That was my flute you heard 
 Last night by the river. 
 When you came with your wicker jar 
 Where the river drags the willows, 
 That was my flute you heard, 
 Wacoba, Wacoba, 
 Calling, Come to the willows! 
 
80 Golden Songs of 
 
 Neither the wind nor a bird 
 Rustled the lupine blooms 
 That was my blood you heard 
 Answer your garment s hem 
 Whispering through the grasses; 
 That was my blood you heard 
 By the wild rose under the willows. 
 
 That was no beast that stirred 
 That was my blood you heard 
 Pacing to and fro 
 In the ambush of my desire 
 To the flute s four-noted call. 
 Wacoba, Wacoba, 
 That was my heart you heard 
 Leaping under the willows. 
 
 Mary Austin. 
 
 THE BED OF FLEUR-DE-LYS 
 
 HIGH-LYING, sea-blown stretches of green turf, 
 Wind-bitten close, salt-colored by the sea, 
 Low curve on curve spread far to the cool sky, 
 And curving over them as long they lie, 
 Beds of wild fleur-de-lys. 
 
 Wide-growing, self-sown, stealing near and far, 
 Breaking the green like islands in the seas ; 
 
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 Great stretches at your feet, and spots that bend 
 Dwindling over the horizon s end, 
 Wild beds of fleur-de-lys. 
 
 The light keen wind streams on across the lifts, 
 Their wind of western springtime by the sea; 
 The close turf smiles unmoved, but over her 
 Is the far-lying rustle and sweet stir 
 In beds of fleur-de-lys. 
 
 And here and there across the smooth, low grass 
 Tall maidens wander thinking of the sea; 
 And bend, and bend, with light robes blown aside, 
 For the blue lily flowers that bloom so wide, 
 The beds of fleur-de-lys. 
 
 Charlotte Perkins Oilman. 
 
 TO THE COLORADO DESERT 
 
 THOU brown, bare-breasted, voiceless mystery, 
 Hot sphynx of nature, cactus-crowned, what hast 
 
 thou done? 
 Unclothed and mute as when the groans of chaos 
 
 turned 
 
 Thy naked burning bosom to the sun. 
 The mountain silences have speech, the rivers sing, 
 Thou answerest never unto anything. 
 
82 Golden Songs of 
 
 Pink throated lizards pant in thy slim shade ; 
 
 The horned toad runs rustling in the heat ; 
 
 The shadowy gray coyote, born afraid, 
 
 Steals to some brackish spring, and leaps and prowls 
 
 Away, and howls and howls and howls and howls, 
 
 Until the solitude is shaken with added loneliness. 
 
 The sharp mescal shoots up a giant stalk, 
 
 Its centuries of yearning to the sunburnt skies, 
 
 And drops rare honey from the lips 
 
 Of yellow waxen flowers, and dies. 
 
 Some lengthwise sun-dried shapes with feet and 
 
 hands, 
 
 And thirsty mouths pressed on the sweltering sands, 
 Make here and there a gruesome graveless spot 
 Where someone drank the scorching hotness and is 
 
 not. 
 
 God must have made thee in His anger and forgot. 
 
 Madge Morris Wagner. 
 
The Golden State 83 
 
 AT THE STEVENSON FOUNTAIN 
 
 (Portsmouth Square, San Francisco) 
 
 PERHAPS from out the thousands passing by 
 The City s hopeless lotos-eaters these, 
 Blown by the four winds of the seven seas 
 
 From common want to common company 
 
 Perhaps someone may lift a heavy eye 
 
 And see, dream-blown across his memories, 
 Those golden pennons bellying in the breeze 
 
 And spread for ports where fair adventures lie. 
 
 And O ! that such a one may stay a space 
 And taste of sympathy, till to his ears 
 
 Might come the tale of him who knew the grace 
 To suffer sweetly through the bitter years ; 
 
 To catch the smile concealed in Fortune s face 
 And draw contentment from a cup of tears ! 
 
 Wallace Irwin. 
 
84 Golden Songs of 
 
 IN THE MOJAVE 
 
 THE starved and passionate desert 
 
 Stares hungry at the sky: 
 "O smile not so forever, love, 
 
 With lids forever dry. 
 
 "In tears and not in laughter 
 
 Lave oft shall dearest be. 
 My heart is thirsty for your tears 
 
 To come and comfort me!" 
 
 I breathe the desert s passion; 
 
 The sun is hot above. 
 Oh, rain them down upon my heart, 
 
 The soft, cool tears of love! 
 
 Charles F. Lummis. 
 
 JUST CALIFORNIA 
 
 TWIXT the seas and the deserts, 
 
 Twixt the wastes and the waves, 
 Between the sands of buried lands 
 
 And ocean s coral caves, 
 It lies nor East nor West, 
 
 But like a scroll unfurled, 
 Where the hand of God hath hung it, 
 
 Down the middle of the world. 
 
The Golden State 85 
 
 It lies where God hath spread it 
 
 In the gladness of His eyes, 
 Like a flame of jeweled tapestry 
 
 Beneath His shining skies; 
 With the green of woven meadows, 
 
 And the hills in golden chains, 
 The light of leaping rivers, 
 
 And the flash of poppied plains. 
 
 Days rise that gleam in glory, 
 
 Days die with sunset s breeze, 
 While from Cathay that was of old 
 
 Sail countless argosies; 
 Morns break again in splendor 
 
 O er the giant New-born west, 
 But of all the lands God fashioned, 
 
 Tis this land is the best. 
 
 Sun and dews that kiss it, 
 
 Balmy winds that blow, 
 The stars in clustered diadems 
 
 Upon its peak of snow ; 
 The mighty mountains o er it, 
 
 Below the white seas swirled 
 Just California stretching down 
 
 The middle of the world. 
 
 John Steven McGroarty. 
 
86 Golden Songs of 
 
 JANUARY 
 
 WHEN garden plats are pinched and brown, 
 
 Because the sun itself is cold; 
 When streams are swollen, freighted down 
 
 With sodden drift and the red mold; 
 When plum trees, stripped of leafy gown, 
 
 Toward the salt mist lean branches sere ; 
 Then hey, my heart, and ho, my heart, 
 
 The turning of the year. 
 
 When crows fly low and dusks are gray, 
 
 And mists lie fleecy on the hills ; 
 When walks are bright at break of day, 
 
 And from the hedge a robin trills; 
 When leaf buds feel the rising play 
 
 Of spring s intoxicating brew, 
 Then hey, my heart, and ho, my heart, 
 
 The year begins anew. 
 
 Warren Cheney. 
 
 WHEN ZEPHYRS BLOW 
 
 WHEN zephyrs blow and softly bring 
 A subtle scent of new-born spring; 
 O, then, old vagrant dreams arise 
 Of other lands and other skies 
 Where once I went a-wandering. 
 
The Golden State 87 
 
 Ay, me ! how recollections cling ! 
 The days gone by have left their sting. 
 But love detains me with his sighs 
 And holds me as his captive prize: 
 No more I ll go a- wander ing 
 When zephyrs blow. 
 
 Samuel Travers Clover. 
 
 IN CARMEL BAY 
 
 IN CARMEL Bay the fleeting day, 
 Reluctant, casts her robes away 
 
 And steps into the night. 
 The fragrant land on either hand 
 A crescent forms of glistening sand, 
 
 A bow to speed her flight. 
 
 O er restless seas she runs at ease, 
 The chariot of the sun to seize, 
 
 Ere he shall drop from sight. 
 The pines in banks and solid ranks 
 Surrounding, seem pursuing flanks 
 
 Of Beauty s army green. 
 
 To hold her still against her will 
 r A captive sweet the night to fill 
 With visions vaguely seen. 
 
88 Golden Songs of 
 
 The tides run high against the sky, 
 Birds wing in flight and homeward fly, 
 To treetops tall and clean. 
 
 The waiting earth has spent her mirth 
 And silent, rolls her shadowed girth 
 
 In pale consenting night. 
 There is no way for Day to stay, 
 Beyond her time or path to stray 
 
 She steps into the night. 
 
 Madge Clover. 
 
 THE ROSARY 
 
 THE hours I spent with thee, dear heart, 
 
 Are as a string of pearls to me; 
 I count them over, every one apart, 
 My rosary. 
 
 Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer, 
 To still a heart in absence wrung ; 
 I tell each bead unto the end and there 
 A cross is hung. 
 
 Oh, memories that bless and burn! 
 
 Oh, barren gain and bitter loss ! 
 I kiss each bead, and strive at last to learn 
 
The Golden State 
 
 To kiss the cross, 
 
 Sweetheart, 
 To kiss the cross. 
 
 Robert Cameron Rogers. 
 
 EACH IN HIS OWN TONGUE 
 
 A FIRE-MIST and a planet, 
 
 A crystal and a cell, 
 A jellyfish and a saurian, 
 
 And caves where the cavemen dwell; 
 Then a sense of law and beauty, 
 
 And a face turned from the clod 
 Some call it Evolution, 
 
 And others call it God. 
 
 A haze on the far horizon, 
 
 The infinite, tender sky, 
 The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields, 
 
 And the wild geese sailing high; 
 And all over upland and lowland, 
 
 The charm of the goldenrod 
 Some of us call it Autumn, 
 
 And others call it God. 
 
 Like tides on a crescent sea-beach, 
 When the moon is new and thin, 
 
90 Golden Songs of 
 
 Into our hearts high yearnings 
 Come welling and surging in : 
 
 Come from the mystic ocean 
 Whose rim no foot has trod 
 
 Some of us call it Longing, 
 And others call it God. 
 
 A picket frozen on duty, 
 
 A mother starved for her brood, 
 Socrates drinking the hemlock, 
 
 And Jesus on the rood; 
 And millions, who, humble and nameless, 
 
 The straight, hard pathway plod 
 Some call it Consecration, 
 
 And others call it God. 
 
 William Herbert Carruth. 
 
 GOLD-OF-OPHIR ROSES 
 I 
 
 O FLOWER of passion, rocked by balmy gales, 
 
 Flushed with life s ecstasy, 
 Before whose golden glow the poppy pales 
 
 And yields her sovereignty! 
 
 Child of the ardent south, thy burning heart 
 Has felt the sun s hot kiss ; 
 
The Golden State 91 
 
 Thy creamy petals falling half apart 
 Quiver with recent bliss. 
 
 For joy at thy unequalled loveliness, 
 
 He woos with fierce delight; 
 And thy glad soul, half faint with his caress, 
 
 Yet glories in his might. 
 
 Thy sighs go out in perfume on the air, 
 
 Rich incense of thy love, 
 And mystic lights, an opalescence rare, 
 
 Play round thee from above. 
 
 II 
 
 So thou dost riot through the glad spring days, 
 Sun-wooed and reveling in eager life, 
 
 Till all the shadowed fragrance of the ways 
 With thy rich bloom and glowing tints is rife. 
 
 A joyous smile that hides a secret tear, 
 A note of music with a minor strain, 
 
 A heart of gold where crimson wounds appear, 
 Thou breathest all love s sweetness and its pain. 
 
 Yet suddenly, even at thy loveliest, 
 Thou palest with thine own intensity. 
 
 Ah, Passion s child, thou art most truly blest, 
 To bloom one perfect day, and then to die. 
 Grace Atherton Dennen. 
 
92 Golden Songs of 
 
 EBB TIDE AT NOON 
 
 THE breezes sleep; their morning journey done. 
 
 The seaweeds mat the sluggish channel s edges. 
 The sand-flat twinkles in the summer sun, 
 
 And fishes flap and spatter in the sedges. 
 
 Far off across the dunes there comes the sound 
 Of lazy surges droning on the shingle. 
 
 My boat drifts idly, swinging half-aground; 
 Then bickering gulls their raucous voices mingle 
 
 For all has changed ; and to the harbor bar 
 Has come a secret message from the ocean, 
 
 A thousand hurrying ripples speed from far, 
 And all the waters waken into motion. 
 
 Gelett Burgess. 
 
 A SONG FOR THE NEW YEAR 
 
 HERE S to the Cause, and the blood that feeds it ! 
 
 Here s to the Cause, and the soul that speeds it ! 
 Coward or Hero, or Bigot or Sage, 
 All shall take part in the war that we wage ; 
 
 And though neath our banners range contrary man- 
 
The Golden State 93 
 
 ners, shall we pick, shall we choose twixt 
 the false and the true? 
 
 Not for us to deny them, let the Cause take and try 
 them the one man for us is the man who 
 can do! 
 
 Here s to the Cause, let who will get the Glory ! 
 Here s to the Cause, and a fig for the story ! 
 
 The braggarts may tell it who serve but for 
 
 fame; 
 There ll be more than enough that will die for 
 
 the Name! 
 And though in some eddy our vessels unsteady be 
 
 stranded and wrecked ere the victory s 
 
 won, 
 Let the current sweep by us. O Death, come and 
 
 try us! What if laggards win praise, if 
 
 the Cause shall go on? 
 
 Here s to the Cause, and the years that have passed ! 
 Here s to the Cause it will triumph at last! 
 The end shall illumine the hearts that have 
 
 braved 
 All the years and the fears that the Cause might 
 
 be saved. 
 
 And though what we hoped for, and darkly have 
 groped for, come not in the manner we 
 prayed that it should, 
 
94 Golden Songs of 
 
 We shall gladly confess it, and the Cause, may God 
 bless it! shall find us all worthy who did 
 what we could! 
 
 Gelett Burgess. 
 
 IN AN ALAMEDA FIELD 
 
 LOST Sappho s voice passed on the wind today 
 
 In the perishing soprano of a lark, 
 That called down April s rose-apparelled way; 
 
 And far quick thrills of color frayed the dark 
 As though God s garment trailed along the east; 
 
 Keen tender odors drifted from the sea, 
 And splendid gold through all the sky increased, 
 
 As her wild lyric cry rang out to me. 
 
 Her strain fell quivering sweet, "Forbear to love;" 
 
 Fell with the old heart-rifting of despair; 
 Fell in a break of grief past telling of 
 "Forbear to love, to love forbear, forbear." 
 To only my grief -sharpened ear she cried, 
 How could she know my heart last night had died ? 
 Anna Catherine Markham. 
 
The Golden State 95 
 
 SONG OF CRADLE-MAKING 
 
 THOU hast stirred! 
 When I lifted thy little cradle, 
 The little cradle I am making for thee, 
 I felt thee! 
 
 The face of the beach smiled, 
 I heard the pine-trees singing : 
 
 In the White Sea the Dawn-Eagle dipped his wing. 
 O, never have I seen so much light through thy 
 father s doorway! 
 
 (Wast thou pleased with thy little cradle?) 
 
 Last night I said : " When the child comes 
 
 If it is a Son 
 
 I will trim his cradle with shells : 
 
 And proudly I will bear him in his rich cradle 
 
 Past the doors of barren women ; 
 
 And all shall see my Little Chief in his rich cradle! " 
 
 That was last night ; 
 
 Last night thou hadst not stirred ! 
 
 O I know not if thou be a son 
 
 Strong Chief, Great Fisher, Law-of Woman, 
 
 As thy father is ; 
 
96 Golden Songs of 
 
 Or only Sorrow- Woman, Patient Serving Hands, 
 
 Like thy mother. 
 
 I only know I love thee, 
 
 Thou Little One under my heart ! 
 
 For thou didst move ; and every part of me trembled. 
 
 I will trim thy cradle with many shells, and with 
 
 cedar-fringes ; 
 
 Thou shalt have goose- feathers on thy blanket ! 
 I will bear thee in my hands along the beach, 
 Singing as the sea sings, 
 Because the little mouths of sand are ever at her 
 
 breast. 
 
 Mother- face of the Sea, how thou dost smile 
 And I have wondered at thy smiling ! 
 
 Aiihi! Thy Little feet 
 
 1 felt them press me! 
 
 Lightly, so lightly I hear them coming: 
 
 Like little brown leaves running over the earth 
 
 Little leaves, wind-hastened on the sudden autumn 
 
 trails ! 
 
 Earth loves the little running feet of leaves. 
 (Thy little brown feet!) 
 
 O K antsamiq ala Soe, Our Praised One, 
 Let there be no more barren women! 
 May thou bring no tears, my child 
 
The Golden State 97 
 
 When I bear thee, in thy rich cradle, 
 
 By the chanting sea-paths where the women labor. 
 
 Thou hast stirred ! 
 Oh! haste, haste, little feet 
 Little brown feet lightly running 
 Down the trail of the hundred days ! 
 
 The wind is white with rocking bird-cradles ; 
 Day is in the eyes of the Sea. 
 Ah ! never have I seen so much light 
 Through thy father s doorway! 
 
 Constance Lindsay Skinner. 
 
 IPHIGENIA IN AULIS 
 (Greek Theater, August 14, 1915) 
 
 O GODLIKE gestures, whose compelling sweep 
 Bids buried glories and the golden lore 
 Of days long lost live all their beauty o er ! 
 
 How like a sickle doth thy white arm reap 
 
 Thy sheaf of sorrow ! Ah, thou dost not weep 
 Alone, sweet Iphigenia! nor implore 
 The sterile heavens to blow from Aulis shore 
 
 A breath of saving o er the blighted deep ! 
 
98 Golden Songs of 
 
 Daughter of sacrifice ! thy tender grace, 
 Thy tragic story tremulous with tears, 
 
 Is more than legend now ! Thy lovely face 
 
 Shines like a star through all the shadowed night; 
 
 Thy voice hath touched anew the vanished years, 
 Kindling Time s ancient silences with light! 
 
 Charles Phillips. 
 
 TO PALEOLITHIC MAN 
 (Restored in a Museum) 
 
 MY FATHER! Lo, thy hundred thousand years 
 Are but as yesterday when it is past. 
 Today thy very voice is in mine ears ; 
 On mine own mirror is thy likeness cast. 
 
 Thy sap it is in these my veins runs green ; 
 Thine are these knitted thews of bone and skin; 
 This cushioned width lay once thy ribs between, 
 As my heart did with thine its work begin. 
 
 Be it however contoured, this frail cup 
 That holds the stuff and substance of my brain, 
 From thy prognathic skull was moulded up; 
 Do I not share with thee the mark of Cain? 
 
 Not I should shudder at the thickened neck, 
 Full from thy shoulders to thy sloping head; 
 
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 It bore the brunt of many a rout and wreck 
 That spared the slender loins whence I was bred. 
 
 Nor should I blush, my Father, seeing how 
 
 Thy furry jowl is kindred to my cheek; 
 
 It shuts upon a tongue, I mind me now, 
 
 Which stuttering spent itself that I might speak. 
 
 I and my brothers roam this rich Today 
 Unhindered, unafraid, because thy feet, 
 Stone-bruised and heavy with primordial clay, 
 God s winepress trod to make our vintage sweet. 
 
 What then, Progenitor ? Shall we repay 
 Such debt in any coin but filial love ? 
 Leave thy defenseless carcass on display 
 With fossil horse and pterodactyl dove? 
 
 For thee no epic and no monument ! 
 For lesser hero, meaner pioneer, 
 Our bays and honors; shall thy sons consent 
 To leave thee standing naked, nameless, here? 
 
 Fanny Hodges Newman. 
 
100 Golden Songs of 
 
 "THE CAULDRON" 
 (At La Jolla) 
 
 HERE on the swart and deeply-angled shore 
 The great waves gather up their final breath 
 And fling themselves to swift and stony death; 
 The creamed streams that billows were before, 
 Ooze o er the purple rocks, and foaming, pour 
 In hurried cascades down, far down beneath, 
 To seek in placid deeps their burial sheath. 
 So fierce desires would wreck my life; for more, 
 More madly in the cauldron of my soul 
 Come they to threaten all the imposed bounds. 
 To death, O Lord of Lords, let them be tossed! 
 Let not the tragic stars see them their goal 
 Reach and destroy my peace. Where no storm 
 
 sounds, 
 Beneath life s plangent sea, let them be lost. 
 
 Francis Walker. 
 
 TO MY MOUTAIN 
 
 O MY Mountain, my Mountain, 
 Enveloped in your cloak of snow, 
 Can you hear? 
 
The Golden State 101 
 
 Temple of my night, 
 Cradle of my day, 
 Can you hear? 
 
 I warn you of the braggart of the sky, 
 
 The Sun! The Sun! 
 
 He outruns my warning words 
 
 To steal your snows, 
 
 O my Mountain, my Mountain. 
 
 Great body-guard of God 
 Can you hear ? 
 
 Mahdah Payson. 
 
 WIND OF THE SOUTH 
 
 TENDER you were and shy, wind of the South. 
 
 You blew me kisses from my lover s mouth; 
 With your caressing touch upon my cheek 
 I closed my eyes, and thought I heard him speak. 
 
 Wind of the South, cruel you are and bold, 
 In your wild cries my wretchedness is told; 
 Beyond the frozen sails and icy spars 
 My love is dead, beneath the Southern stars. 
 Jennie Me Bride Butler. 
 
102 Golden Songs of 
 
 CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH 
 
 THE land is a garden of glamour, where passes 
 Each breeze on its wandering way to the sea ; 
 
 And prodigal, scatters the sweets it amasses 
 
 From orange groves yielding their stores tenderly, 
 
 To be breathed back again to the tremulous grasses 
 Through which Zephyr ranges; a light lover, 
 he! 
 
 Tis the garden of Eden; high hedges enclose it 
 
 Of lime and of cypress; a still spirit rests 
 Neath the veil of the mountains (the hushed silence 
 
 shows it), 
 And he broods the sweet valley to sleep on his 
 
 breast. 
 This is a sanctuary; every bird knows it, 
 
 And knows the broad landscape was made for his 
 nest. 
 
 For hark how the hedges and bushes are ringing 
 With madrigals! Mark how the jubilant trees 
 
 Are budding with birds and a-blossom with singing; 
 And look! from each spray a small singer of 
 glees 
 
 Is trilling and trilling his skyward song flinging ; 
 Sure Italy s skies are not bluer than these ! 
 
The Golden State 103 
 
 Here rain in swift showers soft tropical flowers 
 
 Sweet somnolent scents on the tropical air; 
 Lavish roses have reared them a riotous bower, 
 Flaunting crimson and gold their gray gonfalons 
 
 flare, 
 And the heart of each rose and the heart of each 
 
 hour 
 
 Shows the last-bloomed the rarest, where each still 
 was rare. 
 
 This is the land of the poet s desire; 
 
 This is the Beautiful s indwelling place; 
 Land of the new dawn and late sunset s fire, 
 
 Lo, she laughs like a child in the grim East s 
 
 face! 
 And a thousand years shall be born and expire 
 
 Ere her youth shall have dimmed its immortal 
 
 Grace Ellery Chanmng. 
 
 THE CAMPFIRE 
 
 UNTIL that eve I never knew you; 
 
 It had been weariest of days, 
 Some homely trivial errand drew you 
 
 Into my campfire s blaze. 
 You, who like me had paused to rest 
 
 Upon the trail of your far quest. 
 
104 Golden Songs of 
 
 You knelt to stir the sullen embers ; 
 
 The light caught cheek and chin and brow 
 How dear the soul of love remembers! 
 
 Why I can see you even now 
 The wearied mystery of your eyes, 
 Deep shadowed as the circling skies; 
 
 Can see the desert, silent, lonely, 
 The camp beside its brackish well, 
 
 All dream-like, dim, in which two only 
 Seemed set apart by some strange spell. 
 
 Within a magic ring of light 
 
 Just you and I : outside the night ! 
 
 Margaret Adelaide Wilson. 
 
 AS I CAME DOWN MOUNT TAMALPAIS 
 
 As I came down Mount Tamalpais, 
 
 To North the fair Sonoma hills 
 Lay like a trembling thread of blue 
 
 Beneath a sky of daffodils; 
 Through tules green a silver stream 
 
 Ran South to meet the tranquil bay, 
 Whispering a dreamy, tender tale 
 
 Of vales and valleys far away. 
 
The Golden State 105 
 
 As I came down Mount Tamalpais, 
 
 To South the city brightly shone, 
 Touched by the sunset s good-night kiss 
 
 Across the golden ocean blown ; 
 I saw its hills, its tapering masts, 
 
 I almost heard its tramp and tread, 
 And saw against the sky the cross 
 
 Which marks the City of the Dead. 
 
 As I came down Mount Tamalpais, 
 
 To East San Pablo s water lay, 
 Touched with a holy purple light, 
 
 The benediction of the day; 
 No ripple on its twilight tide, 
 
 No parting of its evening veil, 
 Save dimly in the far-off haze 
 
 One dreamy, yellow sunset sail. 
 
 As I came down Mount Tamalpais, 
 
 To West Heaven s gateway opened wide, 
 And through it, freighted with day-cares, 
 
 The cloud-ships floated with the tide; 
 Then silently through stilly air, 
 
 Starlight flew down from Paradise, 
 Folded her silver wings and slept 
 
 Upon the slopes of Tamalpais. 
 
 Clarence Urmy. 
 
106 Golden Songs of 
 
 M CALIFORNIA SONG 
 
 I COME to you with a gift in my hand, 
 
 A flower that grew in a golden land, 
 
 A land on whose head is a poppy crown 
 
 And the scent of the blossoms is wafted down 
 
 To the amber bay and the topaz sea 
 
 And the sun-god s grave by the cocoa tree. 
 
 I come to you with a flower whose face 
 Is the zenith of beauty, the acme of grace; 
 There are dreams in its eyes and the song on its lips 
 Is the lullaby song of the shadow that slips 
 O er the tall purple mountain that watches like Fate 
 The silver sails threading the fair Golden Gate. 
 
 I come to you with a flower whose breath 
 Brings freedom from fear of disaster and death, 
 For though El Dorado be blackened, and rock 
 Through the demon of fire and the earthquake 
 
 shock, 
 There is peace in the hearts of her children who 
 
 know 
 
 The scent of the fields where the poppies grow. 
 
 Clarence Urmy. 
 
The Golden State 107 
 
 FOREST COUPLETS 
 
 BENEATH a redwood let me lie 
 And all its harmonies untie : 
 
 Melodic sequences of spray 
 
 And bough and trunk in rich array ; 
 
 Chromatic hue and tint and shade 
 Of beryl, emerald and jade; 
 
 Cadenzas, day-dreams that enfold 
 The padres, argonauts and gold ; 
 
 Soft passing notes, the tones that tell 
 Of poppy-field and mission bell; 
 
 With sea-wind cadences that blow 
 In dominant arpeggio, 
 
 Resolving into chords full blent 
 Of solace, peace, and calm content. 
 
 Clarence Urmy. 
 
108 Golden Songs of 
 
 NIGHT IN CAMP 
 
 FIERCE burns our fire of driftwood; overhead 
 Gaunt maples lift long arms against the night; 
 The stars are sobbing, sorrow-shaken, white, 
 And high they hang, or show sad eyes grown red 
 With weeping for their queen the moon just dead. 
 Weird shadows backward reel when tall and 
 
 bright 
 
 The broad flames stand and fling a golden light 
 On mats of soft, green moss around us spread. 
 A sudden breeze comes in from off the sea, 
 The vast old forest draws a troubled breath, 
 
 A leaf awakens; up the shores of sand 
 The black tide, silver-lipped, creeps noiselessly; 
 The camp fire dies, then silence deep as death, 
 The darkness pushing down upon the land. 
 
 Herbert Bash ford. 
 
 MORNING IN CAMP 
 
 A BED of ashes and a half -burned brand 
 
 Now mark the spot where last night s campfire 
 
 sprung 
 And licked the dark with slender scarlet tongue; 
 
 The sea draws back from shores of yellow sand 
 
The Golden State 109 
 
 Nor speaks lest he awake the sleeping land ; 
 Tall trees grow out of shadows; high among 
 Their somber boughs one clear, sweet song is 
 
 sung; 
 
 In deep ravine by drooping cedars spanned 
 All drowned in glory, a flying pheasant s whirr 
 Rends morning s solemn hush; gray rabbits run 
 
 Across the covered glade; then far away 
 Upon a hill, each huge, expectant fir 
 
 Holds open arms in welcome to the sun, 
 Great pulsing heart of bold advancing day. 
 
 Herbert Bashford. 
 
 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 THE Sierra-rock, a tavern for the clouds, refuses 
 to let Fame and Gold sojourn. 
 
 Down the Heaven by the river-road, an Angel s 
 ethereal shadow strays. 
 
 The Genii in the valley-cavern consult in silence the 
 message of the Heavens. 
 
 O Lord, show unto mortals thy journal the bal 
 ance of Glory and Decay! 
 
 Yone Noguchi. 
 
110 Golden Songs of 
 
 TO WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY 
 
 DEAD ! and we gaze, unseeing, on your bier, 
 
 Where westward thunders roll; 
 But though you die, your living song is clear 
 
 (Prometheus lights your goal) ; 
 ? And till we too are taken, we can hear 
 
 : That music from your soul ! 
 
 Herbert Heron. 
 
 SANTA BARBARA BEACH 
 
 Now while the sunset offers, 
 Shall we not take our own : 
 
 The gems, the blazing coffers, 
 The seas, the shores, the throne? 
 
 The sky-ships, radiant-masted, 
 Move out, bear low our way. 
 
 Oh, Life was dark while it lasted, 
 Now for enduring day. 
 
 Now with the world far under, 
 To draw up drowning men 
 
 And show them lands of wonder 
 Where they may build again. 
 
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 There earthly sorrow falters, 
 
 There longing has its wage; 
 There gleam the ivory altars 
 
 Of our lost pilgrimage. 
 
 Swift flame then shipwrecks only 
 
 Beach in the ruined light; 
 Above them reach up lonely 
 
 The headlands of the night. 
 
 A hurt bird cries and flutters 
 
 Her dabbled breast of brown; 
 L The Western wall unshutters 
 
 To fling one last rose down. 
 
 A rose, a wild light after 
 
 And life calls through the years, 
 
 "Who dreams my fountain s laughter 
 Shall feed my wells with tears." 
 
 Ridgely Torrence. 
 
 THE CREED OF DESIRE 
 
 STILL to be sure of the Dawn 
 Still to be glad for the Sea 
 Still to know fire of the blood: 
 God keep these gifts in me! 
 
112 Golden Songs of 
 
 Then I shall cleave the dark! 
 Then I shall breast the redoubt! 
 Then I shall Glory the Lord 
 And go down to the Grave 
 With a shout ! 
 
 Bruce Porter. 
 
 A CALIFORNIA EASTER MASS 
 
 Now burn the poppy-lamps of Spring 
 Along the lifting aisles of grain; 
 
 Before the mystic offering, 
 
 The earth-warm breathing censers swing 
 
 And choirs innumerable sing 
 The gloria of the Born-again. 
 
 Charles K. Field. 
 
 THE YEARS 
 
 EACH life is like a changing flower; 
 
 Like petals, pale or colored free, 
 The years drop softly, hour by hour, 
 
 And leave rich seeds of memory! 
 
 Charles K. Field. 
 
The Golden State 113 
 
 WESTERN BLOOD 
 
 MY TOWER faces south and north, 
 And east it opens wide, 
 But not a window pane looks forth 
 Upon the western side. 
 
 I gaze out north on city roofs, 
 And south on city smoke, 
 And to the east are throbbing hoofs, 
 The rush of city folk ; 
 
 But not a ray of western light 
 May fall across my work, 
 No crevice opens to the night 
 Where western eyes may lurk; 
 
 My crowded days are spent in quest 
 Of eager city things, 
 And when the little birds fly west, 
 I would not hear their wings. 
 
 But they who once have climbed the Town, 
 When daylight lingered late, 
 And watched the western sun go down 
 Athwart the burnished Gate, 
 
114 Golden Songs of 
 
 And felt the rolling fogs descend, 
 
 And seen the lupine blown, 
 
 And known what things a western friend 
 
 May offer to his own, 
 
 Ah, they can never hush for long 
 He knew what would be best 
 Who built my tower high and strong, 
 And closed it to the west. 
 
 Juliet Wilbur Tompkins. 
 
 LET US GO HOME TO PARADISE 
 
 LET us go home to Paradise, 
 
 O my adored! 
 
 There are neither flaming sword 
 Prohibitive, nor angel s eyes 
 Jealous of our happiness. 
 O from this valley of distress 
 Look up, look back to Paradise ! 
 
 There gentle mists are drawn along 
 
 The margins of the deep, 
 And up the quiet valleys creep, 
 There the pines with low sweet song 
 Murmur at morning half asleep, 
 
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 Trailing through each fingered bow 
 The gray fog on the hill s brow. 
 
 Our beautiful peninsula 
 
 Cannot rejoice 
 
 For all its forest, and the voice 
 Of breaking waves in Carmel Bay, 
 Until we come; the cypresses 
 Grieve above the dove-gray seas 
 For us their lovers far away. 
 
 Robinson Jeffers. 
 
 WINDY MORNING 
 (Catalina Island, 1913) 
 
 Dawn with a jubilant shout 
 
 Leaps on the shivering sea 
 And puffs the last pale planet out 
 And scatters the flame-bright clouds about 
 
 Like the leaves of a frost-bitten tree. 
 
 Does a gold seed split the rosy husk ? 
 
 Nay, a sword ... a shield ... a spear ! 
 The kindler of all fires that burn 
 Deep in the day s cerulean urn 
 Rides up across the clear 
 And tramples down the cowering dusk 
 Like a strong-browed charioteer. 
 
116 Golden Songs of 
 
 Blow out and far away 
 
 The dim, the dull, the dun; 
 Prosper the crimson, blight the gray, 
 And blow us clean of yesterday, 
 Stern morning fair begun, 
 
 Till the earth is an opal bathed in dew, 
 Flashing with emerald, gold, and blue, 
 Held where the skies wash through and 
 
 through 
 High up against the sun. 
 
 Odell Shepard. 
 
 NERO 
 
 THIS Rome, that was the toil of many men, 
 The consummation of laborious years 
 Fulfillment s crown to visions of the dead, 
 And image of the wide desire of kings 
 Is made by darkling dream s effulgency, 
 Fuel of vision, brief embodiment 
 Of wanton will and wastage of the strong, 
 Fierce ecstasy of one tremendous hour, 
 When ages piled on ages were aflame 
 To all the years behind and years to be. 
 
 Yet any sunset were as much as this 
 
 Save for the music forged by hands of fire 
 
 From out the hard, straight silences which bind 
 
The Golden State 117 
 
 Dull Matter s tongueless mouth a music pierced 
 With the tense voice of life, more quick to cry 
 Its agony and save that I believed 
 The radiance redder for the blood of men. 
 Destruction hastens and intensifies 
 The process that is beauty, manifests 
 Ranges of form unknown before, and gives 
 Motion and voice and hue, where otherwise 
 Bleak inexpressiveness has leveled all. 
 
 If one create, there is the lengthy toil, 
 The labored days and years toward an end 
 Less than the measure of desire, mayhap, 
 After the sure consuming of all strength, 
 And strain of faculties that otherwhere 
 Were loosed upon enjoyment; and at last 
 Remains to one, capacity nor power 
 For pleasure in the thing that he hath made. 
 But on destruction hangs but little use 
 Of time nor faculty, but all is turned 
 To the one purpose, unobstructed, pure, 
 Of sensuous rapture and observant joy; 
 And from the intensities of death and ruin 
 One draws a heightened and completer life, 
 And both extends and vindicates himself. 
 
 I would I were a god, with all the scope 
 Of attributes that are the essential core 
 
118 Golden Songs of 
 
 Of godhead, and its visibility. 
 
 I am but Emperor, and hold awhile 
 
 The power to hasten death upon its way, 
 
 And cry a halt to worn and lagging life 
 
 For others, but for mine own self may not 
 
 Delay the one, nor bid the other speed. 
 
 There have been many kings, and they are dead, 
 
 And have no power in death save what the wind 
 
 Confers upon their blown and brainless dust 
 
 To vex the eyeballs of posterity. 
 
 But were I God, I would be overlord 
 Of many kings, and were as breath to guide 
 Their dust of destiny. And were I God, 
 Exempt from this mortality which clogs 
 Perception and clear exercise of will, 
 What rapture it would be, if but to watch 
 Destruction crouching at the back of Time, 
 The tongueless dooms which dog the traveling suns, 
 The vampire Silence at the breast of worlds, 
 Fire without light that gnaws the base of things, 
 And Lethe s mounting tide that rots the stone 
 Of fundamental spheres. This were enough 
 Till such time as the dazzled wings of will 
 Came up with power s accession, scarcely felt 
 For very suddenness. Then would I urge 
 The strong contention and conflicting might 
 Of chaos and creation, matching them, 
 
The Golden State 119 
 
 These immemorial powers inimical, 
 
 And all their stars and gulfs subservient 
 
 Dynasts of Time, and anarchs of the dark 
 
 In closer war reverseless ; and would set 
 
 New discord at the universal core, 
 
 A Samson-principle to bring it down 
 
 In one magnificence of ruin. Yea, 
 
 The monster Chaos were mine unleashed hound, 
 
 And all my power Destruction s own right arm. 
 
 I would exult to mark the smouldering stars 
 
 Renew beneath my breath their elder fire, 
 
 And feed upon themselves to nothingness. 
 
 The might of suns, slow-paced with swinging weight 
 
 Of myriad worlds, were made at my desire 
 
 One long rapidity of roaring light, 
 
 Through which the voice of Life were audible, 
 
 And singing of the immemorial dead 
 
 Whose dust is loosened into vaporous wings 
 
 .With soaring wrack of systems ruinous. 
 
 And were I weary of the glare of these, 
 
 I would tear out the eyes of light, and stand 
 
 Above a chaos of extinguished suns, 
 
 That crowd and grind and shiver thunderously, 
 
 Lending vast voice and motion, but no ray 
 
 To the stretched silentness of blinded gulfs. 
 
 Thus would I give my godhead space and speech 
 
 For its assertion, and thus pleasure it, 
 
120 Golden Songs of 
 
 Hastening the feet of Time with cast of worlds 
 Like careless pebbles, or with shattered suns 
 Brightening the aspect of Eternity. 
 
 Clark Ashton Smith. 
 
 IN A GARDEN 
 Impressions 
 
 ALONG my fence 
 
 The roses 
 
 Are a Ballet Russe 
 
 A mad whirl of snow flakes, 
 
 Dancing, swirling, glancing, twirling, 
 
 Under the spot light 
 
 Of the sun. 
 
 The premiere danseuse, 
 
 A golden-eyed Cherokee, 
 
 In blazing white, 
 
 Pirouettes and poses among the roses, 
 
 Gloriously full 
 
 Of the passion 
 
 Of Spring. 
 
 A White Ins 
 
 Tall and clothed in samite, 
 Chaste and pure, 
 
The Golden State 121 
 
 In smooth armor 
 
 Your head held high 
 
 In its helmet 
 
 Of silver: 
 
 Jean D Arc riding 
 
 Among the sword blades! 
 
 Has Spring for you 
 Wrought visions, 
 As it did for her 
 In a garden ? 
 
 Stocks 
 
 Fluffy, beribboned ladies 
 
 In a row, 
 
 You have pinned rosettes, 
 
 Rosettes of chiffon, 
 
 Pink and mauve, 
 
 Purple and white, 
 
 White and deeper red, 
 
 Pinned them here and there 
 
 About your hats 
 
 And your ruffled green petticoats. 
 
 The jonquils 
 
 Across the path, 
 
 Adore your flutterings but 
 
 Shy, young things, 
 
 They can only bow stiffly. 
 
122 Golden Songs of 
 
 Marigolds 
 
 When Spring passed 
 
 This evening 
 
 Her head was so turned 
 
 By the young moon, 
 
 She left her purse strings untied 
 
 And a lot of gold guineas 
 
 Fell in my garden. 
 
 Pauline B. Barrington. 
 
 YOUTH S SONGS 
 
 THEY lift upon the first rush of bright wings 
 
 Into the heaven of singing; and they dare 
 
 To glimpse unseen and utter tacit things, 
 
 And with unstained hands from the temple tear 
 
 The inmost veil to find if truth be there. 
 
 They chant in darkness with unbated breath 
 
 The age-old exorcisms of despair 
 
 How may we sing who once have walked with 
 
 death? 
 
 O Poet, Poet, lingering, lingering late 
 To dream fulfilment of star-high desire, 
 A little longer and in vain you wait 
 [The flush of mystery, the cloak of fire; 
 
The Golden State 123 
 
 Youth s songs have wings, but after-words shall be 
 As gray leaves fallen to the wild white sea. 
 
 Maxwell Anderson. 
 
 AMATEURS 
 
 ALOFT among the gallery gods, 
 
 Whose peering faces crowd the night 
 
 With muttered breath and mocking nods, 
 There waits the Keeper of the Light. 
 
 From out the pit the roll and crash 
 
 Of music comes, and through the dark 
 
 The spot pours down a blinding flash 
 Upon its momentary mark. 
 
 It is Pierrette that flutters there 
 Alone, until there comes Pierrot ; 
 
 Comes hissing, laughter and despair, 
 And darkness blots them as they go. 
 
 They tried, O God, how hard they tried ; 
 
 Though loveliness was theirs, and grace, 
 The Keeper of the Light denied 
 
 A moment more to their embrace. 
 
 Geroid Robinson. 
 
124 Golden Songs of 
 
 THE SONG OF THOMAS THE RHYMER 
 
 You have taken the sun and the stars from Heaven 
 With your dusky eyes that glow like wine, 
 You have taken the sweetness from the rose 
 With the touch of your warm red lips on mine. 
 You have stilled the song in the meadowlark s throat 
 With your voice that holds all melody, 
 And the fear is heavy upon my heart 
 That you have taken my God from me ! 
 
 Marjorie Charles D rise oil. 
 
 LUCK 
 
 LET there live aye a lad s laugh in the throat of 
 
 you 
 
 Let you aye have a gay swing to the coat of you 
 Let there aye be one poorer to borrow a groat of 
 
 you! 
 
 Let you find hands of dear women to mother you 
 Let you find shoulders of comrades that brother 
 
 you 
 Let you find arms of the small ones to smother you ! 
 
 
The Golden State 125 
 
 Let folk be the happier just for the nod of you 
 Let you be in love with the road that is trod of 
 
 you 
 Let Death be a step betwix you and the God of 
 
 you! 
 
 Dare Stark. 
 
 MATER DOLOROSA 
 
 LAST night I heard the keenin at Patrick Connell s 
 
 wake, 
 "O poor lad, O good lad that you should have 
 
 to go; 
 But then the Lord has given, an* sure the Lord may 
 
 take 
 Let Mary help his mother to bear the bitter woe ! " 
 
 At dawn I heard the fishermen a-talkin on the quay, 
 "A fine lad, a clean lad that God may rest 
 
 his soul; 
 " Twas well he knew the fishin banks, twas well 
 
 he loved the sea 
 Let Mary help his mother to bear the bitter dole ! 
 
 At noon I saw him buried upon the windy hill ; 
 
 I saw the black earth cover the coffin from her 
 sight 
 
126 Golden Songs of 
 
 O Mary, in your mercy, be kindly to her still 
 
 And pray to God her heart will break, that she 
 may die tonight ! " 
 
 James Leo Duff. 
 
 THE BELLS OF SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO 
 First Bell 
 
 AVE Maria Purissima ! Hear ! 
 Seventeen ninety and six was the year 
 When I was hung in the tower of stone, 
 Singing aloft in a solemn tone 
 Sending my summons for miles around 
 That all might list to the solemn sound 
 Kling, klang, clatter and ring, 
 Thus the bells of the mission sing. 
 
 Second Bell 
 
 Diva Jesus clanged my cry 
 
 When Padre Fuster hung me high, 
 
 And my metal tongue in its brazen throat 
 
 Sounded its first triumphant note, 
 
 Chimed with my mate in a mighty din 
 
 When the vespers were solemnly chanted within, 
 
 Kling, klang, clatter and ring, 
 
 Thus the bells in the mission sing. 
 
The Golden State 127 
 
 Third Bell 
 
 Hail, O holy San Rafael, 
 
 I proudly pealed in a silver knell 
 
 When high in the belfry aloft I hung 
 
 And a note was struck with my eager tongue, 
 
 Heard by the Indian mother and child, 
 
 By soldier stern and by padre mild 
 
 Kling, klang, clatter and ring, 
 
 Thus the bells of the mission sing. 
 
 All the Bells 
 
 Hail, O Holy Mother hear! 
 Thus we all pealed for many a year, 
 Called the vaquero away from his stock, 
 Summoned the herder to leave his flock, 
 Indian mother and Mexican maid 
 Fondly the summons to prayer obeyed; 
 
 Till, ah, we called on an evil hour, 
 
 For the temblor came and it rent our tower, 
 
 And down we fell with a crash and a clang, 
 
 With the cries of the stricken the sad church rang. 
 
 Then they lifted us up to toll for the dead, 
 
 And solemn and slow were the notes we said; 
 
 Toll, toll, stifled and slow 
 
 Thus the bells voiced a people s woe. 
 
128 Golden Songs of 
 
 Such were the songs of our ancient prime, 
 
 But O the havoc and waste of time 
 
 For the years, the years with their pitiless train 
 
 Have heard our pleadings and prayers in vain ; 
 
 They have levelled the graves in the church yard 
 
 lone, 
 They have broken the arches and scattered the 
 
 stone 
 
 Clatter and ring, clatter and ring! 
 Our throats are cracked and they seldom sing. 
 
 Charles Keeler. 
 
 PESCADERO PEBBLES 
 
 CRASH of the crystal surf all night on the wind-wild 
 beaches, 
 
 Boom of the billows that break day-long on the peb 
 bled reaches, 
 
 Roar of the riotous waves on rock ridges shattered 
 and sundered, 
 
 Moaning and sobbing and shouting the turbulent 
 elements thundered. 
 
 Idly I lay on the sea-rim, the pebbles I dropped 
 
 through my fingers, 
 Jewels of jade and of beryl, with opaline sea-tint 
 
 that lingers 
 
The Golden State 129 
 
 Long as the wild waves wet them where mermaidens 
 
 tossed them away, 
 Sparkling in beauty neglected to glow in the salt 
 
 sea spray. 
 
 Out of the ocean of longing, whose shore is the 
 heart-rim dreary, 
 
 Peereth a wild mermaiden through turbulent sea- 
 mist eerie, 
 
 Wine-red carnelians and crystals translucent at my 
 feet flinging, 
 
 And salt tears wet them and leave them aglow by 
 the mad waves singing. 
 
 Charles Keeler. 
 
 THE CHILD HEART 
 
 THE shy flowers smile in the face of their father 
 
 the bountiful Bright One, 
 The wild birds chant his praise when he smiles with 
 
 the blessing of day; 
 The child- folk follow the wood-things into the wild 
 
 with laughter, 
 
 And you and I, beloved, shall follow them all away 
 Into the fields of faery, unto the haunted wood, 
 And serve them ever with gladness, and learn to be 
 
 pure and good. 
 
 Charles Keeler. 
 
130 Golden Songs of 
 
 MIDSUMMER EAST AND WEST 
 
 THE meadows are green and sweet with clover, 
 The sun shines hot and the clouds drift over 
 
 The deep skies measureless blue. 
 A cooling breath and the rain drops patter 
 On the dusty road, and the light winds scatter 
 
 The hurrying leaves, and strew 
 The glistening grass with dead rose petals; 
 A gurgle and rush and the water settles 
 
 In many a sunbright pool. 
 Anon is a flash and a note of thunder, 
 And the forest king lies rent asunder, 
 
 And the woods are dim and cool. 
 
 ii 
 
 The hills are brown and the fields are yellow; 
 The barley blowing, the ripe fruit mellow ; 
 
 The sun beats warm on the road. 
 Now days grow long and the skies are cloudless, 
 And nights are bright with the fair moon shroudless ; 
 
 Dry rocks where the river flowed, 
 The throstle hides and sings in the hedges, 
 The round-eyed toad peeps up from the sedges 
 
 That droop by the shallow streams. 
 
The Golden State 131 
 
 The leaves are stirred by the Southwind s sallies, 
 The mountains sleep and the misty valleys, 
 And the world is wrapped in dream. 
 
 Virna Woods, 
 
 YOSEMITE STROPHES 
 The Valley 
 
 GRAY and bleakly majestic, the bastioned walls of the 
 
 valley, 
 Springing sheer to the sky, dwarf the great pine trees 
 
 beneath. 
 
 Bridal Veil Falls 
 
 White from a notch of the cliffs you slide, oh sylph 
 of the mountains, 
 
 Easily, lissomly down, floating on delicate feet. 
 
 Bright from your shoulders trail the folds of a robe 
 of jewels, 
 
 Softening to film as they fall, looped with a rain 
 bow loop. 
 
 Other Waterfalls 
 
 Hung on the eaves of the world, the thin ribbon 
 dangles and flutters; 
 
132 Golden Songs of 
 
 Broadly the Vernal spreads its mantel of feathery 
 
 spray; 
 Headlong Yosemite leaps, and pauses, and leaps 
 
 again forward; 
 Cliff-overshadowed Nevada gleams from the dark 
 
 like a wraith. 
 
 The Big Trees of Mariposa 
 
 Cinnamon-silver they rise, the trunks of the titan 
 
 sequoias ; 
 Centuries blossom and fall, fadeless their branches 
 
 endure. 
 
 Conclusion: Yosemite Remembered 
 
 Grave and remote and austere, you haunt me with 
 
 beauty, oh valley, 
 Beauty undreamed of before, now all a dream or a 
 
 star. 
 
 Charlts Wharton Stork. 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 WHAT wrecks of Time and Storm are crumbling 
 
 here! 
 
 The rocks that seemed eternal shattered lie, 
 And pines that sang their glorias to the sky 
 
 In mute dismemberment stretch prone and drear. 
 
The Golden State 133 
 
 Beneath this gloomful shade, wide-spreading near, 
 What hidden thoughts in loneliness may sigh, 
 What spirits of the past may wander by, 
 
 Their cheeks bedewed with unavailing tear! 
 
 But look beyond : the towering summits glow 
 With grand magnificence of dazzling light, 
 
 That tints with rainbow hues their bosoming snow. 
 
 And as we gaze, a more than mortal might 
 Lifts the rapt soul from all the glooms below 
 
 To faiths that blaze immaculately bright. 
 
 Edward Robeson Taylor. 
 
 IN TEHACHAPI 
 
 COLD is the wind upon the mountain side, 
 (For she, my lady, she is far from me), 
 
 White is the snow and thick the mists that hide 
 Thy face, Tehachapi! 
 
 Stiffly the yuccas stand in mantles white, 
 (Garments unwonted, carried shiveringly) , 
 
 While desert cactus, sands, and storm unite, 
 Blending impartially. 
 
 But not forever lingers Winter here 
 
 (For there is always summer in the heart), 
 
 The South wind whispers, and the hills are clear, 
 The thick fog falls apart. 
 
134 Golden Songs of 
 
 The Summer s gentle touch shall never fail, 
 (Because, my lady, she will come to me), 
 
 Blue are the skies beyond the mists that veil 
 Thy face, Tehachapi ! 
 
 Daind Starr Jordan. 
 
 ST. JOHN OF NEPOMUC 
 
 ONE summer I Columbused John, in Prague, that 
 
 deadly Bush League town. 
 I d quit em cold on pictures and cathedrals for a 
 
 while. 
 I hung around for Ma and Sis (Good Lord, there 
 
 wasn t one they d miss 
 Pale martyrs till you couldn t sleep Madonnas by 
 
 the mile!). 
 
 I read some dope in Baedeker about a tablet on the 
 
 bridge, 
 And how they slipped this poor old scout the double 
 
 cross for fair. 
 I m off High Brow historic truck, but this old boy 
 
 of Nepomuc, 
 You must admit he was the goods. Believe me, he 
 
 was there! 
 
The Golden State 135 
 
 The King was Wenzel Number Four. John was 
 
 Sky Pilot for the Court. 
 King gets a hunch that Mrs. King has something on 
 
 her mind. 
 He goes to sleuthing more and more. He says 
 
 " Gadzooks, I ll have their gore ! " 
 (Don t ever let em string you on that bunk that 
 
 love is blind!) 
 
 The Queen (I ll bet she was some queen) she tangoes 
 blithely on her way, 
 
 And fails to see the storm clouds on the regal hus 
 band s dome. 
 
 I got him guessed, that Wenzel guy, harpoons a 
 girl that s young and spry, 
 
 And tries to seal her up for life in the Old People s 
 Home! 
 
 The way I had it figured out she married him to 
 
 please her folks : 
 "Our son-in-law, the King, you know!" (Some 
 
 speed! I guess that s poor?) 
 So, when she sights a Maiden s Dream, some real 
 
 live wire that s made the team 
 Well, she sits up and notices, like any girl. Why, 
 
 sure! 
 
 Old Wenzel can t quite cinch the case, but what he 
 doesn t know, he thinks. 
 
136 Golden Songs of 
 
 The lump he calls a heart congeals beneath his fancy 
 
 vest. 
 He sends for poor old Father John and says as 
 
 follows "I am on! 
 I merely lack a few details ! What hath the Queen 
 
 confessed?" 
 
 He holds the court upon the bridge. " Speak up," 
 
 he says, " or otherwise 
 These spears will thrust you down to death ! Come 
 
 through! I am the King! 
 Kick in! What did my spouse confess?" The 
 
 Queen sends frantic S. O. S. . . . 
 Maybe I sort of dozed, but well here s how I got 
 
 this thing . . . 
 
 He saw the startled courtiers, straining their ears ; 
 He saw the white Queen swaying, striving to stand ; 
 He saw the soldiers tensely gripping their spears, 
 Waiting the King s command. 
 He heard a small page drawing a sobbing breath ; 
 He heard a bird s call, poignant and sweet and low; 
 He heard the rush of the river, spelling death, 
 Mocking him, down below, 
 
 But he only said, " My Liege, 
 
 To my honor you lay siege, 
 
 And that fortress you can never overthrow. " 
 He thought of how he had led them, all the years; 
 He thought of how he served them, death and birth; 
 
The Golden State 137 
 
 He thought of healing their hates, stilling their 
 
 fears ... 
 
 Humbly, he weighed his worth. 
 He knew he was leaving them far from the goal ; 
 He knew with a deep joy it was safe and wise . . . 
 He knew that now the pale Queen s pitiful soul 
 Would awake and arise, 
 
 And he only said, " My King, 
 
 Every argument you bring 
 
 Merely sets my duty forth in sterner guise." 
 
 He felt the spears points, merciless, thrust him 
 
 down; 
 
 He felt the exquisite, fierce glory of pain; 
 He felt the bright waves eager, reaching to drown, 
 Engulf him, body and brain : 
 
 He sensed cries, faint and clamorous, far behind; 
 He sensed cool peace, and the buoyant arms of love; 
 He sensed like a beacon, clear, beckoning kind, 
 Five stars, floating above . . . 
 
 To the ones who watched, it seemed 
 That he slept . . . and smiled . . . and 
 
 dreamed . . . 
 
 "And the waters were abated . . . and the 
 dove" . . . 
 
 And there I was on that old bridge . . . boob 
 Freshman me on that same bridge ! 
 
138 Golden Songs of 
 
 The lazy river hummed and purred and sang a 
 
 sleepy song . . . 
 Of course, I know it listens queer, but gad, it was 
 
 so real and near, 
 I stood there basking in the sun for goodness knows 
 
 how long. 
 
 Sometimes I see it even now : I see that little, lean, 
 
 old saint 
 Put up against the shining spears his simple nerve 
 
 and pluck: 
 And once, by Jove, you know, he came right down 
 
 beside me in the game . . . 
 We know who made the touchdown then, old John 
 
 of Nepomuc ! 
 
 Ruth Comfort Mitchell. 
 
 EL PONIENTE 
 
 Beneath the train the miles are folded by : 
 
 High and still higher thro the vibrant air 
 
 We mount and climb. Silence and brazen glare; 
 
 Desert and sage-brush ; cactus ; alkali ; 
 
 Tiny, low-growing flowers, brilliant, dry; 
 
 A vanishing coyote lean and spare, 
 
 Lopes slowly homeward with a backward stare 
 
 To jig-saw hills cut sharp against the sky. 
 
The Golden State 139 
 
 In the hard turquoise rides a copper sun : 
 
 Old hopes come thronging with an urge, a zest : 
 
 Beside the window gliding wires run, 
 
 Binding two oceans. Argosy and quest! 
 
 Old dreams remembered to be dreamed and done! 
 
 It is young air we breathe. This is the West ! 
 
 Ruth Comfort Mitchell. 
 
 IN THE MOHAVE 
 
 As I rode down the arroyo through yuccas belled 
 
 with bloom 
 I saw a last year s stalk lift dried hands to the 
 
 light, 
 
 Like age at prayer for death within a careless room, 
 Like one by day o ertaken, whose sick desire is 
 night. 
 
 And as I rode I saw a lean coyote lying 
 
 All perfect as in life upon a silver dune, 
 Save that his feet no more could flee the harsh light s 
 
 spying, 
 
 Save that no more his shadow would cleave the 
 sinking moon. 
 
140 Golden Songs of 
 
 O cruel land, where form endures, the spirit fled ! 
 You chill the sun for me with your gray sphinx s 
 
 smile, 
 Brooding in the bright silence above your captive 
 
 dead, 
 
 Where beat the heart of life so brief, so brief a 
 while ! 
 
 Patrick Orr. 
 
 THE WATER OUZEL 
 
 LITTLE brown surf -bather of the mountains! 
 
 Spirit of foam, lover of cataracts, shaking your 
 wings in falling waters ! 
 
 Have you no fear of the roar and rush when Nevada 
 plunges 
 
 Nevada, the shapely dancer, feeling her way with 
 slim white fingers? 
 
 How dare you dash at Yosemite the mighty 
 
 Tall, white limbed Yosemite, leaping down, down 
 over the cliff? 
 
 Is it not enough to lean on the blue air of mountains ? 
 
 Is it not enough to rest with your mate at timber- 
 line, in bushes that hug the rocks ? 
 
 Must you fly through mad waters where the heaped- 
 up granite breaks them? 
 
The Golden State 141 
 
 Must you batter your wings in the torrent ? 
 Must you plunge for life or death through the foam ? 
 
 Harriet Monroe. 
 
 CALIFORNIA POPPIES 
 
 WITH dreams, and dust of dreaming, sweet and dim, 
 A hill all song Great Pan had not disdained it; 
 Gold cups, with sunshine rippling o er the rim, 
 And slender stems to break when you have 
 drained it. 
 
 Mary Carolyn Dames. 
 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 BLUE, blue, April blue 
 
 A drift of white, and a rift of blue, 
 A dream of white and a gleam of blue, 
 
 Blue, blue, blue! 
 
 Gold, gold, poppies gold, 
 
 A flare of gold, and a glare of gold, 
 A hint of green, and a glint of gold, 
 
 Gold, gold, gold! 
 
 Mary Carolyn Dames. 
 
142 Golden Songs of 
 
 TO THE SUMMER SUN 
 (Coronado) 
 
 GREAT sun, why are you pitiless? 
 All day your glance is hard and keen 
 Upon the hills that once were green 
 Where summer, sere and passionless, 
 Now lies brown-frocked against the sky 
 And makes of them her resting place 
 Since she has drunk the valleys dry. 
 You never turn away your face 
 And I, who love you, cannot bear 
 Your long, barbaric, searching look 
 Down through the low cool flights of air; 
 Your tirelessness I cannot brook, 
 For all my body aches with light 
 And you have glutted me with sight, 
 With flooding color made me blind 
 To homely things more soft and kind, 
 Till I have longed for clouds to roll 
 Between you and my naked soul 
 O Great Beloved, hide away 
 That I may miss you for a day! 
 
 Marguerite Wilkinson. 
 
The Golden State 143 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN LILAC 
 
 UPON the hills, 
 
 Upon the little foothills, 
 
 Out there, beyond the pungent sage of the mesa, 
 
 A film of blue has shadowed the soft green 
 
 That followed the rains of spring. 
 
 And into the mountains, 
 
 Back behind the foothills, 
 
 The mist of fine, elusive blue is rising, 
 
 Even as smoke might rise from spreading fires 
 
 Long smouldering near the earth. 
 
 The golden sun pitched camp upon the hills, 
 
 After the long gray rains had washed them clean, 
 
 And where he wandered, 
 
 And where his fingers touched it, 
 
 The earth grown hot with love of his bright beauty, 
 
 Gave back this smoke 
 
 Soon to be broken by the flaring flame 
 
 Of mimulus and tarweed. 
 
 Soon through this living mist, 
 
 This dear blue smoke, 
 
 Will the sun-kindled summer break and burn 
 
 Upon the hills. 
 
 Marguerite Wilkinson. 
 
144 Golden Songs of 
 
 WITH THE TREES : A PROSE POEM 
 
 THE liveoaks are my soldiery, gnarled and resis 
 tant, bearded with grey-green, drooping mosses. 
 They stand about my dwelling staunch, tireless, un 
 flinching, the brave masters of today and to-morrow. 
 
 The sweet pepper trees are my fellows and com 
 panions, full of sympathy, gay, friendly, delicate, 
 and tactful, demanding neither too much nor too 
 little of me, waving long plumes in the breeze, flash 
 ing bright berries in the sun. When I go out I seek 
 them, and when I come in I bring them with me. 
 
 The eucalyptus trees are my poets and idealists, 
 stripping off ruthlessly the binding withered bark 
 of today, ready to stand nude under the sun in the 
 truth of to-morrow, with high borne heads, acquies 
 cent in the beauty of life and death. 
 
 The sycamores are my choice and careful advisers, 
 remote and infrequently sought, demonstrating 
 clearly that one way is not so good as another, profit 
 ing by the tears shed in springtime, taking the way 
 of their nature, following the course of the hill 
 streams, discriminating between this and that. 
 
 The olive trees are my ghosts, my memories of all 
 that has been, lingering in silver-grey presence near 
 the life that now is, turning my thoughts back and 
 inward upon grey days of pain and sadness, or silver 
 days of joy, that I may remember and be wise. 
 
The Golden State 145 
 
 Below me and about me are also the fair fruit 
 trees that live but for the hope of fragrant blossoms, 
 that are to me as souls that strongly love. 
 
 At night, slowly and serenely, rises the mist from 
 the ocean until it encloses my hillside dwelling, wrap 
 ping me close in tremulous silence with the trees. 
 And in the morning, comes the sun, the revealer, to 
 give us over to each other anew. 
 
 Make me to understand you aright, I beseech you, 
 my soldiers, my friends, my poets, my prophets, 
 my ghosts, my radiant lovers, my trees fair-favored 
 and at peace! 
 
 Make me hardy and determined as yourselves, O 
 liveoaks near my dwelling! 
 
 Grant me somewhat of your strange, silent sym 
 pathy, sweet pepper trees ! 
 
 Inspire me to the quest of beauty and truth, be 
 loved eucalyptus! 
 
 Counsel out of many sorrows grant me, O distant 
 and sagacious sycamores! 
 
 Yield me prescience and wisdom, O ghostly olives ! 
 
 Make my love to be fragrant and mighty as yours, 
 dear trees of blossom and fruit burden! 
 
 Give me abundantly, all of you, of your mani 
 fold gifts, for all I am and for all that I give forth! 
 
 Such is my desire while I am with the trees. 
 
 Marguerite Wilkinson. 
 
VALE 
 
 Her gaunt sierras edged with fire or snow, 
 Cutting the burnished sky, her steep on steep 
 
 Of tawny-breasted hills, her golden fields, 
 I might not hope to keep. 
 
 r And I may never go again to find 
 The topaz glory of her mellow days, 
 
 The blessed fragrance of her sapphire nights, 
 And softly sing their praise. 
 
 But I shall keep her beauty to the end, 
 
 For beauty changes those who love it most, 
 
 And through my heart the echoing rhythms beat 
 Of waves upon her coast. 
 
AUTHOR AND TITLE INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abalone Shell, An Grace MacGowan Cooke 75 
 
 Amateurs Geroid Robinson 123 
 
 ANDERSON, MAXWELL 
 
 Youth s Songs 122 
 
 Angelus, The Bret Harte 36 
 
 ANONYMOUS 
 
 " Days of Forty-Nine, The " 4 
 
 As I Came Down Mount Tamalpais Clarence Urmy 104 
 
 At the Stevenson Fountain Wallace Irwin 83 
 
 ATKINS, DAVID 
 
 Trail, The 69 
 
 ATKINS, HENRY 
 
 To Virginia 71 
 
 AUSTIN, MARY 
 
 Neither Spirit nor Bird 79 
 
 Ballad of the Gold Country, A Helen Hunt Jackson 8 
 
 BARRINGTON, PAULINE B. 
 
 In a Garden 120 
 
 BASHFORD, HERBERT 
 
 Morning in Camp 108 
 
 Night in Camp 108 
 
 Bed of Fleur-de-Lys, The Charlotte Perkins Gilman 80 
 
 Bells of San Gabriel Charles Warren Stoddard 41 
 
 Bells of San Juan Capistrano, The Charles Keeler 126 
 
 Black Vulture, The George Sterling 57 
 
 BURGESS, GELETT 
 
 Ebb Tide at Noon 92 
 
 Song of the New Year, A 92 
 
 BUTLER, JENNIE McBRiDE 
 
 Wind of the South 101 
 
 California Ina Coolbrith 29 
 
 California Mary Carolyn Davies 141 
 
 California Easter Mass, A Charles K. Field 112 
 
 California of the South Grace Ellery Channing 102 
 
 California Poppies Mary Carolyn Davies 141 
 
 California Song, A Clarence Urmy 106 
 
 147 
 
148 Index 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Campfire, The , Margaret Adelaide Wilson 103 
 
 CARRUTH, WILLIAM HERBERT 
 
 Each in His Own Tongue 89 
 
 " Cauldron, The " Francis Walker 100 
 
 CHANNING, GRACE ELLERY 
 
 California of the South. 102 
 
 CHENEY, JOHN VANCE 
 
 Coyote 64 
 
 Presidio Hill 62 
 
 CHENEY, WARREN 
 
 January 86 
 
 Child Heart, The Charles Ke-jler 129 
 
 CLOVER, MADGE 
 
 In Carmel Bay 87 
 
 CLOVER, SAMUEL TRAVERS 
 
 When Zephyrs Blow 86 
 
 COOKE, GRACE MACGOWAN 
 
 Abalone Shell, An 75 
 
 COOLBRITH, INA 
 
 California - 29 
 
 When the Grass Shall Cover Me 35 
 
 Coyote John Vance Cheney 64 
 
 CRANE, LAUREN E. 
 
 Song, The (From " Juanita ") 3 
 
 Creed of Desire, The Bruce Porter 1 1 1 
 
 DAGGETT, ROLLIN M. 
 
 My New Year s Guests 13 
 
 DAVIES, MARY CAROLYN 
 
 California 141 
 
 California Poppies 141 
 
 DAWSON, EMMA FRANCES 
 
 Old Glory 72 
 
 " Days of Forty-Nine, The " Anonymous 4 
 
 DENNEN, GRACE ATHERTON 
 
 Gold-of-Ophir Roses 90 
 
 DRISCOLL, MARJORIE CHARLES 
 
 Song of Thomas the Rhymer, The 124 
 
 DUFF, JAMES LEO 
 
 Mater Dolorosa 125 
 
 Each in His Own Tongue William Herbert Carruth 89 
 
 Ebb Tide at Noon Gelett Burgess 92 
 
 El Canelo Bayard Taylor 23 
 
Index 149 
 
 PAGE 
 
 El Dorado: A Song Charles Mills Gayley 61 
 
 El Poniente Ruth Comfort Mitchell 138 
 
 El Vaquero Lucius Harwood Foote 25 
 
 Evening Edward Pollock 19 
 
 FIELD, CHARLES K. 
 
 California Easter Mass, A 112 
 
 Years, The 112 
 
 FOOTE, Lucius HARWOOD 
 
 El Vaquero 25 
 
 Forest Couplets Clarence Urmy 107 
 
 GAYLEY, CHARLES MILLS 
 
 El Dorado : A Song 61 
 
 OILMAN, CHARLOTTE PERKINS 
 
 Bed of Fleur-de-Lys, The 80 
 
 Gold-of-Ophir Roses Grace Atherton Dennen 90 
 
 HAGUE, ELEANOR (translator) 
 
 O Blanca Virgen a Tu Ventana ! i 
 
 HARDY, IRENE 
 
 Wedding-Day Gallop, A 76 
 
 HARTE, BRET 
 
 Angelus, The 36 
 
 Reveille, The 38 
 
 What the Bullet Sang 40 
 
 Heart s Return, The Edwin Markham 54 
 
 HERON, HERBERT 
 
 To William Vaughn Moody no 
 
 In a Garden Pauline B. Barrington 120 
 
 In an Alameda Field Anna Catherine Markham 94 
 
 In Carmel Bay Madge Clover 87 
 
 In Tehachapi David Starr Jordan 133 
 
 In the Mohave Patrick Orr 139 
 
 In the Moj ave Charles F. Lummis 84 
 
 In the States Robert Louis Stevenson 44 
 
 In the Valley Yone Noguchi 109 
 
 In Yosemite Valley Joaquin Miller 44 
 
 Indirection Richard Realf 21 
 
 Iphigenia in Aulis Charles Phillips 97 
 
 IRWIN, WALLACE 
 
 At the Stevenson Fountain 83 
 
150 Index 
 
 PAGE 
 
 JACKSON, HELEN HUNT 
 
 Ballad of the Gold Country 8 
 
 January Warren Cheney 86 
 
 JEFFERS, ROBINSON 
 
 Let Us Go Home to Paradise 114 
 
 JORDAN, DAVID STARR 
 
 In Tehachapi 133 
 
 Joy of the Hills, The Edwin Markham 
 
 Just California John Steven McGroarty 
 
 KEELER, CHARLES 
 
 Bells of San Juan Capistrano, The 126 
 
 Child Heart, The 129 
 
 Pescadero Pebbles 128 
 
 LAFLER, HENRY ANDERSON 
 
 White Feet of Atthis, The 66 
 
 Wireless 65 
 
 Last Days, The George Sterling 55 
 
 Let Us Go Home to Paradise Robinson Jeffers 114 
 
 Luck Dare Stark 124 
 
 LUMMIS, CHARLES F. 
 
 In the Moj ave 84 
 
 Lyric Joaquin Miller 46 
 
 Lyric Joaquin Miller 47 
 
 Man with the Hoe, The Edwin Markham 50 
 
 MARKHAM, ANNA CATHERINE 
 
 In an Alameda Field 94 
 
 MARKHAM, EDWIN 
 
 Heart s Return, The 54 
 
 Joy of the Hills, The 52 
 
 Man with the Hoe, The 50 
 
 Mater Dolorosa James Leo Duff 125 
 
 MCGROARTY, JOHN STEVEN 
 
 Just California 84 
 
 Midsummer East and West Virna Woods 130 
 
 MILLER, JOAQUIN 
 
 In Yosemite Valley 44 
 
 Lyric 46 
 
 Lyric 47 
 
 MITCHELL, RUTH COMFORT 
 
 El Poniente 138 
 
 St. John of Nepomuc 134 
 
Index 151 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MONROE, HARRIET 
 
 Water Ouzel, The 140 
 
 Morning in Camp Herbert Bashf ord 108 
 
 Mountain Lilac, The Marguerite Wilkinson 143 
 
 Mountain, The Edward Robeson Taylor 132 
 
 My New Year s Guests Rollin M. Daggett 13 
 
 Neither Spirit nor Bird Mary Austin 79 
 
 Nero Clark Ashton Smith 1 16 
 
 NEWMAN, FANNY HODGES 
 
 To Paleolithic Man 98 
 
 Night in Camp Herbert Bashf ord 108 
 
 NOGUCHI, YONE 
 
 In the Valley 109 
 
 O Blanca Virgen a Tu Ventana I 
 
 Eleanor Hague (translator) I 
 
 Old Glory Emma Frances Dawson 72 
 
 On a Picture of Mount Shasta by Keith 
 
 Edward Rowland Sill 47 
 
 ORR, PATRICK 
 
 In the Mohave 139 
 
 PAYSON, MAHDAH 
 
 To My Mountain 100 
 
 Pescadero Pebbles Charles Keeler 128 
 
 PHILLIPS, CHARLES 
 
 Iphigenia in Aulis 97 
 
 POLLOCK, EDWARD 
 
 Evening 19 
 
 PORTER, BRUCE 
 
 Creed of Desire, The in 
 
 Presidio Hill John Vance Cheney 62 
 
 REALF, RICHARD 
 
 Indirection 21 
 
 Reveille, The Bret Harte 38 
 
 ROBINSON, GEROID 
 
 Amateurs 123 
 
 ROGERS, ROBERT CAMERON 
 
 Rosary, The 88 
 
 Rosary, The Robert Cameron Rogers 88 
 
152 Index 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Santa Barbara Beach Ridgeley Torrence 1 10 
 
 SHEPARD, ODELL 
 
 Windy Morning 115 
 
 SHINN, MILICENT WASHBURN 
 
 When Almonds Bloom 75 
 
 SILL, EDWARD ROWLAND 
 
 On a Picture of Mount Shasta by Keith 47 
 
 SKINNER, CONSTANCE LINDSAY 
 
 Song of Cradle-Making 95 
 
 SMITH, CLARK ASHTON 
 
 Nero 1 16 
 
 Song, The (From " Juanita ") Lauren E. Crane 3 
 
 Song of Cradle-Making Constance Lindsay Skinner 95 
 
 Song of the New Year, A Gelett Burgess 92 
 
 Song of Thomas the Rhymer, The 
 
 Marjorie Charles Driscoll 124 
 
 St. John of Nepomuc Ruth Comfort Mitchell 134 
 
 STARK, DARE 
 
 Luck 124 
 
 STERLING, GEORGE 
 
 Black Vulture, The 57 
 
 Last Days, The 55 
 
 Voice of the Dove, The 56 
 
 STEVENSON, ROBERT Louis 
 
 In the States 44 
 
 STODDARD, CHARLES WARREN 
 
 Bells of San Gabriel 41 
 
 STORK, CHARLES WHARTON 
 
 Yosemite Strophes 131 
 
 TAYLOR, BAYARD 
 
 El Canelo 23 
 
 TAYLOR, EDWARD ROBESON 
 
 Mountain, The 132 
 
 To My Mountain Mahdah Payson 100 
 
 To Paleolithic Man Fanny Hodges Newman 98 
 
 To the Colorado Desert Madge Morris Wagner 81 
 
 To the Summer Sun Marguerite Wilkinson 142 
 
 To Virginia Henry Atkins 71 
 
 To William Vaughn Moody Herbert Heron no 
 
 TOMPKINS, JULIET WILBUR 
 
 Western Blood 113 
 
Index 153 
 
 PAGE 
 TORRENCE, RlDGELEY 
 
 Santa Barbara Beach no 
 
 Trail, The David Atkins 69 
 
 URMY, CLARENCE 
 
 As I Came Down Mount Tamalpais 104 
 
 California Song, A 106 
 
 Forest Couplets 107 
 
 Voice of the Dove, The George Sterling 56 
 
 WAGNER, MADGE MORRIS 
 
 To the Colorado Desert 81 
 
 WALKER, FRANCIS 
 
 " Cauldron, The " 100 
 
 Water Ouzel, The Harriet Monroe 140 
 
 Wedding-Day Gallop, A Irene Hardy 76 
 
 Western Blood Juliet Wilbur Tompkins 113 
 
 What the Bullet Sang Bret Harte 40 
 
 When Almonds Bloom . . .Milicent Washburn Shinn 75 
 
 When the Grass Shall Cover Me Ina Coolbrith 35 
 
 When Zephyrs Blow Samuel Travers Clover 86 
 
 White Feet of Atthis, The Henry Anderson Lafler 66 
 
 WILKINSON, MARGUERITE 
 
 Mountain Lilac, The 143 
 
 To the Summer Sun 142 
 
 With the Trees : A Prose Poem 144 
 
 WILSON, MARGARET ADELAIDE 
 
 Campfire, The 103 
 
 Wind of the South Jennie McBride Butler 101 
 
 Windy Morning Odell Shepard 115 
 
 Wireless. Henry Anderson Lafler 65 
 
 With the Trees : A Prose Poem. . .Marguerite Wilkinson 144 
 WOODS, VIRNA 
 
 Midsummer East and West 130 
 
 Years, The Charles K. Field 112 
 
 Yosemite Strophes Charles Wharton Stork 131 
 
 Youth s Songs Maxwell Anderson 122 
 
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