Author 
 
 Title 
 
 ci.„'PS3..5J.!l 
 
 Imprint 
 
Lines To An Ancient Live Oak 
 and Other Verses of California 
 
 n( ^r^»^^<l^»« 
 
 : : : By : : : 
 
 Laurence Edward Innes 
 
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 Copyrighted 1921 
 By L. E. Innes. 
 
UNES TO AN ANCENT LIVE OAK 
 
 The branches stood from an ancient tree 
 
 Out at angles phenomenally. 
 
 The limbs were gnarled of this ancient oak 
 
 And a bit grotesque. The sunlight woke 
 
 Its lines to life, and strangely made 
 
 On the ground beneath odd shapes of shade. 
 
 But while I looked on this broken tree, 
 
 This grave Senor whose dignity 
 
 Was still extant in his ruined state 
 
 Where he stood surrounded by flowers elate, 
 
 I felt indeed that this Grand Seiior 
 
 Was gravely guarding some old-time door; 
 
 The door had vanished, his grandees fled, 
 
 But he kept as he could his faith with the dead. 
 
A SUNSET ON A SILKEN SEA 
 
 When the sun and the sea at nightfall came to a place 
 where their ways must part 
 
 I stood on the strand in a strange sweet land that clutched 
 at a stranger's heart; 
 
 1 looked on a blue green ocean where the day and the night 
 had met, 
 
 Where violet tips and lavender lips and a million jewels 
 were set; 
 
 1 looked on a blue green ocean, it was silk like a fairy's 
 gown, 
 
 And it shimmered away in the dying day to the place 
 where the sun went down. 
 
 1 looked on a blue green ocean to a sky dark red like wine, 
 
 And the surf was pink in its curling brink and the hands 
 of Time supine 
 
 Lay for a moment idle while the silken soul of that sea 
 
Lay still as death while an angeFs breath was drawn in 
 ecstacy. 
 
 I looked on that wonderful ocean where out of a rainbow 
 sky 
 
 The colors there had crept from the air and lay on its 
 breast to die; 
 
 And ever the soft sound beating of waves like a muffled 
 drum 
 
 Seemed ever to say, "God rest the day, for the stars and the 
 night have come." 
 
 I looked on a blue green ocean in the tender tide of the day 
 
 And I could not feel that the thing was real, so subtle had 
 been the play 
 
 Of light and shadow that merged in heat that hung in a 
 filmy haze 
 
 Where the sun and sea clung tremulously in the parting of 
 their ways. 
 
A GARDEN OF DAHLIAS 
 
 A garden of Dahlias bloomed by the road 
 
 And the traffic went by 
 
 With a most careless eye, 
 
 Oh never looking, — 
 
 Well, scarcely looking — 
 
 But this only showed 
 
 How little they knew of the red and the brown, 
 
 Of the purple and green, 
 
 Of the el-e-gant sheen 
 
 Of the flowers that glanced upward, then smiling bent 
 
 down. 
 You say they were blown by winds passing by? 
 Oh, maybe so, — ^well, maybe so — 
 Oh, I really don't know. 
 But still I am thinking that Dahlias try 
 To behave in a modest and ladylike way. 
 But) oh, how they sigh 
 When the bold passerby 
 Fails to observe their most gorgeous a^ray! 
 
THE CHALLENGE OF THE WINDS 
 
 When the winds blow from the mountains where the tips 
 
 are touched with snow, 
 The green and rolling valleys where the golden fruit trees 
 
 grow 
 Seem to shiver with the portent of the evil days ahead, 
 Seem to feel the life about them lying cold, and gray, and 
 
 dead. 
 In the great leaves of the palm trees does the ghostly rustle 
 
 run 
 And the oranges peer fearful to the warm rays of the sun; 
 All about them roses flutter with a sobbing, catching breath, 
 And the heart of all the Southland, throbbing wOdly, 
 
 whispers, "Death?" 
 "Can it be?" the Pepper mutters to the Eucalyptus tree, 
 "That the soul of beauty dieth?" Then they look toward 
 
 the sea. 
 Come the warm winds softly blowing from the distant 
 
 tropic isles. 
 Come the warm winds softly blowing; and California 
 
 smiles. 
 And from the laughing ripples of the high ascending sun 
 Back into the mountains rush the cold winds, one by one; 
 Then the rose leaves settle softly, then the poppy lifts its 
 
 head. 
 And only on the mountains, where the snow lies, lies the 
 
 dead. 
 
ELDER BROTHER OF THE LAND 
 
 Grave Redwood men annointed you with latin name, 
 
 And yet, what panoply of state 
 Could make you greater than you are, 
 
 You who were born great? 
 Long years before I passed this way 
 
 You cast your shadow, and the shade 
 Through long days rose and fell. 
 
 Ere 1 was made 
 What wild things nested in the heart of thee, 
 
 What rivers ran 
 In rippUng freedom at your feet? 
 
 Ere we began 
 O silent watcher of the night. 
 
 What moons have shone 
 When watching for my race to come. 
 
 You stood alone! 
 
Wind and wave, and but a space away 
 
 The rockbound coast. 
 Drone out the passing of the years, 
 
 An innumerable host. 
 Within the far, high reaches of the sky 
 
 A whisper grows, 
 Great branches stir, or is it but a sigh 
 
 For us, immutable, with woes? 
 Giant Sequoia, tree with latin name. 
 
 High priest beside the human gate, 
 Lord Bishop of the splendid hills, 
 
 Untouched by fate, 
 A restless human humbly comes to thee 
 
 Where you in benediction stand 
 And asks your blessing as he passes through, 
 
 A younger brother in the land. 
 
-\^^r^: .vr^v.v.^^!^w^^^^ 
 
 CALIFORNIA: THE DAWN 
 
 Now comes the Painter with a brush sublime 
 
 And where before had stretched the sflver sea, 
 A gray ghost ever marking timie 
 
 Against the pulse beats of eternity, 
 The rich warm glories of the day descend 
 
 In gold, in orange, and in crimson lanes, 
 Onsweeping in the paths that never end. 
 
 Then lavishly as one who scarcely deigns 
 Be niggardly he sweeps a brush 
 
 Across the great broad velvet land. 
 And in the vivid, quivering hush 
 
 That runs from mountain top to golden strand 
 One feels that here at last a day is bom 
 
 That no black painter of the night can wipe away: 
 At least, so I have felt in California's mom 
 
 That here upon the peaks of dawn had come a final day. 
 
THE PURPLE PATH 
 
 The purple path is a ro3ral road that leads you on to a gay 
 abode 
 
 Where dreams, if they don't indeed come true, come as 
 close as they can to you; 
 
 Where you pinch yourself as you view the skies and the 
 gorgeous gardens stun your eyes. 
 
 And you drink the ocean and eat the land and grab some 
 friend by his outstretched hand, 
 
 And say, "Great Scott, but Fm glad Vm here, especially, 
 George, at this time of year." 
 
 And then in the Spring you take your grip and you go by 
 train or go by ship, 
 
 Pr whatever it is that will take you there when you MUST 
 go home: and then grim care 
 
 Will sit on your shoulders and grin and jeer, and you'll 
 wish, old man, that you'd stayed out here, 
 
 And filled your pipe and sat in the sun where the pilrple 
 dreams pass one by one. 
 
 And you'll blink your eyes and you'll often feel (when 
 you get back home) that it wasn't real. 
 
 But it's ten to one that another year will find you settled 
 and living here, 
 
 Believing, Fm sure, as I do, too, that purple dreams in the 
 sun come true. 
 
THE DAY IS HUNG WITH HELIOTROPE 
 
 le day is hung with heliotrope, 
 And the poppy flames, and the buds of hope 
 Are opening here, each branch athrill. 
 Each hour that passes glows and dies 
 With joyous face to the radiant skies: 
 Each night that follows sounds the drum 
 Of still more cheerful days to come. 
 And over the highways autos fling 
 Their whirring wheels that forever sing, 
 And down the valleys and up the hills 
 The road lies open and one who wills 
 May leave Grim Trouble and woo Bright Hope 
 Where the days are hung with heliotrope. 
 
TORCH AND FLAME 
 
 Here where the feet of the pulsing world are pounding 
 the pavements down 
 
 There stands a Mission old and gray in the heart of a busy 
 town; 
 
 Faded the walls and dim the aisles, but here by the grace 
 of God, 
 
 Once in the long-departed past the feet of the Padres trod. 
 
 The sands of Time through the hour glass run, but the 
 thing that the Padres did 
 
 is Torch and Flame in the living day, and its light can not 
 be hid. 
 
 Strange is the musk that scents this spot, as though those 
 good gray friars 
 
 Were standing here in their shadow world; and when my 
 spirit tires 
 
 I come to stand by these crumbling walls, and I think of 
 those earnest men 
 
 Who when they were beaten stood four-square, and as 
 earnestly fought again. 
 
ROW ON ROW, THE ORANGE TREES 
 
 Row on row the orange trees in Calif omia stand 
 
 And when they blossom in the Spring the scent upon the 
 land 
 
 Is pungent in the nose of day, and on the wings of air 
 
 Romance is blown up and down, indeed most everywhere. 
 
 Row on row the orange trees in California stand. 
 
 The good brown mountains at their back, their feet upon 
 the land, 
 
 And overhead the bright blue sky, and to the West the sea, 
 
 And was there ever such a land, old friend, for you and me? 
 
^mWM^'WW:^^ W^\7m 
 
 UENVOI 
 
 ion the face of day the curtain falls. 
 
 Tis night. And now, regardless of the one who calls, 
 
 This fact remains : our friend, and all she was, has passed. 
 
 You may dispute, deny, and claim the day at last 
 
 As one who on the morrow comes again, 
 
 Still kind, still glad to mother breeds of men; 
 
 Yet still this fact remains : death, grim death, has come our 
 way. 
 
 For when the lady lifts her veil — Ah ha! ANOTHER day! 
 
 And so the final word that's said is ever this~--GOODB YE ! 
 
 Oh, only for a time you say? WeU, also— so say I!