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 To JW.^~M3E3L^^ 
 
 IN appreciation of your membership in the 
 Eliza A. Otis Memorial Association, this 
 volume of her Writings is presented to you 
 by the Executive Committee, accompanied by 
 their good wishes and those of the publishers and 
 of the compiler. 
 

1876-1904 
 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 "Where Sets the Sun" 
 
 Writings of Eltsa B. tie 
 
 ( Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis, long with the staff of ihe Los Angeles Times) 
 
 IN POETRY AND PROSE 
 
 Hrranseb anb <btteb fcj> ( 
 
 IN TWO PARTS 
 
 UNDER ONE COVER 
 
 With Portraits of the Author and Other Illustrations: 
 also an Appendix, "Memorial Chimes" 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE TIMES- MIRROR COMPANY 
 1905 
 
Journeys 
 
 In Times of Peace and War. Across the Continent from 
 
 Ocean to Ocean. From Washington s Monument to 
 
 the Golden Gate. From Pacific to Ardic Seas. 
 
 From the City of the Angels to Old 
 
 Mexico. From Childhood to the 
 
 Verge of the Great Beyond. 
 
 PRICES: Popular Edition, $3.00; Edition de Luxe, $15.00. 
 
Prefatory 
 
 The poems in this book span a period of more than a quarter 
 of a century. Those of them produced previous to April, 1880, 
 were written while the author lived in Santa Barbara; those written 
 subsequent to July, 1882, were produced after she became a resi 
 dent of Los Angeles. 
 
 The great abundance of literary material left by Mrs. Otis 
 would have justified the publication of her writings in two volumes, 
 which was at one time contemplated; but by adopting an excep 
 tionally large page, using type of a moderate size, and separating 
 the matter into two general sections (poetry and prose) under the 
 same cover, a single large volume, beautifully printed and bound, is 
 the result. The entire work on the volume composition, electrotyp- 
 ing, illustrating, printing and binding was done by the Times-Mirror 
 Printing and Binding House. 
 
 Several of the poems on California originally appeared under 
 that specific title. In this book these poems are numbered from 
 II to VIII, inclusive, and appear on pages 1 , 2, 3 and 4 ; each is 
 separate and complete in itself, and not a subdivision. There are, 
 besides, many others on the same favorite topic, bearing various ap 
 propriate titles. 
 
 A complete topical index is printed at the back of the book. 
 
 iii 
 
 180128 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 (By Divisions Only. For Complete Index, see back of book.) 
 
 Page 
 
 California II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII 1-4 
 
 Trees, Flowers and Grasses 20 
 
 Mission Days 27 
 
 The Months and Seasons 31 
 
 The Drouth and the Rain 59 
 
 Mountain, Desert, Canyon and Gorge 65 
 
 Under Arctic Skies 74 
 
 East and West 77 
 
 Poems of Patriotism : Tributes to Valor and Greatness 78 
 
 God and Nature 102 
 
 Life and Duty, Hope and Joy 1 16 
 
 Man and Woman 119 
 
 The Undiscovered Country 125 
 
 Juvenile Poems 144 
 
 Unclassified Poems 168 
 
 Snatches of Song : A Young Heart Sings to Other Young Hearts 195 
 
 Other Short Verse 197 
 
 PART II.-DESCRIPTIVE PROSE. 
 
 In the Yosemite 201 
 
 Other Sketches of Travel 208 
 
 In War Times 209 
 
 Editorial Writings . 211 
 
 Lay Sermons 234 
 
 The Saunterer 259 
 
 House and Home 260 
 
 Our Boys and Girls 262 
 
 Lights and Flashes 263 
 
 Personal Sketch of the Author 264 
 
 Appendix : Memorial Bells 267 
 
 Tributes from Other Poets 277 
 
 Index 278 
 
 IV 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 At Page 
 
 " California, where Sets the Sun " Cover 
 
 Portrait of the Author (1890), frontispiece vi 
 
 View in the Peristyle of " The Bivouac " vii 
 
 The Golden Gate viii 
 
 Big Trees 21 
 
 Mission San Juan Capistrano 29 
 
 Mission San Gabriel 31 
 
 Clouds Rest 67 
 
 Mt. San Antonio 69 
 
 Popocatepetl 73 
 
 " Storm-tossed on Alaska s Shore " 75 
 
 The Flag 79 
 
 Arlington, the " City of the Dead " 87 
 
 The March of Empire 91 
 
 Christopher Columbus 93 
 
 Washington s Monument 97 
 
 Portrait ( 1878) 145 
 
 Portraits (group) : 1855, 1856, 1903 195 
 
 Bridal Veil Falls 201 
 
 Portrait ( 1903) 264 
 
 Tower and Bells 267 
 
 Floral Peristyle 276 
 
 Certificate of Membership 280 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
MRS. OTIS IN 1890. 
 
CALIFORNIA S GOLDEN GATE. 
 
"Swing wide, O Golden Gate of mine! 1 
 
 alifornia: 
 
 tfje 
 
 A WONDROUS LAND. (1879.) 
 
 Thy year is one long Summer, and thy earth, 
 
 Cradled in sunshine, keeps her heart so warm 
 There is no room for shadow or the birth 
 Of devastating thunderbolt or storm. 
 Sweet singers in the old Past sang of thee, 
 And ships made paths across the pathless sea 
 To reach thy golden shores, for bards had told 
 Of thy sun-flooded plain and mountains gaunt and old; 
 And those brown Children of the Sun had dreamed 
 Of thy fair skies, until to them they seemed 
 Xot quite of earth, for their wise ones had said: 
 Close by the gates of Paradise sometimes ajar- 
 Broods endless Summer o er a wondrous land, 
 With shining skies and golden strand, 
 And beauty like the undimmed brightness of a star. 
 
 II. 
 
 Dark-eyed and drowsy-lidded, with face brown 
 
 Xeath centuries of suns; with cheeks touched with 
 
 The. rich carmine of the wild pink s flush, and 
 
 Wearing the gold of the wild poppy on 
 
 Her breast, regal in queenliness; her 
 
 Majestic forehead the Sierra s front; 
 
 Her breast the swelling hills, smooth-rounded, and 
 
 Her lithe limbs the fair valley stretching to 
 
 The sea, clad in rich garments of springing 
 
 Grasses and set with precious jewels of 
 
 Bright blossoms multitudinous; with a 
 
 Voice of liquid melody heard in her 
 
 Running streams and the soft whispers of the 
 
 Summer breeze, in the old past, which like a 
 
 Dream has vanished, was California, 
 
 Loved of the Sun, a maiden fair, 
 
 Wearing the golden arrows of the 
 
 Burnished West, flaming with tropic splendor, 
 
 As the rich clasp for the sunset mantle 
 
 Round her voluptuous shoulders thrown, to 
 
 Which the wanton breezes gave caressing touch, 
 
 While spicy odors lent their perfumes rare 
 
 To all her garments. 
 
 Sun-warmed and sun-browned 
 Were all the races, too, that told their love 
 Of her, with tawny cheeks warming beneath 
 Her ardent gaze. Upon the sunlit heights 
 They leaned to her and touched her robes with 
 Reverent fingers. The flowers which 
 
 Lay within her garment s folds had for their 
 Ears soft tongues of speech. Sierra heights were 
 Holy altars from which the mists of Morn 
 Uprose like sacred incense. The running 
 Streams babbled a prophecy of never- 
 Ending being as they ran on to see 
 The Ocean s vastness, beyond which lay the 
 Happy hunting-grounds, and the Good Spirit 
 Smiled. The wigwam s curling smoke rose to the 
 Blue, losing itself in sunshine. Peace was 
 In all the shining air, and Xature these 
 Her native sons fed lovingly. How fanned 
 The giant oaks their bronzed foreheads, and dropped 
 Them nuts to ease their hunger ! How leapt the 
 Wild hare for their arrow s sport, and how stole 
 The deer into green thickets when their bow 
 Was strung, and the Sea laughed beneath their light 
 Canoes as swam the fishes for their rude- 
 Wrought nets. Ah ! Xature loved them, her simple 
 Children, and California s heart was 
 Warm with their caress; yet still she kept it 
 Fancy free, and cast coy glances at the 
 Coming years, as if her dusky eyes held 
 Glance prophetic, and, vision-brightened, saw 
 The glory of her womanhood. She let 
 Them pass, those tawny chiefs who wooed her, and 
 The later race of Andalusia s 
 Sons, and kept her riches and her rarer 
 Graces veiled till came the final Conquerors. 
 Ah, then how gathered she her wines and poured 
 Them for their tasting! The orange bloom she 
 Twined in garlands for her forehead. The rich 
 Poinsettia made a ruby for her finger. 
 Her garments of wild grasses she threw off, 
 Attired herself in robes of golden wheat, 
 And decked herself with silken tassels of 
 The growing corn. White roses formed the 
 Border of her mantle, and "Cloth of Gold" 
 Was round her garment s hem. Her diamonds 
 She caught from playing fountains, and the light 
 Within her eyes was like the sunlight falling 
 Through swaying palms. 
 
 And then her lover came. 
 The one she was to wed, within his hand 
 The glorious banner bearing of the 
 Stripes and Stars. And she will be mother of 
 Royal sons, and Queen of Freedom s golden West, 
 And at her gates shall surging Empire rest. 
 
California. 
 
 in. 
 
 Child of the mountains and the wide blue sea, 
 
 Cradled in calm and sunshine, lo! I lie, 
 With hands outstretched unto the world afar, 
 Fragrant with Summer s breath on hill and lea, 
 Bright in my splendid glory as the star 
 Which gleams at twilight in the western sky, 
 Pinning Night s mantle round the breast of Kvc, 
 As Night and Silence with soft fingers weave 
 The tender spell of beauty for my hours, 
 Which all the year are cradled with the flowers; 
 For e en when Winter holds my mountain crests, 
 And heaps his snows upon their granite breasts, 
 Bright Summer dreams below, so glad, I wist, 
 In robes of gold or sunset amethyst. 
 
 So glad ! so full of song and shining days, 
 
 Nursing the tawny hills upon her knees, 
 Kissing my valleys as they stretch so wide, 
 Long-limbed and fair down to my ocean ways, 
 Where, laughter-loving, creeps the silver tide, 
 And flings its whispers to the waiting trees. 
 Ah, how the days smile! how the air doth wake 
 To melody which bird and leaf-lute make! 
 The orange bloom is all the Winter s snow 
 That my fair, smiling valleys ever know. 
 
 Know ye the wonders of my hills and vales? 
 
 The marvels of my clime sun-flooded, fair? 
 The gold that fills the bosom of my skies? 
 So beautiful its light, before it pales 
 
 The warm, full splendor of all tropic dyes. 
 
 Know ye the mighty forest trees, my trees 
 Twin with old Time their leaf-crowned majesties- 
 Giants by ages cradled? When at the door 
 Of his white tent sat Abram, looking o er 
 The plains of Mamre, lo! my trees, my trees, 
 My first-born children nursed I on my knees. 
 
 Giant Sequoias, old are they, so old, 
 
 Yet still not bent beneath the weight of years; 
 
 Their brows are leaf-crowned yet and very fair, 
 
 Their mighty arms are still thrust out so bold, 
 
 Catching the sunlight of the upper air, 
 
 Or daring the storm s strength as in wrath it nears. 
 
 And their grand trunks! the hills are not more strong, 
 
 And scarcely longer has to them the song 
 
 Of Earth s full-rhythmed voices been outpoured 
 
 From sea and crag and light-winged bird that soared. 
 
 And my glad hills, loved of the sun and air! 
 
 Grand in the changing lights of dawn and eve, 
 Calm in the yellow sunshine of the noon, 
 Looking upon my valleys which are fair, 
 And on my rivers which do flow in tune 
 With growing things, with harvests which do weave 
 Their blades of g>een and fruits of vine and tree, 
 With bud and blossom which for love of me 
 Make my land beautiful and pave with sweet 
 E en the far bypaths of my wandering feet. 
 And my clear skies ! how marvelous are they ! 
 Deep as the far stars, and so wond rous blue 
 They make -a cloudless pathway for the Sun 
 
 Where he walks proudly from the opening day 
 Of the Young Year until its days are done, 
 
 With scarce a cloud for him to journey through; 
 
 And he looks down with calm, wide-open eyes 
 To where my pines and shadowy palm-trees rise, 
 And billowy seas of gardens, bright with flowers, 
 Fill the great lap of all my winter hours. 
 
 And my vast mountains! lo, I sit with them, 
 
 As they rise sunward to heaven s silent blue; 
 Their snowy mantles white as God s own light, 
 As if were trailing there His garment s hem; 
 
 And from their lofty crags, in misty white, 
 Leap my grand cataracts swift downward through 
 The mighty distances cleaving the air 
 Above the foreheads of my forests, where 
 Tower my cedars and my giant pines, 
 And wild beasts creep along their dusky lines. 
 
 Ages agone the mighty glacier ploughed 
 
 My fretted canons, where now softly sing 
 Sweet, crystal streams, and granite walls loom high 
 Like rocky firmaments, their fronts embrowed 
 With ferns and chaparral; the narrow sky 
 Stretches a soft blue line the canon over, 
 The great, broad world seems lost forevermore 
 In those deep bowels of the mighty hills, 
 Cradling tall forests and low-laughing rills. 
 
 Bride of the Sun am I ! Was ever found 
 
 A bride more fair, with skies of sapphire light, 
 
 And brooding calm, and valleys blushing red 
 
 With fruits and wine, and blossoms hedging round 
 My bills and gardens through the whole year, fed 
 By the warm, nursing air, and day and night 
 
 Bosomed in my rich soil, by frost unchilled; 
 
 The winds, like song of birds, with soft notes trilled 
 
 To melody, and my rich harvests spread 
 
 Till with their fullness I am garmented. 
 
 And lord of Seas, my mighty sea, which waits 
 
 By the white sands upon my curving shores, 
 Laden with fragrance from the lands of balm, 
 Beating so softly at my Golden Gates, 
 
 Where broods the spirit of enduring calm; 
 And Summer holds the keys to all my doors; 
 Walking upon the sea or on the land, 
 She finds but beauty shed on every hand. 
 And calm of noon and calm of holy night, 
 And Time with smiling face above his loom, 
 Weaving his web of days and making room 
 For birth of grander empire which shall rise 
 Upon my soil beneath these sunset skies. 
 
 Swing wide, O Golden Gate of mine, swing wide! 
 
 Door of the world art thou, where men may come 
 
 And see my glory, see and enter in; 
 
 Borne onward by the swift, inrushing tide 
 Of mighty Empire, come, for I am twin 
 In my great future with the mighty Past; 
 
 And here shall Freedom triumph by my seas, 
 
 Strong as my mountains and my giant trees, 
 
 Unlock the doors of highest Destiny, 
 
 For love of blessed Liberty and me. 
 
Queen of Lands. 
 
 IV. (1882.) 
 
 How dietli the year in this land of delight? 
 
 In blossoms and sweetness, in sunlighted sheen, 
 
 In glory of freshness, in garments of green, 
 
 In warm tender breezes that whisper of June, 
 
 In the clasp of the roses, mid the breath of perfume. 
 
 V. (1886.) 
 
 Here are bird-song, and sunshine, and flowers, 
 
 And fair, tranquil, tropical hours; 
 
 Here Noon lies drowned in the sweets 
 
 Of blooming, odorous deeps, 
 
 And orange and olive and palm 
 
 Stand dreaming mid fragrance and calm; 
 
 In sunsets of gold die the days, 
 
 Passing down into star-lighted ways, 
 
 And summer bends low in the West, 
 
 And lays her fair head on the breast 
 
 Of the Year as it dies, and she weaves 
 
 A shroud of soft grasses and leaves. 
 
 There s no darkness or sorrow or blight, 
 
 No chill in the beautiful light 
 
 Of the days which come at the close. 
 
 But the Old Year sinks to repose 
 
 Mid freshness and blossoms and song; 
 
 And freshness and blossoms and song 
 
 Usher in the New Year at its dawn. 
 
 VI. (1002.) 
 
 O great-browed goddess! Empress of the Seas, 
 
 Whose light waves fringe thy golden garment s hem, 
 Whose lofty mountains and whose giant trees 
 Weave for thy brow a priceless diadem 
 Such as no other land may proudly claim: 
 How glorious shall be thy future fame, 
 For lo! the moving tide of Empire waits 
 To enter here within thy Golden Gates. 
 
 The rich soil of thy vast wide valleys lies 
 
 In shining gold of fadeless sunshine rolled, 
 The rains with silver wands hide in thy skies, 
 
 Waiting thy Winter s glory to unfold. 
 And Growth, how grandly do her armies rise, 
 How silently the brown old Earth s surprise, 
 Following the wake of the first Winter showers, 
 Which hold within their arms thy harvest dowers. 
 
 Thy perfect limbs, how fully rounded they, 
 
 How rich the milk of Plenty in thy breast! 
 Splendid thy garments trail along the way, 
 
 By thy flower-sandaled feet so lightly prcst. 
 Oh, Summer loves thee, and she folds her arms 
 About thee ever while she gives her charms 
 Unto thy keeping; wealth of olive trees 
 And orange-bloom and fruit, she gives thee these. 
 
 And thy great vineyards! How the golden Day 
 
 Lies dreaming mid their vines sun-wrapped and 
 warm, 
 
 And her large-lidded eyes, how full are they 
 
 Of beauty s brightness, all undimmed by storm. 
 Thy songbirds sing through all the happy year, 
 And thy wild cascades, ever crystal clear, 
 Weave their white foam and silver-flying mist 
 In garments fair as rose and amethyst. 
 
 The marvels of Yosemite are thine, 
 
 And glory of vast forests wide and grand; 
 Touching the skies, thy highest mountains shine 
 
 With coronet of sunbeams which the hand 
 Of Night studs thick with stars; the strength of hills 
 Is thine, and all thy being stirs and thrills 
 With their great strength, and all thy valleys lie 
 Bright in their wond rous glory neath the sky. 
 
 And O thy vales ! where grow thy fields of corn, 
 
 And thy great valleys garmented with wheat, 
 Like billowy seas they catch the light of Morn, 
 
 While o er them pass the softly-moving feet 
 Of the low winds that, shod with breath of balm, 
 But faintly stir the pulse of blessed cairn 
 Thy children love. And O thy oil and wine 
 As plenteous are as thy year s full sunshine! 
 
 O gracious Queen! thy gifts thou givest free, 
 And giveth large as doth no other land. 
 
 No suppliant vain is Labor unto thee; 
 
 Thou boldest countless treasures in thy hand 
 
 To give to Toil, and e er thy smiling face 
 
 Is full of promise, and thou makest place 
 
 For Plenty s stores wherever Toil abides, 
 
 For daily on the never-failing tides 
 
 Of golden sunshine thou dost freely pour 
 
 The wealth of rich abundance for thy soil. 
 When the long, cloudless summer-time is o er, 
 
 At the first coming of the Winter s rain, 
 Earth groweth glad and Plenty laughs with life, 
 The buried seed awakes with quickened, throbbing life, 
 And all the mellow landscape feels the thrill 
 Of pregnant harvests on every vale and hill. 
 
 How fair, O Queen of Lands! how bright and fair 
 Then art thou, and how gaily thou art drest 
 
 In robes of emerald which everywhere 
 
 Are gemmed with flowers, while upon the crest 
 
 Of thy round hills the poppies gold is seen, 
 
 Fit coronet for such a gracious queen; 
 
 And birds pour tides of song along thy way 
 
 And Winter dreams within the arms of May. 
 
 The future Queen of Freedom s Empire thou, 
 And proud thy scepter over land and sea; 
 We see thy morrow s dawning even now. 
 
 The glorious promise of thy Yet-to-be. 
 Within the ruts of dead and vanished years 
 Thy old Past lies, and now the Present hears 
 The onward march of Progress in thy gate, 
 And thou wilt keep thy trust inviolate. 
 
J 
 
 California. 
 
 VII. (1902.) 
 
 Strange, beauteous land, unlike all other lands, 
 Monarch of vastness, grandeur is thy dower; 
 Thy giant mountain peaks do upward tower, 
 Till Winter boldly on their summit stands 
 In frozen silence, while below him lies 
 A summer zone of tropic harvestries. 
 
 O Wonderland! The mighty "half-world sea" 
 
 Clasping the Orient and its isles afar, 
 
 Its white waves leaping as if they would unbar 
 
 In every land its hidden mystery, 
 
 Creep to thy shores and murmur but of peace, 
 
 As if they d hush all strife and bid it cease. 
 
 The sun goes down upon thy sea s broad breast, 
 And leaves thy loftiest mountains all aglow 
 With wond rous light like Summer s overflow; 
 Thy vernal valleys do in silence rest; 
 How vast, how vast and far they reach away, 
 As if they zoned at once both night and day. 
 
 O wond rous land! Land of the Afternoon! 
 
 The long, long ages they must tell thy story, 
 
 For here shall be unfolded Freedom s glory; 
 
 For out of Nature s vastness shall come soon 
 
 Great men, grand men, kindred with mountain height 
 
 And mighty plain, all sun-illumined and bright 
 
 As the unshadowed sky. No room is here 
 For moral weaklings, who ever do belie 
 All Nature s grandeur, all her wise ministry. 
 Here, drinking in this sun-filled atmosphere, 
 The future yet may see the coming man 
 Fulfill the highest purpose of God s plan. 
 
 VIII. (1904.) 
 
 O California! Land of golden light, 
 
 Sleeping beside the seas, wearing the white 
 
 Of Winter snows only upon the crests 
 
 Of lofty mountains reaching to the stars: 
 
 How sweet thy Summer dreams, how full of peace! 
 
 Thy sunset s gold is bright and falleth still, 
 
 Like shining river over vale and hill; 
 
 The whisper of thy leaves is like a song, 
 
 Thy months glide brightly over flower-clad ways, 
 
 And Summer smiles through all thy length of days. 
 
 What other land can give us gifts like thine, 
 
 What other land unto the stars lifts high 
 
 Its mountain-walled, dome-carved Yosemite, 
 
 Whose Falls seem dropping from the sky s blue deep, 
 
 With shining rainbows wrapped about their feet? 
 
 Thy cloudless skies ! how bright their wond rous blue ! 
 
 Thy High Sierras, O how vast and grand ! 
 
 A background for the world they seem to stand, 
 
 A rock-hewn firmament the gods might dare 
 
 To climb in silence to the upper air. 
 
 Cool breezes flow from out thine ocean tides 
 Which ripple o er thy beaches shining sands. 
 And health and balm are in thy perfect air. 
 The rose of health is on thy garment s hem, 
 Time weaves for thee its sun -filled diadem; 
 
 Thy years of golden days are sweet as song, 
 December wears the blessed guise of June, 
 Laughs with the flowers and keeps his heart in tune 
 With the glad Maytime the pathways of his feet 
 Are fragrance-paved by countless blossoms sweet. 
 
 Thy valleys are like empires vast and wide, 
 
 Where pine and palm do linger side by side, 
 
 Where through the year each month its harvest knows, 
 
 And the warm tide of sunshine ever flows. 
 
 Great wheat-fields ripple like a golden stream, 
 
 Thy vineyards with a wine-filled fruitage gleam, 
 
 Thy fruits and blossoms greet us everywhere, 
 
 And thousand birds with music fill the air. 
 
 Could Eden s world have been more fair than thine, 
 
 More bright its days, more gold in their sunshine? 
 
 SEMI-TROPIC CALIFORNIA. (1885.) 
 
 The world is sweet and dewy-eyed and fair, 
 
 The whole Year, crowned with blossoms, sits within her 
 
 gates; 
 
 December, rosy-lidded, breathes but perfumed air, 
 Orange and tropic palms the Old Year s exit waits. 
 I wander out amid the flower-gemmed paths; 
 Bananas droop their branches, lilies swing 
 White perfumed censers, and in golden baths 
 Of flooding sunshine, like a scarlet flame, 
 The humming-bird is seen; gay roses fling 
 Their dewy petals to the wandering breeze, 
 And, with a flutter like the young heart s beat, 
 The bright-winged birds upon the branches sing, 
 Till all the air is stirred to echoes sweet. 
 The bees pass humming by on drowsy wing, 
 And like winged flowers, or drifting gold, fair 
 White butterflies and golden ones sail on 
 Beneath the orange-laden boughs, and there 
 In the soft shadows crickets chirp; upon 
 The whiteness of the sweet alyssum s bloom 
 Swings the gay beetle; in her cloth of gold 
 The Queen of Roses with her royal lips 
 Which all the winter days have made not old- 
 Stoops to the purple of the honeyed lips 
 Of heliotrope; and at eventide 
 Eve s dainty footsteps o er the golden plain 
 Of the warm West, its sunset gates flung wide, 
 Sandaled with crimson and with scarlet flame, 
 Pass down; then turns the sunset gold to gray, 
 And purpling shadows slowly are unfurled, 
 And a soft hush through Nature steals its way, 
 Sound lieth soundless on the evening air, 
 And Night s star-jeweled gates close round the world. 
 
 OUR SUMMER LAND. (1895.) 
 A land of sunshine, where does grow the palm, 
 The orange ripens golden as its days, 
 The blossoms laugh along its shining ways, 
 And the whole year breathes blessedness and balm. 
 
 What of its mountains lifted to the skies? 
 
 Snow-crowned their summits and sun-kissed their sides, 
 From which outpour the many crystal tides, 
 
 Feeding the vales where Summer ever lies 
 
Bride of the Sun. 
 
 Bright Summer, knowing only blossoming, 
 And ripening fruits and harvests full and free, 
 And song of birds, and brooks sweet minstrelsy, 
 
 And where no clouds the lightest shadows fling. 
 
 What of its Winter? Oh, tis but a dream 
 Rose-sprinkled, sun-crowned, color-full and fair, 
 And emerald-footed, bathing everywhere 
 
 Tn balm and fragrance. Our winters gleam 
 
 With the warm sunshine, revel in the light 
 Of sapphire skies. Soft south winds blow; 
 The dun clouds gather, and then swiftly, lo ! 
 Winter is here, such winter as we know- 
 Warm with the heart of Summer, no more athirst, 
 Baptized one day with rain, and through and through 
 Thrilling with waking life, waiting anew 
 For the glad sunshine from the sky to burst. 
 
 Hoots stir, birds sing, and Earth s laughing face 
 Swift gathers beauty, while the grasses spring 
 Blossoms unfold, and butterflies find wing, 
 
 And Winter steals the charm of Summer s gVace. 
 
 BRIDE OF THE SUN. (1897.) 
 
 O Love of mine! O gentle love of mine 
 
 Is this fair-bosomed land, with tender rose 
 
 In its soft cheek, and eyes most blue, as if 
 
 Within them lay the light-filled Orient 
 
 With breath that smells of musk and fragrant bav, 
 
 And all the scents of ever-flow ring climes 
 
 Upon thy hills ..looms the wild lilac, and 
 
 The poppy s gold lies like a sea, and all 
 
 The wild-flowers lift their lovely heads, each 
 
 Leaf a-smile with gladness, as if beneath 
 
 Were hid a happy soul that is beloved 
 
 Of Beauty. How thy grasses leap at the 
 
 Magic touch of rain, to garment with soft 
 
 Emerald thy bare, brown hills, that through the 
 
 Long Summer days have slumbered dreamlessly, 
 
 Cradled in loving sunshine. The waving palm 
 
 Drops his thin shadows in the golden noon, 
 
 Like long, light scimitars upon the soft 
 
 Velvet of the sod. The calla swings its 
 
 Censer, filled with its perfumed incense, sweet 
 
 As the fabled balm of blessed Gilead; 
 
 While the innocent-eyed violet peers 
 
 With wide-open lids into December s 
 
 Face and smiles. But momently, ah! ever 
 
 Constantly, my heart turns with reverent 
 
 Love unto thy mountained heights, standing like 
 
 Kingly Titans at Dawn s open door, and 
 
 At the Sunset s threshold, where the sea throws 
 
 Its great arm about the smiling shore. 
 
 O mountain world! Time pillows his head upon 
 
 Thy glorious crests, and old Eternity 
 
 Doth whisper of the Past, while kneeling in 
 
 Splendor are the lesser hills, worshiping 
 
 Thy vastness. O starry worlds! this voiceful 
 
 Choir of hills joins in the chant ye sing 
 
 To mountained majesty, whose foreheads grand 
 
 Bare themselves to storm, yet front the Sun in 
 
 Glory, and clap their hands unto the swift 
 
 Tempest, and it trembles amid their pines. 
 
 The centuries they tell like some fair mm 
 
 Her beads, and moveless stand, Sphinx-like, as when 
 
 Old Pan poured forth his tuneful notes to their 
 
 Unheeding ears. Glorious the valleys 
 
 Smiling in the Sun at their vast base/ with 
 
 Sweet Summer in their hearts, holding the notes 
 
 Of mocking-bird and blessed robin s 
 
 Song, which steal the heart of Joy to make it 
 
 Fuller still of joyousness. O world of 
 
 Ours ! how doth the Sun love thee, as thou dost 
 
 Lie baptized in holy calm and sunny 
 
 Gold. His bride art thou, and he will cherish 
 
 Thee till Earth sleeps breathless in the tomb of Time. 
 
 OUR FAIR SOUTHLAND. (1893.) v 
 
 Behold this Southland, neath as perfect skies 
 As ever Sun shines on, or stars arise; 
 Laughing in beauty, redolent with bloom, 
 
 ts Winter fair as is a Summer s noon- 
 Where butterflies with fluttering wing drift on 
 The Sun s warm tides, and the gay flowers don 
 Their brightest colors, pouring nectared sweet 
 O er all the pathways of our wandering feet. 
 The hills grow golden with their yellow sheen 
 Of light, which ever the warm, ceaseless Sun 
 The swaying grasses; orange orchards stand 
 Like emerald seas, stretched out on every hand 
 Filled with their yellow globes, like round moons spun 
 
 f light, which ever the warm, ceaseless Sun 
 Feeds with his beams, and ever the low din 
 Of insect voice is heard, while spiders spin 
 Their webs of silver on the growing grass, 
 Where the light footsteps of the breezes pass, 
 Loitering as if they fain would steal 
 Some of Earth s sweetness. Busy ants reveal 
 Their sand-built workshops, and the dead leaves fall- 
 In miracle of wond rous color all 
 On velvet sward, from trees that yet have learned 
 Xot the sweet lesson of the Winter turned 
 To deathless Summer. Luminous days are set 
 Color-full like the fire opal, and yet 
 Filled full of balm is the Midwinter s heart 
 Days in which storms have never any part; 
 Days full of rest fulness and Beauty s soul, 
 And radiant gladness, as if their* whole 
 Brooded of birth and miracles of growth, 
 And all the wide, sweet land were nothing loath 
 To drink its fill of sunshine and be steeped 
 In light, while the sweet passing hours up-heaped 
 Roses round them, and all the birds souls woke, 
 Brimming with song, and from the silence broke 
 Till the whole air with melody was drowned, 
 And trees chimed in with many a whispering sound 
 From leaves innumerable. The still noons, 
 Golden with light, are full of happy dreams 
 
California. 
 
 Akin to summer s brightest; running streams 
 Syllable in music the dreams they hold 
 Of ripening harvests gleaming in the gold 
 Of yellow wheat and corn and orange spheres 
 And amber wines; and, ever listening, hears 
 The passing hour the swift advancing tread 
 Of Ceres coming, by Pomona led. 
 The hum of bees December bends to hear, 
 Poured in soft murmurs to the waiting ear; 
 In greenest meadows the sleeek cattle feed 
 Mid the lush grasses; note they not nor heed 
 Midwinter s presence. No mad moods has he 
 Of storm or cold or elemental revelry; 
 Sandaled with blossoms, lo! he passes here, 
 Sun-crowned and fruitful, monarch of the year. 
 
 THE LAND WE LOVE. (1901.) 
 
 O Land of Sun! beneath this radiant bint- 
 How fair thou liest ! how thy mountains rise 
 As seeking heaven ! L T pon their summits high 
 An angel s footsteps well might halt to rest, 
 \\hile the bright world lying beneath his feet 
 In golden glory did his vision greet. 
 
 No cloud is in our heav ns, the deep-blue skies 
 Seem infinite, and the great Sun doth march 
 From the far East unto the West s wide door, 
 Like a proud monarch clad in robes of light, 
 And lo! his beams upon the Earth s broad floor 
 Make Summer in this land forevermore. 
 
 She lies a-dream within our fruitful vales, 
 
 She nestles where our vineyards stretch afar, 
 
 Like wine the fragrance of Earth s wond rous bloom 
 
 Fills all her senses till she smiles with joy. 
 
 And when the rains come, O how swift the feet 
 
 Of the young grasses as they spring to greet 
 
 The glory of new growth! The vital air 
 
 Throbs with fresh gladness, while Summer steals 
 
 Like a young maiden to the Passing Year, 
 
 Till his old heart is gladdened by her smile, 
 
 And, age forgotten, like a king he stands, 
 
 Crowned with the flow rs from her own tender hands. 
 
 October s light is now within our skies, 
 
 October s mellow ripeness floods the air; 
 
 The shimmering leaves are breeze-touchedpines and 
 
 palms 
 
 Wave branches green, while gold-winged butterflies 
 Skim paths which birds have paved with happy song, 
 And naught reminds us Summer days are gone. 
 
 THE LAND OF SUNSHINE. (1896.) 
 
 Land of the Sun ! of skies divinely blue ; 
 
 Of Summer dreaming mid her flowers and dew; 
 
 Where all the months their rosary of days 
 
 Tell of the gold of Light s unclouded rays. 
 
 The snow-clad mounts, the elder priests of Time, 
 
 Are now uplift in majesty sublime; 
 
 Mantled in white, their foreheads in the blue 
 
 Of shining skies, their base in sparkling dew 
 
 Soft bathed, while smiling Summer, blossom-crowned, 
 
 Sheds the sweet fullness of her fragrance round; 
 
 The orange bloom the valley s only snow, 
 
 And perfume-laden all the winds that blow. 
 
 In valleys wrapped in grassy emerald sheen, 
 
 With laughing streams their flower-decked banks between, 
 
 \\ e sit and dream, O heights ! below thy crest, 
 
 While Summer soothes us to delighted rest. 
 
 Glad August comes with the full-ripened year, 
 
 The flooding sunshine fills the ambient air, 
 
 And Nature lies in sweet content so fair, 
 
 Nor dreams that Autumn s steps are drawing near. 
 
 For Autumn is but Summer in disguise 
 In this fair clime where it is June alway 
 In its glad brightness, or the nursing May, 
 Whose hands are filled with flowers, whose skies 
 
 Have wond rous deeps so warm and clear 
 
 That Growth walks neath them ever, and does see 
 
 Each month enriched by ripened harvestry, 
 
 Even when our so-called Winter cometh here. 
 
 Our Winter! Ah! how laugh its emerald vales, 
 How gleam its hills with golden poppies glow, 
 How fragrant are its orange blossoms snow, 
 How bright its roses bloom, nor ever pales 
 
 The fair white splendor of its lilies forms, 
 Whose perfect fragrance cheers us everywhere, 
 Nor dieth bird-song on its balmy air; 
 And when do come the Winter s welcome storms, 
 
 Beauty is born anew, the hillsides smile, 
 Life stoops to kiss the lips of all the flowers, 
 The pearls of raindrops through the happy hours 
 Shimmer upon the forest leaves, the while 
 
 The light winds breathe as if they were asleep; 
 
 The clouds hang tenderly above the land 
 
 As if they were a mother s sheltering hand, 
 
 And would from harm the springing grasses keep. 
 
 The rain, it is a baptism of birth, 
 It ushers in Earth s resurrection morn, 
 And golden sunsets with rich color warm, 
 And Summer s life unto our waiting earth. 
 
 December walks the air-ways of the skies, 
 And counts his golden rosary of hours, 
 His glad amen is heard in Winter showers, 
 From out of which the new-born blossoms rise. 
 
 Glory of color and of growth are ours, 
 December as a king his robes of state 
 Puts on, jeweled with flowers, a fitting mate 
 For blooming June with all her golden hours. 
 
 For not a single leaf doth he cast off 
 That ever-gracious Summer smiling wore, 
 And richer are his countless gifts to us 
 Than all the Summer s rich, unnumbered store. 
 
The Land of Sunshine. 
 
 II. (1900.) 
 
 Great light-robed land, all mountain-crowned and fair, 
 With thy grand heights uplifted to the Sun, 
 Where bird notes in melodious rivers run; 
 
 Land blossom-paved, whose softly pulsing air 
 Lies as twere anchored in delightful dream 
 On seas of sunlight, golden as the day 
 When Summer walks unclouded all the way 
 From dawn to starry dusk, 
 With fragrant smell of musk, 
 
 And orange scent within her shining hair, 
 
 And violet-odors smelling fresh and sweet 
 
 As the rose anklets bound above her feet. 
 
 Land glorious in beauty! Thy broad fields 
 
 Are orchard-nursing breasts, while vineyards wide 
 Drowse in the daylight, with their purple tide 
 Draining the sunshine, which forever yields 
 
 Its ripening splendor till the soft warm Kve 
 Drops down upon the land, its starry eyes 
 Filling with tender light the far-off skies- 
 Eves when the song of bird 
 Is tremulously heard, 
 Falling within the starry silences, 
 In the dusk-gardens where the blossoms sweet 
 Baptize with fragrance ev ry wanderer s feet. 
 
 I love thy warm rich zone of cloudless light. 
 Thy purple mountains lifted to the skies, 
 Thy broad, ricli fields of endless harvestries; 
 
 Thy countless song-birds, winging in their flight 
 The golden air and flooding it with song; 
 Thy blossom-nursing summers which do go 
 Flower-laden to the lap of Winter, so 
 Sun-kissed that he doth seem 
 A sweet June-laden dream, 
 
 Perfect in beauty, garmented in light, 
 
 With blossoms breathing balm like Summer s breath, 
 
 While bird-song unto bird-song answereth. 
 
 And thy great Future! O it is to me 
 
 Like some enchanted vision that doth hold 
 My fancy captive; like some epic told 
 
 By bard divinest while we wonderingly 
 
 List to the marvels that he doth unfold, 
 And the air stirs delightfully, and thrills 
 With conscious gladness as each echo fills 
 Our list ning fancy s ear. 
 Oh, it is near, so near ! 
 
 The wondrous Future of this land of ours, 
 
 And, empire-shod and promise-crowned, I see 
 
 Xo shadow darken its grand destiny. 
 
 III. 
 
 (1900.) 
 nonth of sunny wars 
 
 Summer has scarce 
 To walk before the coming autumn days 
 Are with us here; yet still she srnileth sweet, 
 And all the pathways for her dainty feet 
 Are blossom-strewn and fragrant as the dew 
 Dropped from the chalices of June, when new 
 The flowers awoke to make the whole world 
 And perfume all the shining deeps of air. 
 
 fair, 
 
 But in this clime of ours fair Autumn s face 
 Is twin with Summer s, and she lacks no grace 
 That sweet June wears, and even Winter s feet 
 Walk Summer s paths, and, wooing, he does meet 
 Her in the wood and on the hillsides fair, 
 And hand in hand they wander everywhere; 
 Birds sing and blossoms smile, and breezes stir 
 As soft for him as e er they did for her. 
 
 And they are wedded amid buds and bloom, 
 And Winter seems not to have reached the noon 
 Of joyous life; youth rests upon his brow, 
 His face is fair as that of Summer s now; 
 Age touches not his form within this clime; 
 He walketh like a young man in his prime; 
 Decay shrinks from him and his way is rife 
 With perfect beauty and unfailing life. 
 
 IV. (1903.) 
 
 This perfect day! I sit me down 
 
 And watch its light and watch the sky 
 The vast, blue, cloudless vault on high, 
 
 Without a scar, without a frown. 
 
 I see the glory of the trees 
 
 On which the golden sunlight rests; 
 I see the shining mountain crests 
 
 And catch the whisper of the breeze. 
 
 And lo! The little opening flower 
 Smiles upward into Winter s face, 
 Each blossom lending earth the grace 
 
 Of wond rous Beauty s dower. 
 
 The waters flash beneath the sky, 
 
 Enwrapped in smiling silver sheen, 
 A mirror the green slopes between, 
 
 And bright-winged birds above them fly. 
 
 The tropic palms wave green and fair, 
 Dropping their shadows at our feet, 
 Earth dreams of silence where they meet, 
 
 And finds a quiet place for prayer. 
 
 Our Winter, with bright Summer s soul, 
 Pours perfumed incense near and far, 
 It smiles like her at sun and star, 
 
 Filling with sweetness every bowl 
 
 Of opening lilies that we see, 
 
 Waking the happy birds to song 
 From every day s resplendent Dawn 
 
 To Evening s silent mystery. 
 
 O love! O love! We find it here, 
 
 God s love in every bush and tree 
 Which He has formed so perfectly 
 
 Within this sun-filled atmosphere. 
 
 Here all our days are warm as love, 
 
 And, color bright, they smile and bless 
 With all their fadeless loveliness. 
 
 How can we doubt it is God s love 
 
California. 
 
 That makes them fair, that makes them bright 
 As those first days when Earth was young, 
 And earthly Time had just begun, 
 
 When all was good in God s own sight? 
 
 Dear land of beauty, land so bright, 
 
 Wrong should not find a foothold here, 
 No sound of strife should smite the ear, 
 
 We should pave pathways for the Right. 
 
 OUT OF DOORS IN SUNLAND. (1902.) 
 
 I see the butterflies within the air, 
 
 And bees are buzzing in the sunlight, too, 
 
 And beauty lies about me everywhere, 
 
 From the bright earth unto the skies so blue. 
 
 There s music, too, amid the whisp ring leaves, 
 
 There s glory on the crests of flow r and tree, 
 
 And wond rous are the robes October weaves, 
 And light her steps and full of ecstacy. 
 
 Like a glad maiden, lo! she wraps her round 
 
 With countless blossoms bright with Color s sheen; 
 
 Th myriad grasses stir gives forth a sound 
 As the soft breezes lightly creep between 
 
 Their many blades; tis but a whisper low, 
 
 Yet Nature hears and smileth at the voice, 
 
 There s nothing still of all the things that grow, 
 And all things round me seem to cry, Rejoice! 
 
 How old, how old the little stone that lies, 
 
 So shapely round and smooth, beneath my feet; 
 
 Since first was spread above the bending skies 
 
 It has not failed the opening morn to greet. 
 
 The long, long years of Time the hills have known, 
 The water s voice the ages all has thrilled, 
 
 And the glad chorus of the blossoms, too, 
 
 Since Time began has never once been stilled 
 
 In this sweet Summer-World where we abide, 
 
 Where on the hills the Morning lifts her wings, 
 
 Golden with light throughout the passing year, 
 And where in every tree the glad bird sings. 
 
 A GOLDEN SUNSET. (1900.) 
 
 O ye grand mountains! pillars of the upper air, 
 
 Last eve I saw ye standing wondrously fair; 
 
 The glory of God s touch was on ye, and His light 
 
 Transformed your highest crests until they all grew bright 
 
 As angel pathway s, and I seemed to clearly see 
 
 The footprints they had left. Gold, and the witchery 
 
 Of Earth s regal glory upon your topmost height 
 
 That wrapped your royal shoulders. Gleaming amethyst 
 
 Was on your shining foreheads, and the sky leaned down 
 
 To look into your faces, and to lay the crown 
 
 Of Earth s regal glory upon your topmost height 
 
 Ere it should steal behind the curtain of the Night. 
 
 How glorious were ye when in the distant West 
 Night laid her first bright star upon the Evening s breast. 
 Your purple robes flowed round ye, full and warm, 
 And on your crest Light smiled as never cloud or storm 
 Could darken them or make the glory round them pale. 
 O mounts! ye are my teachers, and ye never fail 
 In your divinest lessons. Grandeur and power 
 Breathe in their fullness round ye as ye tower, 
 Fronting the stars, and littleness is crucified as ye 
 Voice ever the omnipotence of Deity. 
 
 A ROYAL SUNSET. (1900.) 
 
 The Sun kissed the Earth good-night as he stood 
 On the threshold of Eve afar in the West, 
 
 M hile his smile lit with glory the face of the sky 
 And one crimson cloud he wore as his vest. 
 
 The Earth gazing upward looked rosy and fair; 
 
 Her hoary old mounts uplift to the sky 
 Were transfigured with beauty and color and light, 
 
 As if, sandaled with brightness, th Lord had passed by ! 
 
 The light breeze fell asleep in the cradle of Day, 
 Not a leaf was astir; the Earth was as still 
 
 As the great soul of Silence; the spirit of Calm 
 Had enfolded the whole world at its will. 
 
 Then Evening stole into the deeps of the blue, 
 Sowing the star-worlds wherever she trod, 
 
 And Nature looked up, and in them she saw 
 Th footprints of Creation s omnipotent God. 
 
 II. (1895.) 
 
 The mighty hills are round us, mountains grand, 
 
 Mantled with glory. The soft air breathes on 
 
 Them, and opalescent lights cradle their craggy 
 
 Forms and clothe them tenderly with beauty. 
 
 The blue bursts into golden brightness, fair 
 
 As the Sun when he, enamored, breathes 
 
 His calm good-night, and round the old Earth weaves 
 
 The splendor of his beams, melting in glow 
 
 Of rosy colors, which, like a river s flow, 
 
 Sweep on and onward till we only see 
 
 A world transfigured in the mystery 
 
 Of lights that glow and pale, then sink away, 
 
 Cradled in darkness with the dying Day. 
 
 TRANSFIGURED. (1876.) 
 
 . . . O mountain heights ! but yesterday I saw you stand 
 Touched and transfigured by the setting Sun, 
 Reaching far up into the heavens, so grand 
 I deemed your crowned heads must wear 
 The glory ol the upper spheres. Your feet 
 Were cloud-wrapped, and the curtained mists, 
 Fold over fold, like saintly garments shone, 
 While through them, like the gleam of amethysts, 
 The molten tide of glory surged and rolled. 
 
California s Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. 
 
 CALIFORNIA S YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TO 
 MORROW. 
 
 Bright the sunshine shone, its splendor 
 
 Touched the Summer earth and skies; 
 
 All the mountains stood resplendent- 
 Altars lit for sacrifice. 
 
 Flamed the treetops in their brightness, 
 And the rocks were touched with fire, 
 
 As upward through heaven s cloudless pathway 
 Climbed the round Sun high and higher. 
 
 Like an ocean stretched the valleys, 
 
 Reaching to the horizon s rim, 
 Save where rose the grand Sierras, 
 
 Walling all their vastness in. 
 
 Here and there were ranch and cottage, 
 Bleating flocks and lowing herds, 
 
 Lonely shepherds in the silence, 
 Only cheered by song of birds. 
 
 And the Indian stood and worshiped 
 
 Where his altar fires did glow, 
 Saw his God within the sunrise, 
 
 Felt His breath in breezes flow. 
 
 Here he reared the Missions olden, 
 
 Planted olive tree and vine. 
 And his new-learned aves chanted 
 
 At the Mission s sacred shrine. 
 
 Yet undreamed of was the glory 
 
 Of the gracious years to be, 
 All unborn the mighty Empire 
 
 That should stretch from mounts to sea. 
 
 Not till o er this Land of Sunshine 
 
 Were the Stars and Stripes flung free, 
 
 Did our germ of Empire brighten 
 With the flower of Liberty. 
 
 Now the glory of the ages, 
 
 Fairest gem in Freedom s crown, 
 
 Is this mighty State now smiling 
 
 Where Sierra s heights look down. 
 
 On the wide and gracious vallevs, 
 
 Where our emerald orchards grow, 
 
 And the fruit-crowned vineyards glisten 
 In the golden sunlight s glow. 
 
 Here forever in the future 
 
 Shall the sons of Freedom turn, 
 
 Nursed by Nature s grandeur, shall they 
 All the tyrant s shackles spurn. 
 
 Here shall Freedom s grandest triumphs 
 
 In the coming years be won, 
 Growing Empire s steps shall hasten 
 
 Hither toward the westward sun. 
 
 MY LADY OF THE ANGELS. 
 
 The days dawn beauteously and the sky 
 
 Bends cloudless above the fields of green; 
 The sun his golden lances flings between 
 
 The radiant blossoms, as passing by 
 
 The winds toy with them, lifting up their leaves. 
 And kissing their sweet faces; Nature grieves 
 
 For no rich benison that is not poured, 
 
 And all the mighty mountains, skyward leaning, 
 
 Thrust their long, peak-like fingers mid the stars, 
 And liftfjfceir heads above Earth s cloudy Itars; 
 
 The eagle to their utmost height "has soared, 
 
 And turns his face where the full sunlight streaming 
 Bathes him in Light s unhindered atmosphere, 
 And there, in the far ether, cool and clear, 
 
 He beats his wings against the silent blue, 
 
 Or dreams alono upon some craggy height 
 
 What fruits are there that do not glad our sight, 
 
 O land! sun-loved, thou lookest to the skies 
 
 With eyes as clear as in the planet s glow, 
 
 With breath as fragrant as the lily s own, 
 With voice as sweet as is the robin s tone. 
 
 What beauty is there that ye do not know? 
 
 What blossoms are there that the sun hath kissed 
 
 In any land, however fair and bright, 
 
 That ye amid your wealth of bloom hath missed? 
 
 What fruits are there that do not glad our sight, 
 
 That tropic lands have nursed to ripeness rare, 
 But we may pluck from out our gardens fair? 
 
 O land! fair land! My Lady 
 
 Comes down your hills of green, 
 And weareth on her shoulders 
 
 The sunlight s golden sheen; 
 And on her warm, sweet forehead 
 
 She wears a shining wreath 
 Of woven buds and blossoms, 
 
 But, O her face beneath 
 Is fairer than the lily, 
 
 Is rosier than the rose, 
 No tinted daffodilly 
 
 Such beauty can disclose! 
 
 My Lady wears a sunny smile, 
 
 So sweet it is, I ween, 
 June never showed a fairer face 
 
 In eastern lands of green. 
 And when December cometh 
 
 She trips as gaily down 
 As in the bright May mornings, 
 
 And wears as dainty gown, 
 All sprinkled o er with blossoms, 
 
 And still her shining hair 
 Is golden as the sunbeams, 
 
 And still her cheeks are fair. 
 
 O Lady! Lady royal! 
 
 The Sun himself doth woo 
 You with his lavish kisses, 
 
 Beneath his tent of blue. 
 And dainty are your garments 
 
California. 
 
 Of orange petals white, 
 And daintily your slippered feet 
 
 Peep outward to the light; 
 My Lady wears a lovely veil 
 
 About her shoulders fair, 
 And golden sunbeams pale beside 
 
 The splendor of her hair, 
 And never any earthly bride 
 
 Was ever half so fair. 
 
 IL ^ 
 
 Mantled with gold and robed in light, 
 
 Serene and calm, behold she stands, 
 The glory of these southern lands, 
 
 With eyes of blue and forehead white 
 
 With the sweet snows of orange bloom; 
 Twisted within her sunny hair 
 Are thousand buds and roses rare, 
 
 And round her brightness and perfume. 
 
 Her mountains lift their crests of snow 
 Above her Summer vales that lie 
 In tranquil dream beneath the sky, 
 
 And perfume-laden winds do blow, 
 
 Soft-footed creep they mid the flowers, 
 And drink December s golden wine 
 Of blessed warmth and pure sunshine, 
 
 And croon unto his cradled hours. 
 
 The Sun her lover, and he folds 
 
 His mantle round her when the year 
 Is elsewhere chilling, bleak and drear, 
 
 And then with tender clasp he holds 
 
 Her jeweled hand, whose fingers gleam 
 With diamonds of dewy light, 
 And on her breast, clear, sparkling, bright, 
 
 Her Kohinoor of lakes is seen. 
 
 When Winter takes his icy throne 
 Upon her lofty mountain crests, 
 Still Summer in her valleys rests; 
 
 Gay bees among her blossoms drone, 
 
 And silver-footed raindrops fall, 
 And set their busy looms astir, 
 And splendid garments weave for her 
 
 Of rose and emerald, and all 
 
 The blossoms do like jewels lie 
 
 Amid her robes of green, and burn 
 The poppies splendor as we turn 
 
 Our eyes hillward; beneath the sky 
 
 Those "blossom-beacons" we may see, 
 
 As if the rains had spilled the gold 
 Which the long, shining year doth hold, 
 
 Flooding with glory hill and lea. 
 
 Her city^lies beneath the face 
 
 Of the grand mountains. Here we see 
 Strong, great-browed Progress, ceaselessly 
 
 Work for the future, and in place 
 
 Of that dead Past that lay asleep, 
 
 And, dreaming, never seemed to thrill 
 With high endeavors, but lay still 
 
 In the old ruts where centuries keep 
 
 Their stagnant years, we see uprise 
 A city fair as any one 
 That lies beneath the gracious Sun; 
 
 And here, crowned by her cloudless skies, 
 
 Neath her warm Ocean s flowing tides, 
 
 Whose soft waves fringe her garment s hem, 
 While mountains weave her diadem, 
 
 In growing beauty she abides. 
 
 III. (1886.) 
 
 I see a city smiling in the Sun, 
 
 Tis one of valleys and of emerald hills, 
 And rolling river that its green banks fills, 
 
 And mountain peaks that pierce the upper air. 
 
 T see a city smiling in the Sun, 
 
 Where tropic palms lift up their emerald crests, 
 And orange orchards on the glad plains rest, 
 
 Where rarely shadows of the storm-clouds come. 
 
 Afar the Sea its sapphire length uncurls, 
 
 And island mountains watch above its blue, 
 
 And songful birds the clear air winging through, 
 
 Till Night drops down with all its starry worlds. 
 
 1 smell the fragrance of the orange flowers, 
 The odor of ten thousand budding sweets, 
 And, lo! my listening ears the bee s hum greets 
 
 No less in Winter than in Summer hours. 
 
 1 throw my windows wide to catch the Sun, 
 
 Whose soft, warm kisses press December s lips; 
 While crowding lilies through his finger tips, 
 
 He wakes the blooming roses one by one. 
 
 The nestling pinks and pansies ope their eyes, 
 And yellow-belled arbutelons swing wide 
 In airy dances, as if they were beside 
 
 Themselves with gladness under such fair skies. 
 
 The highest tree-tops are alive with song, 
 The mocking-bird has every note attune, 
 He scarcely for the robin leaveth room 
 
 While telling all his gladness to the Morn. 
 
 And soft airs lull me in the lap of Night, 
 
 And gentle breezes bring me balm and sleep- 
 In restful slumber all my senses steep, 
 
 Till on the hill-tops wakes the morning light. 
 
 IV. (1887.) 
 
 Her smiling face she turns toward the sea 
 
 That gleams across the broad, sweet land bordering 
 
 Her garment s hem, vine-clad and orchard-crowned, 
 
 Upon whose breast the grasses stir when 
 
 Kissed to billowy waves of verdure; 
 
 And butterflies, poised on light wings, seek the 
 
 Wild-flower s heart, and sip the honeyed sweets 
 
 From cups of blossoms with satin-tissued 
 
 .Leaves, and colors more than rainbow. 
 
 The land 
 
 Huns down to meet the sea, as if to say, 
 " 1 love thee, let me rest beside thce, pillowed 
 
 10 
 
The Home of the Fiesta. 
 
 On sunshine and kissed by soft, white lips of 
 Laughing waves that cling with shining ripples 
 To my shores." 
 
 Behind her purple-shouldered 
 
 Mountains rise with snow-crowned foreheads, fronting 
 Her smiling vales like monarch Titans; their 
 Eyelids fringe the lofty pines; their throbbing 
 Pulse, the cartoned streams outflowing from their 
 Mighty heart of rock; their frown, the awful 
 Precipice; their garments, the sun-lit ha/e 
 Transfiguring them in beauty; their smile, 
 The sunrise and the sunset glory which 
 Warms the valley with reflected glow, 
 Upon whose breast eternal Summer sleeps, 
 Kich in her tropical charms. 
 
 The winds touch her 
 
 But lightly, breathing in perfumed whispers, 
 And scarce a day but she is sun-kissed and 
 Flower-crowned. For jewels wears she daintily, 
 The lily white and creamy roses and 
 Royal fuchsias. Flames the poinsettia 
 Mid her tropic tresses. Geraniums 
 Climb like vines and wrap her in their beauty. 
 And countless orange groves breathe fragrance, their 
 
 bloom hanging like 
 
 Perfumed clouds between her and the sky. Her 
 Red wines run like the warm blood of youth through 
 Her veined vineyards, and her oranges, like 
 Golden apples of Hesperides, swing 
 On her emerald toughs. Like the far isles 
 Of spice that smile upon the tropic seas, 
 Or emeralds bright in glowing sunshine set, 
 Mid tropic green smiles fair Ix>s Angeles. 
 And bright-winged birds love all her sunny air. 
 Afar the story of her sunshine s wealth 
 Is told, and the sweet calm that fills her 
 Summer s noon, and her Winter s balmy breath 
 Is sought for healing. 
 
 The world turns to her, 
 Jewel of the West, and diademed queen 
 Of sunset. We hear the rustle of her 
 Garments folds, and the light stir of her flower- 
 Sandaled feet, as turns she with her voice of 
 Welcome. Her touch is soft as velvet, and 
 Her hand is warm and tender as a 
 Mother s hand, and like a lover woos she 
 All who come to sun them in her brightness. 
 
 THE HOME OF THE FIESTA. (1896.) 
 
 Upon these sunset shores shall Freedom place 
 Her crown of Empire; here shall arise the 
 Cities of the future, resplendent with 
 The liberty which maketh great. The love 
 Of Freedom shall be strong as the ramparts 
 Of these eternal hills, whose heads, pillowed 
 Upon the world-old firmament, for aye 
 Defy the earthquake and the thunderbolt, 
 And tell the patient stars the story of 
 Their centuries of life. Passed hence the 
 
 Sun-browned children of the soil whom Nature 
 Had so fondly nursed and fed, that here beneath 
 These skies the later offspring of progressive 
 Time should build his fairest citadels, and 
 Science light his torch, and poets sing, and 
 Modern Raphaels find divinest power. 
 And statesmen shape the laws for human good. 
 And here we resurrect those golden days 
 That pleasure loved and noble manhood sought, 
 And our Fiestas crown with glory like 
 The Olympiads of old, and men shall come 
 From the fair sunrise to our sunset shores 
 To share the Carnival s gladness and delight, 
 The marvels of our clime, our bright golden 
 April days, upon whose breast Summer lies 
 Sleeping, crowned with fruits and flowers, 
 And golden suns shine fair in cloudless skies, 
 And birds sing in the golden dawns and eves, 
 And all that s grand and beautiful in life 
 Beckons to us and bids us be both glad 
 And great, greater than old Hellas, and 
 More wise and perfect in all things that pertain 
 To Manhood and Beauty s grace. 
 O glorious Empire of the Golden 
 West ! Time itself shall slumber in decay, 
 And the wide and billowy ocean cease 
 To surge, and the transcendent mountains fall 
 Prone pn the sunlit valley s breast before 
 Shall perish here the love of all that tells 
 For Freedom, for beauty and perfection. 
 
 ANGELENA. (1896.) 
 
 She sitteth at her mountain s feet 
 
 Her mounts with crests amid the stars, 
 Uplift atove Earth s misty bars, 
 
 Yet anchored in her valleys sweet. 
 
 And lo! she lifteth up her eyes 
 
 Large-lidded, gracious eyes are they 
 And looketh toward her ocean way, 
 
 Her ocean vast as are her skies. 
 
 And through the future s open gate 
 She looks afar and tiptoe stands, 
 Her flowing skirts clasped by her hands, 
 
 And sees approaching Empire wait. 
 
 And then she moves across her plains; 
 Her trailing robes are very fair, 
 Broidered with blossoms everywhere, 
 
 By fingers of her winter rains. 
 
 And sweet the rose-hue of her mouth, 
 And bright the splendor of her hair, 
 As suns were in its meshes fair 
 
 The bright suns of her golden south 
 
 The suns she loves, for nestle warm 
 
 Their golden beams within her breast, 
 And peace and calm find there full rest, 
 
 Nor broodeth fear of cloud or storm. 
 
 11 
 
California. 
 
 And as she walks men follow near, 
 
 And follow her with loving gaze, 
 
 And ever still about her ways 
 Do fair and happy homes appear. 
 
 A girdle of such homes she wears; 
 
 The morning weaves them robes of light, 
 Weaves them in red and gold and white, 
 
 And all the colors Nature dares. 
 
 From mounts to sea they stretch adown, 
 
 In every one home-voices swell, 
 
 And little children come to dwell, 
 And farther onward grows the town. 
 
 And then her gracious hands she spreads 
 Her loving hands, so warm and white, 
 Jeweled with days of golden light 
 
 Above her many children s heads. 
 
 And one hand s rosy finger tips 
 
 She lays upon her Mountain s side, 
 
 And one on Ocean s silver tide, 
 And then the whisper from her lips: 
 
 "O waiting Empire! fair with hope, 
 
 Let here thy halting footsteps stay 
 
 In my wide valleys which do lay 
 Between my sea and mountains slope. 
 
 "You cannot dream how fair these vales, 
 How rich with harvests manifold, 
 Where never doth the year grow old, 
 
 And where its beauty never pales. 
 
 "Through all the year my birds do sing-, 
 
 Through all the year my suns do shine, 
 Ripen my fruits and flows my wine, 
 
 And Summer never taketh wing. 
 
 "And Freedom s soul is on my heights, 
 And in my aisles of pine and palm, 
 Where broodeth ever Nature s calm, 
 
 And gleaming world-cathedral lights." 
 
 Then Empire smiled and stepped within 
 Her bloom-lined valleys; seas of gold 
 And seas of harvest round her rolled; 
 
 It seemed an Eden without sin. 
 
 And there beside her templed shrines, 
 
 Star-lighted and star-crowned she stood, 
 In perfectness of womanhood, 
 
 And Empire halted on her lines. 
 
 And here beneath her orange trees, 
 
 Beneath her lightly-swaying palms, 
 
 Within her noon of golden calms, 
 Between her mountains and her seas, 
 
 Shall Empire stay, and she shall see 
 
 Glad Freedom ply her loom anew, 
 
 And golden threads draw through and through 
 The warp of human destiny. 
 
 ON A HOLLYWOOD HILLTOP. (1904-) 
 
 The far horizon s glowing line I see, 
 
 Shining above the placid ocean s deep, 
 
 Where the light waves come creeping, half asleep; 
 
 The winds are hushed, scarce stirs the leaf-clad tree. 
 
 The great wide plains, outstretched before mine eyes, 
 Tree-dotted, fair, with sleeping hills around, 
 With the bright glory of the sunlight crowned; 
 Above, the cloudless glory of the skies. 
 
 The slumb ring grasses in their dark earth-bed 
 Are dreaming softly; soon will they awake, 
 And with their emerald glory they will make 
 A magic carpet for our feet to tread. 
 
 The rain and sunlight! Cunning fairies they, 
 And busy weavers of the beautiful; 
 We only wait the rains to give us full 
 Rich patterns, growing day by day 
 
 To perfect loveliness; the hills will breathe 
 Of freshness when the glorious raindrops fall, 
 The lovely flowers will answer to their call, 
 And in the loom of Silence they will weave 
 
 Such glory round us when the shining sun 
 Follows the rain and wakes the sleeping earth, 
 And million grassy blades are given birth, 
 Making Earth fair as when Time first begun. 
 
 We wait the rains that bring earth growth and life, 
 Then come with me and look from this far height. 
 When comes the rain the poppies will unfold 
 And scatter round us all their wealth of gold, 
 The bannered trees will wave before our sight, 
 
 Rain-washed and fair, their many shining leaves 
 Clapping their hands in gladness when the breeze 
 Comes hand in hand with sunshine to the trees, 
 While Growth sits by, and silently she weaves 
 
 Grass, bud and blossom into perfect form. 
 No sound, no noise, yet still forever spring 
 The grass and vine and every growing thing, 
 Up, up, still up, the offspring of the Storm. 
 
 This land we love, with mountain heights and vales 
 That lie outstretched as if God had unrolled 
 The mighty distances, smoothed fold on fold, 
 And left the mountain heights to guard the dales, 
 
 Is fair indeed beneath the shining skies; 
 But when the rains do harvest-laden come, 
 And Growth her tireless labor has begun, 
 It wears the beauty of a paradise. 
 
 We love it then, we love it even now, 
 
 With its soft airs, its calm, its golden days, 
 
 Its fragrant nights, silvered with bright moon-rays, 
 
 As if God s hand rested upon their brow. 
 
 12 
 
Los Angeles to Chicago. 
 
 The clouds are hanging dark within the sky. 
 
 The winds are cradled in their silent sleep; 
 
 from out these clouds will not the Storm-God creep 
 
 And ope their fountains as he passes by? 
 
 Our Father, send us rain and make the earth 
 Glad with Thy bounteous blessing in its fall. 
 And full Te Deums shall rise from all 
 As we behold fresh Growth s rejoicing birth. 
 
 Sound the loud paeans of praise, thanksgiving and joy, 
 The morning has come and the rain pours down from the 
 sky 
 
 In plenteous fullness; the clouds, like God s mantle, do 
 
 over us lie, 
 
 And each leaf-tongued thing upon hillside and plain 
 Shall join with our hearts in a thankful refrain 
 For God s blessing, bestowed in the bouunteous rain. 
 
 LOS ANGELES TO CHICAGO. (1886.) 
 We stretch our hands across the seas 
 
 Of waving grass and springing flowers, 
 O city grand beside the lake, 
 
 And greeting send from sunny bowers. 
 
 We waft you breath of orange bloom, 
 
 We send you fruits of ruddy gold, 
 And wines that sparkle in the light 
 
 Of the warm sunshine that they hold. 
 
 Here, where the trellised roses climb, 
 
 And press their lips on Winter s cheek, 
 And days pass like a dream away, 
 
 In fragrant morns and evenings sweet, 
 We turn to greet you, and we send, 
 
 In orange bloom and orange gold, 
 Such story of our sunny clime 
 
 As any words could not have told. 
 
 In them our golden sunshine caged 
 
 Gleams through the yellow of their cheeks; 
 Of tender warmth and breezes mild 
 
 The fair, white, fragrant blossom speaks. 
 Our tempting wines their story tell 
 
 Of lands as fair as those of France 
 Or cloudless Italy, in whose fields 
 
 The gay and merry peasants dance. 
 
 The land is fair, its gates are wide, 
 
 And California beckoning stands 
 To those of winter-frozen climes, 
 
 With Summer s warmth in both her hands. 
 
 CALIFORNIA AT ST. LOUIS. (1887.) 
 [The following impromptu lines, road by Mrs. Otis at the 
 press banquet given in Armory Hall, St. Louis, on the even 
 ing- of Sept. 28, 18S7, during the National Encampment of the 
 Grand Army of the Republic in that city, were written by hc-r 
 after arriving at the hall and before the banquet began:] 
 
 Our California, azure-eyed and fair, 
 
 With golden sunbeams for her crown of hair; 
 
 Her blood the rich, warm wines that crimson all her 
 
 breast, 
 Her breath the orange perfumes neath her hillsides 
 
 pres t; 
 Land of the Sun, by western gates ajar, 
 
 Set with the jewel of the evening star; 
 With broad, fair acres, whose great harvests stand 
 \\ aiting each month the busy reaper s hand ; 
 Land of broad valleys, on whose shores shall stay 
 The march of Empire on its westward way: 
 From her great heart, sun-warmed unto its core, 
 She sends you greeting, and her bounteous store 
 Holds she in keeping for the Nation s sons; 
 tor those storm-weary, and for him who comes 
 Searching for health, her hand, outstretched and free, 
 Holds every good; and all her pulses be 
 Loyal and true. 
 
 O great Grand Army ! who 
 
 Saved for her sons and for the whole land, too, 
 The Flag of Freedom, all its stars still there, 
 Within the azure of its fields so fair: 
 She sends you greeting, every pulse astir 
 With feeling while clasping hands with her 
 Who gave us Blair and Lyon, whose great soul 
 Passed on for Freedom. One of that great whole 
 The matchless Uxiox she her greeting sends; 
 Proud of your deeds, rejoicing in the might 
 Of the Grand Army, greeteth she tonight 
 You one and all, a bannered host of braves, 
 Loyal to right, who saved for Freedom s own 
 The Flag we love. Mightier than king or throne 
 Ye who brought peace and freed the land from slaves. 
 
 FAIR WESTLAKE. (1898.) 
 
 I look from out my window and I see 
 
 The dimpled lake reflecting sky and tree; 
 
 A world of beauty lying in the sun, 
 
 And all the brightness that the day hath won. 
 
 How cool the shadows that about it teem. 
 Its placid waters lying in a dream 
 Of happy stillness, while th encircling steeps 
 Are mirrored brightly in its azure deeps. 
 
 This placid lake, it lieth still and fair, 
 A dimple on- the face of Nature, where 
 She sleeps serenely, or gleaming like a gem 
 Set there within th glorious diadem 
 
 She wears so proudly, with such wondrous grace, 
 Above the splendor of her smiling face. 
 The lovely park is garmented and green 
 With robes of tender grasses, while between 
 
 Their emerald folds the odorous blossoms peep, 
 Smiling in color from each lovely steep, 
 Guarded by bended trees with leaf-clad arms 
 That fold the Summer in such windless calms. 
 
 She never wakes to turbulence and storm, 
 But breathes serene and smiling with her warm 
 And tender hand like a soft rose-leaf to her face 
 Lifted, as if to keep within their place 
 
 13 
 
California. 
 
 Her golden locks of sunbeams which do fall 
 In warm and shining fullness over all, 
 Her mountain shoulders and her far, wide sea, 
 And the broad beauty of each smiling lea. 
 
 I love to sit within the park and look 
 
 At Nature s face, as twere some open book 
 
 That God had writ, such wonders I do find 
 
 Of charm and beauty where the broad paths wind. 
 
 Dropping sometimes unto the water s brink, 
 Where skies lie mirrored, as if there the link 
 Twixt heaven and earth were hidden, and the door 
 Were just ajar through which we reach the floor 
 
 Where angels tread, and then they onward go 
 Where palms and flowers and emerald grasses grow, 
 And hills slope downward, rioting in bloom, 
 And all the air is drowned in rich perfume. 
 
 O life is sweet, while musing here we sit 
 And winged with light the passing hours do flit, 
 And lovely blossoms smile into our eyes, 
 And overhead are bending cloudless skies. 
 
 The leaves, breeze-touched, do clap their many hands, 
 The crystal streamlets shine like silver wands 
 As they flow lakeward, rushing, leaping down, 
 Sparkling and bright and wearing ne er a frown. 
 
 Lilies are moored upon each shadowed pool, 
 And there dim lights are falling, sweet and cool, 
 Upon the waters, which do seem to lie 
 Hushed and a-dream beneath the cloudless sky. 
 
 Great beds of flowers, like happy souls at rest, 
 Lie charmed and still upon the green slope s breast, 
 And palms wave brightly in the shining air, 
 And peppers rise like grand domes green and fair. 
 
 The eucalypti thrust into the blue 
 
 Their tall, straight shafts, pierced by the sunshine 
 
 through ; 
 
 Bananas wave their fronded plumes in air, 
 And like winged jewels floating everywhere 
 
 The many butterflies, with noiseless flight, 
 
 Sweep through the air, while song-birds meet our sight, 
 
 And all the year seems like a day in June, 
 
 Earth, sky and water in unbroken tune. 
 
 IN WESTLAKE PARK. (1901.) 
 
 O days of joy! I sit and view 
 
 The sunlight fall like rain 
 From the deep heavens above so blue 
 So old and yfi forever new 
 
 Upon the fair green plain. 
 
 The lake before me lies outspread, 
 
 All dimpled o er with light, 
 The leaf-clad trees above my head, 
 As to the living sunshine wed, 
 
 Turn golden to my sight. 
 
 And happy song-birds fill the air, 
 
 Or twitter mid the trees, 
 And blossoms open everywhere, 
 And fragrance steals around them there, 
 
 Soft-footed as the breeze. 
 
 Within the sky one faint white cloud 
 
 Like angel s wings I see; 
 About it teeming fancies crowd, 
 While winds are hushed nor breathe aloud 
 
 Their message unto me. 
 
 Before me lovely palm-trees rise, 
 
 And eucalypti tall, 
 As beck ning to the bending skies, 
 Like silent high priests in disguise, 
 
 They tower high o er all. 
 
 Beside the tropic palm the pine 
 
 Stands dreaming in the sun, 
 And sombre cedars fall in line, 
 And cacti girdled with sunshine 
 
 Stand motionless and dumb. 
 
 The tender grasses never die, 
 
 The roses ever bloom, 
 The spotless lily s golden eye 
 Turns upward to the smiling sky, 
 
 While all the earth makes room 
 
 For countless blossoms to unfold, 
 
 And on the park s wide breast, 
 Bathed in the nursing sunlight s gold, 
 Our world of Nature, never old, 
 
 In fadeless youth does rest. 
 
 The soul of song is hidden here, 
 
 I feel it in the streams 
 That pour their shining waters clear 
 Into the lake, and fill my ear 
 
 Like lullaby of dreams. 
 
 I hear it in the sighing trees, 
 
 As million-leaved they stir 
 At the soft whispers of the breeze, 
 Which finds a voice in all of these 
 
 Each leaf-tongued worshiper. 
 
 And Care slips by as here I dream, 
 
 And Joy s own face I see, 
 Visions of Hope steal in between 
 Each shadow like a glad sunbeam, 
 
 And weary doubts do flee. 
 
 II. (1902.) 
 
 The trees, the great high priests of Nature, stand 
 
 About me here on every hand, 
 
 Their swaying leaves drop rain of shadows down, 
 
 While on their crests the sunshine as a crown 
 
 Rests gloriously; the flowers look up 
 
 Like angel faces, while the lake s full cup 
 
Elysian Park. 
 
 Of crystal waters, like another sky, 
 
 Holds floods of sunshine; the light waves drift by, 
 
 Kissed by the breeze and moving silently, 
 
 Like things of life, as if sweet Joy a-dream 
 
 Lay floating drowsily upon the stream. 
 
 The hills rise round us here, home-crowned and fair. 
 
 And mountains are behind them everywhere, 
 
 Seeking the skies; how far they upward lift 
 
 Their sunlit crests! the clouds below them drift 
 
 When storms arise, as if the Storm-King there 
 
 Unfurled his banners. But sometimes the air 
 
 Burns in the golden sunset; then we see 
 
 Transfigured mountains, all gloriously 
 
 Aflame with light, like piles of amethyst, 
 
 All sun-encircled and by Color kissed 
 
 Into new glory; then they upward rise 
 
 Like flaming altars to the bending skies, 
 
 And this fair park lies like a threshold grand 
 
 Ot some wide-open door to Fairyland. 
 
 y/ ELYSIAN PARK. (1901.) 
 
 Fair lies thy lovely face beneath the sky, 
 Kissed by the golden sunbeams and by dew, 
 
 And by the breezes as they wander by, 
 Light-footed, all thy winding pathways through. 
 
 Thy hills rise upward, emerald-clad and fair, 
 Green forests drop cool shadows on their sides, 
 
 Bright blossoms, toss their fragrance everywhere, 
 And rippling bird-song on each zephyr glides. 
 
 The gracious Day looks smiling from thy heights, 
 Noon decks herself with brightness on thy breast, 
 
 And Eve comes softly with the starry nights, 
 As in thy tree-girt chambers to find rest. 
 
 CATALINA. (1895.) 
 
 O Summer Isle! asleep upon the blue 
 Of Ocean s breast, the clear and dimpled seas 
 Creep softly to thy silver sands, pressing 
 Them as lightly as a young babe s lips its 
 Mother s cheek. Thy rounded hills, grass-clad and 
 Color-flecked, are eloquent of beauty; 
 Veined with fair valleys and many canons, 
 Emerald-lipped, where tiny rills sing 
 Ceaselessly, and glad birds carol to the 
 Morn, and ever the gay butterfly does 
 Traverse, winged with beauty, paths of shining 
 Sunbeams. Summer fills all thy full year of 
 Golden dawns and dewy eves, and twinkling 
 Stars lean, tender-eyed, above thee from thy 
 Clear deeps of skies. The oak and sombre 
 Pine clasp hand with tropic palm; 
 The banyan tree thrusts out its thousand arms, 
 Catches the nursing sunlight for its million 
 Leaves, and with its many limbs makes its own 
 Forest a dense, wooded deep, which shadows 
 Haunt forever. The oak, child of the gray 
 Old centuries, spreads its cool emerald 
 
 On all thy hills. Thy gray sea-walls, rock-ribbed, 
 
 Front the eternal seas, with here and there 
 
 Bright wild-flowers, like a smile upon their 
 
 Stony lips. Facing the harbor s blue sits 
 
 Avalon, rose-lipped and lily-crowned, and 
 
 Full-breath d with fragrance. The winds lie hushed and 
 
 Sleeping in the sheltering arms of her 
 
 Fair hills, dreaming of summer calm and rest. 
 
 Like things of life, the light skiffs sail thy seas, 
 
 Companioned by the sunbeams, swiftly gliding, 
 
 As o er smooth, liquid sapphire floors, 
 
 The dimpling waters laughing at their sides, 
 
 And murmurous music breathing in our ears. 
 
 O Summer Isle! bride of the Sun art thou, 
 
 And jewel of the seas. We love thee well, 
 
 For thou art Beauty s soul and Summer s heart. 
 
 UNDER THE OAKS. 
 
 (Berkeley, 1894.) 
 
 The oaks are here above me, century 
 Old, yet not hoary, but, gnarled and strong, their 
 Giant arms knotted and vigorous, stout 
 To do battle with the tempest, and to 
 Beat the winds like playthings, catching them mid 
 Their boughs, which leap with them into mid-air, 
 Then, as the winds pass on, send with them a 
 Swirling host of leaves, flying like mad furies 
 Where the tempest leads. But today the winds 
 Breathe softly, scarce stirring the drowsy foliage; 
 The sky is one vast, shining sapphire, with 
 The Sun set in its heart. The Earth is like 
 A tesselated floor, flecked with sunshine 
 And thick with shadows. The brook flows silver-tongued, 
 Low-voiced and musical beside me, 
 Gurgling like happy infancy. And here 
 The gay dandelion curtsies to me, 
 Bright as of old, when I, a little child, 
 Dreamed it a golden star dropped amid 
 The meadow grasses. The daisies nod their 
 Heads as if in playfulness. The tall and 
 Sombre pines stand like cathedral spires, or 
 Titan fingers pointing to the blue, the 
 Sun touching their tops with glory. The 
 Butterflies wing swiftly by me in their 
 Soundless flight, a bit of color gladdening 
 The air. The happy flies flit in and out 
 From shadow into sunshine. The 
 Striped caterpillar crawls lazy in the sun; 
 Birds make gayest twittering, and Nature 
 Smiles while all things voice her gladness. A blush 
 Is on her cheek, and she is donning now 
 Her robes of emerald. The hills are drawing 
 Mantles of bright green about their shoulders, 
 Pinning them with gay blossoms such as the 
 Bee loves; and the merry sunbeams dance about, 
 And kiss in very wantonness, and the 
 Coy breezes whisper soft words like lovers. 
 I wonder if all this stirs the old oaks 
 Hearts, and sets them to throbbing while dreaming 
 Of their youth, so long vanished. Do they 
 
 V 
 
California. 
 
 \Vitli undiscovered lips pour out their hearts 
 
 Into the ready ears of brook and leaf, 
 
 Of blossom, sky and star? O giant Sphinxes 
 
 Of the Forest ! ye are eloquent in 
 
 Silence, dumb but to human ears, ye grand 
 
 And ever-voiceful orators of Time ! 
 
 SANTA BARBARA AT SUNSET. (1876.) 
 
 On rocky hillside, resting in the sun 
 
 We sat and gazed. 
 Blue skies were bending overhead, 
 And such a picture at our feet was spread; 
 The valley lying like a sunbeam s smile, 
 Afar, like bulwarks of a world, a pile 
 Of ragged mountains. Sunbeams darted down 
 And kissed them, and though old as Time, and brown, 
 They blushed a rosy red from foot to crown, 
 Then stole in lovely hues of violet 
 And amber shades, and purple shadows wet 
 With the kisses of white mists creeping 
 Across the channel in a veil of mist, 
 Changing now to opal, now to amethyst, 
 Rose the far heights of Anacapa s isle, 
 And Santa Cruz, where Mount Diablo s crest 
 Scorns Nature s smiles and Nature s wild unrest. 
 
 II. (1886.) 
 
 Beside the sea she sits with calm, fair skies, 
 
 With emerald robes, flower- j eweled in their folds 
 Of dewy grasses, with her radiant eyes 
 
 Turned to the South, where shining seas expand 
 And island mountains front the shoreward land. 
 Rising like mighty Titans from the deep, 
 
 Their garments hem the lightly curling crests 
 Of laughing billows, which in murmurs creep 
 
 And lie in ripples where in beauty rests 
 The tinted seashell, in which the murmur low 
 As twere some wordless story of the great Sea s heart- 
 Sounds on in pauseless, unremittent flow. 
 The breath of orange floats adown her vales, 
 And roses pour their incense to her air, 
 And flowery perfume fills her lightest breeze, 
 And bee and bird are singing everywhere 
 Through all the year beside her Summer seas. 
 
 SANTA BARBARA THEN AND NOW. (1887.) 
 
 Long years ago, warm nestled in the arms 
 Of hills encircling, and lying calm 
 And still within the lap of sunshine, 
 Wearing jewels fair of wild sweet blossoms, 
 And the dewdrops hid in lilting grasses, 
 With fragrant bj-eath of lily and of rose 
 Filling the air with perfume, and the voice 
 Of birds pouring melodious song o er 
 The bright length of valleys and in the tree- 
 Tipped canons, where leaping waterfalls joined 
 In harmonious symphony with blue 
 Bright skies above her like a sapphire dome, 
 Lay dreaming Santa Barbara. Beneath 
 
 Her red-tiled roof dwelt the senora and 
 Dark-browed Spanish don, and senoritas 
 With their midnight eyes shining like starry 
 Dusk. The fiery bronco sped across the 
 Plain, bearing his rider with sombrero 
 Crowned, with the heavy spur upon his booted 
 Heel, with which he woke the untamed fury 
 Of his steed, until he flashed like lightning 
 Down his way, yet answered ever the steady 
 Hand upon his bridle-rein. 
 
 The great world 
 
 Then was far away. Its noisy traffic, 
 Its tumultuous life, its giddy whirl 
 Of pleasure, and its cruel avarice 
 Stirred not this quiet land. Here, neath these oaks 
 That for long centuries the Sun had nursed 
 And the light breezes kissed, might Rip Van 
 Winkle in his dreamless slumber slept, and 
 Waked and found no change. Above him, white and 
 Still, might have watched the Mission walls, and their 
 Evening chimes have been his soothing lullaby. 
 The growing vines mayhap their interlacing 
 Tendrils would have woven into a roof 
 Above him, and the squirrel reared his 
 Little mound, a soft, fresh earth-pillow for 
 His head. But noise of builder s hammer would 
 Have disturbed him not, nor any human 
 Hand of Change. The skies would shine above him 
 Sunlighted through the day, starlit by night, 
 While still he breathed unconscious perfume. 
 The walled adobes, gray and old, were built 
 For the centuries, and the glad Children 
 Of the Sun who dwelt within them were full 
 Of sweet content. The noisy wheel of 
 Progress rumbled not for them. To sit 
 Within the sunshine s golden flood, and bathe 
 Themselves in its warm splendor; to watch the 
 Hills with changing glory crowned, and see afar 
 Their grazing herds, or in the warm-browed noon 
 To steal in wide veranda s shade the cool 
 Siesta, or watch at times the cock-fight 
 in the plaza s space, or fling the sure 
 Riata when manly sports were rife, and 
 Then to worship at some holy shrine 
 Within the Mission s walls, and traffic once 
 A year or so with the merchant ships touching 
 These shores this was enough for them. This wealth 
 Of sunshine and this fragrant air, these lordly 
 Acres, all impressed by foot of alien 
 Interloper, was all they cared for, while 
 Marching Empire halted at their gates, nor 
 Sought for entrance. 
 
 But the years since then have 
 Brought swift changes, and Santa Barbara 
 Lies today like a rich jewel in the sun. The 
 Hand of Change has polished her and set her 
 In the golden rim of Progress. Fair falls 
 Her sunlight as in olden days; green are 
 Her hills as when by Spaniard trod; as full 
 Of perfume all her flower-strewn ways; 
 
Santa Barbara. 
 
 Richer her fruits that ripen in the sun; 
 
 Fairer the homes among her gardens set. 
 
 The world has touched her, o er her threshold passed, 
 
 Life thrills through all her veins, and hand in hand 
 
 She ll walk with Change, while happy homes 
 
 Grow on her breast like flowers. 
 
 SANTA BARBARA. 
 Sunset Musings. (1884.) 
 
 I see a city by the sea, and on 
 
 Its mountained forehead s front is falling the 
 
 Crimson gleam of sunset light, as twere a 
 
 Spirit s wing just touching it in passing. 
 
 The valleys green rest at the hillside s feet, 
 
 And the sweet soul of Fragrance multiplied 
 
 Hides in their thousand flowers. The sea holds 
 
 Up its mirror to the sun, and the stars^ 
 
 Nestle in its deeps unruffled, rimmed round 
 
 With curving shores, while on its channeled breast 
 
 Do fairest islands sleep, whose lofty peaks 
 
 Curtain the farther seas from curious 
 
 Vision, and when the day is done they flame 
 
 Like altar-fires lit by the sun departing. 
 
 How soft the breezes whisper to the seas! 
 
 How sweet their breath upon the quiet land! 
 
 In lightest dalliance toy they with the 
 
 Leaves, then kiss them into silence as they 
 
 Pass, breathing a balmy lullaby. The 
 
 Olive shimmers in the fading light, and 
 
 The gold-sphered orange hangs upon its boughs 
 
 A miracle of sweetness. As if the 
 
 Trailing robes, all perfume-laden, of some 
 
 Fair goddess swept through her garden ways, her 
 
 Roses drown the air in fragrance, and her 
 
 Myriad flowery forms answer the 
 
 Far stars in number. Summer sits dreaming 
 
 In her warm Winter s noon, while Winter comes 
 
 Disguised in June-like brightness. Fair Santa 
 
 Barbara, Nature doth wear thee on her 
 
 Breast, of all her jewels manifold the 
 
 Fairest and most priceless. 
 
 UNDER A PACIFIC SKY. (1877.) 
 
 I lay beneath a sapphire sky 
 
 Through which great golden sunbeams fly, 
 
 Through which sweet birds with downy wing 
 Make paths of song and warbling; 
 
 inrough which the zephyrs dance and kiss 
 Me into dreamy drowsiness; 
 
 And Fragrance steals, and from her wings 
 A world of perfumed sweetness flings; 
 
 And all along the shining beach 
 
 The foam-fringed waves their circles reach. 
 
 Far off the cloud-like islands lie, 
 Wrapped in the blue of sea and sky. 
 
 And shining through the golden gleam, 
 Before me sun-kissed hillsides beam. 
 
 Behind them, reaching to the sky, 
 Great purple heights of mountains lie, 
 
 And smiling in the golden rain 
 Of summer sunshine, rests the plain; 
 
 And all along the valley s calm 
 Stretch eucalypti, oak and palm. 
 
 And fair, the emerald hills between, 
 Lo! Santa Barbara sits a queen. 
 
 CASTLE ROCK. 
 
 In the warm splendor of the South, 
 Where golden Summer suns are hung, 
 
 Facing the open channel s mouth, 
 
 Beside which mountain isles are strung; 
 
 Resting upon the broad blue deep, 
 Like rubies in the sunset glow, 
 Or gates of amethyst hung low 
 
 Twixt Ocean and the horizon s sweep- 
 Rises upon the curving shore, 
 Above the beach s yellow sands, 
 
 Old Castle Rock. The billows roar, 
 Or touch its feet with silvery wands 
 
 Of rippling waves; the sea-birds spread 
 White wings within the tranquil blue 
 Where the year s sunbeams filter through 
 
 From cloudless skies spread overhead. 
 
 Towards the sea its gray sides lean, 
 With many a scar and hollowed cave, 
 
 As if some secret were between 
 
 Its stony heart and Ocean s wave; 
 
 Rent from the green height of the land, 
 Like some old storied Sphinx, whose gaze 
 Pierces the distance, through the maze 
 
 Of sunny deeps, we see it stand. 
 
 Behind, within the valley s calm, 
 
 Where perfumed morns and noontides rest, 
 And eucalypti, oak and palm 
 
 Drop cooling shade upon its breast, 
 And purple heights of mountains rise, 
 
 And lovely, sun-kissed hillsides gleam, 
 
 Fair Santa Barbara sits a queen 
 Beneath these bright Pacific skies. 
 
 THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 
 (Santa Barbara, 1890.) 
 
 Across the bright blue channel s breast 
 
 Fair islands sleep upon the wave, 
 
 Whose shores the shining waters lave, 
 As in Love s baptism their crest 
 On the blue-bosomed skv does rest. 
 
 17 
 
California. 
 
 O mountainecl isles! the sky leans down 
 And pours its tides of sunshine round, 
 A golden mantle for your breast; 
 Brooks leap in laughter, silver-like; 
 The opal distance gleams and glows, 
 The ripples kisses softly smite 
 Your Summer shores, while tints of rose 
 Melt into clear and shining blue 
 All the wide ocean spaces through. 
 
 LAND OF SUN! (1903.) 
 
 O Land of Sun, O Land of Light, 
 Of glorious vale and mountain height, 
 Where Night s stars twinkle in the blue, 
 And shine on us the whole year through, 
 Scarce dimmed by clouds or veiled by storm: 
 Night smiling as our sun-filled morns 
 
 Our sun-filled morns ! Oh, who may say 
 What light and beauty crown each day, 
 What blossoms brighten all the land 
 With color waves on ev ry hand, 
 What seas of fragrance flow a7id flow 
 Whichever way our steps may go? 
 
 O Sabbath Land! It seems to me 
 Ye kneel in worship s reverie; 
 In such a land of light and calm 
 The ear must hear the angel s psalm, 
 Must hear the echo of God s word 
 Which the pure air of Eden stirred 
 
 When God looked on Creation s face, 
 Each thing created in its place, 
 The smiling Sun within the sky, 
 The mighty mountains lifted high, 
 And swaying in the gentle breeze 
 The tall and glorious leaf-clad trees. 
 
 And then a bird s note sounding clear 
 Within the fragrant atmosphere 
 How sweet and full the song it sang, 
 As through the listening air it rang, 
 And fuller was the air with balm 
 As Nature listened in the calm 
 
 Of that glad day to that first song 
 From feathered throat. As borne along 
 Above the flowers, each lifted face 
 Seemed smiling with an added grace, 
 And, Light of all light, there God stood, 
 And this fair earth pronounced He "Good." 
 
 And it is good, and this fair land, 
 Which stretches to the Ocean s strand, 
 Is Earth s best land, her fairest place, 
 Which she so tenderly doth grace 
 With beauty and with grandeur; high 
 Her mountains rise unto the sky 
 
 Her vales like empires are outspread, 
 Her giant trees above our head 
 Tower like great Titans. Th soft air 
 Is filled with sunshine ev rywhere, 
 And O to be, just be, is bliss 
 In land so beautiful as this! 
 
 WINTER HERE AND THERE. (1902.) 
 
 In the far East the Storm-King s angry tread 
 Shakes the great forests, while the boughs o erhead 
 Writhe like the arms of demons in the blast 
 Of his keen breath; their leafy treasures cast 
 On the dead Earth are hidden neath the shroud 
 Of Winter s snows; the winds scream loud 
 As if in fury; no song of bird or bee 
 Breaks the sad notes of Nature s litany. 
 
 The pendant icicles the Frost-King leaves 
 
 On every roof- the frozen sheaves 
 
 Of Winter s harvest, cold and white 
 
 They mock the glimmer of the noonday s light. 
 
 The stars shine clear and still within the blue 
 
 Of snow-wrapped Night, as if they, too. 
 
 Were shivering and mourned the Summer gone, 
 
 While breathing but the breath of chill and storm. 
 
 But here the days are gloriously fair, 
 Flooded with sunshine is the golden air, 
 The flowers burst into full and perfect bloom; 
 The air is filled with song, and maketh room 
 tor bird and bee and bright-winged butterfly, 
 And clays there are all cloudless, when the sky 
 Bends like a shining sapphire, and the Sun 
 Shines as November and the June were one. 
 
 O Land of Sun! of bird-song and of flowers, 
 How gladsome are thy so-called Winter hours, 
 Thy emerald grasses jeweled with the dew, 
 Thy fragrant roses blossoming anew, 
 Thy lilies paving pathways for our feet, 
 Thy tides of song forever flowing sweet, 
 No wild winds rave amid thy leaf-clad trees, 
 No frozen Winter s maddened revelries. 
 
 ON THE BEACH. (1903.) 
 
 I sit upon the silent shore 
 
 And look the great wide waters o er; 
 
 Afar, afar across the tide 
 
 I see the sun-kissed island s side, 
 
 And leagues beyond the waters roll 
 
 To the far silence of the Pole. 
 
 But here is sun and here is light, 
 And seas of blue and seas whose white 
 Foam-crested waves just seem to glide 
 In laughing gladness with the tide, 
 And demon storms find here no place 
 In all the shining, sunlit space. 
 
This Fair, Stceet Land We Love. 
 
 The golden Noon a-dreaming lies 
 Beneath the splendor of the skies; 
 I think I see her amber hair 
 Floating upon the water there, 
 As she with outspread arms lies low 
 Within its cradling overflow. 
 
 The kindred fields are very fair, 
 The mountains reach the upper air, 
 And God s own glory seems to lie 
 Upon the wide-embracing sky, 
 And softly, softly roll the seas, 
 Scarce breathing their antiphonies. 
 
 The rosy Morn ! Tis here I deem 
 It first might waken from its dream 
 That it was dreaming in the East, 
 When stars were round it and a feast 
 Of silence, folded in the white 
 Of silver gleams of coming light. 
 
 I turn my eyes shoreward and see 
 The beauty of the leaf-crowned tree, 
 The lovely hills that quiet rest 
 So fair on Mother Nature s breast; 
 I see the flowers unfolding, too, 
 Nurtured by sunlight and the dew. 
 
 And far, so far, the plains are spread 
 As are the boundless skies o erhead, 
 And all the world is fair with light, 
 And changing colors, gold and white, 
 And glowing red and amethyst, 
 And silver of the sunset mist. 
 
 The changing hours of Day do here 
 
 Seem heads of gold dropped from the clear, 
 
 Fair skies o erhead. Morn, Noon and Eve 
 
 Such wondrous patterns here do weave! 
 
 The mounts like jasper walls do rise, 
 
 The seas. seem seas of Paradise. 
 
 And there the palms do lift their heads, 
 And here the emerald pepper spreads 
 Her wondrous branches, which are swung 
 Full-leaved, with clustering jewels hung. 
 Nature we feel is here so true, 
 So beautiful unto the view. 
 
 And so we sit beside the sea 
 And hearken to its ministry; 
 We see the sunset s crimson lights 
 
 Glow warm upon the mountain heights, 
 We see the purple shadows fall 
 Upon the vales and treetops tall. 
 
 But O the wondrous sunset bars 
 
 Of gold and crimson where the stars 
 
 Will soon come out ! Sweet Day, good-night, 
 
 You have been fair, have blessed our sight. 
 
 And here beneath these evening skies 
 
 How near seem gates of Paradise! 
 
 THIS FAIR, SWEET LAND WE LOVE. (1897.) 
 
 O great-browed Land! majestic, beautiful, 
 
 With thy grand forehead lifted to the stars; 
 Thy face the face of youth, fair, wonderful 
 
 With glory. O tender face! No frown mars 
 Its sweet, calm beauty, and thine eyes of blue 
 
 Hold heaven within their glance, without a cloud 
 To dim their summer brightness; flow rs blossom new 
 
 Through all the year upon thy breast, and the loud 
 Winds are hushed, and here but sweet peace and calm 
 
 Breathe in thy sheltering arms, and thy full lap 
 O erflows with harvests, and no thought of harm 
 
 Steals o er our senses, for ne er dost thou wrap 
 The mantle of the Thunder round thy breast, 
 
 Nor gird thyself with lightnings. O so sweet 
 Thy tender touch ! Thou givest to us rest, 
 
 Dost pour its perfume on our weary feet ; 
 Thy golden days slip past us like a dream 
 
 Filled full of song, and fragrance and delight. 
 Time holds his tides for us upon the stream 
 
 Where only sunny Beauty pours its white, 
 Full radiance. The soul of Day we feel 
 
 Within its light, a-dream, a-dream with bliss; 
 Just peace and happy tenderness do steal 
 
 To glad the world with Nature s loving kiss. 
 Peace and perfume and endless Summer days, 
 
 And great glad mounts uplifted to the Sun, 
 And plains and hills and blossom-laden ways, 
 
 Until the golden year its course has run, 
 And calm of sea, and smiling calm of land, 
 
 And twilight melting into softest balm, 
 And moons of Night with stars on every hand, 
 
 And orange tree and tropic waving palm 
 These are thy gifts, O blessed land and fair! 
 
 We drink thy sunshine as we drink thy wine. 
 We love thee as thou art, and we would share 
 
 With the wide world thy loveliness divine. 
 
 19 
 
(Brasses an6 
 
 Owarm-fyued ^Passion- Flower, loved of the Sun." 
 
 THE LAND OF THE ORANGE TREE. (1886.) 
 
 Swing out, O golden globes amid the trees, 
 In the bright glory of December days! 
 The fabled apples of Hesperides, 
 Which gods partook of in their days of ease, 
 
 While wandering through those garden, flower- 
 strewn ways, 
 
 Were not more golden than the fruits we know, 
 
 Which our warm, smiling winter, blossom-crowned, 
 Kisses to ripeness mid the glossy leaves 
 Of orange boughs, which the bright sunshine weaves 
 
 Into cool emeralds hove the sweet-breathed ground. 
 
 How rich the perfume that the Winter air 
 
 Drowns in delicious fullness all the day; 
 And on what odorous flowers our footsteps fall, 
 And through the trees how oft the glad birds call, 
 As though December were in sooth the May. 
 
 And through the flowering limes the wild bee s hum 
 
 Falls in delicious drowsiness of song, 
 And in the aisles begirt with orange trees, 
 The golden globes, touched by each passing breeze, 
 
 Sway like to bells by fairy fingers swung. 
 
 To the tired dwellers beneath eastern suns, 
 
 Where hoary Winter wraps the Earth with snow, 
 
 And tempests fill the hollows of the skies, 
 
 Well may ye seem an earthly Paradise, 
 
 O sunlit land which Summer loveth so! 
 
 THE GREAT SEQUOIAS. (1901.) 
 
 \l 
 
 O would that I could read your story, giant trees, 
 
 As old almost as Time! In his young morning s hour, 
 
 Out from the Earth ye sprang the passing centuries 
 Have watched your growth, and the angry tempest s 
 power 
 
 Held ye in arms as mighty as the gods of old; 
 
 Nations have passed and tribal peoples vanished quite, 
 New nations have upsprung, new histories been told 
 
 Since first your full-leaved boughs did greet the 
 morning light. 
 
 Yet still as glorious ye stand, as green and fair, 
 As in Time s olden centuries ye proudly stood; 
 
 Old as the mountains, breathing the same sweet air, 
 Like deathless monarchs of the mighty hills and woods. 
 
 And shall ye long as Time, O wondrous trees! endure 
 As Earth s immortals, old, yet still forever young, 
 
 Your giant trunks uplifted, so steadfast and sure 
 As if your boughs on heaven itself were hung? 
 
 O storied trees! O mighty giants of the wood! 
 
 Children of centuries ! Yet still more deathless far 
 Than ye is Man, and we who neath thy shade have stood 
 
 Shall outlive all things else, time, earth, and sun and star. 
 
 THE SPIRITS OF THE TREES. 
 I dreamed a dream, a dream that I 
 Was standing neath a sunlit sky, 
 Each flower around me lifted up 
 A sweetly-fragrant, dew-filled cup, 
 And morning in the bright East lay, 
 The nursling of the waking Day. 
 
 The robins fluttered in the wood, 
 The lofty mountains wore a hood 
 Of wondrous colors, soft as light; 
 Afar the ocean flashed its bright 
 And dancing waves of silver sheen; 
 The broad vast valleys lay between 
 
 The place I stood and that wide sea 
 The mirror of immensity. 
 And then methought below me stirred 
 A something neither beast nor bird, 
 A something neither man nor maid, 
 And yet most gloriously arrayed. 
 
 It stole from out the tree-top high, 
 Unfolded wings as if to fly, 
 And lifted up a face more fair 
 Than ever human form did wear; 
 Like shining suns its wondrous eyes, 
 Its words like lute-strings melodies. 
 
 Its robes were of a golden sheen 
 Like that the fluttering leaves between, 
 And its sweet smile! an angel fair 
 Could no diviner sweetness wear; 
 And all the leaves of all the trees 
 Broke into whispered melodies. 
 
 And then the form drew near, and I 
 Scarce dared to breathe, so wondrously 
 It poised itself above me there, 
 Like some bright spirit of the air, 
 Or like a star so wondrous white 
 It seemed to blossom into light. 
 
 And then it spoke. Low-toned and pure 
 Its words fell round me as they d lure 
 My heart to gladness and to peace 
 To thankfulness that would not cease: 
 "Daughter of Earth, I come to thee, 
 The living soul of yonder tree. 
 
 "I fill its branches and its leaves, 
 Each sound they make my finger weaves, 
 And I am here to glad the sky, 
 To glad the winds that pass me by, 
 To set my crown on hillsides fair, 
 And pour my blessings everywhere." 
 
 And then he gently laid his hand 
 Upon the trees and on the land, 
 The gleaming skies above him bowed, 
 The winds no longer breathed aloud, 
 But hushed as in a rev rent mood 
 To silence all that solitude. 
 
 20 
 
MONARCHS OF A CALIFORNIA FOREST. 
 
Flower Songs. 
 
 "God through me blesses all the land, 
 Pours out His wealth on every hand; 
 I give you shade, I give you rain, 
 I help to clothe the hills and plain; 
 Then spare the trees, they are your friends 
 Which God in gracious mercy sends." 
 
 His voice was hushed, and then T woke, 
 And from the tree-top near me broke 
 A glad bird s notes, so sweet and clear, 
 It filled the morning atmosphere. 
 And then I thanked God for the trees 
 And all their blessed ministries. 
 
 FLOWER SONGS. (1879.) 
 
 There are beneath my window growing 
 
 Such fragrant clusters of December s flowers, 
 
 All the fresh brightness of the young June showing, 
 Fair as the children of warm Summer showers. 
 
 They nod their heads and whisper secret things 
 To the soft breezes as they silent pass; 
 
 I almost look to see their unfledged wings 
 Hid in the emerald of the growing grass 
 
 Which clusters round them there wings which the touch 
 
 Of some strange power in Nature hid 
 Shall yet unfold; nor would I wonder much 
 
 Were there a soul beneath each petaled lid. 
 
 Sometime, when moonlight fills the silent Night, 
 And starlight rains its beauty on the air, 
 
 And the great Sea drops kisses on the white, 
 
 Pale, wave-washed sands stretching so cold and bare 
 
 When all the world is flooded with the sweet 
 And fragrant incense of all budding things, 
 
 Such time, I fancy, that it will be meet 
 
 For these fair blossoms to put on their wings. 
 
 One night the moonbeams poured a silver rain 
 On the green earth, and breezes stirred, 
 
 All winged with silence, when again 
 
 I either dreamed, or else I really heard 
 
 A sound steal through my window music low 
 As the soft murmur in the seashell sighing, 
 
 And then I saw a long line come and go 
 
 Of tiny forms, all sunny-winged and flying. 
 
 Such lovely sprites ! Such dainty, fairy things ! 
 
 One wore a lily for her charming dress, 
 And like a veil about her slender wings 
 
 Fell the bright gold of many a shining tress. 
 
 Ihey filled the room, they swept around me there 
 Like a bright cloud tinged with the golden ray 
 
 Of Summer s morn, and all the moonlit air 
 
 Grew sweet as the bloom-scented breath of May. 
 
 And music sweet as all the song of birds 
 
 Which ever since bright Eden s day have sung, 
 
 Like a great wave of song the silence stirred 
 Till e en the stars in listening silence hung. 
 
 Scarlet Pasaion Flower. (1887.) 
 
 O warm-hued Passion Flower! loved of the sun, 
 Lifting thy starry eyes to meet its gaze, 
 
 With face as holy as the kneeling nun s, 
 
 Devotion looks from neath thy glowing lid, 
 
 And holy meaning in thy heart is hid, 
 As Nature s priestess stand st thou mid her ways. 
 
 Purple Passion Flower. 
 
 What meaning dost thou hold of Calvary? 
 Its thorny crown within thy holy breast, 
 Its cruel nails and binding cords are pres t. 
 Dost thou, a silent witness gainst our sinful race, 
 Stand through the ages, lifting up thy face? 
 Or, to thy blessed leaves while drawing near, 
 Still, "Father, forgive them," may our spirits hear, 
 And looking deep within thy mystic eyes, 
 Behold the shadowed hope of Paradise? 
 
 Seaweed. 
 
 Oh, what rare beauty manifold 
 
 Is hidden in the sea! 
 
 The mermaids join in happy laughter, 
 
 Their brows all crowned be 
 
 With seaweed flowers of shape untold; 
 
 The Sea-King cometh after 
 
 His love, and finds her beauteous head 
 
 Wearing its aureole of red 
 
 And gold ; her beauty s grace 
 
 Is hidden by a web of lace 
 
 Wrought of the tesselated leaf 
 
 Her deft hand gathered from the sheaf 
 
 Of floating seaweed; like a spar 
 
 Framed from the bright beams of a star, 
 
 It lay before her intertwined 
 
 With all the colors that the mind 
 
 E er dreamed of; the sunset s light 
 
 Fell on the waves and sank from sight, 
 
 And its bright colors must, I ween, 
 
 Have dyed her lace s glowing sheen 
 
 While dropping its fine threads between. 
 
 Wild Pink and Alfileria. 
 
 Sweet flowers ! the hillsides love thee, and their breasts, 
 
 Warm in the flooding sunshine of the Winter s day, 
 
 Nurse thee in tenderness, till your blossoms crests 
 
 Clothe them in beauty and strew the way 
 
 With smiling presence and warm, tender light 
 
 For the Young Year s footsteps, as he comes to greet 
 
 The tropic splendor of our sunny skies. 
 
 Amid the grass ye lift your faces sweet, 
 
 Like the fair beauty of some little child 
 
 21 
 
Trees, Grasses and Flowers. 
 
 Playing at hide-and-seek amid the blades 
 
 Of green alfileria, whose purple smiles 
 
 In lovely blossoms in the loneliest glades 
 
 Of changeful March, till e en his face 
 
 Grows wonderful in loveliness, and dear 
 
 Tis like a god s, all flower-crowned and fair; 
 
 His garments sunshine, and the emerald web 
 
 Of growing grass, all jeweled with the rare 
 
 Sweet wild-flowers by the warm sun fed, 
 
 And sprinkled with diamonds by the soft, glad rain, 
 
 Whose veil of clouds hides for but brief space the face 
 
 Of the clear skies and wealth of warm sunshine. 
 
 Scarlet Hibiscus. 
 
 I think the Sunset, jealous of your flame, 
 
 Did pluck its crimson glory from your stem, 
 
 And there above the amber of the West, 
 
 A glowing ruby from its diadem 
 
 Has laid it shining on the dead Day s breast. 
 
 The Pansies. 
 
 Oh, you darling pansies! 
 
 With your meek little faces, 
 
 And your airy, fairy graces, 
 
 Filling the garden s quiet places, 
 
 I d really like to kiss you, 
 
 And oh ! I really wish you 
 
 Knew how very much I miss you 
 
 When I fail to see you in your garden bed. 
 
 Heigh-ho, you darli.ig pansies! 
 You quicken all my fancies. 
 Oh, how the soft winds love you! 
 How sweet the birds above you 
 Sing royal music to you, 
 As if they really knew you 
 Were happy fairies do you 
 Not dance at night until you 
 
 See the early coming of the golden dawn? 
 
 Here s one yellow-breasted, 
 
 And it is purple-crested, 
 
 And with sunshine tis invested. 
 
 Its bended head is rested 
 
 Upon a Mushroom s shoulder; 
 
 And some secret it has told her, 
 
 And its look is growing bolder. 
 
 Does the Mushroom love the pansy is that what it said ? 
 
 Here I kneel and bless you, 
 
 While loving winds caress you, 
 
 And all the flowers profess to 
 
 Joy in your happy faces, 
 
 In which they ee the traces 
 
 Of charming human faces 
 
 Of happy children s faces 
 
 That are fair and sinless as when the world was new. 
 
 Here is one whose eyelids 
 Veil eyes of royal splendor, 
 And glances soft and tender. 
 
 Whose lips make me surrender 
 
 The kisses that I keep 
 
 For everything that s sweet. 
 
 It is a little dusty, 
 
 But it is never musty, 
 
 Nor sullen-faced nor crusty, 
 
 As sometimes wayward little children are. 
 
 I think the blue skies love them, 
 
 They bend so bright above them. 
 
 I almost think they covet 
 
 The pansies for their starry deep. 
 
 And the moonbeams love to creep 
 
 To their purple hearts and sleep. 
 
 And I m sure the wood-nymphs, 
 
 When one comes their way, think 
 
 Nothing would so delight it 
 
 As a pansy-leaf for a royal mantle. 
 
 Pansies are Nature s children, 
 
 Her darling little babies, 
 
 Her winsome little ladies, 
 
 Her precious little laddies. 
 
 And I m sure their smiles delight her, 
 
 And with tricks they never fright her, 
 
 Nor with rough blows ever smite her; 
 
 But they live to brighten 
 
 Her fond heart, and lighten 
 
 All her cares with beauty; 
 
 And to bloom is a duty 
 
 Which the child-faced pansies love. 
 
 Golden Poppies. 
 
 Ah, golden poppies on the hillsides growing, 
 Where the breeze s breath like a tide is flowing 
 In ripples o er the grasses, 
 Which curtsey as it passes 
 You lift your heads a-smiling, 
 The Sun s full light beguiling, 
 To shine out from your faces 
 And light the hillside places 
 With a glory like a crown. 
 
 Ah, golden poppies swaying 
 As if your bells were playing 
 Some sweet, melodious chime 
 To fairies song and rhyme. 
 Like a sunset cloud you re lying 
 Neath where Summer birds are flying 
 Hold your hearts their happy song, 
 Does it glad you when are long 
 All the golden Summer days? 
 
 All your golden bells ring lightly, 
 While the spider spinneth brightly 
 Rope of silver as he passes 
 Cheerfully amid the grasses. 
 
 22 
 
The Second liirtli of the Floicers. 
 
 Soon or late some smiling fairy 
 To your bells this rope will carry. 
 Then your bright bells silver chimes, 
 Mingled with the passing winds, 
 Shall be rung by fairy hands. 
 
 Then the world will pause and listen, 
 While the fields with dewdrops glisten; 
 Swing, ring, and the world will say, 
 Oh, the notes that we hear to-day ! 
 What is it, Sweet, this music low 
 That breathes through the winds and sunlight so? 
 But only between us, you and I, 
 Shall the beautiful, gladsome secret lie, 
 And be sure we never will tell. 
 
 THE SECOND BIRTH OF THE FLOWERS. 
 
 I ve heard it said that when from Eden s bowers 
 Kve turned forever, all the blessed flowers 
 Drooped low their heads, each hung upon its stem, 
 All colorless and dead, and the Earth then 
 With sorrow and with pain grew pale and gray, 
 And all of beauty slipped from it away. 
 
 The clouds were thick within the Summer sky; 
 The bird and bee and bright-winged butterfly 
 Sailed nevermore within the silent air. 
 And not a brook made music anywhere. 
 Xo violet blue with tender, drooping lid, 
 Was anywhere within the grasses hid; 
 Xo daisy, golden-eyed, with smiling face, 
 Turned as the breezes sought it in its place 
 In the wide meadows, and no roses sweet 
 Brightened the wayside, and no clover bloom 
 Could the bees find within the hungry noon. 
 
 O sad and heavy-eyed, our Mother Eve 
 Fainted along the wayside, and did grieve 
 For her lost flowers those smiles of God so fair, 
 Making an Eden for her everywhere. 
 Then hand in hand did Eve and Adam go, 
 Too sad for tears, so heavy was their woe, 
 Before them all the wide world lonely lay; 
 They cared not whither they did take their way. 
 
 So passed the years, and all the Earth was bare, 
 Without a blossom to make sweet the air, 
 To brighten with its beauty the green sod, 
 And whisper to them the love of God. 
 
 But by and by a little baby fair 
 With soft blue eyes and shining, golden hair, 
 With cheeks like lilies, and with lips as sweet 
 As Eden s roses which Eve s eyes did greet 
 On that first morning when she woke within 
 
 The blessed garden free from stain of sin- 
 Was born in a white tent upon the great wide plain, 
 And then it seemed as if at once again 
 The world grew glad, and that to match its eyes 
 Sprung the sweet violets, looking to the skies, 
 
 With their clear gaze so dewy soft and dear; 
 And then the budding roses did appear 
 Red as the baby s lips and lilies sprung 
 Round the tent s borders, and on green vines hung 
 The morning-glory s bells, which light winds stirred 
 Till Eve s glad ear the sweetest music heard. 
 
 And once more Earth grew fair and bright again, 
 The fields were glad as with the baby s smile, 
 For thousand blossoms sprang to life the while; 
 Brooks leaped in laughter, and e en Eve forgot 
 The sadness and sorrow of her lot; 
 And as the baby grew, where er it trod, 
 Each footprint woke a blossom from the sod. 
 
 THE CHILD AND THE PANSIES. (1892.) 
 
 Did you see the little fairies, 
 
 That arc hiding in the grass, 
 Who lift up smiling faces 
 
 Unto us as we pass? 
 Some purple-eyed and lovely, 
 
 And some with amber hair, 
 And round their pretty shoulders 
 
 Such dainty things they wear. 
 The wind it stops to kiss them, 
 
 The sunshine seeks to hide 
 Right in their hearts so golden, 
 
 As if wishing naught beside. 
 
 Oh, such dainty little faces! 
 
 Such dimpled little things, 
 Growing in quiet places 
 
 Don t you think that they have wings? 
 Oh, look! just look and see them, 
 
 I think they want to say. 
 You darling little child you, 
 
 I wish that you would stay. 
 
 Oh, you darling little posies! 
 
 You re lovelier than the roses, 
 Than the lilies whitest snow; 
 
 Please tell me what your name is, 
 For I d really like to know 
 
 And tell me if you love me, 
 Because I love you so. 
 
 Then all the little pansies 
 
 Lifted their pretty eyes, 
 And curtsied as the wind blew 
 
 And made their sweet replies: 
 
 We arc only quiet blossoms, 
 
 But yet we love to grow, 
 To make the earth more beautiful, 
 
 As does the lilies snow; 
 As does the roses color, 
 
 And the violets lovely blue. 
 And all the thousand fragrant flowers 
 
 23 
 
Trees, Grasses and Flowers. 
 
 , Of many-colored hue. 
 And long ago we think that 
 
 Some angel in disguise 
 Did drop a smile upon us, 
 
 While bending from the skies; 
 And that smile lit up our faces 
 
 Till they grew, like children s, fair, 
 And lie called us little pansies, 
 
 And that is what we are. 
 
 LILIES. (1901.) 
 
 A fragrant lily in my garden grew, 
 
 White-lipped and fair; the bees hum softly fell 
 Around it there; at dawn the silver dew 
 
 Lay in its heart as in a crystal well. 
 
 The roses grew and nodded by its side, 
 The pansies upward looked about its feet, 
 
 And all the spaces of the garden wide 
 Drank in its flowing tide of fragrance sweet. 
 
 The world was brighter for its presence there, 
 Although it was a little thing within 
 
 The great walled spaces where all things were fair, 
 And Beauty from each growing thing did spring. 
 
 How like the lily in this world of ours, 
 
 The Christian s life when it is pure and true, 
 
 How sweet the fragrance which it daily showers, 
 How rare the graces which it brings to view. 
 
 The fragrance of self-sacrifice it yields, 
 The whiteness of its purity we see, 
 
 And like the lilies of the Summer fields 
 It sheds a sweetness that is full and free. 
 
 God walks with us if we but walk the way 
 
 That Jesus trod. His presence makes it sweet. 
 
 Take Thou our hand, O Father ! be our stay, 
 Lilies of Faith make blossoms round our feet. 
 
 WATER LILIES. 
 
 O lilies fair! upon the water s breast, 
 
 Say, are you dreaming neath this sunny sky 
 Of the sweet song-birds that above you fly, 
 
 Ever joy-winged upon their happy quest? 
 
 How soft the shadows fall around you there, 
 While silver ripples hold you in their arms 
 Just kissed t<t stirring neath the spreading palms 
 
 Your faces holy as a nun s at prayer. 
 
 The happy flies, a silver cloud above 
 
 The still blue softness of the clear pool s breath, 
 Make twixt you and the azure of the West 
 
 Its rainbow shining soft as smile of love. 
 
 The small gray sparrows drink your breath of balm, 
 As if it held the spirit of their song, 
 Nursed by the spring and gently borne along, 
 
 Filling the world with music s sacred calm. 
 
 The swelling buds are silent-lipped as they 
 
 Throw off their hoods and sunward lift their eyes, 
 Filled with the wonder of Birth s fresh surprise, 
 
 And look so gladly in the face of Day. 
 
 The noon-bright air seems lost in reverie, 
 And Earth seems dreaming of diviner things; 
 Now quietly the water round you clings, 
 
 Not e en one ripple stirreth silently. 
 
 Then Night comes with her million starry eyes, 
 And curtains you with shadows and with dreams, 
 Brightened to loveliness by starry gleams 
 
 From far-off worlds, those dwellers in the skies. 
 
 BLUEBELLS. (1884.) 
 
 Bluebells, bluebells, bluebells, blow! 
 Ring your bells and ring them low; 
 From your hearts let music leap 
 From your chambers where asleep 
 All the dainty fairies hide, 
 And their thoughts to music glide; 
 Where the winds with fragrance sweet 
 Make a cover for their feet; 
 Where glad bird-song on the ear 
 Falls in notes most sweet and clear. 
 
 Bluebells, bluebells, bluebells, ring ! 
 While your perfumed tongues you swing, 
 Pour your music low and sweet 
 Round about our passing feet. 
 Ring! and let the Summer lean 
 With her dainty ear between 
 Bud and blossom as they sway, 
 When the light winds pass their way- 
 Lean and listen while shall ring 
 Voice of praise from everything. 
 
 THE BIRTH OF THE CHRYSANTHEMUMS. (1891.) 
 
 In the far Orient, where the rosy Day 
 Opens glad eyes and sees along his way 
 The cradled dawns asleep, waiting the calls 
 Of fair Tomorrows, and his full light falls 
 Like sifted gold through tamarind and palm, 
 Or gleams in languorous quiet in the calm 
 Of the full noons where lotus blossoms lie 
 In roseate brightness on the water s sky, 
 Departing Summer passed as Autumn neared 
 A dusky queen with all her forests speared 
 
 24 
 
The liirth of the Nose. 
 
 With brightest splendor; gold and crimson shone 
 All colors of the dawn within her zone 
 Of swaying leaves, as if the Sun had there 
 Melted the live fire-opal, till the air, 
 Pillared with mighty forest trunks, did stand 
 With mountained altars lift on either hand- 
 Autumn s fit temple. But where beside her shrine 
 Were Nature s priestesses the Mogra fair, and vine? 
 Where all sweet Summer s sisterhood that made 
 The world divine with beauty, and that laid 
 
 Mosaics of rich bloom neath swaying trees, 
 Feeding with perfume every passing breeze 
 From cups of lilies, mango, violet, 
 Jasmine and heliotrope, and the dew-wet 
 Kroona-flowers? And where the purple lines 
 Of morning-glory bells, swinging from vines 
 Wind-swept with melody; and where the stars, 
 Mid bamboos shining; where the glowing bars 
 Of red warm bloom lying against the Dawn, 
 Filled full of fragrance as the breath of Morn? 
 
 As day had faded in the crimson West, 
 Summer had wholly past, her glowing vest 
 Pinned with a star, and backward she had cast 
 Incense of gathered bloom she held them fast 
 Within her arms roses and lilies white, 
 Verbena, iris, violet, and the bright 
 Full-blooded pinks, and flowers like twilight dim, 
 So purple-tinted, but which seem to swim 
 In fragrance, and gay-hued lotus flowers 
 The dreaming souls of Summer s fairest hours. 
 
 Ihen Autumn leaned and touched the Earth anew, 
 With voice as sweet as Israfel s she drew 
 Close to her breast, and with her glowing lips 
 Kissed her brown cheeks and dusky finger-tips; 
 Filled with new charms her many faded bowers ; 
 Set new fair moons upon her sunset towers; 
 Touched her pale dawns with gold and shining red; 
 Poured flaming beauty through her woods, and said- 
 Speaking through lingering south winds breathing low- 
 " Sad Earth, I ll bless thee ere from thee I go." 
 
 Softly the Orient Night dropped o er the plain, 
 
 The clear, bright stars filling the sky s blue main ; 
 
 The white Moon shining like a silver bow; 
 
 The dreaming waters tinkling soft below; 
 
 The dusk -winged birds upon their many nests; 
 
 The long, slant moonbeams falling on Earth s breast 
 In plumes of light, radiant, soft and clear, 
 
 They silvered all Night s balmy atmosphere. 
 But as they touched the Earth they cloven fell, 
 And in each half a bud began to swell, . 
 But when the miracle of Dawn was done 
 Earth oped her eyes to greet the coming Sun; 
 All shadows fled, the rosy sunbeams flew 
 To kiss her eyelids, while the shining dew 
 Decked her with diamonds of purest light, 
 
 When, lo ! her breath as sweet as lilies white, 
 Lingering she drew, as when with swift surprise 
 Of large, pleased vision she had turned her eyes 
 Where were the blossoms from the moonbeams Mining, 
 Glorious as sunrise on their tall stalks hung. 
 
 What coils of splendid color, crimson-hued, 
 Dappled with gold and purple tints she viewed; 
 And some like wine when through it light is shed; 
 Some hundred-petaled like the tousled head 
 Of a great sun-dog, and some brightly white 
 As snow wreaths in the Sun; some held the light 
 Of "pink and purple censers," such as swing 
 In summer gardens full with blossoming. 
 "I am content," Earth cried, "let Autumn conic. 
 No flower outshines her, proud Chrysanthemum." 
 
 THE BIRTH OF THE ROSE. (1899-) 
 
 An angel leaned from heaven and earthward turned 
 
 His starry eyes. The skies did brighter shine 
 
 As his full glance fell on them, and they spurned 
 
 The lingering shadows; a glowing line 
 
 Of silver moonbeams touched the face of Day, 
 
 Soft as a mother s kiss they falling lay, 
 
 And the Earth woke and lifted up her eyes 
 
 To her blue tent of overarching skies, 
 
 Her inmost being thrilled as she stirred. 
 
 With ear attent her listening spirit heard 
 
 The angel whisper, "Smile, O Earth, once more! 
 
 Let not your heart be any longer sore 
 
 Over the blight that sin hath cast on you." 
 
 He, pausing, smiled, and then the silver dew 
 
 Fell on Earth s face with its baptismal flow 
 
 Of silent blessing, and then, looking, lo! 
 
 Earth s eyes grew bright again with glad surprise, 
 
 As round about her she did see uprise, 
 
 Like little children clad in fragrance rare. 
 
 The sweet rose stalks all blossoming and fair. 
 
 The pulsing air grew gladder witli their breath, 
 
 And from the Earth seemed lift the curse of death, 
 
 When glowed Day s herald star full bright and clear 
 
 In the cool deeps of Morning s atmosphere, 
 
 And purple Dawn waxed golden in its glow. 
 
 And glad streams tinkled in their seaward flow, 
 
 Past bamboo tufts and pulsing lotus leaf. 
 
 And the rich yellow of the harvest sheaf, 
 
 And the fair East kept brightening to the blue 
 
 Of the high zenith; the faint dusk grew 
 
 To glowing crimson, scarlet amethyst. 
 
 Till Morn s star sank in floods of golden mist. 
 
 All shadows fled, the gold-winged sunbeams flew 
 
 To kiss Earth s eyelids, and the shining dew 
 
 Decked her with diamonds of the purest light, 
 
 While her full breath was sweet as lilies white, 
 
 And lo ! the rose with angel beauty born 
 
 Smiled its charms into the face of Morn, 
 
 The sad Earth lift her sorrow-laden eyes, 
 
 And dreamed once more of Hope and Paradise. 
 
 25 
 
Trees, Grasses and Flowers, 
 
 Roses. (1884.) 
 
 They whisper to the air which around them 
 Lingers, drinking in quiet ecstacy 
 Their perfumed breath like some lover fond, and 
 At its touch the dewy petals softly 
 Stir and tremble in their fragrant gladness. 
 The dew sends soft -lipped kisses down; the 
 Sunshine pours its wealth of tenderness, and 
 Writes its perfumed poem in pale orange 
 Tints, which, mingling, lose themselves amid the 
 Shades of pink and rich, deep red and crimson, 
 And all the roadside lies, so fair and sweet, 
 A symphony in color, a rhythm of 
 Sweet odors, a wayside psalm of beauty. 
 
 Golden Abutilon. (1886.) 
 
 Swing, swing, O airy golden bells ! 
 
 To the whispered music of every breeze that swells. 
 
 All the leaves are leaning from the trees to listen, 
 
 And on the rose and lily, growing underneath your boughs, 
 
 Like pure-faced nuns, who ve breathed their holy vows, 
 
 I see the shining dews of gladness glisten; 
 
 And the birds within the tree-tops fold their wings to hear 
 
 Your airv, fairv music in its cadence low and clear. 
 
 THE SPIRITS OF THE FLOWERS. (1878.) 
 
 A shining globe, a silver sphere 
 
 Lay sparkling and bright in the morning clear; 
 
 It had drifted down through the starry air 
 
 And made its bed in the Lily fair; 
 
 And when the dawn of the daylight broke 
 
 A thousand rainbows in it awoke; 
 
 lliey stretched themselves to its unseen poles 
 
 And glimmered above its tiny shoals; 
 
 And there from every shade and hue 
 
 Out peeped the face of an elfin crew. 
 
 Their heads were crowned with shining hair, 
 
 Formed of the gold from the sunbeams fair; 
 
 Their eyes were sparkles of starry light, 
 
 Dropped from the star-born meteor s flight; 
 
 Their gossamer wings of azure hue 
 
 Were woven from the lightest winds that blew, 
 
 And filled with woof from the sunset s deep 
 
 On whose golden sea they were wont to sleep. 
 
 Their breath was sweet as the Lily s own, 
 
 And sweeter than music s sweetest tone 
 
 Their gurgling laughter rose and fell 
 
 To the soft time-beat of the Asphodel. 
 
 But the Sun be.at warm on the Lily pale, 
 And the dew-drop spread its misty sail; 
 It floated up on a sunbeam s crest 
 Into the blue of the ether s breast ; 
 It rose aloft like a swift balloon, 
 Past the shrinking form of the pale white Moon- 
 Upward and upward, higher and higher 
 Towards the Sun s great burning heart of fire. 
 
 But out from the dew-drop s shattered sphere 
 
 Stole the fairy Elves, and downward, sheer 
 
 Through the golden, shining air they sped, 
 
 Into the heart of the Lily s bed; 
 
 Into the deep of the Roses curled, 
 
 Wherever its petals were unfurled; 
 
 Into the blossoming Heliotrope 
 
 And the bosom of every Pink that oped. 
 
 They swung on the edge of the Mignonette, 
 
 And danced where the sweet Geranium set, 
 
 They sipped the dew from the Gillyflower, 
 
 And in Orange buds they built a bower; 
 
 Into the Night-blooming Cereus stole; 
 
 And touched its stamens with glints of gold; 
 
 They nestled down in the Daffodil, 
 
 And kissed the Iris, rainbow frill; 
 
 In Sweet Alyssum they sat and dreamed, 
 
 From the heat by a cobweb curtain screened; 
 
 From the Apple Blossom s milk-white sheen; 
 
 They plucked a robe for their virgin queen; 
 
 And a leaf they stole from the sweet Peach flower 
 
 .And hung as a curtain for her bower; 
 
 And deep in the Honeysuckle s bloom 
 
 They found a gorgeous palace room. 
 
 And they waved their wands, and with honeyed sweet 
 
 A\ as the full deep cup of the flower replete. 
 
 They stole to the Violet s drooping head 
 
 And with perfumed nectar the floweret fed; 
 
 And they carved the Lilac s fragrant bell 
 
 Into a breeze-rocked citadel. 
 
 And one tiny Elf with fairy bride 
 Stole softly down to the water s side, 
 To a crystal lake in the sunshine bright, 
 Starred here and there by the lilies white; 
 And they stole to the heart of the Lily s gold, 
 And its fragrance wrapped them fold on fold; 
 And he plucked from its stem the Lily sweet, 
 And they pushed far out on the waters deep; 
 Then the Hornet flew as their pilot down, 
 And the Butterfly perched on the Lily s crown, 
 And he spread his wing for a snowy sail, 
 And they sailed far out where the shadows lay, 
 And the sunshine fell in a column pale, 
 There in the cool of the forest s May. 
 
 An hour they strayed in the forest deeps, 
 
 And it took new scents and perfumed sweets; 
 
 It shone in new and charming dyes, 
 
 And Nature waked to a glad surprise, 
 
 For wherever the fairies sweet breath fell 
 
 Waked flowers as bright as the Asphodel. 
 
 And the azure flush of the Violet made 
 
 Their scented path through the wooded glade; 
 
 And the Mountain Laurel lifted high 
 
 Its pink-white blossoms to the sky, 
 
 And the tinted leaves of the Eglantine 
 
 Gleamed on the edge of the forest green, 
 
 And drowned in its perfume the sunshine lay, 
 
 And the winds were drunk with its sweets that dav. 
 
 2.. 
 
The Spirits of the Flowers. 
 
 Then back o er the waters the fairies sped, 
 Leaving a world of bloom behind, 
 Still by the dusky Hornet led, 
 And the Butterfly s sail spread out to the wind, 
 They reached the shore neath their tiny feet 
 Up sprung the honeyed Clover sweet; 
 And the Bluebells gave a musical peal 
 At the springing touch of each fairy heel, 
 And the Cowslip stirred in its shrinking grace, 
 And the gold-eyed Daisy raised his face, 
 And with crimson petals and golden heart 
 The Tulip stood by itself apart. 
 But the purple Night dropped down its shade. 
 And the glowing light in the West did fade; 
 Then the Firefly came with his shining spark 
 A beacon-light through the growing dark 
 And they climbed his back, a willing steed, 
 And back to their fairy camp did speed. 
 
 And the winds were soft, and the dew fell bright, 
 
 Like a rain of silver through the Night, 
 
 And the Klves they danced on the grassy green, 
 
 And each had a cup his wings between. 
 
 It was fastened there by a gossamer thread, 
 
 Which they had plucked from the Spider s bed; 
 
 And there were the dews of Night distilled, 
 
 Till every cup was with nectar filled. 
 
 Then each unclasped the silver thread 
 
 And with cup in hand to the flowers thev sped, 
 
 And they bathed each flower with nectar there, 
 
 Then waved their wands in the star-lit air. 
 
 Each bathed in a drop of pearly dew, 
 Then three times swung his wand anew, 
 Then faded out each form and face, 
 And only perfume filled the place. 
 Their work was done, and each had passed, 
 A perfumed soul, to his flower at last. 
 
 27 
 
i5Sion 
 
 Romance beside you dreams." 
 
 SAN FERNANDO. 
 
 [On the centennial celebration (Sept. 9, 1897.) of the founding 
 of San Fernando Mission.] 
 
 I see a vision of the Past that s vanished, 
 
 And voices hear that long, long since were still; 
 And dusky faces that old Time has banished 
 
 Once more these hoary piles do throng and fill. 
 
 The footsteps of the lurking savage greet me, 
 I hear the tread of many sandaled feet, 
 
 The snowy sails of drifting galleon meet me, 
 As turn mine eyes unto our sunset deep. 
 
 This tent of skies ahove me bends in glory, 
 The old Past halts to close its pond rous gates, 
 
 And o er its page of yet unwritten story 
 
 The smiling Future holds her pen and waits. 
 
 Waits till the silent air wakes to listen 
 
 To glad Te Deums from the treetops flung, 
 
 Where in the morning sunshine gleam and glisten 
 The Mission bells amid the oak boughs swung. 
 
 There swing they till the Mission walls uplifted, 
 Beneath tiled roof in stately beauty stand; 
 
 Bells of the Past ! whose music slowly drifted 
 Above the altars of this heathen land. 
 
 Twas then the clanging doors of Superstition 
 Swung to, and waiting Progress seized the key 
 
 And dawned the morning of Hope s glad fruition, 
 Whose fullness lay in the bright Yet-to-be. 
 
 Twas then that History here began her story, 
 The old Past died, the Future s day began; 
 
 These sacred walls, today so old and hoary, 
 Spoke first of hope and heav nly life for man. 
 
 The untaught savage heard and gladly listened, 
 
 His altar fires went out upon the hills; 
 Triumphantly his new-taught Glorias answered 
 
 The ringing music of his running rills. 
 
 O Mission walls ! how sacred is your story ! 
 
 O blessed milestones on the weary way 
 From the dark night of savage Superstition 
 
 To the full light that crowns our land today. 
 
 Decay has seized you, yet ye shall not perish 
 This pledge we give with firm, uplifted hand; 
 
 Your walls, so pregnant with grand deeds, we ll cherish, 
 The unknown Future still shall see them stand. 
 
 The Past, enfolding with its deeds of valor 
 A Mecca for the pilgrims weary feet, 
 
 A shrine the story of the Cross shall hallow 
 
 Where \ve with reverent voice the Past may greet. 
 
 THE OLD MISSIONS. (1892.) 
 
 Look to the Sun, O gray old walls of stone! 
 
 And to the hills\iour elder brothers they, 
 
 Who stood and watched when on that ancient day 
 
 A century agone those dusky hands 
 
 First laid your corner-stones. With them kindred 
 
 Are you. The Past has wedded you, and round 
 
 You still flows its soft atmosphere. Romance 
 
 Beside you dreams, her soft breath like the rose 
 
 Which the wind touches and it yields its sweets; 
 
 Could we but waken her to speech, our ears 
 
 Would hold its melody as they do hold 
 
 For aye the soft melody of rippling streams. 
 
 Of tinkling music of the fountain s flow, 
 
 Or sounds of soft winds breathing through forest 
 
 Pines, or sweetness of fond childhood s laughter 
 
 That we loved. 
 
 Looking on your gray old walls, 
 Heavy with rime of years and grim decay, 
 Fancy those native sons with their bronzed faces 
 Paints; those sons who, nursed by the warm sunshine, 
 Kissed by the gentle winds and fed by the 
 Growing corn, grew Samson-like in sinewy 
 Strength, fleet in the chase, and skillful with the 
 Oar. Swift as a shooting star glided their 
 Light canoes, skimming the waves like sea-gulls 
 In their flight. With what unerring skill tracked 
 They the hare, and followed the coyote, 
 Fierce-mouthed and snarling, to his lonely haunt, 
 The fierce and hungry mountain lion to 
 His lair. Simple their needs, and simple was 
 Their faith Sun-Worshipers, who, when morning 
 Broke, and the great round Sun uprose, flashing 
 His splendor on the heights their mountain altars 
 Worship fully went forth, in reverence 
 Bending, rejoicing in his light, whose smile 
 Was sunshine, and whose breath was summer warmth. 
 Green slept the winter hills in those old days; 
 The soft air round them flooded with silence; 
 The deep blue skies, like an infinite sea, 
 Golden with sunshine, while with pathless flight 
 The birds winged the bright air, or poured their songs 
 From tree and swaying bush in symphonies 
 That stirred the world to gladness, 
 As if music were its soul and its heart 
 Were love pulsing with melody. Nut-brown 
 Those early children of the soil, the Sun 
 Their father, and they reared to him altars 
 Where burned undying fires. The soft East Wind, 
 
MISSION SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO. 
 
Santa Barbara Mission. 
 
 Blowing at dawn, was hut the messenger 
 Whispering of his coming, and when the East 
 Burst into red bloom, or burned with amber, 
 Or glowed with pure white light on their faces 
 Touched by his beams they fell, the transplendent 
 Glory of the skies lighting his garments 
 Hem, and the breath of flowers the incense 
 Which Earth offered when first his golden eye 
 Opened above the mountain s crest, making 
 A new day for the waiting world. 
 
 As now, 
 
 Then glowed the golden poppies on the hills, 
 And these they deemed a smile their god had dropped 
 In passing, and so they with unspoken 
 Reverence loved them, and the diamonds 
 Of dew and pearls of white wild-flowers lying 
 Mid the lush grasses. O Nature s temple! 
 Wide and grand it rose, roofed by the bending 
 Sky, the columned trees its towering spires, 
 The Sun its god, the myriad untold 
 Stars its taper lights, the million birds 
 Its singing choirs, and its grand organ peal 
 The thundering Cataract, with undertone 
 Of leaping rills, whose silver cadences 
 Were sweet as wind-blown harps at eventide, 
 And tender as a mother s lullaby. 
 
 But to these shores there came the long-robed priests, 
 With sandaled feet and hands bearing the Cross. 
 The blue waves danced beneath their vessel s prow, 
 Till the green shores seemed beckoning to their feet, 
 And breezes soft a whispering welcome breathed. 
 Here they the banner of their faith unfurled, 
 Planted the Cross upon these sunset shores, 
 And swung their Mission bells among the trees, 
 And told the natives of the faith they brought, 
 And stirred their wonder by^Jliei_42pjiimis__riles, 
 And nursed Hope s blossom in their simple hearts. 
 How sweet to them the story of the Cross ! 
 How grand the Glorias the Mission bells 
 Rang to the waiting hills, oft wakening 
 The birds at morn ! The rippling water s song 
 Mingled with glad Te Deums. Silver-tongued, 
 The Spanish padres chanted low and soft 
 And clear their vesper hymns, and their incense 
 Burned on rude-built altars neath the templed 
 Dome of bending sky. But soon the native 
 Heart, kindled to new faith, lent willing hand 
 To rear the Mission walls. The sun-dried bricks 
 Were brought. The patient cattle on the hills 
 Were slain, yielding their hides the hundred roofs 
 To bind. Patient the feet the high mountain 
 Walls that climbed to fell the mighty trees. 
 Patient the backs that bore through pathless ways 
 The monarch forest trunks down the steep slopes, 
 And strong the sinewy arms which giant 
 Boulders stirred to serve for rock foundations. 
 Silence crept slowly from the hills she loved 
 As the new life dawned, and the square turrets 
 And the red-tiled roofs rose above the sleeping 
 Plains, and backward slippeth to dim forget fulness 
 
 The old idyllic life. With these gray walls 
 Sprang a new-born hope. No more the Sun, 
 Marching through cloudless sky-paths swept by rays 
 Of light, saw here her worshipers. Here grew 
 Dim all his altar fires, paling as starlight 
 In the sunlight pales, before the grander 
 Glory of the Cross. A new day had come, 
 Anu Empire s star shone clear within its dawn. 
 
 SANTA BARBARA MISSION. (1902.) 
 Its old walls stand beneath the summer sky, 
 The winds have kissed them for a hundred years, 
 The ancient olive trees, yet green and fair 
 As tireless sentinels, are standing there, 
 The dark-eyed senorita still appears 
 With smiling face among the passers-by. 
 
 There walk the monks as they did walk of old 
 When here another race did hold its sway. 
 The pictures on the walls are dim with age, 
 For time hath turned since then another page 
 Seen the Past vanish and a new Today 
 Of glorious promise round these walls unfold. 
 
 Still hang the bells beneath the tiled roof-towers 
 
 That woke the Indian from his slumbers deep. 
 
 And the old fountain sparkles in the sun; 
 
 Like liquid silver do its waters run, 
 
 While the grand mountains watch above it keep. 
 
 And the old Earth spreads out its wealth of flowers. 
 
 Within the churchyard there the sleepers lie 
 WJio died before the coming of Today; 
 The crumbling stones alx>ve their bodies rest, 
 The flowering sod above their forms is prest, 
 Outside the walls the happy children stray, 
 And birds soar upward to the cloudless sky. 
 
 This ancient pile is voiceful of the Past, 
 Our fancy sees the Indian bending there 
 Before its altars, th dark-browed sons of Spain 
 Kneeling round him; then there comes again 
 To breathe to God her silent fervent prayer 
 The aged senora, clinging ever fast 
 
 To what the priest hath taught her, waiting there 
 To have him bless her then she goes her way 
 With heart joy-filled; the days they are not long, 
 The morning seemeth like a happy song; 
 Life is so glad, so free from care the day, 
 And beauty lies around her everywhere. 
 
 Today the waters of the smiling sea 
 
 Lap the white sands upon the peaceful shore, 
 
 The sunset swoons upon the golden waves, 
 
 The mountain crests the falling sunbeam laves, 
 
 But lo ! those worshipers forevermore 
 
 Have vanished and they only be 
 
 To us a memory. These gray walls rise, 
 
 A monument to days that have gone by, 
 
 For they were built at Hope s beginning here, 
 
 Ere Freedom s morning shone forth full and clear; 
 
 While yet the land did sluml>er silently, 
 
 These gray old walls were lifted toward the skies. 
 
Mission Days. 
 
 Then let them stand to mark the highway trod 
 By pioneers of Progress who blazed th way 
 For us to tread. The blessed morn drew near, 
 The starlight darkened and the dawn was clear, 
 And neared the promise of the coming day 
 When they were reared and. dedicate to God. 
 
 THE PASSING OF THE OLD MISSIONS. (1897.) 
 
 That dim old Past, that yesterday of Time 
 Which sleeps behind the centuries afar, 
 As sleeps behind a cloud the sun or star, 
 Has wondrous story on its page sublime 
 Of this fair land that we today do hold, 
 Sought first by white man for its wealth of gold, 
 Coming from o er the sea, the calm, great sea, 
 
 That clasps the smiling land 
 
 With foam-white, tender hand. 
 
 No orchards grew upon the valley s breast, 
 No vintage ripened in the smiling sun, 
 Only the wild-flowers blossomed one by one, 
 A miracle of beauty each, and fair 
 As the gold-dropping sunbeams which did play 
 Amid the oaks whose falling acorns lay 
 Upon the ground, food for those savage sons, 
 The tawny children which the land did know, 
 And cradled fondly centuries ago, 
 
 Before the white man came, 
 
 With Cross and altar flame. 
 
 The soft sigh of the leaves that swayed upon their boughs 
 
 Held voice for them that mingled with their dreams 
 
 The silver melodies of crystal running streams, 
 
 And the far murmur of the sleeping sea 
 
 Which the breeze brought them as they wandered free. 
 
 All were the Great Spirit s own, down-breathing 
 
 Into their hearts, a benediction weaving, 
 
 Which wrapped them like a prayer and made them glad, 
 
 As if He stood with men 
 
 On hillside, plain and glen. 
 
 This great wide land was very fair and bright 
 Ages agone, as it is still today; 
 The golden sunbeams all about it lay, 
 The mountains lifted faces touched with light, 
 Crowned with the glory of the sun and stars. 
 Not oft a cloud spread out its misty bars 
 Across the sky within whose vast blue deep 
 The summer lay in lang rous calm asleep; 
 The scent of bay was sweet within the air, 
 
 And all the starlit dusk 
 
 Breathed scent of rose and musk. 
 
 Ah ! this the land the Sun wooed for his own, 
 And wove his* beams into a spell of bliss, 
 Mantled its mounts in gold and amethyst, 
 
 When day declined, 
 
 And earth s brown children gathered at their feet, 
 And lit their altar fires, and danced their fleet, 
 Wild, savage dances, and sang of their sires, 
 And the swift flight of arrows that did smite 
 Their ruthless foes, as when the day retires, 
 
 Night flings her dusky javelins, and there 
 Smites with her dark the world, till the bright sun 
 Rises again and puts out one by one 
 
 The many shining stars, 
 
 Lifting his golden bars. 
 
 How many years have slipped adown the past 
 Since first the Fathers came and builded here 
 The Mission walls! Twas then that Hope drew near 
 In her white garments, on whose spotless hem 
 The Cross was broidered, and in her hand she bore 
 The sacred crucifix, and the diadem 
 Of a new life lit by the morning star 
 Of coming Progress. O day of Time s days! 
 When on these sunlit shores there softly fell 
 The waking echoes of the Mission bell, 
 
 Stirring the silent air 
 
 With call to praise and pray r. 
 
 O how the red man wrought through years of toil 
 
 To rear these walls! Each hammer s stroke that fell 
 
 Upon the slumb ring silence was the knell 
 
 Of the old savage Past; each tower that rose 
 
 Under the blue sky shining in its light, 
 
 The sure-poised finger of fair Prophecy 
 
 Pointing unto that future, which was white 
 
 With peace, and which should supersede the night 
 
 Of Superstition; the dawn was breaking, 
 
 A fairer day of promise then was waking, 
 
 The brighter Future stood 
 
 Pregnant with coming good. 
 
 O land, O land of ours! the early morn, 
 
 Shining and clear, with pulses beating high, 
 
 Was on your hills, its light within your sky, 
 
 When to these Missions gathered peacefully 
 
 Thousands of savage red men who were taught 
 
 The art of husbandry; the long years brought 
 
 But peaceful conquest; the wigwam vanished quite, 
 
 Pueblos sprang to life, the fertile plains 
 
 Were dotted o er with many lowing herds, 
 
 And fields were rich with harvest-ripened grains; 
 
 The olive s silver leaf stirred in the bree/e 
 
 Like a wind lute, and gentle harmonies 
 
 Woke in the sunny vineyards on the slopes 
 
 Of the gre t hills, and Plenty s self awoke 
 
 Like some fair goddess, open-eyed, serene, 
 
 And silently, afar, 
 
 Rose coming Empire s star. 
 
 Listen! the sound of swift-advancing feet! 
 
 A new race comes, for it ye paved the way, 
 
 O Mission-builders! but ye must not stay, 
 
 Time lays his hand upon your crumbling piles. 
 
 Make way for Empire! Earth s dusky children heard, 
 
 And they have vanished. No longer smiles 
 
 The wildwood flower for them, nor lingers near 
 
 The faithful ox to draw the willing plow, 
 
 The vineyards know them not, the purple grape 
 
 Is plucked by other hands, the Fathers wake 
 
 To see new faces at their altars stand, 
 
 Facing the New, the Old 
 
 Stands with its story told. 
 
 30 
 
MISSION SAN GABRIEL. 
 
^^v 
 
 THE A 
 
 UNIVERSITY) 
 
 s 
 
Mlonfys an6 Seasons. 
 
 "The sea dreams by out golden sands." 
 
 HOW THE NEW YEAR COMES TO US. 
 
 O Land of balm and Land of Sun ! 
 Where Winter holds within his noon 
 But lingering summer days of bloom, 
 But calm of sky, and calm of sea, 
 And grandeur of immensity; 
 Where clouds move white above our head, 
 Like young lambs which are shepherded 
 By the soft breezes which do run 
 Light-footed as the golden hours, 
 To steal the fragrance of the flowers. 
 
 Where close against the doors of Dawn, 
 Our vast high mountain thrusts its head, 
 With Winter s whiteness garmented; 
 While maiden Summer stands below, 
 With perfumed breath and orange snow. 
 The Young Year with his skies of blue 
 She feeds with blossoms and with dew; 
 And lo! upon his natal morn 
 Weaves robes of harvests, fashioned fair 
 As bloom of flowers and sunlit air. 
 
 The sea dreams by our golden sands, 
 
 The palms stretch slender fingers down 
 
 To toy with sunbeams in the crown 
 
 The Xew Year wears. The smell of musk, 
 
 Of rose and lily fills the dusk 
 
 Of twilight hours. The silver moon 
 
 Seems lying in delicious swoon 
 
 Amid the stars. The Xew Year stands 
 
 With emerald paths to walk upon, 
 
 And bird-songs flowing on and on. 
 
 The blue sky smiles upon the sea, 
 The sea smiles back upon the sky, 
 The cradled islands lying by 
 Feel Summer s kiss and smile with them, 
 While Summer trails her garment s hem 
 Cross shining sea and shining land, 
 And gentle breezes tiptoe stand 
 To kiss the Xew Year on the mouth. 
 With kisses warm from their own south, 
 And all the listening months stand by 
 In mute and waiting ecstacy 
 Beneath a glad and smiling sky. 
 
 THESE NEW YEAR S DAYS. 
 
 The glorious and spring-like air 
 
 Falls round us like a veil. 
 And through it all the opening flowers 
 
 Their perfumed sweets exhale. 
 
 Upon the cedar s topmost limb 
 
 The spider s silver thread 
 Sways hack and forth a shining line, 
 
 The sunbeams love to tread. 
 
 The flies buzz in and out between 
 
 The needles of the pine, 
 The butterflies, like bright-winged flowers, 
 
 Float through the warm sunshine. 
 
 I hear a little bird afar, 
 
 Within some high treetop, 
 Sing sweet and clear the echoes ring 
 
 As they were loath to stop. 
 
 And all the world a willing ear 
 
 Is turning to the sound, 
 And e en the gray old rocks, unseen, 
 
 Fling all the music round. 
 
 The Xew "\ ear opens wide its eyes 
 
 On emerald hills so fair; 
 And Beauty smiles beneath the skies, 
 
 And walketh everywhere. 
 
 A NEW YEAR S INVITATION. (1903.) 
 
 O come, O come! the days are fair, 
 
 The land is em rald-drest and sweet. 
 
 With perfumes flowing everywhere, 
 
 With growing grasses at our feet! 
 
 The air is swept by glad birds wings, 
 And golden butterflies drop down 
 
 To where the fragrant lily springs, 
 
 And countless buds the rose-bush crown. 
 
 The palms sway softly in the breeze, 
 
 The fragrant violet smiles and blooms 
 
 Beyond the shadow of the trees, 
 
 And dreams through all the golden noons. 
 
 The mountains lift their crests of snow, 
 
 All touched with colors warm and bright, 
 
 Smiling upon the vales below 
 
 That dream in Summer s golden light. 
 
 And when the dusk her curtain draws, 
 
 And star-crowned Xight comes softly near, 
 
 She shakes her perfumed garments out, 
 And fragrance fills the atmosphere. 
 
 And here within this West we find 
 The sense of an unfettered rest, 
 
 And largeness that is unconfined, 
 
 And peace on Mother Xature s breast. 
 
 And here, near shining silver seas, 
 
 The orange groves and vineyards fair 
 
 Fill smiling space, and honey bees 
 
 Buzz gaily through the golden air. 
 
 The Xew Year comes with dainty feet, 
 And robes of sunlight golden fair, 
 
 Stealing with steps so soft and fleet 
 
 From where his starlit pathways ;ire. 
 
 11 
 
The Months and Seasons. 
 
 He comes to fill this golden West 
 
 With yet more priceless, richer boons, 
 
 And make the coming Future blest 
 
 With Freedom s fullness, and her noons 
 
 Golden with riches of delight. 
 
 So hither come where Promise smiles 
 Forever fair before the sight, 
 
 Through leagues on leagues of perfumed miles. 
 
 All ye pale dwellers mid the snows, 
 
 Come, and be glad where Nature lies, 
 
 Sun-robed and fair, and ever flows 
 
 Beneath these clear, unclouded skies, 
 
 Health s living stream ; the atmosphere 
 Is full of balm, and June s sweet air 
 
 Seems pulsing through December s days 
 Perfume and growth are everywhere. 
 
 Then hither come; the days are fair, 
 The land is em rald-drest and sweet 
 
 With perfumes flowing everywhere, 
 With growing grasses at our feet. 
 
 THE NEW YEAR. (1885.) 
 
 all 
 
 Last night the Old Year passed 
 Scarred with guilt and sin ; 
 
 This morn the New Year, pure and white, 
 Time s angel ushered in. 
 
 The starry midnight gates were flung 
 
 Upon their hinges wide, 
 The angels dipped their silv ry oars in 
 
 Time s incoming tide. 
 
 Swift sailing on its starry course upon the 
 
 airy deep, 
 The Old Year saw a golden boat adown 
 
 the star-beams sweep; 
 
 And when it touched the midnight shores 
 
 of ether s outmost sea, 
 The Old Year wrapped his mantle folds 
 
 about him silently. 
 
 And when the morning open flung its 
 
 gates within the East, 
 The New Year, crowned and sceptered, 
 
 Stood with beckoning smile of peace. 
 
 II. (December 31, 1901 January 1, 1902.) 
 
 The Old Year, vanished sentinel of Time, 
 With silent steps seeks the engulfing Past, 
 
 And all its deeds, both lowly and sublime, 
 Are writ on its imperishable Vast. 
 
 For nothing dies; the glory of today 
 Was given birth by yesterdays that were; 
 
 Great deeds are deathless, and oblivion keeps 
 For them no sealed and silent sepulcher. 
 
 Science soars upward on her tireless wings, 
 
 Freedom shakes off the shackles from her hands, 
 
 Truth halts because of binding chains no more, 
 And Superstition as her captive stands. 
 
 great Today ! We hail thee as a child 
 
 Of all Time s ages, and the New Year s dawn, 
 Crowned with the garnered glory of the centuries, 
 Proclaims the corning of a grander morn. 
 
 III. (1890.) 
 
 ihe year is young yet, but still it hath wept tears 
 Enough to drown ten thousand hopes of men; 
 It hath grown sorrow-old and furrowed with its fears, 
 And it hath torn its mother s breast the dear old 
 
 Earth s when 
 
 It did hold the tempests as its lash, 
 And sent its avalanches down with crash 
 As if some star was raided from its sphere. 
 
 But Nature, with gentle hand, is seeking now 
 
 To tame the boy, to heal his mother s woes; 
 
 And the warm sun is nursing her, and bow 
 
 To her the fairest of bright skies the sunlight flows 
 
 In golden rivers all the ether through, 
 
 And grasses green are springing up to new 
 
 Fresh life to hide her scars while regenerate stands 
 
 The Young Year, holding in his clean-washed hands 
 
 Such jewels of bright hopes of harvests stored 
 
 In rain-soaked soil, where he so freely poured 
 
 His wild floods out, and moaned and fretted days 
 
 On days. And baby buds of blossoms laughed with him, 
 
 And fragrant breezes through the forest ways 
 
 Breathe in sweet ecstacy their exquisite hymn. 
 
 THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW. 
 
 [At an entertainment in Santa Barbara, in 1876, in response to 
 a toast to the New Year, Mrs. Otis recited the following 
 original p:em:J 
 
 The Newsboy s Vision. 
 
 Time stands and blows his bubbles into space, 
 
 And far into the deep and fathomless 
 
 Depths of dim immensity, uprising 
 
 Swift beyond the stars, beyond the path of 
 
 All the circling worlds, outstretching far the 
 
 Verge of all the planetary spheres, out 
 
 Into unbeginning and unending 
 
 Space, mingling with the old Eternity 
 
 That was, and is, and shall be, flies swift and 
 
 Silent as the wind s shadow, the dead Old Year. 
 
 Asleep in my low attic chamber, 
 On my poor little pallet of straw 
 
 1 had drawn the rags closely about me, 
 For the night was chilly and raw. 
 
 Above me the stars were a-beaming, 
 They gleamed through the cracks overhead, 
 And the moon made a glorious pathway 
 Of light from the sky to my bed. 
 
 32 
 
The New Century. 
 
 All at once was I waking or dreaming? 
 Coming down on those silvery stairs 
 Which the moonbeams had built in the night-time, 
 Pure and bright as a penitent s prayers, 
 
 Was a form unsullied, untainted, 
 Untouched by a blot or a stain; 
 Its robes were as spotless as heaven, 
 Its feet were as swift as a flame. 
 
 When it touched on the star-lighted ether, 
 On earth s outer limits of air, 
 Time reined in his steeds for a moment 
 And crowned and sceptcred it there. 
 
 Then out through the gates of the midnight 
 The door of the East was ajar 
 His robe like a shroud wrapped around him, 
 The Old Year vanished afar. 
 
 And as Morn with her soft rosy fingers 
 Flung open the gates of the East, 
 The New Year looked out from its chambers 
 With a smile and a blessing of peace. 
 
 THE NEW CENTURY. (1901.) 
 
 Great monarch Time, with centuries of years 
 Upon his forehead like a shining crown, 
 Looking the pathway of the ages down, 
 
 Still grand as noblest manhood he appears 
 
 With face unwrinkled and with arm as bold 
 As dauntless hero s facing hated wrong, 
 By conscience armed and by the right made strong, 
 
 He moveth on while ages new are told. 
 
 And glad he looks upon this Land of Sun, 
 
 And fain would halt a moment by the way, 
 So rare its beauty and so bright its day; 
 
 Great monntained land, and land of vales that run, 
 
 All blossom-crowned and harvest-filled and fair, 
 
 From mounts to sea; here smiling Plenty waits 
 And bids the world enter her golden gates, 
 
 Where riches lie ungathered everywhere. 
 
 Time opes his treasures and to us he throws 
 The keys of Empire to unlock the gates 
 Of world-wide commerce, which impatient waits, 
 
 Its mighty stream, like tidal overflows, 
 
 Seeking an inlet to this plenteous land. 
 
 In the clear dawn of this new Century s day 
 We rise to meet it in the broad highway 
 
 Of ceaseless Progress, lo! we beckoning stand. 
 
 II. (1902.) 
 
 We stand and face the centuries of time, 
 
 The New is here with wonders most sublime, 
 
 With strange new powers progressive manhood stands, 
 
 The key to Nature s laws within his hand. 
 
 The lightnings he may marshal at his word, 
 
 The air to speech is at his bidding stirred, 
 
 The very stars he measures and doth weigh, 
 
 He gives to night the brightness of the day. 
 
 The Iron Horse moves on with thund rous tread, 
 By giant steam a harnessed courser led; 
 For him the lightnings leap the mighty seas, 
 And reach the shores of the antipodes. 
 
 And at their gates he puts his list ning ear, * 
 And lo! their whispers he may plainly hear. 
 Man groweth to be master of the world, 
 The flag of Science he hath wide unfurled. 
 
 The hoary rocks their secrets yield to him, 
 Star-speech is heard through all the midnight dim 
 He s rent the veil from "Nature s hidden face, 
 And now he stands where he can clearly trace 
 
 The laws that govern her, and make them stand 
 As willing servants ready at his hand; 
 As king he stands, as monarch of the earth, 
 In this bright morning of the Century s birth. 
 
 No more the slave of Ignorance he waits, 
 For he may now unlock the long-closed gates 
 Of Knowledge, and proudly lay his scepter there. 
 Climb to his throne, monarch of earth and air. 
 
 THESE JANUARY DAYS. (1892.) 
 
 The days slip by so calmly bright and fair; 
 
 The clouds troop lightly and no raindrops fall; 
 
 The sunbeams pour a flood of golden sheen; 
 
 The air is balmy, breathing soft and low; 
 
 The flowers shed fragrance, filling everything 
 
 With odors sweet, as in fair days of June, 
 
 And like a flower with wings the butterfly 
 
 Finds shining paths along the sunny air, 
 
 While the bees hum pleases our listening ears. 
 
 With the wings of gossamer the happy flics 
 
 Make rainbow-shining as they flit along. 
 
 The little buds upon their slender stems 
 
 Are dreaming, summer-like, while grasses green 
 
 Show slender tongues that yet shall whisper low 
 
 The symphonies of wind as light they pass. 
 
 Dawns show their gold, while sunsets are aflame 
 
 With amber lights and richest crimson glow. 
 
 The stars look down from purpling evening skies, 
 
 Their silver arrows falling on the hills, 
 
 Their silver rain flooding the sleeping vales. 
 
 Night holds her breath while Beauty kisses her, 
 
 And dreams of Eden. Mountain heights look down 
 
 Star-crested, while the smiling moon touches 
 
 Caressingly their shoulders. The mocking 
 
 Bird, in the clear midnight hush, oft wakens 
 
 And sings, and jubilant echoes answer 
 
 To his song. How sway the golden orange 
 
 Spheres ! twinkling mid thick boughs like starry worlds 
 
 Within an under firmament. Winter 
 
 Here is flower-crowned, glorious, strong-limbed, 
 
 A Hercules with fair Adonis face, 
 
 Which Nature s marshaled armies spring to greet, 
 
 While Earth, his worshiper, adorns herself 
 
 With beauty, nursing with care her many charms. 
 
 33 
 
The Months and Seasons. 
 
 A FEBRUARY DAY. (1901.) 
 
 The world around is wondrous fair and bright, 
 Flooded with fragrance and with radiant light; 
 A crown of beauty on th emerald bills, 
 A voice of music in the flowing rills, 
 A tide of song within the upper air, 
 Where glad bird-life is flitting everywhere, 
 A glory on the trees that catch the sun, 
 Where mid the leaves the golden ripples run, 
 Chased by the laughing breeze whose soundless feet 
 Trip gaily as the light, and are as fleet. 
 
 * 
 
 This month has stolen the smile of the May, 
 
 Her robes are as fair, her colors as gay, 
 
 Her skies as bright as June s shadowless ones, 
 
 Her days are as golden and warm as her suns, 
 
 And oh! there s a heart in the music that pours 
 
 From th throat of the lark as upward it soars; 
 
 A heart in the fragrance of blossoming things, 
 
 In the tender young grass as upward it springs; 
 
 And my own heart grows glad with th beauty which lies 
 
 On the bosom of earth and the face of the skies. 
 
 Breast slumber, languishing, odorous noons, 
 And warm-shining suns, all golden in 
 Garments of light? AVhat meanetb the pall that 
 Is spread twixt us and the sun-lighted spaces 
 Of sky? Let the wind kiss its face and bear 
 It with light wings away, for lo! the Sun s 
 Loving children do long for the light of 
 His smile, and even the poppies -grow pale 
 On the hillsides so fair, and the purple- 
 Eyed grasses do bend as if saying a 
 Prayer for his coming. This pavement of 
 Cloud is not the thing for thy feet, O bright 
 God of Day ! but sky-burnished sapphire and 
 Kmpyrean blue shouldst thou tread, while lances 
 Of light and gold-dust of sunbeams should fill 
 The wide deeps about thee. O Helias, 
 Smile! and break through the curtains of mist, then 
 Orange trees with golden bells laden shall 
 Pour out their rhythmical sweets, and the air 
 Shall grow glad, and earth s blossom-filled pulses 
 Shall stir, as she drinks in the wine of thy 
 Light, and feels the warm kiss of thy lips. 
 
 MARCH TIS ONLY SPRING. (1898.) 
 
 The fronded palms are lifted o er my head, 
 The roses climb into the eaves broad arms, 
 And nestle there the birds, safe from alarms, 
 
 And unto beauty this fair day is wed. 
 
 No harsh winds blow across the tender skies, 
 The golden air is full of sweet perfumes, 
 Morn in the east the whole sweet world illumes; 
 
 Like walls of amethyst the mountains rise. 
 
 O far, so far into the blue above, 
 
 Robed in the glory of this glowing morn, 
 
 Like vanquished hosts the shadows have withdrawn, 
 
 As fleeth Hate before the light of Love. 
 
 The wondrous beauty of the blooming flowers, 
 The dreamy tenderness of earth and air, 
 The summer brightness brooding everywhere 
 
 From early morn to evening s rosy hours, 
 
 Make us forget tis only Spring today, 
 
 That loitering Summer walkest months before, 
 And they must pass before she ll ope the door 
 
 And walk with Time along her flower-paved way. 
 
 But O! this land! this land of song and light, 
 Of shining skies that hardly know a cloud, 
 Where winds are stilled, nor seldom breathe aloud; 
 
 A charm like Summer s is on vale and height. 
 
 THESE CLOUDED APRIL DAYS. 
 
 O sky ! cloud-wrapped and frowning so darkly, 
 What grim, moody madness hath seized thee? O 
 Where is the sunshine of April the sweet, 
 Dreamy, languorous days that belong to 
 Our fair, semi-tropical clime, on whose 
 
 APRIL S CLOSE. (1896.) 
 
 Smile, smile, O Day! in thy beauty and gladness; 
 
 Laugh with the Dawn as she comes over the hills, 
 
 Trailing her long, flashing ribbons of rills. 
 
 O the blue of the sky is cloudless and deep! 
 
 Broader than earth is its infinite sweep; 
 
 Stars sleep in its heart, soft curtained by light, 
 
 And the soul of Day in ecstatic delight 
 
 Broods over the world, o er this clime of the Sun, 
 
 Where soft-footed and glad the light breezes run 
 
 O er oceans of bloom, and April is gay 
 
 With roses and lilies, as fair as the May 
 
 In blossoming glory, with bosom as warm 
 
 As dewy sweet June s; and the purpling Dawn 
 
 Forever finds Summer asleep in our vales, 
 
 Where waveth the palm, and never there fails 
 
 The song of the bird, the murmur of bees, 
 
 The shimmer of light on the leaf-laden trees. 
 
 AN APRIL OUTLOOK. (1904.) 
 
 [From "The Bivouac."] 
 
 The park lies close beneath my window here, 
 The tall, green trees within the air so clear 
 Are all uplift, like pinnacles of flame; 
 The sunshine floods each leaf, they seem to drain 
 Its golden glory, and they so lightly dance 
 As the soft bree/e doth make its slow advance. 
 
 The hills like perfect emeralds glow and gleam, 
 The vales are bright in their rich, grassy sheen, 
 And flowers are nodding in the sunshine bright. 
 Whose golden arrows take their shining flight, 
 Filling the air as if twere summer here, 
 And earth were breathing June s sweet atmosphere. 
 
 34 
 
Sem i- Tropic A pril. 
 
 How blue the sky ! A wondrous vast it is, 
 Filled with impenetrable mysteries; 
 How blue the lake beneath the bending sky, 
 And grand the mountains here uplifted high, 
 Cradling the vales within their fond embrace. 
 Crowning with glory the old Earth s sweet face. 
 
 Daisies are looking to the sun, and lo! 
 
 The modest violet its sweet face does show; 
 
 lall eucalypti whisper to the light, 
 
 And countless birds are winging their glad flight, 
 
 As if the smiling sunshine, beckoning, drew 
 
 Them on and on its unseen pathways through. 
 
 O beautiful, so beautiful and fair 
 
 The outlooks from my vine-wreathed windows are ! 
 
 In flame-like colors do the acacias glow. 
 
 Like bright fire-opals countless blossoms show, 
 
 And the still lake is like an eye of light 
 
 That earth has lifted to the sunshine bright. 
 
 O summer world ! O summer land of ours ! 
 Breathing the fragrance of undying flowers, 
 Girdled by mountains and the mighty sea, 
 Fondled by Growth in all her witchery. 
 Xo land like thee beneath the glowing sun, 
 No land so fair since Eden s days were done. 
 
 SEMI-TROPIC APRIL. (1893.) 
 
 Fickle and fair is April in the East, 
 
 Dimpled, sometimes with snows, sometimes with flowers; 
 
 How different is she from this maid of ours, 
 
 With laughing eyes and blossoms in her hair, 
 
 Sun-crowned with light, and lovely everywhere, 
 
 With happy birds which fill the air with song; 
 
 With grasses lying like an emerald along 
 
 The paths she walks; with skies which be 
 
 Cloudless as June s, as deep with mystery 
 
 Of boundlessness. How gay her ribboned streams, 
 
 Like silver shining in her valley s lap! 
 
 How golden are the ever-shining beams 
 
 The passing days with tender glances wrap 
 
 Around her morns and ever-glowing noons! 
 
 How silvery her stars and shining moons! 
 
 Her days are pearls of gladness, and her eves 
 
 Like notes of song. How sweet the buds she weaves 
 
 Of orange bloom and almond blossoms snows ! 
 
 How rich with fragrance every wind that blows! 
 
 Coy as a maiden, yet divinely fair 
 
 As perfect womanhood our Aprils are. 
 
 ROSE-LIPPED MAY! (1891.) 
 
 O rose-lipped May! O laughing May! 
 With eyes so blue and cheeks so warm, 
 The poppies lie upon thy breast, 
 The lilies lean at thy caress, 
 The roses kiss thy heart at noon, 
 And lo ! the butterfly is winged 
 With color like a sky-born flower; 
 The bees buzz in thy golden sun, 
 The days grow longer, lingering 
 
 As if to drink thy breath of balm. 
 The winds are hushed in breathless calm, 
 And ever-growing grasses stir, 
 And golden-hearted daisies shine, 
 And merry-hearted crickets sing, 
 And glad birds pour their melodies, 
 And laughing waters leap and run, 
 And all thy days are fair and sweet; 
 As if the earth anew were born, 
 And Beauty dreamed upon thy breast, 
 And in thy arms lay cradled Rest. 
 
 THE MAYTIME. (1904.) 
 
 O the day is laughing, the sunshine bright 
 Floods the whole fair world with its golden light, 
 And I hear a whisper amid the trees 
 The joyous whisper of the Maytime breeze. 
 
 For the May is here with her breath of flow rs. 
 Wearing a bright necklace of golden hours, 
 And the waters dance in the shining sun 
 Ripple and dance till the day is done. 
 
 The glad birds are singing from east to west, 
 From the valley s floor to the mountain s crest, 
 While the bees hum sounds like a breath of song 
 Which the fragrant zephyrs waft along. 
 
 And the butterflies, like winged blossoms fair. 
 Sail the golden deeps of the sun-filled air, 
 All the world is a-smile with its gladness, too, 
 From the fair green earth to the ether blue. 
 
 O wonderful skies of May s golden dawns 
 That bridge the path of her perfect morns! 
 Sun and fragrant her noons here lie 
 In a dream of bliss neath a cloudless sky. 
 
 And her eyes are soft as a zephyr blown 
 From the far sweet depths of a tropic zone, 
 And above us her starry tapers gleam, 
 AVhile we lie in her arms, a-dream, a-dream. 
 
 JUNE A SUMMER PICTURE. (1887.) 
 
 The peppers swing their lazy branches low 
 
 In the sweet sunshine, for breeze-kissed are they, 
 
 And all their rosy clustering berries play 
 
 At hide-and-seek as soft winds come and go. 
 
 And on their very topmost bough I hear 
 
 A happy robin singing sweet and clear 
 
 A song of June. I wonder what it knows 
 
 Of flowery secrets; what its ear has caught 
 
 From whispering grasses and from swaying reeds, 
 
 Stirring where summer air so softly blows. 
 
 And silver-tongued the shining river flows? 
 
 A DAY IN JUNE. (1899.) 
 
 O day of days! of sweet delight and love, 
 
 Where glowing beauty leans from sky and tree, 
 
 From everything in life, below, above, 
 
 From all the vastness that my eyes do see. 
 
The Months and Seasons. 
 
 White-shining clouds float soft in sunny skies, 
 Just tipped at morning with the sunrise gold, 
 
 And the glad blossoms in their wondrous dyes 
 Do countless ever neath my feet unfold. 
 
 Mitered wifh light the lofty mountains rise, 
 Like other worlds above the sleeping vales, 
 
 And, lo! the glory of the sun-filled skies 
 Is on them ever till the sunlight pales. 
 
 O glorious altitudes ! they lift 
 
 The sad soul higher until grief slips by, 
 As if the airs of Paradise were sift 
 
 On the pure winds beneath that upper sky. 
 
 The earth is soaked in sunbeams, and the sea, 
 The air is full of song and fragrance sweet, 
 
 And I am glad if only but to be 
 
 Where fragrance, song and light and beauty meet. 
 
 A FOG-CLOUD IN SWEET JUNE. (1903.) 
 
 The sun is hid beneath the cloud, 
 A cloud of fog so dark and grim, 
 
 The winds are stilled nor breathe aloud; 
 Within the trees we hear the hymn 
 
 Of happy birds. Their song is sweet, 
 They do not miss the sunshine s glow, 
 
 Their spreading wings are just as fleet 
 As in the sunlight s overflow. 
 
 But oh ! we miss the cloudless blue 
 Paved with the gold of sunlight fair; 
 
 We miss the glory shining through 
 The vast unhindered deeps of air. 
 
 Sweet June in fog-wrought garments rare 
 Is not the June we long have known, 
 
 With sunbeams for her tresses fair, 
 
 And brightness round her pathways thrown. 
 
 Dear June, with skies of cloudless light, 
 
 So infinite and vast and deep, 
 As sun-filled as the lily white, 
 
 Or golden poppy on the steep 
 
 Come back and fill our land with sun, 
 Come, light the glory of the stars, 
 
 Come back and smile as you have done 
 
 Since first you passed our Southland s bars. 
 
 THE FLOWER-LIPPED JUNE. 
 
 The air is sweet, and all the breezes stir 
 With perfumed*laughter, then rippling run to 
 Meet the glorious sunshine as it so 
 Softly falls on leaf and tree and gently- 
 Opening flower and running stream. How gleam 
 Its golden arrows in the brook, and how 
 Lean the swaying grasses down to touch the 
 Flowing crystal ! There a little robin 
 
 Comes, its breast aglow with red, and dips its 
 Beak, then lifts it, while a diamond drop 
 Still clings to it, as if to lend a sparkle 
 To its song. Reclining, the beautiful 
 Hills sweep with a veil of mist upon their 
 Foreheads, while the blue eye of June looks love 
 To them, and through her royal lips the light 
 And odorous breezes breathe Love s softest 
 Whispers, and the stars shine forth in twinkling 
 Ecstacy. Ah ! flower-lipped June, with 
 Fragrant lilies on thy snowy lids, and 
 The warm rose flushes on thy dimpled cheeks; 
 Thou art for lovers, and thy breath is love 
 And perfumed benediction. 
 
 JUNE. (1893.) 
 
 Summer is with us, and she whispers low 
 
 In fragrant words through all the winds that blow. 
 
 How bright the blossoms which her sweet lips press! 
 
 How smile the buds her tender hands caress! 
 
 The June-bright skies are sapphire-like and fair, 
 
 Bird-songs have not a single note of care; 
 
 Golden the wings the butterfly doth spread, 
 
 And rainbowed those of bee and fly o erhead. 
 
 I catch the lily s scent; the roses sweet 
 
 Pave with their perfume pathways for my feet; 
 
 The palms drop shadows cool upon the grass, 
 
 The green vines nod unto me as I pass; 
 
 The cricket s chirp sounds merry to my ear; 
 
 The humming-bird is sipping nectar near; 
 
 The world is bathed in sunshine everywhere 
 
 Valley and mountain top and deeps of air. 
 
 Sweet June, stay with us, O sweet June! go slow; 
 
 Stay long to glad us, do not haste to go. 
 
 II. (1894.) 
 
 These summer days are golden as the sun; 
 
 The sky is cloudless, and the pulsing air 
 Breathes like a spirit. Breezes run 
 
 Fondling the blossoms infinitely fair; 
 The million leaves upon the many trees 
 
 Beat joyously their numerous small hands, 
 As birds sing sweetly from amid their boughs; 
 
 The spider spins the silver of his bands 
 In his white tent, bright-lying there between 
 
 The lilies and the roses. L T pward twines 
 Soft-footed, noiselessly, and robed in green, 
 
 The fragrant honeysuckle s slender vines, 
 And banksias, fragrant in creamy white, 
 
 Bury our porches in their living Moom, 
 Catching the golden sunbeams in their flight, 
 
 Kissing to brightness all the fragrant gloom. 
 Days dream upon the breast of sunny Earth, 
 
 Skies touched with glory bend above them there; 
 Fragrance and bloom have each unhindered birth, 
 
 While pure and still as a white saint at prayer 
 The light drops down. 
 
 36 
 
Dying July. 
 
 in. 
 
 June is the month of flowers and bright blue skies 
 
 The wide world over; scarce a shadow lies 
 
 Beneath her lids of rose, her cheeks of bloom. 
 
 Her days are long and sweet, and yet they pass too soon. 
 
 Her breath holds all the fragrance sweet of violet, 
 
 And lily fair, and clear-browed mignonette, 
 
 And honeysuckle s bloom ; the pansy s face 
 
 Is lifted, purple-eyed and fair, 
 
 And birds sing to her, breathing everywhere 
 
 Of love and joy, of purity and peace; 
 
 And all her morns stand golden in the East. 
 
 Heaven seems not very far when June is here, 
 
 Tis just beyond her starlight still and clear. 
 
 IV. (1900.) 
 O June! sweet bride of Beauty, on thy brow 
 
 The Year doth lay its crown of many flowers; 
 The Sun doth love thee, and he stealeth now 
 
 Up Dawn s bright steeps till thy fringed pearls of 
 
 hours 
 Are nearly all filled with his glowing light, 
 
 So early comes he and so late doth go; 
 He stands upon the threshold of the Night, 
 
 And says good-bye in whispers sweet and low. 
 And June s starlighted nights, they seem to be 
 
 Filled with the glory of some far-off sphere, 
 Which sinless swings within immensity, 
 
 While its o erladen fullness falleth here 
 In dews of silence and of golden light, 
 
 And blessed fragrance, such as Eden knew 
 When this new world first climbed the starry height 
 
 And shed its light amid the fields of blue. 
 O in that Sometime which doth lie afar, 
 
 Beyond the tides of Time s unresting sea, 
 Beyond the light of farthest sun or star, 
 
 In the wide realms of immortality, 
 Will not blest Junes forever blossom fair 
 
 In brighter glory than this earth may know, 
 And God s own radiance fill them everywhere, 
 Till suns seem dark beside their wondrous glow? 
 
 DYING JULY. (1890.) 
 How smiles the illimitable sky! how 
 Break in flooding glory on the hills and 
 The far mountain tops, on the wide seas, and 
 The sweet-sleeping plains, the golden tides of 
 Light. Birds sing and breezes laugh in rippling 
 Wantonness, ami the leaf-tongued trees breathe their 
 Melodious whispers to the air. Day 
 Is full of song, and soul, and beauty. The 
 Bright skies lean earthward, and lay their soft blue 
 Like a lover s hand upon the mountains 
 Crest, where the tall pines stand sentinels, with 
 Faces somber, but with breasts holding the 
 Light of centuries. The flowers breathe soft, 
 But their petals stir as if warm hearts beneath 
 Them throbbed in tenderest pulsations. How 
 Soft the air! how full of balm! how sapphire- 
 Eyed the day! How rich the emerald of 
 
 Trees upon its breast! Xo torrid sun to 
 Torture it. No lightnings fierce to rend its 
 Calm repose. Xo belching thunders to break 
 The fragrant silence. Earth smiles, and like some 
 Vestal virgin on her bier, all veiled in 
 Beauty, clieth July within our tropic calm. 
 
 A JULY DAY IN SUNLAND. (1903.) 
 Flowers, tall trees, blue skies and shining sun, 
 
 Mountains that rise unto the deeps of air, 
 Birds filling deeps where sunbeams run 
 
 On viewless feet, to bless earth everywhere. 
 Soft breezes blow amid the many leaves, 
 
 The grasses beckon us along the way. 
 Like piles of gold the ripened harvest sheaves 
 
 Jewel the fields where Plenty s footsteps stray. 
 The shadows lie asleep beneath the palms, 
 
 Green vines creep up and cover roof and wall. 
 The cricket s song is free from all alarms. 
 
 And soft the whisper of the wild bees call. 
 Green grasses creep unto the lake s clear brink. 
 
 Bright blossoms smile upon the sloping green, 
 And there a water-rat comes down to drink, 
 
 And here a gold-winged butterfly is seen. 
 
 The day is fair, no cloud is in the sky, 
 Xo shadow lies upon the wondrous blue; 
 
 How gracious is the air with fragrance filled, 
 As fair the world as if twere made anew. 
 
 Xo sultry heat disturbs our golden noon, 
 
 Xo sudden storm paints blackness on the sky, 
 
 For shining days are Summer s perfect boon, 
 
 And, winged with light and peace, they pass us by. 
 
 O Summer Land ! O land divinely fair, 
 
 With swaying palms and blossoms manifold, 
 With cloudless, infinite deeps of air, 
 
 Where Summer rests on seas of shining gold. 
 More beautiful art thoii than other lands, 
 
 With thy vast templed hills and mountains high, 
 The glory of thy strength unchallenged stands, 
 
 As does the beauty of thy vales which lie 
 
 Like fruitful Edens steeped in golden light; 
 
 Like days just born when Time itself was young, 
 Thy sweet days come and then they take their flight, 
 
 Fair as those days when Time had just begun. 
 
 A CLOUDY AUGUST FIRST. 
 A day of clouds, a morn of mimic showers, 
 
 Like raindrops coming down with careless glee 
 Into this rainless Summer-Land of ours, 
 
 Like happy wanderers only just set free. 
 What means this mood of Xature s, why does she 
 Drops tears instead of sunshine, o er her sky 
 Draw such light veil of clouds, and wantonly 
 
 Tease us with memories of days gone by, 
 When oft we listened to the Summer s chime 
 Of pattering raindrops upon the window-pane 
 The rhythmed melody of falling rain? 
 
The Months and Seasons. 
 
 Not often here does smiling Summer know 
 
 A wandering cloud upon her wondrous blue, 
 Save at Day s close, when golden evenings show 
 
 Lights as if heav n itself were shining through, 
 Or her pale dawns brighten with rosy light, 
 
 When all the East unbars its gates of gold, 
 And silently the shadowed Night takes flight, 
 
 And the bright Sun his banner does unfold, 
 Till flames his glory on the sunrise hills, 
 And all the sky grows luminous with light, 
 As rosy-winged stands Morning on the height. 
 
 SEMI-TROPIC SEPTEMBER. (1891.) 
 
 September s laughing harvests, 
 
 Her skies of deepest blue, 
 Her meadow-larks and singing-birds, 
 
 Which wing the wide air through 
 I sing of them. 
 
 Her swaying vines and roses, 
 
 And fields of growing corn, 
 Her soft-winged, fragrant breezes, 
 
 That fan the cheeks of Morn 
 I sing of them. 
 
 Her vineyards purple-tinted, 
 
 Her green, nut -laden trees; 
 Her wide alfalfa meadows 
 
 Like billowy emerald seas 
 I sing of them. 
 
 O low-voiced running waters! 
 
 O waving pine and palm ! 
 O spaces orchard-broidered, 
 
 And filled with summer calm 
 I sing of you. 
 
 September s light is on you, 
 
 Her dewy-lidded eyes 
 Drop warm and tender glances 
 
 From out her cloudless skies. 
 
 On cedar tree-tops singing, 
 
 The mocking-bird I hear, 
 And, all the warm air filling, 
 
 The robin s song rings clear. 
 
 The lark pours out his gladness, 
 
 And rises to the sun, 
 As if the May-time glory 
 
 Again to earth had come. 
 
 Rose-tinted breaks the Morning, 
 
 Golcl-paved the shining Noon, 
 And Evening feels the pulses 
 
 Of tender bud and bloom. 
 
 We dream through golden sunsets, 
 Through nights of stars and calm, 
 
 We wake to rose-hued mornings, 
 And fear no storm s alarm. 
 
 SEPTEMBER. (1882.) 
 
 The Summer s noon has passed, and brown 
 
 And sadly old the tall hills stand, 
 Their russet robes are all smoothed down 
 
 By sober Autumn s careful hand. 
 No rippling folds of shining green, 
 
 With daisies gemmed and violet, 
 About their giant forms are seen; 
 
 No fingers weave their coronet 
 Of buds and blossoms dewy-eyed. 
 
 No more the golden-tasseled corn, 
 Which every wandering breeze has spied, 
 
 Waves gaily in the light of morn. 
 The old oaks spread their emerald cool, 
 
 Like some oasis lifted high; 
 The silver of each shining pool 
 
 Gives place to white sands, parched and dry. 
 No running brooks with silver tongues 
 
 Murmur sweet music through the glade. 
 Yet skies are blue and Summer suns 
 
 Through all the Autumn days have stayed. 
 Still through the golden paths of light 
 
 The butterfly s bright wings are spread, 
 The humming-bird his jeweled flight 
 
 Takes mid the sweets which blossoms shed 
 In garden walks where roses bloom, 
 
 And gay lantanas lift their heads, 
 And purple heliotrope is strewn 
 
 Above the glowing garden beds, 
 And fruits hang ripe on tree and vine, 
 
 And vineyards riot in the sun, 
 And only Daylight s swift decline 
 
 Notes that the Summer days are done. 
 
 II. (1893.) 
 
 September comes with her soft-footed tread, 
 
 Sandaled with beauty, and with sky overhead 
 
 Drowned in warm sunshine, as delicious, clear, 
 
 As if the splendor of the June were here. 
 
 How peeps the Sun down the dewy dingles sweet, 
 
 Kisses the streams as on they run to meet 
 
 The shining sea; and lays his web of gold 
 
 O er the hilltops in a massive fold, 
 
 And then drops downward to the orchard-clad 
 
 And vineyard-covered fields, and to the glad 
 
 Sweet gardens where the roses open wide, 
 
 Swaying delighted on the sunny tide 
 
 Of air balm-laden. Birds sing sweet 
 
 From orange boughs, and the high limbs that meet 
 
 So near the heaven they seem to touch the blue 
 
 Where scimitars of eucalypti through 
 
 The golden glory seem to pierce, as fain 
 
 They would touch heaven, and then again 
 
 Beckon to earth and whisper, leaf-tongued, low 
 
 Of stars and skies and things we may not know. 
 
 The breezes bathe their feet in shining dew, 
 
 38 
 
October in the East. 
 
 Running each morn the wide warm meadows through; 
 They kiss the flowers, which nod them sweet replies, 
 Stir morning-glories till they ope their eyes 
 In purple gladness, woo the birds to sing 
 As if twere some glad morning of the spring. 
 
 OCTOBER IN THE EAST. (1899.) 
 
 October, handmaid of the passing year, 
 
 In the far East comes golden-crowned and bright 
 
 With the rich splendor of her woods, which near 
 
 And far flash into glorious light, 
 
 As if the Sun, with all his treasure-trove 
 
 Hid in tbeir leaves, with brightest colors wove 
 
 A splendid diadem for the Old Year, 
 
 Brighter than Summer s rose or grassy spear. 
 
 The blue skies bend above the drowsy earth, 
 
 Which laughs no longer with its Summer mirth; 
 
 The hills are brown, the blossoms all have gone, 
 
 But, oh, the glory of the woods ! I long 
 
 To see their wondrous face. The many streams, 
 
 Holding the gold of all the Sun s bright beams, 
 
 Rush singing onward, fed by Autumn rains, 
 
 Whose chorus breaks into wild, rich refrains. 
 
 Sometimes a song-bird calleth from the trees, 
 
 And sometimes Winter whispers to the breeze 
 
 Of his near coming, and the waiting world, 
 
 Whose lengthening nights cool shadows are unfurled. 
 
 Shivers so softly as it elingeth yet. 
 
 With fading face and heavy eyelids wet 
 
 With Autumn showers to passing Summer s hand. 
 
 The skies are bright which bend above the land, 
 
 But there s a traitor in the camp who steals 
 
 The warmth of sunbeams, and who quick reveals 
 
 His frosty javelins and hastes to smite 
 
 All growing things, and like a veil his white 
 
 Breath covers them whene er the starry dark 
 
 Drops down upon the world. In vain we hark 
 
 For his swift footsteps; they come and go 
 
 Soft-footed as the Winter s falling snow. 
 
 Silent as Death they steal through forest glade, 
 
 And wide, still meadows in the evening shade. 
 
 Castles, and towers and waterfalls be leaves 
 
 Ktched on the window-panes, nor ever grieves 
 
 To see the gentle floweret hang its head, 
 
 Or see the world of lovely grasses dead. 
 
 A merry soul he is, yet cruel too, 
 
 And blasts of cold be blows his fingers through, 
 
 And winks at Winter as he d bid him see 
 
 His wanton hand upon each bush and tree. 
 
 But still the day shines bright at noontide s hour, 
 
 And the great forests, rich in beauty s dower, 
 
 Flame into splendid color. Rainbows pale 
 
 Beside their brightness, and the arching skies 
 
 I. ike one great gleaming sapphire rise; 
 
 Xoon floods them with his sunshine s richest gold. 
 
 And Earth the Indian Summer doth enfold 
 
 In her warm clasp until the daylight fades, 
 
 And Jack Frost steals again from hidden glades, 
 
 Smiting the Earth till Nature slowly dies, 
 
 Or in a swoon of pulseless silence lies. 
 
 SEMI-TROPIC OCTOBER. (i88g.) 
 
 Here beneath October s sky, 
 Where the joyous butterfly 
 Still in happy gladness floats, 
 Where the music from the throats 
 Of unnumbered birds still rings, 
 And the budding blossom springs, 
 Sending forth its dewy sweets; 
 Where the golden sunrise greets 
 Verdant fields of ripening maize, 
 Where through all the orchard ways, 
 Through their aisles of shade and sun, 
 Is the ripening orange hung. 
 And the vineyards at our feet 
 Flooded are with juices sweet, 
 Comes the perfect autumn-time, 
 As to woman, beauty s prime. 
 
 See the wind across the corn 
 Ripple in the dewy morn; 
 See its emerald billows gleam, 
 Tossing in the amber stream 
 Of the sunlight s shining tide ! 
 Bend and rise the tall stalks there, 
 With their streaming banners fair. 
 
 Half asleep the morning lies 
 Xeath her azure tent of skies, 
 But at length the droning bee 
 Wakes amid the uplands free; 
 From behind the emerald wall 
 Of the eucalypti tall, 
 There is heard the robin s note 
 On the silent air afloat; 
 With his massive wings spread wide 
 Does the brown hawk slowly glide 
 O er the walled and rocky steeps, 
 Frowning o er the canon s deeps, 
 And the mockingbird sings clear 
 From his airy hemisphere. 
 
 Arms of snow the lily lifts, 
 And within the orchard rifts, 
 Where the parted boughs do swing, 
 Lo! the oriole comes to sing; 
 And the twittering sparrow peeps 
 As the early worm he seeks. 
 
 O the glory of our skies! 
 Deep as vast infinities! 
 Cloudless as a perfect June! 
 Sweet with blossoms rich perfume! 
 All the air is pure and warm, 
 All untouched by cloud or storm, 
 And each forest leaf is crowned 
 With the sunshine falling round. 
 And on Nature s throbbing heart 
 Lovers by themselves apart 
 October leans with red ripe lips, 
 Holding in her finger-tips 
 Roses dewy-sweet and fair; 
 Fuchsias in her shining hair. 
 
The Months and Seasons. 
 
 Nature leans and kisses her, 
 Where the wild bees are astir, 
 And her soft red lips are sweet 
 As the red rose at her feet. 
 And the splendor of her glance 
 Is brighter than the radiance 
 Of the starry eyes of May, 
 Or of June s most perfect day. 
 
 OCTOBER. (1893.) 
 
 With velvet- footed tread October came, 
 
 Gold in her hair and roses on her cheek; 
 
 Fair as sweet May, her fingers not yet weak 
 
 With age, but dimpled still the same 
 
 As when the glad Year, calling her by name, 
 
 Kissed her till crimson dyed her virgin cheek, 
 
 And the soft breezes, wandering, sought to speak 
 
 Of her rich beauty. Now, in mellow tides 
 
 The sun, as .through the cloudless skies he rides, 
 
 Pours out his light, and, tenderly I wist, 
 
 Drapes all the hills in gold and amethyst, 
 
 And, as the sunset passes, wraps a mist 
 
 Of royal purple round them, wherein sleeps 
 
 The souls of sunbeams passing daylight keeps. 
 
 II. (1897.) 
 
 October smiles about us, while her days 
 Grow shorter, and her pleasant hillside ways 
 Are brown and sere, although upon them yet 
 Smiles the bright sun, his golden lancets set 
 In the full-bosomed air, where softly stir 
 The light-winged breezes, touching palm and fir, 
 Rippling the rose leaves, stooping mid the grass, 
 Whisp ring of summer as their footsteps pass. 
 
 The little birds among the many trees 
 Sing sweet and clear their tuneful harmonies; 
 The skies above us bend in cloudless light, 
 Like one great rounded sapphire to the sight; 
 Warmth nestles in the daylight s golden noon, 
 And days breathe softly as in some half-swoon 
 Of sweet, delicious joy that has its birth 
 In the rare beauty of the sky and earth. 
 
 NOVEMBER DAYS. (1901.) 
 
 The golden air is with bright sunshine filled, 
 
 And countless flowers have richest fragrance spilled 
 
 Wherever the soft-footed breezes creep; 
 
 All angry winds are hushed and lie asleep 
 
 Within the cradle of our tropic calm, 
 
 Rirds build their nests with never fear of harm 
 
 From tempest s wrath; the palm-tree drops its shade; 
 
 The pepper-tree a canopy hath made 
 
 Of emerald boughs, with clusters thickly set 
 
 Of rich red berries, like an amulet; 
 
 The lily lifts its white and timid face, 
 
 And countless roses bloom, while here a place 
 
 Is found for every flower that Summer nursed. 
 
 No chilling winds around them ever burst, 
 
 No dream of Winter ever frets the hours; 
 
 Jeweled with light and with November showers, 
 
 The mossy blades are pushing through the sod, 
 
 And to the passing breezes gaily nod, 
 
 While the tall trees with leaf-clad branches rise, 
 
 Beckoning the birds whose songs fill all the skies. 
 
 The bee s hum, like an undertone of song, 
 
 Sweeps gaily round us, and flies buzz along 
 
 On rainbow wings, and deep the cloudless skies 
 
 As if they held Time s vast infinities. 
 
 O grand the mounts that lift their sunny crests 
 
 Above the beauty of the valley s breast ! 
 
 They catch the glory of the sunset s glow, 
 
 And sometimes wrap themselves in robes of snow, 
 
 But Summer ever sitteth at their feet, 
 
 Forever gives to them her incense sweet, 
 
 And here November smiles in robes of green, 
 
 And woos sweet Summer for his gracious queen, 
 
 And treads her flower-paved ways with smiling face, 
 
 And unto her his scepter giveth place; 
 
 And so our year is one long summertime, 
 
 Nor groweth old; tis June in its fair prime. 
 
 SEMI-TROPIC NOVEMBER NOONS. (1891.) 
 
 The noons of our November days yet hold 
 
 The dreaming Summer, her eyes still blue 
 
 And their drooping lids fringed with the gold 
 
 Of sunbeams. The Sun smiles down upon her, 
 
 Her lover still, kissing, with soft, warm touch, 
 
 Her fragrant lips. The perfume of the rose 
 
 And the fair white lily fills her pure breath, 
 
 And on her breast there blossoms sweet and fair 
 
 The purple heliotrope, while gay verbenas 
 
 Blush, like souls of cherubs kissing her sweet face, 
 
 Which Time has left umvrinkled, for he loves 
 
 Her so he would that she should never pass 
 
 From out his tent of skies, curtained for her 
 
 With glowing, tropic splendor. But Morn and Eve 
 
 Does Autumn claim, and, like the shrew she is, 
 
 Breathes frostiness upon the still air, drops 
 
 Chill upon the earth, and strives to reach, like 
 
 Some usurping thing, sweet Summer s throne, with 
 
 Harsh jostle crowding her. But Summer wakes at 
 
 Noon, trailing her flower-gemmed robes, up-looking 
 
 To the skies, which bend protectingly, with 
 
 Marshaled hosts of sunbeams filling all their 
 
 Deeps; with light and perfumed winds running so 
 
 Soft-footed to and fro upon their glad 
 
 Sentinel errands, hunting the depths of 
 
 Air for the paved crystal haunts where hide the 
 
 Mustered rains waiting their bugle call, as 
 
 Waits the Dawn the Sun, and the brown Earth their 
 
 Coming. Summer puts her ear where pale and 
 
 Sere the withered grasses lie, and the rose 
 
 Answers her smile, and the cricket gaily 
 
 Chirps, and, amber-winged, the butterfly lights 
 
 On her shoulder. She hears no stir beneath 
 
 The sleeping earth of grassy root or lifting 
 
 Blade. The bird seems singing unto her of 
 
 Hope and coming gladness. For a day she 
 
 40 
 
November. 
 
 Mayhap rests, cradled in chilliness, and we 
 
 Cry, "Fair Summer s gone!" But the gray mantle 
 
 Of the swift-gathered clouds drops shining 
 
 With its crystal floods, which the thirsty earth 
 
 Drinks up with gladness, and lo! the sun bursts 
 
 Forth rejoicingly, and November, with 
 
 The scepter in her hands, beckons with a 
 
 Smiling face, and eyes made lustrous in their 
 
 Rain-washed blue, to lovely, semi-tropic 
 
 Summer, and she takes again her throne, 
 
 Her feet sandaled with bloom, her fair robe s hem 
 
 Trailing mid springing grasses, odorous 
 
 Winds breathing from east to west, and from the 
 
 Smiling south and north. How wait the glad suns 
 
 Upon her! and in their ether deeps the 
 
 Planets smile. The mountains lift their purple 
 
 Fronts while distance seems to lessen. Warm the 
 
 Glow upon their rocky lips! Marvelous 
 
 The play of sunshine! The rock-lipped canons 
 
 Smile, bearded with pines; the laughing water 
 
 Pours free its silver tides through their deep throats; 
 
 The butterflies float through the amber air; 
 
 The birds waken to fresh caroling. Bees 
 
 Dream honeyed thoughts and clap their wings 
 
 With small, innumerable sounds that make 
 
 A full-voiced anthem. The flies look sunward, 
 
 Spreading rainbow wings, while down beneath the 
 
 Soil the roots stir softly, reaching toward 
 
 The light. The Old Year smiles, for Summer still 
 
 Is here, and all the earth sings for her ears 
 
 Songs sweet with resurrection. 
 
 NOVEMBER. (1892.) 
 
 A song-bird sits upon my porch and sings 
 
 Songs that are full of summer joy and rest, 
 
 As though he held his heart within his breast; 
 
 A lovely butterfly with golden wings 
 
 Floats like a blossom on the sunny air; 
 
 Fragrant and sweet the many blooming things 
 
 That make my winter garden bright and fair; 
 
 The leaves turn to the sunshine, shimmering the while, 
 
 The ripened berries in the pepper trees 
 
 Hold in their rosy globes the reddened glow 
 
 Which constant Sun s warm kisses will impart; 
 
 The grass is golden where does fall the smile 
 
 Of the warm sunshine. Flies and bees 
 
 Make gentle murmur in the noonday s heart; 
 
 Calm the wind s breath as though it were asleep; 
 
 As night does fall the moon does upward creep, 
 
 Set round with stars, like shining points of gold, 
 
 Seeing a world as fair with blossoming 
 
 As it were summer or sweet-budding spring. 
 
 DECEMBER. (1886.) 
 
 The year is passing, yet December s light 
 
 Falls round us still in glowing, golden sheen. 
 
 And each fair day betwen its dawn and night 
 
 Smiles like a flower its sheltering leaves between. 
 
 II. (1893.) 
 
 Dream we amid the flowers and neath bright skies, 
 Blue as a turquoise and cloudless in their light 
 Of golden sunbeams. The days take flight 
 
 Winged with warm zephyrs like the breath of May, 
 
 Laden with sweetness, and lo! the butterflies 
 Flutter like blossoms that have stolen wings 
 To seek the happy robin while he sings, 
 
 As if in song his soul would melt away. 
 
 December, like a maiden azure-eyed, 
 
 Stands on our hills and dances in the vale; 
 Riotous is she in joyance, and pale 
 As a young priestess. Yet she s not denied 
 Beauty nor light. June s self is not more fair 
 Than our sweet, sun-crowned davs of Winter are. 
 
 SEMI-TROPIC DECEMBER. 
 
 O tropic skies! what hand hath poured your gold, 
 And laid soft, amber touches on the hills, 
 
 With daisy-stars mid the green grasses told, 
 And loosed the voices of the singing rills? 
 
 Were ever skies more fair than those that bend 
 Sun-flooded o er the Old Year s sleeping breast? 
 
 Did ever flowers more tenderly lend 
 
 The fragrance from their dewy petals pressed 
 
 To the soft wind, which, incense-laden, sweeps 
 Where blossom-crowned December, dying, sleeps? 
 
 A DECEMBER IDYLL. 
 
 O days divinely fair! we would not dream 
 The year was drawing swiftly to its close, 
 
 So warm the golden sunbeams that do gleam 
 On blooming lily and on opening rose. 
 
 We walk the floorways of our vales and hills, 
 With tender grasses underneath our feet, 
 
 List to the silvery tunes of running rills, 
 
 Hear bird-song round us, wondrous clear and sweet. 
 
 The brown bees float within the sunny air, 
 The many flies show wings of prism d light, 
 
 Bird answers bird from treetop everywhere, 
 
 And through Earth s sunny paths they take their flight. 
 
 I love December, with his patient hours, 
 And garnered gold and gleaming lights which pass 
 
 Sure-footed as the Sun amid the flowers, 
 And o er the billows of the growing grass. 
 
 His morns are glorious with the growing light; 
 
 His noons are languid as with summer calms, 
 The light-winged breezes linger in the flight, 
 
 While Perfume holds them in her fragrant arms. 
 
 Like some great god whose battles all are o er, 
 With Victor s crown upon his forehead prest; 
 
 While the great seas their grand Te Deum pour, 
 He passes proudly to his quiet rest. 
 
The Months and Seasons. 
 
 OUR DECEMBER DAYS. (1890.) 
 
 These winter days are infinitely fair, 
 As if they held the soul of the whole year s 
 Sunshine. How bend these bright December skies 
 Above the world, filled full of pulsing light ! 
 Winged breezes sweep them softly, as if they 
 Loved to loiter dreaming in their deeps, kissed 
 By the circling Sun, and breathing fragrance 
 Which the sweet Earth pours from all her flowering 
 Altars. How laugh the tender, grassy blades, 
 As springing from the earth they feel the thrill 
 Of blessed resurrection ! Down through the 
 Soil these messengers of life, the winter 
 Raindrops, fall, their silver tides stretched out to 
 Find the roots of sleeping grasses and of 
 Waiting hush, that all the summer long have 
 Dreamed. That mystery of contact ! That strange, 
 Growth-renewing power! Beneath the ground the 
 Roots stir, the sap flows upward, circling the 
 Plant as does the blood circle through human 
 Veins, and the mystery of fresh new life begins. 
 
 Ah, Nature ! how little of thy 
 Grand pages can we read, and how dim 
 The twilight of our knowledge is! These yearly 
 Miracles are wrought before our eyes, and 
 Yet we see not how they are accomplished. 
 The quickening process hidden lies. We 
 Say things grow. But what is growth? It is the 
 Answer to God s thought that things shall be and 
 Thrive. He speaks and it is done. Earth, Air and 
 Water but his servants are. The Sun, the 
 Shadow of his smile. 
 
 O semi-tropic 
 
 Days ! in which the year so brightly passes 
 To its close; when stars drop dew, and Night dreams 
 Balmily, and flowers shed their fragrance 
 As the Sun its light; when winds are hushed and 
 Star-worlds sleep in the serenest depths of 
 Blue, and when bird-song like a river flows 
 Across the breast of Morn, and the fair Earth 
 Decks herself in robes of green, and puts her 
 Flowery sandals on, girdling herself 
 With silvery streams, while golden oranges, 
 Like shining spheres, swing mid the green-houghed trees, 
 How near ye are unto the Eden of 
 Our soul s most pleasant dreams ! 
 
 THE CLOSING YEAR. 
 
 O wondrous days of blossoming and light ! 
 
 O golden days in which Time ne er grows old ! 
 
 November, flower-crowned, waits the Old year s flight, 
 Smiling like youth, though many months have told 
 
 All of their heads of days, each one as fail- 
 As Summer s brightest, as June s purest pearl 
 
 Days when the great deeps of fathomless air 
 Hold bluest skies, and golden sunbeams hurl 
 
 Their shining lances toward the earth and sea, 
 Dripping with golden warmth, while everywhere 
 
 Lo! the soft breezes laugh in ecstacy, 
 
 Slow-floating o er the widespread meadows fair. 
 
 Eternal Summer dreams upon thy breast, 
 
 O golden land of blossom-haunted days 
 And star-gemmed, moonlit nights, where rest 
 
 Ts slumber-crowned and dreamless till the rays 
 Of the oncoming sun light all the hills of dawn, 
 
 When out of Night and fragrance, and the vast 
 Of dreaming Silence the perfect day is born, 
 
 Linked by its sweetness to the summer past. 
 
 Then comes December, sandaled with his flowers, 
 
 With tinkling streams that sing along his way, 
 Past meadows green and the bird-haunted bowers 
 
 That throb with melody as if twere May. 
 Old Year, Earth loves thee, and she holds thee fast, 
 
 As ye were still a babe upon her breast; 
 Smile still, Old Year, and when December s past 
 
 The tender Earth will lay you to your rest. 
 
 AS THE OLD YEAR DIES. (1898.) 
 
 The earth is bright today as when young June, 
 
 With eyes of heavenly blue and rosebud 
 
 Lips, smiled on the breast of Summer at the 
 
 Melody of tinkling streams, and the rich 
 
 Beauty of the opening rose, and breathed the 
 
 Lily s perfume, inhaled the fragrant breath 
 
 Of dew-wet violets and all the world 
 
 Of bloom. Autumn puts on within our clime 
 
 No diadem of gold or crimson leaf, 
 
 And wears upon her fingers no frost-wrought 
 
 Diamonds, or shining pearls, save those of 
 
 Sparkling dew which gleam in the warm sunlight 
 
 Like the rich fire-opals of the golden 
 
 Orient lands, proud in their opulent 
 
 Splendor. What wonder that here of old lived 
 
 The Sun-Worshiper; that on our hills gleamed 
 
 His bright altar fires, for the Sun is King 
 
 Here, and sceptered like a god, and walks the 
 
 Skies unhindered seldom by a cloud, and 
 
 Drops his javelins of light along his 
 
 Way, smiting the hosts of Winter till they 
 
 Flee to the far heights, routed and vanquished. 
 
 Those free brown children of the ancient days 
 
 He wanned and fed, while cradled on the lap 
 
 Of Earth they lifted eyes to him which held 
 
 The stars of midnight and the light of love. 
 
 They raised their hearts to him like cups of wine 
 
 That he might drink their fullness and be glad; 
 
 They smiled in answer to his smile, and said, 
 
 He loveth us and we will worship him. 
 
 And the leaves rustle seemed unto their hearts 
 
 His whisper to them of his love and care. 
 
 The gracious air, filled with the insect s hum, 
 
 And happy buzz of rainbow-winged flies; 
 
 The music of the waters low and sweet 
 
 Were Nature s hymns poured to his gracious ear. 
 
 He nurtured harvests for them, fruits and herbs, 
 
 And growing roots that filled the fruitful soil. 
 
 He fed the honey-bee with nectared bloom, 
 
 And kissed the jeweled butterfly as on 
 
 It flew along the unseen paths of air. 
 
 42 
 
The V anything Year. 
 
 The grassy sabers shimmered with his beams, 
 And forest leaves seemed all a-smile with light. 
 Fair was the world, and glad, brooded by Peace. 
 No Mission bells had yet waked echoes in 
 The land; no Cross proclaimed the love of Him 
 Who died that men might live; and so these brown 
 Children of the Sun dreamed on the breast of 
 The fond mother, Earth, and talked of happy 
 Hunting-grounds beyond the sun and stars, and 
 Deemed some morn the gateways of the East their 
 Sun-God would unbar and they would pass, winged 
 With his own light, to other life than this. 
 
 THE VANISHING YEAR. 
 
 O leaves! O dancing, emerald leaves, 
 Coquetting as the breezes blow; 
 What spirit is it stirs you so, 
 
 And such light spell of gladness weaves? 
 
 Is there within the golden air 
 
 Some soul of joyance all divine, 
 Some whisper in the warm sunshine, 
 
 Some voice of Summer everywhere? 
 
 December s sun is in the skies, 
 
 December s smile is bright and warm, 
 With scarce a frown of cloud or storm, 
 
 While many blossoms glad our eyes. 
 
 O Summer lingers all the year, 
 
 And dreams as on the lap of June; 
 Naught in our world is out of tune, 
 
 Even the glad-winged birds are here. 
 
 The early twilight softly drops, 
 
 And Night falls golden with her stars, 
 But calmly lifts her shad wy bars, 
 
 When Day peeps o er the mountain tops. 
 
 And then the valleys smile anew, 
 
 And then the hills lift happy hands, 
 
 As each one beckoning, waiting, stands, 
 
 While flies the Old Year from the New. 
 
 The grass blades rustle on the hills, 
 
 The flowers laugh low, the sunbeams kiss 
 The feet of him he docs not miss 
 
 One love-note of the singing rills. 
 
 He dieth like a king, and he 
 
 Does shudder not nor shrink away, 
 Palsied and old, but, glad as May, 
 
 Passes as strong and smilingly. 
 
 The birds sing in the list ning wood, 
 
 The world drops fragrance on his bier, 
 The New Year wakes, and, lo! is here, 
 
 In golden beauty where he stood. 
 
 THE YEAR S LAST DAYS. (1890.) 
 
 The sweet air is full of golden sunshine. 
 In which birds spread their wings like tiny sails, 
 And the bee loses itself as, buzzing 
 In happy gladness, it does drift on tides 
 Of light, warmed to his heart. The gay pennons 
 Of the butterfly are spread, fluttering 
 So soft, a winter blossom of content 
 It seems, or winged smile upon the Old Year s 
 Breast. Sky leans to Earth with eye divinely 
 Blue neath lid of sunshine, and sweet, warm mouth 
 Fragrant with the breath of gentle south winds, 
 And the Earth looks up with her liquid glance 
 Of running streams, with roses in her cheeks, 
 And breath of odorous lilies on her 
 Lips. O er hill and valley trail her emerald 
 Robes, jeweled with blossoms, and her silver 
 i^augh is heard in rippling brooks. Time loves the 
 Old Year as he finds it here, for tis a 
 Coy maiden who will not grow old, but who, 
 With her glad twelve months ended, all blossom- 
 Crowned, with cheeks like smiling June s, wearing ;i 
 Girdle of unnumbered flowers, with silver 
 Anklets of the running streams, making such 
 Music for her dancing feet, she slips with 
 Happy laughter from his sight into the 
 Palace of the Past, which stands upon the 
 Shores of Yesterdays, a whole year s sunshine 
 Round her poured, a year of bloom and harvest. 
 
 THE OLD YEAR IN CALIFORNIA. (1887.) 
 
 And is it true that here the years grow old 
 Die to give place unto still younger ones, 
 Pregnant with progress? Can years die 
 While strong-limbed and sturdy, thrilling with life. 
 Smooth-browed and sunny-eyed, and palpitating 
 Yet with beauty? While warm the Earth slumbers, 
 And on her breast is bud and blossom sweet, 
 And sprouting harvests? While fruits ripen, and 
 The Sun s lidless eye beams goldenly, and 
 Stars lean above the perfumed Night, and soft 
 Dews drop from the world-lit space upon the 
 Flower-lipped Earth? Fairer than the young Year s 
 
 June 
 
 Is the aged Year, with not a furrow on 
 His ruddy cheek, nor touch of Time upon 
 His forehead. His lips drop fatness, and his voice 
 Is melodious with running waters 
 
 And the symphony of birds. The wild 
 
 Bee s hum breathes murmuring undertone through 
 
 All his whispers. He has his messengers 
 
 Of humming-birds and gay-winged butterflies, 
 
 That linger round him as in the May-time 
 
 Of his glorious youth. Like luster of 
 
 The sunshine is his hair, its locks as thick 
 
 As leaves of Vallambrosa s forests, and 
 
 His limbs as free from tremulousness as 
 
 43 
 
The Months and Seasons. 
 
 . 
 
 Are our bare and rock-ribbed mountains, high 
 Uplift, like sky-crowned Titans to the upper air. 
 No, the Year dies not, but with swift feet, strong 
 Limbs and unfailing vigor, wrapping his 
 Harvest robes about him, all blossom-bordered, 
 He steps out among the yesterdays of Time, 
 The deathless monarch of the vanished Past. 
 
 THE OLD YEAR. (1878.) 
 
 The Year draws near its close, so azure-eyed and fair, 
 
 One wonders if in truth the Year is old- 
 Such golden, sun-wove garments it doth wear, 
 
 Such jeweled brightness it cannot be told. 
 Hath it not somewhere caught upon its wing 
 
 Immortal beauty such as cannot die? 
 
 Holds not the Autumn all the warmth of Spring; 
 
 Its scent of flowers? The bright -winged butterfly 
 Floats now upon the shining waves of air, 
 
 As happy as in May it sips the dew, 
 And yellow-belled abutilons there are 
 
 Where swings the humming-bird, and fresh and new 
 Bright roses ope their petals to the Sun, 
 
 Which kisses them until in crimson dyes, 
 Like maidens blushing, stand they every one; 
 
 And even the blue, cloudless, sun-swept skies 
 Hold floods of song; and only such light breeze 
 
 As fans with tender touch the Spring s young flowers 
 Lingers amid the emerald of the trees; 
 
 Only comes lesser space twixt the dawn and sunset 
 
 hours, 
 
 As if the Year was weary and would sleep, 
 Cradled within the sunshine s golden deep. 
 
 GOOD NIGHT, OLD YEAR. (1890.) 
 
 The Summer s feet are on December s hills, 
 
 Her breath is in our thousand blooming flowers; 
 
 Her merry laughter in the silver rills 
 Is heard through all the sweet, enchanted hours. 
 
 Her face is fair as in the lotus lands, 
 
 Where sweet Romance lies dreaming in her arms; 
 Some spell is on her, and she halting stands 
 
 And crowns the Old Year with her rarest charms. 
 
 June never held such skies of shining blue, 
 
 Nor ever birds more glorious songs did sing; 
 
 Good night, Old Year! pass on, and let the New 
 Open its eyes upon the lap of Spring. 
 
 THE OLD YEAR ASLEEP. (1891.) 
 
 O snow-crowned mounts ! ye miracles of light, 
 As Moses stood before the burning bush 
 In ages gone, near holy Horeb s mount, 
 Reverent with awe and wonder stood I 
 But yesterday where grand Sierra heights 
 Were lifted to the skies, while thick fogs trailed 
 White garments round their sides, girdled with twin 
 Rainbows. Gray San Antonio, Time s 
 
 Elder brother, hoary as centuries, 
 
 Lifted his scarred crest above the clouds, and 
 
 Pillowed it where the stars were hid, curtained 
 
 By light within the deeps of air. In dim 
 
 Shadow the valley lay beneath a 
 
 Canopy of darkened mist, but the light 
 
 Of heaven was on the mountain top. The 
 
 Sunshine poured its gold upon its snowy 
 
 Mantle; warm, rosy sunset lights, and gleams 
 
 Of amber, royal purple tints, glowing 
 
 Crimson flushes, illuminated its far slopes, 
 
 While the sky seemed bending down to catch its 
 
 Smile. A light cloud or was it the backward 
 
 Sweep of some archangel s wing? fluttered a 
 
 Moment o er its summit and was gone; 
 
 While, like a banner from heaven s ramparts 
 
 Trailing, the sunset clouds were luminous 
 
 With opalescent lights. The Old Year lay asleep 
 
 Within the valley s calm, where golden swung 
 
 The orange spheres, and vines were ready to 
 
 Put forth their leaves. The light winds sang low 
 
 A lullaby to dreaming grasses, while 
 
 Fluttered the butterfly, its wings astir, 
 
 Like gleams of sunshine in the lambent light; 
 
 The falling raindrops whispered of life and 
 
 Blessed resurrection. How soft the 
 
 Old Year breathed, his dying eyes still clear; his 
 
 Face unfurrowed; his heart still warm, pulsing 
 
 With beauty. Like the old gray Pyramids 
 
 By the lotus-guarded Nile, the snow-clad 
 
 Mountains stood, white as if Death had touched them. 
 
 Within this tropic land all other things 
 
 Throbbed warm with color and with life s fragrance. 
 
 Were these Sierra heights, with heads touching the 
 
 Unseen stars, to be the Old Year s sepulcher; 
 
 Their snows his shroud, their choired wings the singers 
 
 Of his requiem as he passed from his 
 
 Twelve months reign of Summer? Nay, not these. For 
 
 Him all things that Summer loves around 
 
 His bier shall crowd; birds singing softly as 
 
 In the sweet June hours. The perfumed flowers 
 
 Are like the voice of immortality, 
 
 And cradled with them shall the Old Year sleep. 
 
 THANKSGIVING TIME IN CALIFORNIA. (1877.) 
 
 Here Nature tunes her gladdest notes, 
 
 The breeze its softest whisper flings, 
 
 The sunshine gleams in golden rings, 
 
 And paints in many-colored hue 
 
 The budding flowers. The drops of dew, 
 
 Like rounded, perfect spheres aglow, 
 
 The glories of the rainbow show, 
 
 And through the clear, warm air there floats 
 
 The first sound of the robin s notes, 
 
 And lo! with many-colored wings, 
 
 Scarce touched with motion, floating by, 
 
 As half asleep upon the air, 
 
 The gold and scarlet butterfly. 
 
This Thanksgiving Dai/. 
 
 And from each fragrant, flowery cup 
 The humming-bird drinks nectar up. 
 And all along the roadway s side 
 Peer grasses in their emerald dress. 
 Xodding their green blades in the sun, 
 As if a new Thanksgiving psalm 
 Was trembling on each slender tongue. 
 The sea lies prone beneath the sky, 
 Its billows dance along the shore, 
 The mountains hear its lullaby, 
 The rocks its wrathful, sullen roar. 
 
 The air seems listening, and the Sun 
 Coquetting with the leafy trees, 
 That whisper sideways to the breeze, 
 Shines all day long, nor veils his face, 
 Save with the rosy clouds of Even, 
 Bright hinges of the sunset gate 
 The golden bar twixt earth and heav n. 
 
 THIS THANKSGIVING^ DAY. 
 
 The days are bright with beauty, and the sky 
 
 Bends fair above us; scarce a passing cloud 
 
 Touches the blue, so infinite and deep; 
 
 And through the sunny air do bird-wings sweep 
 
 As if twere summer, while the butterfly 
 
 Flutters upon the opening rose s cheek; 
 
 The breezes softly blow, no loud harsh winds 
 
 With icy breath the fragrant silence stir, 
 
 And list ning we may hear the soft low whirr 
 
 Of flies and bees innumerable wings. 
 
 Bright flash the crystal waters sweeping down 
 
 From mountain springs unto the sunny sea, 
 
 Through valleys where the reapened harvests be. 
 
 Adown the garden walk so lazily 
 
 The caterpillars crawl; the crickets sing 
 
 Their hymns at dusk, and lo! sometimes we hear 
 
 A lone cicada singing harsh yet clear. 
 
 Summer seems lingering to the full year s close, 
 
 We see her smiling in the opening rose, 
 
 We see her emerald sandals in the grass, 
 
 And catch her whisper as the south winds pass; 
 
 Her dimpled cheek is in the lily s bloom ; 
 
 Her eye of blue shines through November s noon; 
 
 Upon her breast the violet does glow, 
 
 Her laughter ripples with the streamlet s flow; 
 
 Her lang rous breath is in our balmy air, 
 
 And her warm pulse is throbbing everywhere. 
 
 November loves her with Thanksgiving pours 
 
 Into her lap the full year s harvest stores. 
 
 OUR SEMI-TROPIC WINTER. (1892.) 
 Winter puts on a robe of tender green, 
 And decks his head with many blossoms fair, 
 His breath with fragrance fills the balmy air, 
 And sunbeams wrap him in their golden sheen. 
 
 Birds sing for him, and bright-winged butterflies 
 Float on so idly through the sunlight s gold, 
 While bees to them their happy psalms unfold. 
 Beneath the dome of ever-shining skies. 
 
 Sweet sings the nightingale when twilight drops, 
 Calling afar through spaces far and dim, 
 And gay the merry cricket s evening hymn; 
 Clear shine the stars above the mountain tops.* 
 
 And soft the whisper mid the orange groves, 
 Where winds breathe lightly as a child asleep, 
 And young love comes its happy tryst to keep 
 Beneath the radiance which the starlight throws. 
 
 Just stir the leaves like many beckoning hands, 
 And Fragrance steals the long-aisled orchards through, 
 And blossoms tremble, kissed by silver dew; 
 The opening lily like a priestess stands. 
 
 Low-voiced and sweet the many rivers run; 
 Pictures of grace, the bending willows lean 
 To view their faces in the flowing stream; 
 The mountains lift their faces to the sun. 
 
 The Year grows never old beneath our skies; 
 His hair is golden as the sunny dawn, 
 His face is rosy as the dewy morn, 
 When sleeping in December s lap he lies. 
 
 Upon some unseen path he slips away, 
 His feet flower-sandaled and his heart sun-filled, 
 Full of the wine that gladness has distilled, 
 Smiling and fair as is the glorious May. 
 
 WINTER IN CALIFORNIA. (1878.) 
 
 The clouds rise slowly, then the eastern blast 
 Flings open swift the flood-gates of the storm, 
 The earth drinks in the welcome rain at last, 
 And Winter sees a world in beauty born. 
 
 The Sun throws open wide his golden door, 
 The bright skies lift, a dome of deepest blue, 
 And all the earth is one wide emerald floor 
 With flowery patterns woven through and through. 
 
 The soft winds dally with the sun-kissed air, 
 The waves of gushing bird-song flood the sky, 
 The golden orange, mid its blossoms fair, 
 Gleams in the sunshine as the days go by. 
 
 The lilies swing their censers to the breeze, 
 Orchards burst into whitest drifts of bloom, 
 And glad bees hum amid the flowering trees, 
 While Winter wears the Summer guise of June. 
 
 THE WINTER OF SUNLAND. 
 
 O tropic land! sun-kissed, 
 Crowned with the amethyst 
 Of the lush clover s bloom 
 Through winter s smiling noon; 
 Drowned are your hillsides 
 With the orange tides 
 Of your poppies golden; 
 Fanned by the swaying palm, 
 Nursed in enchanted calm. 
 Steeped in fragrance sweet 
 
 45 
 
The Months and Seasons. 
 
 Of rose and orange flower. 
 
 Life from each winter shower 
 
 Springs and wakes the earth from slumber, 
 
 Waking blossoms without number. 
 
 Violets peep dewy-eyed, 
 
 And the nun-like lilies rise, 
 
 While in scarlet pride 
 
 Stirs the gay poinsettia, 
 
 Throwing off the wind s light fetter. 
 
 Deeper, vaster grow the skies, 
 And the fields the million spears 
 Of a standing army show; 
 Fragrant-breath d, soft breezes blow, 
 And the golden orange spheres 
 Like the starry planets shine, 
 While the vineyards yield their wine, 
 And the crystal rivers leap, 
 Waking from their summer sleep, 
 All their dry sands disappear; 
 The transparent atmosphere 
 Seems to bring the whole world near. 
 
 Hark ! we hear the robin s song, 
 And the mocking-bird sings clear 
 From the tall tree s highest bough 
 Bend your ear and listen now. 
 Golden is the oriole s breast, 
 Flashing mid the green leaves there, 
 While he sings and takes his rest. 
 
 Like a river in the skies 
 Is the lark s song, as he flies 
 Bathed in ripplyjg harmonies. 
 
 Golden-winged the butterfly, 
 Like a bit of sunshine gleams 
 O er the crystal of the streams; 
 And with low, incessant hum, 
 Lo! the honey-bees do come 
 Floating argosies of sweet 
 Robbers of the honey hid 
 Neath each drowsy blossom s lid; 
 And the quail calls soft and low, 
 As through quiet paths we go. 
 
 See the yellow daisies swing, 
 Hear the breeze-swept bluebells ring, 
 While the cricket s steadfast call 
 Like the Angelus does fall, 
 When the Night her curtain drops 
 O er the plains and mountain tops. 
 And the merry frogs we hear 
 Mid the reeded shallows near. 
 Lovers* are they of the clime 
 Where each month is summer-time, 
 And their bluff old chorister 
 Tunes his flute wherever lie 
 Shaded pools beneath the sky, 
 Where the waters seem to dream 
 In the shallows of a stream. 
 
 See the long brown furrows turned, 
 
 Where the shining plow doth speed, 
 
 Making ready for the seed 
 
 To be nursed by Winter s sun. 
 
 Scarce a week before you see 
 
 Harbingers of harvestry 
 
 In the million blades which push 
 
 Through the soil. On tree and bush 
 
 All the sun s warm lances lie, 
 
 And beneath, in mimicry, 
 
 See the leaf-like shadows stir, 
 
 Lying on the water s breast, 
 
 Or in tangles in the grass 
 
 Where the warm south wind doth pass; 
 
 And we hear the low, swift whirr 
 
 Of the birds wings as they fly 
 
 Twixt the blue of sea and sky. 
 
 Summer dreams in Winter s arms, 
 And his cheek is never old; 
 Never turns^the sunny gold 
 Of his shining locks to gray; 
 Never fade his winning charms 
 Stalwart, strong is he alway, 
 Never vexed and petulant, 
 Voicing only sweet content. 
 
 Dreaming like a maid he lies, 
 Neath the splendor of his skies; 
 On his lips does Summer press 
 Kiss of lingering tenderness; 
 Blooming days are always here, 
 And they press about the bier 
 Of the Old Year as he dies, 
 Breathing softest harmonies, 
 Winged with summer-warmth he flies, 
 King of Beauty, to his rest. 
 
 SEMI-TROPIC WINTER. (1893.) 
 
 A tall geranium grows without my door, 
 Its scented breath is sweet as any rose; 
 The robins love it, for they often close 
 Their wings upon its leafy emerald floor, 
 Staying their flight, and then such songs they pour 
 
 That one would dream the air were filled with song 
 Which the winds breathed, and everything along 
 Their pathway caught and sang it o er again, 
 Until Night came with its low voices, when 
 Sounds fall asleep upon her starlit breast, 
 And gentle Silence nurses them to rest. 
 
 OUR GLORIOUS WINTER. (1901.) 
 
 Our Winter s feet with gold are shod, 
 
 And all his robes are green, 
 With many a jeweled blossom hid 
 
 Their emerald folds between. 
 
 The pansies nod so sweet and shy 
 
 Beneath the palm-trees tall, 
 The robin and the butterfly 
 
 Float softly over all. 
 
Winter Land. 
 
 How lift the mountains to the sun 
 Their snowy crests of light; 
 
 How joyfully the streamlets run, 
 While blossoms watch their flight. 
 
 And Summer s breath is in the sky, 
 And Summer s touch we see 
 
 On every field and opening flower, 
 And every leaf-clad tree. 
 
 The robins sing as if twere June, 
 
 The bees as gaily hum, 
 The sky is not less bright and fair, 
 
 And seldom storm-clouds come. 
 
 The days pass like a summer dream, 
 
 The softly-pulsing air 
 Is full of fragrance which is shed 
 
 From blossoms everywhere. 
 
 The roses perfumed sweets we scent, 
 
 The lilies fair unfold, 
 And the bright hillsides are ablaze 
 
 With the wild poppies gold. 
 
 O Summer s heart is in the day, 
 
 Cold Winter stands afar 
 Upon the mountain heights and hides 
 
 His frowns beneath a star. 
 
 His frozen breath we do not know, 
 
 His chill we do not feel; 
 The orange bloom our only snow 
 
 Where Summer s footsteps steal 
 
 And linger mid a world of bloom, 
 And grass-clad hills and vales, 
 
 And make a June-time of the year, 
 Whose brightness never pales. 
 
 WINTER LAND. (1885.) 
 
 Far up beneath the Arctic skies, 
 
 Where Winter s frozen wings are spread, 
 And all the earth lies cold and dead, 
 
 I see the rude barrabkies rise. 
 
 The blue smoke, like a slender thread, 
 Above their sodded roofs is seen; 
 And one small window, thrust between 
 
 Their grass-grown sides, lifts up its head. 
 
 In the short summer-time the day 
 
 Through all the weeks grows scarcely dim 
 
 Only the twilight s shadowy rim 
 Twixt night and morning s rosy ray. 
 
 And all the dull gray summer through 
 Sit thousand seagulls on the rocks, 
 And the choochkies come in countless flocks, 
 
 And gaily-crowned sea-parrots, too. 
 
 The meadow-lark sings sweet and clear, 
 
 And makes a pathway as it flies 
 
 Of happy song unto the skies 
 The only singing minstrel here. 
 
 And little children, dark and brown, 
 
 With high cheek-bone and stolid face, 
 Without a single winning grace, 
 
 Live neath the cloudy summer s frown. 
 
 No sports have they to make them glad, 
 Xo playgrounds, and no pretty toys, 
 Xo dogs, nor ponies for the boys, 
 
 Xo dolls for girls all neatly clad. 
 
 No pleasant walks nor garden flowers, 
 Xo lovely trees with branches green 
 In all this northern land are seen 
 
 Tis all unlike this land of ours. 
 
 With ice the Winter spreads the sea, 
 
 The frozen ground is white with snow, 
 And winds in awful tempests blow, 
 
 And far the drifting icebergs flee. 
 
 And sometimes on some drifting floe 
 The lone Columbus of his kind 
 The polar bear sets out to find 
 
 More southern seas, and sailing slow, 
 
 He rides along those northern shores, 
 A lonely sailor fierce and grim; 
 Ah! who would like to sail with him 
 
 While he some far-off sea explores? 
 
 Short are the winter days, and dim. 
 The twilight falls soon after noon, 
 The long dark night comes on full soon; 
 
 Swift sets the sun behind the rim 
 
 Of the white seas so still and drear, 
 
 And the bright stars hang in the sky, 
 So low they look, you almost try 
 
 To reach them, for they seem so near. 
 
 Oh, who would give this life we know, 
 Its starry nights, its golden days, 
 Its fruits, and all its wooded ways, 
 
 For that north world of storm and snow? 
 
 WINTER. 
 On His Eastern Throne. 
 
 l T pon our farther shores, where thunder the 
 
 Atlantic s surges, and mad billows heave 
 
 In icy coldness, Winter stands like 
 
 Some old giant god, palsied and chilled. 
 
 His limbs shaking with the fierce cold, his breath 
 
 White with hoar-frost, his crown the glittering 
 
 Icicle, sharp as an arrow piercing 
 
 The frozen air; the dead Earth at his feet, 
 
 Shrouded in white, her streams locked within 
 
 Their icy tombs, lying hushed in soundless silence. 
 
 Her forests stretching gaunt, naked 
 
 Arms unto the chilling blasts, ghosts of their 
 
 Summer selves, when, green and beautiful, the 
 
 Golden sunbeams dreaming lay within their 
 
 Leaf-clad arms, and birds amid 
 
 The many toughs poured melody upon 
 
The Montli-s and Seasons. 
 
 The shining air till it was full of song. 
 
 Hushed are the bird-songs now; gone is the breath 
 
 Of flowers, and th soft wind sighing through the 
 
 I,eaf-lutes of the trees, for white is Winter s 
 
 Throne, his shoulders covered with his snowy mantle, 
 
 And for his saber he doth hold 
 
 The keen North Wind, piercing with jagged edge 
 
 The very hearts of men till they stop beating 
 
 When he doth find them poor and shelterless. 
 
 Oh, he is cruel, savage, pitiless, 
 
 Doing his worst with Poverty and Want, 
 
 And scourging them by thousands, feeding on 
 
 Slaughter and drinking death like wine. 
 
 Winter on His Semi-Tropic Throne. 
 
 Not such is Winter here! A fair young god 
 He stands, upon his head a crown of 
 Sunshine, and around him wrapped a robe of 
 Emerald, woven with flowers fragrant 
 As the breath of Araby; and his fingers, 
 Gemmed with diamonds of dew, touch the bright 
 F.arth caressingly, and the streams leap in 
 Fresh laughter, and shining rills ripple in 
 Music, as the clouds pour down the rhythm 
 Of sweet rains. In every tree-top, lo! 
 The happy birds "sing east, sing west" until 
 The world is song; the air is deluged with 
 The gleam and gold of sunshine, and the winds 
 Are mellow with the fragrance of the wine 
 Of flowers. The heart of Winter is but 
 Bud and bloom, his breath is fragrant as the 
 Lands of spice, and his pillow is for aye 
 The lush grasses and the ripening wheat, 
 And blossoms numberless as God s own stars; 
 His pulses are in tune with happy June s, 
 His face as young and beautiful as hers, 
 As warm his airs, as lovely are his skies. 
 
 EASTER. (1902.) 
 
 The earth lay still within the arms of Dawn, 
 
 The air was pulseless; not a single leaf 
 
 vStirred on its parent bough; all sound was hushed 
 
 Save the soft flow of Kedron s silver stream 
 
 That gurgled to the hills a rippling psalm 
 
 Of joy. The blue was starlit still, and the 
 
 Pale silver light upon the olive trees 
 
 Seemed like a ghost of sunlight. The lilies 
 
 Stood like white-faced nuns along the way. The 
 
 Glorious mounts about Jerusalem 
 
 Lifted their* silent faces to the sky; 
 
 The wide-branching palms were motionless, and 
 
 The flowers of the field, baptized with dew, 
 
 Held fragrant censers, filled with odors sweet, 
 
 That seemed the breath of coming joy. The vast 
 
 Dome of the temple on Moriah s height 
 
 Lay still within the shadows, save for a 
 
 Faint gleam from the waking Dawn that touched it, 
 
 As twere the promise of Day s coming glory. 
 
 No whisper stirred the olive trees along 
 
 The way. The shadows hid amid the thorn-trees 
 
 Boughs, and the faint stars grew fainter still as 
 
 Night drew back and the far East did slowly 
 
 Brighten as if angels trod its portals. 
 
 It seemed as if the Earth were hushed and lay 
 
 Breathless in expectancy, as to the 
 
 Holy sepulcher, where lay the blessed 
 
 Christ, the weeping Marys came, bearing sweet 
 
 Spices and precious ointment for the Lord s 
 
 Anointing. It was so still within the 
 
 Garden that sound seemed dead, and all the world 
 
 A-swoon with woe. Then Mary Magdalene, 
 
 Her eyes dim with heart-breaking anguish, and 
 
 Her fair cheeks paled to ashen whiteness, spoke 
 
 Tremulously: "Oh, who shall roll for us 
 
 The stone away, so we may enter where 
 
 Our Lord is laid?" They neared the tomb, and the 
 
 Dawn brightened into day, and a lance of 
 
 Holy light shot downward through the olive 
 
 Trees, as if the world had waked once more to 
 
 Gladness. But as they looked, their eager eyes 
 
 M ith wonder filled, for the great stone at the 
 
 Tomb s door was rolled away, and, hastening 
 
 In, Mary knelt where the body of her 
 
 Lord had lain, her heart breaking in great sobs 
 
 That rent the anguished air. But lifting her 
 
 Eyes at length, what does she see? An angel 
 
 Form, all shining as the light, is there, and 
 
 A glory not of the earth brightens the 
 
 Sepulcher, and a voice sweeter than aught 
 
 Of time, more melodious than all earth s 
 
 Melody, speaks to her: "Fear not, I know 
 
 Ye seek the Crucified. He is not here; 
 
 The Christ ye love hath risen, and He hath 
 
 Conquered Death for aye." 
 
 O glorious Easter morn! 
 
 O day of days for man ! 
 
 Hope in our hearts is newly born, 
 
 Through Christ the sting of Death s withdrawn, 
 
 Through Christ who risen lives. 
 
 EASTER. (1898.) 
 
 The day is fair and sweet, the sky is bright, 
 And the still winds run softly through the air, 
 
 And with swift wings the many birds take flight, 
 And glory broods in silence everywhere. 
 
 Afar the mountains rise so still and calm, 
 The meadows lie asleep beneath the Sun, 
 
 And Nature lifts a rose-encircled arm 
 
 While beckoning Beauty down her paths to come. 
 
 O mountain heights ! I look to you and dream 
 Of other mounts uplifted to the sky, 
 
 Of a fair land where holy memories teem, 
 And the dead centuries unforgotten lie. 
 
 48 
 
Easter Morning. 
 
 The land of Calvary and Nazareth, 
 
 Of Easter glory and its open tomb, 
 Where He the risen Christ the bonds of death 
 
 Burst as the flow r bursts from the bud to bloom. 
 
 The Lord is risen ! Earth hears the blessed word, 
 Life blossoms into fuller joy and grace, 
 
 Divinest hope within the soul is stirred, 
 And a new future opens for the race. 
 
 EASTER. (1886.) 
 
 Night s face lay dark, save for its gems, 
 
 Its royal diadem of stars, 
 
 And one soft line of silver bars 
 Which stretched above its midnight hem. 
 
 Earth slept; no light breeze stirred her breast, 
 
 Or touched the silence of the leaves 
 
 That breathless hung upon the trees, 
 From vale to highest mountain crest. 
 
 But as the holy morn drew nigh, 
 
 How waxed the heavens asunder far, 
 
 As floating down from star to star, 
 Through the deep bosom of the sky, 
 
 Drew near the holy Seraphim, 
 
 Earth stirred with the strong earthquake s throe 
 As though its inmost heart would show, 
 
 Xor keep its deepest thought from Him 
 
 Who now was waking in her breast 
 The glorious Christ. The angels drew, 
 With pinions pulsing through the blue, 
 
 Down to His holy place of rest. 
 
 Back from His tomb, with shining hands, 
 
 They rolled the stone; the Crucified, 
 
 The risen Lord, the Glorified, 
 Lifted His face, and then the bands 
 
 Of Death triumphant laid aside, 
 While angels knelt and worshiped Him, 
 Men slept until the dawn shone dim, 
 
 But hell shrank back all terrified. 
 
 O man redeemed! The glorious light 
 
 Of Easter dawn shall not grow dim 
 
 While rings the song of Seraphim; 
 Xor shall hope fail our waiting sight. 
 
 Redeemed! wide swing the golden gates 
 Beyond the grave we walk with Him, 
 No fears to make our pathway dim, 
 
 Eternal life our dying waits. 
 
 EASTER MORNING. (1896.) 
 
 Breathe soft, O blossoms, dewy-lipped! 
 
 Wave lightly, grasses lush and green, 
 And boughs and bushes, emerald tipped, 
 
 Make room your many leaves between 
 For the sweet bird-choirs that shall sing 
 
 To the glad skies and shining sun 
 Their joyous anthems. Ev rything, 
 
 E en to the waters that do run 
 With crystal feet amid the sands, 
 
 Breaks into gladness as the dawn 
 Trails on the mountain tops its bands. 
 
 O golden light ! O holy Man ! 
 Earth thrills again as once of old, 
 
 When Death was vanquished, and the grave 
 Bourgeoned with hope as it was told, 
 
 "The Lord is risen, and He can save." 
 
 SUMMER MUSINGS. (1896.) 
 
 How run the winds twixt earth and sky; 
 They brush the soft white cloudlets by; 
 
 They brush the highest tops of trees; 
 
 And then they bend to such as these 
 The lily and the violet, 
 Lowly amid the grasses set, 
 
 As footstools for the birds and bees, 
 
 Or chords for Nature s harmonies. 
 
 The Sun walks lovingly the blue, 
 
 And throws his glances fondly to 
 
 The winsome, laughing summer Day. 
 A smiling god is he, at play 
 
 With every leaf and tree and flower, 
 
 And every bright gold-sandaled hour, 
 
 And all things love him that abound, 
 Save shadows clinging to the ground. 
 
 A silken screen above my head 
 
 A spider s opalescent web; 
 
 The leaves advance on bough and stem, 
 Waltzing with sunbeams, loving them; 
 
 A-dream I sit, a-dream, and raise 
 
 My eyes to the unclouded ways 
 
 Where treads the Sun, where Light is born, 
 And day by day comes Night and Morn, 
 
 And Time s swift, unseen footsteps stray, 
 
 Nor leave one track along their way. 
 
 No track along those skies of blue; 
 Forever old, forever new 
 
 They bend above the mountain heights, 
 
 And drop, like dew, the days and nights. 
 The Earth smiles, still divinely fair, 
 As when those skies uplifted were; 
 
 Tis only Man himself grows old. 
 
 As days and years of time are told. 
 
 Grows old ! and yet, O heart of mine ! 
 
 When Time is dead and skies divine 
 
 Have lost their stars and lost their sun, 
 And hills have vanished, even- one, 
 
 And all the cool, sweet mornings lie 
 
 Like dead leaves underneath the sky, 
 Like some sea-cradled isle shall rise 
 The land of Youth against the skies. 
 
The Months and Seasons. 
 
 MIDSUMMER. (1895.) 
 
 Summer lies dreaming on the mighty hills, 
 
 Veiled with soft tints of opalescent lights; 
 
 The valleys are a-swoon in splendor. Frills 
 
 Of green grasses border the meadows brown; 
 
 Sunbeams upon the levels, like a crown, 
 
 Lie as soft as liquid gold. Birds happy nights 
 
 Stir the air with a melodious sound. 
 
 Soft breathe the winds as infancy asleep ; 
 
 The leaves, like many hands upon the trees, 
 
 Clap softly, as if full of sweet delight 
 
 At the fond touch of breezes as they sweep, 
 
 Invisibly-winged as thought. Tremulously 
 
 The flowers lean upon their nodding stems, 
 
 Weaving for Earth its wondrous diadems 
 
 Of color. The soft air, in stillness moored, 
 
 Hangs golden o er the meadows and the sea, 
 
 Hushed in Noon s heart to silent ecstacy. 
 
 Butterflies like winged blossoms to and fro 
 
 Flit through the air, while swiftly come and go 
 
 The nectar-laden bees as if light-filled 
 
 And drunken with the sunshine, humming yet 
 
 Soft undertones of melody, all set 
 
 To joyousness. Summer indeed is sweet, 
 
 Wrapping no clouds about her save the gold 
 
 Of sunset and of sunrise, with which her feet 
 
 Are sandaled, clasped with golden stars; 
 
 And on her breast she wears the full sweet Moon, 
 
 Swimming in light, and all its silver bars 
 
 Of lustrous moonbeams trailing on the Karth 
 
 And silvering all things hidden in night s noon. 
 
 The plains wax bright, the sea and valleys smile, 
 And Xight, like some fond mother, leans adown 
 To light the trees, like tapers, on the crown 
 Of the far mountains, and gilding the while 
 With silver light the many sleeping leaves 
 Lying in trance of soundless harmonies. 
 Through day and night this semi-tropic clime 
 Yields beauty, coolness through its summer time 
 The tranced air breathes but softly and yet sweet 
 Around the brow of Summer s golden days, 
 And Splendor crowns them with her lavish hand; 
 Anchored in light the valleys seem to stand, 
 Mountains above them, oceans at their feet, 
 And bird-song paving all their tree-walled ways. 
 
 AUTUMN. 
 
 Oh, this is sweet, this world so fair of ours ! 
 
 Where Autumn s hands are full of Summer s flow rs, 
 
 Her skies as fair with floods of golden light, 
 
 Her breath fts warm and fragrant and her night 
 
 As balmy as midsummer s sweetest eves; 
 
 The glory of her softly-swaying leaves 
 
 Is not less full than June s, for here Decay 
 
 Finds not a foothold, for Growth holds the way; 
 
 One long, long summer is our twelvemonth here 
 
 A harvest home through all the golden year. 
 
 AUTUMN. 
 
 O blossoms opening to the Sun ! 
 
 O white-fringed daisies golden-eyed! 
 
 Dream you that Summer days are done? 
 
 See you the opal-tinted gleams 
 
 Where sunshine through light haze streams 
 
 Across the low, brown meadows wide? 
 
 See on the bright lids of the Day 
 
 The softest hint of shadows fall, 
 
 That full-lipped Noon s warm kisses may 
 
 Not wholly lift, while over all 
 
 The skies bend blue, yet low the Sun 
 
 Creeps o er the bright, sweet-scented verge 
 
 Of the warm South, and Morning keeps 
 
 A lengthened tryst where star-worlds surge 
 
 Through the dim ether s silent deeps. 
 
 SUNRISE. (1883.) 
 
 O sunrise gates ! the gold of heaven 
 
 Has dropped between your bars, 
 And Light her shining curtain draws 
 
 Between us and the stars 
 The silver stars that light the skies 
 
 When Night lies dreaming sweet, 
 And Morn behind Tomorrow s hills 
 
 Had stayed her coming feet. 
 
 THE MORNING HOUR. 
 
 O the golden arrows 
 
 Which the dawn is flinging! 
 O the glorious music 
 
 The happy birds are singing! 
 The busy spider spinning 
 
 His web of silken sheen 
 I m sure does stop to listen 
 
 In his tent of forest green. 
 
 Ah, the happy cricket, 
 
 He joins the forest choir! 
 Don t you catch his strident note, 
 
 Lifted high and higher? 
 The bee it buzzes louder, 
 
 And the flies they sing 
 Touched with rainbow colors, 
 
 Every gauzy wing. 
 
 Oh, the toad is blinking 
 
 Where the sunshine falls, 
 And the flowers are climbing 
 
 Over garden walls; 
 And the grasses beckon 
 
 To the shining dew, 
 Which makes a pretty mirror 
 
 For them to peep into. 
 
 Like a million diamonds 
 
 Gleams each dewy sphere, 
 Every one a-shining 
 
 Like a crystal clear. 
 
This Morn of Fog. 
 
 Every one as perfect 
 
 As a starry world, 
 With a rainbow beauty 
 
 All about it furled. 
 
 Oh, the blessed morning ! 
 
 Dear children ope your eyes 
 To welcome all the beauty 
 
 That floods the earth and skies. 
 The world is fair as Eden, 
 
 And looks as it were born 
 Anew with light and splendor 
 
 On every cloudless morn. 
 
 THIS MORN OF FOG. (1903.) 
 
 The fog this morning curtained all the heights, 
 And wrapped the sky in sullen folds of gray, 
 
 Dimming the glory of the Dawn s full lights, 
 And shutting out the golden sunbeam s ray. 
 
 But when the fog was lifted, O how fair, 
 How beautiful the distant shining hills, 
 
 The radiant, glorious, sun-filled air, 
 
 Which the soft throb of Nature s pulses thrills! 
 
 It was as if new-born the whole Earth lay, 
 A miracle of beauty, stainless, fair, 
 
 Within the clasping arms of smiling Day, 
 God s cleansing hand upon its everywhere. 
 
 THE DAWN. 
 
 O starry skies ! adown the steeps of Xight 
 
 Dark slips, and lo! the bright resplendent Dawn! 
 
 The purple shadows fade, and then the golden morn, 
 
 With all heaven s glory in its brightness flung 
 
 Upon its forehead, while each leaf-wrought tongue 
 
 Stirs, trembling softly in the growing light, 
 
 As if some holy thought had touched them. Bright 
 
 With the beauty of the coming sun 
 
 They rustle softly, and a sound is heard, 
 
 Poured like rapt chorus through the briglit ning air, 
 
 As if with thousand tongues Earth breathed a prayer- 
 
 A psalm of praise. The grasses bend their heads, 
 
 The flowers stir like unto sweet- faced nuns, 
 
 And lift their swaying censers to the skies. 
 
 And the wide air takes sweetness from their breath, 
 
 While unto heaven the broad Earth lifts his eyes 
 
 The dew upon his forehead, as he would 
 
 Worship his Maker who made all things good. 
 
 SUNRISE UPON THESE SUNSET SHORES. 
 
 Tis morning, and the glorious Sun above 
 The vast purple heights is lifting up his 
 Head. He touches them with his lips, and lo ! 
 They break into glowing blushes, as if 
 Beneath their rocky breasts were hearts warm with 
 A tender passion. O Sky! leaning above 
 Them, with eye blue as the dew-gemmed violet 
 Blossoming at their base in the wide, sweet, 
 Far-running meadows, do you not love to lean 
 
 Above a world so fair, so full of light, and 
 
 Soft-voiced breezes, and ocean whispers, and of 
 
 Laughing tides which pour their silver brightness 
 
 On the sands, or run rippling on to kiss 
 
 The dim line of the horizon s verge, and 
 
 Lose themselves behind its sunny face? And 
 
 Do not the Islands bring you joy, lying 
 
 Upon the channeled seas, their ^eights uplifted 
 
 As they would have you lay your face upon 
 
 Them, and whisper to them all the mystery 
 
 Of the air, and the tender love of the 
 
 Soft starlight when it broods above the earth? 
 
 Do you not love the trees, the glorious 
 Swaying trees, with their arms all lifted 
 Heavenward; and the running streams, bright as 
 Your own star rivers? O bending Sky! do 
 You not love the flowers, the stars of Earth 
 Which the sun has kissed to beauty? I think 
 You must look down and long to touch them, and 
 To sometimes wear a rose upon your breast. 
 
 Is not the red of this morn s sunrise like 
 
 The rose s red, and its gold the pattern 
 
 Of the burnished poppy s leaf? The small white 
 
 Cloud, scarce larger than my palm, curled near 
 
 The zenith, is like a lily s petal, and 
 
 I think it must hold perfume. 
 
 Lean down, O 
 
 Sky! above these sunset shores these towering 
 Mountain heights, these sun-kissed valleys, and the 
 Gracious sea with its unwrinkled face, 
 Dimpled with islands. You are so fair and 
 Frownless, the earth loves you, and her heart and 
 All her bloom she gives you for your smile. 
 
 MORNING. (1878.) 
 
 Nature has swept the frown from off her face, 
 
 The world flashed out with diamonds in \he morn; 
 
 The pearly dewdrops each a perfect sphere 
 
 Gleamed from the trees and from the emerald lace 
 
 Of the soft grasses. Day was born 
 
 And cradled in the gold of tender sunrise. 
 
 And over it bent bright and shining skies; 
 
 Not one soft dimpled cloud in all the blue. 
 
 But only the great infinite deep of air 
 
 Spread like a curtain, while the Earth, fair 
 
 In its springlike beauty, looks as young 
 
 And fresh as Eden. 
 
 II. (1894.) 
 
 Tis said the age of miracles is past, 
 Tis vain to dream of miracles to be, 
 And yet each day new miracles we see; 
 Day s dawn is one, when from the rosy heart 
 Of the still East its lifted curtains part, 
 And Morn is born. What miracle of rose 
 And red and amber and of purple flows, 
 
 51 
 
The Months and Seasons. 
 
 Dyeing the heavens with glory, until we 
 Let vision swim in brightness ! Immensity 
 Of sky and air glow with new life as Night 
 Slips to the void of silences, and white 
 And pure, dew-washed, sun-swathed and brightly fair, 
 Baptized with color, Morning waketh there, 
 Fresh as in Eden, stainless everywhere. 
 
 III. 
 
 Oh, I do love to watch the morning wake 
 
 In the wild woods among the mountain heights, 
 
 To see a new Day spring from the great deeps of Night, 
 Swathed in the wondrous, ever-changing lights 
 
 Which the still fingers of the pale-faced Dawn 
 Weaves mid the shadows as faint breezes stir, 
 
 Soft as a mother s breath amid the trees; 
 
 The birds wake with them and you hear the whirr 
 
 Of many wings, and the soft twittering 
 
 From feathered throats which pour a tide of song, 
 
 Like some sky-river of sweet melody, 
 
 Flooding the world when the full day is born. 
 
 A few faint stars hang on the brow of Morn, 
 Ere the Sun rises and the shadows flee, 
 
 And Dawn with halting steps climbs up afar 
 The starry steeps our eyes so faintly see. 
 
 Ah, with what smile from out the bright ning east 
 Looks the great Sun at length upon the World! 
 
 The waters sing and all the forest trees 
 With dewy diamonds are so swift impearled. 
 
 And the sweet land breathes fragrance, ev ry flower 
 Hanging so fair upon its swaying stem, 
 
 Lifts its bright face to heaven and helps to weave 
 For the new Morn a perfumed diadem. 
 
 Each blade of grass looks fresher for the night, 
 As Morn smiles down upon it, and the hills 
 
 Grow more resplendent, and like altars stand 
 Which God hath lit. The little rills 
 
 Seem to have learned new songs, with notes so sweet, 
 The echoes run to catch them as they fall; 
 
 The plumy reeds stand silent o er the stream, 
 And faint sound drops like music over all. 
 
 IV. (1898.) 
 
 The beautiful Day wakened in color and light, 
 With a breath from the sea and a voice from the height, 
 With the winds breathing music mid blossom and tree, 
 While the glory of Morn held a promise to be 
 Richer, fairer at noon, when the fullness of sun 
 Had drenched all the glad earth in its gold and had won 
 The heights of the zenith, and its javelins hurled 
 To smite every shadow that darkened the world. 
 
 Oh, say, am I dreaming, all a-dream in this light, 
 With this glory about me of vale and of height, 
 A-dreaming of summer, of June s breath in my hair, 
 Of bird-song and music and blossoms so fair, 
 While the New Year is young and asleep on the breast 
 Of old, deep-breathing Time? Is he taking his rest 
 In the arms of these sunbeams, a bee buzzing near, 
 And the sweetest of bird-songs poured into his ear? 
 
 Where is Winter, the tyrant, with cold, chilling breath, 
 With saber of icicles and harvest of death, 
 With his garments of snow, forests naked and bare, 
 Winds fierce as a lion when it springs from its lair? 
 Not here in the South, in this fair sunland of ours, 
 Where Summer smiles ever in garments of flowers, 
 Where Time dreameth sweetly on his couches of bloom, 
 And the year at its close is as bright as its noon. 
 
 SUNRISE AT SANTA BARBARA. (1879.) 
 
 The dawn broke softly in the radiant east, 
 
 And all its gates glowed golden in the sun; 
 The mountains gleamed, a pile of amethyst; 
 
 From north to south, from east to west, as one 
 Great shining sapphire hung in the sky, 
 
 And not a cloud within its blue was set, 
 Only along its outer edge did lie 
 
 In rich mosaic, gold and violet, 
 In one quick flash along the mountains rolled, 
 
 The sunrise glory; deep within the blue 
 The stars were buried by its floods of gold, 
 And lo! the miracle of Day was wrought anew. 
 
 NOON. (1897.) 
 
 The very air grows brighter and the sun 
 More golden in its light; its pulses beat 
 With soft, warm breezes, fragrance-laden, sweet, 
 
 As if a soul were in them every one. 
 
 Ah! do I dream, or do I just awake 
 Awake to see how fair the world can be; 
 How wonderfully sweet its melody, 
 
 And what a shining brightness it doth take? 
 
 I love the world and life and all it holds, 
 The song of birds, the smile of sun and sky, 
 The grand, tall trees, and all the witchery 
 
 The vast warm noon in its full heart enfolds. 
 
 But most of all I love to love and be 
 Beloved of Love, in his great heart to lie 
 Drinking his soul while glad my days pass by, 
 
 And less of self and more of love I see. 
 
 THE BEAUTIFUL DAY. (1896.) 
 
 A lovely flower looks : nto my face, 
 
 A fragrant flower with purple-lidded eyes 
 
 That smile with gladness neath the sunny skies; 
 
 It moves so airily as light winds chase 
 
 52 
 
This Summer Dai/. 
 
 Each other gleefully along the way, 
 
 Sun-filled and fragrant through the viewless air, 
 Kissing the dewy blossoms everywhere 
 
 That smile so brightly on the breast of day. 
 
 The sun drops golden treasures on my floor 
 As it peeps through the leafy clusters hung 
 On climbing vines, and nestles there among 
 
 Their branching arms, while they tell o er and o er 
 
 Their whispered gladness. All the day doth seem 
 To be alive with joy. And now I see 
 As if born of the sunlight it might be 
 
 A humming-bird the many leaves between. 
 
 How dance the shadows mid the sunlight s gold! 
 I almost dream that they a heart do hold, 
 That sunlight s making love to, with a bold 
 
 Sweet speech that words have never told. 
 
 THIS SUMMER DAY. (1896.) 
 
 The day is fair, the breezes blow; 
 
 They wander with their dancing feet 
 Where blossoms and the grasses grow, 
 
 And their love songs repeat. 
 
 The sky is blue above my head, 
 
 Not any cloud in all its deep- 
 Its vast, blue-curtained deep, that s spread 
 Above the Earth s wide sweep. 
 
 The flashing sunbeams, lo! they drop 
 
 Their slender javelins of light 
 On level plain and mountain top, 
 
 And farthest craggy height. 
 
 They drop their gold amid the grass, 
 
 Amid the many-bannered trees, 
 And all the robins as they pass 
 
 Drop liquid melodies. 
 
 Poised on the sunlight s golden sea, 
 Like some stray soul adrift, afar, 
 
 As it some wanderer might be 
 From distant sun or star. 
 
 The butterfly with fluttering wing 
 
 Sails onward in the light, 
 And flies and bees are marshaling 
 
 Themselves for happy flight. 
 
 The glad, sweet day is all alive, 
 
 Is all a-thrill with bliss; 
 Be glad, my soul, be glad and strive 
 
 To be at one with this! 
 
 THOSE GOLDEN DAYS. (1900.) 
 
 O deep within my soul are hidden ways 
 
 Where silent-footed Memory walks and 
 
 Lingers lovingly with well-remembered 
 
 Gladness, and lives where echoes still the laughter 
 
 Of pure joy. Th turf is green where happiness 
 
 Did walk; the streamlets sing where Faith did hold 
 
 Her way, so tender-eyed, of old, and bright 
 
 The banks with flowers where Trust did dream and 
 
 Young Love whisper his sweet words. Still gleam, all 
 
 Marble white, the palaces that Hope did 
 
 Build and garnish with all precious stones; still 
 
 Sing the birds of heaven such notes as are 
 
 Attuned to youth s and childhood s ears, and still 
 
 I see the meadow lands of clover bloom, 
 
 The scarlet and the gold of the rich wild 
 
 Honeysuckle, sweet with fullest fragrance; 
 
 Hear the hum of happy bees; the buzz of 
 
 Summer flies, with crystal wings where rainbows 
 
 Gleamed; see, golden-winged, the butterfly 
 
 Threading the pathless air; welcome the June 
 
 Morns fair, all dewy, sweet and cool; and her 
 
 Golden noons drowsy with odors from a 
 
 Thousands flowers, her still, soft eves when earth 
 
 Was starred so thick with gleam of fireflies 
 
 Light, and the skies were full of silence, and 
 
 Stars and constellations that held each its 
 
 Wondrous story. O those tender, happy 
 
 Days! A mother s love was there, and there was 
 
 Sweet, caressing tenderness, easing all 
 
 Heart hunger, and life was all before, save 
 
 Only life s beginning, which seemed brushed by 
 
 Angel wings. Xo shadows darkened it, twas 
 
 All as fair as Eden. O those golden 
 
 Days lying upon the hills of Sunrise! 
 
 In the clear light of young life s morning, dear 
 
 Is their memory, and like a rainbow 
 
 Still they arch my skies, and I go forth to 
 
 Meet the coming century, stronger in 
 
 Courage, and with nobler faith, because they 
 
 Crown me yet with sacred memories that 
 
 Blossom forever in the garden of 
 
 My heart O tender, loving days! 
 
 THE DYING DAY. (1878.) 
 
 The very air lies golden, full and sweet 
 
 With dreaminess, as if twere steeped in thought; 
 
 The very mountains have a fuller meaning 
 
 Touched with the glory by the sunset wrought, 
 
 And fold on fold the white fogs creeping upward, 
 
 Stand here and there like pearly gates ajar, 
 
 While rosy lights and purple-tinted shadows 
 
 Brighten and darken like a paling star. 
 
 The fair sweet hillsides, in their emerald glory, 
 
 Show flowery brightness like a ruby s heart, 
 
 And crimson clouds, like scented rose-leaves, slowly 
 
 In the soft blue steal by themselves apart 
 
 Unto the West, and with the amber brightness 
 
 Which shines like sapphire on the golden floor 
 
 When Day is sinking in her dying splendor 
 
 Upon the threshold of Night s dusky door, 
 
 They mix and mingle, veiling her with beauty, 
 
 And then like pallid mourners steal away, 
 
 While gently Night, with her star-jeweled fingers, 
 
 Closes the eyelids of departed Day. 
 
 53 
 
The Months and Seasons. 
 
 THE DAY AND I. 
 
 The day breathes softly, and the silent trees 
 Stir not a leaf within the sleeping air. 
 Birds flit from bough to bough, unknowing care, 
 
 Glad in the beauty and the mysteries 
 
 Of silent sun, and skies so blue and vast, 
 Which ne er a shadow on their pathway cast. 
 
 Tis happy life above, and all around, 
 
 And here soft-footed Fragrance silent treads, 
 Breathing delight, and with rich Color weds, 
 
 And blossoms make an altar on the ground; 
 The tall, lone pine a very priest doth stand, 
 While bending cedars wait on every hand. 
 
 The sun pours down a tide of golden light, 
 The lake is dimpled with his many beams, 
 And groweth glad to clasp the silver streams 
 
 That singing run in their unhindered flight 
 To reach its breast, and there do sleeping lie, 
 Cradled in silence neath the cloudless sky. 
 
 The meadow-lark sings out for very glee, 
 
 The robin waketh into happy song, 
 
 The merry linnet trills his notes along 
 The sweet green slopes that smiling here I see, 
 
 And Day is glad, and lo! I bend with her 
 
 At Nature s feet, a rev rent worshiper. 
 
 FROM DAY TO DAY. (1899.) 
 
 I see new meaning in each waking dawn, 
 New glory in the boundlessness of skies, 
 
 New splendor in the sunshine of the morn, 
 Catch anthems new in the soft melodies 
 Of million leaves, which, all breeze-stirred, do sing 
 
 The sweet world s psalms, and softly clap their hands, 
 As stir the crimson bells of opening flowers; 
 
 New glory in the mountain wall which stands 
 Like God-built altar for this world of ours. 
 
 Not quite the same today s sunshine that gleams 
 
 In golden light upon this world of ours, 
 As that which yesterday lit up the streams, 
 
 Or, smiling, lost itself amid the flowers. 
 
 Yet not less fair, less beautiful the day 
 And not less full the sunshine s cup of gold 
 
 In which Noon bathes her tresses. In Summer s arms 
 The sweet Earth lies while her fair days are told, 
 
 And maiden June unfolds her many charms. 
 
 And when the splendor of the Night is here, 
 
 And the young moon walks mid the countless stars, 
 
 And calm and fragrance fill the atmosphere, 
 Nor noise nor strife the sacred silence mars, 
 My soul drinks in the night and seems to rise, 
 
 New-winged by thought, into the deeps of air, 
 Filling the Vast above us; and there it lies; 
 
 Cradled in trust, while round it everywhere 
 God, ever-present, fills the sea of skies. 
 
 TODAY. (1899.) 
 
 The rapturous air leaps smiling to my side, 
 Smiling with sunshine which is flooding wide 
 The infinite Vast above, around us here, 
 Which warms and glows in Summer s atmosphere. 
 
 I feel the pulse of life in everything, 
 Throbbing in blossoms as their anthems ring 
 In soft-lipped fragrance; in the dewy leaves, 
 Clapping their million hands upon the trees. 
 
 It stirs the lake s sweet heart in ripples bright 
 That seem but silver echoes of the light, 
 And e en the sands that lie as if asleep 
 The breezes waken till they lightly creep, 
 
 Soft-footed as the day, and wander wide, 
 In ranks and columns in a shifting tide 
 Of happy motion, that goes not astray, 
 But eyeless hurries on its pathless way. 
 
 And footless grasses which the soil has nursed 
 Through its warm bosom have in silence burst, 
 And there they lie outspread upon the sod, 
 An emerald psalm writ by the hand of God. 
 
 And the bright Sun treading the cloudless skies 
 Catches the voice of earth s grand harmonies, 
 Hears the great sea its mighty anthems roll, 
 Filling the silences from pole to pole. 
 
 And Night at last her midnight gate unbars, 
 Hinged with the jewels of a million stars, 
 And Day slips through it with his soundless tread, 
 Joins vanished days that one by one have fled; 
 But o er Time s pathway the oncoming hours 
 While walking see another morrow s flowers. 
 
 "II. (1903.) 
 
 Today ! It fills the chalices of time, 
 With silent motion by us full and sweet, 
 
 Only to blossom in tomorrow s light, 
 
 Which but for it could never be complete. 
 
 Tomorrow is Today when it is here, 
 With glowing centuries upon its breast, 
 
 With centuries to come still drawing near, 
 With great Todays into their fullness prest. 
 
 Today! It fills the chalices of time, 
 It makes the largeness of the years to be, 
 
 It holds the seed of every thought sublime, 
 It is the rootlet of Eternity. 
 
 THE DAY. (1900.) 
 
 I love the Day, so full of light, 
 
 Of beauty rich and fair, 
 Of wondrous skies and mountain height 
 
 And glory everywhere. 
 
Great Shining, Golden Day. 
 
 I see the tiny blade of grass 
 
 Which sways before my view; 
 The Imcl and blossoms as I pass 
 
 Turn faces ever new. 
 
 Color doth fold them in her arms, 
 
 The soul of Fragrance hides 
 Amid their many-petaled charms, 
 
 And there unseen abides. 
 
 And O great-bosomed Noon doth stand, 
 
 And pour her golden wine 
 From the full cup within her hand, 
 
 Filled with the warm sunshine. 
 
 Earth s glory fronts us everywhere, 
 
 On land, in sky and sea, 
 But still the unseen shining air 
 
 Veils deeps of mystery. 
 
 And not until the day is passed, 
 
 And silent Night is here, 
 Do the great gateways of the Vast, 
 
 Wide backward flung, appear. 
 
 Day hides the stars, it shuts us in 
 
 This narrow world of time; 
 Were there no night what should we know 
 
 Of starry deeps sublime? 
 
 And thus, like Night, doth Sorrow draw 
 
 The spirit s veil aside, 
 And lo! God s stars of love and care 
 
 In God s own heavens abide. 
 
 IT. (1902.) 
 
 O Day ! great shining, golden Day, how I love thee ! 
 How bright is the gold of thy sunbeams above me; 
 How rich without measure is the wealth of thy light ; 
 How wondrous the vision ye unroll to our sight! 
 
 The heaven-reaching mountains grow glad as they hear 
 The sound of thy footsteps through Dawn s gates 
 
 drawing near, 
 
 And baptized with the glory of color they rise, 
 In kingliest majesty, saluting the skies. 
 
 In their emerald dress from the shadows of Night 
 The great valleys creep out to rejoice in thy light; 
 The numberless orchards, their leaf-banners unfurled, 
 Stand forth in the splendor of thy sun-lighted world. 
 
 And the flowers lift up their sweet faces to thee; 
 They have sprung from the kiss of thy lips, and they lie 
 Thy beautiful offspring. O fair Day! day divine, 
 How thy clear sapphire skies in their gladness do shine. 
 
 God is Light and is I,ove, and we see Him in thee; 
 Though He veileth His face, yet still ever do we 
 Feel Him part of thy glory, thy infinite vast 
 Like a garment His presence alxnit it is cast. 
 
 And we think of the life where the shadows of time 
 
 Shall be lost in that day, eternal, sublime, 
 
 Where God shineth forth in His glory of light, 
 
 And "undarkened by suns," He s unveiled to our sight. 
 
 DAY. (1903.) 
 
 O laughing sprite! so glad and free, 
 So full of wondrous witchery. 
 Thy bird-notes flood the upper air; 
 Light footed breezes everywhere 
 Toy with the leaves and kiss the flow rs. 
 While fragrance fills this world of ours. 
 The lavish sunshine pours its gold, 
 And wraps the grasses fold on fold; 
 The water s silver sheen is seen 
 Lying the tree-clad slopes between 
 Within the park, which here doth rest, 
 Like smiling childhood, on the breast 
 Of the bright Day. The shadows drop 
 Only below the full-leaved top 
 Of the tall trees which, standing, rise 
 Like sentinels beneath the skies. 
 
 O glorious Day ! thy soul must be 
 
 The offspring of infinity 
 
 Of God, who spread the shining skies, 
 
 Who bade the lofty mountains rise, 
 
 Who stretched the seas from shore to shore, 
 
 And stills their storm-tossed, angry roar, 
 
 Who makes to open at thy kiss 
 
 In colors rich as amethyst 
 
 The countless flowers that blooming rise 
 
 To glad with beauty all our eyes. 
 
 O Day! I love thee. Sun and sky 
 
 And gentle breezes floating by, 
 
 And bird-notes, flow rs and swaying trees, 
 
 And Beauty s glorious harvestries 
 
 These are thy children, and we see 
 
 In them the touch of Deitv. 
 
 SUNSET. (1895.) 
 
 Good-night, bright Sun, with eye of golden light, 
 The chambers of the West ope wide their doors 
 With gold-paved threshold and rose-burnished floors, 
 The stars are sleeping on the breast of Night, 
 But they will waken as ye sink from sight. 
 
 The rock-ribbed mountains and the quiet vales 
 Draw rosy mantles round as daylight pales, 
 
 And stars shine forth, and all the silent deep 
 
 Of sky twinkles with glory; wondrous sweep 
 Of ever-circling worlds ! Revelation vast, 
 
 Beyond all dreaming of the daylight s hours < 
 The darkness bringeth ! Even thus, at last, 
 
 When death shall come to free these souls of ours 
 Shall vision broaden as we reach the Vast. 
 
 II. (1901.) 
 
 The Sun is sinking in the golden West, 
 
 The winds scarce whisper mid the many leaves; 
 
 One shining star Eve wears upon her breast. 
 And glorious are the colors that she weaves 
 
The Months and Seasons. 
 
 On the far mountain tops, whose purpling hue 
 Is mixed with sunbeams Day hath left behind, 
 
 Spreading their glory out beneath the blue, 
 Paving a path for the soft-footed wind. 
 
 How still- the Earth, as if she musing lay, 
 Or told her beads beneath the coming stars; 
 
 The shadows fall good-night, O lovely Day! 
 Within the west the sunset draws her bars. 
 
 O the great Vast that lies within the night! 
 
 Thought cannot bridge it, Fancy cannot dare 
 The endless orbits hidden from our sight, 
 
 In which great worlds are circling everywhere. 
 
 Be still, my soul, -and know that God is here, 
 His hand on all things, through eternal space 
 
 Guiding each sun, each planetary sphere, 
 As all sweep on in their allotted place. 
 
 III. (1897.) 
 
 O doors on starry hinges hung ! 
 Within the West ye backward swung, 
 As sank the Sun when day was done 
 Into wide space away, afar, 
 Behind the glory of a star. 
 
 And then outflashed the golden flame 
 Which from some sky-built altar came, 
 Which earth doth neither know nor name; 
 But O the splendor of the sky 
 That did along its threshold lie! 
 
 O golden Sunset ! could I see 
 
 The Hand divine that painted thee, 
 
 I d find the Hand that leadeth me 
 
 The Hand that guides the stars, and holds 
 
 Earth and her children in its folds. 
 
 A SUMMER SUNSET. 
 
 O golden is the sunset West ! 
 
 How rich its splendor stored ! 
 
 How bright its amber glory poured 
 
 From shining sea to mountain crest, 
 
 O er the sun-drowned valleys and the hills, 
 
 O er the ocean and the murmuring rills, 
 
 While there above the bright horizon s line 
 
 The Sun lies dreaming, ready for his rest. 
 
 Glorious the pause before he sinks from sight, 
 
 While yet the brightness of his illimitable light 
 
 Enfolds the world, still shadowless and fair, 
 
 And the glad birds call each to each, where 
 
 In their leafy bowers they sit in glee, 
 
 Hushing their chords of sweetest minstrelsy 
 
 Till morn shall come. A hush falls down 
 
 Like a sweet benediction on the town, 
 
 And all the wide green spaces of the land; 
 
 And even we more softly breathing stand 
 
 To watch the twilight s coming. The gentle flowers 
 
 Draw closer their soft hoods of tender leaves, 
 
 While the light breeze touches them and weaves 
 
 Its good-night whisper in a tone so low 
 
 We scarce can hear it, though it soundeth so 
 
 Like music. The Sun s light gilds the trees 
 
 On their high tops, and in and out the murmuring bees 
 
 Drone softly yet, till lo! a star 
 
 Twinkles above the sunset s fading gold, 
 
 The dark shadows fall from far, 
 
 And the young Moon its silver crescent hangs 
 
 In the thin air, and then the day is told. 
 
 Yet still we sit and dream in quiet reveries, 
 
 While out the planets flash that gild the night, 
 
 And thought to other worlds takes swiftest flight. 
 
 O glory of the darkness ! for our eyes 
 
 Ye lift the curtain which with daylight falls 
 
 .between us and infinities, and lo! 
 
 We see world after world slow-marching go 
 
 Down the vast ether plains; we stand 
 
 And front the universe, while sinks from sight 
 
 Our own small planet in the sea of Night. 
 
 SUNSET ON SAN FRANCISCO BAY. (1892.) 
 
 The Sun went down while clouds of gray, 
 
 As toward the W T est he took his way, 
 
 Muffled his footsteps and his face, 
 
 Of all his glory not a trace 
 
 On sea or land or sullen sky, 
 
 Till lo! as passing swiftly by 
 
 The rim of waters, where we see 
 
 Melt into vast immensity 
 
 Ocean and air, the veil was lift 
 
 And heaven itself seemed there adrift, 
 
 Its golden floor spread far and wide, 
 
 Floating upon the ocean s tide; 
 
 The splendor of its light the world 
 
 Drank into fullness it was hurled 
 
 On land and sea and mountain height, 
 
 Like some fire-opal s melted light, 
 
 And lo! the Sun, a ring of fire, 
 
 Brake from the clouds, his glowing pyre 
 
 Transfigured earth, and, glorified, 
 
 Sank like a god beneath the tide. 
 
 SUNSET AT SANTA MONICA. 
 
 There was a dreaming goddess in the sea, 
 Her floating hair made ripples on the deep; 
 The whispering waves upon the beach did creep, 
 And clung to the white sands lingeringly. 
 
 The sea had hushed its murmurs and did lie 
 
 As if its soul were passing, while on high 
 
 Above its western rim the sun hung red. 
 
 And golden beams upon the water shed, 
 
 Till all their deeps seemed turned to liquid gold; 
 
 The winds breathed not, and passing time was told 
 
 In the hushed silence of the coming eve. 
 
 Xo leaf stirred; not a bird did weave 
 
 A note of song; no insect s hum, 
 
 The warm, still, quiet air was dumb. 
 
 56 
 
Evening. 
 
 The mounts grew rosy red, a flush 
 
 Of crimson, through the purple hush 
 
 That wrapped them, stole, transfigured they, 
 
 Like altars of the dying day, 
 
 Gleamed with the glory of the light. 
 
 Xight thrust her fingers through the grass, 
 
 And long, lank shadows everywhere 
 
 Fell on the meadows sleeping there. 
 
 But still, like swift sword-thrusts did pass 
 The golden sunbeams, dropping still 
 Aslant the wide, low levels fair, 
 And on the summit of the hill. 
 
 Then, to the cool, deep, sapphire sea, 
 Swept by his garments golden trail, 
 The Sun sank low upon the brim 
 Of quiet waters on the rim 
 Of the wide, opal-shining West; 
 Then closed the Sun its shining lid, 
 And by the soft, blue wave was hid, 
 And Day was done. 
 
 EVENING. (1902.) 
 
 I watch the gold upon the swaying trees, 
 As Evening nears, and in the shining West 
 The Sun is sinking to his nightly rest, 
 
 And insects breathe their sweet antiphonies. 
 
 Like God s high priests the tall trees heavenward rise, 
 With leaf-wrought censers by the sunbeams filled, 
 And countless odors by the flowers are spilled, 
 
 And every leaf smiles upward to the skies. 
 
 The sleeping lake has smoothed its silver face, 
 Tt lies unruffled in its perfect peace, 
 As the soft winds their vexing whispers cease, 
 
 And holy calm within the hour finds place. 
 
 And now the stars God s treasuries of gold 
 Flash out within the fields of deepening blue, 
 Wide realms of space unfold unto our view 
 
 With utmost silence is the Vast unrolled. 
 
 NIGHT. (1882.) 
 
 Ihe whispering echoes dance amid the trees, 
 
 The amber sunset wears a golden smile, 
 The sunbeams tremble with the passing breeze 
 
 In long, slant ripples on the leafy pile 
 Where green boughs bend above the tall tree s trunk. 
 
 Bird calls to bird in soft, sweet, chirping notes, 
 The cricket s voice has to a whisper sunk, 
 
 As listening to the music from their slender throats, 
 The Sun sinks down and faintest shadows steal 
 
 From the far West the gold is mixed with gray, 
 And from the deep-blue sky I almost feel 
 
 The stars flash out their far, faint, trembling ray. 
 
 Xight hath its stars ! O glory that is hid 
 By the clear shining of the noonday sun ! 
 
 I love the Night with her star-fringed lid 
 Closing above the world when Day is done. 
 
 What impress of vast space, sweet prophetess, she bears! 
 
 I low points her hand beyond the scenes of Time ! 
 With her what vast, unhindered flights our fancy dares, 
 
 Into what realms of mystery sublime 
 It soars! She drops the bars between 
 
 Time and all outer realms that lie afar, 
 And spreads before us all the wondrous scene, 
 
 And gives to us as stepping-stones each star. 
 
 II. (1894.) 
 
 Melt now the hills against the purpling blue, 
 And dreamy shadows dreamy forests fill, 
 And bird and bee and everything is still 
 
 As is the silent dropping of the dew, 
 
 Raining its pearls Earth s star-lit chambers through. 
 E en the brook s murmurs seem more hushed and lo\v, 
 As if scarce breathing in its onward flow. 
 
 With Xight s soft fingers pressed upon its breast, 
 
 As if to hush it into moveless rest. 
 
 E en the trees slumber, every leaf is still, 
 
 And every blossom in the wooded dell, 
 
 While all the grasses lean as if to tell 
 
 Good-night to bird and bee in sweet good will 
 
 As diapasons of vast silence swell. 
 
 III. (1897.) 
 
 The stars come out, the very winds are still 
 As if Xight, breathing softly mid her trees, 
 Communed of Xature s silent mysteries, 
 
 And drunk to utmost largeness there her fill 
 
 Of the great Vast which holds us in its clasp, 
 Upon the threshold of that unseen line, 
 Dividing human sight from sight divine, 
 
 Infinite knowledge, too, from human grasp. 
 
 The far star-worlds, those twinkling points of light, 
 The jewels set within Xight s shining crown, 
 Like eyes of countless angels looking down 
 
 To this earth-speck they dare not in their flight. 
 
 What know we of them, of those silent spheres 
 Sweeping immensity, their orbits hung 
 Where erst life out of mighty chaos sprung 
 
 In the dim morning of eternal years? 
 
 O Xight! upon thy holy face there lies 
 
 The awful shadow of immensity, 
 
 Truths unrevealed of Xature s mystery. 
 The alphabet of God within thy skies. 
 When shall we learn to read it and when know 
 
 All that thy starry spaces hold and hide. 
 
 Where God hath snowed his worlds and cast them wide 
 Through all the blue fields which the Vast doth show? 
 
 IV. (1901.) 
 
 The starry Xight hath voices all its own, 
 Like whispers from some far-off world outblown, 
 Stealing adown the silent, moonlit air, 
 Where roses bloom, and blossoms everywhere 
 Fill our sweet gardens. Sometimes a bird, 
 Breathing sweet music mid the boughs, is heard, 
 And silver ripples on the lake s pure breast 
 
 57 
 
The Month* and Seasons. 
 
 Smile in the moonlight where the waters rest. 
 And little blades of grass do softly stir, 
 With bended heads, like rev rent worshiper. 
 O Night is dear, and its great soul I see, 
 Communion holds with vast infinity! 
 
 V. (1901.) 
 
 One small white cloud within the deeps of air, 
 Cradled in sunshine, beautifully fair, 
 And its bright edges, painted by the sun, 
 Grow golden while Day .smiles, till, one by one, 
 The stars come out within the fields of blue, 
 And the great mountains, old yet ever new, 
 Drop their fair pearls of color, and the Night 
 Wraps them in purple, veiling them from sight. 
 
 And then such hush upon all Nature falls, 
 The breezes sink to rest, the bird no longer calls 
 Upon its mate; the soft hum of the bees 
 We do not hear amid the many trees; 
 The flowers droop their heads as if asleep, 
 And the dew falls as if the sky did weep 
 For the fair Day so lately gone to rest 
 In the dim chambers of the darkening West. 
 
 But O the wonder that the Night reveals! 
 
 No longer Earth the one great star that wheels 
 
 Through wide sky spaces worlds on worlds we see 
 
 Dotting the vastness of immensity. 
 
 A little speck, an atom this world gleams 
 
 Amid the glory of the countless beams 
 
 Of the broad star universe which lies 
 
 Filling the deep infinity of skies. 
 
 So as the darkness doth unveil the Vast, 
 
 Death shall enlarge our wisdom when we cast 
 
 The scales of flesh aside, and soul-life springs 
 
 Into full oneness with eternal things, 
 
 Drinking God s glory in until we rise 
 
 The soul all eye, all ear in Paradise. 
 
 Death shall bring the soul s morning as the night 
 
 Brings countless stars the daylight hides from sight. 
 
 VI. (190?.) 
 
 O Night ! I long to hide myself within thine arms, 
 To study thee, to look into thy wondrous face, 
 
 To feel the soothing glory of thy many charms, 
 
 And wander ever on and on with thee through space. 
 
 How measureless and vast the skies ye do outspread, 
 Star-lighted, planet-filled their wondrous spaces be; 
 
 In these great deeps \ve find undimmcd above our head, 
 The written alphabet of God s infinity. 
 
 Oh, were it not for thee we should not see the stars, 
 The blinding glory of the Sun but hinders sight, 
 
 Shuts out infinity of space with golden bars, 
 
 And holds us earth-captives till thou dost come, O 
 Night ! 
 
 And sometimes doth sorrow like the Night unfold 
 Unknown, infinite deeps of God s own loving care, 
 
 Till holy Trust doth lead us from Doubt s barren cold, 
 And light and love and faith are round us everywhere. 
 
 BLESSED NIGHT! 
 
 Eve, starry-crowned and silent, and with dusky 
 Eyes and purple-shadowed hair is here, and 
 The infinitude of space is on her 
 
 Forehead. Worlds on worlds move round her, and we 
 Seem, where scattered lies the dust of shining 
 Spheres, to feel our way to heaven. Up through the dark 
 Thought climbs to outmost space. Through all its hush 
 God breathes. The stars are but the shining points 
 Where He has laid His finger. Behind them 
 We feel the throb of Being uncreate. 
 Night is electric with His presence, and 
 Earth swings nearer heaven. O blessed Night ! 
 
 NIGHT AND MORNING. (1894.} 
 \Vith full-moon splendor shines the starry sky; 
 The planets dream, the vagrant winds go by, 
 Touching the flowers and roaming listlessly, 
 Loitering at times to sip their fragrant sweets, 
 Hiding mid orange blooms, or where the white rose meets 
 The lily, then hurrying softly by 
 To where, with modest faces, violets lie, 
 With blue eyes lifted to the star-gemmed sky. 
 They tarry gently, sometimes sink to sleep, 
 Like a tired child, while dew-wet blossoms keep 
 Their silent vigils all the hushed night through, 
 Wrapped in soft star-beams and the silver dew. 
 The great Earth lies as if in pulseless swoon, 
 And sound lies dreaming in the midnight noon 
 Till Morning nears, and then, lo! so soon 
 As the first glimmer of her garments shine 
 In faintest violet along the line 
 Of the dim East, then ripple into gold 
 As the great Sun-God touches fold on fold. 
 Sound wakes again, and dreaming Silence stirs, 
 And Dawn lifts slowly all the cloudy blurs 
 That Night had spilled. Amid the many trees 
 Waken the birds with twitterings soft and low, 
 And light-winged breezes gaily come and go, 
 Laden with dewy fragrance from the snow 
 Of lilies fair and all things blossoming; 
 The far stars sink into Light s sustaining 
 Sea. The bee wakes; the joyous butterfly 
 Pursues his viewless path beneath the sky, 
 Skimming the air with lightest dalliance, 
 While the many myriad sunbeams glance 
 From mountain heights and lofty swaying crest 
 Of tallest trees and running river s breast; 
 The river turns to gold; the mountains, crowned 
 With light, are flaming altars; the profound 
 Of skyey deep a vast sapphire bending 
 Above the world, beautiful, unending- 
 Gleams, catching the glory of the rising Sun, 
 As up Day s steeps he climbs and swiftly hurls 
 His volleyed arrows, filling the whole world s 
 Wide, dewy atmosphere with golden light. 
 In breezy lightness, filling all the white 
 Clear glory of the morn, the swaying leaves 
 Clap their glad hands; the wide wood breathes 
 Music. From everything a glad voice breaks 
 As from the darkness a new Morning wakes. 
 
"All Natute s heatt is turned to you in pleading. " 
 
 TO THE CLOUDS IN DROUTH-TIME. (1876.) 
 
 O Clouds \ that hung above with dark and frowning faces, 
 With bosoms heaving as if storms were pent within, 
 With black and furrowed brows such as the thunder 
 
 chases, 
 Bend low, we pray, and kiss the e;irth with soft -lipped 
 
 Pass not away from the low-voiced and perfumed plead 
 ing 
 
 Of flowers that drooping hang upon their withered steins, 
 
 From brown and sighing grasses, and mute plains that, 
 fading, 
 
 Lift sadly day by day their grain-wrought diadems. 
 
 All Nature s fainting heart is turned to you in pleading, 
 
 And voiceless prayers are lifted by each leaf-lipped 
 thing 
 
 O Clouds \ give to these prayers a speedy, gracious heed 
 ing, 
 
 And let the welcome rain your benedictions bring. 
 
 THE COMING OF THE RAIN. (1876.) 
 
 O, mamma dear, where has the Sun gone? 
 
 Why is he hiding his face? 
 What is the Rain crying for is it because 
 
 Clouds pushed the Sun out of his place? 
 
 No, darling, each flower has been lifting 
 
 Its poor little face to the sky, 
 And the hills have grown dumb in their sorrow, 
 
 While the Sun wandered wantonly by. 
 
 Their lips were parched and were burning. 
 Though moistened with mist and the dew 
 
 Which Night, with her star-jeweled fingers 
 Dropped lovingly down from the blue. 
 
 I fancy the winds must have heard them, 
 
 And out from the pitying West, 
 And the soft tender heart of the South, 
 
 Their forces they hurriedly press d. 
 
 And they hunted the Clouds that had wandered, 
 That were full of the life-giving rain, 
 
 And they brought them to water the Earth, 
 All athirst from hilltop to plain. 
 
 STORM PICTURES. (1892.) 
 Before the Storm. 
 
 The clouds were piled in masses in the West, 
 So wonderful they seemed a new world born. 
 With mountains, lakes, with crystal waters torn 
 With billowy waves tossing in wild unrest, 
 Yet touched with silver was each shining crest. 
 Then there were castles turreted and fair, 
 And grand cathedrals lifted in the air, 
 
 And vale-like spaces for proud cities rest, 
 
 And spectral forms that might have hidden wings; 
 
 Perhaps the sunset painters lingered there, 
 For when Night neared, swift us a bird that flings 
 
 Itself to motion, lo! within the air 
 A wondrous picture! every cloud was bright, 
 Transfigured, glorious in the sunset light. 
 
 The Storm. 
 
 Then Morning came, so sullen-faced and dark, 
 With all the wide space filled with falling rain, 
 Which stabbed so swift the sunless air amain 
 With crystal daggers, and the winds cried "hark," 
 With strange, sad voices rushing mid the dark 
 And trembling branches of the swaying trees, 
 Their leaves- breathing their wordless mysteries; 
 And some were downward swept like fragile barl;, 
 Tossed on strange seas, but O the Earth was glad ! 
 
 The sleeping roots stirred softly in her breast, 
 The white sands of the streams with joy were ma;l, 
 
 As little rills around them swiftly prest. 
 For the soul of Life in the raindrops lay, 
 And mountain and valley were glad that day. 
 
 After the Storm. 
 
 How blue the heavens, how wonderfully fair! 
 Like a great shining sapphire hangs the sky, 
 Bird song and fragrance wander lightly by. 
 
 And gleeful in its brightness seems the air 
 
 Throbbing with life its pulses everywhere, 
 
 And flowers breathe fragrance that is new and sweet 
 Earth from her dream is waking neath our feet 
 
 For Beauty s advent we may now prepare; 
 
 And soon some morning will our waking eves 
 Behold her million-bannered army stand 
 With emerald blades uplift on every hand, 
 
 And blossoms sweet of many-colored dyes; 
 Summer will dream within December s arms, 
 And, graceless robber, he will steal her charms. 
 
 OUR WINTER RAINS. (1892.) 
 
 Whore are the rains the crystal-footed rains 
 
 That glad our semi-tropic clime as slips 
 
 The Old Year to his rest? That with rainbows 
 
 Crown the glad Young Year, and like a nimbus 
 
 Shining, gleam around his head? O deeps of air! 
 
 Where in your infinite caves, with sunbeams 
 
 Glowing and golden, do they hidden lie? 
 
 Keep ye the waterdrops for diamonds 
 
 To deck some far-off world new-wedded to 
 
 A sun? or have the light winds, with restless 
 
 Feet, chased them with merry laughter 
 
 To some sky haunt, and from their cloudy cups 
 
 Bid sun and star drink them like wine? 
 
 The marshaled Clouds look on us from the skv, 
 
 59 
 
The Drouth and the Rain. 
 
 And lean above the heights, or sweep along 
 
 Like mighty chariots of some awful 
 
 Thunderer, or rise like black battlements 
 
 Beetling the West, and then the west wind blows, 
 
 Or north, or some sweet, warm breath, as fragrant 
 
 As June s dawns, comes from the far, sunny south, 
 
 And in a twinkling vanish from sight 
 
 Battlements and cloud-wrought chariot. Forth 
 
 Looks the bright Sun. The blue is sapphire-like; 
 
 The infinite spaces of the sky s great dome 
 
 Show not a shadow. Earth looks up athirst; 
 
 Even her rivers pant amid the sands; 
 
 The withered grasses droop. The flowers hold 
 
 Empty cups. Noon sits with fevered lips, 
 
 While Night, her tongue dew-moistened, pleads for rain. 
 
 
 A PRAYER FOR RAIN. 
 
 Soft-footed as the stars the sunshine steals 
 About us here the hushed breeze yields 
 To the faint touch of Silence, and a-dream 
 It lies upon the breast of flow rs which lean 
 Beside the fair lake s breast, as if to see 
 The wonders of their being s mystery. 
 
 One cloud lies black the shining blue within, 
 
 With ragged edge and long arm furrowing 
 
 The fields of space, as if twere striving there 
 
 To find some lurking tempest, hidden where 
 
 The rains are loitering, while the Earth lies dumb, 
 
 Tortured with thirst for rains which do not come. 
 
 O Father, hear us! Let the deeps of sky, 
 
 Touched by Thy power, lift their great flood-gates high; 
 
 Let the vast cisterns of the Storm be filled 
 
 And thy warm rains upon our soil be spilled; 
 
 Let thy rich harvests smile upon the plain, 
 
 While Plenty walks through all our land again. 
 
 WAITING FOR THE RAIN. (1904.) 
 
 The sky bends cloud-veiled face above the dry, parched 
 
 earth, 
 
 Gigantic pillars rise and touch the zenith high; 
 Like lofty Titans do they tower in majesty. 
 We wonder if behind their vast, unmeasured girth 
 The storms do slumber and the longed-for rains do bide, 
 And there in cruel mockery in secret wait. 
 Will they not open for the Earth their great floodgate? 
 Upon the roaming winds will they not quickly ride 
 And touch with jeweled raindrops all the flowers, 
 And find the harvest seeds that sleep within the Earth, 
 And all the grassy blades that, too, are waiting birth 
 Within the mighty womb of this fair land of ours? 
 The Sun looks out with golden beams within the West, 
 Yet higher and higher climb the clouds within the East; 
 They drape the mountains and cover every crest, 
 But still yet smiles the golden sun within the West. 
 O Night, sweet Night ! as you drop your curtain down, 
 Whisper the Clouds to give us gracious showers, 
 
 To pour" their benediction on the fields and flowers, 
 From bare and thirsty vale to lofty mountain s crown. 
 Then will thanksgivings rise from every leaf-tongued 
 
 thing, 
 
 From the wide, bare plains where sleeping grasses lie, 
 From the glad, cleansed air where our sweet song-birds 
 
 fly, 
 And from our hearts our grateful thanks to God we ll 
 
 bring. 
 
 THE RAINS ARE COMING. 
 
 Oh, the rains are coming! 
 
 Don t you hear the grasses stirring? 
 
 Don t you hear the bees a-humrning? 
 
 In the sunshine soft and golden, 
 
 Filling all the skies that bend 
 
 Above the mountains olden? 
 
 Oh, the rains have washed them clear! 
 
 And such wondrous depths appear 
 
 That we wonder whither 
 
 We might fly, if we could try 
 
 Our wings here and thither. 
 
 Oh, the rains are coming! 
 
 And the flowers are getting ready, 
 
 Ready for the winter blooming, 
 
 And the little birds are tuning 
 
 All their little throats for song; 
 
 And the crickets hop along 
 
 Ready for their happy chirping; 
 
 And the caterpillars lurking 
 
 In the sunshine quiver, 
 
 And they would, if they could, 
 
 Run, they know not whither. 
 
 Oh, the rains are coming! 
 
 And the little roots are stirring 
 
 That have slept throughout the Summer 
 
 All the brown and dead earth under, 
 
 And they soon will lift their heads, 
 
 Wearing for a Winter bonnet 
 
 Tender stalks with green leaves on it; 
 
 And they ll stretch up every day, 
 
 Higher as they d run away; 
 
 If they could, oh, they would 
 
 To the star-worlds stray. 
 
 Oh, the rains are coming! 
 
 And the white sands of the river 
 
 I am sure are all a-quiver 
 
 Waiting for the stream to kiss them, 
 
 Waiting for the running river 
 
 By whose side the grasses bend, 
 
 While the dropping sunbeams send 
 
 All their golden beauty down 
 
 On the daisies like a crown. 
 
 And they would, if they could, 
 
 Drink the water down. 
 
When the Rain ( 
 
 omt ts. 
 
 Oh, the rains are coming ! 
 Soon, oh, soon, the sweet wild clover 
 Which the wild bees hover over 
 Will put on its robes of beauty, 
 With its purple blossoms shining, 
 With the morning-glories turning 
 Where the breezes creep so softly, 
 And the palm-tree groweth lofty, 
 Like an em rald hung in air, 
 You shall see bird and bee 
 Sipping honey there. 
 
 WHEN THE RAIN COMES. (1898.) 
 
 The hills are all athirst, and brown they rise 
 
 Against the blue magnificence of skies; 
 
 Like giant vast each lifts his mighty head; 
 
 The grasses lying on their shoulders dead, 
 
 As if growth were forgotten and old Time 
 
 Had ceased to feed his children with the thyme 
 
 Of fruitfulness. Xo root is there astir, 
 
 Sweet Nature feels no pulse abeat for her 
 
 Upon those hills beyond us, where we see 
 
 Her in deep trance of stirless mystery; 
 
 There she will lie like a dead goddess till 
 
 The skies are clouded, and its great cisterns fill 
 
 With rush of waters, and the blessed Rain 
 
 Moistens her lips and sets athrob again 
 
 Her silent pulses; then, O then shall we 
 
 Her new life wakening into beauty see. 
 
 The miracle of growth will meet our eyes, 
 
 And earth be fairer than her shining skies. 
 
 Clothed in fresh garments of the richest green, 
 Jeweled with flowers will Xature then be seen, 
 Her face as fair as young life ever shows, 
 Lovely with lily and with blushing rose, 
 Her breath as fragrant as the Summer s own, 
 Which comes to us o er beds of blossoms blown. 
 And O the glory of her rain-washed skies! 
 Illimitable in deepness to our eyes, 
 Looking as if through some wide, unseen door 
 We might find God and walk forevermore 
 Through the great Vast above us, shining clear, 
 A realm of light, a flowing atmosphere 
 Of untold glory. Then the Earth is fair, 
 The hills like gods rise glorious everywhere, 
 The plains smile like a child in beauty dressed, 
 And all our world is wed to loveliness. 
 
 THE BLESSED RAIN. (1903.) 
 
 The very earth is laughing now 
 With gladness at the copious rain 
 
 Which falls upon the hillside s brow, 
 And on the emerald-covered plain. 
 
 The growing grasses all do hear, 
 
 The blossoms smile and lift their face; 
 
 The flowering trees are standing near 
 And pouring fragrance into space. 
 
 The tinkling raindrops seem like notes 
 Of glad bells filling all the air. 
 
 How soft and low their music floats- 
 Low as a saint s voice when at prayer. 
 
 We hear in them the promise sweet 
 Of harvests full and rich and free, 
 
 Each drop that falls beneath our feet 
 Whispers of plenty that shall be. 
 
 The Sun is hiding as they fall, 
 
 But still the Earth is glad and gay, 
 
 From lowly grasses to the tall 
 
 Leaf-bannered trees that o er us sway. 
 
 The clouds, like wings of blessings spread 
 Above our heads, fill all the sky, 
 
 And rich the treasures that they shed 
 How full their blessed ministry! 
 
 The streamlets leap amid the sands, 
 And gather heart as on they go; 
 
 The river breaks its narrow bands 
 And laughs at its new overflow. 
 
 And when the storm is past, how we 
 Shall welcome sun and shining blue! 
 
 The world will then be fair to see, 
 For Growth will marshal here anew 
 
 Her great, grand army, silently, 
 With rank on rank and file on file, 
 
 They ll capture Nature, till we see 
 
 The whole land with new beauty smile. 
 
 The flowers will wake to newer life, 
 And bloom afresh upon their stems; 
 
 Lilies and roses will be rife 
 
 With new-wrought, fragrant diadems. 
 
 And oh, the rain-washed skies ! how fair ! 
 
 How deep and vast will they outspread! 
 A sun-filled sea of shining air, 
 
 A light-wrought curtain overhead. 
 
 As noon were in the valleys born. 
 And all her golden glory filled 
 
 The heart of day, from early morn 
 Till the unhindered starlight spilled 
 
 -.1 
 
The Dnmth and the Rain. 
 
 Its radiant silver on Night s breast, 
 Bringing uncounted worlds to view 
 
 That in the deeps of ether rest- 
 That world-cradling, star-sown blue. 
 
 O fair, so fair, so wondrous fair, 
 Beyond all other lands we know, 
 
 This land of ours when parented 
 By sun and rain; its overflow 
 
 Of wondrous harvests all the year 
 
 Makes glad our hearts, and summer skies 
 
 Are cloudless, and we never fear 
 The maddened tempest s batteries. 
 
 They are not here; a land of calm, 
 Of blessed sunshine and of flowers, 
 
 The land of peace, the land of palm, 
 Such is this glorious land of ours. 
 
 RAIN-WASHED SKIES! (1891.) 
 
 O rain-washed, sapphire skies ! how fair 
 With beauty infinite are ye! 
 Heaven lies in your immensity, 
 So far, so bright in deeps of air 
 We cannot see, though everywhere 
 Its glory gleams, its soft airs blow, 
 Till earth seems heaven here below. 
 Life stirs anew beneath the soil, 
 Birds wing their flight through shining s< 
 Of golden sunbeams, while the breeze 
 Breathes sweeter than Hesperides. 
 
 A RAINY DAY. (1901.) 
 
 I watch the clouds that float the sea of air, 
 
 Their grand battalions marshaled everywhere, 
 
 From east to west they fill the mighty deep, 
 
 From north to south in one unbroken sweep; 
 
 And lo! the mountains lift their lofty crests, 
 
 On which the snow crown of the Storm-King rests. 
 
 But here the clouds pour down their pearly showers. 
 
 And blossoms smile through all the rain-filled hours; 
 
 And velvet-footed, silent as the light, 
 
 Viewless as air unto our watching sight, 
 
 Growth wends her way and touches with her hand 
 
 The grassy blades that in the fields do stand; 
 
 Her lips are pressed on budding flow r and tree, 
 
 And lo! they stir in noiseless ecstacy; 
 
 Something divine hath touched them, too, we know; 
 
 Tis God s own breath and wondrous overflow 
 
 Of power divine. O untold mystery 
 
 Of earth s unfolding which we daily see! 
 
 Ine nursing sunshine and the plenteous rain 
 
 God gives to us, but they would be in vain 
 
 Did He not mingle with them that strange thing 
 
 Which we call life, from which all growth doth spring. 
 
 God walks on earth today, not less than when 
 The Christ was with us, seen and known of men; 
 Than when He lit the stars, unrolled the sky, 
 Cradled the seas, lifted mountains high. 
 
 AFTER A FEBRUARY RAIN. (1902.) 
 
 The boundless air is still, its breath is sweet, 
 The earth wears garments of an emerald hue, 
 The skies bend over us infinitely blue; 
 We hear the tinkle of Spring s dancing feet 
 The laughing breezes hasten forth to greet 
 Her coming. From golden poppy bells, 
 In tender tones harmoniously swells 
 Soft, wind-born music. Lilies lean, 
 Holding white censers; the grasses screen 
 The nun-like violets which humbly seek 
 The lowliest places; their blue eyes peep 
 Upward in gladness; song-birds sing, 
 Or sweep the air with their soft, feathered wing, 
 And all the earth is filled with voice of Spring. 
 
 WHEN THE RAIN CAME. 
 
 Oh, what were the birds saying, what were they singing 
 
 Out in the woods one day, 
 
 After the rain had come, and the old brown Earth, so 
 dumb, 
 
 Found something sweet to say? 
 
 The grasses were stirring, with their soft roots purring 
 
 Down in the earth so dark, 
 And sure in the wood, where I listening stood, 
 
 A robin called, hark ! hark ! 
 
 And his mate drew near and bent down an ear, 
 
 Stirring never a wing, 
 As he leaned and listened where raindrops glistened, 
 
 E en forgetting to sing. 
 
 Oh, what did he hear on that morning so bright, 
 
 When the Earth was awake 
 With the kiss of the Rain on mountain and plain 
 
 Through the long misty night? 
 
 Hark ! hark ! peep, peep ! tweet, tweet ! his glad little feet 
 
 Kept time with the song in his breast, 
 For he knew that the rain meant harvests again, 
 
 And plenty of gladness and rest. 
 
 Then from the tree s crest I saw the bright breast 
 
 Of an oriole flash. 
 And yellow the gold on the feathery fold 
 
 Of his waistcoat and sash. 
 
 And a crow black as night swept down on rny si; lit, 
 
 And a thrush stirred its wings, 
 And a lark rising high to the deeps of the sky 
 
 Makes a path as it sings. 
 
After the Rain. 
 
 And bobolink, bobolink, what do you think? 
 
 "Rain is coming," says lie. 
 "Yes, yes, tweet, tweet!" said the mockingbird sweet. 
 
 "And I m as glad as can be." 
 
 Then the dove called and cooed in the depths of the wood, 
 
 And the swallow soared high. 
 And a little brown wren twittered softly again 
 
 Neath the roof of the sky. 
 
 And the butterflies came like blossoms of flame, 
 
 And the spider came out 
 With a velvet-like tread, and gaily he spread 
 
 His bright silver about. 
 
 And the striped-coated bee buzzed on merrily, 
 
 And a rush overhead 
 Mid the curtain of leaves on old forest trees 
 
 Showed the squirrel had sped. 
 
 Sing, sing! cried the robin, as he started a song which 
 rippled along, 
 
 And the bulbul drew near, 
 And the oriole gay sang sweet from the spray 
 
 Where the wren twittered clear. 
 
 Sing, sing! for the rain is coming again. 
 
 And the flowers will shine, 
 Like earth stars between the grasses so green. 
 
 With a glory divine. 
 
 Then with voices sweet as Summer when the wild bees 
 murmur, 
 
 Sang the birds in gladness, 
 And the songs they poured were like blessings stored, 
 
 Freeing Earth from sadness. 
 
 Then bud and blossom stirred, as happy Nature heard 
 
 These her high priests singing; 
 Roots began to grow, grasses to breathe low. 
 
 As all to life were springing. 
 
 AFTER THE RAIN. (1895.) 
 
 The roses breathe to me today 
 
 A song I love to hear, 
 And other lifting blossoms join 
 
 And fill my spirit s ear. 
 
 The sky above us leans in light 
 That floods the world with gold, 
 
 And all the whispering breezes pass 
 With graces manifold. 
 
 The grand old mountains mantled are 
 With colors wondrous fair, 
 
 Like some ethereal visitants 
 Formed of the light and air. 
 
 Out of the rose s heart the bee, 
 With wings of filmy mould, 
 
 Comes buzzing on the sunshine s sea 
 To bathe within its gold. 
 
 So warm, so liquid soft it lies, 
 
 This pulseless, winter air, 
 It seems as Love lay breathing low 
 
 Within its bosom fair. 
 
 And something in the soul of Day 
 
 Seems kindred unto mine, 
 While Beauty leans from leaf and tree 
 
 Tn forms that are divine. 
 
 Heaven s threshold is not very far 
 
 Beyond such days as this, 
 And angels hidden in the light 
 
 Oft touch our hands, I wis. 
 
 II. (1902.) 
 
 There is a soft, glad whisper everywhere, 
 Stirring the leaves and all the shining air, 
 A whisper soft as light, as sweet as flowers, 
 Jiorn of the coming of these winter showers. 
 
 For Joy is born anew in Nature s breast, 
 She laughs in gladness on the hillside s crest, 
 And in the valley fair, where wakes the thrill 
 Of Growth s sweet music which will not be still. 
 
 The long months slumber of the Grass is o er, 
 The magic rain has kissed its roots once more, 
 It is awake, and soon its blades will spring 
 Through the brown soil Earth s emerald covering. 
 
 New perfumes soon will flood the air like light. 
 And leagues on leagues of freshened blossoms bright 
 Shall pave the paths we tread, and Winter s feet 
 Be newly sandaled here with flowers sweet. 
 
 Soon, cloud-like, shall the golden poppies glow 
 Cover our hills, like sunset s overflow, 
 With radiant beauty; soon the shining noons 
 Be bathed in seas of countless rich perfumes. 
 
 And all the birds shall unto fresh songs wake. 
 Drinking the glory of the sun, and make 
 A jubilee of gladness with the flowers 
 Through all the glorious, rose-lidded hours. 
 
 The rain-washed skies grow brightly blue and deep, 
 Mirroring immensity; no cloud-wings sweep 
 Th glorious pathway of the shining Day, 
 But golden-winged hours pass down the way. 
 
 The mountains lift their purple crests on high 
 After their baptism, and the blue sky 
 Reaches its arms of sunbeams down to them, 
 And places on their brows its diadem 
 
 Of wondrous light till cliffs and canons stand 
 As if new-wrought by God s almighty hand, 
 As if the roots of stone had come to bear 
 Pure Light s white blossoms in that upper air. 
 
 Yes, Joy is born anew in Nature s breast, 
 She laughs in gladness on the hillside s crest, 
 And in the valleys fair, where wakes the thrill 
 Of Growth s sweet music which will not be still. 
 
The Drouth and the Rain. 
 
 THE RAIN (1878.) 
 
 Dimpled and sweet the fair child lay, 
 
 His golden head on his mother s breast, 
 
 And his great sad eves in wonder stray, 
 Watching the gloom of the darkened West; 
 
 And the raindrops patter against the panes, 
 The first sweet rain of the Autumn days 
 
 Here Summer has only her golden rains, 
 Rains of sunshine and shining haze. 
 
 And only such clouds as the sunset flings 
 Like golden banners along the West, 
 
 And strange to the child whose memory holds 
 
 Only a thought of fair, bright things- 
 Sunlight and starlight, and golden west- 
 Is the Autumn rain, and the storm-cloud s folds 
 
 That hide like a pall the mountain s crest. 
 
 THE RAIN. (1893.) 
 
 The rain falls gently and the green Earth smiles; 
 
 Each blade of grass, each budding bush and tree 
 
 Seems full of gladness, and harmoniously 
 
 Their low-voiced whisper to the breeze beguiles 
 
 Our thoughts. They seem so gracious with their wad;. 
 
 Of waving leaves, like many hands that be 
 
 Clapping their joyance, while breathing free 
 
 Of new life brought through rain s blest ministry. 
 
 I think there is a soul in all Earth s things, 
 And speech, did we but understand its tones, 
 A psalm, which in melodious utterance rings 
 From leaf and tree, as each its Maker owns; 
 And mountains are Earth s altars, which do rise, 
 Holding Earth s incense to the waiting skies. 
 
CLOUDS REST, YOSEMITE. 
 
ountain, 
 
 (Tanyon an6 
 
 "(jodlaid His fingers on the mountain s face. 
 
 YOSEMITE. (1882.) 
 
 I climb her heights and look as from a star 
 Upon a lower world; the clouds seem nearer 
 Than the silent vale below; 
 
 1 catch not e en the murmur of the river s flow, 
 And the bright bird that circles on its wing 
 From the blue air around me seems to spring. 
 
 Here we find a world within a world; charmed 
 Deeps and flashing waterfalls that seem to 
 Drop from the o erbending blue, and dizzy 
 Heights which the sight staggers; and mighty walls 
 Uprise a white and unstarred firmament. 
 
 IT. (1899.) 
 
 Amid the silence of thy wondrous heights 
 
 Was God s own hand uplifted in that far 
 
 Distant Past when Time was young and earth lay 
 
 On the breast of Chaos. God spake and it 
 
 Was done, and thy sky-reaching mounts uprose 
 
 The world s grand battlements and the sleeping 
 
 Vales sprang into being, while the river leaped 
 
 Into the silver arms of motion and 
 
 Moved with ceaseless anthems onward to the 
 
 Waiting deep. O wilderness of mountains! 
 
 Ye do seem but half of earth with your proud 
 
 Crests pillowed amid the stars, Orion s 
 
 Hand upon your rocky foreheads, and the 
 
 Sky binding them with its soft blue, while the 
 
 Sunbeams, lying upon them like a crown, 
 
 Wrap them in light and beauty. But mine eyes, 
 
 Filled with reverent wonder, see temples 
 
 Here, such as man s weak hand hath never reared, 
 
 Wrought by th chisel of Omnipotence when 
 
 He, with arm uplift, sundered the rocks and 
 
 Carved in this wilderness His cathedral 
 
 Mounts, with spires and mighty architraves 
 
 And rounded domes thousands of feet upraised 
 
 Into th high heavens, round which forever 
 
 The currents of the upper air flow in 
 
 Strong tides changeless as Time. Yosemite, 
 
 Parent of wonders ! The leap of thy grand 
 
 Waterfalls beggars all speech to tell. They 
 
 Are girt with rainbows and garmented with 
 
 Mist, as if the clouds muffled their forms while 
 
 Sunbeams paved their path with glory, and they 
 
 Were hung as veils for infinite brightness. 
 
 They voice the eternal with their full lips 
 
 Of mighty waters, and the rocks tremble 
 
 As they hear, and forest trees bend low to 
 
 Catch the baptism. Afar the black lips 
 
 Of the dead volcanic craters yawn, as 
 
 If Hell her mouth had opened in the dead 
 
 Past, until God had closed its jaws and bade 
 
 Its fires to cease, and made Grandeur walk where 
 
 Once Destruction trod and poured its lava 
 
 Fires. How rises proud El Capitan like 
 
 Rocky firmament above the flowing 
 
 Merced s waves, his feet lashed by their foam, and 
 
 His fir-crowned crest touching the holy stars. 
 
 Near him thy Falls, with rainbows round their feet, 
 
 Leap from the skies to earth with thunderous 
 
 Rush, as they were gods outspringing space, and 
 
 Playing with the winds which wander with them. 
 
 Thy grand Half Dome, six thousand feet uplift 
 
 Above the river s bed, stands like a gateway 
 
 To the far-off skies, and it hears the rush 
 
 Of worlds circling through space, and looks upon 
 
 The birthplace of the winds, and thrusts its arm 
 
 Into the chambers of the clouds, touching 
 
 The lightnings and watching the thunders roll. 
 
 Thy Sentinel Rock stands guard as ages 
 
 Pass, and th mighty forests round his shoulders 
 
 Mantle him with green, while afar he looks 
 
 Into a world-wilderness of peaks. On 
 
 Thy proud bosom lies thy wondrous jewel, 
 
 Fair Mirror Lake, th diamond of waters, 
 
 Its setting Granite Domes and Royal Arches, 
 
 Which the sun envelops with his glory. 
 
 Thy trees are giants of their kind fingers 
 
 Up-pointing to thy wondrous heights, which God 
 
 Has made the marvel of the world. 
 
 III. (1901.) 
 
 God laid His fingers on the mountain s face, 
 
 Its granite lips were opened in His praise; ^/ 
 
 His footsteps trod the mighty canon ways, 
 
 And lo! the streams leapt singing from their place 
 
 On high Sierra s crest unto the valley s floor, 
 
 Where sound their anthems now forevermore. 
 
 How beam the stars from their high places down! 
 
 The winds with silver feet thy waters tread; 
 
 Like great high priests the cedars overhead 
 
 Cast their sweet incense where their branches crown 
 
 Thy lofty heights, and golden sunbeams pour 
 
 Their glad Te Deums out forevermore. 
 
 Solemn and vast thy mighty Domes do stand, 
 
 Their faces lifted to the stars and sun, 
 
 And sometimes like a fleecy banner flung 
 
 By some vast Titan s ever-viewless hand, 
 
 Clouds stream from their bald foreheads, till we see 
 
 The lightning alphabet of Deity. 
 
 IV. (1902.) 
 
 Temple of grandeur, with thy granite heights 
 Touching the stars, while the winds do brush their 
 Foreheads and whisper the secrets of the 
 Starry skies into their ears. Great forests, 
 With giant trees, sweep the wide distance o er 
 
 65 
 
Mountain, Desert, Canyon and Gorge. 
 
 Thee; illimitable they seem as space, 
 
 And grand as they were pillars of old Time 
 
 On which the far skies lean, strong in the strength 
 
 Of centuries. How wondrous thy mighty 
 
 Falls, leaping like world-old Titans from the 
 
 Heights, and thy vast Domes and Spires, carved from the 
 
 Eternal rocks when Time was young. Thy sleeping 
 
 Lakes are a bright mirror for th world about 
 
 Them, and the fair Merced "River of Mercy" 
 
 Rolls like a liquid song along its way, 
 
 Through thy green valley, cradled in sunshine. 
 
 God has woven for thee a crown of sunbeams, 
 
 And thy tall trees stand catching the sunlight, 
 
 1111 they seem at times like molten gold poured 
 
 Into Nature s vast alembic, to be 
 
 Shaped at her will into a priceless 
 
 Diadem of brightness. Silver firs and 
 
 Mighty cedars wave their boughs above thy 
 
 Lofty walls, glorious in beauty, and 
 
 Thy Sentinel Rock stands moveless, fronting 
 
 The ages and mocking at Change. Thy vast 
 
 Domes seem hung in air, kindred with sun and 
 
 Stars, companioned by the clouds, at home with 
 
 Storm and tempest, when they rave above the 
 
 Earth, and, lightning-shod, traverse the broad skies 
 
 Unhindered. The rainbow arches itself 
 
 In glory round thy falls, and color lights 
 
 Their misty spray until it seemeth like 
 
 Some wondrous blossom of the shining air 
 
 Laid on the breast of Day. Thou art indeed 
 
 The signet of Omnipotence, and His 
 
 Alphabet with which He writes th glorious 
 
 Iliads of His eternal power. 
 
 V. (1903.) 
 
 Here Nature holds herself in regnant state, 
 
 And sits a queen with mountains for her crown; 
 
 Her robes are royal, jeweled with bright flow rs, 
 
 Her crystal waterfalls look as they leaped 
 
 From the far heavens with bright rainbows wreathed 
 
 About their feet and on their forehead s front, 
 
 When the sun kisses their face and pours on 
 
 Them a baptism of light, glorious 
 
 In beauty. The Valley s granite walls rise, 
 
 Like a rocky firmament, thousands of 
 
 Feet above its emerald floor, and the 
 
 Tall pines and cedars growing on their crests 
 
 Seem to brush the skies and lay their fingers 
 
 On the stars. The anthem of its mighty 
 
 Waters fills all the centuries with its 
 
 L T nceasing harmony, thundering of 
 
 Power. Here we see Omnipotence has 
 
 Chiseled vastness, shaping the rocks into 
 
 Glorious cathedral heights on which the 
 
 Sun lays his first morning beam and his last 
 
 Kiss at evening. They front th mighty distances, 
 
 And look afar through space, while their high crests 
 
 Are lift above the clouds. Kindred are they 
 
 With bending skies and circling planets, and 
 
 The rolling thunders pour mighty voices into 
 
 Their ears in tones that shake the very stars. 
 How rise the mighty cedars on their sides, 
 Like columns to uphold the far, star-fraught 
 Firmament, monarchs of trees, great giant 
 Titans, baffling the winds with their unbending 
 Majesty. Yosemite! No words can 
 Paint its wonders. It is a thought of God, 
 So marvelous that human speech feels its 
 Own feebleness, its great poverty of 
 Utterance, and is still with rev rent awe. 
 
 VI. 
 
 O those far heights which lie beneath the stars! 
 
 The clouds sweep round them like a misty veil. 
 
 O er flowery slopes we climbed, through forest bars, 
 
 Through floods of sunshine up the dizzy trail, 
 
 Until we reached their summits. Standing there, 
 
 We looked adown, as from a planet s edge, 
 
 On the far lower world a world it seemed where 
 
 Soul was dead, and where, pinned down by wedge 
 
 Of mighty peaks, motion had died 
 
 A world drowned in the sunshine, steeped in quiet rest, 
 
 Where never the Wind s swift steeds might stride. 
 
 Or the soft breezes stir the river s breast. 
 
 MORNING IN THE YOSEMITE. (1882.) 
 
 Oh, I have lain and watched the dawn grow clear, 
 
 Have seen from out the shadows lift his front 
 Like the foundations of some other sphere, 
 
 Grand, granite-walled El Capitan, his head 
 Wearing the jeweled sunlight, while his sides 
 
 Wore tints of darkness and the Dawn, and still dead 
 Blackness lay upon the river s flowing tides 
 
 Which through the centuries have laved his feet; 
 And suddenly, as if the angel of the Dawn 
 
 Had fanned the air with his soft, roseate wings, 
 The brooding stillness of the woods is gone, 
 
 And from the upper deeps at once there springs 
 A tremulousness that stirs the glossy leaves 
 
 Which through the night had moveless hung and slept, 
 
 And sudden sunlight rich mosaics weaves 
 In gold and emerald where its beams have crept; 
 
 And shadowed columns stretch along the ground,. 
 Cast by the trees that face the glowing East, 
 
 Carved by the sunlight without tool or sound. 
 The air is full of odors, the eyes feast 
 
 On dewy buds and blossoms and the ear 
 Is steeped in song; amid the giant trees 
 
 Sit the bird choirs, their symphonies you hear 
 More sweet than the old masters harmonies; 
 
 And veiled in mystic beauty, shining clear 
 In silvery brightiiess, jeweled with the light, 
 
 And flashing diamonds, its feet wrapped round 
 With rainbows and soft spray of misty white, 
 
 Where earth and sky are wedded, heaven drops clown 
 Its Bridal Veil, and the valley s crown, 
 
 Like some gigantic priest of other days 
 Grown through the centuries, with head uplift, 
 
 Gazes with far eyes into the clasping skies 
 
On Eagle Point- 
 
 Yosetnite. 
 
 The grand Half Dome. Upon its granite cliff, 
 
 Down-shooting from the Cloud s Rest lofty rise, 
 Shines the first golden arrow of the Dawn, 
 
 Mirrored in beauty in the lake below. 
 And with keen eye, watching the face of Morn, 
 
 The mighty offspring of some earthquake s throe, 
 1 he moveless Sentinel with dome upreared, 
 
 And bared brow, white as the Winter s snow, 
 Stands lone, transfigured on the heights his beard 
 
 The branches of the pines which glow 
 Like some old god s in the effulgent light. 
 
 Far off the vast Sierra s peaks arise 
 A wilderness of grand, majestic heights, 
 
 Their shining crests within the azure skies, 
 With the rich aureole of the sunrise lights 
 
 Resting upon them like a radiant crown. 
 The grand old Domes, the pillars ol the air, 
 
 Look on the columned forests down, 
 Their rounded summits standing lonely there 
 The valley s mighty altars lit with fire. 
 And now the sun fills all the stream with gold, 
 
 Bridging it with sunbeams as it rises higher; 
 It casts its shining spears into the old 
 
 White waterfalls the shadows flee away, 
 And stands complete the miracle of Day. 
 
 9i>V- 
 ON EAGLE POINT YOSEMITE. (1885.) 
 
 The calm sweet Night was overhead. 
 
 The skies were full of stars which shed. 
 
 With the bright silver of the fair full Moon, 
 
 A rain of radiance through the fir-tree boughs. 
 
 The wonderful glory of that midnight IKXMI 
 
 Killed the wide distance and lit up the brows 
 
 Of peaks, snow-clad, eternal in the calm 
 
 Of upper skies; clouds may touch 
 
 Their time-old shoulders, and tempests ride 
 
 With the sharp ploughs of whirlwinds down their side; 
 
 But their bald summits stand forever there 
 
 In the clear blue of the unclouded air, 
 
 Between the clouds and Heaven uplifted high", 
 
 Kindred with sun and moon and starlit sky. 
 
 APPROACHING THE YOSEMITE. (1899.) 
 Like rock-built firmament uprose the heights 
 As we drew near the valley s open door, 
 Fronting the West. The waters leapt downward 
 Tn white-robed cataracts, as if the sky 
 Had opened wide and thrust its foamy tongues 
 Oi mist within the world. Vast granite walls, 
 Born from the womb of Time, were kindred with 
 The stars which hid themselves amid their high 
 Forest crowns, that seemed to rest against the 
 Leaning heavens. The swift river ran as 
 ff its voice were hushed in its deep flow of 
 Snow-fed waters. The fair valley slept in 
 Shadows, its head upon the Sunset s lap. 
 An aureole of light on its higher 
 Peaks, as if God s finger touched them and blazed 
 Forth in shining glory. Like curtain for 
 Kternity the forest stretched away 
 Far as our vision reached, and the rockv 
 
 Pinnacles of peaks, where dead volcanoes 
 
 Slumbered in the arms of bygone ages, 
 
 Which had nursed their fires and seen them darken, 
 
 Rose in the air, vast, gray and frowning as 
 
 They were captives of those upper heavens, 
 
 Their feet earth-chained, their heads pierced with a barb 
 
 Of shining light. How little seemed Today, 
 
 How like an atom Man, a speck beneath 
 
 Those mountain heights twin with the earth and sky. 
 
 BOGOSLOV.* 
 
 The great ship plowed the pathless seas, 
 The night was round us dim and dark. 
 
 And all that Northland s mysteries 
 
 Seemed closing round our moving bark. 
 
 The stars o erhead were strange and new, 
 The land a lonely land and drear, 
 
 No cities rose upon our view, 
 No voice but the sea s voice we hear. 
 
 Around us lay an island world, 
 
 Rock-ribbed and frowning vast and cold; 
 
 Mighty the waters that were hurled 
 From the gray, sullen heights so old. 
 
 On, on, until the morning woke, 
 
 And the sun rose in smiling mood, 
 And round our ship the great waves broke 
 
 The mighty pulse of Solitude. 
 
 Afar a lofty mountain rose, 
 
 A giant mid the mountains there, 
 Mantled in its eternal snows, 
 
 Its head within the frozen air. 
 
 A burning mountain-smoke uprose, 
 And from its yawning crater leaped 
 
 In awful blackness as Night s heart 
 Were in its vast alembic steeped. 
 
 Across the blue its train outspread, 
 Veiling the sunlight, and the world, 
 
 Like the wide, blackened sky o erhead, 
 
 Seemed dumb with terror; daylight furled 
 
 Her robes around her, pine-trees bowed 
 Within the wild wind s frenzied clasp. 
 
 And the mad billows roared aloud, 
 And leaped and leaped as if the vast 
 
 Great sea in terror sought to find 
 
 A refuge from the mountain s wrath; 
 
 Mingled with bellows of the wind 
 Its wild waves sped along our path. 
 
 Oh, that far world, so near the Pole, 
 Seems like the ghost of all we dread, 
 
 Where terror flees and finds its goal, 
 And Nature s tender soul is dead. 
 
 Word of God. This Island of Bogoslov. in the DorlnR Sea, 
 north of the Aleutian chain, was thrown up from the depths 
 of the ocean years ago, and from its volcano fire and smoke 
 spouted, visible for miles at sea. 
 
 67 
 
Mountain, Desert, Canyon and Gorge. 
 
 OLD BALDY. 
 
 (Mt. San Antonio, 1884.) 
 
 Uplifted to the skies like some great giant 
 Monarch, there he stands, Time s elder brother; 
 Touching hi? lordly crest, the fair skies bend 
 To kiss his furrowed cheek, while Winter with 
 His frozen fingers weaves his snow-crown, 
 Even while Summer, with her shining sheen 
 Of golden sunbeams, wraps him round and his 
 Feet sandals with emeralds, and along 
 His garment s hem strings dewy pearls and flowers. 
 The clouds lean down to rest upon his shoulders, 
 And the lone eagle, cutting the air with 
 His wide wings, upon his rock-ribbed sides 
 Guards his young nestlings. The mysteries of 
 The air are his, and all the secrets of 
 The thunder s voice into his stony ear 
 Are poured, while his evelids. flash with lightnings. 
 World calleth unto world through all the wide 
 Starry space, and moveless in his sphynx-like 
 Silence he faces the centuries, and 
 Makes no sign. And yet he knows 
 Of vanished races, and the history 
 Of the sun-browned generations who have 
 Come and gone, watching his royal splendor. 
 And he has felt the clutch of mumbling earth- 
 Quakes, and the breath of wild convulsions; yet 
 With his gaze turned heavenward, not a pulse 
 Of fear has stirred this monarch sentinel of Time. 
 
 UPWARD TO SAN ANTONIO S CREST. 
 
 Climbing with tireless feet, each step uplifting 
 To the upper air, mountains on mountains 
 Rise before, each one a pyramidal 
 Height thrusting broad shoulders into the cloud. 
 Land of the Skies ! Nature s soft touch upon 
 The heights is seen in forest patches and 
 Shimmering, dew-wet chaparral, in beds 
 Of graceful lichens, and in the incense- 
 Breathing flowers, which are the Summer s smile, 
 And in the trailing mosses, hung like 
 Shadowy, waving banners from the trees. 
 Far down there is the flash of waters, with 
 Their crystal feet leaping amid the rocks, 
 Or lying in still pools, with the sky down- 
 Looking as to see its face hid in their 
 Shining breast. The canons, the great lips of 
 The hills, are parted, and their beards of pine 
 Are shapely, but their wide, Titan throats are 
 Granite lined their sides stony as sphynxes. 
 That lower world, how far away it lies ! 
 
 Up and still up, until twould seem you might 
 Pluck from the sky a star and slip it for 
 A jewel on your finger there, or from 
 The sinking sun steal the gold of slanting 
 Rays upshining at your feet. The great world 
 Lies far below in silence. Like an 
 
 Inland sea the mighty desert stretches, 
 
 And the wide, fertile plains, hushed by old 
 
 Ocean s lullaby, dream in their tropic 
 
 Calm, all orchard-dotted, vineyard-clad, and 
 
 City-crowned. Standing upon this lofty 
 
 Mountain s crest, you feel as if upon the 
 
 Watch-tower of the world, and as if there 
 
 Old Time might come and sit with you, and in 
 
 Your ear tell all the secrets of the 
 
 Centuries. Ten thousand feet below the 
 
 Ocean lies, and men like flies slip through the 
 
 Hazy distance. Like Moses in the mount, 
 
 Infinity o ershadows you, as when 
 
 He talked with God, while there you stand, as 
 
 Leaning from a planet s edge to gaze upon the world. 
 
 MOUNT WILSON. (1895.) 
 
 Men love thee well they love thy silent heights, 
 Where the stars nestle and the sun shines clear, 
 And the far skies seem stooping downward, near 
 
 To Earth s heart with all its hushed delights. 
 
 Up through the deeps of air, as on a thread 
 
 Hung twixt the earth and stars, we climb the steeps 
 Of thy trailed sides, with the vast canoned deeps, 
 
 E en like another world below us spread. 
 
 The air hangs full of stillness. Solitude 
 Broods like a spirit; not a thread of sound 
 Runs through the silences that hedrre thee round, 
 
 Save the sweet cadence of the multitude 
 
 Of happy birds, who, music-throated, fill 
 The clear, sweet air with a glad rain of song, 
 And through the wooded covert sweep along 
 
 Thin, silvery tunes the insect armies trill. 
 
 But man s world moves thee not, though bright and fair, 
 Moored in the sunshine and spellbound it lies, 
 All garmented with summer harvestries, 
 
 And wrapped in gold of the glad summer air. 
 
 Though to thy crest Earth s many lovers come, 
 And sit between thy cedars and the stars, 
 To breathe thy spicy air where nothing mars 
 
 The loveliness of Earth in this sweet home 
 
 Of Nature, where the silent hours take flight, 
 Winged with the beauty of the changing day, 
 And heaven seems breathing where the spiced winds 
 play, 
 
 And thousand blossoms open to the light. 
 
 Oh, well I love to come to thee and climb 
 As twere some Jacob s ladder to thy crest, 
 And pillowed on thy mighty bosom rest, 
 
 Bound by thy spell, forgetting care and time. 
 
 68 
 
Siinttet on Mt. 
 
 SUNSET ON MX. LOWE. (1895.) 
 
 Like a thin veil upon the dreaming plain 
 
 Lie golden lights and hues of violet; 
 
 The hours grow still as spirits, but amain, 
 
 With rosy fingers in soft colors set, 
 
 Draw wondrous pictures on the wide Earth s floor. 
 
 Touching with rose the fields of green and brown, 
 
 Sifting the opalescent glory down 
 
 On hill and vale and steeple-guarded town. 
 
 Unfolding like a flower, the rosy light 
 
 Spreads o er the valley, o er the mountain s crest, 
 
 And clouds of fire lie prone within the West, 
 
 LIKC watching gods guarding the still hours flight. 
 
 The many shadows seem like winged things 
 
 Hunting the jeweled stars that slowly break 
 
 From the far, high towers of Night and take 
 
 Earth willing captive till the glad Dawn s wake. 
 
 And by and by, as darkness draws its veil, 
 
 And in its arms invisible doth fold 
 
 The faces of glad flowers, the wide dale, 
 
 The many hills and the grand mountains old, 
 
 From this high mount we dwellers seem to lean 
 
 O er diamond-paved cities which do gleam 
 
 Warm with the sparkle of electric fire 
 
 Like some glad vision of the soul s desire. 
 
 Enchanted Silence round about us lies, 
 
 Broken but by the sweet antiphonies 
 
 Of murmuring insects, which dream day has come 
 
 As the great Search-Light throws its brilliant beams 
 
 Over the valleys, over mountain heights; 
 
 Like some vast flying comet whose light streams 
 
 Amid the stars, so overflames its light 
 
 Through the still vastness of the brooding Night, 
 
 And far above us does a long line run, 
 
 Fed by electric fire, the hidden force 
 
 Bearing "white chariots," one by one, 
 
 A silent steed along their mountain course. 
 
 The great rent rocks stand as if hushed with awe, 
 
 Open their world-old sides to let us pass, 
 
 And the high peaks look skyward as to ask 
 
 How man hath tamed the awful lightning s force. 
 
 The woods, roused from their sleep of centuries, 
 
 On those far peaks that lean against the sky, 
 
 Swept by Dawn s lights and Sunset s mysteries, 
 
 Shiver with wonder that man dares to try 
 
 Heaven s battlements. The vast Canon s gaze 
 
 Is upward lifted, as in dumb amaze 
 
 That man is there along those heaven-high ways, 
 
 Conqueror of all, king of their silences. 
 
 Huge-browed, the mountains look with solemn face. 
 
 Yet beckoning glance, as if they bade men come 
 
 Up to their summits, knowing their dumb might, 
 
 Vast though it be, is even like the slight 
 
 Touch of a baby s finger, as in place 
 
 Of mind-enlightnened effort which can hew 
 
 A highway starward, tear earth s bowels through. 
 
 And mould the heights to service strange and new. 
 
 MOUNT SAN BERNARDINO. 
 (11,500 feet high.) 
 
 O battlemented height! O er thee God bends 
 
 From heaven to touch thee with His finger, 
 
 And pour His air around thee, filled with the 
 
 Glory of the sunlight. Time leans from thy 
 
 High ramparts and looks on Earth, and, touching 
 
 Thy rock-ribbed sides, dreams of eternal years 
 
 Of imperishable grandeur. Anchored 
 
 In granite, and with rock-hewn forehead reared 
 
 Unto the skies, thy head cloud-pillowed and 
 
 Heaven-crowned, he deems thou canst not perish. 
 
 The winds thou boldest as thy servants with 
 
 Which to plow the air, or sweep its awful 
 
 Stillness. Thou lookest on the stars and dost 
 
 Hear God call them by their names. Thou knowest 
 
 The secret of the thunder, the mad bellowing 
 
 Of the winter tempest, the music of 
 
 The summer breeze wooing thy forest s heart, 
 
 Soothing its cradled flowers, and whisp ring 
 
 With the sunshine. The glory of the sunset 
 
 Mantles thy shoulders, and the golden dawns 
 
 Stand velvet-footed on thy crest, watching 
 
 The world s waking. Time from thy bold summit 
 
 Has watched generations pass and found thee 
 
 Changeless. Races have vanished at thy feet, 
 
 And earth becomes their sepulcher; but thou 
 
 Still dost wear the unwrinkled face of youth, 
 
 Its emerald garments and its silver 
 
 Girdling streams, which laugh with thee in gladness 
 
 And full-rhythmed joy. The vast sun-warmed plains 
 
 Dream at thy feet, with Summer nestling in 
 
 Their heart, and look to thee in reverence, 
 
 Worshiping thy might. The soft mists, with arms 
 
 Invisible, wrap thee in beauty and 
 
 Veil thy ruggedness in ethereal 
 
 Charms, until our sight might hold thee some great 
 
 God chained in enchanted silence, crowned with 
 
 Power and loveliness, and almost dream 
 
 Even thy rocky heart warm with human 
 
 Tenderness. But when clouds gather on thy 
 
 Awful front, and lightnings flash beneath thy 
 
 Stormy lids, and like some mighty Thor thou 
 
 Thunderest, then thou art terrible, 
 
 And we are glad to be cradled on the 
 
 Summer plains, and look at thee from far, clasped 
 
 To the tropic valley s ever tender breast. 
 
 OUR MOUNTS OF SNOW. (1897.) 
 
 O our mountain world of snow, 
 Brooding over Summer so! 
 White as Time s old hoary front, 
 As if ye had not been wont 
 To your nursing breasts to fold 
 Tropic bloom, and there to hold- 
 Since the days when Time yas young, 
 And his blossoms round you clung 
 Summer sounds and summer dreams, 
 Mid laughter of your running streams. 
 
 69 
 
Mountain, Desert, Canyon and Gorge. 
 
 Looking, scarce we know your face, 
 Missing all of Summer s grace; 
 White and vast as Titans bold, 
 With your shining lances cold, 
 Speared with frost ye stand on high. 
 Robed with snow neath Summer s sky. 
 At your feet is Summer s calm, 
 Orange bloom and waving palm, 
 Song of birds and scent of flowers, 
 And the gold of sunlit hours. 
 
 Ye are grand, O mounts of snow, 
 Neath our blue skies tropic glow! 
 Grand as if the foot of God 
 Had passed o er you whitely shod, 
 And his mantle trailed a space, 
 Left its shadow on your face. 
 But the Sun, with burning eye, 
 Smiles as if in mockery; 
 The white glory melts, and lo! 
 Vanished are our mounts of snow. 
 
 MOUNT WILSON. (1898.) 
 
 Amid the mighty forest of high peaks, 
 
 From whose grand crests the tall pines pierce the sky 
 
 Like Titan lances, cleaving the blue asunder, 
 
 Thou liftest thy bold front, O monarch mount ! 
 
 Thy vast sides ribbed with cloven canons, 
 
 Whose deeps seem earth-emboweling. Forests 
 
 Hide in them as playthings for the wind, and 
 
 Crystal-footed streams leap amid rocks, 
 
 As answering to the far-oif trumpet 
 
 Call of the great sea. Climbing unto thy 
 
 Summit, the world lies at our feet. Valleys 
 
 And lower hills, and sea-washed shore, and the 
 
 Girdling rivers, with shining faces lifted 
 
 To the Sun; the man-built cities looking 
 
 Like pigmy toys; the long line of smoke from 
 
 Out the iron throat of the swift-moving 
 
 Engine, like some white banner over the 
 
 Valleys flung. How small I feel ! How like an 
 
 Atom dropped into the wide space about 
 
 Me, as I stand upon thy crest and view 
 
 The vast encircling land. Behind thee, scattered, 
 
 Lies the wide and mighty wilderness of 
 
 Peaks, rising in solemn grandeur above 
 
 Old Time s gigantic canons, speaking with 
 
 Sublimest tongues of infinite power. 
 
 The unfettered winds hide thee, and sing in 
 
 Whispering breezes their lullabies unto 
 
 The flowers, or pour their fuller anthems, 
 
 While rocking the mighty pines, as cradling 
 
 Them within thetr tireless arms. And grand the 
 
 Oratorios poured by voice of many 
 
 Waters which leap singing from the vast heights 
 
 With rainbows round their feet and upon their 
 
 Shining foreheads. O thou mount of wonders ! 
 
 Behind thee broodeth Solitude, old as 
 
 The world, and Nature s face is still untouched 
 
 By human fingers. The wilderness is 
 
 There, and Nature wears her crest of rocky 
 
 Pinnacles and the wild beauty of her 
 
 Forest tangles. Man hath not put upon 
 
 Her his strong fetters, nor sought to tame her 
 
 Spirit. But far beneath thy front we see 
 
 Where man hath walked, and dimpled the face of 
 
 Nature with his works, making the vales smile 
 
 With their orchard bloom and gleam brightly with 
 
 The emerald of their vineyards. Green and 
 
 Fair lie the vast fields of wheat within their 
 
 Season, billowed in shining beauty like 
 
 The sea when sweep the Wind s wings o er their breast. 
 
 And man s world lies cradled, looking up to thee, 
 
 Great priest of Nature, lift above the clouds, 
 
 And holding nightly commune with the stars. 
 
 ON FAR SIERRA HEIGHTS. (1900.) 
 
 I stood beneath the blue and bending skies, 
 
 Where glorious Sierra heights arise; 
 
 How grand is Nature there, how vast, elate, 
 
 Majestic in her solitary state. 
 
 Man is afar, and there the mountains breathe, 
 
 Their lips star-touched, and the wild winds do wreathe 
 
 Clouds round their foreheads, while the giant trees, 
 
 Like singing Titans, pour their symphonies. 
 
 These world-high chambers of earth s upper air, 
 Roofed by the skies, how gloriously fair! 
 Night brings her stars and sets them in her sky 
 While far below us does heav n s cloudland lie. 
 The lips of Silence on the heights are pressed, 
 And Sound is pillowed upon Nature s breast; 
 The winds are hushed, and lo! we seem to be 
 Alone with Time and with the Deitv. 
 
 THE SIERRA MADRE. 
 (As Viewed From Pasadena.) 
 
 grand old mountains ! the valley s walled 
 Sierras, to which the infinite skies 
 
 Do whisper, and on whose lofty crests the 
 Oratorios of the winds are heard, 
 
 Breathed in the ears of stars, o er thy broad shoulders 
 The clouds rest like a mantle, and the fogs 
 Press their cool, misty lips at dawn upon 
 Thy rocky foreheads. And the sunshine, how 
 It loves thy lofty heights, making thy heaven- 
 Reaching walls resplendent with its brightness. 
 
 1 have seen them stand as if God s robes were 
 Round them, shining like sapphire and like 
 Amethyst, with rivers of sunbeams poured 
 Upon their sides from the warm deeps of sunset. 
 And I have seen them, too, like holy altars 
 
 While the 3un s fire burned bright upon their crests, 
 And like reverent priests stood giant pine 
 And cedar. 
 
 70 
 
Our Mountains. 
 
 Tliis morn, O grand Sierras ! 
 Ye did seem part of the bending sky, 
 Curtained with glory. The white and luminous 
 Mists were round ye, just stirred by breezes light - 
 Winged, while through their folds diaphanous the 
 Sun s pure white rays were shed in diamond 
 Brightness, and blue as heaven thy mountained 
 Glory gleamed behind the mist-wrought curtain. 
 
 O Mother Mountains! Xo Sinnis of 
 Terror are ye upon my spirit, but glorious 
 Pisgahs rather, where shines Omnipotence, 
 And my glad spirit spreads its wings of trust 
 And flieth godward, and in the bosom 
 Of His love and power finds rest and peace. 
 
 OUR MOUNTAINS. (1901.) 
 Lofty and grand, as if they touched the stars, 
 And held communion with the moving winds, 
 And the great-voiced thunders, our mountains rise, 
 Uplifted to the blue of the far skies, 
 Solemn and majestic, like Time s giant 
 Children. How voiceful they of power, 
 Of th unhindered might of the Eternal, 
 Who spake and it was done, and who holdeth 
 The vast seas within the hollow of His 
 Hand, and guides the planets as they onward 
 Roll forevermore within their unseen 
 Orbits. And how eloquent their voice of 
 Enduring strength and the wondrous glory 
 Of changeless majesty. The stars dream i;i 
 The sky-deeps above them, while clouds mantle 
 Their shoulders when the rains of winter drop 
 Their pearls upon the emerald plains, which 
 Laugh with blossoming beauty, while their breath 
 Is fragrance and their voice is song. O mounts ! 
 How beautiful ye are when the bright Sun 
 Leaps from th arms of Dawn and pours his baptism 
 Of light upon ye! Rivers of gold and 
 Shining jasper streams and floods of amethyst 
 Roll o er your granite fronts, and we seem to 
 See the pearly gates ajar upon your 
 Crests, and Thought leaps upward, as if borne on 
 Angel wings past suns and stars to heaven. 
 The Sun doth love ye, and when Evening comes 
 Flis last look rests upon ye, while with its 
 Transforming touch he makes ye glorious 
 In beauty, earth s miracles of wonder. 
 
 II. (1902.) 
 
 Our grand old mountains, how they lift their heads 
 Unto the skies! Like rosy petals lie 
 The soft red clouds of sunset on their crests, 
 And in the morn the golden Sun for a 
 Moment seems to stay his swift uprising, 
 And shines h ke some wondrous Kohinoor 
 Upon their lofty summits, while Day s shining hair 
 Of glimmering sunbeams falls like a mantle 
 Hound their shoulders. They commune with the stars 
 When Night is here and Silence dreams upon 
 Their breast. The Moon climbs upward and whispers 
 
 Her secrets to them, and the winds weave there 
 
 Their symphonies and sing of power. 
 
 Hand in hand with Time they stand and watch the 
 
 Ages pass and smile at Change; see nations 
 
 Rise and perish while their rocky fronts remain 
 
 As changeless as the stars. O type of the 
 
 Eternal are they in their enduring 
 
 Strength and majesty! and they speak to us 
 
 Of Him who spoke and it was done, and who 
 
 is now and ever shall be, and they are 
 
 Time s alphabet of the Eternal One, 
 
 And His wondrous signature of power. 
 
 AT THE GRAND CANYON. 
 (Grand Canyon of the Colorado, June, 1901.) 
 
 God s own hand hath left its impress on thee, 
 
 His touch is seen upon thy rock-hewn forehead, 
 
 And thou dost stand, a world within a world, 
 
 Where Chaos lingers still, and Mystery 
 
 \\ alks dumb amid the mighty chiselings 
 
 Of Time. The sky looks down upon thee with 
 
 \. ndying wonder, and the atmosphere 
 
 Throws robes of mystic color round thee which 
 
 Change at morn and noon and eve their rainbow 
 
 Folds, intangible as the Summer s breath, 
 
 As from the edge of some far-off planet 
 
 We stand upon the rim of thy vast deep 
 
 And look down upon thy giant forms, thy 
 
 Carved domes and temples with their rocky spires, 
 
 And thy wide valley s floor, where to our eyes 
 
 Thy mighty river seems a silver thread 
 
 Creeping with hushed voice amid the shadows. 
 
 Thy great trees, which lift their branches to the 
 
 Sun, look like tender grasses, a living 
 
 Line of green, stirless upon thy breast, 
 
 As if the lullaby of ages had 
 
 Soothed them into slumber. Thou dost seem a-dream, 
 
 To lie while the airs of the old Past flow 
 
 Round thee. Thou dost look into the face of 
 
 Time and smile at Change, a marvel strange amid 
 
 Created things. We may search the wide earth 
 
 Over and still find no likeness elsewhere 
 
 To thee. God s own finger hath scooped out thy 
 
 Titan forms, and Time stands by in worshipful 
 
 Admiration and is still. So we stand 
 
 Dumb with reverent awe, while Wonder wraps 
 
 Us in his robes of worship and clothes us 
 
 With humility, till our souls cry out 
 
 Our God is here, for lo! we see His footprints 
 
 And the marvels of His hand within this place. 
 
 ON THE DESERT. 
 (En route to Buffalo, June, 1901.) 
 
 The Eve is here with coming troop of stars, 
 The Day has gone to sleep within the West, 
 Wearing a lingering sunbeam in its vest 
 Of crimson clouds soft, golden bars 
 Of light on the far mountains lie, 
 Kindred with those which glow within the sky. 
 
Mountain, Desert, Canyon and Gorge. 
 
 Silence profound upon the desert lies, 
 
 And Loneliness with soundless, ghostly tread 
 
 Walks the wide spaces; shining o erhead 
 
 The stars from out the deeps of bending skies 
 
 Look down upon it the plants lean 
 
 In breathless silence the white sands between. 
 
 Weird cacti rise upon the lonely plain 
 
 Like some grim phantoms of a vanished past, 
 
 Or speechless genii of the desert vast 
 
 Which may not move or e er find voice again. 
 
 The yellow lizard runs amid the sands, 
 
 And everywhere the pale-green sage-brush stands. 
 
 O Desolation! fitting home for thee, 
 
 And yet how fair the wondrous lights that fall, 
 
 The atmospheric glory over all, 
 
 The charm of color in each thing we see, 
 
 A picture painted by the Father s hand, 
 
 And framed in silence, lo! we see it stand. 
 
 THE ROYAL GORGE. 
 (En route westward, June 29, 1901.) 
 Oh, I have looked today in Nature s face, 
 As into some great God s, omnipotent and vast 
 As high infinity. His rock-built dwelling-place 
 Nature herself hath fashioned. I stand dumb 
 With wonder. The poverty of human speech 
 Weighs on me, for it can never paint 
 Majestic, rocky mounts whose foreheads reach 
 To the far skies with the soft touch of heav n 
 Upon them, as to smooth their wrinkled crests, 
 And crown them with the sunlight s glory where 
 The wild winds rave and the mad thunder rests, 
 And stars seem nearer than the forest floor. 
 Thousands of feet these great rocks upward lift 
 Their rugged forms, huge Titans of the wayside, 
 Guarding the river as its waters swift 
 Rush onward. They, garmented with grandeur 
 And girt with strength, disdain the tempest s wrath, 
 Fold round their forms the robes of Silence, 
 Girdle themselves with waterfalls whose path 
 We trace as twere the alphabet of Time 
 Writing its elemental story there, 
 Which we may read and see what God hath wrought 
 Amid the mountains, in His temples fair, 
 Where hills are His high priests, and living streams 
 The choir who chant their anthems in His praise; 
 And wild birds pour their glad Te Deums, too, 
 And the pine trees their fragrant censers raise, 
 Filled with the incense Nature offers here. 
 "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills 
 From whence cometh my help; my help cometh 
 From the Lord which made heaven and earth. He 
 Will not suffer thy foot to be moved, He 
 That keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold 
 He that keepeth Israel shall neither 
 Slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper, 
 The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand; 
 The Sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the 
 Moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from 
 
 All evil, He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord 
 Shall preserve thy going out and thy coming 
 In from this time forth, and even for evermore." 
 
 So sang God s saint of old, so let us sing, 
 
 We who have looked today upon the face 
 
 Of God s high mountain peaks. O let them ring 
 
 With the soul worship that our hearts shall raise. 
 
 NIAGARA. (1901.) 
 
 With voice of many waters thou dost speak 
 In tones of thunder to the listening world, 
 And thy vast floods sweep onward, clothed in their 
 Robes of sunshine, dropped from cloudless skies, 
 Wrapping thy deeps with glory until tin- 
 Waters flash with light. Rainbows are on tin- 
 Forehead, white veils of mist are round about 
 Thy feet. Thy path cloth lie twixt two great realms 
 Of Freedom, where hopes of man are highest, 
 And thou art free, resistless in thy might, 
 As thou dost onward flow past the wide land, 
 Chanting forever thy glorious anthem 
 Of God s power, while the earth trembles as 
 Thou dost leap from rocky heights to the deep 
 Channel where thy waters swirl resistless. 
 And where the might of man would be as vain 
 To battle with thine onward flow as would 
 An infant s puny arm to stay th angry 
 Thunderbolt of raging storm. Great river. 
 With thy un fathomed deeps, sweep on within 
 The pathway that thy waves have ploughed, 
 Thou emblem of Omnipotence, of His 
 Unceasing power, which like to thee dotli 
 Rest not day or night through Time s long ages. 
 Seeing thy grandeur, we do stand dumb and 
 Worship the Invisible who in the 
 Old eternity of years spake and thou 
 Didst answer Him with thy voice of sounding 
 Waters, chanting their ceaseless anthem 
 The burden of whose utterance, as we 
 Listen to the overwhelming thunder of 
 Its mighty tones, is ever, God! God! God! 
 
 ON THE DESERT. (1903.) 
 I crossed the desert s wastes, and lo! 
 
 The white sands paved their vast wide floor 
 Where weird, wild cactus plants did grow, 
 
 And Desolation s wings spread o er 
 The silent vastness; sunset fell, 
 
 And swift the plains transfigured lay, 
 Like something that had blossomed new 
 
 Within the clasping arms of Day. 
 
 Such wondrous lights around us lay, 
 
 Such wondrous colors fell around, 
 The scattered rocks no longer gray 
 
 Shone with a glory most profound. 
 Gold, crimson and rich amethyst 
 
 Gleamed in the sunset s burning light, 
 A new world on the desert s breast 
 
 Was bursting there upon our sight. 
 
 72 
 
POPOCATEPETL. 
 
The Desert. 
 
 Afar, along the desert s rim, 
 
 The mountains rose like crimson towers 
 Whose light might nevermore grow dim; 
 
 Unnumbered little sand-horn flowers 
 Lifted their heads the rocks beside, 
 
 And seemed to softly smile as we 
 Along that waste of sand did ride, 
 
 No longer white but glorified. 
 
 O wondrous artist is the Sun ! 
 
 How rich the colors that he takes, 
 How fair the picture when he s done! 
 
 There s magic in the scene he wakes 
 From the dead whiteness of the plain; 
 
 As he sinks downward to the West, 
 His beams reach every grain of sand, 
 
 And there like shining gems they rest. 
 
 THE DESERT. 
 
 (On the Desert, Oct. 5, 1904.) 
 
 Thou strange, weird specter of Nature s wide domain! 
 Gaunt, soulless, with the ever-burning flame 
 Of the bright Sun enfolding thy parched sands, 
 Where the spiked cacti like a demon stands, 
 M ith thorny spears ready to pierce and Meed 
 The unwary traveler who takes no heed. 
 
 The mountains round thee grim and rocky rise, 
 As if they mocked the beauty of the skies. 
 The stony ledges on the hillsides rest 
 Like bleaching skeletons upon the breast 
 Of the dead centuries of the mighty Vast 
 The wondrous storied yet unwritten Past. 
 A silent sphynx, a strange, dumb mystery, 
 In vain we try to read thy history. 
 
 ON MOUNTAIN HEIGHTS. (1904.) 
 
 mountains! mid your solemn silences, 
 With my heart filled with thoughtful reveries, 
 
 1 love to wander, for ye speak to me, 
 And tell of power and awful majesty. 
 
 And then again like the dumb Sphynx ye rise, 
 
 Silent with all your hidden mysteries. 
 
 Ye know the past, but still ye will not tell 
 
 A word of its great history. Breezes swell 
 
 Mid leaf-tongued trees that skirt thy canon s walls, 
 
 Answering to music of thy waterfalls. 
 
 Man dwells not here amid your lofty heights 
 
 That stand alone with God, watching the flight 
 
 Of Time, catching the music of the spheres, 
 
 Watching the sunrise as the Morning nears, 
 
 Beholding generations as they come and go, 
 
 E en like a tidal wave s great overflow. 
 
 O God is here! So still, so calm, so high, 
 
 Ye are His temple, rising to the sky. 
 
 Above the world of sin, the world of care, 
 
 Your pillared domes do rest in upper air. 
 
 The fret and care of life is far away, 
 
 And here we hear God s great wind-organ play. 
 
 The waterfalls do thunder of His power, 
 
 The sunbeams sing of love, and fill each hour 
 
 With beauty. No sound of traffic s din we hear. 
 
 Peace, peace is round us, and we feel God near. 
 
 POPOCATEPETL. 
 (Mexico, Nov. 2, 1904.) 
 
 I stood and gazed afar, afar, 
 As if unto some other sphere, 
 Across the wide plains lying near, 
 And there, high-lifted as a star, 
 Piercing the blue sky s shining deep, 
 Above the distant cloudlands hurled, 
 As bulwark of this lower world, 
 I saw the lofty mountain s steep. 
 
 The glittering snows were on its crest, 
 Like silver gleaming in the light 
 Of tropic suns, their mantle white 
 Did on its mighty shoulders rest. 
 How far tis lifted to the blue, 
 How high! as if twere drawing near 
 The mighty orbit of some sphere. 
 Some planet that is circling through 
 
 The realms of Space, and, moving on, 
 Seeks where God walks within the Vast. 
 So does this mountain standing fast 
 Rise ever upward, and does don 
 The glory of the skies above, 
 Splendor of color and of light, 
 And starry jewels of the Night, 
 As if they were the gift of love. 
 Majestic mountains, at thy feet 
 The boundless valleys are unrolled, 
 And their warm tropic breasts enfold 
 Great harvest seas whose billows meet 
 In glorious tides of plenty there. 
 And there do old, old cities rise, 
 None fairer underneath the skies. 
 Mount of the sun ! The gods might dare 
 
 To climb thy awful steep and look, 
 As from a star, the world upon, 
 Might see the boundless ether don 
 The golden glory that it took 
 From the bright Sun as it arose 
 And paved the mountain with its gold, 
 And paved the valleys, wide unrolled, 
 With sunbeams at the pale Dawn s close. 
 O mount of majesty! Sublime 
 
 In awful grandeur, vast and high, 
 
 Standing as pillar for the sky 
 
 To rest upon; footstool of Time, 
 
 Ages on ages old art thou. 
 
 Infinity o ershadows thee, 
 
 O lofty mount ! Reverently 
 
 In wordless homage do we bow. 
 
 For God, thy Maker, He is here, 
 No hand but His could lift thy form 
 O mountain brother of the Dawn ! 
 So near to far-off starry spheres. 
 The winds mate with thee, and the clouds 
 Garment thy sides; the sunlight pours 
 Upon thee all its golden stores, 
 Omnipotence thy form enshrouds. 
 
 73 
 
n6er Arctic Skies: 
 
 Oh, triose long dreary days without a night!" 
 
 AN ARCTIC DAY. 
 (St. Paul s Island, Bering Sea. 1880.) 
 
 Oh, the fair world seems dead in this desolate land, 
 This land near the Pole with its cold, sullen sea, 
 With its gray leaden sky looking down on the sand 
 Of the rock-fretted beach and snow-covered lea. 
 [ hear the lone billows make moan on the shore, 
 I hear the dread tempest s mad shriek in the air, 
 See the ghost of the waters rising white evermore, 
 Then sink down in foam, while in sullen despair 
 Stand, gnawed by the seas, black, desolate, grim, 
 The beetling crags, like the wrecks of a world, 
 While far o er the waves, cold, pallid and dim, 
 Right beyond where a white-tossing billow is curled, 
 Falls the wraith of a sunbeam, just a wraith that is 
 
 white, 
 
 As if touched by the frost when the Sun, sinking low, 
 Slips down through the ice to the regions of Night, 
 And the ice-floe makes moan as it drifts to and fro. 
 
 The mole-hill at noon casts its shadow behind, 
 So low skulks the Sun on the sky s southern rim ; 
 Ice-ribbed are the mountains the fierce northern wind 
 Has piled the white drifts on the desolate plain; 
 Nor tree casts its shadow, nor shrub lifts its head, 
 And Daylight dies swift in the arms of the Noon; 
 Here the great mother-heart of Nature is dead, 
 The iceberg her tombstone and ice seas her tomb. 
 
 THE PRIBYLOV ISLES. (1880.) 
 
 O strange, bleak land! cradled within the seas 
 
 Where Winter holds his carnival, and the 
 
 Wild winds rush with the cry of awful 
 
 Thunders through the shuddering space, heaping 
 
 The seas into high mountainous billows, 
 
 Piling the sands in dome-like shapes, or 
 
 Into shifting pyramids; scooping out 
 
 Hollows in the soil, which storms of passing 
 
 Centuries plough into deep valleys, whose 
 
 Bare, white sandy walls are playthings of the 
 
 Blinding tempests. Land where but the ghost of 
 
 Summer comes, with garments of white mists and 
 
 Trailing fogs; where the blue heavens are 
 
 Curtained with the clouds of brooding storms, and 
 
 Seldom comes the golden brightness of a 
 
 Cloudless summer day. On thy wild, rocky 
 
 Cliffs, where angry tides break in white foam through 
 
 The cloud-curtained summer-time, without the 
 
 Soul of song do millions of strange birds 
 
 Sit dumb. Hefie the arrie makes her home on 
 
 Thy bare, frowning, sea-washed walls. No nest of 
 
 Downy softness weaves she for her young, 
 
 But in the high-cut hollows of thy cliffs 
 
 She lays her eggs, and broods above them through 
 
 The sunless days. The scarlet-crowned sea-parrot 
 
 Sits and listens to the wash of waves, his 
 
 Head, like some bright blossom, starring the bleak, 
 Gray cliffs; and the horned puffin, with its 
 Feathered horns turned backward, like a golden 
 Half-moon from its head, sits on the jutting 
 Crags, kissed by the spray, but songless, as its 
 Soul were sad and longing for the sunshine, 
 Lying as in a dream, its bright eyes turned 
 Unto the sea with meditative gaze. 
 And here the choochkie, with its coat of brown, 
 Just touched with white, as if some falling snow- 
 Flake brushed its wings, chirps through the gloomy 
 Summer, and twitters to its young within 
 Their grassy nest; and the songful meadow- 
 Lark with its nest upon the hills, and mid 
 The lowlands of this island world, the fair 
 Sweet prima donna of the birds, rises 
 To greet the sunshine and the clouds alike, 
 Paving its pathway through the air with song. 
 
 And here, when the gray mists melted, and sunny 
 Days, like some bright dream of beauty, broke 
 Within those skies, and the shining sapphire 
 Heavens showed infinite deeps of air, and 
 The sea was bright and calm as it had 
 Never mirrored cloud, or, tortured by the 
 Tempests, been tossed into swelling mountains, 
 Whose angry waters gnawed the rocks and ate 
 Into the land until its edge crumbled 
 Into its maw, we wandered out, rejoicing 
 In the glad new heavens and earth of 
 Glorious sunshine. On the wide rock-strewn 
 Slopes, down-stretching to the sea, millions of 
 Happy seals, imaging content, covered 
 The rocks, or sported in the waves; down to 
 The water s edge, far as the eye could see, 
 Twinkled the shining flippers of the herd; 
 As lying in their dolce far niente 
 They fanned themselves within the sunny warmth. 
 
 Over the waters, like an island hung 
 
 In air, with the blue heavens of sky 
 
 Above, and the blue mirror of the sea 
 
 Beneath, rose Otter Isle, with its closed 
 
 Crater, which in other years smoked in its 
 
 Wrath; and farther o er the watery plain 
 
 Lay rocky Walrus Isle, like some huge leviathan 
 
 Stretched in his mighty slumber on the deep; 
 
 And farther still away, with its blue crown 
 
 Of mountains, whose high crests seemed pillared on 
 
 The sky, Saint George s Island, like a 
 
 Gigantic castle, reared by some ocean 
 
 Genii. Oh, those long, dreary days without 
 
 A night ! with only a soft, starry twilight 
 
 Veiling the birth of Morning, when the fair, 
 
 Round, golden sun dropped into the sea but 
 
 I or swift baptism, without a dream of 
 
 Rest; when Midnight s dusky robes were locked 
 
McClure s Magazine, June, 1904. 
 
 "STORM-TOSSED ON ALASKA S SHORE." 
 
Sunland and Snoicland. 
 
 Away, and in their place she wore soft 
 Garments of shining gray, just silvered with 
 Faint starlight, and the sea crept to the Pole, 
 Laughing in sunshine, holding untold 
 Within its breast all the strange secret of 
 The Midnight Sun. O dreary land, ice-locked 
 And desolate, where Nature s ghost walks 
 Evermore, and seas imprisoned sleep in 
 Icy shrouds beneath the unseen shadow 
 Of the Northern Pole ! 
 
 SUNLAND AND SNOWLAND. 
 (At St. Paul s Island, Bering Sea, Alaska, April, 1881.) 
 
 Close by the Golden Gate so wide ajar, 
 My memory whispers of a wondrous land, 
 
 With beauty like the undimmed brightness of a star, 
 Where hushed sea-waves creep over golden sand. 
 
 Ech month a tangle of blossoms, 
 
 Sweet as a field of clover; 
 Each month like a May repeated, 
 
 Like a song sung over and over; 
 Each time with a fresh note added; 
 
 Each time more sweetly in tune; 
 Each month to the May-time glory 
 
 Is joined the ripe splendor of June. 
 
 In the winter the rhythm of rain-drops, 
 
 And the smile of the growing wheat, 
 And the laugh of the running streamlet, 
 
 Waking young buds from sleep; 
 The glow of the golden orange, 
 
 The shade of the stately palms, 
 The warm, rich red of the berry, 
 
 Full ripe in the Winter s arms. 
 
 But here, near the dim circle of Arctic 
 Seas, the midday sun hangs low above 
 The southern edge of the o erbending skies; 
 Gray mists have shrouded it, and howling winds 
 Rush fierce and swift from out the frozen North, 
 Hurling black clouds till noonday seems like night; 
 The sea is still; locked in its icy fetters, 
 It moans and mutters, but we hear no sound; 
 Its lips are ice-pressed down upon the billows, 
 Which beneath gnaw at the sands, and, maddened, 
 Writhe in frozen silence. Every hill 
 Is white as is a ghost, and the far old 
 Mountains stand grim, stark and cold as 
 skeletons. 
 
 Nature is savage here, and 
 Wild, and her utterance, even in spring-time, 
 Is in bellowing tempests, and in seas 
 Thunder-tongued, breaking on gray cliffs and 
 Seamed rocks, into which maniac tides have 
 Gnawed when lashed into mad fury by the 
 Driving storms. No forests crown the hills; nor 
 Tree, nor shrub, in all this island world drops 
 Shadowy beauty in its short Summer 
 
 bleached 
 
 deep- 
 
 On valley s length or nn tin- rising heights. 
 
 Somber and sullen the slow Summer comes, 
 
 Trailing dun, gloomy robes of densest fogs. 
 
 The sun steals masked through cloud-enveloped deeps; 
 
 The tender-bladed grass, unkissed by the 
 
 Warm sunshine, puts on a mournful green, like 
 
 That the solemn pines wear on vast heights. 
 
 The flowers, like white-cheeked nuns, hide their soft 
 
 Faces by the gray old rocks, and blossom 
 
 Tremblingly, though some there are that steal the 
 
 Sun s bright hue, and golden-eyed, star the green 
 
 Hills, and smile as if they d caught a sunbeam 
 
 Gone astray, and hid it in their petals. 
 
 On scarred sea-cliffs, as if o erawed by cry 
 
 Of shuddering waters on the rocks beneath, 
 
 Millions of songless birds sit dumb. All 
 
 Nature s heart is chilled in this her island 
 
 World which she has cradled in the mists and seas. 
 
 O land of sunshine and of fragrant flowers! 
 
 Of tropic palms and orange-laden trees, 
 Of golden days and blossom-scented hours, 
 
 Of wild sweet bird-song, and of humming bees! 
 
 O Summer-Land! from this far northern isle 
 To thee I hold out waiting heart and hands; 
 
 As longs a lover for his mistress -smile, 
 
 So long T for thy golden, sun-kissed strands! 
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN. (1882.) 
 
 What lies beyond your awful verge, 
 
 O ice-bound seas! where ships go down; 
 
 Where beats for aye the angry surge 
 Beneath thy alp-like iceberg s frown? 
 
 What lights the blazing spectral fires 
 That flame against thy northern skies? 
 
 Ah, frozen seas and ice-wrought pyres! 
 Guard well thv fateful mysteries. 
 
 STORM-TOSSED ON ALASKA S SHORE. 
 
 Bleak the morn and wild the sea, 
 
 Writhing in its demon glee; 
 Gnawing madly at the shore 
 Where its great, white billows roar 
 
 Roar and leap upon the rocks, 
 
 With a sound like earthquake shocks. 
 
 How the white spray foaming flew. 
 Veiling sky and ocean, too, 
 
 While the winds with awful shriek 
 Gainst the rock-walled islands beat- 
 Beat and howled in maddened wrath 
 There and on our lone ship s path. 
 
 Far above us, overhead, 
 
 Like a banner for the dead, 
 The volcano s smoke appeared, 
 Streaming o er us as we neared 
 
 That bleak island world afar, 
 
 Whose summer skies scarce know a star. 
 
 (1897.) 
 
Under Arctic Skies. 
 
 O bleak, wild mountain! I would know 
 If e er the Sun doth downward throw 
 One warm and scintillating glow 
 Upon thy frozen breast of snow. 
 Or was it here that Night was born, 
 And cradled in the lap of storm, 
 Its lullaby the winds wild roar, 
 As leap they thy vast ramparts o er, 
 To seize the Sea and make its breast 
 One life-engulfing mountain crest? 
 
 O far, so far seem lands of bloom, 
 Sweet lands of fragrance and the noon 
 Where lieth Summer in a swoon 
 Of light and gladness, and is calm 
 The breathless air where pine and palm 
 Sleep in the sunlight, and the hills 
 Dream to the music of the rills, 
 And poppies glow above the sod 
 As if they were the smile of God. 
 
OVERLAND IN PIONEER DAYS. 
 
lE 
 
 ast an6 
 
 The match of empire." 
 
 PREDICTION. 
 
 Upon these sunset shores shall Freedom place 
 Her crown of Empire; here shall arise the 
 Cities of the future, resplendent with 
 The liberty which maketh great. The love 
 Of Freedom shall be strong as the rampart 
 Of these eternal hills, whose heads, pillowed 
 Upon the world-old firmament, for aye 
 Defy the earthquake and the thunderbolt, 
 And tell the patient stars the story of 
 Their centuries of life. 
 
 Passed hence the sun- 
 Browned children of the soil, whom Nature had 
 So fondly nursed and fed, that here beneath 
 These skies the later offspring of progressive 
 Time should build its fairest citadels, and 
 Science light his torch and poets sing, and 
 Modern Raphaels find divinest power, 
 And statesman shape the laws for human good. 
 O glorious Empire of the Golden 
 West! Time itself shall slumber in decay 
 And the wide and billowy ocean cease 
 To surge, and the transcendent mountains fall 
 Prone on the sunlit valley s breast before 
 Shall perish here the love of Freedom. 
 
 FLOWER-LAND AND FROST-LAND. (1876.) 
 Oh, am I awake or a-dreaming? 
 
 And where do my senses stray? 
 What means this budding and blooming 
 
 December as lovely as May? 
 
 Oh, where has the Snow-King wandered? 
 
 And the magical Frost-Realm where 
 Have vanished its gleaming cities, 
 
 Its towers with silvery stair? 
 
 The gleam of its magical mountains, 
 
 Its diamond forests and fern; 
 Its lakes with their ripples of crystal, 
 
 Its flowers of rainbow and pearl? 
 
 Oh, where is the music of sleigh-bells, 
 And the rush of hurrying feet 
 
 The rhythm of happy laughter 
 
 From the boys and girls in the street? 
 
 And where is the roar of the North-Wind? 
 
 The dance of the feathery snow? 
 The growl of the waves that are caught in 
 
 The ice and imprisoned below? 
 
 Oh, am I awake or a-dreaming? 
 
 And where do my senses stray? 
 What means this budding and blooming 
 
 December as lovely as May? 
 
 HERE AND THERE. 
 (Atlantic and Pacific December, 1878.) 
 Ah! miss we here the glory of the woods 
 
 Which Autumn kindles into scarlet fire, 
 Or clothes in gold and crimson-tinted dyes 
 
 Before she makes of it her funeral pyre? 
 Such brightness is the whisper of Decay, 
 
 It is the prelude of a leafless wild 
 Of a long, dreary, wintry, snow-swept day, 
 
 When storms sob through the forest like a child, 
 Or like a heart deserted; bare and white, 
 
 The trees toss skeleton arms, and moaning bend, 
 While tempests shriek, and in wild fury pile 
 
 Their snows upon them; while Frost and Winter send 
 Such terror to the Earth that, blanched and white. 
 
 It lies a frozen thing, so dead and cold, 
 So haggard and so ghastly to the sight, 
 
 We wonder never that the poor old 
 Year should die. 
 
 But here, flower-crowned and bright 
 
 With golden sunshine, and skies blue and fair 
 As Summer s own, the year dies not, but from the sight 
 
 It is translated, while glory lingers like a crown where 
 It hath passed, and the New Year opes its eyes 
 On sweet and June-like beauty filling earth and skies. 
 
 SUNSET GATES. (1885.) 
 O rosy gates of the West ! 
 
 Swing open wide for me, 
 And let me sail in my Fancy s boat, 
 
 Over the Sunset Sea. 
 
 Swing open, O gates of pearl! 
 
 Of amber and crimson, swing! 
 While I float in my boat through the sapphire deep 
 
 Where the starry islands spring. 
 
 BESIDE THE WESTERN SEA. (1900.) 
 
 Oh, I wait to see the glory of this land that fronts the 
 West, 
 
 hand as yet unsung in story of earth s greatest and its 
 best, 
 
 But its future swims in brightness, and the golden Yet- 
 to-be, 
 
 Shining with Fame s spotless whiteness, lies beside this 
 Western Sea. 
 
 Poets here and grand immortals in the realm of art and 
 song, 
 
 Patriots shall tread its portals, and the sons of science 
 throng 
 
 Here, where Summer ever lingers; here, where lofty 
 mountains rise, 
 
 Thrusting upward granite fingers to the deeps of cloud 
 less skies. 
 
 Wide we set our sea-gates open to the old and waiting- 
 East, 
 
 Commerce, all her barriers broken, brings to us of wealth 
 a feast, 
 
 And the glory of this Nation in its rich futurity 
 
 Shall shine proudest in its luster here beside this Western 
 Sea. 
 
 77 
 
nt5 of patriotism: 
 
 TRIBUTES TO VALOR AND GREATNESS. 
 
 DAWN OF THE CENTENNIAL. (1876.) 
 
 Golden Land with skies so warm and tender, 
 With fragrant breath of never-dying flowers, 
 With solemn mountains robed in purple splendor, 
 And built with rocky battlements and towers ! 
 
 1 love the beauty of thy quiet canons, 
 Sunlighted through the summer s dreamy hours; 
 With orange bloom and shining palm and banyans, 
 And the rich fruitage born of winter s showers. 
 
 In thy green aisles and through thy sounding arches 
 Float tenderest whispers of far tropic climes, 
 And dreams of Italy, with glowing masses 
 Of sunset clouds, and deep blue skies, and vines 
 
 On sunny slopes, lifting their purple clusters 
 All kissed to richest ripeness by the Sun, 
 And soft airs from the Adriatic s waters, 
 With every hour of thy fair daylight come. 
 
 How shall I write the story 
 
 Of the year that is gone? 
 What shall I do with the glory 
 
 And what do with the wrong? 
 Go out of our life, O dead Year! 
 
 Lay in thy sepulcher, 
 Sleep with the Past! 
 
 What hast thou to do with the New Year? 
 Thy reign could not last 
 But through thy twelvemonth; 
 
 Go sleep with the centuries, 
 
 And come not to vex us 
 
 With troublesome memories 
 
 After thy exodus. 
 
 Vain hope! O heart of mine, 
 
 Though dead is the year, 
 
 Though to hinder its waking 
 
 You sit by its bier, 
 
 And seal up its sepulcher, 
 
 Still it is shaping 
 
 And making Today. 
 
 The New Year must feel the thrill of the Old 
 Even though it be buried and dead and cold. 
 
 Write its deeds, then, 
 In fair letters of light, 
 That shall shine as the Sun, 
 Where .glory has won 
 A brightness undying. 
 Then let pale Penitence 
 Write deeds that were wrong, 
 And writing, weep tears 
 That shall wash them as white 
 As Forgiveness can make them, 
 More white than the light. 
 Why vanished that forgotten race? 
 
 O Queen of Nations ! land which God hath made 
 
 For His great workshop, where His hand has laid 
 
 Foundations deep and strong, and bulwarks high 
 
 For Freedom; where He has unrolled the sky 
 
 A shining banner with its fields of blue 
 
 Star-fretted, and grandly stretching through 
 
 It thrown the white stripes of its Milky Way, 
 
 As bright as twere the birthplace of the Day, 
 
 Reared mountains mid whose air the brain and brawn 
 
 Of giant intellects and patriot souls are born; 
 
 And through great fields has stored vast beds of coal, 
 
 Made ready for our use in ages old; 
 
 Enough to feed our vulcan fires and keep 
 
 All busy industries awhirl, and keep 
 
 The giant Steam to utmost fullness fed, 
 
 While round the Continent with thundering tread, 
 
 O er countless iron roads he pushes on 
 
 The Iron Horse, bearing to distant wilds, 
 
 Where now, with Nature slumbering, Silence smiles, 
 
 The Tide of Empire to the setting Sun, 
 
 To the far waters of the Oregon; 
 
 To California sitting by the sea, 
 
 With germ of Empire budding silently, 
 
 With skies so bright they do but seldom bear 
 
 Only rain of sunshine in their golden air; 
 
 With soil so rich its fruitful hills and plains 
 
 Seem never thirsting for sweet summer rains; 
 
 Spread lakes like pearls, and inland seas that bear 
 
 The white-winged ships of Commerce, and such fair 
 
 Green fields, like emeralds in sunshine set, 
 
 And round them dewy diamonds, that fret 
 
 The sunshine with their brightness; and stored 
 
 The earth with mines, and their dark caves floored 
 
 With rich gold, and precious stones, and ores 
 
 Of iron and copper such vast stores 
 
 As fill a nation s need; and floods of oil 
 
 Hid in deep wells beneath the bounteous soil, 
 
 Enough to make a beacon for the world; 
 
 And round the great, vast continent has curled 
 
 Two mighty oceans, through whose broad highways 
 
 Perchance shall come in coming future days 
 
 Great tide of travel from the ancient East, 
 
 Bearing rich stores of pearl and amethyst; 
 
 The Old World s greatness, with its wealth of lore, 
 
 And all things fair to make more fair the shore 
 
 Of this New World. 
 
 The land is old which we call new, 
 Its buried cities lift their face, 
 Tombstones of a forgotten race, 
 Old as the Pyramids and Sphinx, 
 Perchance as old almost as Time 
 Monuments all wrapped in mystery, 
 With no Today, but Yesterday 
 Written all o er them; not a line 
 But s gray with hoary touch of Time 
 
Flag of the free hearts hope and home, 
 
 By angel hands to valor given, 
 Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 
 
 And all thy hues were born in heaven. 
 
Dawn of the Centennial Year. 
 
 How marched the white sands o er the place 
 
 Where once their high-walled cities stood, 
 
 Leaving them ghost-like in their shroud? 
 
 But Echo gives back no reply, 
 
 And Silence sits all solemnly. 
 
 And Fate says, " Twas not I 
 
 Who made forget fulness their grave:" 
 
 And History says, "On page of mine 
 
 There is nor word, nor leaf, nor line 
 
 The wherefore of their destiny." 
 
 Then Faith looks up with her steady eye, 
 
 And words of clear-voiced prophecy, 
 
 And says, "But I can make reply 
 
 Why vanished that forgotten race, 
 
 Xot one of all its many sons 
 
 To claim a heritage or place 
 
 Tn all this continent of space." 
 
 Then I, so still and reverently, 
 
 While Faith made clear the wherefore, stood 
 
 And felt that all she said was good. 
 
 In the old-time land of the flood, 
 
 That faces all the centuries, 
 
 The land of Xineveh and Rome, 
 
 And ancient Greece and Athens own, 
 
 Of Egypt and of Palestine, 
 
 Of England, royal in her line; 
 
 Of China sitting by her seas, 
 
 Counting her life by centuries; 
 
 Of Spain with Inquisition fires; 
 
 And Germany, where first the glow 
 
 Of Reformation s fires began, 
 
 Sat trembling Freedom, dumb with woe 
 
 In days we call the Long Ago. 
 
 In all the lands beyond the seas 
 
 That face all Old Time s centuries, 
 
 Was manhood s sacred trust denied ; 
 
 The right of man to be a man, 
 
 Unless high-born, was crucified. 
 
 All the Old World was tainted by 
 
 The tainted breath of Bigotry. 
 
 But Tyranny, all blindfolded. 
 
 The way to Freedom s pathway led 
 
 Unknowing that it was the way 
 
 Across the white sea s foaming yeast 
 
 To Winter, rocked with cold and storm, 
 
 With forest-temples vast and grand, 
 
 And long aisles filled with organ notes, 
 
 Wind-thunders of a frozen land, 
 
 Slow sailing over unknown seas, 
 
 And wild, storm-fretted lengths of bays, 
 
 The Mayflower come to this new world, 
 
 And Freedom s banner wide unfurled. 
 
 For this did pass that vanished race, 
 
 To give to Freedom here a place. 
 
 It is two hundred years and more 
 
 Since first upon that rocky shore 
 
 That white-sailed ship fought with the breeze, 
 
 And ploughed its pathway through the seas. 
 
 "Each man an unencompassed host," 
 So sternly standing at his post, 
 Daring for Freedom s sake to breast 
 The dangers of the wilderness. 
 
 Faith ceased, and then I sat and mused 
 
 Of all those far, wild solitudes; 
 
 And turned and faced the Then and Now; 
 
 The Then, when a wild forest waste 
 
 Covered a continent of space; 
 
 The Now, when thick as forest bough 
 
 That in those old, dim forests stood, 
 
 Stand cities where did stand the wood. 
 
 And then I said, Hath Freedom wrought 
 
 All that she dared, or wished, or sought? 
 
 And then I looked from east to west, 
 
 From west to east and back again. 
 
 And looked upon the whitened sands, 
 
 And on wide stretch of lengthened plain, 
 
 And saw vast fields where men were slain, 
 
 Sleeping on tentless camping ground; 
 
 Whole armies without breath or sound. 
 
 And then I said, Oh, what is this 
 
 What fills fair Freedom s home with graves? 
 
 Have fought with them the winds and waves, 
 
 Or here hath stalked all gaunt and grim, 
 
 With wasting foot like hurricane, 
 
 Famine, another name for Death? 
 
 And then there came to me again, 
 
 As if the graves were filled with speech, 
 
 As if from each a victor rose 
 
 All glorified with his repose, 
 
 A sound that was not voice nor speech, 
 
 That told to me the tale of each, 
 
 Of all the countless sleepers pale, 
 
 That slept by wood, or sea, or vale. 
 
 Oh these are they who came from far, 
 
 From every corner of this land, 
 
 To meet their treacherous foes advance, 
 
 Marched boldly as an avalanche, 
 
 And won a glory bright as stars, 
 
 The far-off stars by which they passed 
 
 From battlefield through prison-bars, 
 
 Where Immortality doth wait, 
 
 And Fame stands sentry at the gate. 
 
 But long the land was desolate, 
 
 And long the tents stood thick and white, 
 
 Like ghosts of mist-wrapped moon at night; 
 
 And long the sentry s silent tread 
 
 Kept steady marching to and fro, 
 
 And watched lest every hillside tree 
 
 Should hide the form of stealthy foe; 
 
 And watched the rocks, and gripped his steel 
 
 Whenever breath or shadow fell; 
 
 And watched amid the frozen storm, 
 
 When all the world was dim as death, 
 
 And warmth was chilled in every breath, 
 
 And Nature lay as in a shroud, 
 
 A frozen, misty shroud of white; 
 
 And watched in Summer s sultry heat, 
 
 79 
 
Poems of Patriotism. 
 
 When all the sky seemed scorched with flame, 
 
 And burned at night and noon the same. 
 
 Then came long marches over sands, 
 
 With white dust filling all the air 
 
 Like smoke of some old Trafalgar; 
 
 The lips all parched with fever heat, 
 
 Yet pressing on the weary feet; 
 
 And all along the tiresome way 
 
 The patient horses sink and fall 
 
 And pant amid the burning sand, 
 
 Till strength to pant has passed away. 
 
 And then the battle s front, and din 
 
 Of thousand cannon shot and shell, 
 
 And brave men fighting long and well, 
 
 And many a white and upturned face, 
 
 And glazed eyes looking to the sun, 
 
 And many a ghastly, bleeding wound, 
 
 And red blood washing all the ground. 
 
 But still with arms as strong and true, 
 
 Unyielding as the sturdy oak, 
 
 Amid the blood and battle smoke, 
 
 Brave patriot men moved ever on, 
 
 Bearing our starry Flag of Blue, 
 
 The red and white stripes gleaming through 
 
 The black and murky smoke of Avar; 
 
 And where it led they followed on; 
 
 Unfalteringly, and bravely fought, 
 
 Like lover fighting for his bride, 
 
 And had no thought, no wish beside. 
 
 They pushed the hosts of Treason back, 
 
 They made them bite the very dust, 
 
 And then they gave us Freedom s trust, 
 
 To keep and hold for Freedom s land. 
 
 And they who bought our land anew, 
 
 Who gave their lives a sacrifice, 
 
 They died to give a down-trod race 
 
 Mid Freedom s rightful heirs a place; 
 
 They died to make each man a king, 
 
 A mightier king than throne or state, 
 
 A monarch that should dare and do 
 
 All things for Liberty s dear sake. 
 
 And thus with this undying trust, 
 This year, and other years to us 
 Have come and gone and found us true, 
 Not one star faded from the blue 
 Of the old Flag for which we fought 
 As Freedom s bright embodied thought. 
 
 The brave Chief who our armies led, 
 
 With heart as leal and strong today 
 
 As when amid the battle s fray, 
 
 With sjteady hand has held the helm 
 
 While we were drifting on the sands 
 
 And mid the rocks where ships go down, 
 
 And guided us where we may lay, 
 
 Nor sail, nor anchor cast away, 
 
 Amid the shining isles of Peace. 
 
 And he whose white plume shone afar 
 
 Where shot fell thickest, and grim War 
 
 Rained wounds and death with grape and shell, 
 
 Till all was dark and hot like hell- 
 Brave soldier from the Buckeye State, 
 His hand shall grasp the helm of state, 
 Shall guide to nobler triumphs "still, 
 To bloodless victories, which will 
 Bring grandest conquest to the right, 
 And make a nation s noblest might. 
 
 All hail to our Centennial! 
 
 Let Liberty be glad, 
 
 And only tyrants sad; 
 
 This great New World is free, 
 
 The very soil doth laugh, 
 
 And all its dimples take 
 
 Of fruits and grain the shape, 
 
 And busy Industry 
 
 Has million forms aflit, 
 
 And Manufacture s whirr 
 
 Has million wheels astir, 
 
 And busy Commerce speeds 
 
 Its sails o er all the seas, 
 
 And all the lands sit down, 
 
 Glad in our free renown, 
 
 Beside the cradle of our Liberty; 
 
 And from the East 
 
 The New Year beckons with a smile of peace. 
 
 DECORATION DAY. (1876.) 
 
 Bend blue above the Earth, O skies! 
 
 And softest breezes kiss the shining air, 
 
 Sweet flowers let floating incense rise, 
 
 With odors sweet weave hymns of praise and prayer, 
 
 And question not the fearful need that laid 
 
 These silent sleepers on these tentless plains; 
 
 Their loss the rolling years cannot abate, 
 
 Nor time with all her centuries estimate 
 
 The sacrifice which their brave manhood paid 
 
 To save a nation from its dying pains. 
 
 Dead are they? No, in all the blessings bought 
 
 By the rich promise of their manhood slain, 
 
 They live immortal; in the deeds they wrought 
 
 Their names are written in undying light, 
 
 Which passing centuries shall but make more plain; 
 
 Theirs is a morning which shall know no night. 
 
 II. (1878.) 
 
 This fair bright land is the heritage of 
 Freedom, and her title deeds are writ in 
 Graves. Today the Nation lives because these 
 Heroes died, and Freedom soars broad-pinioned, 
 Strong, like to the fabled Phenix of the 
 Olden time, born yet anew from out the 
 Sacred ashes of these her dead yet deathless 
 Sons. 
 
 We call them dead; we walk with reverent 
 Tread through all the wooded aisles and grass-paved 
 Streets of the silent cities where they rest; 
 With tender hands strew flowers so bright and 
 Fragrant-breath d upon the grassy mounds where 
 They repose in dreamless slumber. But dead 
 Are thev? 
 
 80 
 
The Death of Ellsworth. 
 
 Dieth the Sun when hidden by a cloud? 
 
 Dieth the Moon when in a misty shroud 
 
 Her light is veiled? Or die the Stars when day 
 
 Hides them with brightness from our sight away? 
 
 So die they not, though hidden from our sight; 
 Each grave hath voice; each triumph of the Right 
 Is the embodied thought, the deathless I 
 Of heroes born to immortulitv ! 
 
 THE DEATH OF ELLSWORTH. (1879.) 
 
 It was the hour of Freedom s dark eclipse, 
 
 The dawn of grim War s red Apocalypse! 
 
 From the far north-lakes to the land of palms, 
 
 O er Hate s dull thunder rang the cry, "To arms !" 
 
 And thicker than a forest sea of pines 
 
 Gleamed shining bayonets along the lines 
 
 Of marching armies, moving firmly on 
 
 From East and West, from Maine to Washington. 
 
 The awful Southern cloud, so black and dun. 
 
 Which long had loomed with sullen, angry face, 
 
 Had flashed at length its furrowed fire through space, 
 
 Had shaken with a worse than earthquake shock. 
 
 From proud old Sumter s strong and sea-girt rock, 
 
 With its dread thunders all the startled land, 
 
 And at the mad sound men had swift upsprung 
 
 As if a million loyal hearts were one, 
 
 And purpose firmer than the mountain rock 
 
 Swelled into being at the treacherous shock; 
 
 Strong men stood up and then with pale lips swore, 
 
 Come life or death, that on the Old Flag o er 
 
 Their heads proud waving there should never be 
 
 One bright star less Country and Liberty 
 
 The dear old Banner s broad blue field should see 
 
 Washed from its stain by life-blood of the free. 
 
 Bright fell the moonlight on Potomac s wave, 
 
 Her broad, deep waters like a silver sea 
 
 Shone round green banks and kissed the flower-decked 
 
 lea; 
 Spring s perfect beauty crowned those star-gemmed 
 
 nights; 
 
 Like giant sentry stood the solemn heights, 
 Moveless and silent; the coming of the Spring 
 Had waked the Earth to fragrant blossoming; 
 In the far groves the nightingale was heard, 
 Pleased that her song the listening silence stirred; 
 Soft was the whisper of the emerald leaves, 
 As answering to the Night Wind s gentle breath, 
 And soft the babble of the murmuring brooks, 
 Winding like silver threads through forest nooks, 
 And white within the moonlight like a star 
 The grand dome of the Capitol was seen afar. 
 Silence had fallen on the city s streets, 
 Save where the sentries trod their lonely beats, 
 Or where, like phantom cities stretching wide 
 About the Nation s capital on every side, 
 Gleamed the white tents and dying camp-fires glow, 
 And armed men were moving to and fro. 
 
 O fair the starlight o er those Southern plains, 
 
 And pure the brightness that the moonlight rains, 
 
 And grand the glory of those circling hills, 
 
 And proud the city that their circle fills. 
 
 Green are the forests that o ercrown the heights 
 
 Of Arlington, yet every breeze of Night s 
 
 That sways those forests, stirring leaf and limb, 
 
 Stirs fears that set even stout hearts trembling; 
 
 For here and there the river s banks along, 
 
 Do camp-fires gleam, and Southern hosts are strong. 
 
 What awful rain of shot and bursting shell, 
 
 What leaden hail, what burning fires of hell 
 
 Might hurl destruction through the startled air 
 
 Should rebel batteries be planted there 
 
 Upon the glorious hilltops that uplift 
 
 Their smooth, green crests, unscarred by rocky cleft 
 
 () ye who love the Old Flag and its stars, 
 
 Down with the rag that bears the crimson bars ! 
 
 Up ! forward ! march ! and haste to occupy 
 
 The vantage ground, or in the effort die! 
 
 So when the midnight moon was hanging low, 
 Ere morn had set the eastern sky aglow, 
 A moving army down the city s streets 
 Passed one strong column where the river beats 
 In measured throbs against the Long Bridge piers; 
 Another, past the Aqueduct, which hears 
 The roar and swell of waters rushing by; 
 Ana one, by Ellsworth led, moved steadily 
 Down to the ship which still at anchor lay, 
 And swift embarked, then down the stream away. 
 On, on until it neared the city old- 
 Quaint Alexandria sitting in the mould 
 Of ancient years, her walls grown gray with time, 
 Her gabled roofs steep as a mountain s line- 
 As green with moss as rocks by forest stream; 
 Her crooked streets so narrow that they seem 
 Strangers to sunlight the sidewalks lay 
 Sunken in places as if stern Decay 
 Had sought to eat the solid brick away. 
 And old, old houses by the river s side 
 Leaned, as if faint, towards the flowing tide. 
 
 The night had faded, and a perfect morn, 
 Golden and cloudless in the East, was born; 
 Each blade of grass, each fragrant blossom stood 
 In the fair dawn a jeweled sisterhood. 
 Down by the landing softly swept the tide, 
 In silver ripples on the green bank s side; 
 Their murmur sounding neath the gray old piers 
 As if they held the prophecy of tears. 
 
 How in the dreamy silence of the hills 
 A solemn peace seemed brooding. Nature fills 
 All things with beauty as if God were there; 
 The glorious gush of bird-song filled the air, 
 The bees hummed lingeringly amid the flowers, 
 Whose dewy fragrance filled the morning hours; 
 With tinkling music ran the laughing streams, 
 And on the hill-tops Morning s golden beams 
 Fell like a halo from the eastern skies; 
 
Poems of Patriotism. 
 
 The bright Morn held no voiceful prophecies 
 Of the dark shadow that ere noon should fall 
 Across the Nation s heart; of th unspoken call 
 Of stern Tomorrows that the years would bring, 
 Of loyal millions with their sad eyes dim. 
 
 Ah! so still, so very still \\as the air; 
 Oh! who could dream that in the daylight fair 
 Hate was busy and was building away 
 In the slumberous silence of that sweet May 
 Tts blood-red altar! Oh, will no voice shout 
 To the brave old ship that is coming out 
 From the river s stream to the landing s head- 
 To the brave young hero who with martial tread 
 Walks the deck will no voice utter aloud 
 Neath that rebel flag, Death is weaving a shroud? 
 No! Fate is voiceless, and the silent street 
 Soon echoes the sound of their coming feet; 
 Pickets are posted and the dead old town 
 Ts soon made for Freedom a camping-ground, 
 And Southern maidens, whose soft eyes are wet 
 With tears of parting all undried as yet, 
 Whose ears still hold the sound of swift retreat. 
 Still feel Love s kisses on each tear-stained cheek, 
 Peep from behind closed shutters pale with fear. 
 Fancying the invaders whose firm step they hear 
 As something less than human Northern hordes 
 Untaught and savage men whose ruthless swords 
 Love blood and slaughter and War s wild rapine, 
 With trembling hands white as the lily s sheen. 
 Holding the curtains in their velvet palms, 
 With hearts swift beating with their wild alarms, 
 And faces pale as their own bosoms snow, 
 Kneeling, they look to see the coming foe. 
 
 But soon, as if upon the black midnight 
 
 Had dropped the brightness of the noontide s light, 
 
 As passes when the summer sunshine glows 
 
 On the far frozen arctic land of snows, 
 
 The long, black night, unbroken by a day, 
 
 Passed the pale specter of their dread away. 
 
 No vulgar rabble met their frightened gaze, 
 
 No ragged mob its lawlessness displays, 
 
 But staunch as the lofty pines that rise 
 
 An emerald wall against the sunrise skies, 
 
 Erect and firm, with quick yet measured tread, 
 
 Came the Zouaves by brave young Ellsworth led; 
 
 His manly beauty grand as neath Southern skies 
 
 Ere ripened into splendor. His brave look defies 
 
 Danger and death. His firm lips wear the seal 
 
 Of strength and tenderness. The cannon s peal 
 
 Would belch its thunders never at his back; 
 
 His feet would foremost tread the fiery track 
 
 Where War s red scythe mows down its swaths of slain 
 
 As mows the reaper Autumn s fields of grain, 
 
 And his strong arm would foremost move to bless 
 
 Or friend or foe in need or helplessness. 
 
 Then sad eyes brighten and faint color steals 
 To lip and cheek; that stealthy look reveals 
 The soldiers manhood; half their terrors cease, 
 As if such presence stirred the bells of Peace. 
 
 Yet Southern hate and Southern blood were warm, 
 And like the swift red lightnings of the storm, 
 Hidden within the blackness of the cloud, 
 Outbursting with fierce thunders crashing loud, 
 While tempests shake great forests in their grasp, 
 And lash the seas to mountains ere they pass; 
 So in the pause of conflict, gathering strength, 
 Broke Treason s thunders o er the land at length. 
 
 O blossoming roses red and white, 
 
 O violets blue as the skies above, 
 
 O gentle maidens pale with fright, 
 
 O all-voiced things of Peace and Love! 
 
 Cry, cry aloud to the sunny air! 
 O wandering winds find voice and speech, 
 For Ellsworth s steps are tending whore 
 Death waits his single hand would reach 
 
 That bannered insult to the free 
 
 That floats from the old moss-grown roof 
 
 Of Alexandria s hostelrie, 
 
 Whore Treason shows its cloven hoof. 
 
 His swift feet climb the winding stairs 
 Ah! to what undreamed heights they led! 
 With one strong grasp the flag he tears 
 From the tall flag-staff overhead. 
 
 The loyal winds sweep round him there, 
 The sunshine crowns his head with gold. 
 But brighter still, and still more fair 
 Shines round him Fame s grand aureole. 
 
 Stood he there erect and strong, 
 
 Hating Treason, hating Wrong, 
 
 Doing duty as his wont, 
 
 Facing there the awful front 
 
 Treason offered to her foes. 
 
 With that banner on his arm, 
 
 Downward to his doom he goes. 
 
 Nevermore shall light of day 
 
 On his living face be shed, 
 
 Half-way down that dark stairway 
 
 One swift shot and he is dead! 
 
 Dead! the bullet in his breast! 
 
 Dead! with th grand, calm face upturned, 
 
 And the hero heart at rest, 
 
 Which so late had proudly spurned, 
 
 In its self-forgetfulness, 
 
 In its "unrevengeful calm," 
 
 All that Southern hate confessed, 
 
 All the might of Treason s arm. 
 
 They bore him tenderly away 
 Down to the river where the sobbing tide 
 Broke in the brightness of that perfect day 
 In low, sad rhythm on the old ship s side; 
 The grand old banner hid its starry light 
 Half down the tall mast s length sad sound 
 Of music and of muffled drum 
 Filled all the wide, deep silence round- 
 All other sounds were hushed and dumb. 
 
 82 
 
Gar field. 
 
 Up the great river moved the dead along. 
 
 Beneath him all the water s pulses beat, 
 
 While the low murmurs of their dirge-like song 
 
 To the far sea in solemn chorus sweep. 
 
 O how the Nation s Capital 
 
 Stretched out its hand to him ! 
 
 How wept the young, the good, the fair, 
 While stern men s eyes grew dim! 
 How noble was his coffined face, 
 How grand the starry pall 
 Our mourning Mother gave her son, 
 Among her first to fall ! 
 
 Out of his dying grew the life 
 
 Of purpose grand and high, 
 
 Out of his dying Freedom spoke, 
 
 And free men gave reply. 
 
 They spoke on bloody battlefields, 
 
 They spoke through prison bars, 
 
 They spoke till Peace flung wide again 
 
 The grand old Stripes and Stars. 
 
 GARFIELD. (1881.) 
 
 It is God s will, and so it must be right, 
 
 Although at every pore the Nation bleeds; 
 
 But God looks onward, past the brief dark night 
 
 Of Time, and while we blindly grope, 
 
 Crying for light, His sunrise crowns the hills. 
 
 And then we see what love His purpose fills, 
 
 How better far His wisdom than our hope. 
 
 No coffin-lid can on his manhood close, 
 No dead white silence on his name can fall; 
 In the grand stillness of his last repose 
 He lives among us mightier today 
 Than when in battle Freedom s hosts he led, 
 Or, thunder-tongued in eloquence of speech, 
 Spoke words undying in the Nation s ear 
 Words that all coming centuries shall hear. 
 
 The grave of Garfield! Oh, such graves we need 
 
 As stepping-stones on which the race may climb 
 
 To the grand heights where Freedom s steps shall lend; 
 
 They are our Jacob s ladder to the skies 
 
 To the clear heavens of Freedom s shining day. 
 
 Such dead die not, though hidden from our sight; 
 
 Such graves have voice; each triumph of the Right 
 
 Is the embodied thought, the deathless I 
 
 Of heroes born to immortality. 
 
 Mock not his memory with mere idle speech! 
 Let acts, not words, the Nation s sorrow tell 
 Great acts, and true, that shall uplift as well 
 Towards the grand, pure heights on which he stood. 
 Guard well the memory of his noble life. 
 Keep fresh and green as heritage for Time 
 His manhood s greatness and his deeds sublime. 
 Friend! Soldier! Statesman! Chief! hail and farewell! 
 
 GREATNESS.* (1882.) 
 
 1 looked into the night, 
 
 After the sunset s glow had fled. 
 
 And there before me lay 
 
 A revelation by the darkness made 
 
 The mystery of the skies, 
 
 The glory of the Milky Way, 
 
 The star-crowned heights 
 
 The longest life of years 
 
 Would not suffice to reach, 
 
 Glimmering through the blue, 
 
 Just faintly shining through 
 
 Like atoms, those great vast globes of light. 
 
 And what of these? The far-off stars 
 
 Shall fall like tears from off Creation s face, 
 
 And of their shining glory there shall be no trace. 
 
 I saw a man elate 
 
 With pomp and kingly power, 
 
 Of thought the potentate 
 
 The nations reverenced him; 
 
 Of Nature he was king, 
 
 Her laws he read as from an open book, 
 
 Her mightiest forces took, 
 
 Like harnessed steeds, to do his will, 
 
 Making the lightnings thrill 
 
 With swift intelligence of thought, 
 
 And the still air he taught 
 
 The mystery of speech, 
 
 Until it came to be 
 
 A vast, grand whispering gallery. 
 
 Yet he, with eloquence as silver-toned as song, 
 
 Died, life s noblest mission yet unwrought, 
 
 He gave to lonely griefs nor help nor thought. 
 
 Before me stood a woman, pale 
 As the pure lily s white-tipped face; 
 Genius, nor aught of beauty s grace 
 Had she, so lowly born; 
 The world could see no glory in the strife 
 Of her meek contests life 
 Brought no renown, and fame no wreath 
 Of shining bay or laurel leaf. 
 But she had dropped like dew 
 Her tender speech; she knew 
 The greatness of the sad soul s needs, 
 And her sweet words and kindly deeds 
 Had softened widows woes. 
 And orphans blessings round her rose, 
 And men, too, who had borne such weight 
 Of sorrow that it seemed as Fate 
 Were God, and God were naught, 
 Had by her such sweet faith been taught 
 That sorrow had for them a blessing wrought. 
 And God shall write her great, 
 Unto life s noblest mission true, 
 That mission which is only but to do 
 Ever the duty that lies nearest you. 
 In San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 - 
 
Poems of Patriotism. 
 
 "THE STAR OF EMPIRE." (1885.) 
 (Read before the Ohio Association in Los Angeles.) 
 
 Fair California, sitting by the sea, 
 
 With germ of Empire budding silently, 
 
 Thy skies so bright they do but seldom bear 
 
 But floods of sunshine in their golden air; 
 
 Thy soil so rich its fruitful hills and plains 
 
 Seem never thirsting for soft summer rains; 
 
 Sweet singers in the old Past sang of thee, 
 
 And ships made paths across the pathless sea 
 
 To reach thy golden shores, for bards had told 
 
 Of thy sun-flooded plains and mountains gaunt and old; 
 
 And those brown Children of the Sun had dreamed 
 
 Of thy fair skies, until to them they seemed 
 
 Not quite of earth, for their wise ones had said: 
 
 "Close by the gates of Paradise, sometimes ajar, 
 
 Broods endless summer o er a wondrous land, 
 
 With shining skies and golden strand, 
 And beauty like the undimmed brightness of a star." 
 
 Out from the valleys where the skies are old, 
 
 Yet bend in varying splendor o er the earth, 
 Where Freedom s steady pulse has long been told 
 
 In deeds heroic and in patriot worth, 
 The State of Brough, of Garfield and of Grant- 
 Proud galaxy of Freedom s noblest sons, 
 We come upon these sunset shores to plant, 
 
 Not only neath these glowing summer skies, 
 Our broad rich vineyards which by sunshine kissed 
 Yield ripened fruits which gleam like amethysts; 
 Not only orchards, where like golden suns, 
 
 Through the cool emerald of their thousand leaves 
 Glows the ripe orange, and with harvests done, 
 
 Like mighty pyramids lie our ripened sheaves; 
 Not only to build cities that shall stand 
 
 And face the centuries in their pomp and pride, 
 Come we as pilgrims to this sunset strand, 
 
 Where the brown Children of the Sun have died 
 To give us place O not for this they passed. 
 
 Tis not for this dead ages serve today, 
 And sleeping centuries lift their heavy lids 
 
 To watch the march of Empire s westward way; 
 Tis not for this that like some sculptor great, 
 
 Lifting with pride the veil from off the stone, 
 Reveals the colossal statue insensate 
 
 Yet with a god-like grandeur round it thrown. 
 Time lifts the curtains of this Sunset West, 
 
 Flings open wide its mountain-guarded gates, 
 
 While all the land from its tranced slumber wakes 
 From the long night of its unhindered rest. 
 But here sits pregnant Empire young and fair, 
 
 The sun of Progress kissing her white face 
 As she makes ready for her coming heir 
 
 The grand New Life to which the Old gives place. 
 Tis ours to watch with her, to build the State, 
 
 To mould its laws, and blaze the path for Right, 
 Our sunrise and our sunset homes to mate 
 
 Twin in their glory and their patriot might. 
 
 But here beneath these glowing skies 
 
 Of cloudless summer glory, 
 We ll ne er forget the Buckeye State, 
 
 Nor fail to sing its story. 
 The State of strong and stalwart men, 
 
 Of statesmen and of heroes, 
 Of prairie land and forest glen, 
 
 Of commerce-laden rivers; 
 Of lakes that lie like spreading seas, 
 
 Ploughed by the keels of Plenty; 
 Foremost in warfare with the Wrong 
 
 Her sleepless sons stand sentry. 
 An athlete on the fields of life, 
 
 With muscles never tiring, 
 With heart and brain and brawny arm 
 
 To grander deeds aspiring. 
 Oh, here beneath these glowing skies 
 
 Of cloudless summer glory, 
 We ll ne er forget the Buckeye State, 
 
 Nor fail to tell its story. 
 
 THE MEN AND THE DAYS OF 61. (1885.) 
 
 The fragrant breath of flowery June had filled 
 
 the Summer skies, 
 And the world had waked to beauty as to some 
 
 rare and fresh surprise 
 Of new creation, grand and sweet, like Eden s 
 
 happy morning, 
 As if again the world were young, and sinless 
 
 days were dawning. 
 A broad, bright river stretched away with silver 
 
 on its breast, 
 And in the purpling distance rose the lofty 
 
 mountain s crest. 
 A wide, fair valley gemmed with flowers and 
 
 dewy emerald grasses, 
 A long white ribbon of a road adown the valley 
 
 passes ; 
 
 And there, mid stately elms and oaks and som 
 ber pine-trees tall, 
 
 Stood the mansion in the valley, a grand, ances 
 tral hall. 
 The ivy vines crept o er it, and the roses hedged 
 
 it round, 
 And the lilac shed its fragrance, and the lilies 
 
 bent them down 
 
 To kiss the fragrant mignonette, and the blush 
 ing pinks that grew 
 Along the border of the walk that ran the garden 
 
 through. 
 The apple-trees were all in white, and the 
 
 blooming peach-trees shed 
 Their dainty blossoms all along the wide, sweet 
 
 garden bed; 
 And like winged jewels, in and out amid the 
 
 roses rare, 
 Fluttered the shining humming-birds, like 
 
 things of light and air. 
 A sparkling fountain shed its rain in murmurs 
 
 soft and sweet, 
 
 84 
 
The Men and the Days of <>] 
 
 And laughing children stretched their hands its 
 
 shining drops to meet, 
 
 Or ran in romping gladness along the garden ways, 
 Like sunheams flitting down the paths while 
 
 their stately father plays, 
 
 As if a boy himself again, at merry hide-and-seek, 
 And like white lilies through the boughs their 
 
 laughing faces peep; 
 And their young and gentle mother, still 
 
 beautiful and fair, 
 Looks down upon her treasures with a smile 
 
 that is a prayer. 
 
 A small, rude house stands by the mill, 
 
 1 Tis homely, plain and humble, 
 Yet happy groups of boys and girls 
 
 Within its grasses tumble. 
 They re full of life and careless glee, 
 
 Of boyish pranks and laughter; 
 Today is bright, it is enough, 
 
 They care not what comes after. 
 Their mother bends above her tub, 
 
 A meek and brown-eyed woman, 
 One used to toil and daily cares 
 
 Wife of a sturdy yeoman, 
 Whose brawny arms and horny hands 
 
 Do daily toil and labor; 
 A kindly husband, father, friend, 
 
 An honest man and neighbor. 
 His only rest at sunset hour, 
 
 Between the night and morning, 
 Or when the blessed Sabbath comes 
 
 With sacred gladness dawning. 
 Then with his wife upon his arm, 
 
 The children following after, 
 He walks to church in full content 
 
 To the music of their laughter. 
 He is a man of heart and brain, 
 
 As well as brawn and muscle, 
 Loving the quiet of his home 
 
 Far better than the bustle 
 Of larger life in cities led 
 
 Mid scenes of speculation. 
 Yet his sturdy arm would bravely strike 
 
 For the safety of the nation. 
 Down where the meadows run to meet the green 
 
 banks of the river, 
 And where the golden sunrise lights in shining 
 
 arrows quiver; 
 
 Where the June blossoms fill the air with fra 
 grance and with sweetness, 
 And happy choirs of birds pour forth their 
 
 songs in rich completeness. 
 The little garden, bright with flowers between 
 
 its emerald hedges 
 Where roses in the June s soft breath stand 
 
 bowing to the sedges, 
 Stands a cottage in the shadow of the beeches 
 
 and the pine, 
 
 Covered o er with honeysuckles and the morn 
 ing-glory s vine, 
 
 To the sunlight of the morning nil its windows 
 
 open flung, 
 And the bright canaries cages in the open 
 
 spaces hung, 
 
 While singing at the window to the April blos 
 soms nodding, 
 With a voice as clear and sweet as any wildwood 
 
 robin, 
 Her dimpled fingers pink and white thrust out 
 
 amid the roses, 
 Where a moment, like a snowflake. her soft, 
 
 white hand reposes, 
 Leans the pretty housewife in her perfect girlish 
 
 beauty, 
 Looking far too slight to bear any heavy cross 
 
 of duty; 
 While below, her husband, turning the fresh 
 
 earth amid the roses, 
 Thinks among the blossoms there none so sweet 
 
 a flower discloses. 
 
 Oh, homes like Eden folded within the Summer s 
 beauty, 
 
 To you will come like trumpet note the solemn 
 voice of Duty; 
 
 For even now upon the breeze its sound is surely 
 waking, 
 
 And loving hearts in thousand homes their sad 
 farewells are taking. 
 
 From our shattered ranks and armies is heard 
 its solemn pleading, 
 
 From the thousands of our dying that on battle 
 fields are bleeding; 
 
 From the prison pens and dungeons where our 
 soldiers starve for bread, 
 
 And grow mad for lack of water, vermin-cov 
 ered, worse than dead; 
 
 From the Southland s far plantations, where the 
 black man is a slave 
 
 Whipped and sold, a thing, a chattel, that his 
 manhood cannot save 
 
 These are pleading, and the echo fills the sad 
 dened air with pain, 
 
 Stabs the pulses of the Nation till it bleeds in 
 every vein. 
 
 Even now the summons cometh, even now the 
 shadow falls 
 
 Just within the golden sunset, lo! the dread To 
 morrow calls. 
 
 A month of days had melted into nights and 
 
 nights to mornings turned, 
 Till o er that quiet valley July s late sunlight 
 
 burned. 
 The meadow grasses quivered in the scorching 
 
 rain of heat, 
 But below the shining river ran in murmurs 
 
 cool and sweet, 
 And beyond, across the meadows, like a l>order 
 
 cool and fair, 
 
 85 
 
Poems of Pat riot ism. 
 
 Rose the wooded- hills, the forests like an army 
 
 standing there. 
 Neath their soft and leafy shadow the silver 
 
 church-spire shone, 
 Touched by wandering sunbeams lurking mid 
 
 its gray white walls of stone. 
 Last eve across the valley had the church-bell s 
 
 echo rung, 
 Rippling through the sunset stillness, hushing 
 
 all the busy hum 
 Of village life; through lanes and sweet byways 
 
 and pleasant street, 
 
 Had come the sturdy tramping of many hun 
 dred feet, 
 In answer to the ringing and the calling of the 
 
 bell- 
 Tramp, tramp, tramp! how the coming numbers 
 
 swell ! 
 There had been news of battle and of our army s 
 
 bloody rout, 
 And men seemed to catch the echo of the Rebel 
 
 triumph shout; 
 And it set their hearts to beating, and it filled 
 
 their souls with fire 
 Bull Run s blood-red battlefield stirred the hearts 
 
 of son and sire, 
 And from princely hall and cottage, and from 
 
 humble wayside cot, 
 As one man the men had gathered all with souls 
 
 that faltered not; 
 And a regiment enlisted from the country and 
 
 the town 
 Men of brain and brawn and muscle, men of 
 
 wealth and of renown- 
 Men of strong and steady purpose, with the 
 
 horny hands of toil- 
 Nature s noblemen whose birthright was to 
 
 plough and till the soil. 
 Yet beneath the sweat of labor in these manly 
 
 breasts were set 
 Hearts of oak whose loyal fires steeled each 
 
 thinking bayonet. 
 Out from the grand old hall their colonel with 
 
 his noble face and mien, 
 And the stalwart, sturdy yeoman in his foremost 
 
 ranks is seen, 
 
 And the brave and lion-hearted from the cot 
 tage o er the way, 
 Comes with stately step and steady to marshal 
 
 for the fray. 
 Beat, beat, beat! to the rattle of the drum and 
 
 the ringing of the bell, 
 Drum, drum, drum ! how the surging numbers 
 
 come and the hosts of Freedom swell, 
 How the banners float aloft, how the shining 
 
 bayonets gleam, 
 
 As the regiment is gathered on the shaded vil 
 lage green. 
 
 Then a pause, a sudden stillness, filling all the 
 summer air, 
 
 And the old and white-haired pastor lifts his fer 
 vent voice in prayer: 
 
 "O Our Father! God of nations, God of battles, 
 hear us pray, 
 
 And work for us Thy miracle of loving care 
 from day to day; 
 
 Our Country calls, and here this morn, on Free 
 dom s holiest altar 
 
 We lay our dearest sacrifice with faith that does 
 not falter. 
 
 "O Thou who for the love of Thy poor human 
 children bleeding 
 
 Hung on the cross and died to live, now for us 
 interceding, 
 
 We pray that on the march and on the battle s 
 gory field, 
 
 Where Death turns up his furrows, be Thou their 
 hiding place and shield; 
 
 Tread down as in a wine-press the flaunting Stars 
 and Bars, 
 
 And soon let Peace fling wide again blest Free 
 dom s Stripes and Stars." 
 
 Twas thus the Nation sprang to arms when 
 
 Freedom s need was spoken 
 In the thunder of the cannon when Sumter s 
 
 walls were broken, 
 In the challenge of the bugle, in the rattle of the 
 
 drum, 
 In the ranks of gathering foemen massing 
 
 strong in Sixty-One, 
 With that bastard flag uplifted, flaunting insult 
 
 to the free 
 Flag of bondage, flag of Treason, with its bars 
 
 of infamy. 
 
 Drum, drum, drum! how the very air is stung 
 
 till its pulses quiver! 
 
 How the echoes fill the valley, how they trem 
 ble down the river ! 
 How they stir from North to Southland! how 
 
 they thrill from East to West! 
 How they sound from o er the prairies and from 
 
 every mountain s crest! 
 Was there ever seen such marching faces 
 
 steady to the foe, 
 Sire and son together moving with their pulses 
 
 all aglow? 
 With the Nation bowed and pleading, bending 
 
 on its knees to pray, 
 Was the great Grand Army mustered and 
 
 strengthened for the fray. 
 
 What of the years that followed, O soldiers, tried 
 
 and true? 
 What the record of our army the Grand Army 
 
 of the Blue? 
 Answer for us, Lookout Mountain, Gettysburg 
 
 and Donelson, 
 And the vales of Old Virginia, where with blood 
 
 the rivers run; 
 
 86 
 
ARLINGTON. MEMORIAL ARCH TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN DEAD. 
 
The Xation x Dead. 
 
 Let the answer come undying from the March 
 
 unto the Sea 
 Where it curbed the strength of Treason, where 
 
 our banner floated free 
 
 From the rushing Shenandoah, from the gleam 
 ing Rapidan, 
 From the bloody battlefield saved by ride of 
 
 Sheridan ; 
 From the scene at Appomattox! let the- triumph 
 
 answer ring, 
 Where our army with its Leader, mightier stood than 
 
 conquering king. 
 Grant at Appomattox! Sound it! Ring it ;ill 
 
 the ages down 
 
 Mercy was the Victor s mantle, generous kind 
 ness was his crown, 
 Grander mid his host of heroes, mid his ranks 
 
 of tattered blue, 
 With their war-worn riddled banners, rent by 
 
 grapeshot through and through- 
 Grander than the mightiest heroes Iliads have 
 
 ever sung, 
 
 Grant, the Soldier of the Nation, with the bat 
 tles he has won. 
 O great Grand Army! who today your yearly 
 
 trust are keeping, 
 With your swords within their scabbards and 
 
 your trusty muskets sleeping; 
 O great Grand Army ! lying low on tentless fields 
 
 of battle; 
 O martyrs! who in prison-pens heard not the 
 
 rifle s rattle, 
 Whose souls passed out through prison bars to 
 
 waiting thrones of glory, 
 Time s latest ages still shall keep the splendor 
 
 of your story. 
 Then raise your starry banner, strike up with 
 
 fife and drum, 
 As with fragrant wreaths and roses the grateful 
 
 millions come 
 To the Meccas of our Freedom, to the altars of 
 
 our trust, 
 
 To the Nation s shrines made noly by our hero 
 soldiers dust ! 
 
 THE NATION S DEAD. 
 
 (Memorial Day, 1884.) 
 
 Men sprang from farm and shop and forge, 
 
 their loved and homes forsaking, 
 When Treason s voice in cannon shot from 
 
 Sumter s walls was breaking; 
 They marched in columns and in ranks 
 
 beneath our starry banner, 
 From East and West, from North and South, 
 
 from town and wild savannah. 
 The Nation with its lifted hands and voice 
 
 of solemn pleading, 
 Gathered her best and bravest sons, the 
 
 sacrifice unheeding; 
 
 "Go forth and battle for the Right, give up 
 
 the Union never! 
 And shrined within our hearts you ll live 
 
 forever and forever." 
 
 Oh, never shall our hearts forget the thrills 
 
 of exultation 
 That like a mighty tide swept o er the 
 
 pulses of the nation, 
 When came like joyous trumpet-note, or 
 
 glorious paean swelling 
 In every heart, and filled with hope the 
 
 lowliest loyal dwelling: 
 No more for us the cannon s roar, nor shot 
 
 nor shell shall rattle, 
 No more the cruel shafts of death upon 
 
 the field of battle, 
 
 For lo! at Appomattox is our crown of tri 
 umph won, 
 And the flaunting flag of Treason into the 
 
 dust is flung. 
 Loud our paeans swelled and louder, and 
 
 our banners proudly gleamed, 
 Like the pillar of Jehovah, o er the faces 
 
 bronzed and seamed 
 By the awful strife of battle, by the toilsome 
 
 march and pen 
 Of the filthj- Southern prisons, where by 
 
 thousands died our men, 
 When back from Appomattox and the 
 
 sunny Southland far, 
 With their shattered ranks and legions, 
 
 came our heroes of the war. 
 But our hearts beat warm and tender for 
 
 the comrades lying low 
 On the tentless fields of glory where the 
 sighing south winds blow. 
 
 Bring spotless lilies, opening buds and roses, 
 Heap high the garlands where our heroes lay, 
 
 Rich be the fragrance where their dust reposes, 
 Green lie the laurel, amaranth and bay, 
 
 O spirit of our martyrs! ye mighty unseen throng, 
 Ye army of the faithful who to all time belong, 
 
 From far Atlantic waters to these peaceful sunset gates, 
 Love her tender watch is keeping, Glory round your 
 ashes waits. 
 
 OUR IMMORTAL DEAD. 
 (Decoration Day, 1886.) 
 
 O the earth is fair and sweet, 
 
 The world is full of life, 
 Yet, shining Sun, beneath our feet, 
 Beneath where emerald grasses meet, 
 And all Spring s fairest blossoms blow, 
 The Nation s loyal dead sleep low 
 
 Within four hundred thousand graves. 
 
Poems of Patriotism. 
 
 A quarter century hath fled, 
 
 In days, and nights, and months, and years, 
 Since first we laid away our dead 
 
 Bathed in a Nation s tears. 
 Flowers bloom within the Summer s calm, 
 
 Birds sing within the leafy trees, 
 And daisies breathe their tranquil psalm 
 
 To every passing breeze, 
 And smiling harvests pour their tides 
 
 Of rippling wheat and golden corn 
 Above the plains where heroes died 
 
 In grim War s blood-red morn, 
 When Treason loosed the hounds of strife, 
 
 And Slaughter poured its rain of fire, 
 Seeking to quench the Nation s life 
 
 Make Freedom s fondest hopes expire. 
 
 O heroes! soldiers! royal braves! 
 
 Tis Freedom s air we breathe today, 
 
 Because you gave your lives away 
 
 For Freedom s sake. 
 
 Blow, bugles, blow! 
 Ring, sacred chimes, 
 From land of palm to land of pines! 
 We hold them dear who sleep so low 
 The blessed dead who loved us so, 
 And with each coming year we ll tell 
 
 The deeds they wrought, 
 
 The glory bought 
 By their life s blood and pain. 
 O hero soldiers! not in vain 
 The wounds, the pain, the blood ye spilled, 
 The sacred graves that ye have filled. 
 
 They re Freedom s harvest seed. 
 This land, thick-sown with martyrs graves, 
 Is Freedom s consecrated ground. 
 Ring, bells, and tell to winds that blow, 
 To mighty tides that round us flow, 
 That this is Freedom s land 
 Your deathless gift of sacrifice. 
 
 O dead! O braves! 
 
 Each sacred grave 
 
 Holds Honor s shield and Honor s trust, 
 And bending low at Freedom s shrine, 
 E en as a maiden counts her beads, 
 Will we rehearse your noble deeds, 
 And guard your sacred dust ! 
 
 GRANT. 
 (Impromptu. 1885.) 
 
 Ah ! why do not the wires break, and the very lightnings 
 
 quiver 
 
 With the sadness of the tidings that they bear 
 With the sorrow of the message that they re flashing 
 
 everywhere, 
 
 From sea to sea, from northern lake to river, 
 And to the sunny Southland, broad and fair? 
 
 Alas! how the Nation s heart bleeds, and its sons their 
 
 heads are bowing, 
 
 As the saddened wail is echoed to the sky, 
 As from lip to lip the mournful tidings fly, 
 Like a crushing tidal billow flowing, 
 Or a sudden smiting arrow from the sky. 
 
 GRANT DEAD AND TRIUMPHANT. (1885.) 
 
 To Mount McGregor s silent height 
 
 An unseen army came, 
 In the splendor of the morning, 
 
 When the trees were touched with flame 
 With the golden glowing glory 
 
 Of the unhindered sun, 
 And the bending arches of the heavens 
 
 Like a vaulted roof were hung. 
 
 There was no sound of marching, 
 
 And no tread of coming feet, 
 And no banners met the vision 
 
 From the lofty mountain s sweep; 
 There was no sound of bugle, 
 
 And no echo of the drum, 
 And no voice of thundering cannon 
 
 Was by answering echoes flung. 
 
 From the trees rang glorious anthems 
 
 Of the bird-life glad and free, 
 And the Summer breeze caressing 
 
 Touched each forest-leaf and tree, 
 While the shadowy battalions 
 
 From the summits of the sky 
 Swept silently as the sunlight 
 
 In their lengthening columns by. 
 
 "Let us have peace!" the watchword then 
 
 Along the mountain height; 
 "Let us have peace!" the end had come, 
 
 Triumphant was his flight. 
 The warrior rose, saluted Death, 
 
 And then his foe withdrew. 
 Heaven s gates swung wide, and, victor still, 
 
 The Nation s Chief passed through. 
 
 Soldiers of Grant! Shades of our heroes! 
 
 As from the far shores they rallied round, 
 What a welcome they gave to the hero of battles, 
 
 As he stood there with peace eternally crowned. 
 He fought it out on the line of patience heroic, 
 
 He climbed the far heights of Faith and of Trust, 
 And life s shattered tent he left gladly behind him 
 
 He is done with earth s battles, so lay dust unto dust. 
 
 THE DAYS OF 64. (1886.) 
 
 The farmer swings his scythe in the meadow, 
 
 the bees in the clover hum, 
 The scent of the flowers the hills float over, 
 
 the sleeping noon has come; 
 A thin, intangible haze lies dreaming on 
 
 river and hill, 
 
The Boys of 64. 
 
 And, pierced by the sun s hot lances, the 
 
 pulseless air lies still. 
 Still, save for a silver shimmer that dances 
 
 before his sight, 
 As he leans on his scythe and wipes his brow 
 
 with a brush of his shirt-sleeve white- 
 Leans and listens, as if he heard a sound 
 
 that lie did not hear 
 The sound of cannon, the tramp of feet and 
 
 the shout of the cannoneer. 
 
 While he stands, comes news of the battle 
 
 fought so late in the South 
 Twas a brave fight and we won it, facing 
 
 Death at the cannon s mouth; 
 Our troops were mown down in swaths like 
 
 the grass here, there at the South, 
 But the living filled up the gaps as they 
 
 opened, fell into rank, 
 Bore steadily down a river of fire on the 
 
 enemy s flank. 
 What did you say, sir? Yes, I had three sens, 
 
 brave men, on that field; 
 Soldiers of steel hearts of oak in their 
 
 breasts they never would yield 
 To the foe; they would march steadily on if need 
 
 be, to death, 
 
 Through the lightning of battle and its shell- 
 scorching breath. 
 
 Ah, you have news of them ! You bring me a 
 
 letter! I knew full well 
 That John would be in a hurry the glorious 
 
 news to tell; 
 And Henry and Joe would never wait until 
 
 they wrote to me, 
 If only a line, to let me know of the Old Flag s 
 
 victory ! 
 
 But tis not the boys who write; tis a 
 
 hand I do not know; 
 Read the letter for me, neighbor, for my eyes 
 
 are blinded so, 
 "Dear sir, the battle raged most fearfully" 
 
 twas so the letter said 
 "And through a blood-red sea we fought o er 
 
 billows of the dead. 
 
 "A hundred guns lay planted on the battle- 
 
 mented height, 
 And more than twenty thousand rebels were 
 
 marching on our right; 
 And, down in the valley tinder, ten thousand 
 
 troops lay low, 
 While the rebels poured down on us like a 
 
 mighty river s flow. 
 
 "John stood up on the height there, in the 
 
 thick of the fight, by his gun, 
 And the way that he fought, sir, was like ten 
 
 thousand in one; 
 
 Volley on volley he thundered out from the 
 
 throat of his gun; 
 Like the hurricane s sweep was the battle 
 
 from noon to the setting of sun. 
 
 "But, just in the flame of the sunset, when its 
 
 glory fell low on the hill, 
 There came a lull in the battle, and I noticed 
 
 John s cannon was still 
 Shot in the breast he lay, close by his gun. 
 
 but his face wore a light 
 As if some angel had touched it right there 
 
 in the midst of the fight. 
 
 "And when the sound of the battle was like 
 
 the roar of the seas, 
 And the red lightning of war flamed over the 
 
 shell-riddled leas, 
 Joe s sword, like a banner, led the way for 
 
 his men in the fight- 
 As they bore down on the rebel batteries to 
 
 the left and the right. 
 
 "And Henry was with him, and swiftly their 
 
 column was massed 
 Where the red sickle of fire cut them down in 
 
 heaps as they passed; 
 Twas their column that turned the tide of 
 
 the battle I heard the shout 
 When they captured the guns and the 
 
 rebels turned in their rout. 
 
 "They both lay there, sir, dead on the field; I 
 
 found them at night 
 After the battle, their locks wet with the dew, 
 
 their faces as white 
 As God s saints; God s peace had touched 
 
 them both, and I know full well 
 None were braver than they mid the thousands 
 
 of heroes who fell." 
 
 Oh, white was the father s brow, and his face 
 
 like death as he heard; 
 Like a statue of stone for a moment he stood. 
 
 nor stirred; 
 As the letter was folded up, e en his hair grew 
 
 white, it seemed, 
 And he looked away to the South, as dreaming 
 
 that he had dreamed 
 
 That never, never again to the farm his boys 
 
 should come, 
 Marching back with steady step to the sound 
 
 of the fife and drum; 
 And the noon seemed growing darker, and the 
 
 bees hum died away, 
 As lie stood there in the meadow where he 
 
 had been making the hay. 
 
 -" 
 
Poems of Patriotism. 
 
 LIBERTY S MORN. 
 
 (July 4 , 1887.) , 
 
 The summer skies of 76 bent 
 
 O er the land, until at length God poured 
 
 Abroad the light the glorious morning light 
 
 Of the glad day we celebrate. In all 
 
 The summer woods birds sang and happy brooks 
 
 Babbled melodious gladness. The flowers 
 
 Lent perfumed sweetness to the waiting air, 
 
 And all the Summer s pulses were as still 
 
 As if Nature lay in trance with eyes fixed 
 
 Upon the pregnant future. The nightmare 
 
 Of the past was ended. Men had awaked 
 
 To freedom. With hand of iron purpose 
 
 They had wrenched the yoke of tyrants and stood 
 
 Up wearing the glory each of uncrowned 
 
 Kings. The love of Liberty stirred all the 
 
 New World s pulse, as wide she spread 
 
 Her starry banner. The Nation superbly 
 
 Steadfast stood "Liberty or death !" its 
 
 Watchword ever. Sunward the eagle spread 
 
 His pinions, as if he felt freedom in 
 
 All the air. Though but a handful, our sires 
 
 Faced the Ola World with a front of fire. 
 
 Xot a mountain wall stands firmer 
 
 In its place than stood their armies. 
 
 Their spirits were electric, inspired 
 
 By one great purpose Columbia 
 
 For Freedom. Their souls loved liberty 
 
 As the eye loves light or the ear melody, 
 
 And as saints love Heaven. Manhood 
 
 Were beggarly without it. Better 
 
 Were fettered hands than fettered 
 
 Souls. Those fathers of our land ! the 
 
 Tyrant s heel could never stamp their living 
 
 Purpose out while yet a hand was left to lift 
 
 The sword for Fredom. "Liberty or Death !" 
 
 That unyielding aim warmed every breath 
 
 And fired the powder in their cannon, and, 
 
 Omnipotent of purpose, they gave this 
 
 Land unto us free as the pure air of 
 
 Heaven free as its mountain peaks that lift 
 
 Up their shining foreheads to the sun and 
 
 Breathe through all vast space free as the boundless 
 
 Oceans with their infinitude of waters, 
 
 Which alone limit our shores. But ah ! the 
 
 Struggle of the conquest ! The awful 
 
 Baptism of blood ere Peace crowned Liberty 
 
 With Empire. When first they came the New World 
 
 Greeted them with the thunder of the winds 
 
 Among her pines. Her hills and plains fronted 
 
 Them with frozen stars. Her broad and flowing 
 
 Rivers lay entombed, wrapped in their icy 
 
 Shrouds. Bare, skeleton arms the forests stretched 
 
 To them, and the sun looked cold amid the 
 
 Mist and clouds. And here were savage foes, whose 
 
 King was Cruelty. How leapt at their fierce 
 
 Touch the poisoned arrows ! How swift within 
 
 Their clutch fell the red tomahawk and the 
 
 Murderous scalping-knife! How fought they with 
 Devouring flames, making their scorching tongues 
 Their weapons of vengeance. The lonely cabin 
 And the thronged stockade, the fire fed on, 
 Lighted by dusky warriors. The Old World, 
 Mother of our land, forgot her love for 
 Her New World children, and loosed her dogs of 
 War to seize them. Terror and Danger laid 
 Strong hands on Freedom s cradle. But ever 
 Beside it, with unfaltering hearts, Courage 
 And Patriotism stood tireless 
 Sentinels. They lifted like a trumpet s 
 Notes their clarion tones. The glory of 
 The old heroic past shone on them. Such 
 Brave blood as first stirred the pulse of all Earth s 
 Liberators coursed through our fathers veins. 
 They spoke, and all the wide world listened. The 
 Cannon s thunders from the heights of Bunker 
 Hill echoed their words, and Lexington, with 
 Rattling musketry and with sword unsheathed, 
 Proclaimed their love for Freedom. Thus the seeds 
 Of Liberty throughout our land were sown 
 In graves, and wet with blood of heroes. 
 
 What 
 
 Is our country s glory? Oh, not alone 
 The continent of space which sleeps between 
 The seas, but the immortal names and deeds 
 Sublime with which it has crowned Freedom. What 
 An aureole of brightness lingers around 
 Them ! How like a galaxy of stars shine 
 Forth the New World s heroes ! Like the fragrance 
 Of sweet flowers the perfumed glory of 
 Their noble deeds. Not till the stars fade, and 
 The last man of the race has passed, shall the 
 A\ 7 orld forget our Washington, our Lincoln 
 And our Grant, nor our great Grand Army the 
 Light of whose heroic deeds makes Freedom s 
 Noonday brightness. 
 
 Then ring, O ring today 
 The joy-bells of the Nation! for man holds 
 His manhood free, and all our lands lies in 
 God s lap of blessing. 
 
 THE LESSONS OF MEMORY. 
 Memorial Day. 
 
 We go in silence backward through the years. 
 Memory leads us, crowned with the starlight 
 Of tender thoughts. There are tears within her 
 Eyes, and her lids are heavy with sorrows 
 I T n forgotten. What sees she? Where leadeth 
 She? Look! listen! 
 
 Tis Spring in the warm South. 
 How pure the breath of orange bloom ! How the 
 Soft breezes stir, weighted with perfumed sweets ! 
 The bulbul sings in the forest that fringes 
 The warm sunset. The rivers run on with 
 Happy laughter to meet the smiling sea. 
 In the cotton fields the negro labors. 
 The sun burns him, and the master s whip stings 
 
Westward Empire. 
 
 Him. His breath sweeps aching heartstrings. He lifts 
 
 His eyes and wonders if God sees. He sees 
 
 Men bought and sold, and wonders if God hears 
 
 The cry of tortured hearts. Chains clank where men 
 
 Are sold like cattle. Does God hear? 
 
 Fronting 
 
 The sun-warmed sea, throated with cannon are 
 The black walls of Sumter. The fort is Freedom s 
 Eye watching the land. Within, with pulse which 
 Throbs across the continent, Loyalty 
 Stands at the guns. Morn sees the Stripes and Stars; 
 Eve wafts their glorious colors with her 
 Breath. But from the pregnant womb of the fair 
 City fronting the fort, Treason, full-grown, 
 Hath leaped. Its breath is fire. Its heart is hate. 
 Its flag the Stars and Bars. Its drink, the blood of free 
 men. 
 
 God has heard the slave. The 
 Cannons thunder. Across the water they 
 Pour their fire on Sumter. Smoke wraps the fort; 
 Fast stand the loyal heroes. Not firmer 
 Stood they of Thermopylae. They shout back 
 With belching cannon. With leaden ball, with 
 Hurtling shot, with bursting shell, defy the 
 Traitor. The Nation, as with one eye, watches; 
 As with one ear, hears. Through all the loyal 
 North thousands of hearts beat as one when 
 Sumter falls. From the forge comes the sturdy 
 Blacksmith, with arms brawny enough to bear 
 The shield of Hercules. From his desk the 
 Clerk, his brows knit with weightier problem 
 Than all his columned figures. From his store 
 The merchant, clasping his musket. From the 
 College the man of science and the young 
 Student, grasping the sword. From the pulpit 
 The man of God, armed with the love of right 
 And ready for the leaden hail. From the 
 Farm the farmer and the laborer, their 
 Hearts beating like drums to the music of 
 Freedom. The mother kisses her son and 
 Gives him to her country. The wife s heart is 
 Torn with the sharp clutch of Sorrow, and bleeds 
 Within her breast, but her words drop blessing 
 And tenderness, and the breath of courage 
 The husband feels upon his cheek as her 
 Lips kiss him farewell. The maiden smiles through 
 Tears upon her lover, but as she bids 
 Him go the word sounds like a death-knell to 
 Her hopes. 
 
 Later, the little children lift 
 Their dimpled hands and cry for papa, but the 
 House is still, for papa has gone. In the 
 Wife s ears rings ever the sound of battle, 
 And her dreams are of death and white faces 
 Turned upward to the stars; but she does not 
 Falter. Oftimes the maiden, like a lily 
 Plucked from its stalk, fades with longing and 
 With waiting, but no word is sent to her 
 Lover to weaken his courage. 
 
 And so 
 
 Went forth our armies. Under the stars they 
 Slept, under the sun they fought. Footsore and 
 Bleeding they marched. Fronting long lines of steel, 
 F routing fixed bayonets, rushed onto the 
 Foe. With smoke poisoning the air, with fire 
 In their faces, and Death marching before 
 Them, still they pressed on. 
 
 O the armies of 
 
 Dead ! O the breathless bivouacs where not 
 A breast heaved nor a pulse stirred ! where eyes 
 Stared up to the moon and the sun, and where 
 Forms were as stiff as stark winter-trees! O 
 The horrors of prison-pens, where skeletons 
 Walked, tortured by hunger, with life enough 
 Only to breathe! O the rivers of blood 
 Which made holy the ground ! O the graves which 
 Are like altars, where the brave sleep, and where 
 Freedom hath wept ! O the homes where Death wall:i-:l 
 In the silence, each step on some heart ! These 
 Memory shows us as we walk today 
 Where smileth white-robed Peace, and birds sing nealli 
 Skies that bend no more above the smoke of 
 Battle; and where green grasses wave to hide 
 The furrows made by War s red plowshare, and 
 Mid the rustling of her robes the whisper 
 Falls, stirring our hearts with its electric 
 Breath. The land thick-sown with heroes graves should 
 
 bring forth 
 
 God-like harvests. The Nation s purposes 
 Should grow straight up to heaven, as trees grow 
 Sunward. Remember the brave who died to 
 Save the glory of their country, and guard 
 Well the land they loved. 
 
 WESTWARD EMPIRE. 
 
 Look up with tender eyes, O earth so fair! 
 
 Unto the shining sun; 
 
 Lean down, O skies ! with sapphire eyes 
 
 Unto the mounts which come 
 
 Thrusting their shoulders into the deeps 
 
 Of the far heavens, with them breathing 
 
 The breath of stars, and feeling 
 
 The leaping thunders stealing 
 
 O er clouded paths along; 
 
 Hearing the wondrous song 
 
 Of the far-circling spheres. 
 
 Hoary, O mounts! are ye with years, 
 
 Yet young in the light of the sun, 
 
 When the lips of the morning are prest 
 
 All glowing and warm on your crest 
 
 Do ye look, and tender the glow 
 
 Which burns on your foreheads of snow. 
 
 O mounts! with your granite-wrought lips, 
 
 Ye are dumb ! ye are dumb ! 
 
 Yet sometimes we know that a tongue 
 
 Ye do find for your echoing crags, 
 
 For they beat the still air with their sound. 
 
 And break all the silence around; 
 
Poems of Patriotism. 
 
 They answer the roar of the thunder, 
 And the cataracts leaping from under 
 Their feet, and they shriek back to the cry 
 Of the mad whirlwind rending the sky. 
 
 But, O crags! ye are dumb, ye are dumb! 
 
 When to ye we questioning come 
 
 And ask of the ages agone, 
 
 And ask of the people who lie 
 
 In the bosom of earth, neath the sky 
 
 Which living they loved, your lips 
 
 Are fro/en with silence. The tips 
 
 Of the pines, which are dark 
 
 In the sunshine as well as the storm, 
 
 Seem touching the stars, and they lean 
 
 On the breath of the ether, between 
 
 The earth and the sky. Do they know 
 
 Aught of the myriads below 
 
 The races who have come and have gone, 
 
 Who for ages have slept in the breast 
 
 Of this warm-bosomed earth, at rest 
 
 For all-time neath the stars? 
 
 Can they tell us the secrets ye know, 
 
 O crags ! with your altars of snow, 
 
 And your oaks, like the priests of old Time, 
 
 Which beat to the rhythm and rhyme 
 
 Of the psalms of the ages, which flow 
 
 From the lips of the tempests which blow, 
 
 And from tender-voiced zephyrs at eve, 
 
 With a sob as if Nature did grieve 
 
 For her long-vanished children today, 
 
 Who are but dust to nourish the rose, 
 
 And the sun-loving palm-tree which grows, 
 
 Drawing its life from their death? 
 
 They may know, they may know, but their breath 
 
 Tells only of life, not of death. 
 
 sky! down bending so fair 
 All fair with star-islands ye are, 
 And white Milky Way which is trod, 
 
 1 am sure, by the angels of God 
 Afar in the silences spread, 
 
 Twixt the stars in the deeps overhead, 
 Do ye hold the pathway they passed? 
 Did ye catch the sweep of their wings 
 The wings of their spirits unfurled 
 As they left behind them the world 
 With its blue-bosomed sea all bedecked 
 With its jewels of isles, where have crept 
 Through the ages the tides at their play? 
 The world with its sunshine and calm, 
 With its glory of orange and palm, 
 This world of the West on the rim 
 Of the sunset. O skies ! can ye tell 
 Oh, whisper it low ! what befell 
 Those dusky-hired children of yore, 
 That they faded from mountain and shore? 
 Through the starry-gemmed regions of light 
 Can ye find not some trace of their flight? 
 The sky gives back never a sound, 
 Through the deeps of its silence profound 
 No answer is heard, but the song of the bird floateth 
 down. 
 
 O starry-eyed Occident land! 
 O blossom-lipped, beauteous land ! 
 Whose winter is golden as noon; 
 Whose breath is the orange perfume; 
 Whose blood is the warm ruddy wine 
 That flows from the fruit of the vine; 
 Whose pulse is the calm, stormless sea; 
 Whose gold is the harvests that be 
 On thy luminous valleys and hills. 
 A voice cometh to me that thrills 
 Like the voice of a prophet my soul. 
 
 hoary old mounts! ye may keep 
 In your breasts the secrets which sleep 
 Neath your crags and your pines. 
 
 To a vision-blest Patmos I turn, 
 
 And I m done with the ashes-filled urn 
 
 Of the Past. O vision sublime! 
 
 1 see the grand future of Time, 
 I see on these shores of the West, 
 Where long-vanished nations do rest, 
 Like a seed that is sown, 
 
 A glory like that of the sun. 
 
 O Nebo! I stand on your height 
 
 And my eyes grow glad at the sight 
 
 Of the vision T see. God s pillar of cloud and of fire 
 
 Leadeth westward, and Freedom s desire 
 
 Leadeth on to this land of the sun. 
 
 God hath lifted the race to the heights of His will, 
 
 And Freedom wears stars that like planets do fill 
 
 The space of His purpose divine. 
 
 Sierras, rock-ribbed and snow-crowned, 
 
 The grand Alps of Freedom rise higher than ye, 
 
 And down on the shores of this sea 
 
 The splendor of Empire doth rest, 
 
 Like God s crown on the race. 
 
 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 
 
 Twas a fair city of those olden times 
 
 To which Columbus came, hugging his dream 
 
 Of undiscovered lands lying across 
 
 The shadowy sea, as yet unploughed 
 
 By keel of any ship than the blue, starlit 
 
 Skies more pathless. For years, by night and day 
 
 Had the great Pilot heard its voice calling 
 
 Him with enticing speech. Arise! arise! 
 
 The beckoning west seemed crying. Beyond 
 
 The horizon s purpling lines the lapping 
 
 Seas seemed kissing golden shores, and as he 
 
 Breathed Seville s soft airs, heavy with odors 
 
 Of fragrant jasmine and spicy pomegranate, 
 
 And dreamed beneath her opalescent skies, 
 
 Or within her Moorish temples worshiped 
 
 Where saintly statues rose, or walked in courts 
 
 Of marble, where fountains sang in tinkling 
 
 Melody, and grand cathedral walls, set 
 
 With bright gems, echoed the music of the 
 
 Swaying bells, and where he drank the lemon s 
 
 Spicy breath, or trod beneath green-needled 
 
 Pines, their aromatic wine inhaling, 
 
ISABELLA OFFERING TO PLEDGE HER JEWELS TO AID COLUMBUS. 
 [From the Painting by A. Munoz Dcgrain.] 
 
CJt rUtopher C olit mbux. 
 
 And watched the ships lying at anchor by 
 
 The Golden Tower, and had speech with men 
 
 Ot science and of thought, he nursed his hopes 
 
 Anew, and the Xew World brightened to his 
 
 Vision. O large-souled man ! waiting and 
 
 Waiting still, through weary years, till thy smooth 
 
 Brow grew furrowed, and Disappointment s stern 
 
 Winter whitened thy hair, divinest patience 
 
 Was thy crown until the New World, mid its 
 
 Smiling seas, rose to thy sight, set in the sunset s heart. 
 
 But not from fair Seville, where 
 Guadalquiver s shining waters sunward 
 Flashed, sailed his proud ships toward the setting 
 Sun; but from small Palos, dreaming by the 
 Wave, home of sea toilers, did at last like 
 A star out of midnight set the great Captain 
 Forth to find the waiting world within the 
 Unknown West. The little town ran to and 
 Fro to see the three small ships upon the 
 Shining sea, mere motes upon the waters; 
 And women, with their babes upon their breasts, 
 Bemoaned his folly in defying death; 
 And some among the curious watching crowd 
 Talked scornfully, and winked their eyes, and shrugged 
 Their heavy shoulders, and called him madman, 
 Fool, and driveling foreign idiot, who 
 Yet should bait the fishes with his flesh when 
 In the restless deeps of unknown seas the 
 Maddened billows raging in their wrath should 
 Howl his requiem. The criminal, with 
 The strong iron bars twixt him and freedom, 
 Shut from heaven s blessed air and day s sweet light. 
 The foul dungeon walls his sunless and his 
 Starless firmament, his strong limbs cramped by 
 Narrowness of space, scorned liberty when 
 Offered at the price of sailing with this 
 So-called mad adventurer, and hugged his 
 Chains, and hugged captivity and noisome 
 Prison cell. Our God was there. The New World s 
 Shores were not for such as he. 
 
 O ever 
 
 Blest Rabida! Beneath thy red-tiled roof, 
 Loved by the morning sun, kissed by his beams 
 When sinking to the west, beacon upon 
 The pine-clad heights of Palos, thou nursing 
 Mother of those mighty hopes cradling a 
 World unknown! God touched the eyelids of 
 Thy children, and friar and padre bridged 
 The deep with prayers, helped to swing backward 
 On their ponderous hinges the great Past s 
 Iron doors. And there with steadfast gaze walked 
 Silently the noble Admiral, while 
 Scanning sea and sky, Hope s fire burning beneath 
 His lids, and his large-visioned 
 Eyes, forever seeing things unseen, turned 
 To his golden dreamland of the fair yet 
 Undiscovered world. Upon thy shores, O 
 "Memory-haunted Palos," the midnight 
 Of Time s past gave place to golden dawn of 
 Freedom, and those rude caravels, like specks 
 
 Upon the great sea s breast, saw a New World 
 
 Rise upon far western waters, where, sleeping, 
 
 Lay the whole world s hopes, broad ning the round, sweri 
 
 Earth, and broad ning man as he inhales 
 
 Its atmosphere of freedom. O dawn most 
 
 Pregnant when these small ships sailed from Palos! 
 
 The starlight pales within the glowing east, 
 
 From La Rabida s height Columbus comes 
 
 With hurrying feet; youth s heart seemed stirring 
 
 In his breast once more. The years of waiting 
 
 Are behind him now. The fluttering sails 
 
 Move him like angels wings. The hurrying 
 
 Steps of sailors on the decks is music 
 
 To his ears. The boatswain s whistle is like 
 
 Gabriel s horn. The Cross is there above 
 
 His vessels spars. The rising breeze swift fills 
 
 His waiting sails. Farewells are said, the anchors 
 
 Weighed, the unknown sea before them, but 
 
 Mystery beyond the blue horizon s walls. 
 
 O days and days with naught but sky and 
 
 Sea! the blazing sun, the far and silent 
 
 Stars, or clouds and rain and howling tempests 
 
 Wrath, and those small ships upon the boundless 
 
 Waste of mighty waters. A mocking ghost, 
 
 Despair, sits at the helm and clutches each 
 
 Sailor s heart; only the leader s soul lost 
 
 Not its faith; only his dauntless courage never failed. 
 
 But one sweet morn, when purple 
 
 Lay the West, and Morning s star shone on 
 
 The sleeping skies, and calm was on the sea, 
 
 And white birds floated on the rippling waves, 
 
 And berry-brightened boughs seemed laden with 
 
 Hope s wine, floating the deep, sweet as the starry 
 
 Paean at Creation s birth, when sang the 
 
 Morning stars together, one glad note ran 
 
 Across that unknown sea. "Land! Land!" 
 
 Then pealed 
 
 The signal gun and shouts and joyous cries 
 Of sailors swept the air, and glad Te Deums 
 Broke upon the decks. At last ! at last ! the 
 Waiting years were crowned. 
 
 Four hundred years! four hundred years! 
 
 And a continent we bring, 
 Where from ocean unto ocean 
 
 Each man s a sovereign king. 
 Fling wide our starry banner, 
 
 No slave beneath its fold, 
 And tell our children s children 
 
 This deathless story old. 
 
 SOMETIMES. (1898.) 
 
 God s day does sometimes come 
 Through darkness and the gloom 
 Of a dead nation s tomb. 
 
 Sometimes from blood and death 
 The fairest blossoms spring 
 And Hope finds surest wing. 
 
 93 
 
Poems of Patriotism. 
 
 Sometimes God lifts His arm 
 We hear His anvil ring, 
 And then may Freedom sing. 
 
 struggling nations, hear! 
 God s arm is now uplift, 
 And His new day is near. 
 
 1 see its blessed dawn, 
 As in the heaving main 
 
 Sink the great ships of Spain. 
 
 And as I see afar, 
 
 Above the isle-gemmed seas, 
 
 Our banner in the breeze, 
 
 So proudly flung, and there 
 See Freedom s sure advance, 
 Strong as an avalanche. 
 
 O blessed "Sometime," when 
 God as our captain draws 
 His sword in righteous wars, 
 
 And when, with ear attent, 
 Unto His children s cry 
 Salvation draweth nigh. 
 
 EARTH S GREAT SEAS. (1898.) 
 
 Earth s wondrous oceans looking to the sky, 
 Mirroring the sun and all the wide, vast blue, 
 
 The glory of the countless stars on high, 
 
 The great, grand mountains, old yet ever new. 
 
 Kissing earth s shores with white-lipped waves of foam, 
 With soft breath cooling all the sultry land, 
 
 Sweeping afar, beneath the great world s dome, 
 To isles which do like cradled empires stand. 
 
 To far, far lands where Tyranny doth reign, 
 Crushing whole peoples with its weight of woe, 
 
 And then away to other lands again, 
 That brood in silence mid eternal snow. 
 
 And then to lands that lie as if a-dream, 
 Neath skies that smile in floods of golden light, 
 
 So fair they do a modern Eden seem, 
 A world of beauty filling sense and sight. 
 
 O seas so vast ! Ye mighty "half-world seas !" 
 Your pulses beat as old and strong as Time, 
 
 The great lands sleep beside ye, and ye call 
 Unto them ever with your voice sublime. 
 
 Vast highways are ye, where, unhindered, grand, 
 In its great march hath Freedom s footsteps trod, 
 
 Gathering within her arms an island land, 
 The fairest pearl sown by the hand of God. 
 
 Sweeping afar to where the Orient lies, 
 Gemmed with the islands sleeping on thy breast, 
 
 Ye have made pathways neath the bending skies, 
 Which Freedom sought, where halting Empire rests. 
 
 Ye ve borne our flag, our starry flag afar, 
 
 And peace hath dawned where er its colors wave, 
 
 And Hope hath smiled above the front of war, 
 And hoary Tyranny hath found its grave. 
 
 And our blest banner with its Stripes and Stars 
 Shall wave forever on those farther shores, 
 
 And men grow great and free, while Freedom bars 
 Her gates gainst wrong, and holds her golden stores 
 
 Open to all, whate er their race may be, 
 
 Great that God made them men, and greater grown, 
 As years pass by, in that their souls shall see 
 
 Themselves unfold in the grand harvest sown 
 Beneath the banner of the brave and free. 
 
 ROLL ONWARD. (1898.) 
 
 O measureless the sea that is gnawing the land, 
 And holding the shores in the grasp of its hand! 
 Broad, vast as the sky with its star-fields unfurled, 
 With pulse beating time with the heart of the world. 
 
 Great highway of nations ! thy wide waters roll 
 From the noon of the South to the night of the Pole; 
 They clasp the far East like a pearl to their breast, 
 Then move like a god to the star-lighted West. 
 
 Sail onward, sail swift, O ye ships of the free! 
 And hasten the dawn of that grander To-Be; 
 Your legions are shod with right clear as the sun, 
 And the strong voice of Freedom speaks out from each 
 
 gun- 
 Roll onward, great ocean, roll onward and bear 
 The legions of Liberty on to the war; 
 Make a path o er thy deep for Freedom to tread 
 W T ith our own starry banner proud waving o erhead. 
 
 WHEN THE BATTLE BREAKS. (1898.) 
 
 We know not what may be; th unwritten years 
 
 Are dim with clouds of heavy doubts and fears; 
 
 Peace hides her face, and War with dripping hands 
 
 And horrid front within the future stands 
 
 We hear the thunders from the cannon s throat, 
 
 Black ning the air, its poisoned smoke does float 
 
 In sulphurous masses like the breath of hell; 
 
 Hear curses, shrieks and the despairing yell 
 
 Of routed forces; see the watery main 
 
 Torn as by cyclones, covered with the slain, 
 
 Reddened with blood of heroes brave and true, 
 
 Who die for Freedom and for me and you. 
 
 And oh! the countless other hosts who die 
 
 For cursed Tyranny, who forgotten lie 
 
 Dead on the deep beneath a tropic sky, 
 
 And on the land by castle s front and fire, 
 
 Mown down in ranks, these martyred hosts expire, 
 
 While tossing waves fling on the waiting shore 
 
 The white-faced dead whose battles are all o er 
 
 The brave, the true, the gallant and the young, 
 
 Whose deeds shall yet by Fame s proud voice be sung. 
 
 O white immortals! Freedom s noblest sons! 
 
 Heroes who stood unflinching by your guns! 
 
Our Country s Call. 
 
 Nor swerved one inch amid the leaden hail, 
 
 Nor did the might of your strong courage fail. 
 
 Nursed in the years of perfumed peace, ye grew 
 
 High-souled as truth, and to your country true. 
 
 Ye cannot die, though Spanish guns mav beat 
 
 Your great souls deathward; though your bannered fleet 
 
 Sink, like the Maine, beside that alien shore. 
 
 Deathless are ye, deathless forevermore, 
 
 Brave men, grand heroes who for us have bled, 
 
 Life is as nothing in the scale where shed 
 
 Is human blood for Freedom; War s red scars 
 
 Are Honor s badge beneath the Stripes and Stars. 
 
 Boom, boom, O guns! the leaden hail may plow 
 
 The sea and shore, but ever at the prow 
 
 Of our great battleships, courageous, calm, 
 
 Shall stand our heroes with unfaltering arm; 
 
 Strong for the right, and swift shall be unfurled, 
 
 Earnest of peace, unto the watching world, 
 
 The Stars and Stripes, the ensign of the free, 
 
 The priceless flag of sacred Liberty. 
 
 E en the black torpedoes beneath the ships 
 
 Shall speak, with their terrible blackened lips, 
 
 Freedom for man, and out of their thunder 
 
 Shall the calm of Peace come, riven asunder 
 
 The strength of th tyrant whose throne shall be hurled, 
 
 Broken and crushed, neath the feet of the world. 
 
 OUR COUNTRY S CALL. (1898.) 
 Our Country, O our Country! do ye not hear its call, 
 As with drum and thundering cannon it s appealing unto 
 
 all? 
 
 It is crying out for soldiers, it is calling men to take 
 The stirring front in battle for blessed Freedom s sake. 
 
 Give, give, O wives! your husbands, most priceless gift 
 ye know, 
 
 And hold your hearts from selfishness and from rebel 
 lious woe; 
 
 Send them with prayers and blessings, and tender love 
 and true, 
 
 To battle now for human need stand fast, both me and 
 you! 
 
 O the full and bitter vintage of wearing hopes and fears ! 
 the weary path of loneliness that is wet with burning 
 
 tears ! 
 O the heartache and the sorrow that must conn- to you 
 
 and me, 
 They are woman s priceless sacrifice for th cause of 
 
 Liberty. 
 
 Give, give your sons, O mothers ! the young, the true, the 
 
 brave, 
 
 Sons of a mighty continent that tyrant knows nor slave; 
 Go forth in dauntless legions to fight for human weal, 
 With th voice of Justice speaking from your lines of 
 
 burnished steel. 
 
 Give, give, O gentle maidens! the men your love hath 
 
 crowned, 
 Their strong and tender hearts and true will make cadi 
 
 battle-ground, 
 
 Like those of sons and husbands, earth s consecrated 
 
 place 
 Holy of Holies will it be for Freedom and the race. 
 
 O God is with our legions, and His foot is on the sea, 
 He is holding now the sabre that shall make a people 
 
 free, 
 He is raining down His blessing on our armies as thcv 
 
 fight, 
 And His arm will give the victory to Freedom and the 
 
 right. 
 
 FREEDOM S SEED. (1898.) 
 
 O the glory of the dawning ! O the splendor of the day ! 
 
 When the power of th oppressor shall be broken by our 
 sway ; 
 
 When great Freedom plants her banner beside tin- 
 spreading palm, 
 
 And the fury of the battle melteth into tropic calm. 
 
 When the famished lips of Hunger shall no more be 
 
 starved and white, 
 
 Or the cruel hand of Slaughter be lifted in the fight; 
 Where the placid oceans whisper of but perfume and of 
 
 rest, 
 And the island in the sunlight seems a garden of the 
 
 blest. 
 
 Hear the pulses of the Nation in the drum beats of tin- 
 brave, 
 
 Who with heart athrob with pity go to succor and to 
 save 
 
 Those whose lives are crushed and bleeding, torn by 
 tyrant s cruel hand, 
 
 Till we at their cries of anguish could no longer move 
 less stand. 
 
 Lo! the mills of the gods grind slowly, and the centuries 
 
 fly past, 
 Laden with the wrongs of ages, which we will wipe out 
 
 at last; 
 Cuba, scourged, down-trodden, bleeding, lift your face, 
 
 redemption nears, 
 Speaking from our belching cannon, smiling from our 
 
 shining spears. 
 
 Land of endless Summer, lying like a pearl upon the 
 deep, 
 
 We forget not in your bosom do the Maine s brave heroes 
 sleep; 
 
 From their graves shall spring the bravest of our self- 
 appointed trust, 
 
 Freedom s seed is lying hidden in each grain of sacred 
 dust. 
 
 AMERICA. (1898.) 
 
 It is a long, long march from savagery 
 
 To the heights of Freedom, where man looks forth 
 
 Glorious in manhood s fullness, king of 
 
 The world, master of self, ruler of his 
 
 Own passions, with soul aflame 
 
Poems of Patriotism. 
 
 With godlike longings, aspiring upward 
 
 To the great and true, which are immortal. 
 
 Mere existence is not life. To truly 
 
 Live, the soul must be awake with all its 
 
 Powers. It must be up and doing, and winged with 
 
 Mighty purposes, warm as the blessed 
 
 Sunlight, active as the winds which walk the 
 
 World and sweep the far-off skies. There is no 
 
 Limit that we know to man s attainment. 
 
 Forever on and on is Being s law; 
 
 Forever up and higher tends the soul 
 
 When true unto itself. Tis thus we walk, 
 
 Tis thus we rise, till, lo! the savage in 
 
 Our nature dies, and man is made fit for 
 
 Freedom. O Starry Banner! emblem of the free! 
 
 How hath the race moved onward neath thy folds! 
 
 A continent to Liberty hath here 
 
 Been born beneath thy stars; and where once did 
 
 Roam the savage, lo! today the grandest 
 
 People that Old Time hath known doth high-souled 
 
 Walk the path of Progress. Humanity 
 
 Doth feed their hearts with pity for the weak, 
 
 And their souls are tender for the needy. 
 
 The Stars and Stripes speak to the listening world 
 
 Of Humanity s great brotherhood. The 
 
 Very air seems freer where they wave, and 
 
 Stirred by tenderer pulses. Free from stain 
 
 Is the grand, starry flag of the free and the brave 
 
 As the blue of the heavens overhead 
 
 When the day shineth clear of a cloud and 
 
 The glory of sunlight filleth the world 
 
 With its light. Land illumined with splendor, 
 
 Fair as the sun, with a story as white 
 
 As the stars, no blot on thy name, no step 
 
 That leads backward, but on, ever onward 
 
 For Freedom and man doth America 
 
 Press, while watcheth the whole world with amaze. 
 
 THE RACE SHALL WAKE. (1898.) 
 
 The great fair Earth, it has a voice for me, 
 
 Breathed from the leaf-tongued trees and blooming 
 flowers, 
 
 From mountain tops and from the vast wide sea, 
 Through Morning s glory and the sunset hours. 
 
 The calm, dim sweetness of the opening Dawn, 
 The glory of the full, sun-flooded Noon, 
 
 The star-eyed beauty when the Night is born, 
 Are each the notes of one majestic tune. 
 
 Full-choired and sweet the glorious anthem rings 
 Through Earth s vast aisles, dim lit by taper stars, 
 
 Through the grand arches where the sunlight flings 
 Throughout the day its shining golden bars. 
 
 Each water-drop within the flowing stream, 
 Each grassy blade upon the valley s breast, 
 
 Holding within its arms the sunlight s gleam, 
 
 Speaks of God s care, which knoweth pause nor rest. 
 
 Sometimes, when Nature leans with brooding brow, 
 Cloud-decked, and swept by many a stormy breath, 
 
 She seems a mourner, and we marvel how 
 
 Her great heart throbs with anguish and with death. 
 
 Nature loves peace, she loveth calm and light, 
 Clear skies and tranquil sea and smiling land, 
 
 But still the storm comes, elements do fight 
 And grim Destruction stalks on every hand. 
 
 So on the still, calm brightness of our day 
 
 Our day of peace, and growing strength and light 
 
 Broke AVar s red tempest, and the awful sway 
 Of maddened passions struggling in the fight. 
 
 But out of this mad tempest yet shall break 
 Great hopes for nations, and our arm shall be 
 
 The stay of Freedom, and the race shall wake 
 To fairer day, to higher destiny. 
 
 BLOSSOMS ON THE DEEP. 
 (Decoration Day, 1900.) 
 
 Strew flowers upon the wave, 
 Tributes to heroes brave 
 
 Who died for men. 
 Their high souls daring death, 
 They fought till latest breath 
 
 For Right and Liberty; 
 
 Martyrs they be. 
 
 They died for you and me 
 That we might all be free 
 
 From might of Wrong. 
 They struck at Tyranny 
 Which threatened Liberty 
 
 With iron yoke to bind 
 
 And fetter all. 
 
 Brave men and true were they, 
 And deathless is the way 
 
 Which they have gone; 
 For in our hearts they live, 
 And freely do we give 
 
 To those immortal ones 
 
 Love s tribute here. 
 
 Strew flowers upon the deep, 
 The cradle where they sleep, 
 
 And let them rest; 
 Rest in secure repose, 
 Till this earth life shall close, 
 
 And cruel war no more 
 
 Unsheathes the sword. 
 
 O surging waves! roll on 
 In ever endless flow 
 
 O er Freedom s sons! 
 Hallow each year anew 
 The deeds they dared to do, 
 
 Fearless in Right s own might, 
 
 For Country s sake. 
 
 96 
 

 THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 
 
Freedom s Land. 
 
 FREEDOM S LAND. (1901.) 
 
 This continent of ours between the seas, 
 A vast wide empire on whose breast might rise 
 Thousands of cities great as Rome of old- 
 Greater in might and in free majesty 
 Its farther shores bathed in the sunrise light, 
 While its great West is resting in the arms 
 Of star-crowned Night, and where, while Winter walks 
 Upon its sunrise borders, Summer loth 
 Sit beside its western seas, breathing sweet 
 Balms and fragrance, her feet flower-sandaled 
 And her robes woven of rich emerald 
 Grasses, her air filled with the melody 
 Of birds and the symphony of running 
 Waters this land is Freedom s own, pregnant 
 With promise for the race. Glorious with 
 Hope, the future turns to it her smiling 
 Face, while Tyranny doth slink into his 
 Darksome paths, and, trembling, seeks the shadows 
 Of some other clime where tyrants, iron- 
 Shod, dare walk and murder Liberty. O 
 How fair thy shining pages when unrolled! 
 Here God hath set thee twixt two mighty seas, 
 Gemmed thy great breast with lakes like oceans in 
 Their vastness, and they ve grown white \\ith sails of 
 Commerce; here, like some unslumbering god 
 Of old some mighty Titan stretched the "Great 
 Father of Waters," and unrolled the wide 
 Prairies, where may grow unnumbered harvests; 
 Ana elsewhere lifted mounts that thrust their heads 
 Above the cloudy curtains of the sky 
 Into the blue deeps where planets shine, and 
 The Sun s great eye forever looks undimmed 
 Upon the bright heavens. Land whose harvests 
 Are enough to feed the world; whose mines of 
 Gold and silver might fill the treasuries 
 Of all nations; neath whose soil is stored full 
 Seas of oil, enough to light all lands, and 
 Furnish fuel for all industries, and 
 Where Jehovah s hand hath reared uncounted 
 Forests, whose green leaves weave a canopy 
 Of shade when Summer sleeps within the wood, 
 And, touched by the gentle breeze, send lute-like 
 Music forth to glad the listening ear, 
 As if somewhere a seraph whispered mid 
 The silence. There are giants in these woods 
 Amid our high Sierras who clasped hands 
 W T ith Time when youth was on his forehead, and 
 The race was in its infancy, dwelling 
 In tents or sleeping neath the stars. The proud 
 Sequoias lifted their heads above 
 The fair young earth and gladdened it with their 
 Fresh loveliness. The golden sunbeams on 
 Their swaying leaves fell softly as they were 
 Nature s kisses full of tenderness, and 
 Warm, nursing care. The air, which, like a fond 
 Caress touched the bronzed foreheads of Bethlehem s 
 Shepherds, wafted across the oceans wide, 
 Blew mid their leaves, while happy birds among 
 
 Their branches sang. Land where Science doth sit 
 Garbed in her grand achievements, conqueror 
 Of Nature s forces; where we do speak across 
 The continent and make the lightning s tongue 
 Whisper our message for us. Land where church 
 And school and might} printing-press are thick 
 Sown as stars in the blue vault of Night, where 
 Each citizen is king, sovereign of 
 His own destiny. Land of proud heroes 
 Whose immortal deeds are deathless as the 
 Liberty for which they fought; thy soil is 
 Sacred soil, made holy by the baptism 
 Of patriots blood, and by the countless 
 Graves made glorious by their sacrifice. 
 
 And not until Night s countless stars 
 Shall pale, and the great life-nursing Sun go 
 Out in utter darkness, shall thine own sons 
 Prove false to Freedom and to thee, 
 O land we love! great Land of Liberty. 
 
 THE SCHOOL OF LIBERTY. (1901.) 
 
 How far away that dead old Past doth seem ! 
 How like to fiction or a strange-wrought dream, 
 When this wide land, lying between the seas, 
 Cradled the savage, lifted to the breeze 
 Forests as vast as empires, plains as lone 
 As if all life from this whole earth had flown. 
 When ne er the roar of Iron Horse was heard, 
 Nor busy Industry the silence stirred; 
 When the slow tread of ox-team broke the way 
 Across the continent, when night and day 
 Dangers beset men as they onward passed 
 Brave sons of Freedom o er the deserts vast; 
 An Empire s space unfolding wide to view, 
 With hills and plains and grandeur ever new. 
 No rails of steel the mighty distance spanned, 
 No cities stood in this unpeopled land. 
 The distant West how full of mystery, 
 How dim the forecast of its destiny ! 
 The mighty Now was not foreshadowed then, 
 Its greatness ne er had touched the hopes of men; 
 No visions stirred of the grand Yet-to-be 
 This proud Tomorrow of our liberty. 
 
 Slowly the nation woke and Freedom stirred, 
 
 The solemn voice of Destiny was heard; 
 
 The East and West clasped hands, th Star of Empire s 
 
 day 
 
 Westward with shining beams did wend its way; 
 O er tracks of steel the Iron Horse did speed, 
 Church, school and printing-press following its lead; 
 Great cities rose upon the wide-spreading plains, 
 And the Flag waves from east to western mains, 
 And now we sit beside this western sea, 
 With germ of Empire budding silently 
 Kmpire of free men a continent to be, 
 The school of Progress and of Liberty. 
 
Poems of Patriotism. 
 
 ANARCHY. 
 
 (September 18, 1901.) 
 
 Hell oped its door and from its awful deep 
 A horrid monster crept. Blacker than hell 
 Itself its loathsome form. Its baleful eyes 
 Burned with a lurid light; its tongue was flame, 
 And each word dropped was fire to kindle all 
 The vilest passions of the soul. Hate is 
 Its offspring, and bloody Murder is its 
 Twin. On cruelty it doth feast, seasoned 
 By unmeasured treachery. No deed too 
 Black to stay its vengeful lust for power; 
 Its fangs are full of poison and are held 
 In readiness to make their deadly thrusts 
 Whene er occasion offers. Swift as the 
 Thunderbolt and fatal as the awful 
 Lightning s stroke are they. Its plottings are in 
 Secret. Friendship is not sacred, and its 
 Guise conceals the foulest purposes. 
 A hydra-headed monster this and many- 
 Armed, its track covered with venom s poisonous 
 biime, and today it walks abroad fattening 
 On Murder, lifting the assassin s arm, 
 Striking at all those who represent the 
 Majesty of law, and seeking to pull 
 Down the safeguards of Society, all 
 Barriers to crime, and make the world drunk 
 With the wine of lawlessness. O how the 
 Great heart of this Nation bleeds today through 
 What this awful monster s blood-stained hand hath 
 Wrought! Damnable as hell its deeds, 
 And black as its awful midnight. It hath 
 No conscience, and God it doth not fear. The 
 Brand of Cain is on its forehead, and Satan 
 Is its consort. Anarchy, spelled with the 
 Hellish alphabet of Crime, its dreadful 
 Name, and Assassination the black robe 
 It wears. As freely as the Sun drops its 
 Life-giving beams, so freely doth it wield 
 The dagger s point and the dread pistol-shot 
 Of the assassin. O great free land of 
 Ours, weeping in anguish by the Nation s 
 New-made grave, all loyal hearts rent with their 
 Speechless woe, up ! up ! and swear before high 
 Heaven, in Freedom s holy name, that this 
 Great land, baptized anew in th sacred blood 
 Of our beloved and martyred President, 
 Shall purge itself of Anarchy, nor give it place 
 To set its crime-stained foot, or move its blood-red 
 Hand, or lift its voice, mouthing at all times 
 Foulest blasphemies against Liberty 
 And Law, beneath the sacred banner of 
 The glorious Stripes and Stars. 
 
 "It is God s way," cried he, our nation s martyred son, 
 "It is God s way, not ours. Oh, let His will be done!" 
 And then he softly murmured Oh, hear from sea to 
 sea! 
 
 While holy trust sustained him "Nearer, my God, to 
 
 Thee." 
 It is God s way, we cannot doubt, to make this people 
 
 see 
 The threatening dangers that are hid in lawless 
 
 Anarchy, 
 
 And so unto the Cross we cling, through all this an 
 guished night, 
 But still, O Land of Freedom! rise in thy glorious 
 
 might- 
 While this great stricken people do bleed at every pore, 
 Oh, let them rise and swear again that Anarchy no more 
 Shall find a home among us here on Freedom s sacred 
 
 shore ; 
 Make this dear grave a stepping-stone to Freedom s 
 
 noblest height, 
 Then may we see God s purpose clear, and then the dark 
 
 grow light. 
 
 AMERICA S MORNING. (1901.) 
 
 O mighty sea ! asleep in Palos Bay, 
 With gold upon thy softly-rippling waves, 
 The blush of Morn within the Summer skies, 
 And when Noon comes the gold of ripened sun; 
 When ends the day, Night, star-crowned like a queen, 
 Bending above the quiet of the scene. 
 
 The rippling waves run with scarce-sounding feet, 
 There is a murmur in the quiet sea, 
 And Morning wakes to find upon the wave 
 One bright cloud watching them three ships, 
 Like great, white birds with wings outspread to fly, 
 Ready to tempt the wide sea s mystery. 
 
 One heart is there that pulses high and strong; 
 
 His eagle eyes look outward to the West, 
 
 AVith spirit vision he looks down the path, 
 
 And sees fair isles upon the tides asleep, 
 
 Beyond the purple of th horizon s line, 
 
 Where Day sleeps when its sun has ceased to shine. 
 
 Prophetic vision sets his soul aflame, 
 
 Again he says across the water s rack, 
 
 "There are some lands that only God hath seen, 
 
 Our three ships shall go sailing for their shores." 
 
 And to his sight those lands seemed beckoning, 
 
 Like breeze-swept boughs filled full of blossoming. 
 
 O the long days upon the trackless deep! 
 
 The days of storm, the nights when thunders rave, 
 
 The hours of mutiny, the hopeless days 
 
 When seas are reeling in the- tempest s wrath, 
 
 And faint hearts would turn backward from the 
 
 quest, 
 Hut for the strong heart in their leader s breast. 
 
Thi* Waking {Vest. 
 
 On, on these ships sail toward the silent West, 
 
 Till one fair morn, upon the vessel s deck, 
 
 Broke, like the music of an angel s voice, 
 
 The sudden cry, "Land! land ahead! fair shores 
 
 Amid the wide sea s sun-kissed wilderness, 
 
 A new world waits our weary hearts to bless." 
 
 O moment of Earth s ages! who can speak 
 
 The pregnant largeness of that wondrous hour? 
 
 The Past swooned, dying in its magic light, 
 
 The new day s dawn was full of vital air! 
 
 And Freedom s pulses throbbed around the world 
 
 From these new shores round which the vast seas curled. 
 
 THIS WAKING WEST. (1902.) 
 
 In the old days, ere was our Flag unfurled 
 
 Upon these farther shores that front the West, 
 
 As now upon the sunshine s golden flood, 
 
 This dreaming, semi-tropic land did rest. 
 
 Th wild-flowers bloomed, th emerald grasses grew, 
 
 Birds sang from dawn until the dewy eve, 
 
 And summer lingered all the happy year. 
 
 The caballero, with his eyes of night 
 
 And hair as glossy as a raven s wing, 
 
 Rode his proud steed as if it were a part 
 
 Of his own frame, doing his will, as did 
 
 His ready arm or his wandering feet, 
 
 While the gay senorita, with her dark, 
 
 Liquid eyes, beautiful as the starry 
 
 Midnight, smiled on him as she whispered words 
 
 Of honeyed sweetness, and her soft laughter 
 
 Was like the tinkle of a silver bell. 
 
 How glad the hours when their swift-flying feet 
 
 Kept time to the soft strains of mandolin 
 
 And sweet-voiced guitar, o er which their ready 
 
 Fingers ran, waking delightful melody. 
 
 Life then was but a long Today, a breath 
 
 Of ceaseless gladness, and their Tomorrows 
 
 Walked unquestioned and uncared for. It was 
 
 Enough for them To Be, in this glad world 
 
 Of sunshine and of fragrance. To do was 
 
 Not their creed. What mattered that yet unborn 
 
 Tomorrow which they might not see? Today 
 
 Was theirs, and it was full of beauty, and 
 
 They were glad in its brightness and its charm. 
 
 What though proud Progress walked not ever here? 
 
 What though the homes of sun-dried bricks were all 
 
 Their hands did raise to clot th emerald sward? 
 
 Was not the glory of the sunshine fair? 
 
 Was not the splendor of the hills most bright? 
 
 Was not the flooding sunshine ever warm? 
 
 Was it not June through all the gladsome year 
 
 A June of blossoms and of summer air? 
 
 Why, then, should they be sad or have a care? 
 
 No, life was like a song, and every day 
 
 Was filled to fullness with delight and joy. 
 
 The earth did blossom for them, fruits did grow, 
 
 The land was fair with Plenty s overflow. 
 
 It was enough, what more could they desire? 
 
 And so this realm lay waiting for the time 
 
 When Progress stirred, and when another race 
 
 Should come to find the riches hid within 
 
 The soil, and plant great orchards and wide vineyards 
 
 Here; build cities grand, and open Traffic s 
 
 Door; bid Commerce enter at our Golden 
 
 (jate, and lightning steeds climb our great mountain 
 
 Heights, and busy Industry set all her 
 
 Wheels a-whir, until the land should ring with 
 
 The proud march of ever-moving feet, and 
 
 This waking West should be the glory of 
 
 Expanding Freedom with her Stripes and Stars. 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 (Strewing flowers on the waves Memorial Day, 1902.) 
 
 O Freedom s glorious sons ! who sleep 
 Cradled within the Ocean s deep, 
 Ye cannot die; forever wide 
 As sweeps Old Ocean s restless tide 
 The winds shall bear your name afar. 
 Immortal are your deeds, they are 
 The sacred heritage of Time, 
 Forever blossoming; sublime 
 As God s great purposes, they broke 
 The Tyrant s power and Freedom woke 
 To deathless life. Then bring today 
 Earth s fairest flowers, and reverently 
 Upon the waters fling them wide 
 To the unresting Ocean s tide. 
 Wide as the sea, O let them roll! 
 A blossom for each hero s soul. 
 
 THE LAND OF THE STRIPES AND STARS. (1902.) 
 
 This wondrous land of ours, how wide it is 
 
 An l full of beauty! A continent of 
 
 Space, stretching from sea to sea, with vast plains 
 
 Outspread, and mountain heights uplifted till 
 
 They look the bulwarks of a world, so strong 
 
 Xot e en the giant Time could topple them; 
 
 With mighty rivers, the broad highways of 
 
 Commerce, singing clear the sounding anthem 
 
 Of unceasing Progress, and with lakes like 
 
 Inland seas, upon whose shores great cities 
 
 Lie, the wondrous marts of traffic, feeling 
 
 The pulse of trade throughout the whole round world. 
 
 All zones are clasped in its embracing arms. 
 
 On our far northern borders Winter is 
 
 Throned as king, with the iceberg for his scepter. 
 
 And the long Night, jeweled with stars, as the 
 
 Mantle for his shoulders. And here the wild 
 
 Winds thunder and beat in frantic madness 
 
 The frozen shores, and th sun walks timidly 
 
 Near the horizon s line, not daring the 
 
 Zenith, and trees grow dwarfed as fearing the 
 
 Cloud-touch of the frozen sky. Nature here 
 
 Is solitary. No singing bird or bee 
 
 E er breaks the silence, sate when the wild lark 
 
 Soars from his nest as th pale ghost of Summer 
 
 Comes for a few short weeks to wake th grasses 
 
 And to coax the few strange wild-flowers into 
 
Poeins of Patriotism. 
 
 Transient bloom. Next comes the zone of singing 
 
 Birds and mighty forests, whose hills are girt 
 
 With trees, whose rivers leap in gladness and 
 
 Run gaily on past meadows green, and the 
 
 Tasseled fields of corn and billowy seas 
 
 Of ripening wheat, the land of singing 
 
 Brooks and of plenteous harvests. Land of 
 
 Green valleys and of prairies wide, vast as 
 
 Some Old World empires. Summer and Winter 
 
 Hold each the scepter for a season here, 
 
 And Winter wears his robes of white until 
 
 Laughing Spring comes tip-toe o er the way, and 
 
 Paves a path for blooming Summer s feet, a 
 
 Path of roses and other blossoms fair. 
 
 The Earth smiles at her coming and is glad, 
 
 And makes ready her rich harvests for the 
 
 Oncoming Autumn, whose feet are sandaled 
 
 With swift-falling leaves, and who puts on robes 
 
 Of sober brown as Winter nears again, 
 
 To take the scepter from her hand and shroud 
 
 The Earth in his white and frozen silence. 
 
 Then on we pass across the continent 
 
 To the fair borders of this Sunset Land, 
 
 Where all the year is like a golden June, 
 
 And all the months have harvests rich and rare, 
 
 And where bird-song is never out of tune, 
 
 And Growth is piping gladly everywhere. 
 
 Our fruitful soil cold Winter never treads, 
 
 All blossom-garlanded December comes; 
 
 The orange ripens in his golden air, 
 
 Th bee and butterfly within his sunshine 
 
 Float; the lily lifts its gracious head and 
 
 Smiles; our vineyards bend beneath their ripened 
 
 Vintage rare, and glowing clusters lift their 
 
 Faces to the Sun in joy; pineapples 
 
 Glad us with their lusciousness ; bananas 
 
 Beckon in their yellow sheen, and guavas, 
 
 Garmented with rich coloring, do tempt 
 
 Our lips to taste their juicy fruit. Here glad 
 
 December walks like June, and ever wears 
 
 His emerald robes, and Day forever 
 
 Bids us out of doors, neath bending skies, 
 
 Filled full of warmth and light, 
 
 And arched like a gleaming sapphire o er th world. 
 
 IN THE TRACK OF EMPIRE. (1903.) 
 
 This mighty Southland, cradled in the West, 
 
 Kissed by the seas and crowned by mountains high, 
 
 Valleys like empires lying on its breast, 
 
 And fields of bloom outspreading countlessly 
 
 Is the great land the Future calls its own; 
 
 Dominion waiteth here, Freedom aspires 
 Amid this wondrous beauty to enthrone 
 
 The wisdom of her State, kindle her fires 
 
 As beacon-lights to shine around the world. 
 
 And Nature is her priestess. She has spread 
 Her glory round us, and she has unfurled 
 
 Her bannered vastness, with swift feet has fled 
 
 From Winter s frozen paths to walk the ways 
 That Summer s hand has paved with blossoms sweet: 
 
 Divine the splendor of her passing days, 
 
 Enchantment weaves the sandals for her feet. 
 
 This great Southwest! Unmeasured, vast and grand, 
 Its mountains near the stars, its waters leap 
 
 From cloud-swept heights, its forest band 
 Th unwhispered secrets of the ages keep. 
 
 For centuries twas hidden from the world, 
 Waiting Time s fullness and the glorious day 
 
 When Freedom s flag should proudly be unfurled, 
 And Liberty hold here its perfect sway. 
 
 That day has dawned, and now tis ours to build 
 For the great Future, wield the mighty stroke 
 
 That shatters Wrong, to teach the anthem trilled 
 By waiting Hope since first the race was born. 
 
 Let us be true, rise to our noble trust ! 
 
 Shape mighty deeds to make our Southland great, 
 Strike at Wrong with an unyielding thrust, 
 
 Let all our acts lend luster to the State. 
 
 THE PRESIDENT IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 (May 9, 1903-) 
 
 The great West opens wide her golden doors, 
 Behind which mountains rise and green vales lie, 
 
 And Beauty walks along her grassy moors 
 The land of vastness with its panoply 
 
 Of lofty peaks and wide-encircling seas, 
 
 And Nature s wonders and its mysteries. 
 
 The great West, with the Star of Empire crowned, 
 
 Where Freedom s pulse beats strong with loyalty, 
 Where great and growing cities may be found 
 
 The germs of greater cities yet to lie 
 The world of Sun, the world of blooming flowers 
 The fairest spot in this loved land of ours 
 Flings wide her gates with welcome in her air, 
 
 With bounding pulses as she hastes to greet 
 The Nation s Chief unfurls her banners fair, 
 
 To crown the pathways of his coming feet, 
 And brings her homage to her uncrowned king, 
 Fealty and love her willing offering. 
 
 OUR COUNTRY. (1904.) 
 
 How vast our country and how wide outspread, 
 Dimpled by lakes, by shining rivers fed, 
 Bordered by mighty "half-world seas" that lie 
 A trackless highway underneath the sky; 
 With towering mountains lifted to the blue, 
 Touching the spaces where the stars look through; 
 Valleys like empires in their boundless sweep, 
 And wondrous falls where the white waters leap, 
 With rainbows on their forehead, and their voice 
 Rending the air like thunder; cities like choice 
 Jewels uncounted rise from sea to sea, 
 Great forests lift their heads in majesty; 
 Like billowy seas the rippling wheat-fields lie, 
 
 100 
 
McKinley. 
 
 Touched by the breeze, their whispered melody 
 
 Is Plenty s song, so low and sweet and clear 
 
 It sweeps the chords of the whole atmosphere. 
 
 Kissed by the sunlight, the cornfields golden glow, 
 
 The cotton-fields are white as drifted snow; 
 
 Great orchards smile and vineyards stretch afar, 
 
 Unnumbered crops the vast wide spaces star. 
 
 Blest land of Freedom ! most divinely fair, 
 
 A land like thee we find not anywhere; 
 
 Xo land beneath the stars can vie with thee, 
 
 If true to Right and blessed Liberty. 
 
 M KINLEY. 
 
 [Read by Rev. Robert Mclntyre, D.D., at the dedication of the 
 McKinley Arch at Avery, January 7, 1904.] 
 
 God took of common clay and made a man, 
 
 One great in the majesty of manhood, 
 
 And grand in his nobility of soul; 
 
 Purity carved out the wondrous texture 
 
 From which his life was wrought, and tenderness 
 
 Was in the woof of character. Duty 
 
 And Right stood as sponsors for him, and high 
 
 Intelligence and love love for man poised 
 
 His great brain and made him wholly fit for 
 
 The lofty pedestal of power. His 
 
 White life was Christlike, and he held himself 
 
 The servant of the people. In his large 
 
 Heart he bore their needs, and with unfaltering 
 
 Purpose sought to answer them. His own wants 
 
 He crucified whene er in conflict came 
 
 They with the Nation s needs. The mountains, lift 
 
 Unto the skies, rock-ribbed and moveless, are 
 
 Not more fixed than his grand purpose, which stood 
 
 As firm and changeless as their eternal 
 
 Heights where the Right called for his sustaining 
 
 Strength, and Wrong was to be crushed by the 
 
 Iron-shod feet of Duty. The hills may tremble 
 
 Beneath the earthquake s shock and shrink from 
 
 Their firm foundations, but never would he 
 
 Falter or turn aside when Duty s voice 
 
 Called him to action. He was a tower 
 
 Of noble purpose, and yet a man whose 
 
 Tenderness might touch the stars; whose justice 
 
 Was far-seeing as the Sun; whose love was 
 
 Measureless as are the Ocean s tides; whose 
 
 Pity was like a sea un fathomed, and 
 
 Whose high sense of Right was strong as the 
 
 Tornado s sweep that lifts the sands and bows 
 
 The giant trees. Great man and true! The long, 
 
 Long centuries of Time shall breathe thy 
 
 Name, and the unforgetting patriot 
 
 Generations shall to their children teach 
 
 It as the synonym of all that s great 
 
 And high in noble, loyal manhood. So 
 
 Here we raise to thy imperishable 
 
 Memory this arch of stone, and as it 
 
 Stands and fronts the shining skies, and fronts the 
 
 Countless stars and the vast mountain heights that 
 
 Lift their heads to heaven, it shall speak unto 
 
 The winds of thee, and they shall waft thy name 
 
 Afar, and the stars shall hear, and the glad 
 
 Sun nurse it in tenderness and write it 
 
 On the sky with his bright beam; and coming 
 
 Generations shall exclaim, McKinley ! 
 
 The dearest synonym for patriot, 
 
 And for blameless, high-souled manhood. 
 
 Watchword of Liberty, the land you loved 
 
 Will write in noble deeds thy name, which cannot die. 
 
 101 
 
06 and Stature. 
 
 Where God thunders in billows of storm. 
 
 NATURE S VOICES. (1882.) 
 
 "Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night 
 sheweth knowledge." 
 
 The trailing robes of the departing Day 
 
 Swept all the mountain tops, lying in 
 
 Sunset beauty on their crests like gossamer 
 
 Of rubies, transparent, clear and shining 
 
 As the rich warm gold of June s bright sunshine. 
 
 How all the heights stood up transfigured ! How 
 
 Glowed the peaks, as leaning on the broad blue 
 
 Breast of Heaven, the skies bent down and kiss d 
 
 Them. How seemed to stretch the higher peaks, and 
 
 Thrust their bare heads into the infinite 
 
 Air, as if searching for the hidden heart 
 
 That throbs within the starry deep of worlds. 
 
 And as Night dropped down and spread her star-wrought 
 
 Mantle o er the earth, it seemed as if my 
 
 Spirit caught from far a silence that was 
 
 Full of speech day calling unto day, and 
 
 Night to night in echoless whispers, 
 
 Filling all of space. 
 
 II. (1888.) 
 
 Yesterday was fair and sweet, so gay 
 With bird-song and with light as if some way 
 The air had turned to honey and to wine, 
 And music rare that was divine 
 In fullness. The brooks had melody, 
 And even the breezes blew 
 In tune, with undertone 
 Of harmony, as through 
 The leaves they wandered, stirring 
 Them to wordless hymns, and purring 
 Amid the soft-lipped flowers, 
 As if a soul within them hid 
 A wonderful musical soul did 
 Answer with perfume, and pour 
 Its heart out unto them, a heart more 
 Sweet than the kiss of a child. 
 Oh, tell me not that the wild 
 Sweet flowers have never a soul, 
 For under and over the whole 
 Of God s world we find speech, 
 Though the tongue be not human. Each 
 Flower and green-springing blade 
 On hillside and valley and glade; 
 Each stream that flows on to the sea, 
 Each star that far shining we see, 
 Each cloud with Jhe storm in its breast, 
 Each mount with its uplifted crest 
 Leaning near to the sun, 
 And Old Ocean, starred with its isles 
 Where God thunders in billows of storm, or smiles 
 In the silvery waves which creep to the shore, 
 And bathe the white sands evermore, 
 All have voice of their Maker divine. 
 
 OUT-OF-DOORS. (1885.) 
 
 I was out in November s sunshine, 
 
 And the Earth, though brown, was warm, 
 
 And the skies were as blue as the Summer skies 
 Of a cloudless May-day morn. 
 
 And I heard the cricket singing 
 
 His merriest, happiest song, 
 "Crickety, creak, chirpety chirp," 
 
 It hummed as it hopped along. 
 
 And the little fat gopher, sleek and brown, 
 
 Came peeping up out of the ground, 
 And his cunning black eyes they twinkled at me, 
 
 As he sat there looking around. 
 
 And a squirrel came up with a whisk of his tail, 
 
 And nodded his head on the sly; 
 And a large golden butterfly, spotted with red, 
 
 Like a blossom with wings floated by. 
 
 And the ants formed a long marching column which 
 
 passed, 
 
 With never a step out of line; 
 Up and down the tall tree-trunk they came and they 
 
 went, 
 With never a laggard behind. 
 
 And the honey-bee buzzed on the edge of a flower, 
 
 Then in for its honey he went, 
 Then out he came and went flying away 
 
 With a buzz that was full of content. 
 
 And the house-fly came sunning himself in the air, 
 And his soft gauzy wings were outspread, 
 
 And a big, happy spider was spinning away 
 On his web right over my head. 
 
 And I saw a black beetle who was up and astir, 
 
 And a caterpillar running away, 
 And a lady-bug hurrying down from a rose, 
 
 As if she d not a moment to stay. 
 
 And the pigeons flew down from the roof overhead, 
 And their colors shone bright in the sun, 
 
 And a brown-breasted bird in the tall cedar tree 
 Just the sweetest of songs then begun. 
 
 And I lay on the ground, contented and glad, 
 
 For the world was so lovely and fair, 
 I could not be lonely, I could not be sad, 
 
 For all things were glad that were there. 
 
 TENTING ON THE CANYON S SHORE. 
 
 (Santa Cruz Island, 1887.) 
 
 The Dawn comes dewy-sandaled o er the heights, 
 So airy-footed that we hear no sound; 
 The sky leans down to touch the lofty crest 
 Where trails Morn s garments; birds sing from cast to 
 west, 
 
 102 
 
The Lore of God. 
 
 And breezes stir light-winged amid the trees, 
 
 And waves breathe low their welcome from the seas. 
 
 The first faint flush of Dawn we cannot see, 
 For the green-blossomed hills here intervene, 
 Lifting a world-high wall between us and the Sun, 
 But from our leaf-roofed chambers we behold 
 The far stars fade, the blue turn swift to gold. 
 
 We see from out the darkness creep the crests 
 Of circling hills that bound the canons deep; 
 First brightens their dim outline, and then, lo! 
 The baby oaks they nurse upon their breasts. 
 
 At length we see the cacti s branches spread, 
 All crucified with many thousand thorns; 
 And trailing vines that from the gray rocks hang 
 With leaves of green, and blossoms amber-hued, 
 Like golden altars in this solitude. 
 
 Down thread-like canons steal the crystal brooks- 
 Each water-drop a silvery note of song 
 Laughing amid the rocks and singing low, 
 Leaping in cascades down, they onward flow 
 Till Silence folds them, and they fall asleep 
 In quiet pools upon the canon s breast, 
 Cradled in shadow of o erhanging crest. 
 
 Brightens the world, and lo! the sea is spread 
 From beach to the horizon s distant line. 
 Blue as the bending skies that hang o erhead. 
 How creep the waves and thrust their fingers white 
 Round the sharp-pointed rocks. Soft flecks of foam 
 Play mid the pebbles, then the waters run 
 Swift rippling backward, then make rush once more 
 To tell their story to the waiting shore 
 
 The shore upon whose bosom we may rest; 
 
 Its narrow frill of sands and pebbles gray 
 
 Bordering the green, where tufted grasses grow, 
 
 While flowers, like jewels, lie upon its breast, 
 
 And pyramids of rocks stand scarred and old, 
 
 With Sphinx-like faces turning to the blue 
 
 Of the light waves that steal their channel through. 
 
 Oh, it is sweet from the great world to go 
 And hide ourselves within the silent heart 
 Of the deep cafton; to lie beneath the sky, 
 Uplooking to it where the green boughs spread 
 Of grand old oaks, or where a narrow line, 
 Like God s own finger, reaching to the hills, 
 It lies above us like a thing divine. 
 
 We re better for this pause, our hearts grow up 
 To Beauty, and our thoughts run wide 
 From worldliness; each tree and flower, 
 Each grassy blade and softly-running brook 
 Is but one page of Nature s open book- 
 God s alphabet of wisdom written clear 
 In sunlight, starlight and the mighty sea 
 The sea, whose tidal anthems we may hear. 
 
 THE LOVE OF GOD. (1894.) 
 
 The love of God, which is so vast and deep, 
 I feel it in the wind that falls asleep, 
 Hocking the roses on its pulsing breast, 
 Holding the lily in its soft caress. 
 
 I feel it in the sunshine glimmering down. 
 Golden in brightness, falling like a crown 
 On mountain s crest, and, like a living tide 
 Of tenderness, outflowing far and wide. 
 
 I feel it in the grass and in the flowers, 
 Breathing their perfume through the golden hours, 
 And in the note of every bird that sings, 
 And in the vine s low, tender whisperings 
 
 In the blue sky, a flawless sapphire spread 
 With glory beaming far above my head; 
 In earth and air and all the boundless deep 
 Where, twin with sky, the mighty oceans sleep. 
 
 KINDRED WITH NATURE. (1895.) 
 
 There s that within me which does ever feel 
 
 Its kinship with the Earth the wide, sweet Earth, 
 
 Environed with its atmosphere of calm, 
 
 Its sky jeweled with stars and lit with suns, 
 
 And its broad, green lap silvered with rivers, 
 
 And walled round with majestic mountain heights. 
 
 Capped with white snows or thick with wooded spires, 
 
 Rising till their loftiest pinnacles 
 
 Seem fretted with the ever-twinkling stars. 
 
 Then, purpling, they dream at last upon the 
 
 Breast of Night, or, waking, smile within the 
 
 Clasp of Day, which baptizes them with light 
 
 As if new-born, though great and vast as heaven; 
 
 And the sea, spreading its pulsing deeps so 
 
 Far they touch the Orient, where first man 
 
 Lay cradled on the breast of Time. Away 
 
 Their shining waters run, shadowed sometimes 
 
 With storms, then their wrinkled waves are smoothed 
 
 By fragrant calms borne from far lands of spice, 
 
 From vales sun-lit, rose-filled, where bright birds sing 
 
 And tropic loveliness a-swoon does lie 
 
 Within the noontide s stillness. The world speaks 
 
 To me with thousand tongues that hide within 
 
 Each leaf and grassy blade, each petal of 
 
 A flower, each bush, each tree, each perfect 
 
 Rounded grain of sand, and rainbowed drop of 
 
 Crystal water; within each pebble, so 
 
 Carved unto perfection, and each sunbeam 
 
 W ith its gold melted to fullest brightness. 
 
 Sweet are the idylls rivulets do tone 
 
 In silver notes as they do onward run. 
 
 The harmonious anthems chanted by 
 
 The river s voice seem ever to repeat 
 
 Truths wonderful, as does the mighty sea, 
 
 And all the breathing winds, low-voiced as love, 
 
 As they were living this fair life with me, 
 
 As if somewhere a soul were waiting for 
 
 Them through which they might find the Eternal. 
 
 103 
 
God and Nature. 
 
 I lay my ear to the warm breast of Earth 
 
 As if to hear the baby roots astir, 
 
 To catch the trickling raindrops as the soil 
 
 Drinks in their fullness, rejoicingly 
 
 Moistening their lips within the glad Earth s 
 
 Nursing bosom, where does hidden lie the 
 
 Mystery of growth. How does life touch them 
 
 There with the glad breath of resurrection? 
 
 And what are life and growth, those strange 
 
 And mysterious forces working so 
 
 Silently, so unrestingly through all 
 
 The vast, wide realm of God s great universe, 
 
 Wherever circle stars and suns and the 
 
 Far planetary spheres; where er is thrust 
 
 A root into the wide Earth s ready soil? 
 
 I held within my hands a little blade 
 
 Of grass, so cunningly shaped, so perfect 
 
 Tn its texture, so rich in coloring 
 
 That it became my teacher. It seemed to 
 
 Ask, am I not marvelous? Say, can you 
 
 Explain the secret of my growth how life creeps 
 
 Into the tiny seed and sets my roots 
 
 To stirring in the silent dark of the 
 
 Great Earth s bosom? What force is it that gives 
 
 My young life strength to thrust itself up 
 
 From its earth sepulcher into the air 
 
 And the warm heaven of sunshine? How springs 
 
 At last my tender, emerald leaf, filled 
 
 With its succulent richness for the hungry 
 
 Kine? What force is it that, silent and 
 
 Unresting, day by day, lengthens my slender 
 
 Blade, and then at length does bid it pause in 
 
 Full completeness? You say tis Nature s law. 
 
 But what is Nature s law? Is it some blind 
 
 Force hidden in matter, some unconscious 
 
 Agent that vrith unerring skill doth year 
 
 By year, and age by age, unfailing 
 
 Fashion me always the same in color, 
 
 Shape and texture? Is Matter vaster in 
 
 Its skill than Mind? Nay, thou sayest; yet look 
 
 Among thy race and find, if so thou canst, 
 
 A man to form me one who can create 
 
 A single grassy spear, or shape the seed 
 
 From which it springs, and give it strength to grow. 
 
 You cannot. Then will you proclaim that Nature 
 
 Is my Maker? That dull, senseless matter can 
 
 Create even the tiny seed from which 
 
 I spring? Nay, behind all growth, all being, 
 
 Animate and inanimate, above 
 
 All law law being but the expression 
 
 Uniform of this controlling will is 
 
 God, the Infinity, thy God and mine. 
 
 BIBLE PICTURES. (1896.) 
 Come back, O Past! and let us look today 
 Into thy vanished face. How beautiful 
 The chosen land, and fair, and oh, how soft 
 The murmur of sweet Kedron s brook ! how green 
 The blessed hills uplift against the blue! 
 
 How fair the city nestling in the sun! 
 
 The shad wy palms that drop their cooling shade; 
 
 The olive trees, pale-silvered in the light; 
 
 The golden blossoms by the highway there; 
 
 The lilies of the field, dew-filled and white; 
 
 The high-domed temple on Moriah s height; 
 
 The hill of Zion, palace-crowned, we see; 
 
 Jerusalem, joy of the earth! e en as 
 
 The mountains round about thee are, so is 
 
 The Lord about his people, loving them, 
 
 Ready to bear for them, His own, the shame, 
 
 The anguish of the bitter Cross. How vast 
 
 The mocking throng threading its dusty way 
 
 To Calvary ! The Roman and the Jew 
 
 Haste jostling on. The way is thronged by those 
 
 Who long in their own hearts had nursed the hope 
 
 That He, the Nazarene, the wonder-worker, 
 
 Who the dead had raised and made the deaf to 
 
 Hear, and made sightless eyes to see, and dumb 
 
 laps filled with speech, was He whom Israel 
 
 Waited, the King and Savior, who should lift 
 
 The hated Roman yoke and set them free. 
 
 And there are those who hiss their hate and scorn, 
 
 AVho cry aloud in wanton unbelief, 
 
 "Others He saved, Himself He cannot save." 
 
 The Roman spears gleamed savage in the light, 
 
 Like a great wave the human tide flows on, 
 
 All faces turned to Calvary. Upon 
 
 One side stands tearfully and still, each face 
 
 Anguished and white, with eyes fixed moveless on 
 
 The spot where lies the Cross, where brutal hands 
 
 Are stripping the royal purple in which 
 
 With mockery Herod had clothed the Christ, 
 
 The patient Nazarene the little band 
 
 Of loving followers. No words they speak 
 
 As hundreds wall them round. Nothing they see 
 
 But the white face of Him on whom is laid, 
 
 In that dark hour, th whole world s sins. 
 
 They hear the mocking laughter of the crowd, 
 
 They see the Crown of Thorns upon His brow, 
 
 And the blood from His torn forehead trickling 
 
 Down, the cruel arm that thrusts the reed as 
 
 Scepter into His hand. Then comes the sound 
 
 Of hammer s stroke as nails are driven through 
 
 The quivering flesh. The Cross is lifted, 
 
 The bleeding feet and hands of Christ fast to 
 
 Its wood, and there on either side of Him, 
 
 "King of the Jews," the wretched malefactors. 
 
 How shall we tell the story of that day, 
 
 When Earth stood shuddering in dumb amaze, 
 
 And the far Sun with lidless eye looked down, 
 
 Beholding her, while trembling for her sin, 
 
 And all the stars their faces veiled as the 
 
 Day grew black with horror? Angelic hosts 
 
 With drooping wings hovered o er Calvary, 
 
 Longing to lift Him from the shameful Cross, 
 
 But stayed by the purpose of His own will 
 
 The Holy Sufferer s, working for us 
 
 Redemption. The end is near, when on the 
 
 Silent air, sweet as the melody of 
 
 104 
 
The Penitent. 
 
 Heaven, is heard the Christ voice once again, 
 As lifting dying, anguished eyes He cries, 
 "Father, forgive them, they know not what they 
 Do!" And, then, as if God touched Him, lo! His 
 Face shines like a sun beneath th darkened sky, 
 And as if blessed angels speak, we hear 
 Triumphant, sweet, and sounding in all ears, 
 Words that shall gladden men amid their tears 
 Till time shall end: "Lo, I the Resurrection 
 Am and Life; believe in me and ye shall 
 Never die." 
 
 Then comes the mighty earthquake s awful shock, 
 When the hills reel, and Death opes wide his doors 
 Amid the rock-hewn tombs. The dead conic forth 
 Drinking of life again, their long silent 
 Pulses stirred once more to fullness by Christ s 
 Life-giving name. The Temple s veil is rent, 
 And the jeering crowd is hushed to silence. 
 Well may the people smite upon their breasts 
 And cry, "Surely this was the Son of God!" 
 
 The first day of the week dawns calm and clear; 
 
 The air is sweet and still, with flowery 
 
 Odors fragrant. The earth breathes soft as a 
 
 Young babe upon its mother s breast, resting 
 
 In dreamless slumber. Not a leaf pendant 
 
 On its green stem stirs in the cool dawn. The 
 
 Earth seems hushed to waiting. But at length the 
 
 Day breathes freer. Dawn brightens o er the watching 
 
 Peaks of Moab, and Olivet is flushed 
 
 With golden gleams. The Temple s dome is like 
 
 Transfigured light, and Mount Moriah is 
 
 Bright as a glowing sapphire, while all the mounts 
 
 About the Holy City are a-gleam 
 
 Like a fire-opal full of changing lights 
 
 And rainbowed beauty. A little thrill runs 
 
 Through the shining leaves of camphire wood, and 
 
 Through the many palms and silvered olives, 
 
 And like a tongue of flame the sunbeams fall 
 
 Within the breast of Kedron s rippling waters. 
 
 The joyous birds amid the many boughs 
 
 Break into song, as if each feathered breast 
 
 Were brimmed with melody. Then unto the 
 
 Holy Sepulcher, with sorrowing faces, 
 
 Wet with the dew of tears, the women come 
 
 With spices laden and perfumed ointments, 
 
 And speaking thus do they draw near His tomb: 
 
 "The dear Lord, we will anoint Him for His 
 
 Burial. His Sepulcher fragrant as 
 
 Love shall be, and sweet as the memory 
 
 Of His undying words. But who shall roll 
 
 Away the stone, the heavy stone at the 
 
 Grave s mouth where He is laid?" 
 
 O blessed Marys at the blessed tomb, 
 
 Angels await your coming, shining ones, 
 
 With Heaven s light on their faces fright the gloom, 
 
 Make glorious the Sepulcher. Blessed 
 
 The words they speak and full of hope to men : 
 
 "The Christ is risen, for He hath conquered Death." 
 
 GOD, NATURE AND I. (1897.) 
 
 The sky ! how blue it looks today, how fair ! 
 
 No cloud within the infinite deep of air; 
 
 The winds run softly through its shining ways, 
 
 As if half dreaming still of Summer days 
 
 When on the breast of Calm they slept, while low 
 
 They breathed, and all the tender, leaf-crowned trees 
 
 Stood hushed and still, as if they feared to stir 
 
 The pulseless silence. Only the soft whirr 
 
 Of bird-wings broke the stillness. Flowers smiled 
 
 In gardens and upon the hillsides wild, 
 
 As if a soul were in them which did know 
 
 The gladness and the glory which do flow 
 
 From Nature s heart when, warm and bright and fair, 
 
 She nurses Summer in the sunlight, where 
 
 Life takes form, and beauty has its birth, 
 
 And hastes to garment all the glad, sweet ?:arth. 
 
 When all the world is glad, why should not we 
 Be glad with it in fullest sympathy, 
 And hear the voices which the breezes bring 
 As well as those of happy birds which sing, 
 And note the joy within the blossoms smile, 
 And list the murmur of the streams, the while 
 They, rushing seaward sing, yet ever pour 
 Their tuneful resonance unto the shore? 
 
 Oh, life is sweet, with Nature s pulsing heart 
 Throbbing with tenderness. Kindred witli it am I, 
 And love, sweet love, I find in earth and sky; 
 The world was made for me, its heart is mine, 
 And of its fullness I am but a part, 
 God made it all, and I, O God ! am thine, 
 The blessed cradle of my rest, Thy heart. 
 
 THE PENITENT. (1898.) 
 
 O still the night and starless; all the dark 
 
 Of dusky skies and cloud was overhead; 
 
 The winds were sleeping, and all sound seemed dead 
 On the bare plains far from the city s streets. 
 But one there was who walked alone. And hark! 
 
 The silence stirs; the still and shuddering air 
 
 Shrinks at the cry of that lone soul s despair. 
 "Alone, alone with my great crime for aye 1 
 It walks with me and will walk till I die!" 
 
 A maniac shriek he gives, looks at his hand, 
 
 Rubs it, tears at it, yet still the brand 
 Of Cain he sees, red, red is it with blood. 
 
 "O wash it, wash it white," he cries, and then 
 In that lone desert, far from sound of men, 
 
 In the white sand he wallows, and shrieking 
 Until the circling vultures seem to shrink, 
 And starts the lion at the desert s brink. 
 Then came wild wails and sounds of bitter weeping, 
 And then mad lauphtcr, as his soul were swayed 
 By demons; then a soft sigh his laughter stayed. 
 
 105 
 
God and Nature. 
 
 He rose and knelt upon the sands and prayed. 
 His soul grew calm as on the desert s brow 
 Fell the first light of sunrise. Holy now 
 
 That desert place, a penitent was there 
 
 Whom God had heard and blessed with answered pray r. 
 
 In such grand temple it is good to be. 
 
 GOD S POEMS. (1898.) 
 
 The sunsets of the year! The mist of gold 
 Drips through them ail as ever fold on fold 
 The crimson clouds do wrap us in their light, 
 And Glory seems through them to take her flight, 
 Spreading her wings within the shining West, 
 Holding the world upon her burnished breast. 
 
 The mountains leap to her and breathe anew 
 
 In their warm splendor, and the valleys, too, 
 
 Seem heaven-horn as the sunset s light 
 
 Smiles full on them until they swift grow bright 
 
 As silently heaven s blessed rain of gold, 
 
 Like some swift deluge, does the land enfold. 
 
 Xot Earth alone this sunset glory fills, 
 For human hearts do open, and it thrills 
 And fills them, too, and men grow better then, 
 Richer in faith, higher in purpose, when 
 The poems of God s love are thus unrolled 
 In the full splendor of the sunset s gold. 
 
 THE MIRACLES OF NATURE. (1899.) 
 
 The little flower lifts up its head 
 
 Unto the bending sky, 
 As if it sought to learn and know 
 
 Life s wondrous mystery. 
 
 O shining blades of grass ! how great 
 
 The marvel that ye be, 
 Man s utmost skill could never make 
 
 Such perfect things as ye. 
 
 O leaf upon the swaying bough ! 
 
 Dropping soft shadows down; 
 The shapely tree-trunk lifted high 
 
 Doth wear you like a crown. 
 
 No sculptor s hand could chisel here 
 Such perfect thing and fair, 
 
 With life within each tiny vein, 
 And motion pulsing there. 
 
 O water-drops within the stream 
 
 That shimmer in the Sun ! 
 A perfect globe, a wondrous sphere, 
 
 Hides in you, every one. 
 
 O little grain of sand ! so white, 
 
 So shapely do ye lie, 
 More perfect is not star or sun 
 
 Within the far-off skv. 
 
 O Nature! folded in thy hand 
 On every hillside s breast, 
 
 On every plain beneath the Sun, 
 A miracle doth rest. 
 
 A miracle of power and love, 
 
 Of skill that is divine; 
 Each tree, each blade of grass, each flow r, 
 
 Father of all, is Thine: 
 
 Formed by Thy hand. The shining Sun, 
 
 The great, unresting Sea, 
 All things are Thine which Nature shows, 
 
 And Thine, like them, are we. 
 
 OUR FATHER. (1899.) 
 
 The great, blue heavens look down as if to find 
 A soul within the Earth, an answering mind; 
 For they are lonely in their cloudless light, 
 E en when the Sun shines gloriously bright, 
 And swiftly down steals the soft-footed breeze 
 To templed aisles amid the swaying trees 
 Steals in and out amid the smiling whole 
 Of sky and Earth, as if it had a soul 
 To bear to Earth the whisper of the skies 
 As it in hushed and wondrous beauty lies. 
 
 Somewhere in hiding there must surely be 
 
 The soul of things which throbbeth warm and free, 
 
 Perhaps the winds which silent- footed do. 
 
 Through the vast highways of the shining blue. 
 
 And the sweet woods and meadow spaces far, 
 
 Steal on us as sure as light of sun or star, 
 
 In occult language which we do not know, 
 
 Bear some sweet message as they onward go 
 
 Whispers of love and of divinest care, 
 
 Of the great Power which keeps us everywhere. 
 
 And the glad birds which sing today so sweet, 
 
 Perhaps great Nature s yearning heart repeat, 
 
 And bud and blossom make their swift reply 
 
 To rolling sea and overarching sky. 
 
 The drowsy hum of many million bees, 
 
 The leaf-tongued voices of the swaying trees, 
 
 May lisp some words our spirits do not hear, 
 
 Rut which are caught by Nature s listening ear. 
 
 But somewhere, somewhere over all is One 
 
 Who cradles Earth within His tender hand, 
 
 Who sees each leaf, each blossom s opening face, 
 
 Each blade of grass, and gives to each its place, 
 
 And hears each voice from shining sea and land, 
 
 And all their needs does fully understand. 
 
 He is Our Father, and like Nature we 
 
 Are all His care, and tis His ministry 
 
 Guards Earth, sky, sea, and tis His love that broods 
 
 O er life and growth, and in Earth s solitudes. 
 
 106 
 
Orn nipretcn t Drity. 
 
 And, O my soul ! how it doth long to know 
 
 More of this Father, and to truly feel 
 
 Within my heart His great love s overflow, 
 
 And sometimes by a sweet-tongued flower I kneel 
 
 And feel Him near, feel that He s in that place, 
 
 As if I d met Him in it, face to face, 
 
 Know that in all things God s own life abides, 
 
 In sky and earth and ocean s restless tides. 
 
 OMNIPRESENT DEITY. (1901.) 
 
 The tall tree, with its branches o er my head 
 
 Its million leaves like many whisp ring tongues 
 
 Gleams in the golden sunshine whicli is on it shed 
 
 Like blessed benediction from above; 
 
 The shining leaves seem like a happy smile, 
 
 And I do hear sweet whispers from the flow rs 
 
 That breathe but gladness through the golden hours. 
 
 The em rald grasses nod their bright young heads, 
 As fall the sunbeams down upon their face; 
 They drink the light like wine and grow apace; 
 The brown old Earth is now no longer bare, 
 And we do see God s glory everywhere; 
 Something of His own being He hath shed 
 In all the beauty that s around us spread. 
 
 In all this great, fair world no chance is seen; 
 
 When Time began God spake and it was done, 
 
 System on system into being sprung, 
 
 Vast voids are filled with countless circling worlds, 
 
 And at His voice the heaving ocean curls 
 
 Its restless tides about the barren shore, 
 
 Lashing the rocks but leaping nevermore 
 
 O er the wide continent, their proud waves stayed 
 By His command, His fiat they obey; 
 "Thus far, no farther shall ye go;" the land 
 Lies calm though seas are beating at its gates; 
 God s law enfolds it, and secure it lies, 
 Like a vast emerald beneath the skies, 
 And Growth forever at its footstool waits. 
 
 O Growth ! its wondrous mystery do we 
 
 Behold, yet cannot fathom it in vain, 
 
 As grasses upward creep so silently 
 
 And buds unfold, and trees rise toward the blue, 
 
 Is vision strained, no motion do we see. 
 
 No sound from all these growing things we hear, 
 
 We only feel that God himself is near. 
 
 For Nature s laws are but the mode He takes 
 To work His will; life at His touch doth wake, 
 We know not how or whence He calls it here, 
 We only know the sun-filled atmosphere 
 Is vital with His presence; no atom sleeps 
 Where God is not, for boundless space doth lie 
 Within the sight of His all-seeing eye. 
 
 NATURE. (i 90I .) 
 
 The dimpled lake sleeps in the cradling arms 
 
 Of the green slopes that lie about it, crowned 
 With glory of the groves, never a sound 
 Save that of rippling melody which charms- 
 Comes from its depths as if its waters sang 
 Of blessed calm and holy peace and rest; 
 The sunshine falling now upon its breast 
 Writes golden notes perhaps like those which rang 
 
 Thro starry spaces at Creation s birth, 
 
 When the glad morning stars together poured 
 Their glorious symphony while they adored 
 
 The great Creator of the heavens and Earth. 
 
 O these glad mornings ! Peace lies pillowed here, 
 And Beauty sleeps upon the breast of Day; 
 And all along the emerald-bordered way 
 
 Incense is poured upon the atmosphere 
 
 From spaces where the nunlike lilies lean, 
 And where the roses bloom so very fair, 
 And blossoms drink the sunshine of the air, 
 
 And the tall trees a silent priesthood seem, 
 
 And far beyond as the tall mountains rise; 
 
 The sky like one bright sapphire shines above. 
 The winds breathe softly, while love, only love, 
 
 Seems filling earth and dropping from the skies. 
 
 BEING S MYSTERY. (1901.) 
 
 I wonder at my self, at my own being s whole. 
 At my soul s essence, its beginning and its thought. 
 So strange, mysterious, by God s own wisdom wrought. 
 Free-will its heritage, and yet in God s control, 
 Freest when it is God-swayed and sceptered by th right, 
 Noblest when humblest it doth stand within His sight. 
 
 O mystery! what am I, whither do I tend? 
 Shall I live on forever, outlive stars and Sun, 
 And when they cease my being s life be just begun? 
 The circling centuries pass and long eons end. 
 Time ceases, yet this deathless and immortal I 
 Active forever lives. O what is destiny? 
 
 Forever onward, upward, higher, higher still. 
 Godward, unrestingly our spirit life may tend, 
 And then, O soul of mine! O what shall be the end? 
 To live with God, to do the fullness of His will, 
 A sinless, "self-poised personality" to be, 
 A deathless soul, reflection of Infinity. 
 
 THE LIGHT. (1901.) 
 
 With each new day the glorious light is born. 
 Fresh in its beauty, never growing old. 
 It wraps the sky and all the mountain heights. 
 And the broad vales that slumber in the Sun, 
 Touches the waters with its wondrous gleam, 
 And ev ry leaf and ev ry blade of grass 
 Drink in its glory as the sunbeams pass, 
 
 107 
 
God and Nature. 
 
 While the sweet flowers sip life from its soft touch, 
 
 And Color riots in its fullness, too. 
 
 And Fragrance fills her chalices with such 
 
 Delightsome odors the soft breeze s wings 
 
 Are laden with them, and even the dew 
 
 Yields sweetness, and the happy bird that sings 
 
 Seems telling of the light that is so fair, 
 
 And of the beauty round us everywhere. 
 
 Hut oh! there s one blest thought that comes to me, 
 
 That cheers my heart and fills my soul with peace; 
 
 "I am the Light," saith He who will not cease 
 
 The blessed Christ and in this light we may 
 
 Rejoice forever through an endless day, 
 
 A day so fair that e en the glorious rays 
 
 Of sunshine illumining our earthly days 
 
 Seem like th night beside the radiance bright 
 
 Of Him, our Christ, who is our Life and Light. 
 
 THE DEATHLESSNESS OF BEING. (1901.) 
 
 A great life cannot die; the present thrills 
 With all the glory of a deathless past; 
 Good deeds are stamped with immortality, 
 And they eternally do blossom and 
 Bear fruit. In all the vast wide universe 
 Of God nothing is equal to the man 
 Who bravely dares do right, however much 
 Beset with danger the way of right may 
 Be. To dare, to boldly do, is god-like, 
 When Duty leads the way. No jewel like 
 One s conscience when the heart is pure 
 And undefiled; its luster naught can dim, 
 Nor ever Shame can cast its shadow o er 
 The man whose upright march is onward 
 In its light. No coffin-lid can on such 
 Manhood close, for it will live forever 
 In the deeds it wrought and noble purposes 
 Fulfilled, the priceless heritage of all 
 The future, the changeless keynote of all 
 Glorious, stainless days to come. 
 No thought of good is ever lost to man, 
 And no kindly deed doth ever perish. 
 Today doth write itself upon the page 
 Of coming Time, and the great Tomorrows 
 Of our being are but the perfect blossoms 
 Of the budding Now. 
 
 WITH NATURE. (1892.) 
 
 I love to steal down canon paths, 
 Between the emerald hills, 
 
 And hear the voiceful Sabbath psalms 
 The chorus of the rills. 
 
 I lay my head upon the grass, 
 Beneath the singing pines, 
 
 The rhythm of their swaying boughs 
 Is like to sacred chimes. 
 
 And grand the anthem which I hear, 
 Borne down from heights afar 
 
 These mountain heights whose symphonies 
 Ring out from star to star. 
 
 Divine the songs which Nature gives 
 From tongues of tree and flower, 
 
 They sing of loving tenderness, 
 
 While mountains sing of power. 
 
 GOD S WORLD. (1902.) 
 
 We know tis His God s world for who but He 
 Could lift the mountains, spread the mighty Sea, 
 Who from th ground thrust up the glorious trees, 
 Each leaf a lute for wind-born harmonies? 
 
 Whose hand but His could form th wondrous flowers, 
 Water the Karth with gently-falling showers, 
 Unroll the sky, with all its countless stars, 
 And let the Morning through Night s hidden bars? 
 
 Whose hand but His could make the grasses spring, 
 And robe the Earth in emerald covering, 
 Color the rose upon its slender stem, 
 And gild with gold the lily s diadem? 
 
 Set the bright clouds within the sunset sky, 
 Teach the young birds through pathless air to fly, 
 Place crystal waters in a flowing tide, 
 Spread golden harvests through our valleys wide? 
 
 Poise fly and bee upon their gauzy wings, 
 From whence the color of the rainbow springs, 
 Pour out the sweets of fragrance on the air, 
 In such rich fullness all the Earth may share? 
 
 Light up the sky with glory of the Sun, 
 
 And guide its way until the Day is done, 
 
 And Night drops down with all her star-sown worlds, 
 
 And with her hand immensity unfurls? 
 
 And who but God made Man, clothed him with thought 
 And high intelligence so he hath wrought 
 Deeds marvelous, and Nature s forces trained 
 To do his bidding the wild lightnings tamed 
 
 Until they are his messengers of speech, 
 And the swift steeds that bear him onward, each 
 Flash a silent courser, safe and strong, 
 O er vale and mount, conveying him along? 
 
 He measures heaven th unfathomed deeps of air, 
 Traces the orbits of the planets there, 
 Predicts the flight, ere he can see their face, 
 Of mighty comets through the fields of space. 
 
 God s world ! O it is wonderful and fair ! 
 
 A miracle around us everywhere, 
 
 From falling sunbeam to the opening flower, 
 
 From grassy blades to mountain tops which tower 
 
 108 
 
Life Through Christ. 
 
 To the far skies; from smiling vales and seas, 
 From rushing winds to softly whispering breeze. 
 God s world ! the rosy evening skies proclaim 
 It His, and the bright golden sunrise flame 
 
 Speaks, too, of Him, while the lang rous Noon 
 Holds breath of worship, and the forest gloom 
 Speaks with its leafy tongues from ev ry tree 
 Of God, the Omnipresent Deity. 
 
 LIFE THROUGH CHRIST. (1902.) 
 
 How long ago the Christ walked this fair Earth; 
 
 Beneath the stars He stood, beneath the Sun, 
 
 By Galilee s bright waves His wandering feet 
 
 So often strayed; its waters heard His voice 
 
 And hushed their murmurings. At His command 
 
 The raging tempest stilled and breathed like a 
 
 Young child in slumber, and from the awful 
 
 Silence of the grave the dead came back, clothed 
 
 With strong new life, treading once more the old 
 
 Familiar paths, smiling again into 
 
 The faces of their loved ones. In Him Death 
 
 Found his conqueror and life took on a 
 
 Vaster meaning. Redeeming love bridged the dark 
 
 Unseen, swung wide the gates of immortality, 
 
 And filled the night of death with the bright beams 
 
 Of deathless Hope and the clear sunlight of 
 
 Undying Faith. Down the long centuries 
 
 Ot passing years rings the God-voice, more sweet 
 
 Than angel symphonies, filling the soul 
 
 With peace, as break the glad words upon our 
 
 List ning ears: "I am the Resurrection 
 
 And the Life, whomsoever believeth 
 
 In me shall never die." O man, rejoice! 
 
 Love bids thee come and live. Xo death is there 
 
 For him who, through the love of Christ, doth wait 
 
 For blessed immortality. Tis love 
 
 That calls us home unto our Father s house, 
 
 And Death the angel messenger He sends 
 
 To lead us onward to the life beyond, 
 
 Where are the many mansions, the living 
 
 Waters and the pastures green; where Christ shall 
 
 Lead us, and perfect, endless being shall 
 
 Brighten "where God s own light, unhindered and 
 
 Undarkened by a sun, shines forth alone 
 
 In glory." Through God s great universe our 
 
 Feet may wander, and the glory of His 
 
 Love and power shall gladden us forevermore. 
 
 A WINTER LESSON. (1902.) 
 
 O sun-filled deeps! ye bend above a world 
 Where Growth her glorious banner has unfurled, 
 Touched by the rain, she flings it wide and free, 
 From grassy blade and crest of leaf-crowned tree. 
 
 We call them dead, the grasses brown and sere; 
 They slumbered on the hillsides far and near, 
 And still above them bent the cloudless sky, 
 While floated far rich Perfume s argosy. 
 
 Then came the rain in full and gentle showers. 
 And poured its blessing on this world of ours; 
 The herald of Earth s resurrection morn, 
 How swiftly at its coming life is born. 
 
 In emerald beauty fields are quickly clad, 
 And all things waken to a new life, glad. 
 In the swift glory of the sunshine fair 
 Death slips away and life is everywhere. 
 
 So shall we waken when this life is o er, 
 If we are Christ s, and then forevermore 
 Shall life unfold and being blossom new 
 In God s own light, eternal ages through. 
 
 IN THE OPEN. (1902.) 
 
 The flowers about me whisper 
 
 Glad music to my ear, 
 The skies bend blue above me 
 
 As if they, too, would hear 
 
 The perfumed song so holy, 
 
 Breathed through the golden day, 
 
 As if some angel singer 
 
 Had passed along the way . 
 
 And left a sweet note ringing 
 
 Through flowering shrub and tree, 
 
 A blossomed note of gladness, 
 Of worldless ecstacy. 
 
 "The alphabet of angels" 
 
 The poet calls the flowers, 
 And with this alphabet the Day 
 
 Through all its golden hours 
 
 Writes hymns of wondrous sweetness, 
 And Earth fills out her choir 
 
 With singing birds that upward rise 
 As if they did aspire 
 
 To reach th skies and flood th air 
 
 With melody so sweet, 
 While bees and happy insects weave 
 
 Song-carpets for our feet. 
 
 O out of doors ! I love it, 
 
 With birds and flow rs and trees, 
 With golden sunlight falling 
 
 And Wind s soft symphonies. 
 
 The palms and eucalypti rise 
 
 Still upward to the blue, 
 The lake lies sleeping in the Sun, 
 
 The jeweled grasses, too. 
 
 All things around me seem to say, 
 Behold God s temple here, 
 
 We see His footprints in the flowers, 
 We feel His presence near. 
 
 109 
 
God and Nature. 
 
 THE BANNER OF GOD S LOVE. (1902.) 
 
 I love to sit within the lap of Day 
 And hear sweet music whisper in the air, 
 
 The golden sunbeams ever seem to say 
 Our God is Light and He is everywhere. 
 
 The blooming flowers have each a voice for me, 
 An alphabet of fragrance for my ear; 
 
 We worship Him, the glorious Deity, 
 
 With offered incense, lo ! I seem to hear. 
 
 The tall trees stand, their countless leaves aglow 
 With shining light, while stirring in the breeze, 
 
 Like perfect lute-strings breathing soft and low, 
 The praiseful notes of Nature s harmonies. 
 
 The em rald grasses, too, have voice of praise; 
 
 Lowly are we, and yet God s tender care 
 Does shelter us; each slender blade does rise, 
 
 He sendeth Growth to bless us ev rywhere. 
 
 We clothe the Earth, and lo ! His smile does fall 
 Upon our heads; we re shapen by His Hand; 
 
 Sunlight -and Rain, His servants, watch o er all 
 Our countless hosts which in the fields do stand. 
 
 The mountains rise and speak to me of power, 
 Omnipotence alone could lift them up 
 
 Where clouds do dream and the descending shower 
 Nestles amid the rocks and fills the cup 
 
 Where rivers drink, then swiftly onward run 
 To seek the valley s floor, their crystal tide 
 
 Smiling along the vales beneath the Sun, 
 
 The anthem of their waters sounding wide. 
 
 Through the far spaces their Te Deums ring, 
 The great Sea hears and answers to their notes, 
 
 The happy flowers respond with blossoming, 
 
 And birds pour music from their feathered throats. 
 
 Oh, God is here within this sweet, wide world, 
 We feel His presence but see not His face, 
 
 But yet the banner of His love unfurled, 
 If we but look, we see in ev ry place. 
 
 OUR HIDDEN SERVANTS. (1902.) 
 
 Time marches onward and the centuries wake 
 
 To God s great purpose. Man a conqueror stands, 
 
 Staying the Lightning s force, giving it speech. 
 
 Across the seas and trackless air it bears 
 
 The words we utter in our chambers far, 
 
 And the whole air trembles with the thoughts of 
 
 Men, while the secrets of the stars are ours. 
 
 The rocks, that through the long years have been dumb, 
 
 Doth Science smite and give to us their secrets. 
 
 The lightnings are the harnessed steeds that bear 
 
 Us through our streets and over mountain heights, 
 
 And they ere long will push our ships, swift-winged, 
 
 Across the seas, and mayhap will help us 
 
 Fly the air, sailing o er continents and 
 
 Highest mountain crests; th sun-filled atmosphere, 
 
 The mighty deep we traverse soundlessly 
 
 And unafraid. Most wondrous is the book 
 
 That Nature opens for our reading in 
 
 The clear light of this New Century, with 
 
 Science as its interpreter. Its leaves 
 
 Are many as the stars, and on each page 
 
 Are revelations new and marvelous. 
 
 The whispering leaf hath voice for us, and 
 
 The falling sunbeam hath a new-found tongue. 
 
 With strong hand man hath rent the veil which did 
 
 Lie on Nature s face, and he is climbing 
 
 Toward the boundless Vast, with step unhindered, 
 
 The race grows larger-visioned. Mystery 
 
 Is vanquished. It is Law rules all things, and, 
 
 Let us find its key, the heavens shall 
 
 Whisper to us through newly-opened doors, 
 
 Tell us what is hidden in their deeps, till 
 
 We may look behind the stars, beneath the 
 
 Tossing seas, and into the great Earth s heart, 
 
 And in all things find the hidden servants 
 
 God hath made ready for our bidding. 
 
 THE ETERNAL HILLS. (1902.) 
 
 I sit and front the distant mountains, those 
 
 Mighty peaks uplifted to the skies, their 
 
 Sharp fingers thrust into the blue, clasping 
 
 The clouds that hover o er their crests, and their 
 
 Bare, rock-ribbed heights looking like twins of Time s 
 
 Countless centuries. Still, vast and solemn 
 
 Do they seem to stand, as pulseless as death, 
 
 And yet eternal as the shining stars. 
 
 The valleys at their feet, all orchard-clad 
 
 And stretching to the seas, whose light waves kiss 
 
 The silver sands and whisper of the far- 
 
 Off Orient, where the race was cradled 
 
 When old Time was young, smile upward with a 
 
 Look of peace, as if they knew these mighty 
 
 Sentinels were steadfast and watchful as 
 
 The stars and sun. But drawing near them, what 
 
 Do we behold? Great canoned deeps which are 
 
 The templed aisles of Nature, where are reared 
 
 Her rock-hewn altars, and where her silver 
 
 Streams chant their eternal oratorios 
 
 Of praise and power. And here the winds worship 
 
 Amid the tall forest trees, waving their green boughs, 
 
 While the wild-flowers pour oblations sweet 
 
 Upon the air. Countless birds form a glad 
 
 Choir, and the woods ring with their melodious 
 
 Anthems. The grassy blades lift timid heads 
 
 For their baptism of dew, while the rocks 
 
 Are piled far overhead, rising, as they 
 
 Were a Jacob s ladder, to the skies. The 
 
 Sweet interludes of song are h:::nmed by bees, 
 
 110 
 
X at urc s Empire. 
 
 And bright-winged insect throngs, whose gauzy wings 
 
 Like living rainbows gleam in the sunlit 
 
 Air. How far the great world seems amid this 
 
 Holy mountain atmosphere, and how sweet 
 
 To hither come, where the full soul of man 
 
 And Nature s soul may hold communion high 
 
 And life ennobling in God s own blessed 
 
 Sanctuary of the eternal hills. 
 
 NATURE S TEMPLE. (1902.) 
 
 I love the temple fair which Nature s hand 
 
 Hath reared; the wooded aisles within her vast 
 
 Forest deeps, where her glad choirs of birds join 
 
 In the chant of living waters, and the 
 
 Symphony of myriad leaves, which the 
 
 Light winds stir to voiceful harmony, and 
 
 Where th dew in Night s starlit hours pours out its 
 
 Baptism. I watch the emerald grasses 
 
 Spring, and feel God s hand behind them lifting 
 
 From the brown Earth their slender blades, and shaping 
 
 Them to beauty. Like incense cups the flow rs 
 
 Pouring upon the air the perfume of 
 
 Their breath. The mountains rise like altars to 
 
 The bending skies, and th white clouds, like angel 
 
 Wings, rest on their shoulders. All things seem to 
 
 Cry, "Holy, holy, holy," Lord God Almighty!" 
 
 And to beckon man to worship. All things 
 
 Stand, each in its appointed place. God s breath 
 
 Is in the wind, and His benediction 
 
 In the light, for God is Light. The wide plains 
 
 Look up to Him, wrapped in their golden robes 
 
 Of sunshine. The shining waters in the 
 
 Rivers and the sea are garmented with 
 
 Light. The winds, with their thousand voiceful tongues, 
 
 Whisper amid the leaves: "Our God is here." 
 
 Thus in the temple He has made does God 
 
 Draw nearest unto my spirit, and there 
 
 Most reverently do I worship Him. 
 
 WITH NATURE. (1903.) 
 
 What shall I write, what shall I say, 
 How put the golden heart of Day 
 With words into some fitting shrine? 
 How paint the sunlight with its shine 
 Of golden glory on the leaves, 
 As down it falls and with them weaves 
 A roof of gold above my head, 
 While all the Earth is garmented 
 With grass and many-colored flowers, 
 And beauty fills this world of ours? 
 
 Oh, words are weak and words are vain 
 To paint the wonders of the plain, 
 The marvel of the mounts and hills, 
 The radiance that the sunlight spills, 
 The shimmer of the quivering leaves 
 Where the soft breeze forever weaves 
 
 | 
 111 
 
 Its whispered melodies, as though 
 A lute were touched as onward go 
 Soft-footed winds with breath of musk, 
 Perfuming daylight and the dusk. 
 
 I only know tis sweet to be 
 In God s world, full of harmony, 
 Of blessed beauty, shine of Sun, 
 Of starlight when the Day is done, 
 And all the wide and boundless Vast 
 Is on our wondering vision cast, 
 To live a God-wrought entity, 
 Undying to forever be, 
 Growing throughout eternity, 
 Nearer to God s infinity. 
 
 PICTURES. (1903.) 
 
 Above me bends a fair and sun-filled sky, 
 A world of glories set beneath the blue, 
 With color, fragrance woven through and through. 
 
 And mountains rising upward vast and high. 
 
 The bright-toned landscape gleams with gold and greei 
 And far away the sparkle of the Sea 
 We cannot catch its wondrous melody 
 
 Like shining crystal o er the fields is seen. 
 
 The pulsing winds just stir the many leaves, 
 The sunshine drops mosaics on the grass 
 Where the tree-shadows fall, and as we pass 
 
 Amid the flow rs his song the cricket weaves. 
 
 One fair white cloud lies just above the hill, 
 A crown of gold is on the tall tree s crest, 
 We see it mirrored in the lake s clear breast 
 
 Which lies as dreaming, rippleless and still. 
 
 () deeps of air! vast deeps of sunny sky, 
 What lies beyond the brightness that I see, 
 What but the vastness of immensity, 
 
 Where worlds on worlds sweep on eternally? 
 
 There is no space where nothingness may be. 
 No point where God s creative hand is stayed. 
 On, on, still on forever, yet displayed 
 
 Is everywhere the might of Deity. 
 
 COME WALK WITH ME. (1903.) 
 
 Come walk with me, come walk abroad, 
 
 And see the glory of the sky, 
 
 The beauty that around does lie, 
 And hear the Wind-Sprite strike a chord 
 
 Of softest music mid the trees. 
 
 Their thousand leaves are breathing low 
 
 Above my head where er I go, 
 The sweetest wood-born symphonies. 
 
 And here a bird spreads wings in air, 
 
 And rises upward toward the Sun, 
 
 And there a spider s web is hung, 
 A swaying silver bridge so fair. 
 
God and Nature. 
 
 And here the busy ants are seen, 
 What lessons may we learn from them! 
 They should wear Labor s diadem. 
 
 The world of Industry doth teem 
 
 AVith no more tireless hosts than they. 
 And ah! just see the silver sheen 
 Of the fair lake that lies between 
 
 The dreaming hills where shadows play 
 
 Beneath the swaying peppers there, 
 And see the eucalypti climb 
 Above the tallest stalwart pine, 
 
 As reaching for the upper air. 
 
 And far the lofty mountains rise, 
 
 Soft, lambent light around them glows, 
 The flood of sunlight overflows 
 
 Beneath these cloudless, sun-filled skies. 
 
 The faces of the wild-flowers meet 
 My eyes along the paths I tread; 
 How sweet the perfume which they shed, 
 
 As on I go with willing feet. 
 
 And Silence walks the hills today, 
 And Beauty, clad in Nature s dress, 
 Walks with me, too, my life to bless 
 
 I feel the richness of her sway. 
 
 And here a rock lifts up its head, 
 Magnificent in wealth untold, 
 The countless wealth of lichen s gold 
 
 O er its broad sides so thickly spread. 
 
 And see the stores of silver gleam, 
 No Croesus ever had such store 
 As that which ceaselessly doth pour 
 
 Adown the waterfall s full stream. 
 
 Oh, could we weigh the gold that s hid 
 In every sunbeam that we see, 
 Or learn the wondrous alchemy 
 
 Of change beneath the harvest lid, 
 
 Transmuting sunbeams into grain, 
 Full of rich ripeness for our need 
 Enough the whole great world to feed 
 
 Giving the dead seed life again, 
 
 What wisdom would be ours; but ah! 
 
 How blindly onward do we go! 
 
 Of Nature s miracles we know 
 Scarce more than of the farthest star. 
 
 WITH NATURE AND GOD. (1903.) 
 
 Oh, I ve been close to Nature, and the leaves 
 Seemed whisp ring to me as I sat today 
 
 Beneath the shadow of the towering trees, 
 
 Where the light breezes wandered in their play. 
 
 The many grasses quivered at their touch, 
 
 The flowers looked upward with a smile of light, 
 
 The birds sang o er my head with voices sweet, 
 The sunbeams fell like golden arrows bright. 
 
 I felt within the heart of Nature there 
 God s presence round me in the boundless deep 
 
 Of glowing skies, and everywhere 
 
 That the winds moved with swift, unfettered feet, 
 
 Love seemed to walk with them God s love and lipht, 
 Alone I was not, He was with me there, 
 
 And kept me ever in His loving sight, 
 And held me ever in His tender care. 
 
 GOD IN ALL THINGS. (1903.) 
 
 O God in all things ! We may see 
 His glory in the sky and tree, 
 In mountain heights that round us rise 
 As they were kindred with the skies; 
 In the wide vales below them spread, 
 In the vast Ocean which is fed 
 By countless rivers which do run 
 From every clime beneath the Sun 
 To fill its deeps. All things we see 
 Are voiceful of the Deity. 
 
 How wondrous is each tiny blade 
 
 Of grass which God s own Hand hath made; 
 
 How perfect is each swaying leaf, 
 
 How marvelous the golden sheaf 
 
 Of ripened grain; like diamonds rare 
 
 The shining dewdrops everywhere; 
 
 And then the bird-song and the flowers, 
 
 The glorious sunlighted hours, 
 
 And afterward the starlit Night 
 
 Which opes immensity to sight. 
 
 And Man ! The image of his maker he, 
 
 The offspring of the Deity! 
 
 His deathless and undying I, 
 
 Unfolding through Eternity. 
 
 Oh, to be Godlike, to be true ! 
 
 It is the highest he can do. 
 
 And through this way his pathway lies 
 
 Towards life s own high infinities. 
 
 Child of Today, yet he at last 
 
 Shall know the fullness of th endless Vast. 
 
 THE ALPHABET OF DEITY. (1904.) 
 
 The open air, oh, yes, I love it well ! 
 It is my home, the home my soul loves best, 
 And there I wander free neath sunlit skies, 
 Where fragrance-laden breezes lightly swell 
 And trees are lit with glory of the Sun; 
 Their leaves sway lightly in the shining air, 
 The grasses tremble on Earth s bosom, too, 
 And all the world is full of happy song, 
 And buzz of bee and flies all rainbow-winged, 
 And joyous life of every creeping thing. 
 
 112 
 
God s World. 
 
 Like rippling silver do the waters stir, 
 And on the bosom all the shadows dream, 
 Where bend the trees like guardian angels near; 
 And the preen slopes run down to fold them in, 
 While silver-lipped they kiss their grass-shod feet. 
 On, let me wander neath the sunlit sky 
 And lift my eyes unto the mountains high, 
 Those wondrous mounts that seem to touch the stars 
 And lay their crests upon the moonbeams tide- 
 That seem a-dream above this lower world. 
 So grand, so far, do they not sometimes hear 
 The planets whisper as they circle on 
 Through the great Vast, so measureless outspread 
 Within the deeps of the wide, viewless air? 
 Sometimes I wish that I had wings to fly, 
 And could go on and on, forever on, 
 Past the great orbits of uncounted worlds 
 Until I had reached the boundaries of space. 
 But should I find more wondrous things afar 
 Than we find here within this world of ours? 
 Pause, pause and think how wonderful the bloom 
 Of all the flowers, how grand the stately trees, 
 How perfect are the water-drops that flow, 
 How glorious the rainbow hues of light, 
 And wonderful the little grassy blade; 
 The grain of sand is perfect as a sphere, 
 The growing vine, soft-footed, creeps on high, 
 Soundless in motion, clothed in thousand leaves. 
 Perfect in color, smiling in the light- 
 Listening the wind s whisper as unseen it treads 
 The pathless air. How rainbow-like the wing 
 Of fly and bee ! Who painted them and taught 
 Them how to fly? Who woke the melody 
 The robin makes, or framed the glorious 
 Notes of meadow-lark and happy mocking-bird? 
 Who gave the color to the opening rose, 
 Painted the violet in wondrous hues? 
 Who lights the clouds with glory as the Sun 
 Passes from sight adown his western way, 
 And spreads all wonders that we daily see? 
 Oh, out of doors, within the open air 
 Let me but wander and these marvels see, 
 And learn to live as God would have me here. 
 These voiceless wonders to my spirit speak, 
 And in them all an alphabet I find, 
 Which God has written and which I would read ; 
 Tis one of love and power and tender care, 
 And reading it, I find God everywhere. 
 
 GOD S WORLD. (1904-) 
 
 God s hand is on the mounts, twas His own power 
 That touched their lofty crests and lifted high 
 Their rock-hewn foreheads to the bending sky. 
 These mounts which far above the valley tower 
 Are glorious in majesty. O how grand! 
 As sweeping the high stars they seem to lean 
 Above the beauteous Summer vales so green 
 With the fresh grasses covering all the laud. 
 
 The winds are whisp ring mid the leafy trees, 
 And bird-song floods the deeps of sunny air; 
 Bright blossoms pour their perfume ev ry where, 
 The world is full of sweetest harmonies. 
 N T o chance is here, but God s creative Hand 
 Formed all the wonders that about us lie, 
 Ann He unrolled the blue and boundless sky, 
 Set firm the mountains where they moveless stand; 
 
 And spread the seas and all the shining vales, 
 Lifted the hills as footstools for His feet, 
 Scattered the flowers which our glad eyes do greet, 
 And lit the Sun whose glory never pales. 
 The countless stars which light the evening sky 
 He placed within the endless deeps of air, 
 And circling their vast orbits everywhere 
 They hear the voice of His infinity. 
 
 O God is here, the winds do hear His voice, 
 
 And unseen run on messages of love. 
 
 The flow rs do hear His whisper from above, 
 
 And silently to growing life are stirred. 
 
 The trees His loving messages do bring; 
 
 Each leaf hath whisper of His tender care. 
 
 In the hot noontide it is like a prayer 
 
 For balm of coolness which they round us fling. 
 
 The many birds their happy voices ring, 
 And glad are they as is the golden light 
 Of Summer s morn, and all the rivers white 
 With crystal waters full Te Deums sing 
 Along their way as swiftly to the Sea, 
 Like blessed messengers they onward go, 
 Singing the harvest psalms so full and low, 
 With richest, untranslated melody. 
 
 God s world ! And we may find Him ev rywhere 
 If we but look and Faith doth give us sight, 
 And for our staff we have the blessed right. 
 He fills the Sea and the highest deeps of air, 
 His hand is on the stars and on the Sun, 
 On the lowly grasses as they upward spring, 
 On trees and flowers, hills, vales and ev rything. 
 As near today as when the world begun. 
 
 FOREVER NIGH. (1904.) 
 
 The little bird beneath my green vine leaves 
 Does twitter softly, then anon he weaves 
 A full-voiced melody. The breezes hear, 
 And bear it onward ringing sweet and clear, 
 Making Day gladder and Earth more divine. 
 I watch the fullness of the May sunshine, 
 And hear the merry hum of flies and bees; 
 I see the golden glory of the trees, 
 Crowned with the sunlight of the dreaming Noon 
 That lies asleep above the blue lagoon. 
 How light the ripples on its placid breast, 
 Like happy smiles they on its surface rest, 
 As if twere glad the bright days are so fair, 
 And Summer sweetness filled the balmy air. 
 The rose-bush leans above the dewy grass, 
 
 113 
 
God and Nature. 
 
 The humming-birds above it lightly pass, 
 
 Dear spirits of the Dawn they seem to be, 
 
 Telling their gladness to each bush and tree. 
 
 How many tones in Nature s joyous voice, 
 
 How many ways she bids us all rejoice! 
 
 She gladdens us with fullness of delight 
 
 By the rich glory of the Morning bright ; 
 
 With golden splendor of the Xoon she stirs 
 
 The hearts of all her countless worshipers. 
 
 In star-crowned Evening we may also see 
 
 The high, far gateways to immensity; 
 
 And looking, we may feel how small are we, 
 
 The deathless atoms of eternity. 
 
 And yet our thoughts the highways of the air 
 
 From star to star may traverse everywhere. 
 
 \\ e weigh the mighty worlds that fill the dec]), 
 
 Where suns and stars in their vast orbits sweep, 
 
 And find that in the Earth and boundless sky 
 
 Our Maker, God, is still forever nigh. 
 
 NATURE S CHILD. (1904.) 
 I love the skies that bright above me bend, 
 I love the Earth so fair, so sweet, so wide, 
 With mountain heights that rise on ev ry side, 
 And gentle breezes that light-footed wend 
 Across the vales that smile beneath the sky, 
 And kiss the trees with fragrant lips unseen, 
 As lies their path the swaying leaves between. 
 
 This wild wind-lover, he is sometimes shy; 
 Sometimes his lips just touch the opening flowers 
 Which lightly tremble at his fond caress, 
 But answer with a loving tenderness, 
 And pour their gladness out through all the hours 
 In rich perfume that makes the Earth more sweet. 
 I love the trees, for they do seem to me 
 Nature s high priests, whose blessed ministry 
 Makes holier the pathways for our feet. 
 
 O this great Earth ! Tis wonderfully fair, 
 A thought of God so perfect and divine, 
 From mount to sea, from dusk to clear sunshine. 
 The sunlit hills His hand-wrought footstools are, 
 The mounts that are uplifted to the skies, 
 Touched with the glory of the tipper air, 
 Seem heaven-built altars, gloriously fair, 
 And starlit candles all about them rise. 
 
 When the soft Night drops down and hill and vale 
 Rest in the moonlight s flooding silver glow, 
 How is the Vast unrolled ! we come to know 
 Immensity, and feeble speech does fail. 
 This sunlit world, this moonlit world are one, 
 This wondrous world of hill and vale and sea. 
 () how I love it! ajid I fain would be 
 Dear Nature s child until this life is done! 
 
 GOD. (1900.) 
 
 The glorious sunshine falling down like rain 
 On mighty mountains and on spreading plain 
 Is golden-tongued and eloquent to me 
 Of Clod, the unforgetting Deity. 
 
 No wind that blows, no blossom that unfolds, 
 No blade of grass, no ocean wave that rolls, 
 No singing bird, or butterfly, or bee, 
 But speaks of Him who fills immensity. 
 
 Center of all things, soul of being He! 
 Life of all life, the perfect Entity! 
 Within His hand He holds the starry worlds, 
 And into space the flaming comet hurls. 
 
 But He is Love, so unafraid am I, 
 
 Secure with Him, I leave my destiny 
 
 With Him; I walk and e er His voice I hear; 
 
 "Look up, my child, and feel thy Father near. 
 
 MORNING OUT OF DOORS. (1900.) 
 
 1 sit within the park; the placid lake lies near, 
 And scarce a ripple stirs upon its waters clear, 
 Its bosom heaves as lightly as a young child s breast 
 When it is softly sleeping in its cradled nest. 
 
 The birds skim softly through the shining sea of air, 
 The happy butterflies are flying everywhere, 
 The fragrant blossoms smile upon me as I sit 
 Within the trees cool shade near which the glad flies flit 
 
 How beautiful the spot! The trees like God s high 
 
 priests 
 
 Seem whispering prayers, nor do their whispers cease, 
 They speak of peace and love, and all the atmosphere 
 Is but a sounding gallery where we do hear 
 
 Ten thousand voices in their harmony divine, 
 Outspeaking to us, and the golden, warm sunshine 
 Falls like a benediction from the hand of God 
 On tree and flower and on the emerald sod. 
 
 And such a blessed rain of bird-song falleth now 
 From the leafy chamber of yonder swaying bough. 
 O Father! I do feel Thy watchful presence near, 
 Thy unseen footsteps tread this golden atmosphere. 
 
 NATURE S LESSONS. (1900.) 
 
 O mounts sublime! I look to thee and dream 
 
 Of the sky deeps where roam the winds and stars, 
 Where Night the vastness of her realm unbars, 
 
 Where Day walks with the Sun, crowned with his beams, 
 
 Hiding the mighty planets as they sweep 
 Their vast infinitude of orbits round, 
 Moving forever onward without sound, 
 
 Yet ever their unswerving pathway keep. 
 
 O mounts, O stars! the alphabet of power, 
 
 God-written are ye for our eyes to read ; 
 
 God s glory ye declare; shall we not heed 
 The wondrous message that ye give as dower 
 Unto man s spirit, telling God is here? 
 
 Jehovah s footprints are your lofty heights, 
 
 His finger-points are in Earth s starry nights, 
 His whisper in the breeze-swept atmosphere. 
 
 114 
 
Song* of Xuturc. 
 
 Breathing around us, fragrance-filled and sweet, 
 His hand dotli hold the sun-filled deep above, 
 With alphabet of flowers we read His love. 
 
 The shining sea s a pathway for His feet. 
 
 Earth! thou art God s temple where we stand, 
 
 The trees are His high priests, that point our eyes, 
 Like His own fingers, to the bending skies, 
 And heaven seems nearer, clinging to His hand. 
 
 SONGS OF NATURE. 
 
 His Glory. 
 This perfect morn, it is so very fair 
 
 1 feel God s presence in it everywhere; 
 
 The glory of His love is in each swaying leaf 
 And in the rain of brightness that doth fall 
 Like Heaven s own mantle over all things fair 
 From the blue, bending sky and boundless air, 
 To where the palm sways softly in the Sun, 
 And where warm tides Of brilliant colors run 
 Through roses red and golden poppies, bright 
 With the Sun s laughter, and violets blue 
 Lift up meek eyes, as if they really knew 
 God s eye was on them; and where the lilies bow 
 Their milk-white faces, like a cloistered nun, 
 All silent-lipped neath this effulgent Sun. 
 
 Oh, when breathes soft the spirit of the breeze, 
 I love to watch the sunshine on the trees, 
 As sway and shine they in this golden Sun; 
 Some silver bright, some gold, yet every one 
 
 A miracle of light. Ah, unseen fingers holy 
 
 Must touch these leaves with somewhat of heaven s glory, 
 
 God must be here, He is not far away; 
 
 It is His glory on the face of Day. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Morning her pure azure tint has spread 
 Above the Earth where dewdrops shine like stars, 
 And lilies stand with lifted cups of gold, 
 And the sweet-rose lifts up its perfumed head, 
 And whispers to the Dawn its story old 
 Of dewy slumber and divinest dreams, 
 As cradled in the starlight it did sleep, 
 Wrapped in the silver of the Moon s bright beams. 
 
 The sacred silences of the Night are filled 
 With wordless mysteries; the holy starlight, spilled 
 Like Summer rain, though tongueless to our ears. 
 Is the harmonious anthem of the far-off spheres, 
 A song of beauty which higher souls than ours 
 Hear, as tis poured into the heart of flowers, 
 Which give to us the sweetness of its breath 
 Its glory, shining through their raised leaves, 
 A symphony in color the garnered sheaves 
 Of songs whose silentness we note, 
 While Nature hears, through all her ways afloat. 
 Their rich, sweet melodv attuned unto her ears. 
 
 us 
 
aix6 
 
 sweeflr, O ye wedding bells, chime cleat!" 
 
 WEDDING BELLS. 
 
 (On the Wedding Anniversary of a Santa Barbara couple, 
 Oct. i, 1883.) 
 
 I. 
 
 How swiftly slip the years like pearls 
 
 Adown Time s silver string, 
 
 (Chime sweetly, O ye wedding bells, chime clear!) 
 How lean the roses round our length ning days, 
 And pure white lilies their sweet incense bring 
 The lilies of our hopes which are so fair, 
 The roses of our love which are so dear 
 (Chime sweetly, O ye wedding bells, chime clear!) 
 
 II. 
 
 The glad Spring of our wedded life 
 
 Hath passed to Summer s dawn 
 (Chime sweetly, O ye wedding bells, chime clear!) 
 The early Summer with its June s clear morn, 
 Its golden fullness, its "enchanted dusk," 
 Where souls brush off the dust of day, 
 And hearts grow warmer growing near 
 (Chime sweetly, O ye wedding bells, chime clear!) 
 
 III. 
 
 The music of those bells floats on 
 
 Adown the crystal years; 
 
 (Chime sweetly, O ye wedding bells, chime clear!) 
 For days grow brighter as the Sun climbs higher; 
 Our heart-throbs now keep time and beat together, 
 Our hopes are twin-born, and our sometime fears 
 Trust takes and loses them, nor leaves one near 
 (Chime sweetly, O ye wedding bells, chime clear!) 
 
 II. (1889.) 
 
 Time stands today and counts his rosary, 
 The beads of years he holds upon his string, 
 And in each pause we hear the glad bells ring. 
 O wedding bells! so mellow, soft and clear, 
 Ring out your music for each wedded year. 
 
 Past is the May-time of your wedded life, 
 And breaks the noon of Summer on your way, 
 But still the lilies of your hopes are fair 
 And sweet the roses of your love do bloom. 
 And Trust pours out her treasures of perfume. 
 O wedding bells ! so mellow, soft and clear, 
 With silver chimes ring in this noontide year. 
 
 O Future! as your hidden skies unfold, 
 
 Let Joy s white flowers still blossom in their sun; 
 
 Let all Life s after-summer come 
 
 With June-like gladness, and its evening-time 
 
 Be sweet as that when first the chime 
 
 Of wedding bells in their young May 
 
 Sent echoes down Life s flowery way. 
 
 O wedding bells ! so mellow, soft and clear, 
 
 More joyous ring with every passing year. 
 
 FROM MIDNIGHT TO MORNING. (1876.) 
 
 I was up in the early glory 
 
 Of the golden-footed Dawn, 
 When the Sun flashed out his brightness 
 
 In the face of the coming Morn, 
 And the long and gleaming lashes 
 
 In a fringe of sunbeams lay 
 As they fell from the drooping eyelids 
 
 Of the lovely new-born Day. 
 And I said, O Earth! as ever 
 Thy beauty is born anew, 
 As out of the darkness the daylight, 
 As Night brings the glory of starlight, 
 So out from the midnight of sorrow 
 Is born Joy s brightest Tomorrow. 
 
 THIS FAIR, BRIGHT DAY. (1878.) 
 
 The roses pour oblations full and sweet 
 
 I feel their beauty with my bated breath 
 
 The jeweled grasses tremble underneath, 
 
 And the white lily with its golden wand 
 
 Distills such incense that the light-winged breeze, 
 
 With its soft touch upon my brow and hand, 
 
 Seems but the soul of Perfume; in the trees 
 
 Birds fold their wings, their glad throats fdled with son 
 
 And seems to take the world into itself! 
 
 Making a pathway through the golden Morn. 
 
 O I am glad! My very heart is thrilled 
 And bees with golden crests buzz swift along, 
 Sight is the Soul s touch, and its touch has filled 
 My inner sense; through eyes my soul has laid 
 Its hand on Nature s face, and this bright day, 
 Golden in beauty, with soft dimples made 
 On the wide blue by pearly clouds, which stray 
 Like snowflakes drifting through the shining air, 
 Is gathered to my inner life, and there 
 Fills all my soul like an unspoken prayer. 
 
 TWO. (1881.) 
 
 I see a river wide and shining fair, 
 
 Set with green isles, where rarest blossoms spring, 
 And fill with fragrance all the morning air, 
 
 And singing-birds are ever on the wing. 
 
 Above it bend such bright and glowing skies, 
 No clouds above their sunrise-glory shed 
 
 Their shadows on the stream; no eddies rise 
 In the grand river by the streamlets fed. 
 
 All things are lovely, and the bells ring out 
 Their melody of music by the tide, 
 
 And boats are drifting here and there about- 
 Some drifting singly, some float side by side. 
 
 116 
 
Life Speak to Thy Soul. 
 
 O fair bright river! this life s loveliest ones 
 
 Float on thy sunny breast, while Hope sings sweet. 
 
 And Trust has built her palace on thy wave, 
 
 And Faith s white lilies bend their heads to meet 
 
 Thy sweet cool tides, that in their ebb and flow 
 Baptize them with the silver of their waves, 
 
 And kiss them with soft lips before they go 
 .Where their pure waters all the green shore laves. 
 
 Adown the flowery bank come, hand in hand, 
 Two unto whom life still is young and fair; 
 
 Love watches them from this far Sunset Land, 
 And though divided, we are with them there. 
 
 For now, on Love s bright river, lo! they launch their boat, 
 Its white sail spotless in the glowing light; 
 
 And down the silver-rippled stream they float, 
 To the wide Ocean, just within our sight. 
 
 There may be clouds to hide the golden Sun, 
 
 There may be storms that shall beset their way, 
 
 There may be troubled seas to be outrun, 
 
 And deep, dark waters where the breakers play 
 
 On some dread Scylla or Charybdis side; 
 
 But safe their boat shall float along if they 
 Have Love, the mariner, their helm beside, 
 
 And life be with them one long blessed day, 
 
 Spent in fair isles, with tropic splendor crowned, 
 Filled with the heart s best fruits of Peace and Trust, 
 
 Wherever Hope s sweet singing-birds abound, 
 And fill with song the Eve s "enchanted dusk." 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 O Life! I sometimes wonder what tis worth! 
 
 It would be nothing if this time-held Earth 
 
 Were all of it, though days are very fair, 
 
 With shining skies and sun, and everywhere 
 
 In Night s vast spaces countless stars are hung, 
 
 And the great-bosomed hills are glorified 
 
 With bud and blossom, while in the far wide 
 
 Vales, tremulous and breeze-kissed, grassy blades 
 
 Thrill with Day s glory till the sunset fades, 
 
 And then soft breezes stir the silent air 
 
 As if the Earth did worship, and a prayer 
 
 Breathed to its Maker. Oh, but this fair Earth 
 
 Is very fair, and it is wholly worth 
 
 My wondering reverence, because I know 
 
 God fashioned it, and the sweet winds that blow 
 
 Laden with perfume and the balm of flowers 
 
 His hand hath loosed; they walk this world of ours 
 
 Like God s angels, brushing at once away 
 
 That which would harm us, foul disease and death, 
 
 Which flee before their purifying breath. 
 
 And, ah ! what miracles about us lie ! 
 
 Just think of it! The wisest man might try 
 
 To make a simple leaf or blade of grass, 
 
 But into them no power of his could pass 
 
 That which would give them life, and make them grow 
 
 And so, O waiting soul of mine! I know 
 
 Gcd s touch is on them, and His daily care 
 
 Is like the sunlight, round them everywhere. 
 
 And the sweet birds, the butterflies and bees, 
 
 The mountained glory and the might of seas, 
 
 The gurgling laughter of the running rill 
 
 Speak to my soul forever, and I still 
 
 Thrill to the infinite. And I have found 
 
 There s beauty everywhere in sight and sound. 
 
 And more than this, far more, my full heart feels 
 
 The tenderness of Love, and Love s sweet worth, 
 
 The best of all things that do gladden earth. 
 
 Then Hope and Faith, O blessed things are they! 
 
 Telling of life beyond this little day, 
 
 A life where life bursts into fullest flower, 
 
 And Man grows godlike through God s love and power. 
 
 Tis this, tis this that gives to life its worth, 
 
 And glorifies the humblest life of earth. 
 
 II. 
 
 O Life is grand! It is so great to be 
 
 With soul that unto highest heaven aspires, 
 
 With being stretching through infinity, 
 
 Unfolding with new hopes and high desires. 
 
 Time but a little moment is of life, 
 
 A shadowed hour before its radiant morn, 
 
 The day of storm and of the battle s strife, 
 Ere the full triumph of the glorious dawn. 
 
 To be forever and to never cease; 
 
 And as earth passes, lo! the shadows flee, 
 Time s curtain lifts and God s own day of peace 
 
 Breaks in the light of His eternity. * 
 
 Xo more the shadow and no more the doubt, 
 The clogs of flesh drop off, the spirit wakes 
 
 To boundlessness of life, as passing out 
 
 From time and earth its heavenward flight it takes. 
 
 SPEAK TO THY SOUL. (1898.) 
 
 The days come to me like pearls of God s own 
 
 Setting, each rimmed round by Time s glad, golden 
 
 Hours. How fair they are, how full of beauty! 
 
 Each has its life, each throbs with new desire, 
 
 Pulses with thoughts that upward do aspire 
 
 To nobler life, to broader being s goal. 
 
 Each but a part of one great wondrous whole 
 
 The whole of life! Tis mystery we see! 
 
 Oh, what its meaning, what the Yet-to-be 
 
 Of Earth s full story of the life ot men? 
 
 We live not to ourselves, and yet again 
 
 Our lives we live alone, for there fire deeps 
 
 In each mind-world where silence ever keeps 
 
 Its soundless rule, nor word, nor voice of speech, 
 
 Naught but God s eye this realm can ever reach. 
 
 There is a stratum of subconscious self 
 
 That s strange to us as some star-world afar, 
 
 Swinging in space, whose distance e er will bar 
 
 Our entrance. I know not what s within me, 
 
 ir 
 
Life and Duty, Hope and Joy. 
 
 What thoughts may leap to consciousness and live 
 
 In strength of purpose and intensity 
 
 Of deeds deeds that unto the world shall give 
 
 To what else were dark a shining glory, 
 
 Bright with the luster of their simple story. 
 
 List! O list! Does not some echo near ye 
 
 Of the grand \Vhat-may-be if we but see 
 
 Duty at action s helm, guiding for aye 
 
 The race of men? Oh, what high destiny 
 
 Swims in the Vast which all about us lies! 
 
 Waiting to crown us with its rich emprise, 
 
 Live we but rightly, seeking e er to be 
 
 As great as God would have us, momently 
 
 Using our soul-wings, which would ever bear 
 
 Us up, past all those feeble pauses where 
 
 The soul falters, up where high endeavor gives 
 
 Strength unto being, and the highest lives 
 
 The highest in us that is godlike, pure 
 
 As angel purpose, and that shall endure 
 
 While being lasts. 
 
 Struggling soul unfold, 
 
 Like some white blossom with its heart of gold 
 Unto the sunlight of God s love. His purpose share; 
 Be thou the blessed messenger to bear 
 Truth to the world by living truth each day, 
 For truth that s lived is stronger far alway 
 Than that framed simply in a fruitless word. 
 A theory unlived has never stirred 
 A life to action. Soul, be up and do 
 That which makes life, the right, the good, the true. 
 
 LIFE IS DIVINE. (1899.) 
 
 Time treads the pathway of the ages long, 
 The years slip by him as on beaded lines. 
 Beneath his dial sound the echoing chimes 
 
 Of the great centuries of Might and Wrong. 
 
 Earth swings beneath the Sun and circles round 
 Her unseen orbit through the fields of space; 
 Men come and go, and others take their place, 
 
 And what of worth in all this life is found? 
 
 War to our lips doth hold his blood-red cup, 
 We drink and shudder at its awful woe, 
 And Sorrow lingers e en where blossoms grow, 
 
 And hungry Want from all our paths looks up. 
 
 Friends smile on us, and then they pass from sight, 
 Death opes the door through which their feet must 
 
 tread, 
 And foul Decay upon their flesh is fed, 
 
 And Time nowhere doth show us any light. 
 
 But O my soul ! look up ! look up and see 
 
 That which makes day amid the darkest night; 
 That which makes Sorrow vanish from our sight, 
 
 And lifts the veil from all life s mystery. 
 
 God is o erhead. O hear His blessed voice! 
 
 Lo! I am with thee ever, child of mine; 
 
 Out of this night Joy s living light shall shine; 
 Be glad in Me, and let thy soul rejoice. 
 
 Life s tent is spread but for a passing day, 
 But lo ! my angels round about it wait, 
 And Love keeps guard, and nevermore blind Fate 
 
 Dares haunt .your footsteps as ye pass life s way. 
 
 My angels sometimes come in Sorrow s guise, 
 But they. are angels still, and ye shall see 
 Life blossom into joy if unto Me 
 
 Ye look in faith, and all your darkened skies 
 
 Shine like the Morning, for this Earth is fair 
 When tis faith-lighted, and Doubt s phantom fears 
 Pass like pale ghosts when Hope itself appears, 
 
 Touching all things with brightness everywhere. 
 
 O Earth ! O Man ! God loves ye well, for He 
 Feeds you with beauty, and makes man aspire 
 With thought enkindled unto something higher; 
 
 Even to Heaven s own glory that shall be 
 
 Man s full fruition. Be glad, O Man ! and see 
 Life is divine, and we may make it great 
 When we stand godlike, with our souls elate 
 
 With purpose worthy of Eternity. 
 
 118 
 
an an6 Woman, 
 
 "Honor s crown, O woman, wails for you." 
 
 THE W. C. T. U. 
 
 (On the laying of a corner-stone. 1888.) 
 
 God built the world for Time s long ages, for 
 The centuries of years which Change has ruled 
 And giant Progress nurtured. Not alone 
 For man in Eden, or for the hoary 
 Patriarchs whose feet verged on the threshold 
 Of a thousand years, but for us as well 
 Who walk the pathway of the present, and for 
 Those who in Time s twilight hour shall come and 
 See Time s ending, were these blue skies spread and 
 The Earth set fast upon its firm foundations. 
 Xo Today bounds God s great purposes; no 
 Measure of Earth s untold eons can hedge 
 Them in or compass their infinity. 
 
 And like Him who first reared this grand temple, 
 And spread above its mountain walls the dome 
 Of its blue sky, and up reared the columned 
 Trees, and, in the beginning, upon their 
 Granite base set all Earth s rock foundations, 
 Humbly and reverently, with our eyes 
 L pon the pregnant future, upon the 
 Needs of coming generations, on those 
 Among their children who shall be drink-scourged 
 And demon-haunted, we lay, not for to- 
 Day alone, but for the long Tomorrows 
 Of Old Time, this corner-stone, above which 
 We hope to rear the roof and architrave 
 O er spacious halls forever consecrate 
 To human needs; to temper here the shields 
 Against temptation; to help unto their 
 Feet those who have fallen. 
 
 This corner-stone 
 
 Means more than simple building with brick and 
 Mortar. Each hammer-stroke, each steady 
 Trowel-sweep smites at gigantic Wrong, and 
 Rings with pity for the tempted; each chisel s 
 Touch carves out fresh hopes for them, as beautiful 
 As is the carven statue which takes shape 
 Beneath the sculptor s hand, and no less pure 
 Than is his stainless marble. 
 
 These walls will 
 
 Also be emblems of courage and of 
 Patience of the noble deeds of the large- 
 Hearted woman-workers by whom, as borne 
 Down along God s ways into their ears, the 
 Cry for soul-help was heard and heeded. 
 As the dew falls down upon the Night, so 
 Fell on them the grace of earnest purpose, 
 And in the warm Summer of their hearts is 
 Ripening now the sure harvest of tireless 
 Endeavor. The corner-stone is laid. The 
 Walls shall rise, each brick a pledge of safety 
 
 To the poor captive souls bound by the strong 
 
 Cords of an insatiate appetite. 
 
 L pon the awful nightmare of the drunkard s 
 
 Sleep, swept by the bitter winds of Misery, 
 
 From out these doors the words of pity shall 
 
 Drop down like rain into seared hearts which have 
 
 Burned dry witli sinning. Here shall be buili strong 
 
 Dykes of moral purpose, which shall help to 
 
 Stay the fiery tide that burns out love 
 
 And common decency, and honest pride, 
 
 And noble manhood. Lay (inn the corner-stone! 
 
 I THE DRUNKARD. 
 
 (A woman s prayer. 1890.) 
 
 I heard a woman praying with white face, 
 
 While lifting broken-hearted voice on high; 
 
 Above her bent the immeasurable sky 
 
 Filled full of sunshine, as Sorrow had no place 
 
 In all its deeps. But still I know the ear 
 
 Of the All-Merciful was bent to hear; 
 
 And sometime he will answer, and then men 
 
 Will feel how awful sin is sin of Greed when 
 
 It doth crush the heart and sell man s soul 
 
 For filthy lucre. List to the story that her prayer doth tell ; 
 
 Heed it, ye merciless, O heed it well! 
 
 As kneeling with wan face and tearful eyes, 
 
 And lifted hands her broken spirit cries: 
 
 "My husband! my beloved! O God! give car, 
 
 Bend Thou these heavens and let me feel Thee near, 
 
 While for my dearer self I pray to Thee; 
 
 Stir Thou the hearts of men till they shall see 
 
 The cruel wrong, the deadly infamy 
 
 Which opens wide the palace gates of sin, 
 
 Where wine is poured for men to enter in. 
 
 O Father, hear! the tempters spread their net 
 
 Through all the sacred Sabbath hours, and yet 
 
 We have no human law to succor men 
 
 Lured by their selfish snares; and when 
 
 We lift a finger to restrain, oh, then 
 
 They cry aloud and shriek that we 
 
 Despoil them of their rightful liberty. 
 
 Is there no law of human right to stay 
 
 This traffic in poor human souls? No way 
 
 To stop this robbery of hopes and this 
 
 Wreck of homes? Hath wrong no Nemesis? 
 
 How long, O Heaven! how long may men 
 
 Defy Thee for the sake of gold? When 
 
 Shall their cry be hushed, their shameless cry 
 
 For liberty to rend our hearts; to try 
 
 Our souls; to murder tenderness, 
 
 To use the day which Thou didst bless 
 
 As other days to drag man s manhood down 
 
 To the low levels where the crown 
 
 Is set on beastly appetite, 
 
Man and Woman. 
 
 And man is made its fettered slave? 
 
 O Heavenly Father ! let me crave 
 
 Thy blessing and Thy help; teach me, I pray 
 
 Full reverence for Thy Holy Sabbath day, , 
 
 For other s rights; for manhood s needs; may we 
 
 Regard our universal brotherhood, and see 
 
 Our duty clearly." 
 
 She paused; a step she heard, 
 A tottering step, which all her pulses stirred; 
 Besotted, drunk, into that Sabbath calm, 
 The little children huddling in alarm, 
 Her husband came. Lower she knelt, 
 More earnestly with breaking heart she prayed, 
 And think you God heard not? That He 
 Will answer not? That we shall see 
 Wrong ever unrebuked? That ne er will melt 
 With tender pity for such need and woe 
 Our Father s heart? That always so 
 Evil shall triumph? Nay, I tell ye nay! 
 
 WOMAN. 
 
 Long were the eons of Old Time in which 
 
 God the Creator wrought, fashioning from 
 
 Chaos this wide, sweet Earth. Fire and ice the 
 
 Mighty glaciers, the ploughshares of His 
 
 Power, and earthquakes from the vast womb of 
 
 Seething deeps, lifting unto the shoulders 
 
 Of the skies Earth s giant mountains, 
 
 Were tools within His forming hand to shape 
 
 To beauty infinite this world of ours. 
 
 Ages were His children the great Today 
 
 Of infinite purpose, to whom a thousand 
 
 Years are but as yesterday. Slowly were 
 
 Earth s foundations laid, and her green valleys 
 
 And everlasting hills made glorious. 
 
 But when the Earth was finished and complete, 
 
 Its bosom jeweled with blossoms odorous 
 
 And fair, and its form girdled with shining 
 
 Streams, and the white sands of its shores were kissed 
 
 By silver seas, and fragrance-breathing winds 
 
 Blew soft beneath the ever-shining stars, 
 
 And golden in the deeps of Day shone the 
 
 Bright Sun, warming to ripeness Earth s many 
 
 Fruits, God wrought more gloriously, and set 
 
 His seal upon created things. Through the 
 
 Vast silences broke the untold symphony 
 
 Of tli Creator s voice. Earth hushed itself 
 
 To listen, and the stars stood still; shining 
 
 Suns paused reverently a moment in 
 
 Their courses, while God spake, "Let us make man 
 
 In our own image!" O that first morn in 
 
 Eden! Link by link had the long chain of 
 
 Created things been wrought, each link showing 
 
 Something higher and more perfect until 
 
 The end was reached, and Man, the image of 
 
 The Creator, in Eden sinless stood. 
 
 But no chattering, savage thing was he, 
 
 Evolved from ape or anything beneath ; 
 
 But fresh-formed from the creative hand of 
 
 The All-Infinite he sprang, wondrously 
 
 Clothed upon with mind that had been taught 
 
 By Deity. Intelligence shone from 
 
 His godlike face, and from his lips breathed the 
 
 Melody of informed speech. Like a god 
 
 He stood splendid in beauty, responsive 
 
 To Earth s thousand voices, waiting God s will. 
 
 Yet still Creation s work was not complete, 
 
 And once again through the vast realms of 
 
 Space, sweeter than melody of harp and 
 
 Diviner than the music of the spheres, 
 
 Sounded afar the God-voice, saying clear, 
 
 " It is not good for Man to be alone, 
 
 Let us make a helpmeet for him!" Oh, then 
 
 Did Eden smile, and all its blossoming sweets 
 
 At once did lend themselves unto added 
 
 Fragrance while Adam slept, then ope d his eyes 
 
 To see a wondrous vision. No flower 
 
 Within the garden half as fair as she, 
 
 Standing before him with her down-dropped lids, 
 
 Half- veiling eyes glorious with their full 
 
 Soul-light, and blue as the bending heavens. 
 
 She was tall, but all her beauteous form 
 
 Was veiled in the shining gold of her bright 
 
 Tresses. Like the pink tints of the rose her 
 
 Smoothly-rounded cheeks, her lips so curved and 
 
 Lovely, words cannot paint their beauty, no 
 
 More than could they the shining of the fair 
 
 Full moon. Beautiful, the highest glory 
 
 Of God s creative work, stood she, crowned 
 
 As the Mother of the Race, the helpmeet 
 
 Of her husband. Her soul s environment 
 
 Was purity; her heart was tenderness, 
 
 And yet her thoughts reached out for aye, longing 
 
 For greater knowledge. No plaything was she, 
 
 But companion, bosoming the great world s 
 
 Destiny, her hand shaping its future; 
 
 Her deeds moulding the race, the Woman type 
 
 Of all the ages. And so today the 
 
 World waits on her. But first, highest and most 
 
 Sacred, tender as the softened light of 
 
 Starry eyes is Woman s world of Home, for 
 
 Here she shapes the race, moulds statesmen for the 
 
 Needs of nations. Here she does find the high 
 
 Noon of her power, and breathes the lingering 
 
 Air of Paradise. Yet today wide swing 
 
 The golden doors of Opportunity, 
 
 Where she may wisely enter if she but 
 
 Heeds the simple law of Right ! "Do first the 
 
 Duty that lies nearest thee." This doing, 
 
 Then bravely onward into broader fields, 
 
 Seize with thy might whatever duty yields, 
 
 Work for the world, hold to the good and true, 
 
 And Honor s crown, O Woman! waits for von. 
 
 120 
 
Earth s Dirincst Thin, 
 
 HOME. (1892.) 
 
 The world has nothing that is half so fair 
 As that green island in its desert waste 
 That we call Home. Oasis-like, it has 
 Its own delights, its pleasant atmosphere, 
 Its song and laughter, and its hearts that know 
 Not doubt, that breathe but faith and loyalty. 
 The Sun shines ever there the Sun of Love, 
 And trust is there, an angel with white wings, 
 And tenderness with seraph face and form, 
 And truth, and purity divinely fair 
 And self- forgetting, which does know no care 
 But for the other s good, and little 
 Children, offspring of chastest love, the dew 
 Of Heaven still upon their hearts, and its 
 Spotless innocence on their pure white souls. 
 O blessed home! O well the poets sang, 
 "Domestic happiness, thou only bliss 
 Of Paradise that has survived the fall." 
 
 EARTH S DIVINEST THING. (1895.) 
 
 Oh, life is vast and very sweet and fair! 
 So full of wonders pulsing everywhere; 
 So full of glory, from the deeps of sky 
 To the dim glade where sweeps the water by; 
 So full of grandeur where the mountain height 
 Stands face to face with Morning s dawning light, 
 And where the Sea clasps all the many shores, 
 And, voiced with power, its diapason pours 
 In full wave-thunder when the Storm awakes, 
 And in its wrath the coast s firm bastions shakes. 
 
 How like a child the quiet Summer day, 
 
 Breathing of calm and sweetness and the May 
 
 Of blossoming; birds sing, the light leaves dance, 
 
 The butterfly and bee in dalliance 
 
 Touch bud and opening blossom tenderly, 
 
 Wafting sweet undertones of melody 
 
 That set the wide, sweet air attune with song, 
 
 Borne through the hidden silences along 
 
 Until we hear sounds that we cannot hear 
 
 Save with the quickening of the spirit s ear. 
 
 O God s great world is ever full of song! 
 Divinely uttered, and ever, all along 
 Its hidden ways, from grass-blade to the Sun, 
 Do its great harp-strings, full of music, run; 
 Light has its voices, Night its many strings, 
 Which some sound touches and as quickly flings 
 Into the vastness which about us lies, 
 Deeper than Earth and vaster than the skies. 
 
 But of all things most wonderful to me, 
 
 The highest, purest, is the mystery 
 
 Of loving the full reach of soul to soul, 
 
 Of heart to heart, lying beyond control 
 
 Of selfish purpose. Is there aught so dear, 
 
 So marvelously glad ning in this sphere 
 
 Of earth-life as this ever-blessed thing 
 
 In which self dies, and selfishness takes wing? 
 
 LOVE S WISHES TO A BRIDE. (1896.) 
 
 O wedding bells! find tongues of song! 
 Ring sweet, ring clear, ring glad, ring long! 
 O Day ! that climbs the morning s blue ! 
 Come robed with sunbeams, with the gold 
 Of shining light, make Earth as fair 
 As Eden s morn when Time was new 
 And gladness wandered everywhere, 
 And love its first sweet story told. 
 
 O June! fill all your fragrant heart 
 
 With tender care for her whose part 
 
 Is in your bridals, who today 
 
 Takes from your hand the gifts you bring 
 
 The crown of Wifehood jewel it 
 
 With brightest years which never may 
 
 Be sorrow-dimmed O let them flit 
 
 Each one as fair as days of Spring! 
 
 O starry skies! bend bright above 
 This bridal hour of youth and love; 
 Roses of trust forever bloom; 
 Lilies of hope unfold most fair 
 Along their path, and wedded truth 
 Be fairer in its later noon 
 Than in its golden morn of youth. 
 God bless and keep you everywhere! 
 
 . IF LOVE WERE DEAD. (1897.) 
 
 My joyous heart today drinks deep of life s 
 
 Sweet wine, as do the stars drink sunlight and 
 
 The Earth its dew, and as the sea drinks Earth s 
 
 Great rivers, as they run down to its deeps, 
 
 Their voices glad with joy of strength, and filled 
 
 With melody of beauty and rhythmed 
 
 Flow of crystal tides, which mirror the far 
 
 Skies and all of Day s fair face; and when comes 
 
 The soft-breathing Night, she drops her many 
 
 Stars into the water s breast to dream, and 
 
 There they sleep; although the river rushes 
 
 On, with still its waters cradling them, their 
 
 Lullabies of sweetness filling all the 
 
 Night. Even so doth love cradle my heart, 
 
 While all the rivers of my soul run to 
 
 Its mighty sea, while the bright skies of hope 
 
 Shine with its sun, and the many stars of 
 
 Tender thought gleam in the under-tides that 
 
 Ever roll and fill the boundless ocean 
 
 Of my love s immensity. Oh, soulless 
 
 Would life be if love were dead! Each 
 
 Shining star would then go out in darkness, 
 
 And Hope would lay her golden-tressed head 
 
 Upon the block, and grim Despair, with strong 
 
 Relentless arm, would smite it with the axe 
 
 Of Death. Men would fight like beasts, and hew each 
 
 Other down with swords of hate and utter 
 
 Selfishness. The home, too, would be blotted 
 
 Out, and little children, offspring of lust, 
 
 Would drink no more the milk of mother-love, 
 
 But bitter waters from the streams of cold 
 
 121 
 
Man and Woman. 
 
 Neglect and death. All song would die, and all 
 
 Melody be hushed, and all light fade within 
 
 Each silent chamber of the heart, and God 
 
 Yes, God would die if love were dead, for He 
 
 Is Love, and we are only like Him when 
 
 We love. Then how would Earth make saddest moan 
 
 And crumble into nothingness, and all 
 
 Soul-life turn to ashes ! Chaos would 
 
 Spring from beneath Love s pyre, and Hell itself 
 
 Anything, if God were not. 
 
 O man ! tis Love that lights the Sun and stars, 
 
 And guides the circling spheres for aye through their 
 
 Vast orbits; that holds the Ocean in the hollow 
 
 Of His hand; and draws the flowing rivers 
 
 To its deep ; that clothes the fair, sweet Earth with 
 
 Loveliness, and fills its air with fragrance; 
 
 That gives to soul its life, and to the heart its voice 
 
 Of melting tenderness, its swelling tides 
 
 Of joy and planets the "home, sweet home," where are 
 
 Set "the solitary in families," 
 
 And the divine in man is born anew 
 
 And nurtured, and Heaven s own light shines forth, 
 
 Reflected in the blessed love of Earth. 
 
 THE TRUE WOMAN. (1898.) 
 
 [Written for a meeting of the Woman s Parliament assembled 
 at Redlands.] 
 
 Down Time s broad path we ll walk awhile today 
 
 Walk backward o er the long and shadowed way 
 
 The race has trod since first Time s morning broke, 
 
 And, fair as light, in Eden s garden woke 
 
 The perfect Mother of the Human Race; 
 
 Perfect in beauty, modesty and grace, 
 
 Grand in the grandeur of that love which makes 
 
 A woman royal, and which ever takes 
 
 Self from her vision, showing to her eyes 
 
 Earth s needy ones, whom through self-sacrifice, 
 
 Or kindly word, or ready outstretched hand, 
 
 She may lift up and help them yet to stand 
 
 On nobler heights. Woman as God made thee! 
 
 Creation s crown! let us turn back and see 
 
 What was thy glory, what made womanhood 
 
 The best of all things God pronounced as good. 
 
 O eyes of mine, O longing vision! see 
 
 The vast unfoldings of infinity, 
 
 Walk softly down the path that man has trod, 
 
 Since sinless stood he face to face with God. 
 
 O Mother Eve ! Lone mother of thy race, 
 Young Time it was that smiled into thy face, 
 That stood before thee, nothing was behind, 
 But God was neat. O first of womankind! 
 Fair, new-created, thou didst feel the thrill 
 Of His hand s touch as if it lingered still 
 Upon thy forehead, and thy heart did keep, 
 Like the rich perfume of the blossoms sweet, 
 Adam s first words of greeting. Love crowned thee 
 With nobler grace than that of royalty. 
 
 Thus in that garden, where the Past began, 
 
 Stood woman, helpmeet of the perfect man; 
 
 Who came as comes the blessed light of Day 
 
 To the dark Earth when Night had passed away. 
 
 All things were brighter for her being there 
 
 E en sinless Eden was itself more fair, 
 
 And Adam stood with grander mien of grace 
 
 To meet the marvel of that woman s face. 
 
 Hers the great calm of trust; serene she stood 
 
 In the pure majesty of womanhood, 
 
 Nor questioned ever which the greater, she 
 
 Or the man Adam. The great royalty 
 
 Of perfect purpose was around her there 
 
 In everything: in the sweet lucid air, 
 
 Thrilling with bird-song, pulsing with the light 
 
 Of the new-made Sun gleaming in the white 
 
 Face of the opening lily s flower, 
 
 And in the glory of that morning hour 
 
 When Earth is fairest; in the breezes low, 
 
 And in the music of the river s flow. 
 
 A hush fell on her spirit, to her soul 
 
 A deep sense of reverent worship stole, 
 
 Holding her heart captive. To be and do 
 
 That which is highest, holiest and true 
 
 Did her soul yearn for; self passed from sight, 
 
 As stars pass from our vision in the light 
 
 Of the glad Morning, when the golden Day 
 
 Laughs on the hilltops, and love held its sway 
 
 Over her soul, born with her perfect life, 
 
 And waked to music by the name of wife 
 
 When Adam spake. Twas then the Home had birth, 
 
 And for the coming races of the Earth 
 
 Brightened the future; it stood out divine, 
 
 Luminous with glory. The way did shine 
 
 As if sunlighted, and Eve s gladdened eyes, 
 
 Filled with the beauty of the earth and skies, 
 
 And the sweet greatness of her woman s soul, 
 
 Turned unto God and Adam, and the whole 
 
 Pure Eden atmosphere enfolding them 
 
 Breathed in an ecstacy of gladness when 
 
 Eve spoke, and the Day put fresh glory on, 
 
 And looked with prouder face unto the Sun; 
 
 The flowers seemed crowding closer as if near 
 
 They would bloom lovelier; all things hushed to hear 
 
 Her first earth utterance. Twas as if her lips 
 
 Were soul-anointed, and, self in an eclipse, 
 
 Saw God and Adam only, or, still more, 
 
 God s purpose in ner being. A smile o er 
 
 Her bright face stole, as does o er the flower 
 
 Steal the glad sunbeam, while the hour 
 
 Tingled with beauty; and then, low and sweet, 
 
 As twere some blossom breathing at their feet 
 
 A perfumed melody, did Eve s voice break 
 
 The waiting silence, and at once did make 
 
 Sound perfect music. Ah ! what words were these 
 
 Owning her joy in being? Symphonies 
 
 Of trust were they. Waiting to be and do 
 
 All that her God would have her. Adam, too, 
 
 With his white soul, strong, sinless, half divine, 
 
 Echoed her utterance, while at the shrine 
 
 122 
 
The True Woman and Home. 
 
 Of her pure womanliness he, thought-wise, 
 
 Gave highest reverence, and his gl. 
 
 His starry eyes grew brighter as to him 
 
 His life s full completeness seemed to brim 
 
 Th perfect cup of being. Two souls as one 
 
 Into that morning of Young Time had come; 
 
 She holding her own soul in her glad eyes, 
 
 He reading it in joy and sweet surprise, 
 
 Glad that God made him greater, giving her; 
 
 She, glad to be thus given, without a blur 
 
 Upon her new life s page, to find her place, 
 
 With the warm light of his proud, tender face 
 
 Shining upon her; and to walk with him 
 
 Within the path of Duty, sometimes dim, 
 
 But leading heavenward always. O divine 
 
 This self- forgetting ! Woman, it is thine 
 
 To walk like Eve, self in eclipse, elate 
 
 In thoughts for others, great, most truly great 
 
 When thus thou livest, with no outreaching hand 
 
 Grasping for place and rule, feeding on husks 
 
 Of vain Ambition; waiting as in th dusk 
 
 Of tyrants power, when woman was a slave, 
 
 And then a plaything, and her heart the grave 
 
 Of noblest hopes, when vainly she sought to climb 
 
 The grand highways of Progress; for her time 
 
 Had not then ripened, deeds not blossomed yet 
 
 That should yield fruitage, though the soil was wet 
 
 With tears of struggling effort. But today 
 
 The darkness of that age has passed away; 
 
 In this great moment of the present she 
 
 May rule by might of gentle purity, 
 
 May tread the highways of man s highest thought, 
 
 Where the great battles for the Right are fought. 
 
 Open for her is every gate that leads 
 
 To God s grand purposes, where wisdom feeds 
 
 And the world brightens. Woman, be 
 
 Strong in the promise of thy destiny ! 
 
 Earth hath no power to work for human good 
 
 So vast and grand as gracious womanhood. 
 
 THE TRUE WOMAN AND HOME. 
 
 The shadows fall across the quiet hearth, 
 The eventide draws near; the golden Sun 
 Is sinking in the West where stars have birth 
 The many stars, so soon as Day is done. 
 
 How soft the murmur of the breathing winds 
 Their tender whispers mid the perfumed leaves 
 Of climbing rose and blossom-yielding vines, 
 Whose clinging arms embrace the drooping eaves. 
 
 The gurgling laughter from the baby s lips 
 Gladdens the air like music in the night, 
 For joy seems oozing from his finger tips, 
 And all his soul is full of sweet delight. 
 
 He smiling leans upon his mother s breast; 
 Her eyes his heaven; his cradle her fond arms; 
 His world the tender lap where he does rest. 
 All love-enveloped, safe from danger s harms. 
 
 The gate-latch clicks, a manly step is heard; 
 The mother s eyes grow luminous with joy, 
 Her pulse-beats quicken, all her heart is stirred 
 With welcome for the father of her boy. 
 
 The love-light in her eyes is like a Sun; 
 
 How Earth s cares slip away within their light, 
 
 Life s burdens drop; he brings not even one; 
 
 Love crowds them quickly from his thoughts and sight. 
 
 The table spread in spotless white is seen, 
 The silver sparkles and the soft lights glow; 
 The baby s laughter ripples in between 
 The tides of talk in joyous ebb and flow. 
 
 O home, sweet home ! True womanhood s desire 
 Is like the stars which waiteth for the Sun, 
 Glad to let melt the softness of its fire 
 In the bright beams from which its light is won. 
 
 MAN. (1901.) 
 
 How glorious the golden sunset light, 
 
 When the whole West aflame with brightness lies, 
 And the grand mountains in their splendor rise, 
 Reflecting all the radiance of the skies, 
 
 Their rocky crests transfigured and as bright 
 
 As if a sun were cradled on each height. 
 
 It often seems as if some sky-built door 
 
 Had backward swung until we could behold 
 The land beyond the stars, with streets of gold, 
 Where Time s great waters never yet have rolled, 
 
 And Being s vastness broadens evermore 
 
 Beyond the limits of this earthly shore. 
 
 How the mind wanders gropingly and blind 
 Through the great starry region overhead; 
 Thought s fleetest wings are evermore outspread, 
 And onward to infinity are led, 
 Beyond the mighty forces of the wind, 
 Seeking Creation s outmost bounds to find. 
 
 But the mind staggers as the Vast unfolds, 
 Lost in its littleness, and dumb it lies, 
 An atom mid infinity of skies, 
 Mid worlds on worlds that to its vision rise. 
 O great Creator! who all matter holds 
 Within the hollow of His hand, and moulds 
 
 Each circling world within its orbit s space, 
 
 And counts the stars and calls them all by name, 
 And lights each sun with its unceasing flame 
 Its glorious path through ages still the same, 
 
 Casting its beams in their allotted place, 
 
 O Man! look up, be glad, adore, 
 
 We bend in reverence before Thy face. 
 
 O what is Man that Thou shouldst mindful be 
 Of him? A spark from Thine own being shed, 
 Create to dwell with Thee when Time is dead, 
 When starry worlds have like a shadow fled. 
 
 O the high grandeur of his destiny 
 
 As heir, through Christ, of Immortality! 
 
 123 
 
Man and Woman. 
 
 The stars veil their bright faces in God s light, 
 Th Sun seems dark, its radiance is so dim 
 Beside the wondrous splendor shed by Him 
 Who is the Light. The blessed seraphim 
 Do worship Him, their angel faces bright 
 With His unhindered glory, and their sight 
 
 Brightens like moons that shed their dark eclipse, 
 But high above them, heaven in his face, 
 See the redeemed of this our sinful race, 
 Whom Christ hath lifted to the highest place, 
 
 Xext His own throne, where, from the dear Christ s lips 
 
 The sacred story of forgiveness slips. 
 
 For Christ is thine forevermore; 
 
 From sin redeemed through Him we rise 
 
 To highest realm in Paradise. 
 
 II. (1895.) 
 O Day ! O Night ! what mystery is yours ! 
 
 What wide world-sweeps the silent skies do hold ! 
 
 In them does vast infinity unfold, 
 Soundless and ceaseless; each orbit lures 
 Its starry traveler where space endures, 
 
 Vast as God s thoughts and boundless as His will: 
 
 But still, O soul of mine ! yet still 
 Vaster art thou than all things; no such span 
 Measures the stars as that which measures Man. 
 
 124 
 
In6iscoverc6 (Tountr?. 
 
 The sun sank lower, and darh ning shadows, fell on Olivet." 
 
 LAZARUS. 
 
 The day had broken fair o er sleeping 
 
 Bethany. With diamond luster fell 
 
 The warm, bright sunshine o er the swooning plains 
 
 And sleeping hills. The breezes, winged with 
 
 Coolness, with but the lightest pulses stirred 
 
 The Summer air, and the thinnest veil of 
 
 Quivering heat lay like a misty blur 
 
 On the bright landscape. Behind, fair as a 
 
 Dream, its pleasant slopes looking to the Sun, 
 
 As forth it came from the dusky arms of Night, 
 
 The lovely Mount of Olives rose, a 
 
 Tireless sentinel, where waved the pale, 
 
 Silvered leaves of sighing olive boughs, which 
 
 Shed their cool rain of shimmering shadows 
 
 Upon the summer-dried and thirsty soil. 
 
 Twas here within these quiet streets, o erarched 
 
 By waving boughs, and flooded with the song 
 
 Of birds, whose Summer nests were bidden by 
 
 The silver of the olive leaf, and by 
 
 The swaying palm, that Jesus often walked, 
 
 As bent his weary feet toward the loved home 
 
 Of Lazarus, where busy Martha dwelt, 
 
 And gentle Mary. Lovely was Mary, 
 
 Her white lids, with their long, golden fringes 
 
 Drooping above the clear azure of her 
 
 Wondrous eyes, beneath the perfect arch of 
 
 Her snowy forehead, her cheeks smooth-rounded, 
 
 And touched with dimples, like a child s, and a 
 
 Rosy flush sweeping in delicate waves 
 
 Across their velvet softness. Her lips were 
 
 Curved like the strung bow made ready for the 
 
 Arrow s flying; and gentleness lurked in 
 
 All their lines, and there sweetness lay cradled, 
 
 And soul of tenderness, transforming her, 
 
 Until it seemed as heaven shone in her 
 
 Lips and face. Bird-songs were not as sweet 
 
 As were her gentle tones, and her glad smile 
 
 Warmed one like sunbeams. And Lazarus loved 
 
 Her. She was his comforter and solace, 
 
 And hand in hand they oft did steal away 
 
 From bustling Martha s presence, and together 
 
 Talk of the lowly Nazarene, whose coming 
 
 Often blessed them, and whom they reverenced 
 
 As the Christ, the Son of God, and so Him did worship. 
 
 But now Lazarus, the beloved 
 
 Was sick. In all his veins the consuming 
 
 Fever burned. For days he d tossed upon his 
 
 Couch, and oft his eyes turned a-seeking for 
 
 A presence that he missed, and his lips moved 
 
 Beseechingly ; and yet no sound he uttered, 
 
 For speech died there upon his tongue, slain by 
 
 The o ermastering demon of Disease. 
 
 15 ut Mary knew for whom his spirit yearned, 
 And in brokenness of her heart she murmured 
 Oft, "Why cometh not the Master?" But still 
 He stayed and came not. 
 
 On that morn the day 
 Had broken sultry. Not a single 
 Leaf stirred in all the pulseless air. The hot 
 Sun burned scorchingly, and steely lines of 
 Heat quivered before the vision. Not a 
 Cloud dimmed all the wide expanse of blue, 
 But all the world seemed swooning in the 
 Shriveling heat. The sick man moaned and in 
 His wild delirium tossed restlessly 
 Upon his couch. The window of his chamber 
 Opened toward Jerusalem, and lifting 
 Her white hand from his still whiter forehead, 
 Mary, when she had soothed him by her gentle 
 Touch, would rise with steps as noiseless as the 
 Wind s across a field of wheat, and from the 
 Open casement look, with eyes filled full of 
 Longing, down the long olive-shaded way, 
 Toward where the Holy Temple s towers were 
 Gleaming, and Jerusalem was cradled 
 In the splendor of the unhindered light, 
 Ever the same sad whisper upon her 
 Troubled lips: "Why cometh not the Master?" 
 
 The Sun sank lower, and dark ning shadows 
 Fell on Olivet. Again the streets of 
 Bethany awoke to breathing life, and 
 Sounding footfalls came and went, and main- 
 Stayed a moment at the door to learn of 
 Lazarus was his fever less, and had 
 The Master, whom he loved, come yet to heal? 
 "Strange! strange!" they whispered, as they turned away, 
 "Why he doth tarry." 
 
 Night passed, and o er the 
 
 Still gray heights Dawn pressed. The ashen olive 
 Leaves stirred tremulously in the faint breeze, 
 The purple shadows melted in the East, 
 Which grew warm with rosy flushes. Bright tints 
 Of amber and a crimson flood of light 
 Fell like a mantle on the towering 
 Heights, and the wide East waxed into the 
 Golden splendor of the new-born Day. The 
 Glory streamed in a long lance of living 
 Light, and fell upon the pillow pressed by 
 The pale cheek of Lazarus. Like a crown 
 It lay a moment on his forehead. But 
 His breath so feebly came that Mary bent 
 Her ear to list if breath were there. A quick. 
 Faint flutter, then his eyes unclosed. His lips. 
 Moving in broken whispers, said, "Dear 
 Master, come!" Then like white snowflakes fell his 
 
 125 
 
The Undiscovered Country. 
 
 Heavy lids o er eyes dim with the eclipse 
 
 Of Death. His chest ceased heaving. Then a swift, faint 
 
 Shudder ran through all his frame, and Lazarus 
 
 Was dead. 
 
 The soft winds came laden with the 
 
 Breath of violet and the lily white, and 
 
 Holding the coolness of the dew, and its 
 
 Light wings bore bird-song and the melody of 
 
 The happy lark, which made melodious 
 
 Pathway to the skies. Sweet incense rose from 
 
 The far Temple s altars, and their smoke looked 
 
 Like pale fingers pointing unto Heaven. 
 
 But Mary saw it not, nor took note of 
 
 The fair morning. Her young head, with its bright 
 
 Aureole of golden hair, was bowed upon 
 
 Her hands, which lay like white lilies on the 
 
 Couch where Lazarus slept. Not paler was 
 
 Her brother s pallid cheek than the snowy 
 
 Whiteness of her own, rounded to perfect 
 
 Beauty. Her lips were ashen, too, as they 
 
 Made moan: "Dear Master, hadst Thou been here, my 
 
 Brother had not died!" Yet still he came not. 
 
 Four days had passed days sorrow-filled, 
 
 For in his stone-wrought Sepulcher had been 
 
 Laid away he whom Death had claimed, 
 
 Noble and well-beloved Lazarus. Martha 
 
 Was busy in the house, and sought to crush 
 
 Her sorrow in her daily tasks. Yet she 
 
 Wrought silently, and on her lips a strong 
 
 Fixed pressure hardened them to look of 
 
 Sternness. But Mary sat alone within 
 
 The chamber where Lazarus died, close by 
 
 The open casement, and with eyes fixed on 
 
 The familiar street, so often trodden 
 
 By the Savior s feet, as came He to their 
 
 Home to tarry with them for a night of 
 
 Rest; and now and then, as lifting her drenched 
 
 Lids she would make moan, "Where art Thou, Master? 
 
 O Lazarus loved thee well ! and hadst thou 
 
 Been with him he had not died." Pale as the 
 
 Moon s white mist she sat so sorrow-touched, so broken 
 
 With her grief. But at length a step she hears, 
 
 And someone calls her name. She lists with heart 
 
 Throbbing tumultously: "Mary, the 
 
 Master cometh and calleth for thee." Swift 
 
 Iliseth she, and with trembling feet makes haste 
 
 To seek Him. 
 
 O the sad beauty of His 
 Face ! The pitying tenderness within 
 His eyes, as Mary, wan as pale moonbeams, 
 Falleth at His feet, and clutching at His 
 Garment s hem, (fries sobbingly, "Hadst Thou been 
 Here my brother had not died." 
 What was it 
 
 Burst upon her ear, smiting her words, and 
 Hushing the pulses of her soul, and melting 
 It with tender pity for another s 
 Woe? O dying world, be still! O sin-cursed 
 
 Earth ! God s pitying love enfolds thee. That 
 Face divine that o er the sorrowing 
 Mary bent was wet with tears, for "Jesus 
 Wept." O holy Nazarene ! O God made 
 Manifest in flesh! Thy love is round us 
 Like the atmosphere, and thou dost pour 
 The wine of Hope upon the troubled heart; 
 Breathe not, O winds ! while breathless there 
 The gathered throng doth stand about the grave 
 Of Lazarus. 
 
 List, and let your hearts leap 
 Mid your tears, and Hope touch Sorrow with her 
 Holy hand, lighting her eyes with gladness. 
 O all Earth s voices ! be ye dumb while speaks 
 The Nazarene: 
 
 "I am the Resurrection 
 And the Life. He that believeth on me, 
 Though he were dead, yet he shall live." Mary 
 Has hushed her tears and risen to her feet ; 
 Her eyes are fixed upon her Lord. A smile 
 Has touched her lips, and as one entranced she 
 Stands waiting His will: 
 
 "Roll ye the stone 
 
 Away!" All breathless stands the multitude, 
 While from the yawning Sepulcher the stone 
 Is rolled. Such silence then ! No breath or sound. 
 A moment, and then with lifted hand, and 
 Mien majestic, Christ moveth toward the tomb, 
 And then the still air hears his voice ringing 
 With power. The waiting multitude close 
 Round. What do they hear? The singing-bird hath 
 Hushed its voice, and not a leaf stirred on the 
 Olive trees. 
 
 "Lazarus, come forth!" The 
 Multitude stood trembling, filled with a 
 Solemn awe. A shadow stirs within the 
 Sepulcher. A white-robed form is seen. It 
 Moveth slowly yet steadily, and lo ! 
 Bound hand and foot, into the broad sunlight 
 Lazarus doth come. The crowd stirs not for 
 Wonder and for awe. 
 
 "Loose him and let him 
 
 Go," low saith the Master. Then moveth Martha 
 Forward with swift steps to loose his bands, 
 And there upright in the bright day, the glow 
 Of health warm in his cheeks, and his eyes filled 
 With the radiance of strong manhood s prime, 
 Death hath found its Conqueror. 
 Lazarus stands forth before them all. 
 
 HEART WEARINESS. 
 
 land above the stars ! 
 
 How far away are ye the golden bars 
 
 That lie between this earthly realm of ours 
 
 And blessed life, and heaven s unfading flowers? 
 
 1 sometimes long to go, 
 
 For I grow weary often here below 
 Of earthlv life and its heart loneliness, 
 
 126 
 
Life and Death. 
 
 And long for larger life and purer holiness. 
 
 Each soul at times must stand 
 
 On solitary places where no hand 
 
 Can touch its springs, no thought but God s own thought. 
 
 Divine its longings, which earth-life answers not. 
 
 How oft I feel alone, 
 
 As if in this great universe were none 
 
 But me, but me and God, and sometimes He is far 
 
 As farthest planet, or fixed, shining star. 
 
 I feel sometimes so cold 
 
 As if no human love did me enfold, 
 
 As if I were adrift on some far, shoreless sea, 
 
 No soul to hear, no tongue to answer me. 
 
 And then I kneel to pray, 
 And soon I feel my Father come my way, 
 And lo! within my heart this voice I hear, 
 "Look up, my child, behold thy Father near." 
 
 How fades my sorrow then ! 
 
 How brightens thought, as does the old Earth when 
 Night slippeth down before the golden Dawn, 
 And out of darkness comes the glorious Morn. 
 
 Oh, only here is rest ! 
 
 In God s great fullness only are we blest. 
 His love is like Earth s blessed atmosphere, 
 Above, around, within us, everywhere. 
 
 LIFE AND DEATH. 
 
 Life! it is boundless, and my heart doth leap 
 
 At its full meaning, at the endless sweep 
 
 Of man s own being, which can never die, 
 
 Born as it is to immortality. 
 
 Death is but rest, a pause in Being s day; 
 
 Tis not the end, tis but the vinknown way 
 
 That we must enter when our footsteps tend 
 
 To larger life. O Death! to thee I bend, 
 
 Seeing the angel in thee, for thy hand 
 
 Is tender to God s children when they stand 
 
 Upon the borderland, and thou wilt set 
 
 The gates ajar for them, nor ever let 
 
 Them lose one blessed ray that shineth clear 
 
 Through these same gates upon Earth s atmosphere. 
 
 No night is there, and thou dost bridge the way 
 
 With beams of faith, although thy waters may 
 
 Seem troubled sometime, yet the bridge is strong, 
 
 The passage safe, the way will not be long, 
 
 And on the other side our Father stands, 
 
 Life s crown of glory in His waiting hands. 
 
 THE BABE OF BETHLEHEM. 
 
 Out from the East the milk-white camels came 
 Laden with spicy sweets. Myrrh and frankincense 
 Fragrant to the senses, and treasures rare 
 They brought from the far Orient. L T pon 
 The desert s silences brave was the sheik 
 Who dwelt, and who there within his tent had 
 Heard a voice from out the midnight skies, a 
 
 Voice speaking into his heart, telling him of the 
 Coming One whom the bright star should harbinger. 
 How yearned his soul for this mysterious 
 Visitant to Earth ! How He should come he 
 Wot not, whether in mighty state, and in 
 Kingly purple robed, with a crown of gold, stoned 
 With its precious stones, wearing heaven s glory 
 On his forehead, even as the Day wears 
 Its clear shining Sun, or as an angel, 
 Winged with the power of Seraphim, and 
 By His simple presence bringing Peace. With 
 in the door of his white tent he mused while 
 O er him all the stars of midnight shone, and 
 The soft desert airs blow balmy upon 
 His brow. A son of Ishmael, he had 
 Heard of the divine Jehovah, and Him 
 He reverently worshiped, and now in 
 Each soft breeze which blew he seemed to hear His 
 Voice bidding him arise and seek the 
 Promised One. Glad was the thrill which all his 
 Spirit stirred, and in devotion wrapt, with 
 Brow bared, and his white hair stirred by the breeze 
 Of Araby, he lifted up his heart 
 In thankfulness, then sought his couch for rest. 
 The morninng dawned, and he while yet the day 
 Was cool, and whispering breezes stirred the 
 Branches of the palm, set out upon his 
 Camel, white as the milk of kine. Alone 
 For a time he journeyed, when lifting up 
 His eyes at length, as morning brightened and 
 The midday heat drew on, as nearing an 
 Oasis green, two other travelers 
 He saw draw near. Saluting, they did each 
 To each do reverence, then from the mid- 
 Day heat sought shelter in the emerald 
 Coolness neath the branching palm whose shadows 
 Dropped like rain upon the oasis breast. 
 Here rested they until the Eve drew near 
 And lengthening shadows told of lessening heat, 
 And here the noble Ishmaelite told them 
 Of his quest. Wise men were they, and learned in 
 All the knowledge of the East, and in wrapt 
 Wonder they did hear the marvelous story, 
 And as he made ready to move on they spake: 
 
 "O noblest of the desert sons, if 
 So we may, we will journey with thee, and 
 Seek with thee the coming King." 
 
 "Peace be with 
 Thee and thine, he answered, "and hasten with me." 
 
 Night drew, with jeweled fingers, her soft, 
 Starry curtain o er the world. Cool blew the 
 Breezes, touching caressingly their foreheads 
 And each bronzed cheek; when, lo! at length 
 A glory shone about their pathway, and 
 Looking up, beheld the wondrous Star. Then 
 Each, alighting, knelt upon the white sands 
 Of the desert s floor, bathed in the full 
 Refulgence of its light, while on their ears fell 
 Faint and far strains of celestial harmony. 
 
 127 
 
The Undiscovered Country. 
 
 Again they journeyed on, and night and day 
 
 Lo! shines the Star and leadeth them until 
 
 Before them rise the gates of Bethlehem. 
 
 The sunset light is fading from its towers, 
 
 The olive s leaves stir with faint-sighing, and 
 
 The cedars breathe but softly. All Nature, 
 
 Touched with peace, seems lying in a dream. 
 
 Scarce has the heavenly chorus died upon 
 
 The holy place. Out from the East, as if 
 
 God s glory were unveiled, with added 
 
 Radiance bursts the wondrous Star. It leadeth 
 
 Them, and following in its shining path 
 
 They reach the place o er which it lingers. 
 
 Oh, breathless are they ! and with uncovered 
 
 Heads, and hearts throbbing with new joy, they enter, 
 
 No throne is there. No monarch in his royal 
 
 Purple. No crown set on the brow of kingly 
 
 Conqueror. No wondrous-winged Seraphim. 
 
 Only within a humble manger laid 
 
 A little babe. But with prophetic eyes 
 
 They see in Him the world s Redeemer. They 
 
 Catch anew the angel s chorus, "Peace on 
 
 Earth, good will to men!" Reverently they 
 
 Kneel, and with uncovered heads they worship, 
 
 Then ope they their treasures, even as 
 
 Men shall open yet their hearts and pour the 
 
 Treasures of their love before His feet. 
 
 Near two thousand years have passed and still we sing 
 
 Of Bethlehem s babe; and still we worship, 
 
 Not as child but King; and still the treasures 
 
 Of our service and our love we give Faith s 
 
 Sweet frankincense and myrrh of Sorrow 
 
 Sanctified, whose fragrance is divine, and 
 
 Still we sing of "Peace on earth, good will to men." 
 
 LOOK UP. 
 
 O Soul of mine ! when on thee presses sore 
 Life s heavy burdens and its loneliness, 
 With earnest crying I do thee implore 
 To look not earthward, for not blessedness 
 Or sweet surcease from sorrow cometh thence. 
 Earth hath no gladness and no recompense 
 To answer all thy infinite desire, 
 Or give thee all to which thou doth aspire. 
 
 Oh, there are lonely Sinais where flash 
 Grief s awful lightnings, rending all thy sky, 
 And wide, lone deserts void of tenderness, 
 Where is forever heard the mournful crash 
 Of broken trusts, while scathing Cruelty 
 Hides in sharp words that on thy wounds do press 
 Like two-edged swords; and, all bayoneted, 
 Indifference thrusts thee where Love instead 
 Should give soft words and tender healing bring. 
 
 Yet, Soul, look up ! let not thy spirit s wing 
 Be broken thus, for heaven lieth near; 
 Above the clouds God s sun is shining still, 
 And His great over-heart, O Soul ! doth hear 
 Thy lightest sigh; and though He scourgeth thee 
 Sometimes with sorrow, vet I know he will 
 
 Girt thee with gladness, and thy life shall be 
 Stronger for struggling, gladder for its tears, 
 When through the mist the Isle of Peace appears. 
 
 THE WORLD S FIRST SABBATH. 
 
 God s work was done. In infinite space, whose 
 Yastness human thought can never traverse, 
 Or e en approach the nearest outpost of 
 Its limitless extent, the Maker s hand 
 Had hung the starry spheres, system within 
 System, till all the deeps of air were star- 
 Spangled, wide as the reach of the eternal 
 Years, whose countless cycles had seen new worlds 
 Set in their mighty circles through all 
 The vast universe of God. Day had been 
 Born, and above the angry deep of seas 
 Iliing the blue firmament. The new- 
 Created Sun warmed all the sapphire skies; 
 The Moon s bright orb shed silver beams upon 
 The emerald Earth; the dew poured its first 
 Baptism upon the flowers, whose 
 Fragrant incense filled the fresh new world with 
 Sweetness; birds sang their matin hymns in notes 
 That e en the Seraphim bent low to hear, 
 And in the Garden planted by God s hand 
 Was heard the murmurous roll of rivers 
 Wide, and crystal waterfalls poured the soft 
 Rhythm of their silver tides into the 
 Moss-rimmed pools that slept in the cool shadows 
 Of the interlacing boughs. Soft breezes 
 Swayed the orange-laden trees, and fruits, such 
 As we now search all the wide world o er 
 To find, in the unhindered sunshine of 
 The Garden hung, ripened to full perfection 
 Adown the flower-gemmed walks, each step 
 Pressing rich perfume from the fragrant 
 Blossoms, came Adam with his sinless Eve, 
 Her hair falling in golden tresses to 
 Her feet, her face of lily whiteness, save 
 Where her cheek was touched with a delicate 
 Pink, like that which lay upon the petals 
 Of the peach s bloom; her eyes, blue as the 
 Cloudless deep of skies, uplifted to his 
 Face, filled with the sunshine of her woman s 
 Soul. 
 
 And God, the Maker, walked with them, and 
 Looking round on all things, He pronounced them 
 "Good." And so He set his seal upon the 
 Works that He had made, and on Creation 
 Placed His hallowed crown the Sabbath of His 
 Rest God s benediction to the world He 
 Loved. 
 
 EASTER MORNING. 
 
 Three days had passed since the dumb Earth was rent 
 With frightened anguish, and darkness drowned the 
 Brightness of the Day, while yet the Sun hung 
 High in the o erarching skies, which bent 
 In scared wonder above the awful scene 
 
 128 
 
What Am I? 
 
 Of cross-crowned Calvary. The Sun saw there 
 Its Maker God Incarnate Him who at 
 Creation s dawn had said, "Let there be light!" 
 And, lo! the Sun sprang to his circling track, 
 And the stars heard, and planetary spheres 
 All answered to His bidding. The deeps of 
 Infinite air were peopled with unnumbered 
 Worlds, which broke into ecstatic song, that 
 Onward rolled, a sea of melody, which 
 All space filled, and its symphonous waves 
 Swelled with divinest sweetness on the far 
 Shores of the celestial heavens, where shines 
 God s glory forth, "unhindered and undarkened 
 By a sun." 
 
 But not as Creator now, 
 Peopling the mighty voids of space by His 
 World-creative voice; not as the Father 
 Of the human race, from whose lips first came 
 The breath of life to Adam s frame, till he 
 Became a living soul, hangs Christ on 
 Calvary; but as the world s Redeemer, 
 Bearing its sins, and with His nail-pierced hand 
 Opening again the door which Sin had closed 
 Twixt man and heaven. O Love divine ! O 
 Mercy infinite! O mystery of 
 Redemption ! which e en angelic hosts can 
 Fathom never: higher than they it lifts 
 Us, nearer to Him who was our sacrifice. 
 
 The Morning dawns. Soft blows the fragrant winds 
 
 O er Judea s hills. The leaves stir gently 
 
 With a whispering breath of melody. 
 
 The bird-notes tremble with a sound of praise. 
 
 The leaping brooks have caught new tones of gladness, 
 
 And their waters ring with harmonious 
 
 Undertones of song. Heaven s lamps are lit, 
 
 And all the starry worlds in the clear blue 
 
 Twinkle with rapture. How like triumphant 
 
 Anthem roll Jordan s waters! Flowers ope 
 
 Their petals, and on the wide air pour their 
 
 P ragrant incense. Like lute-strings stir the winds 
 
 The slender grasses. Then, lo! a hush! The 
 
 World of Nature breathless stands, as if it 
 
 Felt divinest Presence breathing in its 
 
 Air. The dim, starlit Dawn is pulseless, and 
 
 The far skies, with all their circling spheres, are 
 
 Silent. But lo ! a light breaks in them which 
 
 Is not of sun or star, and the Dawn hears 
 
 The sweep of wings and sees the light of 
 
 Angel pinions. Down through the deeps of air, 
 
 While all the stars bow down their faces, come 
 
 The angelic two. Jerusalem is 
 
 W rapped in slumber, and heavy lids close over 
 
 The eyes of those who wept at Calvary, 
 
 Their hearts the sepulchers of holy hopes. 
 
 The gilded spires and domes of Israel s 
 
 Temple are wrapped in shadow, and the rent 
 
 Veil hangs parted still before the holy 
 
 Place. Softly the smoke of incense rises 
 
 Like a ghostly finger to the skies. But 
 
 Xot to sacred temple, where perfumed 
 Incense burns, wing the swift Seraphim their 
 Way, but to a lonely garden, lying 
 Near to Calvary, where is the quiet 
 Sepulcher in which the Crucified doth 
 Sleep. There, veiling for a time their faces 
 Bright with their celestial wings, silent a 
 Moment stand they, while heaven seems drawing 
 Near. O pause twixt Death and Life! O moment 
 Pregnant to our sinful race! Break into 
 Singing, O ye mountain heights! and clap your 
 Hands, ye hills which circle round, and all Earth s 
 Thousand voices, join ye in the song of triumph! 
 
 Down stoop the Seraphim, and with angelic 
 Hands roll they the stone away from the 
 Door of that still sepulcher. O Death! here 
 Comes thy Conqueror. The garments of the 
 Grave slip from him, as bend the angels there 
 In their rejoicing worship. 
 
 O Easter dawn, O day so blest ! 
 
 Earth s millions lift their eyes, 
 Faith sees the pathway through the tomb 
 
 To life and Paradise. 
 
 WHAT AM I? 
 
 Oh, I would love, could it but be, to take 
 
 This wondrous soul of mine within my hand, 
 
 And then with largest spirit vision stand 
 
 To learn the self of me, that which doth make 
 
 To thought, that of me which alone can slake 
 
 Its love and high ideals, true and grand, 
 
 Within th infinite sea of being, and, 
 
 Stronger than Death to endless Life may wake, 
 
 When Time shall die, and Earth itself shall be 
 
 Less than a shadow, vanished endlessly. 
 
 Oh! I, what am I? Can I be a spark 
 
 Dropped from God s being? A speck of thought dust-born 
 
 Into the mystery of earth life dark, 
 
 Waiting God s touch to bring life s better morn? 
 
 I am God-made, this truth I surely know , 
 
 And till God ceases I shall never cease, 
 
 And when for me shall end Time s restless flow 
 
 My soul shall reach the fullness of God s peace. 
 
 SHALL WE NOT HAIL IT? 
 
 The winds breathe softly as if half asleep, 
 Or run all silent- footed mid the flowers 
 Which dream upon the lap of Summer hours 
 
 That pass so quickly, all sun-winged and fleet, 
 
 Until the Night comes with its many stars, 
 Lifting the curtain of the Vast, which lies 
 Within the deep infinity of skies, 
 
 Across which daylight throws its golden bars. 
 
 What should we know of life and of Creation wide 
 Did not sweet, velvet-footed Darkness come 
 To lift our eyelids when the Day is done, 
 
 To other worlds beyond Time s flowing tide? 
 
 129 
 
The Undiscovered Country. 
 
 Or what of joy were not sometimes our eyes 
 Tear-dimmed and saddened by some heavy woe, 
 Which makes us pray for comfort till we know 
 
 Our Father hears, down-bending from the skies? 
 
 Heaven lieth very near, the thinnest veil 
 
 Shuts it from sight, and there Our Father stands, 
 With tender mercies filling both His hands 
 
 His outstretched hands that we shall see when pale 
 
 We rest serene upon great-bosomed Death, 
 Who will, uplifting, take our souls and bear 
 Them tenderly _to God s own loving care, 
 
 And bid us live with Him when fails our earthly breath. 
 
 Ah, that sweet night-time with its morning near, 
 Its Morn of peace and blessed life to be, 
 With all the fullness of Eternity! 
 
 Shall we not hail it when it draweth near? 
 
 "GOOD-NIGHT, DEAR ONE!" 
 (Mrs. Jennie Damarin.) 
 
 With folded hands like lilies white, and sweet 
 
 Eyes closed, and lips with silence touched, she sleeps. 
 
 And yet she wakes. Death hath swung wide the door 
 
 To longer life, to fairer morning. The 
 
 Father whom she loved hath sent for her, 
 
 Bidding her home; and there was but one path 
 
 By which her feet could go the white, still path 
 
 Which lieth through the Grave, and there 
 
 Within its portals mortality did 
 
 Slip from her, and all the chains of Earth, and 
 
 All its sorrows and its cares, and the new 
 
 Life dawned, and gladness wrapped her like a 
 
 Garment. Ah, how fragrant her memory 
 
 Will be ! Her smile was sunshine, and her 
 
 Speech was gentleness and tenderness, and 
 
 Her face was like a flower, a lily 
 
 In its purity. Her lips dropped only 
 
 Pleasant words, and she was glad in life, and 
 
 Her soul was full of joy in all things fair; 
 
 And how tender was her heart for those 
 
 Whom sorrow touched, or suffering! Gentle 
 
 Her ministry, and thoughtful her watchful 
 
 Love. Ah ! can we wonder that God loved her 
 
 And took her home? 
 
 Good-night, dear one, until 
 The time shall come when we shall say, "Good morn!" 
 
 THE SWEETS OF PARADISE. 
 (On the death of a child. 1866.) 
 
 Why should we weep when our children pass 
 From us to Heaven? Grim Death is but an 
 Angel in disguise, who brings the summons 
 From those shining shores, and round their pure 
 Young spirits throws the robes of immortality. 
 A crown in Heaven was waiting, and the 
 Name it bore was Imogene, writ there by 
 Him who loveth little children. An harp 
 
 Was voiceless, waiting for the touch of tiny 
 
 Fingers. A white robe lay, all spotless made 
 
 By the redeeming blood of Him who in 
 
 His bosom bears the tender lambs, and round 
 
 It, like a vine, bordering the garment s 
 
 Hem, traced in the soft glory of Heaven s 
 
 Alphabet, was still the name of Imogene. 
 
 And so the summons came. Ye laid her on 
 
 Her couch, and night and day watched by her with 
 
 Fond and tender love, longing to keep her 
 
 Here. 
 
 Like a flower, unfolding day by day 
 In the warm sunlight, alway she had grown 
 More lovely. 
 
 Ye did not deem the while, as 
 Ye watched the bright unfolding, that your bud 
 Was blossoming for Heaven. But so it was ! 
 The fragrance stealing into the spirit s 
 Tender petals was not to shed its sweetness 
 On the desert air of earth. The sweets 
 Of Paradise were not complete without 
 It. The crown, the harp, the robe were ready, 
 And so your darling in her glad young years 
 Went home. 
 
 LIFE S SUNSET SEA. (1876.) 
 
 Oh, the golden-haired Day is dying 
 
 Afar in the shadowy West, 
 And the crimson-robed Clouds are flying 
 
 In troops to the place of her rest. 
 
 Not a pulse is astir in the ether, 
 
 Not a whisper comes down from the sky, 
 
 Not a star that makes moan or a murmur 
 As fades the soft light from her eye. 
 
 But Night, as a dusty-robed mourner, 
 Kneels down with her shadow and pall, 
 
 And over the bier of the Daylight 
 Lets the beautiful moonbeams fall. 
 
 And out from the dew and the silence 
 
 The glory of starlight is born, 
 And Night whispers, "Out from the darkness 
 
 Cometh ever the beauty of Morn." 
 
 So out of the darkness of dying 
 
 Comes the beautiful life to be; 
 The palm, and the crown and the glory 
 
 Lie over life s sunset sea. 
 
 GATES AJAR. (1876.) 
 
 . . . I looked, last eve, upon the rosy bar 
 The sunset flung across the glowing West, 
 And wished some hand would set the gates ajar, 
 And let me enter through them into rest. 
 Yet would I go, life s labor still unwrought 
 And hope for heavenly joy and holy calm? 
 Could I thus gain the rest for which I sought 
 If, faithless here, I had not won my palm? 
 
 130 
 
Faith Soul-Speech. 
 
 FAITH. (1878.) 
 
 My bark is drifting toward a shoreless sea 
 The great grand ocean of the vast To Be. 
 
 And by and by Death s tidal wave shall surge, 
 And bear me far beyond Time s outer verge. 
 
 No starry light my mortal eyes shall see, 
 For they shall close in sightless mystery. 
 
 And standing dumb upon that waveless shore, 
 No human voice shall reach me evermore. 
 
 Over the waveless sea of Silence, pale, 
 Dead, yet undying, I shall turn my sail. 
 
 How shall I reach my port, how guide my bark 
 Across the trackless waters, soundless, dark? 
 
 dead, blind eyes! O dull, unlistening ears! 
 O luring phantom sails of faithless fears ! 
 
 Ye cannot wreck my bark, ye cannot make me stray 
 A single league from out the sure, safe way! 
 
 For lo! a silver thread from out the cloud 
 Of darkness that lies round me like a shroud! 
 
 A silver thread, a shining oar is seen, 
 
 A white-winged pilot stands the sails between. 
 
 Clear-visioned Faith! she makes the darkness light, 
 And lo! celestial shores burst on my sight. 
 
 NO BAR, FATHER! (1879.) 
 
 1 look through light of blue December skies, 
 Through which the Sun all day pours golden tides; 
 Their rain-washed deep like a vast sapphire lies, 
 With fleecy clouds like pearls above the crests 
 Of the grand mountains. What wondrous lights! 
 What mystery of shade! What royal tints 
 
 Of blue and purple have these baptized heights 
 Put on! 
 
 What miracle of vision! Hints 
 Of canoned deeps and precipices high, 
 Before by distance darkened, now I see, 
 As if the mountains had drawn nearer by, 
 Had condescended to come down to me. 
 So does the rain of Sorrow often make 
 Faith s vision clear, till we behold afar 
 Infinite heights of the great love divine, 
 And deeps of His compassion, and we take 
 Hold of sure hopes before unseen; no bar, 
 O Father! then, between our souls and thine. 
 
 NOT DYING BUT UNDYING. (1879-) 
 (On the death of a kinswoman.) 
 
 What we call death is simply life s enlargement, 
 The dropping of the fetters that have bound 
 The spirit; the loosing of prison bars; 
 A sudden growth; the birth of a feeble 
 Embryo life to full and perfect being. 
 
 Here I m a worm; there a bright chrysalis 
 With immortal wings. Here groveling and 
 Groping for the light; there, with unhindered 
 Vision, all eye, all ear, with soul enlarged- 
 Reflection of infinity. Xo shadow 
 Falls upon the spirit; no blight upon 
 Its growth; no dull and dormant hours; no dark 
 Eclipse of pain; no stagnant doubts; 
 No dying but undying, where we in 
 God s own light, soul-ripened and perfected, 
 Live on with Him in glory. 
 
 SOUL-SPEECH. (1880.) 
 
 Words cannot write the poem which was flung 
 Last eve, in sunset rhythm, on the sea and beach 
 The great calm sea where scarce a ripple sung, 
 And only low-voiced waves the sands did reach. 
 
 In some fair Sometime yet to come 
 
 Shall not the poet learn new tricks of speech? 
 
 Words that shall have soul, color, warmth and light, 
 
 And pulsing fire, and quick thrills such as now 
 
 Are but the intangible essence of unspoken thought? 
 
 Thought-words can no more clothe than can the hand 
 
 That guides through fresh Spring furrows the sharp 
 
 plough, 
 
 Clothe the dead bones the plough upturns with aught 
 Of life. 
 
 Shall we for aye thus voiceless stand, 
 Mocking emotion with the shallow thing 
 Which we call speech? Dumb, voiced with emptiness 
 It is, filling the soul no more than does the stone we fling 
 Into the great sea fill all the bosom of the deep; 
 Xo more than does the mote, which in the sunbeam 
 
 floats, fill 
 All of space. 
 
 O soul-speech ! not until we sleep 
 And wake to higher life shall it be ours, 
 Full-voiced and sweet as God s own lips had spoke, 
 Breaking the silence which this life has never broke. 
 
 TRANSFIGURATION. (1882.) 
 
 The fog crept up and covered all the hills, 
 
 As if God trailed His mantle from the heights, 
 
 The lofty mountain heights that stood beyond, 
 Transfigured in the glory of the sunset lights. 
 
 Ah! how shall words paint colors such as those? 
 
 How frame the sunset glory in mere sound? 
 The ruby walls, the jasper peaks which rose 
 
 Above the shrouded hill-tops like a crown? 
 
 "fwas like a new creation! no more uplift 
 
 Were the bare, frowning mounts that through the day 
 
 Had walled us in. Their cold gray peaks, 
 Their rock-ribbed fronts, they all had passed away. 
 
 And there, as if the gates had dropped ajar 
 The gates that lie upon the Border Land, 
 
 Disclosing to Earth s vision all the heights 
 
 Where God s redeemed in the new life shall stand 
 
 131 
 
The Undiscovered Country. 
 
 Uprose the mountain in a flood of gold, 
 
 Luminous as the Sun, with banks where flowed 
 
 Rivers of rubies, sapphires melted down, 
 And all outspread where peaks of amber glowed. 
 
 Below, the cold gray fog spread like a sea, 
 
 A pall between me and the mountains grand, 
 
 Even as Death s darkness lies between us here 
 And the bright glories of the Better Land. 
 
 THE SOUL S RELEASE. (1882.) 
 (On the death of a mother.) 
 
 You must not deem her dead, although her grave 
 
 Is made beneath the cloudless Summer skies; 
 
 Although above it bend the leaf-crowned trees, 
 
 And songful birds pour out their symphonies 
 
 From the green boughs whose shadows round her fall; 
 
 Though golden sunbeams kiss her head and feet, 
 
 And her dear presence from your home has gone, 
 
 And lonely-hearted you sit there and weep. 
 
 Tis but the Night-time for her body s rest 
 
 The fair sweet Morning of her soul s release; 
 
 The grave, the door through which her footsteps pressed 
 
 To the fair hill-tops of eternal peace. 
 
 THE WORLD S FIRST CHRISTMAS. (1882.) 
 
 Under the starry skies, outspread like a 
 Glorious curtain o er the sacred hills 
 And fair green plains of Judea s holy land, 
 Watching their flocks, the ancient shepherds sat. 
 The tinkling waters of a silver brook 
 Made melody beneath the graceful palms; 
 The dark-hued olive dropped its ashen leaves, 
 Raining soft shadows on the crystal stream 
 Whereon the moonlight slept, while the far stars 
 Looked down, as to another heaven, where 
 Jordan rolled, and where Gennesaret s pure 
 Waters lay, world-starred, mirroring the 
 Midnight skies. 
 
 Men of such noble mien those 
 
 Shepherds were, with kingly brows, where thought fulness 
 Enthroned marked every line, and reverent 
 Faith shed, like a halo, light upon each 
 Dark Jewish face, touching them with such look 
 Of grand repose as if their souls were 
 Anchored fast unto some living hope. 
 Since fell the twilight they had sat and mused, 
 Not as in sullen silence, but as those 
 Who ponder some great thought, and turn it o er 
 And weigh it well, and view it in all lights, 
 And by some subtle process of the mind 
 Sift it free from sophistry and darkful 
 Doubts, till, like the Sun, unclouded as its 
 Noon, it shines forth unhindered in the light 
 Of clear, unquestioned truth. 
 
 At last, of these 
 The eldest, he with long, dark, flowing beard, 
 
 And eye bright as the fires that burned on 
 Jewish altars, spoke. Ben Ezra was his 
 Name. His tone was full of fervor, and his 
 Speech dropped hope like clew, breaking the stillness 
 Of the quiet hour, so that the echoes 
 Woke and murmured o er his speech: 
 
 "Brothers, we 
 
 Know the prophets well, for day by day, through 
 The long years since childhood s morn, in our down- 
 Sitting and up-rising we have conned 
 Them o er, and we have talked upon the 
 Hillsides green, and by the running brooks in 
 The bright noontide, and in the starlit hours 
 When the clear heavens seemed whispering of 
 Peace, of Him the Prince of Peace, whose coming 
 For we wait. Last night I dreamed, as silver- 
 Lipped the stream murmured in its melodious 
 Speech of running waters beside me where 
 I slept, the emerald grasses for my 
 Pillow, and the starlight dropping in a 
 Tender flood of radiance, while the Moon 
 Hid her bright face for a few moments space 
 Behind the shining whiteness of a cloud. 
 All yesterday, you know, our speech was full 
 Of Him for whom all Israel waits the 
 Mighty One, the Promised, who shall bring to 
 Us deliverance from Caesar s yoke, and 
 Make Jerusalem again the glory 
 Of the Earth. Well, as I said, 1 slept; my 
 Sleep at first profound and dreamless; then 
 Something seemed to touch me, and my inner 
 Senses fill with beatific vision. 
 Like Israel, our father, in the 
 Ancient days, I saw down-reaching from the 
 Starry heavens a ladder, with its rounds 
 Of light, like the spun gold of sunbeams. Twas 
 Slender as the spider s web, and yet it 
 Shone, lighting the night with radiance that 
 Dimmed the brightness of the moon, so bright the 
 Brightest sunbeams of the noon would have seemed 
 Black beside it; while clown it came, descending 
 With a step as light as Summer air, with 
 Face o ershadowed with cherubic wings, and 
 Form enwrapped in robes of trailing glory, 
 Fairer than the white light of the awak ning 
 Day, an angel messenger. I felt its 
 Breath upon my spirit, as whispering 
 With a still small voice it said, "The blessing 
 Of the Highest, O son of Israel! 
 Rest on thee and on thy people, for lo! 
 The fullness of the time has come, and 
 Zion s King is waiting at her gates." 
 Scarce had Been Ezra s story ended, while 
 His listeners sat in wondering silence 
 Round him there, when lo ! the heavens grew bright, 
 The infinite skies stood wide asunder, 
 And a glory that was not of Earth 
 Lighted the hills, and all the plains waxed 
 Into splendor, and before them stood a 
 Form in whiteness brighter than the Sun, and 
 
 132 
 
On the Beach. 
 
 More irradiate than diamonds in 
 Its lustrous shining. With open wings spread 
 Wide, it came downward from the midnight skies. 
 "Fear not," it said, and its angelic speech 
 Was like the melody of song, "for unto 
 You I bring glad tidings of great joy; for 
 Unto you is born on this glad day the 
 Savior promised, which is Christ the Lord." ilie 
 Angel ceased, and lo! such multitude of 
 Heavenly hosts from the invisible 
 Deeps of air outsprang, it seemed as Heaven 
 Had down-dropped to the Earth, and all its 
 Glory poured upon the sacred hills of 
 Judea, and the Earth waked to their music; 
 Not an echo but seemed angel-tongued. Birds 
 Filled the trees and trilled melodies of Eden; 
 The rivers were like lutes and poured melodious 
 Symphonies of waters; every breeze- 
 Touched leaf was lipped with song, and from the 
 Flowers unfolding there arose from midst 
 Their dewy petals a tide of fragrant 
 Incense, with sweet, harmonious undertone 
 Of praise. 
 
 But over all rang the angelic 
 Chorus, "Glory to God in the highest, 
 And on Earth peace, and good will to men!" 
 
 II. 
 
 O angel hosts above Judea s hills, 
 The Earth drinks in the melody you pour 
 Through all the starry spaces. The hills lift 
 Up their heads as they would thrust them 
 Farther heavenward, and wave their cedars 
 In bannered gladness. The little brooks leap 
 Down and their waters pour in hallelujahs, 
 While fresh melody is hid in Jordan s waves. 
 O hour so fair, so full of flowery fragrance, 
 Poured like incense sweet on Night s dim altar ! 
 What means the glory of that rising star? 
 Like God s eye it shineth in the East, and 
 The starry spheres fall on their faces as 
 It brightens when they would worship. Even 
 The air is pulseless, and a smile is on 
 Nature s face as if God s hand had touched her. 
 Ah, and it hath! God s self is there. Xo eye 
 Did see His coming, but as a little 
 Babe at Bethlehem, God hath put on the 
 Garments of our flesh, and angels pour the 
 Melody of "Peace on earth, good will to men." 
 
 ON THE BEACH. (1884.) 
 
 Across the waveless bay I look afar 
 The winds are sleeping, and the waters dream 
 To where the islands like a golden bar 
 Lie on the pulseless deep; the sunset gleam 
 Has paved a golden path across the deep, 
 Touching the West; a crimson curtain hangs 
 With fold on fold along the horizon s sweep. 
 What lies behind it? Lo! a shining star 
 
 Through a faint rift a jeweled spring 
 C ould we but touch, mayhap the gates ajar 
 Would swing, the wide infinite deeps of air 
 Disclosing, and through Heaven s star-hinged door 
 Might float some echo that our ears would reach 
 Of spirit life upon the other shore. 
 
 "TO YOU THIS DAY A CHRIST IS BORN." 
 
 (Christmas, 1885.) 
 
 O arching skies! starlit and glorified, 
 
 Bending above Judea s hills, where low 
 Gennesaret sleeps and Jordan pours its tide, 
 
 What power has touched you that you brighten so? 
 
 Lo! the far East, expanding high and wide, 
 As if some mighty comet were unfurled, 
 Or else some curtain from this lower world 
 
 Were lifted and heaven s gates flung open wide! 
 
 And, hark! the tremulous trees in music break; 
 
 The running brooks take on angelic tone; 
 
 The flowers breathe in melodious undertone, 
 And grasses to symphonious utterance wake. 
 
 Judea s hills are touched with glory, too, 
 They lift their tops in reverent worship all, 
 And birds in praise unto each other call, 
 
 And brighten still the wide expanse of blue. 
 
 Upon the midnight hills the shepherds kneel, 
 Their gaze uplifted to the opening skies, 
 While reverent wonder fills their waiting eyes, 
 
 As the cleft blue the heavenly hosts reveals. 
 
 "Glory to God!" O song of songs they sing, 
 
 "And peace on earth;" Heaven bends in mercy sweet: 
 "Good will to men" the angel tongues repeat, 
 
 Which Heaven and Earth with answering echoes ring. 
 
 Brightened the hills as rang the angels song, 
 And wide asunder waxed the starry skies, 
 And sweeter grew th angelic symphonies, 
 
 "For lo! to you this day a Christ is born!" 
 
 O tidings glad that through the ages ring! 
 
 O day of days that to the race belongs! 
 
 We kneel as knelt Judea s shepherd throngs 
 And hail the Christ, Redeemer, Lord and King! 
 
 TRUTH S TWILIGHT AND DAWN. (1885.) 
 
 In the old days when gods filled all the skies 
 And peopled all the heights that to the Sun 
 
 In their proud solitarv majesty arise, 
 Where daylight s last rays linger when the day is done, 
 
 When Neptune ruled the seas, and Phoebus stole 
 His father s burning chariot from the Sun, 
 
 And drove his fiery steeds with slackened rein; 
 
 When proud Jove thundered, and Vulcan s mighty stroke 
 
 Smote the still air until it shuddering woke 
 
 From silence; and bloody Mars marshaled his train 
 
 For awful wars, and men walked blind, 
 
 133 
 
The Undiscovered Country. 
 
 Smitten by angry gods and helpless in their snare, 
 Tortured by doubt and by unspoken dread, 
 
 Lifting dumb hands to gods they knew not where 
 To find, but who somewhere in infinite deeps overhead 
 
 Held godlike state, and mighty revels kept, 
 Life was scarce worth the living twas the twilight time 
 
 Of Truth man s faith, his spirit-nature slept. 
 
 Yet then were intellectual giants; 
 
 Homer sang in strains that bade defiance 
 
 In their grand deathlessness to latest time; 
 
 And Virgil, in his strains not less sublime, 
 
 Sang for the ages; Socrates, the king 
 
 Of ancient wisdom, uttered thoughts that ring 
 
 Through the Today of men; he almost laid 
 
 Hold of Faith s white mantle; men eager stayed 
 
 Hungry for something that he could not give, 
 
 For some grand hope that would undying live, 
 
 They read of Hades and Tartarus dark, 
 
 Of awful Pluto, and of him whose bark 
 
 The Silent Boatman bore men s helpless souls 
 
 Down the dark current which Death s river rolls; 
 
 Of Cerberus, that hundred-headed monster who 
 
 Guards the gate of Hades, and from whom they know 
 
 Of no escape; of the dread Furies there 
 
 In Pluto s realm, whose cup of dark despair 
 
 And awful torment men must ever drain, 
 
 While torn and maddened by their deathless pain. 
 
 What wonder, then, that mid these pangful fears 
 
 Men longed for visions, longed for gods to speak 
 
 And chase away the doubts of doubting years; 
 
 What wonder that they held that prayers were weak, 
 
 Since to them from the god-filled deep 
 
 Of skies no answer came the tortured air, 
 
 Rent by their cries of yearning and despair, 
 
 Gave naught but voiceless silence, and their hearts 
 
 Fed on themselves, and gnawed till Hope was dead. 
 
 And Doubt consumed them, and their dumb gods fled 
 
 Among the innumerable stars so far, 
 
 So pitiless, men turned at length to Fate 
 
 That awful Thing relentless, cruel, blind, unconquerable. 
 
 Then came the Dawn! far in the East it broke, 
 
 Among Judea s hills its splendor stirred, 
 When God from star-lit skies to shepherds spoke, 
 
 And "Peace on earth, good will to man" was heard. 
 No more the darkness of the soulless Doubt, 
 
 Xo more the gods of mythologic story ! 
 Ring the old age of helpless torture out, 
 
 Ring in the new of Revelation s glory. 
 
 ETERNITY. (1885.) 
 
 I said, when I am dead the world will be the same, 
 The happy Sun will shine, and the sweet Winter s rain 
 Will come to wake the early flowers, whose perfume sweet 
 Will fill the golden air; the fair, high stars will greet 
 Fond, loving eyes, and e en as in the long ago 
 I heard the old, old story, they shall hear and know 
 Those glad young lovers who in after years shall come 
 
 And find such fresh, new joy in living when I m done 
 With all earth has to give, when in this world for me 
 Is but the grass-clad, narrow grave wherein I sleep, 
 Anear, perhaps, the soft whispering of the sea, 
 And where their silent watch the lofty mountains keep. 
 But O the glory of the waking from that sleep 
 Unto the life beyond, with its eternal sweep ! 
 
 LET ME FIND THEE. (1885.) 
 
 Within my heart a great, strong tidal wave 
 
 Uplifts me far above the quiet calm 
 
 Of every day s weak, unimpassioned life 
 
 Lifts me to high yearning; I stretch out my arm 
 
 To God and Heaven, my soul s crying rife 
 
 With strong desire that God Himself would show 
 
 Me something of Himself, teach me to know 
 
 What God is. I see his hand in all things 
 
 In this fair world; each happy bird that sings, 
 
 Each golden ray of sunshine, each soft breeze, 
 
 Each blade of grass, the tall and stately trees, 
 
 The fragrant flowers, the laughing brooks, the sea, 
 
 The mountains, all voice Deity to me. 
 
 But through Thy heart, O God! let me find Thee! 
 
 OUR LARGER LIFE. (1885.) 
 
 What is existence worth without the soul s 
 Enlargement? To be, to breathe the full pure 
 Air, to look on beauty, hear sweet sound, and 
 To rejoice in the bright sunshine, enjoy 
 The sweets of taste, the charm of odorous 
 Fragrance, the rich gladness of our pleasant 
 Friendships, the romance of Love s rainbowed beauty, 
 The gold which Plenty brings to purchase pleasure 
 Is not life. These alone touch not the brim of 
 Being, but are the shallows of its great 
 Sea, the light and sportive ripples that play 
 Upon its surface; while its deep, infinite 
 Depths, which no plumb-line but that of the 
 Eternal e er can fathom, lie still and 
 Unexplored. 
 
 There is beyond all this that 
 
 Which makes our life s completeness makes its sum. 
 What would we say of him whose whole life had been 
 In some old mine, wandering amid its 
 Sunless ways, his only firmament the 
 Ragged mineral roof man s hand had hewn; 
 His world bounded by the black supporting 
 Columns carved from the bedded coal, its whole 
 Circumference sunless and soundless save 
 As lighted by some dim lamp s glow, or 
 Echoing to the sound of pick and spade, 
 Of careless jest and laughter, or sudden 
 Moan of pain? Should he claim that he knew life 
 In all its fullness? He whose eyes had ne er 
 Looked upon the Sun, or the Midnight with 
 Its star-sown field of worlds innumerable; 
 Whose ear had ne er caught the thunderous voice 
 Of cataracts, or the roar of Old Ocean lashed 
 Into fury by the tempest; to whose 
 
 134 
 
Cradled With God. 
 
 Eyes the mountains, voiceful of Omnipotence, 
 And on which the far skies lean, were strangers; 
 To whom the emerald of the branching 
 Trees, the world of many-tinted blossoms, 
 The sunrise and the sunset glory painted 
 Upon the infinite canvas of the 
 Heavens were all unknown, undreamed of? 
 To whom all knowledge, save that of daily 
 Needs and human passions, was a closed and 
 Letterless book, whose lids, covered with the 
 Dust of his own stirless ignorance, his 
 Unseeking hand had never lifted? 
 
 Give me the larger life Heaven meant for man 
 With soul awake, and each mental power 
 With the fair lustre of bright thought aglow, 
 Waxing in strength, and as new stars rise in 
 The firmament, so in the mental heavens 
 To constellations of new thoughts, and suns 
 Of truth, while my intelligence, like an 
 Electric flood, sweps God s wide universe. 
 
 This is what gives to us a larger 
 
 Vision, which helps us to catch the subtle 
 
 Fullness Nature holds in forest loveliness, 
 
 And helps us see the handwriting of the 
 
 Infinite amid the stars, and to trace 
 
 Amid the old and hoary rocks of Earth s 
 
 Piled strata the written story of 
 
 Creation s page; to analyze the 
 
 Elements, weigh suns and measure the deeps 
 
 Of skies; to harness the lightnings and force 
 
 Them like trained steeds to speed at our bidding, 
 
 Freighted with speech across wide continents 
 
 And under storm-tossed seas; to make the very air 
 
 Our vassal, giving it language, till with 
 
 Telephonic lips it calls for us through 
 
 Space, through soundless distance, bearing our voice, 
 
 Its every tone like some tangible thing 
 
 Of life, to ears listening afar. 
 
 Life like this takes hold upon the Infinite, 
 
 It treads the outer vestibule of God s 
 
 Presence, breathes the air which sweeps around His 
 
 Purposes, rests in the cradle of His 
 
 Providence, and hourly hears His voice. 
 
 CRADLED WITH GOD. 
 (Lines on the death of a little child, 1885.) 
 
 We call thee dead, sweet baby, but our earthly eyes are 
 
 blind, 
 
 We cannot look beyond the twinkling star, 
 Unto the land with golden gates ajar, 
 
 Where life and light in endless glory shine. 
 
 Thou art not dead! Thy little life, so sweet, so pure, so 
 fair, 
 
 Just budded here, and then an angel came. 
 
 We call him Death we do not know the name 
 He bears in Heaven among the bright ones there. 
 
 He touched thy lips and breathed upon thy face till it 
 
 grew white 
 
 Thy little hands like folded lilies lay- 
 On, the sweet beauty of that breathless clay! 
 
 And then with him you vanished from our sight. 
 
 Blessed baby ! Now thine eyes 
 Open wide in Paradise; 
 And the loving Savior s breast 
 Is the cradle for thv rest. 
 
 CHRIST IS BORN. (1886.) 
 
 The great world slept, while the soft, starry light 
 
 Of midnight skies fell on its hills and plains. 
 
 Upon Judean slopes the shepherds kept 
 
 Their watch of the great flocks which roamed through the 
 
 Long months the hillsides o er, feeding the juicy 
 
 Grasses on, and mid the emerald of 
 
 The Winter ways, looking like white blooms on 
 
 The landscape far, dotting the meadowy 
 
 Green with waving light, or, like a drift of 
 
 Snow, covering the heights where sweet, green-bladed 
 
 Grass turned up its million spears. 
 
 The night was 
 
 Still. Earth lay as if expectant, wrapped in 
 Perfect silence, save the low murmur of 
 The running brook, or echoing undertone 
 Of Jordan s rushing waters. As if Earth held her 
 Breath, but faintest breezes stirred, just pulsing 
 The myriad leaves and wafting faintly 
 The odorous breath of flowers. The night-bird s voice 
 NVas still, his wings folded mid the starlit 
 Trees. The cricket slept, and all the countless 
 Myriad voices of the night were hushed. 
 As neared the midnight, lo ! the shepherds slept 
 And dreamed of Israel s greatness, dreamed of 
 Him the Wonderful, their promised King, whose 
 Coming should make free his chosen people. 
 
 In visions of the night Jerusalem 
 
 Was glorious with His presence, and 
 
 Mighty Rome was trembling at His power. 
 
 Dissolved her conquering armies at His 
 
 Voice, crumbled her thrones, and melted like dew in 
 
 The warm sunrise her mighty cities. The 
 
 Foot of haughty Roman pressed no more the 
 
 Neck of Israel. All nations Iwwed the 
 
 King of kings before. Resplendent in his 
 
 Brightness, the glory of God s chosen 
 
 People shone. 
 
 O dream of dreams the ages 
 Long had nursed! O promise glad that now had 
 To its sweet fulfillment come! What woke the 
 Shepherds from their dreamy rest? What stirred their 
 Pulses to a quickened throb? What filled their 
 Hearts with gladness, all too full for speech? their 
 Eyes with wrapt wonder as they upward 
 Lift them to the skies? 
 
 135 
 
The Undiscovered Country. 
 
 The darkness flees, the 
 
 Skies asunder stand, and down the star-strewn 
 Spaces pour the host of Cherubim. Each 
 Starry sphere echoes ths angel anthem. 
 Celestial wings brighten the deeps of air. 
 Faces of Seraphim that have grown bright 
 Where God s own glory shines "unhindered and 
 Undarkened by a sun," resplendent fill 
 The skies, while light, such as would put the noon- 
 Day Sun in black eclipse, fills the blue vault 
 Above. 
 
 Then burst seraphic tones upon 
 Their ravished ears. "The angel Israfel, 
 Who hath the sweetest voice of all God s 
 Creatures," led there the heavenly choir. Stars 
 Knelt in worship as the cherubic strains 
 Rang out amid their spheres. The everlasting 
 Hills bent low their heads, and the uplifted 
 Mountains glowed like altar fires. The low winds 
 Were tuned to melody; each leaf was song, 
 Each blade of grass breathed full-voiced symphony. 
 Each running brook took voice of praise, 
 And all the rivers broke into tumultuous 
 Anthems, and the billowy seas joined in 
 With the triumphant chorus. But over 
 All rang out the angel s song, "Glory to 
 God in the highest, peace on earth, good will 
 Toward men, for unto you a Christ is 
 Born." 
 
 "Peace and good will," the echoing world 
 Resounds, "for Christ is born." 
 
 NO PLACE WHERE GOD IS NOT. (1886.) 
 
 In the still night I sat with self 
 
 And looked to worlds afar, 
 And said, "Now climb, O mind! O thought! 
 
 And pass from star to star. 
 
 "Speed, with thy silent, unseen wing, 
 
 To utmost verge of space; 
 Traverse the orbit of the Sun, 
 
 The paths of comets trace. 
 
 "Out to the farthest silent verge 
 
 Where shining planets swing; 
 Find, if thou canst, the boundary 
 
 Where worldless voids begin. 
 
 "Find, if thou canst, where God is not, 
 
 Where all is nothingness, 
 Where sound is dead, nor motion stirs, 
 
 Where never atoms press." 
 
 On, on my fancy took its flight, 
 
 Still suns on suns arose, 
 Beyond where fmman telescope 
 
 The starry deeps disclose. 
 
 Still on, and orb-crowned firmaments 
 
 Uprose before my sight, 
 And overwhelming amplitudes 
 
 The suns and planets light. 
 
 Ellipses endless sweep away 
 
 Round which the planets spin; 
 Still sounds the music of the spheres, 
 
 As stars together sing. 
 
 Millions of ages bear me on 
 
 With flight as swift as light, 
 But still the star-sown space is spread 
 
 Far out before my sight. 
 
 Ah, soul! forever on and on 
 
 Might speed the wings of Thought, 
 
 But still no frontier would be found, 
 No point where God is not. 
 
 THE IMMORTAL PATHWAY. (1886.) 
 
 I see a pathway in the deep blue sky, 
 
 A pathway that hath been hewn all silently 
 
 And paved with clouds by sojne air-force unseen. 
 
 And stretched through heaven its farthest poles between. 
 
 My thoughts o ertravel it and take their course 
 
 With the wild eagle who rushed screaming hoarse 
 
 From the far cliff, his strong gaze sunward turned 
 
 As he could pass beyond this lesser world 
 
 To the Sun s front, or to the light-hid stars 
 
 Which twinkle downward through Night s purple bars, 
 
 Cutting the gloom with silvery javelins, 
 
 Straight-lined from heaven, down which some influence 
 
 springs 
 
 As spirit flashed, that touches to the deep 
 Of our own souls, until they rise and climb 
 Like the high-tide that seeks the full moonshine, 
 And for this deep mysterious teaching seek, 
 Drawn upward to a purer sense of being. 
 Seeing not with sight, but with the spirit seeing; 
 With that large insight of the open soul 
 Which sometimes, seemingly, doth grasp the whole 
 Of God s great universe, till man seems the larger part 
 Of God s creation the central, throbbing heart, 
 With no hand on its pulse but God s own, thrust 
 Through all its humanness, crushing its dust 
 Of sordidness, until it feels the thrill 
 Of all the infinite that lieth still 
 
 About it everywhere, from star and sky and boundless sea, 
 And the vast round Earth s immensity. 
 
 FALSEHOOD. (1890.) 
 
 Lo! Satan trod the mighty spaces dim, 
 And mused with longing in his heart to bring 
 Man to hell s level, and to find some way 
 To lead the race from highest good away. 
 Plotted he vainly till before him there 
 Foul Falsehood stood, a blot upon the air. 
 
 Then all the air grew sulphurous with his smile, 
 
 And lowest Hell paused, listening the while 
 
 I hat Falsehood spoke, and told in fairest speech 
 
 How she would tempt men, leading all and each 
 
 To harbor her with flattery and vain lies 
 
 Which she would clothe in such a winning guise 
 
 They quick would seize them, till each conscience, deed 
 
 136 
 
The Triune God. 
 
 With her quick stabs, could any way be led, 
 And Truth, oft wounded, would withdraw afar, 
 And leave behind her not a single bar 
 Twixt them and wrong. 
 
 Then Satan s mighty head 
 He bent in gladness "It is well," he said, 
 "O Falsehood! thou shalt be the adjutant of Hell. 
 Fly earthward swift and there henceforth dwell." 
 
 THE TRIUNE GOD* (1887.) 
 
 How can I of the unconditioned reason? 
 What notion hath my understanding of 
 It save as negation vast of the 
 Conditioned? Yet consciousness premises 
 It, and reason holds it fast as truth 
 Positive, truth apprehended and 
 Perceived, while yet beyond the full grasp of 
 Our finite comprehension. Yet bid me 
 Prove that I the infinite can conceive 
 Of as a thing positive, a something 
 Possible, and argument is dumb; she 
 Hath no words to show through speech of 
 Logical deduction the modus 
 Operandi of her thought. I only 
 Say my consciousness attesteth this, for 
 Of my consciousnes it is fact ultimate; 
 Therefore, as well might you bid me to 
 Ascertain "What is it that precedes the 
 First," or what supports the firm foundation, 
 As to make plain to you the process of 
 My knowing. 
 
 Vainly the finite seeks to 
 Span the infinite, and dark the way it 
 Wanders, until lost to all thought save the 
 O erwhelming one that at the end of what 
 We know lies something more that we know not. 
 On this far frontier shall we stand and reach 
 
 Referring to a sermon preached in Los Angeles on January 
 9, 188T: 
 
 "Reason is not competent to the discovery of all religious 
 truth; at the same time no truth can be repugnant to the 
 essential laws of thought, or is clearly and self-evidently un 
 thinkable. This is axiomatic. Xow apply this principle to a 
 doctrine widely held to be the chief corner-stone of the Chris 
 tian religion, indeed its acceptance to be the condition of sal 
 vation, viz: the doctrine of the Trinity. Is it even unthink 
 able? ... It is an essential part of the doctrine of the 
 Trinity that the omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God, 
 the creator and upholder of all things, He whose creative wis 
 dom, iirecting power and personal presence in each of the 
 innumerable worlds throughout this boundless sea of space 
 in that burning sun whose light, traveling at the rate of 
 nearly 200,000 miles per second, has not yet reached our world, 
 are as necessary as they are here; He whose center is every 
 where, and whose circumference is nowhere, who, as the 
 Apostle says, is above all, and through all and in all, with 
 drew from all of the other portions of His universe and so 
 concentrated Himself, so focalized His being, so divested Him 
 self of the very attributes of His nature, the essential ele 
 ments of His godhead, as on this mote in the air to be born 
 a human child, through the usual process of growth to be 
 come a man, to be baptized think of it! (according to this 
 doctrine, John the Baptist baptized the infinite and Illimitable 
 God,) to be Insulted as a religious innovator, and finally 
 crucified. Ten thousand thousand thousand times it has been 
 declared that Christ was truly and properly God! that in 
 the form of a man the infinite Jehovah sojourned on the earth, 
 and yet by general consent He was crucified and laid in tho 
 tomb; and this to recover as much as possible from the fright 
 ful, the overwhelming disaster occasioned by His own circum 
 vention by the devil a being whom He Himself created. Now, 
 If this whole general scheme Is not a downright, out-and-out 
 absurdity, will any man tell me what an absurdity is?" 
 
 No farther? As we feel the infinite 
 
 Beyond us and above o ershadowing 
 
 Us, like God s spirit o er wide Chaos brooding, 
 
 Shall we turn backward feeling all effort 
 
 Vain for the mind to further strive? Shall we 
 
 Grovel in the finite, saying all beyond 
 
 Is dark, unknowable? No! there is still 
 
 A pathway we may tread, leading the mind 
 
 To where it may o erleap the finite. 
 
 Following this path, no limitless 
 
 Abstraction do we vainly seek to grasp, 
 
 Xor do we to no vast unclothed infinity 
 
 Outreach, at which the mind is staggered; but 
 
 Here we may lay hold of personal 
 
 Infinity, all clothed in gracious 
 
 Attributes, boundless in love and mercy, 
 
 Unlimited in all things, omnipotent 
 
 And omnipresent, filling heaven and 
 
 Earth, and through Him we truly may conceive 
 
 The limitless, e en as we apprehend 
 
 The boundless sky, which we but see in part, 
 
 While its far bounds are set beyond our 
 
 Utmost vision. Comprehend we may not, 
 
 But we may humbly know and worship God, 
 
 Infinite and eternal, seeing him, 
 
 The invisible, through far-visioned faith, 
 
 Not face to face, with full sight comprehensive, 
 
 But "as through a glass darkly." Meanwhile our 
 
 Consciousness, with still, deep voice, which naught can 
 
 Hinder, naught can hush, proclaims God is, and 
 
 Him conceives of as the Eternal, 
 
 Unconditioned Cause of all things. Thus, that 
 
 God is we know, and knowing we may read 
 
 Of Him. The star-sown skies in shining 
 
 Alphabet write of creative power; 
 
 The mighty mountains voice omnipotence, 
 
 And the wide sea, in never-resting waves, 
 
 Activity eternal does proclaim. 
 
 While the round Earth, set mid the starry spheres, 
 
 Circling through space illimitable, speaks 
 
 Of infinitude. 
 
 Yet still how weak our 
 
 Cognizance, how small our knowledge of the 
 Eternal One. Eternity may shed 
 Its dews of knowledge on us, and the light 
 Of God s presence shine around us there, 
 "Unhindered and undarkened by a sun," 
 Refulgent in its glory, and we may 
 Rise from throne to throne of higher heaven; 
 But still above us, o ershadowing the 
 Universe, and holding in His hand stars, 
 Suns and systems, and shaping by His 
 Universal will all life, all law, sits 
 The Eternal, while all the hosts of heaven 
 Veil with their shining wings their faces from 
 His sight, bending in worship. 
 
 But while with 
 
 Winged sweep the ages roll through the bright 
 Effulgence of eternal years, God s works 
 And wavs shall we essay to know, yet 
 
 137 
 
The Undiscovered Country. 
 
 Vainly strive to compass. Our light will be 
 
 Like shadow to His light, and all our knowledge 
 
 Be to His as is the dewdrop to the 
 
 Ocean vast. In all eternity there is 
 
 No mighty Pisgah for our thought to 
 
 Climb, where we may stand o erlooking the wide 
 
 Sweep of Infinite Intelligence and 
 
 Of Eternal Purpose, and proclaim no 
 
 Higher knowledge lies beyond us to attain. 
 
 Like the stray particles of light which God s 
 
 Hand takes up and fashions into starry 
 
 Spheres, so shall we take up knowledge, yet not 
 
 Absorb it all, no more than all the worlds 
 
 Of myriad stars consume the brightness 
 
 Of the effulgent Sun, or equal it 
 
 In glory. As well might we seek infinite 
 
 Space to span with our small fingers, or cast 
 
 The plumb-line of our thought to measure its 
 
 Far deeps where not an atom floats, where stars 
 
 Cease circling in its worldless void. With 
 
 Reverent hands, and faces filled with holy 
 
 Awe and wonder, shall man redeemed turn 
 
 The vast volumed pages of His Providence 
 
 And power, and find still ever added 
 
 Pages through eternal years, and, kneeling, 
 
 Worship in o erwhelming adoration, 
 
 Feeling to old Eternity sublimer 
 
 Bliss in knowledge gained, while still upborne by 
 
 Winged Progression to high and higher heights 
 
 Unending, where God more of Himself reveals. 
 
 How then, O feeble child of Time! conditioned 
 
 As thou art, and thick-hedged round with mortal 
 
 Hindrances, thy vision darkened, seeing 
 
 But in part, dost thou with feeble voice 
 
 Proclaim God is not what His own Word declares 
 
 The Triune One! the Christ who walked with Adam 
 
 In the pleasant shade of Eden s garden, 
 
 Who trod the fiery furnace with the 
 
 Faithful three of Israel s sons, and who 
 
 With Abraham, of faithful souls the 
 
 Father, on Mamre s plains talked face to face, 
 
 Discoursing of His purpose toward wicked 
 
 Sodom, and who from Manoah s startled 
 
 Sight uprose to heaven on flaming pathway. 
 
 Wilt thou deny because the mystery 
 
 Of the godhead is beyond thee? Is this 
 
 The daring yet unspoken language of 
 
 The thought: "God cannot be beyond what man 
 
 Can think. Reason no such Being complicate 
 
 Can understand, and therefore it is not?" 
 
 And, questioning farther still, doth say, "How 
 
 Could the Almighty thus withdraw Himself 
 
 From this wide universe, and clothed in flesh, 
 
 Tread earthly fields through many-changing years? 
 
 And how can God be God, the Father and 
 
 Yet Son Divine, eternal?" 
 
 Canst thou explain what God is, or set in 
 Jeweled language how He no beginning 
 Hath, vet is and was and shall be? Or when 
 
 He on awful Sinai stood, His 
 
 Feet shod with earthquakes, until the smoking 
 
 Mount cried out in thunders, while He with His 
 
 Meek servant Moses talked, and saw the Dawn 
 
 And close of forty earthly days, as He, 
 
 Jehovah, communed with him there, how still 
 
 He held sway in heaven, and by the forces 
 
 Of His mighty will kept all the star-spangled 
 
 Universe circling through space, each sun and 
 
 System revolving round its center? 
 
 Was heaven meanwhile unlighted by His 
 
 Glory? Did all the angelic hosts in 
 
 Silence, soundless and profound, stand 
 
 Speechless, and hell itself rejoice that for 
 
 The time God s presence was not felt where Hate 
 
 Rebelled against its power? Did he, the 
 
 Humble Gallilean, speak but in bold 
 
 Assumption when He himself as "from 
 
 Above" proclaimed, while men "are from 
 
 Beneath," 
 
 And bade them with His voice, "Come unto me?" 
 
 Was it as man the prophets spake of Him 
 
 When crying in the wilderness, as herald 
 
 Of the Christ, he of Him said: "The Lamb of 
 
 God behold, who taketh the world s sins away?" 
 
 Or was it but a human soul that passed 
 
 From cross-crowned Calvary when the Earth was 
 
 Rent in horror, and from the opened graves 
 
 The dead came forth, and the Sun hid its face 
 
 Above the Crucified? 
 
 O world without a Saviour ! The sin-burdened 
 
 Soul shrinks from the thought. But all the ages 
 
 Down, in symphony as sweet as heaven s 
 
 Music, swept from the harps of high archangels, 
 
 Sounds the Christ-voice to fainting souls: 
 
 "Ye believe in God believe also in Me." 
 
 BEYOND. (1887.) 
 
 Life s noon has come, and in its glare, 
 
 When all the world stands scarred and white, 
 
 I turn and look unto the light. 
 
 But not to gold of morning skies, 
 
 When life was young and fair; 
 
 When cradled in its clear sunrise 
 
 I saw before me there 
 
 Long plains of years, while golden dreams 
 
 Of days to come made days more fair; 
 
 While Hope s glad sunshine everywhere 
 
 Made shadowless the perfect day. 
 
 Not backward do I turn at noon 
 
 To the sweet dawns of yesterdays, 
 
 To singing-birds and flower-strewn ways, 
 
 With dewy paths and hedges green; 
 
 But forward through the shadowed scene 
 
 Where Sunset s slanting beams are shed, 
 
 And there with longing fix my eyes 
 
 Beyond the shadows of the plain. 
 
 For there, beyond the sunset skies, 
 
 Faith sees bright gleams of glory shine, 
 
 138 
 
"Lo! I Am With Thee Alvay." 
 
 She sets the golden gates ajar 
 That rise beyond the shadow s pale, 
 And sees the glory shining through 
 The light that is of sun nor star; 
 And then I say good-night to Care, 
 And Doubt is chained, and life is fair. 
 
 THE SABBATH. (1890.) 
 
 O blue sky! ye brighter seem today 
 Than other days as ye above us bend, 
 And sweeter blow the breezes which do lend 
 
 Such comfort to us on their winged way. 
 
 Ye are as fair as when o er Eden s bloom 
 The Sun stole up the amber heights of Dawn, 
 And God s own voice spake through the golden Morn, 
 
 And blessed the Day to man His richest boon. 
 
 O day of rest f thy hallowed hours we love, 
 Serenely breathing. Labor folds her hands, 
 And tyrant Toil with lash no longer stands; 
 
 Peace broods above us like a white-winged dove. 
 
 O day of rest! O day that leads us home! 
 Eden yet lingers in your blessed hours, 
 And Hope unfolds afresh her fragrant flowers, 
 
 Heaven nearer draws and angels whisper "Come!" 
 
 Earth s cares and turmoil sink from us away; 
 
 The soul hath larger vision and it sees 
 
 Life broadening into wide eternities 
 Of sacred joy and everlasting day. 
 
 HIS WAYS. (T8 9 i.) 
 
 God s ways are not our ways, and dim and dark 
 Sometimes they seem, and sorrow-filled, 
 As if all joy had died, and Grief distilled 
 Her tears in liquid fire. Then, then, O hark! 
 God speaks! Be not afraid, my child, 
 Though tempests rave and storms break wild; 
 For I am near, behind the sullen dark, 
 My hand upon the helm, I guide thy bark. 
 
 "LO! I AM WITH THEE ALWAY." (1891.) 
 
 The Master s work was done complete and f;iir 
 
 As is a rounded star or shining sun, 
 His earth-life shone, and everywhere 
 
 Earth s thousand tongues, seemed whispering, "Well 
 
 done!" 
 The flowers breathed sweeter incense where He stood, 
 
 The rivers caught an undertone of song, 
 The wind breathed softer in the sighing wood, 
 
 The palms seemed bearing yet His praise along; 
 And round the open grave where He had lain 
 
 A glory lingered that was not of earth, 
 For vanquished Death lay there, and slain 
 
 Were Fear and Doubt celestial Hope had birth. 
 
 O land so fair! here had the angels sung 
 
 Of peace, good will to men; upon these hills 
 The star had shone, the blessed day begun 
 
 Beside Judea s softly-flowing rills. 
 Here He, a lowly babe in Bethlehem, 
 
 Slept in a manger, all his godhood hid 
 Beneath the flesh, as thus He came to them, 
 
 His face so flower-like, each tender lid 
 Shutting the light from out His sleeping eyes 
 
 Through which His soul looked in divinest calm, 
 As does the Moon from out the mklnight skies. 
 
 His presence brought but blessedness and balm, 
 And the sad Earth turned once again its face 
 
 Toward sinless Eden, and Heaven nearer drew, 
 And looking upward, lo! our sinful race 
 
 Drank Hope s sweet wine as Summer drinks the dew. 
 But as He older grew, beside Him walked 
 
 Sorrow and weariness and earthly scorn, 
 And of His deeds so slightingly had talked 
 
 High priest and Pharisee, and oft the Morn 
 Looking between its shining bars of gold 
 
 Had seen Him in some desert place apart, 
 Bearing the sins of all the races old 
 
 Like a sharp arrow in His bleeding heart. 
 
 But still He loved men, and the dead he raised, 
 
 The leper healed, the blind gave sight again, 
 The lame leaped in their gladness while they praised 
 
 And held Him highest of the sons of men. 
 The storied palms had heard his gracious speech, 
 
 And olive trees had listened as He spake, 
 "O deaf ears, hear! let full sound come to each; 
 
 O dead, who sleep, arise ye and awake!" 
 But still for Him had come the Cross, the tomb, 
 
 From His dead palm He let life s scepter fall 
 Ere He had reached His manhood s early noon, 
 
 And Earth was rent as for His funeral pall. 
 
 But He had risen ! and now toward Bethany, 
 
 Past gardens fair with oleander s bloom, 
 Past swaying vines and sweet pomegranate tree, 
 
 And olive groves, and where the palms make room 
 For the soft sighing of the warm south wind, 
 
 Climbing the steeps of Olivet, He walked 
 With His disciples, and He called to mind 
 
 All prophets had foretold of Him, and talked 
 So tenderly of Heaven s great love for men 
 
 The many millions living everywhere, 
 The many millions that His heavenly ken, 
 
 Sweeping the future as it opened there, 
 Before His sight, saw down the years of Time, 
 
 Peopling the green Earth, breathing its sweet air, 
 Some following Him and living lives sublime, 
 
 Some wandering with heavy loads of care, 
 Worshiping earth idols things dumb and cold, 
 
 As they could make their sinful lives more fair 
 Or lift them upward to Heaven s blessed fold. 
 
 And there beneath the shining sky He stood 
 Lifting His hands which yet the nail-prints bore, 
 
 139 
 
The Undiscovered Country. 
 
 -The cruel nails that held them to the wood 
 Those holy hands, so blessed evermore ! 
 
 His face was like the Sun in shining clear 
 As the starry midnight were His wondrous eyes; 
 
 They mirrored Heaven, as we, when drawing near, 
 See waters mirror all the bending skies. 
 
 O voice divine! the winds grew hushed and still, 
 
 Breathing but balm amid the olive trees 
 And the cool palms upon the holy hill. 
 
 Never before heard Earth such words as these 
 That Jesus spake upon that blessed height 
 
 To His disciples standing with wrapt eyes 
 Drinking His speech as Day does drink the light 
 
 When Dawn unbars the gold within its skies. 
 The little town upon the hill was nigh, 
 
 And Zion s towers, resplendent in the Sun, 
 But no white angels flashed into the sky, 
 
 Filling the heavens, as when His life begun; 
 His presence was enough; Earth knew her King, 
 
 The waiting heavens on trembling hinges hung; 
 The sleeping stars with a strange thrill were waking, 
 
 And heavenly harps to higher strains were strung. 
 
 Sweet as the voice of rivers in the Spring 
 To the dry Earth, dear as to Night its stars 
 
 The words He spake unto those listening, 
 And also unto us no long time bars 
 
 Our hearts from Him, no centuries stay 
 The sunlight of His presence and His grace: 
 
 "For lo!" He said, "I am with you alway, 
 Though ye may not behold me face to face." 
 
 O Presence sweet! our waiting ears are glad; 
 
 Xo words outblown from the far, starry spheres, 
 If their pure speech could on this Earth be had, 
 
 Could stir us so as these which through the years 
 The long, long years of blessed Christendom- 
 Come thus hope-laden to us, breathing still, 
 As flowers breathe of the Sun, as stars of light 
 
 Of Christ with us to work His holy will 
 His love with us as we go forth to bear, 
 
 As He did bid us tidings of His grace, 
 Blessing us always, with us everywhere, 
 
 Our hearts His temple and His dwelling place. 
 O blessed Christ! shall e er our footsteps stray, 
 
 Our hearts be slow to do Thy bidding here, 
 When Thou hast said, "I am with thee alway, 
 
 And what is dark my love shall yet make clear." 
 
 ALL IS WELL. (1891.) 
 
 The dim, dark shadows lie asleep 
 Upon the kills, upon the sky, 
 As sails the low Moon s crescent by 
 
 Upon the West s far, starlit deep. 
 
 O starry isles, how far ye seem! 
 
 And yet how bright and shining clear, 
 As if Heaven s golden sands were near, 
 
 As if its sun did on you beam. 
 
 O twinkling, starry isles of light ! 
 
 Do pain and sorrow haunt your shores, 
 
 , 
 
 Have Death and Silence open doors 
 ough which your loved ones pass from sight? 
 
 Do pai 
 Have ] 
 Through which your 
 
 Do weary hearts throb neath your skies, 
 Loving yet unloved, do they beat 
 With heavy longing for the sweet 
 
 Still slumber that the grave supplies? 
 
 I do not know, I cannot tell, 
 
 No voice the starry silence stirs, 
 Though bend in prayer the swaying firs, 
 
 Faith only whispers, "All is well!" 
 
 OUR UNSEEING EYES. (1892.) 
 
 We talk of marvels that our eyes have seen; 
 
 Of world-old pyramids defying Time; 
 
 The gray and sad-eyed Sphinx with stony gaze, 
 
 Looking the bleached sands of the desert wastes 
 
 Across; of Memnon, who, with each rosy 
 
 Morn s first kiss of light, breaks that deep spell of 
 
 Silence to breathe one strain of melody 
 
 Into the ear of the young Day, waking 
 
 Within the cradled gold of Sunrise; 
 
 Of mighty Alps, the throne of rushing winds 
 
 And awful avalanche mountains the stars 
 
 Companion with, and which know the mystery 
 
 Of the upper air; of the dread thunders with 
 
 Cloudy hands beating against the stars 
 
 Sentinel heights, moveless in majesty. 
 
 We talk of leaping, foam-lipped cataracts 
 
 Pouring the mad anthems of their watery 
 
 Tides, and of great surging seas with billows 
 
 Bellowing to the storm, as if afar 
 
 Our steps must pass to behold Earth s wonders. 
 
 O blind ! for our eyes are hid from seeing, 
 
 We note not where God walks, nor where His hand, 
 
 Under our very feet, before our eyes, 
 
 Works daily miracle. This tiny blade 
 
 Of grass; this opening flower; this perfect 
 
 Leaf are marvels wondrous. This tall tree 
 
 Half heavenward lifted, catching the light 
 
 Among its boughs, its leaves burnished with gold, 
 
 And answering to the kiss of the soft breeze 
 
 With tremulous whispering, is God s thought 
 
 Made manifest. The color of the rose; 
 
 The fragrant purple of the violet; 
 
 The whiteness of the perfect lily s bloom, 
 
 And the sweet gaze of pansies looking up; 
 
 The morning-glory s bells swung on the vine, 
 
 Hanging twixt Earth and Heaven, as waiting 
 
 The touch of angels to ring celestial 
 
 Melodies ; the perfect painting of the gay 
 
 Poinsettia s leaf, glowing as the sunset; 
 
 The lotus, dreaming by its sleeping tides; 
 
 The pink, rosy as the cheek of beauty; 
 
 The orange when its buds do burst 
 
 Into a rhythm of glad fragrance sweet; 
 
 140 
 
The I nxpoken My uteri). 
 
 The purple of the heliotrope, with 
 Breath like the frankincense burned on altars 
 Old; the varied bloom, like that which blazing 
 Shines in the fire-opals of the far-off 
 Orient, seen mid the many hundred 
 Petals gay of that proud flower which blooms 
 Through the long months of Autumn-time; 
 The green and lace-like fern delicately 
 Wrought, each hair-like line filled with perfection- 
 All these are marvels we oft fail to note, 
 Though thick as golden sunbeams round us spread. 
 
 the mystery of Growth! of color 
 
 And of form ! Soundless the little blades creep 
 
 Up and lengthen day by day; noiselessly 
 
 Does the rose unfold its tiny bud and burst 
 
 Into full flower. Silently the tree 
 
 Springs from the soil, uplooking to the clouds, 
 
 And the green leaf unfolds unto the light, 
 
 And round us everywhere the miracle 
 
 Of growth expands without our heeding it. 
 
 Truly, O brothers ! are we not blind indeed ? 
 
 THE UNSPOKEN MYSTERY. (1892.) 
 
 Life wrapped me round so full, so deep, so fair, 
 Yet being s mystery touched me everywhere. 
 
 1 sought the secret which the rose might tell, 
 But not a whisper from its petals fell. 
 
 biience wrapped all the solemn mountains round, 
 Their rock-hewn lips held neither breath nor sound. 
 
 The blue sky smiled and showed a deeper blue, 
 Yet golden sunbeams filtered speechless through. 
 
 The starlight voiceless fell through Night s vast deep, 
 And dews wept tears, but still did silence keep. 
 
 I asked the Wind then rushing wild and free, 
 Shaking the land and ploughing up the Sea: 
 
 O Wind! sky-born, in all the deeps of air, 
 Where is the genesis of being, where? 
 
 The great Sea crept along the beach sands white, 
 And the wild winds sank moaning through the Night 
 
 A little babe cooed softly in my arms, 
 Flower-like and sweet its many budding charms, 
 
 And from its eyes the soul s light, gleaming clear, 
 Seemed radiance of some unknown atmosphere. 
 
 O pure, white soul ! so lately come to earth, 
 Tell me the mystery of Being s birth. 
 
 The baby smiled, lifted its starry eyes, 
 But language had not for it sweet replies. 
 
 But still the secret of its life it spoke 
 
 In every smile that neath its eyelids woke. 
 
 God s touch was there, the Infinite, the Great 
 Maker of life, and mightier than Fate, 
 
 His breath is life, He speaks, and lo! we are, 
 And so is Earth, and Sun, and shining Star. 
 
 "FAITH CROWNED MY SOUL AT LAST." (1897.) 
 
 Into the vast of Silence passed I, where 
 
 Is naught but mystery; God alone is there 
 
 And light, for He is Light and worlds unborn, 
 
 And space that hath not looked at any morn 
 
 With earth-light on it; so far, so far 
 
 That the clear shining of Earth s farthest star 
 
 Would darken ere its light had passed 
 
 Through the wide circle of that boundless Vast. 
 
 And there I stood, a mote, an atom small, 
 
 Within the center of that wondrous all 
 
 Of space; vast spheres in their wide orbits sped. 
 
 And Time grew pulseless till itself was dead. 
 
 Yet unafraivl I stood, stood smiling there, 
 
 Feeling that God was near, that ev rywhere, 
 
 Above the darkness and the empty wild 
 
 His presence was, His eye upon His child. 
 
 And lo! at length, with firm, uplifted eye, 
 
 I saw the glory of His smile pass by, 
 
 And all the darkness brightened silently; 
 
 And wijigs of light bore up my soul afar, 
 
 Beyond the outpost of Time s farthest star. 
 
 Wide oped the gates of Bliss, their threshold passed, 
 
 With sinless life Faith crowned my soul at last. 
 
 My Father greets me there, "and I am I," 
 
 To.be forever, nevermore to die, 
 
 Sealed with the seal of God s eternity. 
 
 MY UNKNOWN SELF. (1899.) 
 
 I do not know myself, unfathomed, I 
 
 Live on from day to day, my destiny 
 
 To be forever. Oh, when shall I unfold 
 
 Some knowledge of myself, when shall be told 
 
 What God knows of me of that soul 
 
 Which makes the I of me, which is the goal 
 
 Of my self-seeking. God is and I am, 
 
 Spark of His being I, from Him I sprang, 
 
 For God is life and light, and boundlessly 
 
 He is, and was, and shall be, filling space, 
 
 The omnipresent One from whose great face 
 
 No soul can flee. Oh, what is Mind, what lies 
 
 In the vast chamber of its mysteries? 
 
 Dull, soulless matter holds not any seed 
 
 Of human thought. It does not ever breed 
 
 Or hope or fear or aspiration high, 
 
 Or dream of life or ceaseless destiny. 
 
 Tis th God-nature in me that makes me rise, 
 
 Seeking to know all being s mysteries; 
 
 That giveth thought unto the senseless clay. 
 
 God-fashioned and mind-clothed, and which alway 
 
 Outreacheth upward, which at last shall spring 
 
 O er Death s great border and take living wing 
 
 Into God s presence, always for aye to be 
 
 Kindred with Thee, Spirit-immensity. 
 
 Twas some of Thine own life which Thou didst breathe 
 
 Into the form Thou fashioned and didst weave 
 
 In new-created Man a living soul, 
 
 The highest link between Thee and the whole 
 
 Of Earth. Man, Spirit, God: 
 
 141 
 
The Undiscovered Country. 
 
 This the great chain of being. No more shall plod, 
 
 Like a mere worm of dust, this soul of mine, 
 
 As I perceive my being is like Thine. 
 
 Father of all, Thy child, I cling to Thee, 
 
 Born of Thy life, breath of Infinity ! 
 
 When time shall cease, and sun and stars shall pale 
 
 Before Thy greater glory, I shall exhale 
 
 The last of earthliness, the last that dies, 
 
 And unto endless, godlike being rise. 
 
 Millions on millions shall the years pass by, 
 
 Yet still unfolding, growing still am I. 
 
 What measures for my spirit can I know, 
 
 When there s no goal where I shall cease to grow? 
 
 Ceaseless, Infinite and Eternal Thou! 
 
 Finite, and yet undying I, I bow, 
 
 The shadow of Thyself, O God, to Thee, 
 
 Creator, Father, blessed Deity! 
 
 The effluence of Thy life pervading mine 
 
 Until it grows more fully like to Thine, 
 
 And each day, Father, nearer unto Thee 
 
 My soul shall rise throughout eternity. 
 
 THE BETTER LAND. (1901.) 
 
 I float a-down the tide of passing hours, 
 
 And Time bends o er me with a smiling face, 
 
 And strews beside me Hope s most fragrant flowers, 
 On every shining wave they find a place. 
 
 There is no shadow in the azure skies, 
 As I drift nearer to the golden West, 
 
 And black-winged Doubt afar most quickly flies, 
 While Faith s bright pinions o er my bark do rest. 
 
 Beyond the West, beyond Time s tidal deeps, 
 Fair shores of bliss beyond my dim sight lie, 
 
 But Faith upholds them, and her vision sweeps 
 The boundless realms of Immortality. 
 
 And God is there, and friends passed on before, 
 And Joy s white wings above its vales are spread; 
 
 Life there is deathless, love forever more 
 In radiant fullness is unceasing shed. 
 
 O blessed land ! home of the soul above, 
 No night is there, no sorrow, pain or sin ; 
 
 The key of Jesus own forgiving love 
 
 Unlocks thy gates, and He will lead us in. 
 
 CHRIST THE LIFE. (1904.) 
 
 The morning of my earth-life, O how far 
 Lies it behind me; past my noon am I, 
 When golden shines*the Sun within the sky; 
 
 I near the hour when shines the Evening Star. 
 
 Yet morning lies beyond the better morn 
 
 Which may be mine through Christ, the living way, 
 The glorious morning of a better day, 
 
 The clouds of Earth will flee before its dawn. 
 
 Then Joy s day-star, how brightly will it shine, 
 How grand the Vast that will before me rise 
 When open swing the gates of Paradise, 
 
 And the dear Christ shall take this hand of mine 
 
 And lead me onward through the pastures green, 
 Beside still waters in that Better Land 
 Where the grand mounts of Peace forever stand, 
 
 And God s own love lights all the vales between. 
 
 Why should we fear to go if Christ be ours? 
 Help us, O Father ! in Thy love to trust, 
 Redeeming love which guards this earthly dust, 
 
 And triumphs o er the grave and all its powers. 
 
 There is no death to those who, trusting, wait; 
 God moves us on, and unto Him we go 
 To where a larger, better life we know; 
 
 What we call Death but just unlocks its gate. 
 
 THE WORLD S STORY. (1897.) 
 
 O would that we could know the mysteries 
 
 Of far-off times; the many hidden ways 
 
 Of long-dead feet ; could look with vision clear 
 
 On that far morning when the world was young, 
 
 And men built pyramids which face today, 
 
 And first the skies upon the silent Sphinx 
 
 Looked down in their own voiceless wonderment. 
 
 O shadowed Past! the ages wrap thee round, 
 
 Yet ceaselessly hath moved unresting on 
 
 The procession vast of men and nations, 
 
 And graves are sown upon the earth as thick 
 
 As heaven s own stars. Cities are but motes 
 
 Upon the breast of Time, blown by his breath, 
 
 Crumbling to dust of years as doth Decay 
 
 Gnaw at them with his tireless tooth, munching 
 
 So hungrily. The Nile sweeps onward and 
 
 Growth dreams in its arms, and smiles the land 
 
 Beneath its tender touch, and breaks into 
 
 Its joyous blossoming as when of old 
 
 The infant Moses, rocked by its tide, lay 
 
 In his little ark upon its breast in 
 
 The cool shadow of the rushes growing on 
 
 Its banks, and proud, great-templed Egypt held 
 
 His race in bondage. Brt that old Egypt long since 
 
 Did darken. O cruel Time, with 
 
 Thy large, hidden eyes turned ever to the 
 
 Future, gorging thyself upon the Present, 
 
 Today the morsel which thy hungry maw 
 
 Insatiate seizes, what of the vanished 
 
 Nations which thou hast known and nursed upon 
 
 Thy ample lap? What of the world s heroes 
 
 That have lived, moving the world with their great 
 
 Might of mind, shaping the destinies of 
 
 Peoples before whom trembled Tyranny 
 
 And toppled the Oppressor s throne, while his 
 
 Armies melted like the mist before the 
 
 Dawn? Prophets and priests that stood before the 
 
 Young world s altars are no more. The glory 
 
 Of many kingly crowns melted before 
 
 142 
 
The Life that Is Free. 
 
 Rome s mighty Caesars. Freedom for ages 
 Trod the groaning earth, robed but in sackcloth. 
 The clash of arms and the tread of marching 
 Armies drowned all the air, and Liberty 
 Lay in a death-like swoon for centuries. 
 O storied Past ! O prehistoric Past ! 
 O days that are and days that are to be, 
 When God s recording angel shall have laid 
 Aside his pen, and written "Finis" on 
 The last full page of Time, shall then the luster 
 Of men s later deeds brighten, like some great 
 Sun, the whole world s story? Will God then say, 
 Tis well, the sun is good and th eternal 
 Years will round to greater perfectness, to 
 Vaster worth because man was and is and 
 Shall be? Earth s dross is lost, and lo! behold 
 The godhood in man brightens gloriously! 
 
 THE LIFE THAT IS FREE. (1879.) 
 If over the River of Death there lieth 
 A home of rest and of joy for me, 
 Ah! why is it then that my spirit sigheth 
 
 And shrinks with dread from that glad To Be? 
 Why cling I thus fondly to earth and its sorrows; 
 Why shrink from the shadowless, painless Tomorrows 
 
 Of the life that is endless, the life that is free? 
 
 WHAT AM I? 
 
 I m but a mite upon Time s ocean cast 
 
 An atom, cipher ; like a mote within a sunbeam 
 
 Here I lie, and would be never missed if lost; 
 
 And yet, even more than all Time s mighty years, 
 
 Even more than all these myriad of stars with all their 
 
 shining gold, 
 Studding Creation s face like pearls, and weeping their 
 
 dewy tears 
 
 In the still night-time o er the sin-cursed earth; 
 Even more than all these doth my Father hold me worth. 
 With soul outliving all years, stars, and Time and 
 
 earth. 
 
 143 
 
uvenile 
 
 A YOUNG HEART SINGS TO OTHER YOUNG HEARTS. 
 
 GOD LIGHTING THE STARS. 
 
 The stars are out, the million planetary 
 Spheres that light the Night. Down the far slopes of 
 Day the Sun hath sunk through golden doors, whose 
 Hinges hang upon the West. 
 
 Day wrapped her- 
 
 Self in robes of crimson and of gold, and 
 Like a queen stood on the threshold of the 
 Coming Night. A moment round her stood her 
 Worshipers. The winged breeze kissed her feet 
 And reverently touched her garment s hem. 
 A rosy banner flamed within the West, 
 And a bright star flashed into splendor on 
 Her shining vest. The breeze-swept trees lifted 
 Innumerable hands and touched some unseen 
 Chords which poured out whispering symphonies, 
 And lo ! a bird sprang from its nest and sang 
 As if the morn had come. Above him hung 
 A golden cloud, shaped like the gondolas 
 Of fair Venice, and as it swept the deep-blue 
 Sea of air, lo! from its side outflashed a 
 Shining oar of misty frailness, which the 
 Quick eye of a little child did see, and 
 Swift she spoke: "Oh, Mamma! Dod is coming 
 In His boat to light the stars!" 
 
 THE FAIRIES AND THE CHILDREN. 
 
 Dainty little fairies sitting on the leaf 
 Of the golden poppy, swinging on the sheath 
 Of the tiger-lily, swaying in the Sun, 
 Laughing in the night-time when the day is done; 
 Dancing in the moonlight in the Summer weather, 
 In the open forest where you went together: 
 How the little children wish that they could share 
 All j our merry frolics in the forest there! 
 See the poppies open all their golden doors; 
 See the clover fling you all its honeyed stores; 
 See your chambers hidden in the pretty heart 
 Of the wild-flowers standing in the woods apart; 
 See your fairy couches, where the spiders web 
 Like a silken cover o er your forms is spread; 
 See your lovely dresses, made from apple bloom, 
 See your hair like silver shining in the moon, 
 And your dainty slippers on your tiny feet, 
 Made of scarlet rose-leaves, all so soft and sweet; 
 Sit down at your banquet, when your cups are filled 
 With the honeyed nectar from the flowers distilled; 
 Hide with you a moment in the lily s breast, 
 Draw its leafy curtain round them while they rest, 
 And your wings of silver, which are so very fair, 
 Borrow for a moment to wander through the air, 
 As the happy birds do, as the fairies may, 
 Mounting through the starlight to the Moon away. 
 Ah ! how many wonders they would surely see 
 If at a fairies party they could only be. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE FAIRY. 
 
 Swing, swing, O poppies golden ! 
 Upon the hillsides olden. 
 And pretty bluebells ring, 
 As on your stalks you swing, 
 For I think along your way 
 Does a beauteous fairy stray 
 With eyes so blue 
 And smiles so sweet, 
 With a roseleaf for her shoe, 
 While round her shoulders meet 
 Two slender lily-leaves 
 She wears them for her mantle, 
 While the spider s silver web 
 Makes a bright veil for her head, 
 And of lovely violets blue 
 Is formed her gown so new, 
 Falling down in softest grace 
 Beneath her dimpled face. 
 Oh, she is a tiny thing! 
 But don t you think! I saw her swing 
 Where the tender grass grows tall and slender, 
 On a silver cobweb slender. 
 But she chanced to slip, and lo! 
 Almost drowned was she, I know, 
 In a dewdrop; but a bee, 
 Flying past there, chanced to see 
 Her vain struggles, and some way 
 How he did it I can t say 
 He the fairy helped to climb 
 To his back; then he bore her 
 For this bee, he did adore her 
 To her castle builded fair 
 In a honeysuckle s breast, 
 And laid her gently there to rest, 
 With her eyelids folded down 
 O er her lovely eyes so blue. 
 Then a butterfly drew near, 
 And he lent a listening ear- 
 Listening if he might but hear 
 One faint breath. At length her eyes 
 Neath her lifted lids looked out, 
 And the butterfly and bee, 
 Happy in their glad surprise, 
 Gave the softest little shout, 
 And a spider overhead, 
 Spinning there his silver thread, 
 Dropped a line of gossamer 
 Downward from his web to her. 
 Then adown this shining thread, 
 Swift he ran, and bore to her 
 A small slice of beetle s wing, 
 And a bit of honey dew 
 From a rose leaf filtered through, 
 And the fairy ate and drank, 
 Turning with a smile to thank 
 The spider, butterfly and bee 
 For their kindly courtesy. 
 
 144 
 
IN 1878. 
 
Sr^N 
 
 {UNIVERSITY] 
 VfifiLli 
 
The Story of a Wicked Fairy. 
 
 A VISION OF SANTA CLAUS. 
 
 The other night I lay asleep, 
 
 The soft winds round me stirred, 
 
 But every other sound was hushed 
 Of bee and beast and bird. 
 
 The twinkling stars were overhead, 
 
 And smiling down they look 
 On orange groves and budding rose, 
 
 On mountain, plain and brook. 
 
 I softly slept, and then I thought 
 
 That I awake did lie; 
 And all at once I looked and saw 
 
 Such glory in the sky. 
 
 It lighted all the midnight trees 
 
 Till leafy shadows fell ; 
 It filled my chamber with its light, 
 
 Till I could see quite well. 
 
 And then I heard the slightest sound 
 
 Within the chimney near; 
 The step was stealthy as it came, 
 
 So light I scarce could hear. 
 
 I dared not open wide my eyes, 
 
 But lay as if asleep, 
 While out between my half-closed lids 
 
 I cautiously did peep. 
 
 Wide sprung the door, and in my room, 
 While breathless peeping out, 
 
 I saw all dressed in coat and fur 
 Some one both tall and stout. 
 
 He was, I m sure, some six feet tall, 
 
 A fat and jolly fellow; 
 His eyes they twinkled like the stars, 
 
 Like red, ripe apples mellow, 
 
 His rosy cheeks stood out to view, 
 His face was round and merry, 
 
 And when he laughed his sides did shake 
 Just like a bowl of jelly. 
 
 He looked around this way and that, 
 
 He felt within his pockets, 
 And took out dolls and drums and books 
 
 And funny toy sky-rockets. 
 
 The more he took from them the more 
 The pockets seemed to grow, 
 
 Till they were big enough to hold 
 Ten thousand things, I know. 
 
 And then he went from room to room, 
 
 On tiptoe softly walking, 
 And peeped in every door, and then 
 
 I surely heard him talking. 
 
 "No children here, dear me!" said he, 
 "What is a home without them? 
 
 The blessed children ! give me homes 
 With boys and girls about them!" 
 
 And then he gathered up his toys, 
 His drums and dolls and laces, 
 
 His music boxes and his books, 
 And stored them in their places. 
 
 And I am sure I saw a tear 
 
 Within his big blue eye; 
 No children here ! it was enough 
 
 To make Kriss Kringle cry. 
 
 THE STORY OF A WICKED FAIRY. 
 
 Once there was a lovely fairy, 
 
 And her step it was as light 
 As the wind within the meadows 
 Chasing all the moving shadows, 
 
 And swaying blossoms bright. 
 
 And this fairy, airy maiden 
 
 She had a noble lover, 
 Whom a wicked fairy wanted, 
 And who sought him, nothing daunted, 
 
 Though she knew he loved the other. 
 
 And one day she came unto him 
 Looking sweeter than a rose, 
 
 For her dress she wore a lily, 
 
 And a shawl of daffodilly, 
 And a pansy hid her toes. 
 
 And a dewdrop bright did glisten 
 
 Like a diamond at her throat, 
 And the other s smile she d stolen, 
 With her hair so soft and golden, 
 And her voice s silver note. 
 
 Stolen ! how ? When she was sleeping 
 L T nderneath the rose s stalk, 
 
 While the blossoms bloomed above her, 
 
 And the butterflies did hover 
 All along the garden walk 
 
 Through the silence, stealing softly, 
 
 Came the wicked fairy there, 
 Stole a rose thorn for her saber, 
 With it stabbed her sleeping neighbor, 
 Stole her smile and golden hair. 
 
 Then she took a drop of water, 
 
 Lying in the rose s heart, 
 For a mirror hung it by her 
 On a flaming poppy s spire. 
 
 Then she tore her robes apart. 
 
 Soiled and stained, away she flung them, 
 
 Tore her own locks from her head, 
 Then she took the tresses golden 
 Which her wicked hands had stolen 
 From the beauteous fain- dead. 
 
 Round her head the silken tresses 
 
 Lay like sunny rings of light, 
 And the smile, so sweet and holy, 
 Lighted all her face with glory 
 She was lovely to the sight. 
 
 145 
 
Juvenile Poems, 
 
 Then she peeped within her mirror, 
 Smiled to see herself so fair. 
 
 Now, said she, I ll win her lover, 
 
 Me he never will discover 
 
 While I wear this golden hair. 
 
 Then with swift and noiseless footsteps 
 
 She through Fairyland did go, 
 Till he saw and ran to meet her, 
 And with kisses fond did greet her, 
 Because he loved her so 
 
 Dreaming not that she was other 
 
 Than the fairy he would wed, 
 
 Were not these her shining tresses, 
 
 This her smile, her hand he presses, 
 
 And this her own dear head? 
 
 And the fairy-bells ring round them 
 
 Little bluebells in the grass, 
 But how sad their notes are stealing, 
 Oh, what is it? each is pealing 
 Solemn dirges as they pass. 
 
 And the dandelions bending, 
 
 And the swaying lilies fair 
 Brush the moisture from their faces, 
 Crying in their quiet places, 
 
 Weeping softly everywhere. 
 
 Overhead a bird is flying, 
 
 Wings of gold and breast of red, 
 And the music of its singing 
 With the saddest notes is ringing, 
 
 As if Joy itself were dead. 
 
 Down the bird drops to his shoulder, 
 
 Then it nestles in his breast, 
 Then the noble fairy holds it 
 In his hand, and then he folds it 
 In his arms to let it rest. 
 
 Oh! what wondrous eyes tis lifting, 
 
 Eyes so full of tender light, 
 Eyes so full of earnest blessing, 
 Eyes so full of love s caressing, 
 Eyes as blue as skies at night. 
 
 All his pulses were a-quiver, 
 
 All his soul was strangely stirred, 
 
 And he felt his whole heart turning 
 
 With a strange and tender yearning 
 
 To this lovely, bright-winged bird. 
 
 Then his hand he lifted gently, 
 
 And from out its silver case 
 
 Drew his feiry wand so slender, 
 
 Waved it o er the bird with tender 
 
 Stroke, and lo ! its lovely face, 
 
 Its bird-like form was changed again, 
 And, lo! the fairy that was slain 
 Grew fair and sweet with life again; 
 And then she told him how she died, 
 
 And how the wicked fairy came 
 And stole her smile, and stole her hair, 
 And sought to steal her lover, too 
 The fairy King, her lover true. 
 
 Then from the wicked fairy s face 
 Faded the smile; the golden curls 
 Which she had stolen fell away, 
 And there she stood, an ugly thing, 
 Abhorrent to the fairy King. 
 
 He lifted up his wand once more, 
 Swung it the wicked fairy o er, 
 And she was quickly changed, 
 And, lo ! upon the ground she hopped, 
 With spotted coat and blinking eyes, 
 A poisonous toad. No magic art 
 Will ever change her back again, 
 A toad she always must remain. 
 
 MY CHILDREN. 
 
 ["Our Boys and Girls." Poein recited by the author or 
 Children s Day at the Loan Exhibit in the new Pasadem 
 Library Building, Feb. 11, 1889.] 
 
 All the country over, 
 
 Where the dawn is shining like a crown, 
 And where the glory of the sunset 
 Sheds its radiant brightness down; 
 In the Northland and in the Southland, 
 In the East and in the West, 
 The children of my love are scattered, 
 Yet in my heart they rest. 
 
 All the country over, 
 In so many other homes than mine, 
 With other lips to kiss them, 
 And other hearts to bless them, 
 My Boys and Girls I find. 
 But, then, somehow I fancy 
 That through Love s necromancy 
 I feel the clinging of their fingers, 
 As my heart among them lingers, 
 And though they ve other mothers 
 These sisters and these brothers 
 I feel they, too, are mine. 
 
 All the country over, 
 
 Many black-eyed darlings smile upon me, 
 And their faces, like a posy, 
 Are so sweet and round and rosy 
 That without reviling 
 Any of the wildwood blossoms fair, 
 I say truly, there are surely 
 None that with these darlings can compare 
 For beauty and for sweetness, 
 For brightness and completeness, 
 As I meet them everywhere. 
 
 All the country over, 
 Sweeter than the clover 
 That with honey-dew is filled, 
 With cheeks of dimpled whiteness, 
 
 146 
 
Cinderella, or The Crystal Slipper. 
 
 With steps of airy lightness 
 
 Do my blue-eyed darlings greet me, 
 
 And my brown-eyed darlings meet me, 
 
 Till I have as many children 
 
 As the Woman in the Shoe; 
 
 But like her I never do 
 
 Think I have too many, 
 
 And I would not part with any. 
 
 Like doves with white wings flying, 
 Come their welcome letters to me, 
 Written with their rosy fingers; 
 Dimpled cheeks above them leaning, 
 Shining eyes above them beaming, 
 While their busy brains are teeming 
 With their fancies undefined. 
 Ah, their letters ! trusting letters, 
 Hold me like to silken fetters, 
 And these Boys and Girls of mine, 
 By some occult, wordless sign, 
 Know me as their friend and lover 
 All the wide, sweet country over. 
 
 From out the wide world s sunny ways, 
 
 Where er their feet are straying, 
 
 The sweetest music that I hear 
 
 Is what their lips are saying. 
 
 And fairer than the stars above 
 
 That light the midnight spaces, 
 
 And sweeter than the wayside flowers 
 
 Are their pure, happy faces. 
 
 I often dream of them by day, 
 
 These budding, sweet immortals, 
 
 And by and by I hope we may 
 
 All pass the heavenly portals; 
 
 And then I think how sweet the smile 
 
 That will light up their faces, 
 
 As, hand in hand, we then may go 
 
 Through all the heavenly places. 
 
 CINDERELLA, OR THE CRYSTAL SLIPPER.* 
 
 There among the pots and kettles, 
 
 Little Cinderella, 
 With her lips as red as cherries, 
 Sweet and luscious as ripe berries; 
 Face so fair and free from freckles, 
 Cheeks as lovely as the roses, 
 Fairer than her garden posies, 
 
 Little Cinderella 
 Down among her pots and kettles. 
 
 There among the dust and cinders, 
 
 Little Cinderella! 
 
 There her sisters fain would keep her, 
 And of every pleasure cheat her, 
 While they don their silks and laces, 
 
 (Extracts:) "Echoes from Elfland." A Christmas Juvenile. 
 1890. The verses entitled "Little Boy Blue" and "Jack and 
 the Beanstalk" are from the same source. 
 
 Seeking Fashion s gayest places, 
 Leaving in the kitchen lonely 
 
 Little Cinderella- 
 There among the dust and cinders. 
 
 THE FAIRY GODMOTHER S SILVER WAND. 
 
 Swings the wand around and o er her, 
 
 Little Cinderella; 
 And a pumpkin large and golden, 
 Standing by the door-side olden, 
 Just without the kitchen quiet, 
 Changes as the wand swings nigh it, 
 To a splendid coach and four, 
 
 Little Cinderella 
 Sees it standing at the door. 
 
 How the fiery steeds are prancing! 
 
 Little Cinderella 
 
 Sees them, and her eyes ope wider 
 As her godma stands beside her 
 Stands and waves her wand so lightly, 
 Smiling all the time so brightly, 
 Fairer than a Princess is she 
 
 Little Cinderella- 
 While the fiery steeds are prancing. 
 
 All her soiled and dusty garments 
 
 Little Cinderella 
 
 Sees are changing. Oh, how charming 
 Grows the sleeve that wraps her arm in; 
 Diamonds shine upon its whiteness, 
 Tis like gossamer in lightness, 
 And her silken skirts are gleaming 
 As with hidden sunbeams teeming. 
 
 Little Cinderella s 
 Lost her soiled and dusty garments. 
 
 Blue her eyes and gold her tresses ! 
 
 Little Cinderella 
 
 Stands, and still her godma waveth 
 Silver wand, and still she sayeth 
 Words so full of magic meaning, 
 At which fairy gifts come teeming; 
 All that any lady needeth 
 From her godmamma receiveth 
 
 Little Cinderella- 
 Blue her eyes and gold her tresses. 
 
 Then when she is clad in beauty- 
 Little Cinderella- 
 Outward through the door she glideth 
 To her coach and four, and rideth 
 Like a Queen the highway down, 
 Rideth to the far-off town, 
 And the ballroom door she reacheth, 
 
 Little Cinderella, 
 Like a Queen all clad in beauty. 
 
 As she enters music ceasethj 
 
 Little Cinderella 
 Is so fair each one forgets to 
 Dance, and each one sets to 
 
 147 
 
Juvenile Poems. 
 
 Gazing at her. But the Prince comes near her, 
 Thinking she is sweeter, dearer 
 Than all the ladies he had ever seen; 
 
 Little Cinderella, 
 As she enters music ceaseth. 
 
 And he boweth low before her 
 
 Little Cinderella- 
 Then her to the dance he leadeth, 
 And no other woman heedeth. 
 E en her sisters do not know her, 
 And most charming grace they show her 
 As she dances with the Prince 
 
 Little Cinderella 
 And he boweth low before her. 
 
 Ere the clock strikes twelve she leaveth 
 
 Little Cinderella; 
 Riding in her coach and four, 
 Reacheth she the cottage door, 
 As her godmamma did bid her. 
 Soon her sisters came and chid her 
 In her quiet chamber lying 
 
 Little Cinderella 
 Ere the clock strikes twelve she leaveth. 
 
 Three nights thus the little maiden 
 
 Little Cinderella- 
 Loveliest of lovely women, 
 Fairer than the lilies swimming 
 In their golden sea of light 
 Hied her to the ballroom, going 
 In her coach and four, unknowing 
 How the Prince had learned to love her, 
 Without heart for any other 
 
 Little Cinderella- 
 Three nights went the little maiden. 
 
 Ere the clock strikes twelve, my darling 
 
 Little Cinderella, 
 
 Leave the ballroom, leave the dancing, 
 Go to where your steeds are prancing, 
 And speed you from the ballroom door; 
 Thus her godmamma had bidden, 
 And each night away she d ridden 
 
 Little Cinderella, 
 Ridden from the ballroom door. 
 
 On the last night twelve was striking, 
 
 Little Cinderella 
 
 Heard the silver chimes a-ringing, 
 How she hurried, quickly flinging 
 In her haste all things aside, 
 Running down the ballroom wide; 
 She was late what would betide 
 
 Little Cinderella, 
 For, alas, now twelve was striking? 
 
 As she ran she lost her slipper, 
 
 Little Cinderella, 
 
 Swiftly closed the door behind her; 
 Ah! what if the Prince should find her 
 In the darkness all alone, 
 
 Coach and four and splendor flown, 
 Wearing only kitchen raiment? 
 
 Little Cinderella, 
 As she ran she lost her slipper, 
 
 But the noble Prince he found it; 
 
 Little Cinderella 
 Went back to her homely duty, 
 Wearing still the rose of beauty 
 In her red cheeks and her lips, 
 And her soft pink finger-tips. 
 There the Prince came next day, bringing 
 Her lost slipper, while she, singing, 
 Washed her pots with hands like roses, 
 
 Little Cinderella, 
 For the noble Prince had found it. 
 
 Oh, her eyes were blue as heaven, 
 
 Little Cinderella s; 
 Like a rosebud stood she blushing, 
 Happiness her cheeks were flushing, 
 At the noble Prince s greeting, 
 At the gladness of the meeting. 
 Then the door swung open wide, 
 Stood her godma at her side, 
 
 Little Cinderella s; 
 Oh, her eyes were blue as heaven. 
 
 Stood again, and smiling, blessed her, 
 
 Little Cinderella, 
 
 Waved her wand, and lo! around her 
 Lovely as when first he found her 
 Silken folds about her shining, 
 Jewels are her arms entwining. 
 And the Prince he woos and wins her. 
 
 Little Cinderella- 
 Stood again, and, smiling, blessed her. 
 
 Nevermore, mid pots and kettles, 
 
 Little Cinderella, 
 
 There her sisters cannot keep her, 
 Nor of any pleasure cheat her, 
 
 Little Cinderella, 
 For she is the Prince s bride. 
 
 A LITTLE POEM. 
 
 Say, what do you think, little Spring, 
 Bubbling up so cool from the ground? 
 Where the grasses lean to you, 
 And the mosses creep near to you, 
 
 And to greet you the forest stands around i 
 
 Oh, the world I think is so fair, 
 With the blue sky over my head, 
 With the birds singing sweetly, 
 The flowers bloomingly meekly, 
 
 And the Sun shining down on my bed. 
 
 Say, little Brook, say, oh, whither 
 Are you running so swiftly away? 
 Here the glad birds sing to you, 
 And the children draw near to you, 
 
 With their white feet kissed by your spray. 
 
 148 
 
Lullaby Sung. 
 
 I m running on to the River, 
 The great, flowing river you see, 
 And my waters run lightly, 
 And they sparkle so brightly, 
 
 Because I m glad as can be. 
 
 Oh, lovely, wide-flowing River ! 
 
 Rushing on, such green banks between, 
 With such great cities near you, 
 With their splendor to cheer you, 
 
 Of what lovelier spot do you dream? 
 
 Oh, of the wide-swelling Ocean! 
 
 With white wings of ships on its breast, 
 
 With its tides flowing softly, 
 
 With its star-candles lofty, 
 And its waves which never do rest. 
 
 And Ocean, what do you dream of? 
 
 For you can run never away; 
 
 The continents round you 
 
 Have a prisoner bound you, 
 And they guard you by night and by day. 
 
 I dream of God s wide creation, 
 
 Of His stars, His sun and His sky, 
 Of His swift winds which do creep 
 Like His breath o er the deep, 
 
 And the clouds which o er me do fly. 
 
 LULLABY SONG. 
 
 Baby, baby, go to sleep ! 
 All the stars are looking down 
 From their chambers in the blue, 
 And they twinkling peep at you, 
 And they see the little frown 
 Creeping from your eyelids down. 
 
 Baby does not want to go 
 To her pretty chamber fair, 
 For she wants to watch the Moon; 
 And she holds her dimpled hand 
 Up to reach it shining there, 
 Begging mamma that she will 
 Get it for her if she can. 
 
 Baby, baby, go to sleep ! 
 Mamma cannot reach the Moon, 
 Shining up amid the stars, 
 Peeping through the window bars; 
 But could mamma take it down 
 All the night would be so dark, 
 For the little stars bright spark 
 Would not make the world as bright 
 As the moonbeams silver light. 
 
 Baby, baby, go to sleep ! 
 Mamma sings her lullaby 
 While you drift away so far 
 Farther than the farthest star 
 Where the blessed fairies stay, 
 Where your little feet may stray 
 By the silver flow of streams, 
 In the far-off Land of Dreams. 
 
 Baby, baby, go to sleep! 
 While the fairies kiss your lips, 
 Pressing with their finger-tips 
 Both your pretty eyelids down, 
 Kissing out the naughty frown. 
 See the lovely grasses quiver, 
 Hear the ripples on the River 
 Where upon its breast afloat 
 Lies your dream-filled ferryboat. 
 
 CHILDHOOD. 
 
 I see a little child; the very air 
 
 Is soft and tender to her, 
 
 The birds do sing to woo her, 
 And all the world, how glad it is and fair. 
 
 The mystery of sun and starry skies, 
 
 The air so softly blowing, 
 
 The streamlet gently flowing, 
 The path of gold that on the water lies; 
 
 The cornstalks ruffled by the summer breeze, 
 Their golden tassels shining, 
 About their green sheaths twining, 
 
 To her what wondrous fairy things are these. 
 
 And thus she muses as she stands alone, 
 For wondrous thoughts do cheer her 
 As night s mysteries draw near her, 
 
 With a starry glory all its own. 
 
 I think when God looks on us in the night 
 The stars come twinkling round Him, 
 The Moon smiles cause it s found Him, 
 
 And then how very large it looks and bright. 
 
 And when the day comes I do think that He 
 Peeps right out of heaven s door, 
 Looks the shining, bright world o er, 
 
 And then He s glad that He can look at me. 
 
 And then He drops the flowers round my feet, 
 
 And all the birds go singing, 
 
 Until the world is ringing 
 With their songs so lovely and so sweet. 
 
 And so God walks with her by da. and night, 
 And she hears Him in the breeze 
 And in the sunshine on the trees; 
 
 She sees the blessed glory of His light. 
 
 CHILDHOOD S DAYS IN WINTERLAND. 
 
 Oh, how we played neath the Summer sky, 
 
 Charlie and May, Willie and I ! 
 
 Blue skies overhead, and singing near 
 
 The little brook with its waters clear. 
 
 And Willie built where we used to kneel 
 
 Such a wonderful little water-wheel, 
 
 That rolled and swung itself round and round 
 
 As th water caught it at a single bound 
 
 Over the dam, a foot high or more, 
 
 Where we fancied it rushed with a mighty roar, 
 
 149 
 
Juvenile Poems. 
 
 And Edwin used often to canter down, 
 
 Playing at horse as he dragged around 
 
 His little cart with its cotton thills 
 
 And wheels of brass. Over the hills, 
 
 Dancing and prancing in childish glee, 
 
 Like an untamed colt, away ran he. 
 
 " Git up there, git ! Whoa, horsie, whoa ! " 
 
 Merrily shouting, away he d go. 
 
 Of nodding poppies our fancies made 
 
 Many a boy and tiny maid, 
 
 Pulling the red leaves round the stem 
 
 And tying them down and making them 
 
 Serve for dresses of finest stuff, 
 
 While the stamens did for a pretty ruff, 
 
 And then, with a sharply-pointed pin, 
 
 We would mark the mouth and the two eyes in. 
 
 Many a summer palace we 
 
 Built mid the rocks by the maple tree; 
 
 Moss-covered rocks for velvet chairs, 
 
 Stumps and stones for our palace stairs. 
 
 Mother s dresses with splendid train 
 Served our use in these castles of Spain; 
 Silk-tiled hats from our father s store, 
 Old and battered, were brought once more; 
 Charlie wore one that was tall and black, 
 But Willie s had such a yawning crack ! 
 In Edwin s a mouse had gnawed a hole, 
 So that through it there the sunlight stole; 
 But we mended it quick with make-believe 
 And the happiest fancies we could weave. 
 
 Then Charlie s pumpkin man was clever, 
 
 With his gleaming smile in the darkest weather. 
 
 Two holes for eyes in the pumpkin s side, 
 
 And a slit for a mouth that opened wide 
 
 And the candle burning away within 
 
 Lighted it up from crown to chin. 
 
 And oh, when the Winter came with snow 
 
 And with freezing breath the winds did blow, 
 
 What cared we when we were together 
 
 For the bitter cold of the Winter weather? 
 
 White and snug was our house of snow, 
 
 For Charlie and Will had dug below 
 
 Deep into the drift, and its walls were high 
 
 And its snow-arched roof shut out the sky. 
 
 And there, like a soldier brave and bold, 
 Fearing never a bit of the Winter s cold, 
 Stood our giant snow-man, tall and white, 
 Afraid of nothing but warm sunlight. 
 We gave him a stick for a soldier s gun, 
 And one at his srde for a sword we hung; 
 Pelted him fast with snowballs then, 
 And played we were brave American men, 
 And he was English, and we would rout 
 And drive him quick with his army out. 
 And we did it, too, for we knocked him down, 
 And he fell in pieces on the ground. 
 
 CHILD WONDERING. (1876.) 
 
 , . . The thunder muttered through the cloudy sky, 
 The lightnings darted serpent tongues of flame, 
 The mountains echoed back the thunder s cry, 
 The sea flashed back the lightning s glare again. 
 A little child looked on and hushed its mirth, 
 And trembled with the new and strange surprise, 
 "I hear God walking, how it shakes the earth! 
 And don t you see His fire up in the skies? 
 How did He make it? Did He wink his eyes?" 
 
 THE CHILD AND THE ROSEBUD. (1876.) 
 
 . . . A sweet white rosebud bowed 
 
 its head today, 
 
 Wind-tossed and troubled by the clouded air; 
 A jeweled dew-drop on its petals lay, 
 And small child s hands, so dimpled, soft and fair, 
 Reached out to pluck it; then, as quick as thought, 
 Drew back. "Oh, mamma, I will touch it not, 
 For it is crying don t you see? 
 I wonder if it is afraid of me!" 
 
 CARE-FREE CHILDHOOD. (1876.) 
 
 O little ones ! playing in sunshine, 
 And happy the whole day through, 
 What is the Sun shining for, 
 What is the Day laughing for, 
 If it is not for you? 
 
 O little ones! life is so lovely 
 With never sorrow or care! 
 What do folks grow old for, 
 What are they sad for, 
 When all the world is so fair? 
 
 O darlings ! with life all before you, 
 With only gladness behind, 
 Your years are like snowdrops in whiteness, 
 All crowded with sunbeams and brightness, 
 And joy to all sorrow is blind. 
 
 CHILDHOOD S FAITH. (1878.) 
 
 O mamma! what is dying, is it somefin nice? 
 
 Dess laying down and doin fas aseep? 
 
 An does e soul dit out as still as mice, 
 
 An rush right up so fas where Dod does keep 
 
 Himself above e sky? I fink my soul would tay 
 
 Awhile and peep at e bright pritty moon, 
 
 An if I liked it den I wouldn t run away, 
 
 But tay right in its shine, and maybe soon 
 
 Dod would look down from Heaven and tay, "Turn here, 
 
 You darling angels! oh, turn quick an see 
 
 That bu ful ittle soul down in e moon the dear! 
 
 Des fly an bring it right up here to me." 
 
 An den their pritty white wings they would spread, 
 
 An down they d turn to me, pass all e shining stars, 
 
 An dive me wings, an tay, "Oh, don t be dead." 
 
 An den I d open wide my eyes, an quicker an e cars 
 
 150 
 
A Child s Fancies. 
 
 I d fly right up to Heaven wif em, and tay, 
 "Here I be, Dod! oh, let me liv wid you." 
 An , mamma, I dess spect e stars are angels eyes, 
 Dess peeping at us thro e pritty blue 
 An be dey looking now for me, or you? 
 
 A CHILD S FANCIES. (1879.) 
 
 "Mamma, please tell me about the fairies 
 
 That live away under the ground, 
 That work in the night and the daytime, 
 
 With never a bit of a sound. 
 
 "Do they push the flowers up with their fingers, 
 And how do they handle the trees? 
 
 I do not see how they can crowd them 
 
 Through the earth and not rumple their leaves. 
 
 " And, mamma, these beautiful bushes 
 All growing so straight and so tall, 
 
 So full of their sweet-smelling blossoms, 
 So many can God number them all? 
 
 "Last year dollie s playhouse was under 
 This pretty wild rose that you see, 
 
 And then it was ever so little, 
 It was not a bit bigger than me. 
 
 "The fairies in the ground must have pushed it 
 
 Still higher and higher each day; 
 Do they never get tired of working, 
 
 And stop never for rest nor for play? 
 
 "The dear little things must be busy! 
 
 I wish I could look down and see; 
 If we only could hear what they say, 
 
 And how they look, how nice it would be ! 
 
 " And what homes have they, mother, way down, 
 Down under the sweet-smelling ground? 
 
 Do they come up and gather the sunbeams 
 And scatter them even-where round?" 
 
 My darling, you have seen the fairies 
 
 With their bright-shining tresses of gold, 
 
 And the soft dainty fingers with which 
 They make the bright blossoms unfold. 
 
 They are beautiful fairies, my darling, 
 And now shall I tell you their names? 
 
 The one is the warm Summer Sunshine, 
 The others, the Dew and the Rain. 
 
 THE PET BIRD. (1879.) 
 
 I see a little mound a hand s-breadth long, 
 
 And rosebuds red and white are lying there; 
 
 It is the burial place of song, 
 
 Yet not of song, but of the bird which sang 
 
 A little yellow-breasted bird 
 
 That all the air with its sweet music stirred 
 
 This very morn. It is not long 
 
 Since all the echoes made reply 
 
 To its full-throated melody; 
 
 Yet now tis stiff and cold, its song is dead, 
 
 And little hands have made its hollow bed, 
 
 And o er it fragrant blossoms spread. 
 
 Two sad and tearful eyes looked on, 
 
 Two sweet lips, quivering, said: 
 
 "O God! I feel so bad, my bird is dead! 
 
 But please, God, when I plant him, make him grow 
 
 Into an angel bird." And then with slow 
 
 And reverent care the child knelt down, 
 
 Saying, "I ll wait for birdie, God has heard me pray, 
 
 And I do want to see my heaven-bird fly away; 
 
 I wonder if he ll have a white robe and a crown." 
 
 THE RAINBOW. (1880.) 
 
 A little girl came to me yesterday, 
 
 With eyes as blue as our own shining skies, 
 And in them lay such look of glad surprise 
 "O turn wif me! Dess where I was at play, 
 There s tummed a rainbow wif such lovely wings, 
 Tis dess the boofulest of things!" 
 
 I took the dimpled hand in mine, and led 
 Through the bright garden paths, I came 
 Where on a white rose, like a living flame, 
 
 Fluttered a gold and scarlet butterfly 
 A miracle of color embodied light aglow, 
 Swayed by the breeze so softly to and fro. 
 "Poor ittle rainbow! it has lost its way, 
 I saw it drop right down from out the sky; 
 
 Say, don t you fink if I should only say 
 A ittle prayer that Dod would hear, and fly 
 
 Right down for it? I fink that I will try." 
 
 Then kneeling down, with white and folded hands 
 Upon her bosom like the seal of peace, 
 She prayed its wanderings might cease. 
 
 Her sweet faith hindered by no dark eclipse 
 Of doubt, she had nor thought nor fear 
 But that her words would reach the Father s ear, 
 
 As they softly fell from her baby lips. 
 
 O for this living faith that childhood knows, 
 Which holds for aye the golden gates ajar! 
 O were this ours, we should not wander far 
 
 From the safe path where gates of peace unclose! 
 
 BO-PEEP. (1880.) 
 
 A sweet little girl was darling Bo-Peep, 
 
 With hair all sunny and golden, 
 And she had in the meadow a pretty pet sheep, 
 
 But one day she found it was stolen. 
 
 She had run to the meadow as glad as could be, 
 To have a gay romp with her treasure, 
 
 But when she got there no sheep could she see, 
 Then she cried, and shed tears without measure. 
 
 Then her little dog Tray came running that way, 
 And tucked his pug nose down beside her, 
 
 And put his paw on her arm as if he would say, 
 "Don t cry, and I ll help you to find her." 
 
 151 
 
Juvenile Poems. 
 
 Then she and dog Tray they started away, 
 
 And ran through the meadow together, 
 And she wiped her bright eyes, and I m happy to say, 
 
 Her heart soon was light as a feather. 
 
 For upon the hillside, lying asleep, 
 
 Where the grass grew greenest and tender, 
 
 \Vas the pretty lost sheep of dear little Bo-Peep, 
 Like a white cloud, fleecy and slender. 
 
 JENNIE AND JOHNNIE. (1882.) 
 Four little eyes opened wide in the dark, 
 
 Two little blue eyes, and two little brown, 
 And Jen whispered softly, "Oh, Johnnie, hark! 
 
 Perhaps we will hear Santa Claus coming down." 
 
 "Oh, ess, I hear him," dear little Johnnie said, 
 "Down frew e chimbley he s tummin to me! 
 
 Tay, will dear Santa Claus ever be dead? 
 
 S pose he should get drownded down in the sea?" 
 
 "Oh, no," answered Jennie, "his reindeers ride 
 Right through the air dess as swift as can be, 
 
 Till they stop on the roof by the big chimbley s side, 
 And he dess looks down to see what he can see. 
 
 "And oh, he is glad when he peeks down and sees 
 Some nice little children, like you and like me; 
 
 Then he fills all the beautiful Christmas trees 
 With dear little dollies as sweet as can be; 
 
 "And nice little watches, an ribbons, an rings, 
 
 And" "Oh, my!" said Johnnie, "a rocking-horse, too?" 
 
 "Yes," answered Jennie, "I spect he will bring 
 The splendidest rocking-horse, Johnnie, for you." 
 
 Then Johnnie he clapped his fat little hands, 
 
 And laughed till you d thought some fairy was out; 
 
 And Jennie she laughed and shouted in glee 
 Till Santa Claus heard her, if he was about. 
 
 And I think that he was, for after awhile, 
 When Jennie and Johnnie were lying asleep, 
 
 Each dear little face still bright with its smile, 
 Each curly head covered half up with the sheet, 
 
 There was a tinkle below like the music of bells, 
 
 And laughter that rippled right up through the walls, 
 
 And a murmuring like that we hear in sea-shells 
 Drifted up from the stairway right into the halls. 
 
 And Jennie and Johnnie wake up with the Sun, 
 And their little bare feet patter over the floor, 
 
 And down the broad stairs together they run, 
 And each curly head is thrust in at the door 
 
 Of the great drawing-room, where the first thing they see, 
 All lighted with candles, and filled to its top 
 
 With beautiful things, is the tall Christmas tree, 
 And the loveliest horse that goes off on a trot 
 
 When you wind up a spring right back of his ear. 
 
 That s for Johnnie to ride; and a dollie in white 
 In a beautiful carriage is sitting right near 
 
 Both Johnnie and Jennie hold their breath at the sight. 
 
 "O darlingest Santa Claus!" says Johnnie at last; 
 
 "I love him," says Jennie, "he s dear as can be; 
 If I could dess see him I d hold him so fast, 
 
 And hug him and kiss him for you and for me." 
 
 FAIRYLAND. (1882.) 
 
 Under the old pine, lying asleep, 
 
 Where shadows and sunbeams danced and fell, 
 And the soft winds played at hide-and-seek 
 
 With the lily buds and the asphodel, 
 With her dimpled hands tucked under her chin, 
 
 And her blue eyes folded beneath their lids, 
 Lay sweet little, dainty Ethel Wynn, 
 
 While her lullaby-song the katy-dids 
 Sang soft and sweet, and the pine boughs stirred 
 
 Lightly above her, and whispered low 
 To the gentle breeze, and a humming-bird, 
 From the heart of a lily white as snow, 
 Sipped the honey-drop, then away it flew, 
 
 Like a bright-winged rainbow through the air, 
 And lost itself in the sunny blue. 
 But what sees Ethel lying there 
 Fast asleep neath the old pine tree? 
 
 Ah, she has gone to Fairyland, 
 Where every beautiful thing you see. 
 
 Now she sees a busy band 
 Of laughing elves, they have opened a door 
 
 Into the trunk of the ancient pine; 
 Such cunning dresses were never wore 
 
 By anything of human kind. 
 One has a coat of daffodil, 
 
 And his cap is made of a sunflower leaf, 
 And he carries a cup which he hopes to fill 
 
 With a dewdrop. His sword from a sheaf 
 Of grain he plucked, and a spider s web 
 
 Furnished the silver for his shield. 
 Up he goes, singing; far overhead 
 Is a floor of a shining sunbeam made, 
 And there such a throng of fairies tread, 
 And dance to the song of a bumble-bee, 
 And a grasshopper sits on his long hind legs, 
 
 And hums the strangest melody, 
 But the fairies laugh and dance and sing, 
 
 And you catch the scent of the apple bloom 
 Which forms the vest of the Fairy King, 
 
 And one wears a robe of lily leaves 
 She is the Queen of the fairy throng; 
 Her crown is made of a baby s smile, 
 Which she stole as she kissed his eyelids down 
 In the rosy light of the early morn. 
 Tis the brightest thing you ever saw, 
 Fairer than pearls, or gold, or gems, 
 The loveliest of all diadems. 
 
 And one little fairy with sweet blue eyes, 
 And lips like a pretty rosebud s bloom, 
 
 And hair like the gold of the sunset skies, 
 Sits thoughtfully out in tne light of the moon. 
 
 What is she dropping downward now, 
 Pure and white as the flakes of snow, 
 Down on the little Ethel s brow 
 
 152 
 
Jack and Jill. 
 
 There, and everywhere they go. 
 
 Guess if you can why, don t you know? 
 That is the Dream-fairy, and she flings 
 
 Into our minds when we are asleep 
 All of the wonderful, beautiful things 
 
 That we see when our eyes are shut. 
 She it is who gives us wings; 
 
 She of all the fairies is the best, but 
 One out right under the polar star, 
 
 Don t you see sitting the strangest of elves? 
 Who is he? Oh, he s the dearest of all; 
 
 See if you can t think of his name for yourselves. 
 No! then I ll tell you. When Christmas is here 
 
 He is the fairy Oh, now you know 
 Santa Claus ! But where are his reindeer, 
 
 And his old fur cap and beard of snow? 
 Oh, he leaves them up at the old North Pole, 
 
 For he doesn t need them now, you see, 
 The grand old fairy Old is he? 
 
 No; fairies, children, don t grow old 
 In the soft airs of Fairy Land; 
 
 So, at least, I have been told. 
 Just by the touch of a fairy s wand 
 
 All the wrinkles are smoothed away 
 Only at Christmas time is he, 
 
 Dear old fellow, wrinkled and gray, 
 For then he journeys o er land and sea. 
 
 But goodnight fairies; lying asleep, 
 Dear little Ethel, let her dream 
 
 Of Fairy Land. Sometime we ll peep 
 And have a glimpse of them all again. 
 
 JACK AND JILL. (1884.) 
 
 You have heard of the brown house under the hill 
 
 Where once lived dear little Jack and Jill? 
 
 It was set with a beautiful garden round, 
 
 Where the brightest blossoms were always found, 
 
 And Mother Goose used to come that way 
 
 And sit in the shade almost every day 
 
 Of the orange trees, and the high bean-stalk 
 
 That grew right beside the garden walk. 
 
 It was the very one Jack climbed one day 
 
 When he went up most to the skies, they say, 
 
 And found the Old Giant from whom he hid 
 
 Behind his great gold snuff-box lid, 
 
 And Jack was a happy little fellow, 
 
 With merry blue eyes, and hair as yellow 
 
 As the sunflower s leaves, but his face was brown 
 
 With the sun and wind, but never a frown 
 
 Or a naughty pout dared come to stay 
 
 On his face or his lips, for the smiles so bright 
 
 Would chase the naughty frown out of sight; 
 
 And his sister Jill was as sweet as could be, 
 
 So sweet it did you good to see 
 
 Her face like a lily flower so white, 
 
 With soft pink cheeks, and a dimple right 
 
 In the very heart of her pretty chin 
 
 Who do you think put the dimple in? 
 
 Jack and Jill used to play together 
 Through all the fair bright Summer weather, 
 And sometimes little Jack Horner came, 
 Hoppety-skipping down the lane 
 
 "Little Jack Horner sat in a corner 
 
 Eating his Christmas pie, 
 
 He stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum, 
 
 And said, What a good boy am I ! " 
 How funny they looked sitting there in a row, 
 While each stuck in a thumb for a plum, you know, 
 And little. Jill clapped her hands in glee 
 When of plums she pulled out one, two, three. 
 
 One day little Jack and Jill were at play 
 At old Mother Hubbard s over the way, 
 When their mamma cried, "Jack and my dear little 
 
 daughter, 
 
 Will you come and bring mother a bucket of water?" 
 And they ran as quickly as two little mice, 
 And with the bucket between them were off in a trice, 
 Running along up the hillside steep 
 To the spring near where Bo-Peep kept her sheep; 
 And Jack he filled the bucket up, 
 Anu he used a bright yellow gourd for a cup; 
 It grew in the field where the blackbird stayed 
 That snapped off the nose of the chambermaid. 
 
 When the bucket was full Jack started with Jill 
 To carry the water down the hill 
 Down to their mother to make her tea, 
 Oil, how merry they were and full of glee! 
 But poor little Jack stumbled over a stone, 
 And fell down so hard he was sure a bone 
 Was cracked in his head, and then right after, 
 Came poor little Jill. Dear me, such a sight ! 
 Sweet Jill s pretty apron no longer was white, 
 The bucket was bent, and all of the water 
 Was spilled, while the blood from Jack s nose 
 Trickled over his face and over his clothes. 
 Mamma ran to help them, and papa came too, 
 And so did the Woman who lived in her Shoe, 
 And the man who had the little wheelbarrow 
 To bring home his wife, as the streets were so narrow, 
 Came running along and put both of them in, 
 And they laughed as they rode down the long hill with 
 him. 
 
 DREAMLAND. (1884.) 
 
 I wandered to a field of clover, 
 
 Through Summer woods and grasses, 
 While the bright blue sky bent over 
 
 Where the brook s clear water passes. 
 And I hid me where the poppies 
 
 Fringed the pretty meadow, 
 And the grand and spreading oak trees 
 
 Dropped their coolest shadow. 
 Birds were singing soft above me, 
 
 Silver waters gaily tinkled, 
 And I chose there for my pillow 
 
 Lovely mosses curled and crinkled; 
 
 153 
 
Juvenile Poems. 
 
 Mosses where the fays and fairies 
 
 Sure must come at eventide, 
 Where no thought of work or care is, 
 
 Where but happy things abide. 
 Lying there, I sailed for Dreamland, 
 
 Old King Nod sent out his boat, 
 Though I know not how he did it, 
 
 How he set me there afloat; 
 But I know I soon was drifting 
 
 Out upon a streamlet wide, 
 Where the fragrant lilies, lifting 
 
 Their white heads upon the tide, 
 Filled the air with sweetest fragrance, 
 
 While gay birds sang overhead, 
 And in the dreamy golden distance 
 
 Bright-winged fairies lightly sped. 
 Temples grand and towers were lifted 
 
 To the shining skies afar, 
 And on each fairy s lovely forehead 
 
 Gleamed a brightly-twinkling star. 
 
 Rippling, tinkling swept the river 
 
 Till we reached the Dreamland bright, 
 
 Where the lovely grasses quiver 
 Like a rainbow on the sight. 
 
 Then old King Xod sung, "Ho! heave ho! 
 
 While you and I to Dreamland go!" 
 
 Oh, well you may guess that I opened my eyes 
 
 And looked about in strange surprise, 
 
 For Dreamland has always something new, 
 
 And never looks twice the same to you. 
 
 What did I see? Oh, wonderful things; 
 
 First of all a horse with wings, 
 
 And I rode with him till we reached the Moon; 
 
 There a giant sat with a golden spoon, 
 
 So big it was it would hold the sea, 
 
 But he filled it up as full as could be, 
 
 And with a single gulp he swallowed down 
 
 Soup more than enough to feed a town, 
 
 And he took a whale at a single bite, 
 
 And he hid an elephant out of sight 
 
 In his smallest vest pocket; a tall pine tree 
 
 He used for a toothpick, and I could see, 
 
 Looming up like mountains tall, 
 
 His two big boots. But this is all 
 
 About the Man in the Moon I can tell today, 
 
 For just at this point I went away 
 
 To another part of Dreamland wide, 
 
 Where I saw a ship o er the waters glide; 
 
 It was filled with beautiful, fairy things, 
 
 With peachbloom faces and shining wings, 
 
 And the ship sailed out on a golden tide, 
 
 Through the golden gates of Dreamland wide, 
 
 Till it dropped its anchor near the shore 
 
 Where stood a cottage with open door. 
 
 Then out from the ship the fairies hied 
 
 To the long, white beach by the cottage side, 
 
 And such lovely treasures as they hid there, 
 
 Seeds and grasses and flowers rare. 
 
 And when this was done they sailed away; 
 
 Then the children came for their happy play, 
 
 And they dug in the sands and they found the seeds 
 
 W T hich they thought had been scattered by ocean weeds; 
 
 But they said, "Let s plant them, perhaps they ll grow, 
 
 We ll try it, anyhow here we go!" 
 
 So they carried them up to the cottage side, 
 
 Out of the reach of the highest tide, 
 
 And they dug some holes and planted deep 
 
 Those wonderful seeds which the fairies keep. 
 
 But what do you think? In a half hour s time 
 
 Those seeds were up and began to climb 
 
 Away to the Moon, and I m sure today 
 
 They must stretch a thousand miles away. 
 
 Then one boy said, "I ll take a bee-line 
 
 Clear to the top of this wondrous vine." 
 
 Then away he went till he got so high 
 
 He looked like the merest speck in the sky. 
 
 He went past the stars and lost his way 
 
 And tumbled into the Sun one day, 
 
 And Dreamland folks pretend to say 
 
 That s what caused the eclipse the other day. 
 
 THE LITTLE MAMMA AND HER DOLLIES. (1884.) 
 
 Oh, dollies, you are naughty, 
 
 And bad as you can be; 
 Such dreadful tricks I am ashamed 
 
 And very sad to see. 
 
 Sweet little Ruth, my bestest doll, 
 
 Sits still within her chair; 
 She doesn t spill her bread and milk, 
 
 Nor pull her sister s hair. 
 
 I ll put you in the closet, Bell, 
 
 And there you ll have to stay, 
 Because you struck your sister Rose 
 
 And took her peach away. 
 
 And naughty Rose I ll put to bed, 
 
 And close the shutters tight, 
 And shut the happy bird-songs out, 
 
 And all the pleasant light. 
 
 Now think of all that you have done 
 
 So very bad today, 
 Of how you teased each other, 
 
 And quarreled in your play; 
 
 And pinched poor Touser till he barked, 
 
 And hurt the kitty, too; 
 Such very dreadful naughty ways, 
 
 My dollies, will not do. 
 
 But when you are truly sorry, 
 
 My dollies I shall be 
 The gladdest mamma in the world, 
 
 And you shall come to me. 
 
 OUT-DOORS IN SUNLAND. (1884.) 
 
 Oh, dear little children of Sunland, 
 
 Where Summer stays all of the year, 
 Just gather about me a moment, 
 
 In our "very own" corner right here. 
 
 154 
 
The Floicer Maiden. 
 
 How pretty and bright this fair world is, 
 Ho\v sweet is the glad robin s song, 
 
 And the gay little cricket comes chirping, 
 And the toad he is hopping along. 
 
 Right down the long walk in my garden 
 
 He s running a race with a fly, 
 And the foolish fly, now he has lighted 
 
 On a leaf where the toad will come by. 
 
 His wings they shine like a rainbow, 
 
 And his coat is a beautiful one, 
 And his feet, why, if I had so many, 
 
 I am sure it would not tire me to run. 
 
 But, dear me! how foolish and thoughtless 
 That fly, to sit where the toad came along 
 
 The toad he just eyed him a minute, 
 
 Then snapped at him, and now he is gone. 
 
 But look! there s a humming-bird! see it 
 Right there on the lily s white brim, 
 
 And the spider has spun him a curtain, 
 And flung out a thread for a swing. 
 
 There s a bee that is sipping some honey 
 Right out from the heart of a rose, 
 
 And that beetle there, I should think really 
 Had a shining black suit of new clothes. 
 
 And the ants they are busy at building 
 I wish I could just run down and see 
 
 What kind of a house they have got in the ground- 
 And whether it s as neat as can be. 
 
 There s a butterfly with wings of bright yellow, 
 And a mouse with his smooth little coat 
 
 And pussy, I am sure she is thinking 
 
 Of the nice taste he would leave in her throat. 
 
 For she s got her eyes on him this minute, 
 
 And now she is ready to spring; 
 Get out, little mouse, and run for your life, 
 
 Or pussy will eat you, poor thing! 
 
 The flowers are nodding their heads in the Sun, 
 
 I think they are looking at me; 
 And how sweet they are smelling the roses 
 
 And the buds on the green orange tree! 
 
 And the lily so white, I do wonder 
 
 If curled away down in its breast, 
 Some pretty bright fairy is hidden 
 
 Away, while she is taking her rest. 
 
 I think there are fairies and wood-nymphs 
 In this Summer-Land here by the Sea, 
 
 For when I was out in the woods one day, 
 I heard them a-talking to me. 
 
 And one said "Katy-did," softly; 
 
 Then one of them said in reply, 
 "Whip-poor-will, Whip-poor-will, whip!" 
 
 Till I was most ready to cry. 
 
 And I wondered if Katy was naughty, 
 And what that poor Willie had done, 
 
 And if fairies did quarrel like children, 
 And how the dispute was begun. 
 
 For I know one thought it was Katy, 
 And the other, he thought it was Will, 
 
 But I don t know how it was settled, 
 
 For they stopped, and the woods were so still: 
 
 I don t think Katy was punished, 
 
 And no one, I m sure, whipped poor Will. 
 
 But all at once up in the tree-top, 
 
 A little bird sang me a song, 
 I think that the bird was a fairy, 
 
 For it sang there so sweet and so long. 
 
 THE FLOWER MAIDEN. (1884.) 
 
 Out in the meadows where the buttercups shone 
 Like golden stars in the grasses grown, 
 And the beads of dew on the blades of grain 
 Gleamed and sparkled like silver rain, 
 Or beautiful diamonds round and bright, 
 In little spheres of prism d light, 
 Came a tiny Maiden tripping along, 
 With a voice as sweet as the robin s song. 
 Why, the very robins stopped, they say, 
 When the little Maiden came that way; 
 Stopped, and hushed their beautiful notes, 
 And kept them still in their feathered throats. 
 " Oh, little Maid, who are you, I say, 
 Coming down through the meadow way? 
 Your bonnet so charming with green and gold, 
 And your mantle a part of a rose-leafs fold, 
 Your dress like the moonlight s silver sheen, 
 Mixed with a tint of the palest green, 
 And your sunshade made of a pansy sweet, 
 With little bluebells on your tiny feet; 
 Dancing along through the meadow grass, 
 Playing hide-and-seek with the bees as they pass, 
 Tripping along through the honeyed clover, 
 And running a race with the butterfly rover, 
 Laughing to hear the crickets sing, 
 Watching the toad when he makes his spring 
 And catches the careless, heedless fly, 
 Or the lady-bug slowly creeping by; 
 Watching the humming-bird as he sips 
 The honey beneath the lily s tips; 
 What is your name, my lady fair? 
 Some fairy princess I think you are." 
 
 At this she laughed with a gentle grace, 
 
 Till the dimples showed in her tiny face, 
 
 "Oh, can t you guess my name," said she, 
 
 As she curtsied low and prettily. 
 
 "No, I said, yet your face I ve seen, 
 
 Either awake or in a dream, 
 
 You make me think of the lilies white 
 
 That dimpled the face of the stream last night, 
 
 When I sailed away on the river s breast, 
 
 And the water lilies closely prest 
 
 155 
 
Juvenile Poems. 
 
 Like a troop of fairies round our way, 
 
 And made the river sweet as May 
 
 With their fragrant breath." Then she spoke and smiled : 
 
 "Oh, I am the Water-Lily s child, 
 
 And I live in the lily s heart of gold, 
 
 Wrapped in its petal s snow-white fold, 
 
 And I float all day on the river s breast, 
 
 Rocked by the gentle waves to rest. 
 
 It is not often I steal away 
 
 To the meadows green, as I have today; 
 
 But some one plucked the other day 
 
 My lily from its stem away, 
 
 And now the lily is withered quite, 
 
 And I must seek a home tonight 
 
 In the heart of some lily bud that s cold, 
 
 And warm it to life with my perfumed soul." 
 
 LITTLE BOY BLUE. (1884.) 
 
 Down under the haymow fast asleep, 
 
 Just where the brightest sunbeams peep 
 
 And hide away in his golden hair, 
 
 Lies a lazy boy, yet he s sweet and fair. 
 
 He has tucked his hand neath his dimpled chin, 
 
 And pushed back his hat with its great broad brim, 
 
 Till it lies on his head like a golden crown, 
 
 And on it a butterfly has dropped down, 
 
 And its soft, bright wings are all aglow, 
 
 And lie on his hat like a flake of snow. 
 
 Little boy, little boy, who are you, 
 
 Sleeping all the morning through? 
 
 While the birds sing sweet in the leafy trees, 
 
 And the flowers nod their heads in the breeze, 
 
 And the happy bees come buzzing by, 
 
 And the green toad snaps at the careless fly, 
 
 And the brook goes singing along its way 
 
 To the great big sea, for it cannot stay 
 
 Forever amid the grasses green, 
 
 Nor where the woods cool shadows lean. 
 
 All the world, little boy, but you 
 
 Is stirring around with something to do. 
 
 Mother birds are keeping their Summer nests, 
 
 And the butterflies with their golden crests 
 
 Are sipping from flowers the honey-dew, 
 
 And bees are buzzing the sunshine through, 
 
 Gathering honey from every flower; 
 
 And the ants are busy each shining hour, 
 
 Building away with grains of sand 
 
 Their snug little homes all over the land. 
 
 The flowers are budding and spreading their leaves, 
 
 And the grain is growing for harvest sheaves; 
 
 Everything, everything, something to do 
 
 This bright, sunny morn, little boy, but you. 
 
 Down through the meadows, skipping along, 
 Comes Little Boy Blue, a-blowing his horn; 
 The fairies, I m sure, in the woods will hear, 
 He blows it so hard, so long and so clear. 
 
 He s a glad little boy, and he woke with the Sun, 
 All ready for mother and errands to run; 
 And now as he blows the echoes are waking, 
 And over the hills each other are chasing. 
 
 Down to green hollows they wander away, 
 Then hide mid the hills like fairies at play; 
 I think they are playing at hide and at seek, 
 And with them, perhaps, is little Bo-Peep, 
 For ever since her lost sheep ran away, 
 She is up in the morning, as soon as it s day, 
 Over the hills where the grass is so green, 
 Or away in the woods she often is seen 
 With tears in her poor little eyes, they say, 
 For the sheep she loved that have run away. 
 
 O Little Boy Blue, dear Little Boy Blue, 
 
 Blowing your horn through the sunshine and dew, 
 
 Skipping along through the meadows so sweet, 
 
 With the red honeyed clover just hiding your feet, 
 
 And the shining black cricket chirping away, 
 
 As if it were singing because it is May, 
 
 And the grasshopper glad that the Winter is over, 
 
 Going hoppety-jump mid the bees in the clover: 
 
 Where is the little boy that keeps the sheep? 
 
 W T hy, he s under the haymow fast asleep, 
 
 So blow your horn again, Little Boy Blue, 
 
 And I m sure he ll waken and come to you, 
 
 Then you both together can run along, 
 
 Drive sheep from the meadow and cows from the corn. 
 
 CASTLES IN SPAIN. (1885.) 
 
 A little girl sat in the attic wide, 
 
 Where the golden sun shone through, 
 
 And only her dollies were there beside 
 And her little dog Bijou. 
 
 There were big old chests that were full of things, 
 
 Of dresses quaint and old, 
 And overhead was a brown bird s wings 
 
 That had stolen in out of the cold, 
 
 And built its nest neath the rafters brown 
 
 Such a quaint little nest to see, 
 All lined with the softest feathery down 
 
 Twas as nice as a nest could be. 
 
 And oh, such old-time mirrors and things, 
 
 And an old-time spinning wheel, 
 And a chest of drawers with big brass rings, 
 
 And a trunk with bands of steel. 
 
 And a red old churn with a dasher tall, 
 
 And a cradle of oak was there, 
 Tucked in a niche against the wall, 
 
 And a high-backed rocking-chair. 
 
 And there was a "baker" made of tin, 
 
 With its cover sloping down, 
 While bundles of herbs from the rafters swing 
 
 Like a perfume-scented crown. 
 
 156 
 
lion: the Cow Jumped Over the Moon. 
 
 And the little girl drew the rocking-chair 
 
 To the open window s side, 
 Through which came the pleasant summer air 
 
 From the great, fair world outside. 
 
 Below was the pretty village street, 
 
 And the river far away; 
 She could catch its murmur low and sweet, 
 
 And hear what it seemed to say. 
 
 There the little girl sat and looked away, 
 As she leaned on the window pane, 
 
 And her folded hands like lilies lay, 
 As she built her castles in Spain. 
 
 Her fairy godmother there she found, 
 
 And placed in her castle fine, 
 She lived in a room in its golden tower, 
 
 Neath a silver lily s vine. 
 
 And wide she swung open the golden doors 
 
 That led to its marble halls, 
 And like the sound of a tinkling bell, 
 
 Her lightest footstep falls. 
 
 And there were chambers grand and wide, 
 
 With curtains of silver sheen, 
 Where fairies were hidden with golden wings 
 
 And they peeped from their folds between. 
 
 And the walls were covered with golden dust, 
 
 On a ground of tinted pearl, 
 And round every prism d window pane 
 
 Did perfect rainbows curl. 
 
 She wandered on through the lovely rooms, 
 And she climbed to the turret s top, 
 
 Where she found a milk-white lamb asleep 
 On a bed of forget-me-not. 
 
 Beside it was placed a fairy s wand; 
 
 It was leaning against the wall, 
 She took it and touched the lamb, when lo! 
 
 It changed to a young Prince tall. 
 
 He was dressed in a suit of finest stuff, 
 
 And he wore a bright cockade, 
 And buckles of diamonds set with pearls, 
 
 And a sword with a silver blade. 
 
 And his eyes were blue and his face was fair 
 
 As ever should Prince s be, 
 Like the finest silk was his flaxen hair, 
 
 And it reached to his lace-frilled knee. 
 
 Then he smiled and beckoned the little girl 
 
 To follow him down the stair, 
 And she went with him, and he led her on 
 
 To a wonderful garden fair. 
 
 There were lilies as tall as the tallest trees, 
 And banks of the sweetest flowers, 
 
 And hidden away in the depths of these 
 Were the Prince s fairv bowers. 
 
 A fairy was there with a butterfly s wings, 
 And one with her wings of pearl; 
 
 And one with wings of diamond dust, 
 Smiled down on the little girl. 
 
 And there i 
 S 
 
 there in the heart of the poppies red 
 ome fairies lay asleep, 
 While the lilies were sweet above their head 
 And the roses at their feet. 
 
 Then she heard the chime of silver bells, 
 
 And the fountains tinkling fall, 
 And from the top of the golden stairs, 
 
 Her fairy godmother s call. 
 
 And she danced down the rose-leaf sprinkled walk, 
 
 She flew like a bird of spring, 
 And she climbed the stairs, and turret doors 
 
 Swung wide to let her in. 
 
 And her godmother sat in a violet dress, 
 
 With a white rose in her hair, 
 And her fairy wand in her milk-white hand, 
 
 And her face was very fair. 
 
 And there were four little mice at play 
 
 In a pumpkin s hollow side; 
 One touch of her wand, and horses four 
 
 Stood fit for a Prince to ride. 
 
 To a wonderful coach the pumpkin turned, 
 
 With its silken curtained door, 
 And the horses pranced with their silver bits 
 
 Over the turret s floor. 
 
 Then the godmother opened her window wide, 
 
 And her magical wand she waved, 
 And a beautiful road stretched down to the ground, 
 
 With hyacinth blossoms paved. 
 
 And the Prince got in and the maiden too, 
 
 And down this road they ride, 
 Through all the beautiful garden land, 
 
 They sit there side by side. 
 
 And the happy laugh of the little girl 
 
 Floats over the beautiful plain, 
 As she rides with her Prince that Summer day 
 
 In sight of her castles in Spain. 
 
 HOW THE COW JUMPED OVER THE MOON. (1885.) 
 
 Old Mother Goose is a queer old lady, 
 
 More than a hundred, I m sure is she, 
 
 Yet she sings her songs for you and me 
 
 Just as she sang in our grandmother s time. 
 
 And she tells us the queerest tales in rhyme. 
 
 Oh, don t you wish you had lived to see 
 
 The cat in the fiddle? how funny she d look 
 
 Shut in there tight as a leaf in a book ! 
 
 But of all the strange and queer things she has told us, 
 
 I should like to have seen, when the moon shone so bright, 
 
 The cow that jumped over it. I wonder if right 
 
 Over its top with a single bound 
 
 157 
 
Juvenile Poems. 
 
 She nimbly jumped and came down on the ground 
 
 On the other side? And I wish that I knew 
 
 What she saw on her way the high skies through. 
 
 I fancy I see her where the grasses grew 
 
 In the meadows green, where a brook runs through, 
 
 Whisking her tail in a dreamy way, 
 
 With her eyes half shut at the close of day. 
 
 The bees had forgotten to buzz, and the flies 
 
 Were hidden away somewhere in the skies 
 
 Just where the softening twilight fell 
 
 Round the leaves and the flowers on the breast of the dark 
 
 They had fallen asleep, and never a bark 
 
 From a dog was heard, nor the sound of a bird, 
 
 Nor the chirp of a cricket the silence stirred. 
 
 But all at once there came a shout, 
 
 And the cow stood up and looked about; 
 
 Oh, what a frolicking, rollicking noise, 
 
 Such shouts of laughter from girls and boys ! 
 
 Twas a funny sight they looked to see, 
 
 And I don t wonder they laughed so merrily, 
 
 For never a queerer sight was seen 
 
 Than that race which was run through the meadows green. 
 
 A bright tin dish was running away 
 
 Without any legs, yet it could not stay 
 
 For want of them. Down looked the moon 
 
 To see the dish run away with the spoon, 
 
 Which shook about with a helpless air 
 
 As it clung to the dish with a frightened stare; 
 
 But the dish ran on till twas out of sight, 
 
 Perhaps till the night had ended quite. 
 
 Then the old cow thought, "I ll have my fun," 
 
 As she stood by the banks where the waters run; 
 
 And she whisked her tail and ran about, 
 
 Like a happy calf while the children shout, 
 
 And blow their horns with noisy toots, 
 
 And the cow, like the man with seven-league boots, 
 
 Gave an awful jump right over the moon, 
 
 And fell into the dish that ran away with the spoon; 
 
 But the moon she jumped over was the one, I ween, 
 
 That down in the bright running water was seen. 
 
 "JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT." (1885.) 
 
 Down in the woods where the wild-flowers grew, 
 
 And a happy brook came running through, 
 
 With a voice like the chime of a silvery bell, 
 
 There was a lovely spot like a fairy s dell. 
 
 Here Jack-in-the-Pulpit could be found 
 
 In the midst of the blossoms gathered round, 
 
 As if to hear what he had to say, 
 
 Standing straight and trim in a priestly way. 
 
 Here grew the birches tall and slim, 
 
 Like ghosts come down from the old past dim, 
 
 Wrapped in their bark so thin and white, 
 
 Which the children gathered in glad delight 
 
 For their bark canoes the cunning craft 
 
 Rigged like a ship both fore and aft. 
 
 And here, too, checkerberries red and round 
 
 By the bucketful neath the trees were found; 
 
 And the merry grasshopper hopped about, 
 
 And from mosses green the toad looked out. 
 
 Twas a lovely spot ! and the sky looked down 
 
 Into the water without a frown. 
 
 Never a cloud in the deep blue air 
 
 Never a day that was more fair 
 
 Than the merry May-day, cool and sweet, 
 
 Right irT the heart of the forest deep. 
 
 Down through the aisles of forest shade, 
 
 With a heart as glad as the music made 
 
 By the happy birds, with step as free 
 
 As the squirrel s climbing the acorn tree, 
 
 Came dear little Jean with her sunny face 
 
 To the side of the brook, where she found a place 
 
 On the soft green moss to rest awhile; 
 
 For her pillow she gathered a little pile 
 
 Of weeds and blossoms, then down she lay, 
 
 Like a fresh, sweet flower in the wooded May. 
 
 "Oh, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, I see you," said she, 
 
 " And I wish you would preach a sermon for me ; 
 
 What do you talk about, anyhow 
 
 Just tell me, please, sir, won t you now? 
 
 Do you understand what the honey-bee s saying 
 
 When he buzzes about and goes a-Maying? 
 
 And the butterfly there with golden wings 
 
 Folded, while he on the daisy swings; 
 
 And the cricket chirping so soft and low, 
 
 And the busy ants that come and go? 
 
 I d like to know what they re talking about 
 
 As they run from their houses in and out." 
 
 Then Jack turned round as if he heard, 
 
 While the summer breeze his pulpit stirred, 
 
 And Jean was sure she saw him smile 
 
 And come down from his pulpit and kneel awhile 
 
 On the moss beside her his face was brown 
 
 And on his lip the softest down 
 
 Of a mustache showed, and his eyes were bright, 
 
 But full of a tender, loving light. 
 
 He looked like a preacher good and true, 
 
 Willing to tell the things he knew. 
 
 "I talk of this wonderful, wonderful world, 
 
 With the shining sky above it curled 
 
 Like another sea so blue and deep, 
 
 With its isle-like stars with their mighty sweep 
 
 Through the realms of space so grand and wide, 
 
 Yet God s hand clasps them on every side; 
 
 And I talk of the flowers, which I dream may be 
 
 God s whisper of love to you and to me; 
 
 Of the running brook with its simple song 
 
 Rippling and tinkling all along 
 
 Through the forest ways so cool and wide; 
 
 Of the trees which stand on every side, 
 
 Their highest tops by the sunlight crowned 
 
 While they drop their coolest shadows round; 
 
 Of the happy life of bee and bird, 
 
 Of the murmurous hum by the insects stirred, 
 
 And over it all, at last I say, 
 
 God keeps loving watch by night and day." 
 
 158 
 
What the Child Said. 
 
 "Oh, I thank you, Jack," said little Jean, 
 "You re the kindest preacher I ve ever seen, 
 To tell me all that you talk about 
 When your lovely forest folk are out. 
 And say, does the butterfly stop to hear, 
 And the honey-bee, does he come near, 
 And the little ants and crickets, too 
 Do all of these come and listen to you ? " 
 
 "Yes, darling," said Jack, "though the forest is wide, 
 My sermon is heard on every side, 
 And when I am done, twould please you to hear 
 Ev rything whisper amen, so low, yet so clear, 
 Tis like music, and all the whole forest is stirred 
 In its tremulous hush, as if song of a bird 
 Had dropped in soft echoes everywhere, 
 Like a rain of sweet sounds filling all of the air. 
 Then the butterfly floats like a blossom of light 
 Through the paths of the sunshine so golden and bright 
 My work is to brighten the soft summer air, 
 And to love Him who made me so free from all care. 
 Then up rises the lark with wings spread for the sky 
 My work is to sing God s love as I fly. 
 Ana the ant says: The sluggard may learn to be wise 
 If, like me, he improves each moment that flies. 
 And the bee: Mine is to gather the sweets from the flowers, 
 To make honey for man through the long summer hours. 
 And with faces so timid the blossoms look round 
 And ours is to cover with beauty the ground. 
 Ano the little brook murmurs, My work is to bless 
 And make green all the ways of the wild wilderness. 
 But there, little Jean, a sunbeam I see 
 Right down in the glen which is beckoning to me; 
 I must run back to my pulpit again, so good day, 
 Come and see me whenever you come down this way." 
 Then up sat little Jean, and Jack stood in his place- 
 In his queer little pulpit, with stateliest grace, 
 And he looked as if he never had stirred from the spot, 
 But how did he talk to Jean if he had not? 
 
 WHAT THE CHILD SAID. 
 "Mamma, is Dod cryin ? Oh, look quick! 
 I tannot tee a star, an all e pritty blue 
 Is tovered up; an tee how werry thick 
 E tears are tumin ! I fmk Dod don t oo? 
 Tood not ky all of em. I spect e angels, too, 
 Feel bad tause Dod does. Mamma, I will tay 
 A ittle prayer. Pease Dod, don t ky, an I 
 Will be so dood, an love oo so; I ll never play 
 On Sunny any more. An pritty angels, 
 I ll turn to oo turn day an be an angel, too, 
 Ony don t ky, tause it makes e sky look black, 
 An all e pritty stars a hide away, 
 An e poor Moon, I fink she off e track, 
 An I se afraid ! O mamma, will e world die, 
 An oo an mc be dead tause Dod an all e angels ky?" 
 
 A LITTLE MAIDEN. (1885.) 
 Fair and sweet, fair and sweet, 
 
 Roamed a little maiden; 
 On her head a buttercup, 
 
 And her arm was laden 
 
 With a paddle for her boat, 
 
 Long and green and slender, 
 Leg of grasshopper, I ween, 
 
 Young and very tender. 
 With a clamshell for her boat, 
 
 The little maid set sailing, 
 While her playmates on the shore 
 
 Raised a bitter wailing. 
 Fair and sweet, full of joy, 
 
 Sailed the little maiden,* 
 And with gold and tiny pearls 
 
 Her little sloop was laden. 
 All the waters smiled about her, 
 And the little fishes spied her, 
 And they came in tiny shoals 
 
 And floated on beside her. 
 Some pushed on the little boat, 
 
 Some swam on before it, 
 And when blew the lightest wind, 
 
 Everyone watched o er it. 
 Fair and sweet, bright as May, 
 
 Smiled the little maiden, 
 As she thought of Fairy Land 
 
 And its pleasant haven. 
 Honey bees spread wings above her, 
 
 Butterflies they fluttered, 
 And by happy singing birds 
 
 Sweetest songs were uttered. 
 And from out the summer sky 
 
 Gentle winds were bending, 
 As their breath the little boat 
 
 On its way was sending. 
 Fair and sweet, glad and gay, 
 
 Spake the little maiden: 
 "Almost there, swift I sail 
 
 To the fairies haven." 
 Little mermaids helped her row. 
 
 O er the silver water, 
 Till the golden sunset fell 
 On the sea athwart her. 
 Then she saw an open door, 
 
 And beyond it lying 
 All the golden fairy isles, 
 In the sunshine smiling. 
 Fair and sweet, like a bell, 
 
 Rang her happy laughter, 
 Through the West her little boat 
 
 Sailed a moment after. 
 Floating on the silver waves, 
 There the fairies spied her. 
 When they reached the happy isles 
 
 All the bells were ringing, 
 And from palm and orange trees 
 
 Bright-winged birds were singing. 
 Fair and sweet ! O how bright, 
 
 In the fairy haven, 
 Were the smiles on the face 
 
 Of the little maiden. 
 To a table in the wood 
 All the fairies brought her, 
 
 159 
 
Juvenile Poems. 
 
 In a chair of gold she sat, 
 
 Like the Queen s own daughter. 
 
 With cakes of perfume from th rose 
 Her pretty plate was laden; 
 
 Honey dew and lily wine 
 Drank the little maiden. 
 
 THE BOY THE ANGELS LOVED. (1887.) 
 A little child was sitting in the moonlight dark, 
 
 A great, grand house behind him. On the broad stone 
 Step, the stars above his head, he sat alone. 
 The summer air was full of fire-flies, and their spark 
 
 Lit up, like fairy lanterns, all the trees, 
 
 Twas in the country that the great house stood, 
 Amid the flowers that all the honey-bees 
 
 Found every morn with sweetest honey filled, 
 And stole the honey for their waxen cells. 
 
 The crickets wandered mid the grass and trilled 
 At eventide their merry, chirping notes. 
 
 And there, within the garden, were the wells 
 Filled with the crystal water, and the boats 
 
 Lay on the lake beyond the garden wall; 
 And mid the water-lilies were the swans, 
 
 White-breasted and white-winged, and with white throats 
 Reflected in the shining silver of the lake, 
 
 Where waters rippled round the grassy lawns, 
 And in the trees the birds their nests did make, 
 
 And wakened every lovely summer morn 
 The dear child from his slumbers, singing sweet; 
 
 And roses climbed above the garden-wall, 
 And daisies made a carpet for his feet, 
 
 And apple trees let cooling shadows fall. 
 
 This little child was lonely, and every night 
 
 He used to ask his nurse s leave to go 
 And sit alone, and watch from out his sight 
 
 The sun sink down the western hills below. 
 And see the stars from out the sky so blue 
 
 Come like an army; he had learned to know 
 Bright Venus as she came twinkling through, 
 
 And Orion, that "belted giant of the skies," 
 And the Great Bear that guards the frozen North; 
 
 And when he saw the round, full moon arise 
 Hanging above the lake, and coming forth 
 
 So full of light, he used to say in low 
 Sweet tones unto himself, "I wish that I could see 
 
 The angel who lifts up the moon when he does go, 
 With his great wings outspread so wide and free, 
 
 Back through the blue sky s door, for I do know 
 There must be there a door that opens wide, 
 
 All hinged with stars for angels to come through." 
 He watched the moonlight on the silvery tide 
 
 Of the still lake upon its waters blue 
 A golden pathways-then a white swan stirred, 
 
 And he was sure an angel s wing was there. 
 In the far woods a nightingale he heard, 
 
 Its sad song filling all the evening air; 
 But then he loved it, and it made him dream 
 
 The birds were telling him some unknown story 
 Of stars and sky and running mountain stream, 
 
 Or of the moonlight s clear and shining glory. 
 
 The child was a rare poet, yet all unlearned to sing, 
 Full of sweet fancies and of loving grace; 
 
 A sweet earth angel, though with hidden wing, 
 With heaven s own beauty shining in his face. 
 
 That night his heart was full of longing deep 
 
 For heaven. The mother who had loved him, she was 
 there; 
 
 He missed her tender smile and kisses sweet, 
 And her soft touch upon his sunny hair. 
 
 It was but a few weeks since she had passed; 
 
 The round full moon shone brightly then as now; 
 Its light touched first her face, and then at last 
 
 Filled all the room, and there, as white as snow, 
 Her face upon the pillow, she had lain so still 
 
 While he had kissed her, and his papa said, 
 Amid his sobs, that all the room did fill, 
 
 "Mamma has gone to heaven she is not dead." 
 
 And as he thought of this and saw the light 
 
 Of the full moon upon the still lake lying, 
 Like a broad golden pathway to his sight, 
 
 His thoughts came swift, his eager eyes were spying 
 If haply he might find some pathway bright 
 
 Leading to heaven and to his mother s breast, 
 Where, folded in her arms, in heaven s own light, 
 
 Glad in her love, he could forever rest. 
 
 And so he went with light and hurried feet 
 
 Adown the garden walk. The lily white 
 Bent its pure head, and poured its fragrance sweet, 
 
 And lovely roses blushed within the light, 
 And pretty pansies in their velvet dress 
 
 Lay down the way with faces very fair, 
 With gold and purple round their shoulders prest, 
 
 While dewdrops lay like diamonds everywhere. 
 
 The little wicket on its hinges swung, 
 
 And he passed through it while the lilies gleam 
 Upon the lake and beckon him to come. 
 
 He heard the singing of the little stream 
 That filled its bosom with its waters clear; 
 
 He heard the soft breeze sighing mid the trees, 
 And he was sure the angels must be near, 
 
 Stirring the leaves with their sweet symphonies. 
 
 Down the white-pebbled pathway to the lake 
 
 He went; the bending blades of grass, 
 Stirred by the night-wind, their low whispers make, 
 
 And as he goes the sweet-briar sees him pass. 
 
 Upon the rippling water s brink it lay 
 
 His little boat like a pink-tinted shell 
 With slender oars a fairy fay 
 
 Might almost push it o er the tiny swell 
 Of the light waves that ran along the shore 
 
 Like sound of lightest laughter. His dimpled hand 
 Looses the boat; he takes the oars once more, 
 
 And rows away, light-hearted from the land. 
 
 Broad lies the golden moonlight on the lake, 
 
 It stretches onward far as he can see, 
 The child rows on the golden path to take, 
 
 The way to heaven he s sure that it must be. 
 
 160 
 
The Boy the Angels Loved. 
 
 Soon he has reached it; moonbeams his pathway pave 
 With golden light; the water shines and gleams, 
 
 And water-lilies nestle on the wave. 
 
 Heaven must be very near to him, he deems. 
 
 On, on and on, the shining pathway o er, 
 
 Till his weak arms grow weary with the strain; 
 
 Farther behind him lies the pleasant shore, 
 Brighter the moonbeams that around him rain. 
 
 "I must be almost there; heaven can t be far," 
 His sweet lips murmur, and then bending low, 
 
 Over the boat s side he sees a shining star, 
 Mirrored within the waters deep belo%v. 
 
 And then he wonders, can that bright star be 
 The handle to heaven s door; the gold runs deep, 
 
 It shines far down there, far as I can see, 
 And there I see the lilies lie asleep. 
 
 He leans far over, eager in his heart, 
 
 His little loving heart, to find the way 
 To heaven and mother. Too far he leans; the waters part, 
 
 Xo hand is there his sinking form to stay. 
 
 Down, down among the water-lilies white 
 With one faint cry from out his infant lips, 
 
 From the boat s side he falls and sinks from sight 
 Among the many swaying lily-tips. 
 
 He lies at last with blue, wide-open eyes, 
 
 H.e lifts his hands, and then he lets them fall. 
 
 The blessed angels, leaning from the skies, 
 Open heaven s door in answer to his call. 
 
 But soon his father, missing his sweet face, 
 
 Comes out upon the stone steps where he loved to sit, 
 
 Thinking to find him in his usual place 
 
 Watching the stars, yet wondering much at it 
 
 To find him gone, but still he thinks his feet 
 Have only wandered down the garden walk, 
 
 Some little bud or blooming rose to seek, 
 Or some white lily on its bending stalk. 
 
 "Darling," he calls, "come in to papa now, 
 
 And tell him what you ve found among the stars 
 
 tonight." 
 And then he smiles, while fondly thinking how 
 
 His child s sweet fancies wander, as if his spirit sight 
 Were visioned large. "I sometimes think," says he, 
 
 "The child lives half in heaven, he is so strange; 
 His pure young thoughts they seem to be 
 
 Forever there, and they have larger range 
 Than childhood s wont." And then he listened, 
 
 But no sound he heard of little feet returning at his call, 
 And the bright, dew-like human teardrops glistened, 
 
 And a wild fear upon his heart did fall. 
 
 Swift to the garden ran he not a sound 
 
 Broke the deep silence just the echoes came, 
 
 The mocking echoes, ever wandering round, 
 And shouting back to him his darling s name. 
 
 Xot in the garden! then the open gate 
 
 Caught his quick eye; his heart stood still with dread, 
 "O help me, heaven, if I should be too late! 
 
 And then with swift feet down the path he sped. 
 He missed the little boat, then looking away 
 
 Over the still water he saw a speck afloat 
 In the clear moonlight all adrift it lay, 
 
 But still he knew it was his dear boy s boat. 
 
 How swift he leaped his own strong boat into, 
 And pushed it off with oars that seemed to tear 
 
 The still lake s breast, as leaping on it flew, 
 Sent by the swift strokes of his wild despair. 
 
 He reached the spot, his child s boat empty lay, 
 
 Filled but with moonlight; a swift shudder ran 
 Through all his veins, and then away, 
 
 As his hot, eager eyes did scan 
 
 The treacherous water, he saw some white thing rise. 
 Two swift, strong strokes and he was reaching down, hi. 
 eyes 
 
 Following his hands, which were so quick to take 
 Their burden. A little head with golden tresses bright, 
 
 A fair, sweet face with open eyes of blue, 
 A dead, limp form, twas this that met his sight 
 
 And stabbed his heart with anguish through and through 
 
 Ah, there was sorrow in his home that night, 
 
 Where in his little shroud the dear boy slept, 
 With fragrant lilies round and roses white, 
 
 Where floods of moonlight all about him crept 
 Over his folded hands so cold and white, 
 
 With dimpled fingers laid upon his breast, 
 And golden hair soft shining in the light 
 
 While lying breathless in his dreamless rest. 
 
 Only one way, dear children, for us all, 
 
 One way to heaven; we cannot go 
 O er golden paths where moonbeams fall; 
 We cannot climb up starlit wall 
 
 To find the door; it is not so. 
 God leads us there. We go away 
 
 With silent lips and close-shut eyes, 
 And friends look on us, and they say 
 
 "Alas! alas! our darling dies." 
 
 Tis then, tis then the door we find, 
 
 And leave our useless bodies here, 
 Just as the dull worm leaves behind 
 
 The dead and useless form it wore; 
 And from its cell-like prison springs 
 A glorious butterfly with wings. 
 Just one step in the dark we take, 
 
 And, lo ! uprising close before, 
 While blessed angels round it wait, 
 
 We see heaven s widely-open door. 
 
 THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. (1887.) 
 
 Everybody asleep, everybody abed; 
 Here in one chamber a bright, golden head, 
 With eyelids like lilies, and lashes that gleam 
 Like the brightest of gold in the summer sunbeam. 
 And there is a head with its brown chestnut curls, 
 
 101 
 
Juvenile Poems. 
 
 Which belongs, I am sure, to the sweetest of girls. 
 And there is another with locks black as the night, 
 With a fat little fist almost hidden from sight 
 Neath the round dimpled chin, where, tucked softly away, 
 Pussy well might suppose it a ball for her play, 
 So round and so soft and so fluffy it lay. 
 Very dim was the light in the burners just then, 
 And in the Dreamland of Nod were these dear little men ; 
 And somewhere away in the land of delight 
 Was the chestnut-haired darling, so dimpled and white. 
 Xot a mouse was astir, not a leaf on the tree, 
 And mamma was sleeping as sound as could be, 
 When all of a sudden, just outside in the light, 
 The Moon saw a strange and wonderful sight- 
 On a bit of white fog that came in from the Sea, 
 Floating round where the top of the chimney must be, 
 Was the loveliest sleigh made of rainbows and pearl, 
 And harnessed to reindeers with horns that did curl 
 Into cunningest curves, each branching so grand; 
 And sitting behind them, with the lines in his hand, 
 Sat the funniest old fellow, dressed in fur to his chin, 
 With a coat full of pockets without and within. 
 How he chuckled and laughed to himself as he rode; 
 How he haw-hawed and he-he d, as if he d explode ! 
 Not a house that he passed but he managed to peep 
 Into the windows somehow to see if asleep 
 Were the parents and children, and then he would feel 
 Of his pockets and parcels, then up he would steal 
 To the very house-top, and there on the sly, 
 Right up to the mouth of the chimney he d hie, 
 And down he would slide right into the house. 
 And make his way round as still as a mouse. 
 He would fill up the stockings and fill up the tree, 
 Yet still were his pockets as full as could be, 
 And never a child but he kissed ere he went 
 Away from its chambers, and always he lent 
 It a dream to dream sweetly till the night hours were done, 
 And the children woke up to find Christmas had come. 
 
 A LITTLE MAID. (1887.) 
 
 Adown the garden way there went 
 
 A little maid in glad content ; 
 
 The butterflies with golden wings, 
 
 And all the world s sweet, fragrant things, 
 
 The happy birds with throats of song, 
 
 Were with her all her steps along. 
 
 The lovely silver of the brook 
 She for her morning mirror took, 
 And bending low above the wave, 
 With its cool waters, did she lave 
 Her dimpled face, whose cheek and chin 
 Gleamed very fair the water in. 
 
 And there, like golden threads of light, 
 Shone her soft tresses to her sight; 
 The long, soft, shining golden curls 
 Seemed swaying in the eddies whirls, 
 As bending downward she did look 
 To see her picture in the brook. 
 
 The violets, dewy-eyed and fair, 
 Grew in their sweetness everywhere 
 Upon the mossy bank where she 
 Knelt in her childish ecstacy; 
 And buttercups with golden gleam 
 Nodded their heads beside the stream. 
 
 From off her feet her shoes she took 
 To wade within the silver brook; 
 And down the pebbled way she went 
 In fullness of her glad content. 
 The ripples round her ankles flow. 
 And murmur music as they go. 
 
 Her little feet like lilies gleam 
 Within the crystal of the stream; 
 Her laughter mingles with the notes 
 Poured from a hundred feathered throats, 
 Which, like a tidal-wave of song, 
 From the high tree-tops sweeps along. 
 
 With laughter and with song she went, 
 A little blossom of content; 
 Her cheeks like rose-leaves softly red; 
 Like gleaming buttercups her head; 
 Like violets, just touched with dew, 
 Neath lily lids, her eyes of blue. 
 
 A CHILD AGAIN. (1891.) 
 
 Sweet fancy makes me once again a child, 
 Glad in the green fields and fair June meadows sweet, 
 
 Starred with the buttercups and daisies wild 
 Where thistledown goes flying at my feet. 
 
 I ll find again, amid the grasses hid, 
 
 The groundbird s nest, and watch the cricket play, 
 And listen to the music of the katydid, 
 
 And hear the nightingale sing far away. 
 
 I see the woods behind the meadowland, 
 
 I hear the music of the running brook, 
 And shoulder high amid the grass I stand, 
 
 With leaf and blossom, each an open book. 
 
 Come to the hillside looking to the East, 
 The road runs just beyond it, and the pines 
 
 Rise cool and green, and to a welcome feast 
 Beckon the berries, where a cool spring shines. 
 
 The air is full of aromatic sweet, 
 
 Of piney odors and the happy tunes 
 Of bird and bee, and everything we meet 
 
 Seems breathing music through these afternoons. 
 
 "Jack-in-the-Pulpit," in the shadow dim 
 
 Of the deep wood, is standing by the stream 
 
 That sings his psalms ; I wonder if by him 
 
 The flowers are soothed when anything alarms. 
 
 The tall white birch-tree rises close at hand; 
 
 From out its bark we ll form a pretty cup, 
 And there above the little line of sand 
 
 Grow berries red with which to fill it up. 
 
 162 
 
Mi/ Bunny. 
 
 And there are acorns on the old oak boughs, 
 With "cups and saucers" for our happy play; 
 
 The black and yellow caterpillar plows 
 
 Through fallen leaves his quiet, happy way. 
 
 1 find an apple in my pocket stored; 
 
 With pieces small I fill my acorn cup, 
 And in the saucer water drops I ve poured, 
 
 And you and I will sit and drink them up. 
 
 And now, green-coated and with yellow vest, 
 A great toad comes and stares at us awhile, 
 
 And overhead a bird has built its nest, 
 As if to watch the opening blossoms smile. 
 
 We make believe, oh, that indeed is sweet ! 
 
 This "make believe" of happy childhood s hours 
 
 That we are grown-up folks, and for our feet 
 We have a carpet wrought of moss and flowers. 
 
 The massive boulders wall our parlor in, 
 Between their sides the cooling shadows lie, 
 
 And in one corner does the spider spin 
 A silken curtain twixt us and the sky. 
 
 The smaller rocks make tables for our stores, 
 And stools on which to sit; the bee, we say, 
 
 We ve sent for honey through the forest doors 
 That open wide to flowery hills away. 
 
 The golden butterflies are winged with light; 
 
 The merry cricket s chirp is sounding clear, 
 We pause to watch the happy robin s flight, 
 
 And the ant army that is coming near. 
 
 The "pussy willows" on their branches shine, 
 The dandelions look up with yellow face, 
 
 And clinging vines about the old rocks twine, 
 And overhead the squirrels run a race. 
 
 Our dinner plates are made of green oak leaves, 
 
 For tablecloth a bit of paper spread, 
 And never were there sweeter nuts than these 
 
 In the green beech boughs just above our head. 
 
 Our apple then we cut in many shapes, 
 
 And with our "make believe" we change them there, 
 Some into white bread, some to tempting cakes, 
 
 And all things wanted for our bill of fare. 
 
 Our dinner over and away we run, 
 
 Down to the beach "to wade," and soon you see 
 Our shoes and stockings on the green banks flung, 
 
 And hear the echo of our careless glee. 
 
 And then the swings among the forest trees ! 
 
 The glad see-saws, the hop and skip away; 
 The blind-man s buff. Oh, pleasures such as these 
 
 Fill full of gladness all the summer day. 
 
 And then at home our mother s dress we don, 
 
 And go a-calling just across the room, 
 And our tall husband papa s coat puts on, 
 
 And how we love him, though he s just a broom. 
 
 Our dolls we dress and take them out to ride, 
 
 Down still, green lanes, all bright witli flowers and dcv 
 
 And tell each other with a mother s pride 
 The cunning things our dollies say and do. 
 
 Oh, I am glad to be a little child ! 
 
 In wide green fields and fair June meadows sweet, 
 Starred with the buttercups and daisies wild, 
 
 Where thistledown goes flying at my feet. 
 
 MY BUNNY. (1892.) 
 
 I had a rabbit, 
 And it was his habit 
 
 To gnaw whatever he could find; 
 He gnawed my trees and bushes 
 
 Whenever he d a mind. 
 
 His eyes were pink and rosy 
 And as pretty as a posy, 
 
 And his coat was snowy white, 
 He was as cunning bunny 
 
 As ever saw the light. 
 
 But oh, his naughty habits! 
 Made me wish that little rabbits 
 
 Would learn to do the right, 
 And, not like naughty children, 
 
 Touch whatever was in sight. 
 
 LITTLE IDA. (1892.) 
 
 Dear little Ida stood and watched 
 
 The lightning-flashing skies, 
 "O 
 
 ied, 
 
 me iigntmng-nasmng SKICS, 
 [) mamma ! come and see," she cr 
 "How God do wink His eyes!" 
 
 THE FAITH OF CHILDHOOD. (1894.) 
 
 Oh, thick the shadows fell and dark ! 
 
 The moon had hid her face away, 
 Xor anywhere was seen a spark 
 
 Of sweet, pure starlight o er the way 
 Her weary feet must walk alone, 
 All uncompanioned save by moan 
 Of the wild wind that sobbed along 
 The silent path her child had gone. 
 
 On, on she went, her mother heart 
 
 Giving her strength to onward go, 
 The briars tall her hands did part. 
 Yet, O they left them aching so! 
 Her child ! where was the darling one 
 Who left her arms at set ot sun, 
 Who went to find the pot of gold 
 The shining rainbow did enfold? 
 
 The thunder rolled across the sky 
 
 Like some loud trumpet blasts outblown 
 
 By some great Titan perched on high 
 Within the vast Unseen, unknown. 
 
 163 
 
Juvenile Poems. 
 
 Then lo! a smiling rift of cloud, 
 Though the mad thunders muttered loud, 
 With silver gleam the moon looked through 
 And lighted all the earth anew. 
 
 And then a sudden flash there came, 
 
 Red lightning through the darkened air; 
 She looked, and through that sudden flame 
 
 Sight turned to joy her deep despair. 
 For there, where shining poppies made 
 A couch of gold, her child was laid 
 Laid in soft slumber, fearless, sweet 
 As the wild blossoms at her feet. 
 
 She wakened her! The child uprose 
 And looked about her as she sought 
 
 Some precious treasure to disclose, 
 Something too priceless to be bought. 
 
 With lips a-tremble as her eye 
 
 She lifted to the clouded sky: 
 
 "Mamma, I think that Dod has gone, 
 
 Yet He s not left me very long." 
 
 The zigzag lightning came again: 
 
 "Mamma, just see the golden stairs 
 
 Up which He went through all the rain, 
 Just as I knelt to say my prayers. 
 
 And then I went to sleep, so sweet 
 
 Wif all the poppies round my feet. 
 
 The rainbow went away and so 
 
 I didn t any farther go." 
 
 Another flash ! the little one 
 With eyes uplifted and glad face 
 
 Looked round to see if God had come 
 To seek her in that lonely place. 
 
 "Good-night, Dod, I don t see you here, 
 
 But still I thinks that you are near, 
 
 Perhaps behind a star you be, 
 
 And you are watching over me." 
 
 O happy child heart! trusting, sweet, 
 
 Of such as thee Heav n s kingdom is; 
 Faith paves the pathway for your feet 
 
 Mid all life s unsolved mysteries. 
 Eden is here at your right hand, 
 The Eden fair of Faith s bright land, 
 And God is there, His light is shed 
 Purer than starlight on your head. 
 
 CHILDHOOD IN SUMMERLAND JANUARY. (1897.) 
 
 Pitty-pat, hark! there is Willie, see! 
 
 Chasing a wandering bumble-bee, 
 
 Hippety-hop and away we go 
 
 Through meadows white with the daisies snow. 
 
 Hide-and-go-seek ! and can you find me, 
 
 bird in the green-boughed pepper tree? 
 Down in the beautiful clover sweet 
 
 1 am buried now from hea d to feet. 
 And what, oh, what is it that I hear? 
 
 Tis the flies which are buzzing softly near, 
 As if some story they had to tell 
 To Willie and me and little Nell. 
 What are you thinking of, little fly? 
 My gingerbread dog I think you spy. 
 Yes, yes, and you are a robber bold 
 Seeking to capture the sweets I hold. 
 
 Gay is the cricket s song in the grass, 
 
 While like winged flow rs the butterflies pass, 
 
 Or like golden boats in a sea of light, 
 
 Floating away do they take their flight. 
 
 Hi spy ! and quickly away we run, 
 
 All laughter-loving and full of fun ; 
 
 Orange trees nod with their blossoms fair, 
 
 While roses make sweet the shining air; 
 
 We gather them for a battle bold, 
 
 The roses of white and red and gold, 
 
 Pelting each other away we go, 
 
 With fragrant roses in place of snow. 
 
 No Snow-Man have we, but lilies lean 
 
 Like white-faced nuns o er the grasses green, 
 
 While the cactus stands with its pointed spear, 
 
 And the canna tall is growing near. 
 
 Play we gaily here from rise of sun 
 
 Till the day is gone and the bright stars come, 
 
 When with happy hearts we nestle down 
 
 To our slumbers sweet in Good-Night Town. 
 
 THE FAIRIES AND THE BUTTERFLY. (1897.) 
 
 The sweet fairies lay all hid in the grass, 
 
 Smiling to see a white thistledown pass, 
 
 Smiling to see a dandelion lean 
 
 To stroke a cricket beneath its screen. 
 
 And lo! beyond, amid the sweet clover, 
 
 They saw a big Worm, an ambling rover; 
 
 He strove to be graceful, but, oh, alas ! 
 
 No more awkward fellow did ever pass. 
 
 Many his legs, and his body was lean, 
 
 And he crawled and tumbled the grass between; 
 
 But still he did look, as he onward went, 
 
 Like the very picture of sweet content. 
 
 Slender and awkward and brown was he, 
 
 But happy still as a soul could be. 
 
 Ha! cried the fairies, a brave fellow he! 
 
 He something better than a worm should be. 
 
 So they caught him up in their tiny hands, 
 And counted his feet and the many bands 
 Of beautiful color about his form, 
 Like ribbons of light about him drawn; 
 Then they kissed him fondly, and lo! he grew 
 Into wondrous loveliness, strange and new; 
 For out of that kiss the Butterfly came, 
 With beautiful color all aflame, 
 And his golden wings were both dotted, bright 
 With touches of red like the sunset light, 
 
 164 
 
The Child and the ll mlx. 
 
 And he flew aloft in the golden air, 
 
 And looked like a bright-winged blossom there. 
 
 Then fluttered he down amid the flowers, 
 
 Sipped their nectar sweet through the gladsome hou 
 
 Oh, well do we love you ! the fairies cry, 
 
 You are born of our kiss, sweet Butterfly. 
 
 JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT. (1902.) 
 
 Comrade am I of Color and Light, 
 
 And the sweet silence that doth round me brood, 
 While the far skies above me, bending bright, 
 
 Make glorious these haunts of solitude. 
 
 What lessons one may gather unafraid 
 
 In the deep woods, where Nature s speech is heard: 
 What wondrous notes are by the wind s harps played. 
 
 What countless voices are to music stirred. 
 
 I mind me well of other days agone, 
 When in the wildwood by a silver stream 
 
 My heart was gladdened by the robin s song, 
 And by the beauty of the wild-flowers gleam. 
 
 And soon I came upon a quaint, wild bloom, 
 Standing alone where forest shadows lay; 
 
 A mimic man within his leaf-ceiled room, 
 Like some lone spirit of the shining day. 
 
 "Oh, what is this?" I to my teacher cried. 
 
 " Jack-in-the-Pulpit," said she, drawing near; 
 "And does he to the flowers by his side 
 
 Preach sermons," said I, "such as all can hear?" 
 
 Through the long years Jack s voice still to me 
 Speaks of God s love and of His constant care; 
 
 And still he stands in blessed ministry, 
 A silent preacher in the forest there. 
 
 THE CHILD AND THE BIRDS. (1902.) 
 
 Within the tree-tops many happy birds 
 Fluttered amid the thousand swaying leaves, 
 And downward poured a flood of sweetest song, 
 The very air was drowned in it. Along 
 The valley s length, like a great tidal wave, 
 Mingled with sunshine, did it onward roll, 
 And the hushed winds were listening as it fell. 
 The roses seemed to breathe beneath its spell, 
 While the bright air did laugh in gladness, too, 
 As on the ground lay Morning s silver dew, 
 And all the Karth was gladder for the notes 
 Falling so sweetly from those feathered throats. 
 
 A little child came straying out of doors, 
 Threading the green by-paths about her home, 
 Plucking the flowers that grew around her there, 
 Watching the brightness of the Summer air, 
 Until at length the bird-song caught her ear. 
 Clapping her hands, she lifted up her eyes 
 Unto the trees from which the bird-notes fell. 
 
 Richer and fuller did the music swell 
 
 As if the air was bursting into song, 
 
 And every leaf a lute to play upon. 
 
 "I wonder whever cley do sing for Dod," said she, 
 
 "Or whever dey be singing dest for me." 
 
 LITTLE BOY BLUE. 
 
 Little Boy Blue! conn-, bloir your horn, 
 The sheep are in the meadow, (he cows in the corn, 
 Where s the little boy who tends the sheep? 
 Under the haymow, fast asleep." 
 
 All the world is wide awake, 
 
 Running o er with gladness, 
 
 With no room for cloud or sadness, 
 
 For Summer s here with eyes of blue, 
 
 With golden sunshine looking through 
 
 From the glory of her skies; 
 
 With bird-song bubbling o er 
 
 From her trees, 
 
 While the bees 
 
 Hum through fields of clover, 
 
 Oh, the happy sound they make. 
 
 As their joyous flight they take, 
 
 From flower to flower, 
 
 In the dewy morning hour ! 
 
 Buzzing, buzzing do they go, 
 
 While the glad flies, humming low, 
 
 Where the honeysuckle swings, 
 
 Stir their little silver wings. 
 
 Oli, lie wary, little flies, 
 
 For a big fat spider spies 
 
 You as you gaily come, 
 
 And his silver web is he 
 
 Spreading both for fly and bee; 
 
 And he thinks, I ll have one 
 
 Of those foolish flies for dinner. 
 
 See him work the wicked sinner! 
 
 Back and forth from leaf to leaf, 
 
 See him spin his silver thread, 
 
 Like a curtain overhead; 
 
 But he ll stop with winning speech 
 
 When the flies within his reach 
 
 Come with pretty shining wings. 
 
 See how quickly out he springs, 
 
 Seizes one and breaks his wings, 
 
 Then he hangs him in the sun, 
 
 Roasting him till he is done. 
 
 There is Mrs. Spider, too; 
 
 See, she turns the dead fly over, 
 
 So the Sun shall cook it through, 
 
 Then beneath a green leafs cover swift she runs, 
 
 Sitting there as meek as though 
 
 Nothing naughty she did know. 
 
 Put your ear down to the ground, 
 Don t you think you hear the sound 
 Of the little roots astir, 
 Xeath the swaying lilies stalk 
 
 IbS 
 
Juvenile Poems. 
 
 Down along the garden walk? 
 Neath the pansies smiling faces, 
 Lifted in such quiet places; 
 Neath the roses growing fair, 
 Neath the blossoms everywhere? 
 
 O these Summer days are fine, 
 Golden is the Summer weather, 
 Brook and bird they sing together 
 Where the rippling waters shine; 
 While along the river s line 
 Lean the willows all together, 
 With a softly-swaying grace, 
 Looking each to see its face 
 In the flowing waters cool, 
 Flinging shadows on the pool 
 Where the long-winged swallows glide 
 O er the silence of its breast, 
 Dipping beak and feathered crest 
 In the silver of the tide. 
 
 All the rosy morn is still, 
 
 Saving only the sweet trill 
 
 Of the robin and the lark, 
 
 And the sudden, noisy whirr 
 
 Of the swift wings of the swallow. 
 
 But list, my dears, O list and hark! 
 
 For there is little Boy Blue 
 
 Who is blowing his horn, 
 
 And he has blown such a blast he s broke it in two. 
 
 "Little Boy Blue, why did you do it?" 
 
 "Oh, look at the corn and the cows coming through it, 
 
 While in the green meadows like clouds you can see 
 
 The white fleece of the sheep a hundred there be; 
 
 And there neath the gold of the haymow asleep 
 
 Is the bad little boy who should take care of the sheep." 
 
 My child, he s not bad, the dear little fellow, 
 
 With his thin, pallid lips and curls that are yellow 
 
 As the soft swaying buttercups leaning above him, 
 
 Like God s watching angels to guard and to love him 
 
 He s weary with watching, so young and so small, 
 
 For I know he was up while you children were all 
 
 In your beds and asleep was up with the Sun, 
 
 For his father is dead, and his mother has none 
 
 To help her but him, and the sheep were so still, 
 
 As they fed on the tender young grass of the hill, 
 
 He thought he might lie down for a moment, and In ! 
 
 His poor little eyelids were heavy, and so 
 
 They quickly dropped downward, shutting him in 
 
 AVith beautiful dreams, and not even the din 
 
 Of the horn which was blown by Little Boy Blue 
 
 Has reached the sweet Dreamland he s wandering through. 
 
 But the farmer is kind and is sorry for him, 
 Saying, "Poor little boy, let him sleep while we bring 
 The sheep from the meadow, the cows from the corn, 
 And I ll see that he s not called so early each morn." 
 So away sped the farmer, and all of his men 
 Drove the sheep and the cows to their pastures again, 
 And the boys and the girls they tended the sheep 
 While the little boy lay by the haymow asleep. 
 
 JACK AND THE BEANSTALK. 
 
 Out in the meadows, yellow and fair, 
 
 Stood the gay buttercups; thousands were there, 
 
 Filled with the sunshine, bright with the dew, 
 
 They shimmered like stars the wide meadow through. 
 
 Dandelions bowed to them everywhere, 
 
 Bees floated over them through the bright air, 
 
 And the rosy-red clover, whose honey was sweet, 
 
 Swayed soft at the touch of the rover Wind s feet, 
 
 Which lingered and loitered and hid in its leaves, 
 
 Or with gayest of murmurs swept on through the trees. 
 
 Then out from a tiny red cottage there came 
 A gay little fellow, and Jack was his name. 
 He had pretty red boots and a cap with a feather, 
 And his clothes were of velvet; as fine altogether 
 As a prince did he look, and down did he run- 
 Just as over the mountains peeped the bright Sun 
 To his garden, where he had planted so deep 
 A big, shiny bean, which he d planted for fun 
 Only the yesterday s eve; and oh, how his eyes 
 Opened wide neath their lids in the greatest surprise, 
 For the bean had pushed its way up through the ground, 
 And twas taller than the tallest tree to be found. 
 
 "I ll climb that beanstalk," cried Jack in delight, 
 And swift he went up and was soon out of sight. 
 His mother came out and called him by name 
 Called him loudly and long, but called him in vain; 
 No sound did she hear but the hum of the bee, 
 And the song of the robin as it sang in the tree, 
 And she listened and wondered where her dear Jack 
 could be. 
 
 But Jack, he was happy, and climbed high and higher, 
 
 Up and up, far above the tallest church spire; 
 
 Up and up, till the mountains below him did lie, 
 
 Till he thought he could climb through the blue of the sky, 
 
 But after a while he ran out on a limb 
 
 Of the beanstalk which seemed to stretch out to the rim 
 
 Of the sky, and there, to his joy, 
 
 Was a wonderful land, where never a boy 
 
 Of his size had been seen its trees were so high 
 
 They seemed to stretch up to the noon of the sky; 
 
 Its rivers were vast, and its meadows were wide 
 
 As our Earth s mighty continents swept by the tide 
 
 Of the great rolling oceans; and its houses why they 
 
 Stood bigger than mountains right over the way. 
 
 "This is jolly," said Jack, "and I believe I will run 
 
 And rap on that door I ll do it for fun." 
 
 So he scampered away as fast as his feet 
 
 Could take him across the wide, sunny street. 
 
 But oh! every step was as high as his head, 
 
 And he struggled to climb them till he was more than 
 
 half dead 
 
 With fatigue; but at length he got hold 
 Of a long, swaying vine which was yellow as gold, 
 With beautiful blossoms which grew thick on each stem, 
 As he pulled himself up by clinging to them. 
 
 166 
 
Jack and the Beanstalk. 
 
 Then he gave a loud rap, and lo ! to the door 
 
 Came a wonderful Giant, big as a dozen or more 
 
 Of men like Jack s father, and he scowled as he saw 
 
 Jack standing before him, and he reached down to draw 
 
 Him under his thumb, and he held him so tight 
 
 Jack was ready to perish with terror and fright; 
 
 And down through the long hall he carried him then. 
 
 And he took his snuff-box for a safe prison-pen. 
 
 And Jack he grew brave and he took from his pocket 
 
 A sling and a stone, and like a sky-rocket 
 
 He shot the stone at him, and it sank in his head, 
 
 Then down fell the Giant, and in a moment was dead. 
 
 Then the old Giant s wife came hurrying in 
 
 She was tall as a poplar, as graceful and slim, 
 
 And she smiled when she saw the old Giant lie there, 
 
 For he d always been cruel and cross as a bear. 
 
 And she took little Jack and gave him a kiss, 
 
 Saying, "Pray, tell me, dear, the meaning of this." 
 
 Then Jack stood up bravely on the table beside her 
 While his beautiful eyes opened wider and wider 
 And he said: "I live away down in the world 
 Round which the great seas and oceans are curled; 
 And last eve, when the Sun went down in the West, 
 I went to my garden, and deep in its breast 
 I planted a bean, and when morning had come 
 It had grown up so high it reached to the Sun, 
 And I climbed up its stalk and happened to find 
 
 This land where you live, and I thought you d be kind 
 
 If I ran in to see you; but the Giant he swore, 
 
 So soon as ever he d opened the door, 
 
 That he d eat me for dinner, and he brought me in here, 
 
 And at first I grew weak and trembled with fear. 
 
 Then I remembered at once my stones and my sling, 
 And quickly I seized them and hastened to fling 
 A stone at his head, and it hit him, and lo! 
 He fell dead as you see him and now may I go? 
 
 "Yes, dear," she said, smiling, "but first I must give 
 Some treasures of mine that will help you to live 
 In plenty at home." So down a stairway of gold 
 She took him. Doors of pearl did unfold 
 .As onward they went, till they came to a room 
 Where diamonds shone, dispelling the gloom 
 By the closed shutters made, and she filled up a sack 
 As big as he could possibly take on his back 
 With gold and with diamonds richest and rare; 
 Then she fastened it up and laid it with care 
 On Jack s sturdy shoulders, and a servant she sent 
 To help him along on his way as he went. 
 
 Then swift down the beanstalk Jack hurried away, 
 And reached his dear mother just at close of the day, 
 And he showed her his treasures, and oh, she was glad 
 Of the riches brought home by her brave little lad. 
 
 167 
 
Qolden the lances the sunshine dropped." 
 
 THE LEPER S CLEANSING. (1891.) 
 
 Bright shone the Sun within Judean skies; 
 
 The heavens were blue as the eye of love; 
 
 No cloud their brightness marred, no shadow fell 
 
 Save of the olive leaf and swaying palm, 
 
 Or cool rock by the wayside lifted high. 
 
 Golden the lances the sunshine dropped, 
 
 And softly twittered the birds within the trees, 
 
 And with cool breath the lightly whispering breeze 
 
 Swept onward, fragrance-laden, sweet and pure, 
 
 And men looked up and cried, "How fair the day! 
 
 And women smiled and said, "This life is sweet, 
 
 Tis joy to live with all the earth so fair." 
 
 And little children neath the olive trees 
 
 Let laughter gurgle like the rippling brook, 
 
 And peace seemed brooding over everything. 
 
 Swift broke the new day in the purple East, 
 
 With splendor crowned the crest of Olivet 
 
 O er which ran dimpling waves of rosy light, 
 
 And golden seas of shining amber flowed. 
 
 How like an opal hung the dome of sky, 
 
 The dew still sleeping in its hidden caves, 
 
 Then changed to gleaming sapphire as the Sun 
 
 Stole to Day s borderland, and then at length 
 
 Morn flung out crimson banners to the East, 
 
 And golden pennons streamed above the heights. 
 
 Then mid the swaying palms soft swelled the glad 
 
 Birds notes. The lark rose upward, singing to 
 
 The Sun, and poured its song into the ear 
 
 Of listening flowers; and, silver-tongued, 
 
 The brooks sang to the skies they mirrored, and 
 
 To the emerald hills and green-spreading 
 
 Vales. No signs of sin upon the world, for 
 
 It was fair as Eden. But as the Day 
 
 Sped on, while Morn yet lingered with her breath 
 
 Of balm and gentle breezes, a human 
 
 Flood came down the dusty way leading from 
 
 Bethany, each earnest face set toward 
 
 Jerusalem, whose sacred towers rose, 
 
 Parting the blue heaven, their gleaming 
 
 Gold answering the brightness of flashing 
 
 Sunbeams. 
 
 Amid the throng a Man with face 
 Serene and calm, the large eyes lustrous, the 
 Lips touched with the sweetness of divinest 
 Love; the brown hair parted o er his forehead s 
 Front, and flowing; backward like a cloud of 
 Light, and rippling o er his shoulders. Onward 
 He goes, the surging crowd pressing upon 
 His footsteps, thronging beside, before, behind. 
 But what has stirred them ! A shuddering cry, 
 A quick rush to the roadside, where hottest 
 Falls the unhindered sunshine. Why leave the 
 Shadow of the palm, and the pleasant shade 
 
 Of fig and olive? O look and pity! 
 
 "Unclean! Unclean!" The tremulous air hears 
 
 Shudderingly the cry, as there beneath 
 
 The olive s swaying boughs, upon the dusty 
 
 Wayside knelt the hideous leper. How 
 
 Stared the lidless eyes, and how foul with 
 
 Putrid sores the fleshless nostrils! Disease 
 
 The lips had eaten, and the long white hair 
 
 Was like a shroud about his face, and his 
 
 Withered, shriveled hands were colorless, and 
 
 Thin his fingers as the claws of birds. The 
 
 Multitude swept from him like a great wave 
 
 Receding from the shore all save One, who 
 
 Turned and looked upon him pityingly. 
 
 Then spake the leper: "Jesus, Thou Son of 
 
 David, have mercy on me!" "What wilt thou?" 
 
 Said the Master, and His voice was full of 
 
 Tenderness, and sweet as the melody 
 
 Of a lute his words did fall upon the 
 
 Leper s ear. "Lord, make me clean. Heal Thou this 
 
 Leprosy." Divine the voice that answered: 
 
 " I will ; be thou clean." Then sprang the leper 
 
 To his feet, and with uncovered face stood 
 
 In the sunlight. In his veins the warm, fresh 
 
 Blood began to circle, thrilling him with 
 
 Sense of health returning. Over his eyes 
 
 He felt expanding soft lids of tender 
 
 Flesh, fringed with dark lashes. The breath came sweet 
 
 Again within his nostrils, and all their 
 
 Foulness vanished. He touched them and felt once 
 
 More the velvet skin upon them, and felt 
 
 Again the bearded flesh above his lips 
 
 The lips rosy once more with health, and his 
 
 Hands he watched as they grew soft and warm, and 
 
 Supple with fresh strength. How soft his flesh! How 
 
 Show the blue veins through their clear covering ! 
 
 O what a delight to watch them as they change ! 
 
 Are they not beautiful, blue-veined and clean? 
 
 Then kneeling there before the silent throng 
 Who looked with wondering eyes upon him, 
 Cleansed and healed, he cried rejoicingly: "Tt 
 Is the Christ ! His word hath made me whole ! To 
 God, our Israel s God, the glory!" 
 
 FROM MY WINDOW. (1891.) 
 
 Oh, could I set this picture in sweet words, 
 
 What would ye see? A land fair as the light, 
 
 And green as the emerald worn upon 
 
 Young Beauty s finger. And you would think the 
 
 Earth was starred as is the sky at night, for 
 
 Everywhere blooms the gold-eyed daisy, 
 
 And on the hills the poppies, yellow as 
 
 The wine of sunset, stir at the soft kiss 
 
 Of wandering breezes, while the grasses 
 
 168 
 
Memnon. 
 
 Move as if tlie Earth s warm breast did lightly 
 
 Heave beneath them. Everywhere bloom and 
 
 Color fragrance-crowned, and bird-song, and the 
 
 Sound of buzzing bee, and butterflies, like 
 
 Wing6d blossoms in the opalescent air; 
 
 And little singing brooks, with voices like 
 
 A silver lute, or chime of bells on the 
 
 Dewy breast of Morn; and rainbow-winged flies; 
 
 And swaying vines; and orchards amber-sphered, 
 
 Their boughs filled with untwinkling juicy globes; 
 
 Days filled full of Summer s lingering breath, 
 
 As if her soul lay hidden somewhere in 
 
 The light, and breathed through it as a glad child 
 
 Does through its rosy lips. Then, mountain heights 
 
 That the Sun seems to brush in passing, and 
 
 The mist to fold in silver curtains, and 
 
 At their feet the fair hills, which are Summer s 
 
 Footstools, never touched by sheen of frost, the 
 
 Worshipers of the mountains, forever 
 
 Kneeling and offering perfumed incense 
 
 From their flowery censers. Over all 
 
 The sapphire dome of skies, so vast, so deep, 
 
 Eternity might sleep in them, and suns 
 
 Hide; and, beyond, the Sea, where heaven 
 
 Looks down to see its face; and white ships 
 
 That sail and seem to pass behind the blue 
 
 Of sky; and ocean isles, asleep upon 
 
 The silver of the tide ; and over these 
 
 The floods of sunshine, and the Earth lying 
 
 Like a maiden in her sleep, forever 
 
 Young and fair, smiling in pleasant dreams. 
 
 MEMNON. (1884.) 
 
 Out upon the sand-built plains, 
 
 Where the young world passed its prime, 
 Where the ages, vast and dim, 
 
 Backward stretch to earliest time, 
 Where Creation s morning hymn 
 
 Echoed in its strains sublime, 
 Memnon stands with face of stone, 
 
 Looking to the purple East, 
 Vast and solemn, standing lone, 
 
 Waiting for the golden light 
 Breaking round the coming Dawn; 
 
 All his pulses at the sight 
 Stirred to life, and in the warm 
 
 Soft, rosy touch which holds him there, 
 In the clasp of Morning s arms, 
 
 All his gray and solemn form 
 Thrills till from its lips of stone 
 
 Breaks the music that has stirred 
 Low and sweet upon the air 
 
 Since the day when Thebes was young. 
 
 Memnon, is some god of old 
 
 Prisoned in thy stony form, 
 Doing penance for untold 
 
 Works of sin and deeds of wrong? 
 Does the golden sunrise hold 
 
 Whispers only heard by thee, 
 Stirring all thy soul to bliss 
 
 Through their shining prophesy? 
 When the ages shall have gone, 
 
 At the touch of Morning still 
 
 Will your stony pulses thrill 
 Till you break your bonds of stone, 
 And your soul leaps glad and free, 
 
 Purified and purged from pain, 
 
 Led by Light to walk again? 
 Through the paths of olden days, 
 On the sandy plains of Thebes, 
 
 By the river of the Xile, 
 In the old historic ways 
 
 That the young world s heroes trod. 
 
 Here I pause the Morning breaks, 
 
 Pours its glory on his face, 
 
 And the low, sweet music s strain 
 
 Sounds across the sandy plain; 
 
 Memnon wakes to life again, 
 
 And akin he is, I know, 
 
 To the sunrise, and its kiss 
 
 Yet shall break the spell that holds 
 
 Memnon in its stony folds; 
 
 And he knows and waits for this. 
 
 THE OLD ADOBE. (1886.) 
 
 The winds have dropped asleep amid the palms, 
 
 Breathing but lightly, as if dreaming sweet 
 Of fragrant silence and of tropic calms; 
 
 And roses smile, as if the Summer s feet 
 Still lingered neath the shade of red-tiled roof, 
 
 Girt round with green of pepper-tree and lime 
 And fragrant heliotrope, which stands aloof 
 
 From the starred glory of the passion-vine. 
 
 The long line of the lilies tents is spread 
 
 Beneath the eucalypti s dropping shade; 
 And on the old adobe walls the red. 
 
 Warm chilis into long strings made 
 Strung by deft hands, the prison sunshine holds, 
 
 And to the roof, like flaming pillars, rise 
 Amid the vines, whose clasping arms enfold; 
 
 And, over all, December s sun-filled skies. 
 
 Beneath the broad veranda, sweeping round, 
 
 Within a quiet corner we may see. 
 On a rude bench, that leans toward the ground, 
 
 AM old-time olla, with its waters free 
 Unto each thirsty lip; and, in the tropic noon. 
 
 Cool as if frost-kissed; and the wild gourd s cup. 
 Yellow, as if the sunbeams, stealing down full sooi 
 
 Had in its sides been caught and gathered up. 
 
 Our glad lips press its thin brim s slender line, 
 And Noon seems breathing freer while we drink 
 
 Better than juice from purple-laden vine 
 The cool, pure water; and, musing, sit and think, 
 
 As if each breeze which plays around us there 
 A wind-blown inemorv had wafted o er us 
 
 109 
 
Unclassified Poems. 
 
 Its breath of romance, filling all the air 
 Of vanished races who were here before us, 
 
 Who piled these sunburnt bricks and reared these walls, 
 Facing the glorious sunshine of today, 
 
 Hoary as century-old baronial halls, 
 Crumbling, and falling into swift decay. 
 
 II. (1891.) 
 
 Its sunburnt bricks are hoary with old age, 
 
 Its red-tiled roof seems breathing of the past, 
 It is Romance s wide, unlettered page, 
 
 Round which the climbing ivy clingeth fast; 
 And wandering spiders spin their silver sheen 
 
 Their summer tents, swift-woven in the light 
 For camping armies, all its cracks between, 
 
 Through its small windows scarcely peeps the light. 
 
 Where the gay maids that in the long ago 
 
 Lived neath its roof, the midnight in their eyes, 
 
 And in their tones the liquid river s flow, 
 
 And in their smile the warmth of sunny skies? 
 
 AN EVENING PICTURE. (1892.) 
 
 The gracious starlight and the many stars, 
 The light winds sleeping in the arms of Eve, 
 
 And there, across the distant West, the bars 
 Swift fading that the sunset lights did weave. 
 
 A little brook sings sweetly to the hills, 
 
 A bird just twitters in its leafy nest, 
 A flower pours out its incense to the rills 
 
 Whose crystal feet so late the canon prest. 
 
 In golden lances falls the starlight down, 
 
 Each leaf hangs breathless on its slender stem; 
 
 The high Sierras, bare and vast and brown, 
 The crescent moon wear for their diadem. 
 
 The long road runs, a thread of dusty white; 
 
 Tis trodden now by many hurrying feet ; 
 The rising dust just blurs our watching sight, 
 
 As looking where the light and darkness meet, 
 
 Fainter and fainter grows the twilight gleam, 
 Clearer the starlight as the shadows fall, 
 
 More silvery the faint young moonlight s beam, 
 Till Night drops her mantle over all. 
 
 A MORNING OF THE LONG AGO. 
 
 It was hardly light, yet I sat at dawn 
 
 In the college tower on a summer s morn; 
 
 Beneath the lovely village lay, 
 
 And the beairtful park and far-off bay. 
 
 The mountains rose grand in the distant east, 
 
 And the tall trees stood like a bearded priest, 
 
 And "the birds sang east and the birds sang west," 
 
 As if made of song was each tiny breast. 
 
 Far off the green mounts lifted high 
 
 Their penciled lines against the sky; 
 
 The blue mounts rose in the faint, dim dawn, 
 
 Like shadow} heights just newly born, 
 And as Day drew near the clouds did rise 
 Like golden altars of sacrifice, 
 While the light winds stirred the forest trees 
 To sweetest of leaf-lipped harmonies. 
 
 But the village slept, and the college halls 
 
 Were as still as night; no light footfalls 
 
 Through their corridors dim, no eye but mine 
 
 Watched the horizon s far-off line 
 
 For the first faint light of the coming Sun 
 
 To chase away the shadows dim. 
 
 But I often climbed to watch the sky 
 
 As the dark, black wings of Night swept by, 
 
 And the glorious Dawn, with wings unfurled, 
 
 Sent light and music o er the world. 
 
 I leaned and listened and soon I heard 
 
 The first faint note of singing bird; 
 
 Twitter and peep, then out would pour 
 
 A tide of music the sweet world o er; 
 
 The Morn would her golden garments brush. 
 
 And her heart would leap to the singing thrush, 
 
 And the robin, with breast of scarlet hue, 
 
 Would sing as sweet as when Earth was new; 
 
 And quick neath the golden tides of light 
 
 The twinkling stars would sink from sight 
 
 Into the Somewhere with the Night, 
 
 And golden the tips of the mountain s crests 
 
 As on the blue of the sky they leaned to rest. 
 
 Oh, twas lovely to me! and it seemed as if 
 
 A new world were born, with beetling cliff 
 
 And meadows sweet with fragrant clover, 
 
 And trees with blossoms covered over; 
 
 And mountains, too, from out the dim, 
 
 The star-lighted spaces. The wild-bird s hymn 
 
 Fell sweet with the rolling river s song, 
 
 As twere singing, "a day, a day is born." 
 
 Hark! hark! "Sweet sweet, 
 
 Peep, peep; tweet, tweet." I heard 
 
 Right near me, there, where the old bell hung, 
 
 "Tweet, tweet," as the rising bell was rung, 
 
 And looking, I saw a little nest 
 
 Right on the verge of the belfry s crest; 
 
 Twas filled with eight little downy things, 
 
 Their feathers ungrown, their tiny wings 
 
 With scarce strength to stir; but the papa bird 
 
 Flew to a tree, and I never heard 
 
 A sweeter song than he poured so free 
 
 From his little throat, and I think that he 
 
 Was holding a family jubilee. 
 
 THE CLOUDS AND THE FAIRIES. 
 
 Just look and see the daisies 
 Lift up their shining faces 
 Unto the skies so blue, 
 As if they wondered who 
 Had set a-sailing there 
 The fleecy clouds so fair, 
 So very soft and white, 
 
 170 
 
The Soul of the Day. 
 
 And looking just as light 
 As a downy feather 
 Sailing all together 
 As if each one did hold 
 A fairy sailor bold, 
 Who might be on his way 
 To catch at close of day 
 When the moon should rise 
 So brightly in the skies- 
 Just a word or two 
 With the old man who 
 Lives within the moon. 
 Aha ! a merry tune 
 Would they sing together 
 In this pleasant weather. 
 Sing and float would they 
 Through the skies away 
 Fleecy clouds so white 
 In the full moonlight, 
 Each one holding, maybe, 
 Fairy knight and lady. 
 There! on the mountain summit, 
 One has lost her bonnet, 
 Golden-bright it s lying 
 With its strings a-flying. 
 
 Float, float little cloud-boats, 
 And daisies swing, 
 While the bluebells ring, 
 And soft their music floats, 
 Filling the meadows fair 
 And all the rain-washed air. 
 Ah ! when the Xight drops down 
 Over the fields and town, 
 Then, shining bright and clear 
 Will the stars draw near, 
 And they will softly peep, 
 While all the daisies sleep, 
 At the white clouds afloat, 
 And if each is a boat, 
 With a fairy in it, 
 They ll know it in a minute; 
 And over field and hill 
 The brightest star-beams will 
 Fall in a silver stream, 
 Where all the daisies dream, 
 And all the wood and hill 
 The fairy folk will fill. 
 They ll come from out the sky, 
 From each cloud floating by, 
 They ll steal from out the daisies, 
 With laughing, happy faces; 
 From dandelion and bluebell 
 You ll hear their laughter swell, 
 And they ll dance upon the green 
 Behind a cobweb screen. 
 With fiddle and with bow 
 There will the cricket go; 
 And there the butterfly 
 Will make a canopy 
 
 Of its soft wings, I ween, 
 Above the Fairy Queen. 
 Dancing on the hills, 
 Dancing by the rills, 
 Dancing in the meadows, 
 And in the forest shadows, 
 While we are asleep 
 So sound we cannot peep 
 Do the fairies go, 
 While soft breezes blow, 
 And the bluebells ring, 
 And the daisies swing, 
 Bowing as they pass 
 O er the bending grass. 
 Swing, O daisies! everywhere, 
 And ring, ye bluebells fair, 
 And to your music sweet 
 Shall the fairies feet 
 All keep time together 
 Through this moonlit weather. 
 
 THE SOUL OF THE DAY. 
 
 These beautiful days the air is awake, 
 
 Flooded with light like a spirit fair, 
 
 The soul of the Day in the sunshine lies, 
 
 And its glorious presence is everywhere. 
 
 Warm is its breath as it lieth still, 
 
 When the winds are asleep, nor breezes stir, 
 
 And the droop of its wings is over the hill 
 
 And the mountains are wrapped in the faintest blur 
 
 Of mist-touched light a veil whose haze 
 
 So soft and lambent fills the maze 
 
 Of sweeping distance; the mounts do lean 
 
 On the blue of the sky which shows between 
 
 The crested peaks like an open door, 
 
 While birds wing the dawn-kissed meadow o er, 
 
 And mid their dewy grasses sweet 
 
 Is the unheard tread of the Summer s feet. 
 
 AN EASTERN SUMMER SHOWER. 
 
 The shadows fell across my sunny porch, 
 
 The blooming roses leaned to kiss the Sun, 
 
 The striped bee struck up his merry hum, 
 
 And there the Sunflower his gay golden torch 
 
 Swung to the breeze, as, rippling, it did run 
 
 Down through the meadows where the grasses stood, 
 
 And through the myriad boughs of leafy wood. 
 
 The air grew dim with heat, the sleeping hills 
 Scarce cast a shadow on the burning noon 
 Teased by Cicada s shrill and rasping tune 
 There was no dew to moisten his small throat 
 The Sun had drunk each drop while yet the Morn 
 \\ ore them for diamonds, and the robin s note 
 Fell like a rain of music, while each flowery cup 
 Held its bright pearl, which from the deeps of stars 
 Had dropped so silently through Midnight s open bars. 
 
 171 
 
Unclassified Poems. 
 
 I saw a man move down the road s white thread, 
 While all the air was still as if twere dead 
 Save for the lines of heat that shimmered so 
 Like half-seen ripples on the Ocean s breast; 
 As o er the plain s wide space I saw him go. 
 He seemed a stain between me and the West, 
 So thick beneath his moving feet did rise 
 The white, dry dust that wrapped him there. 
 
 Then, later, all the atmosphere astir 
 Beat with quick pulse of swiftly-rising winds, 
 Breathing grand oratorios through the pines, 
 And lifting seas of dust, through whose dim blur 
 The Earth seemed rushing, like a ship at sea, 
 And giant cloudy Titans did arise, 
 Sweeping with lightning scimitars the skies, 
 And the black air was with loud thunders rent, 
 And leaned for strength upon the moveless hills, 
 Until the madness of its wrath was spent. 
 
 Then came a break. The oratorios poured 
 Through solemn heights of wooded oak and pine, 
 Dropped into golden hymns of swift sunshine; 
 And all the wide, sweet Earth was floored 
 With diamond drops; each baptized bush and tree 
 Burst into jeweled glory, and did shine 
 With prism d spheres where little rainbows hung, 
 And every swaying leaf had found a tongue, 
 And fields were clean, and skies were bright, 
 And Coolness laid her hand divine 
 Where erst so late the melting heat 
 Through all Earth s fevered pulses beat. 
 
 CLOUDS AND STARS. (1886.) 
 
 That little cloud I m sure has gone astray, 
 
 It is so very far. Gold-tinged, it lies 
 Along the amber glory of the West 
 
 That hidden door unto the farther skies 
 Where lingers lovingly the passing Day, 
 
 And piles up clouds of crimson for her crest. 
 
 The night wind steals through portals all unseen, 
 Ere says the Day good night unto the Earth 
 In what deep caves of air cloth it find birth? 
 
 And lo ! the starlight f alleth down between 
 The sunset and the night. One star, as soft 
 
 As Love s tears, with beams as liquid pure, 
 Shines on the threshold of departing day, 
 
 Like the pure opal of some crowned queen, 
 And watching it, I see it twinkle oft. 
 
 O Day ! it lights for thee thy untrod way 
 
 To that vast Somewhere hidden from our sight, 
 
 Mid the dim isles, girt round by soundless seas, 
 
 Where nothing lives but human memories, 
 
 And God s own presence, unto whom as one 
 
 Are days that were, and are, and days that are to come. 
 
 ART. (1896.) 
 
 O Art! thou wordless poet of all time, 
 Truth lives with thee and breathes divinest air. 
 Greatness is thine, and beauty thou dost share 
 With sky and earth and blooming things divine 
 In loveliness. All things of earth are thine, 
 And to the soul thou givest speech as fair 
 As its own whiteness, wordless thoughts which are 
 Hidden in being s deep to thrill and stir 
 Our inmost self to waking and delight- 
 That inmost self that we so little know, 
 That holds our human godhood as the burr 
 Holds the live seed whose life shall overflow 
 In tree or flower. What witchery is thine 
 That puts the world on canvas, hills aflame 
 With sunlight, and in palpitating glow 
 The broad lush meadows in the noonday heat 
 Lying a-dream; the river s onward flow, 
 Mirrored in ripples that so oft repeat 
 Themselves the river seems to smile and know 
 Itself alive with motion ; tis the same 
 That babbles to the sky outside our door, 
 The same sweet stream with willows bending o er, 
 With yellow butterflies o erwinging it, 
 While birds within the happy sunshine flit; 
 Yet Art somehow has seemed to give it soul, 
 Of sky, field, river, made a perfect whole. 
 
 PEACE. 
 
 August. (1898.) 
 
 Black-winged and huge, the cruel bird of War, 
 With sharp, strong talons and with bloody beak, 
 
 Brooded above the world within his claw 
 He held a nation bleeding, sore and weak, 
 
 Prostrate in utter helplessness and woe, 
 
 Its navies playthings of relentless Fate, 
 Its armies beaten by its watchful foe, 
 
 With Death forever marching in their wake. 
 
 Pence looked from far, from out her golden day, 
 
 Her morning luminous with rosy light, 
 The perfumed stillness on the silence lay, 
 
 Upon the air so shining, clear and white. 
 
 She stirred her wings, the waiting nations heard, 
 One note she sounded, sweet and soft and clear, 
 
 Sweeter than song of any wandering bird, 
 
 Pulsing through all the breathing atmosphere. 
 
 Great armies moving over sun-scorched plains 
 
 Breathed as if Dawn had touched them with her lips, 
 
 And Xoon s hot, fevered pulses, filled with pain, 
 Were cooled and soothed by her soft finger-tips. 
 
 Hearts which had throbbed like muffled drum-beats, slow, 
 Heavy with the sad torture of a nation s pain, 
 
 Threw off the grinding pressure of their woe, 
 As the strong oak lifts up its boughs again 
 
 172 
 
The 
 
 Star. 
 
 When the swift tempest passes. Peace! sweet peace, 
 Hail it as Love hails Love when she draws nigh; 
 
 Hail it as ye hail rest when pain doth cease, 
 Hail it as triumph for humanity. 
 
 Hail it as signal that Oppression s might 
 Is broke for aye, that tyrants nevermore 
 
 Shall beat a people down in Freedom s sight, 
 Nor fear her lifted arm will smite them sore. 
 
 THE EVENING STAR. 
 
 The sky, like one great shining sapphire, spreads 
 
 Above me here, undimpled by a cloud; 
 
 The stars are hid by th golden, flooding light 
 
 Of the sweet Day, filled with the perfumed breath 
 
 Of many flowers. The breezes play with 
 
 All the thousand leaves upon the many 
 
 Trees, till they ripple as with laughter in 
 
 The shining sunlight, and Day seems to smile 
 
 As if a soul were hidden in her breast. 
 
 The mountains gleam in soft and tender lights, 
 
 Growing in glory as the Noon draws near. 
 
 And then, transfigured in the sunset s glow 
 
 Stand glorified in wondrous colors there, 
 
 As if heaven opened wide her gates 
 
 And let her glory through. O the first star, 
 
 Outflashing in the West as daylight dies, 
 
 And velvet-footed Xight draws near, 
 
 All diademed with worlds! Bright star, 
 
 The whole world loves ye, and its eyes are lift 
 
 To watch your silent coming, as ye look 
 
 Forth alone upon the Earth, before the 
 
 Starry heavens marshal their countless hosts 
 
 To light the rayless dark that wraps the Vast 
 
 Above us. Ye seem as if ye were the 
 
 Kye of God, looking with tender light on 
 
 His great world as the Day passes, to see 
 
 How it hath fared, and what its many needs. 
 
 Thy tender light, it trembles in the skies 
 
 The far-off, brooding skies of Evening, warm 
 
 As with gracious pity for Earth s many 
 
 Woes, yet smiling with cheer and blessed hope 
 
 Of sweet Tomorrow s coming. Behind thee 
 
 March the universe of worlds. Behind them 
 
 All is God, Our Father; and looking up 
 
 To thee, I wait to see His face, for He 
 
 Holds thee and me within His loving care. 
 
 IN CHINATOWN. 
 
 Strange is the man before my vision now, 
 Dull, heavy-eyed, with low, receding brow, 
 Child of dead ages, not the living Now. 
 
 With manhood quenched, his wretched soul is dumb, 
 The weight of centuries on his shoulders hung, 
 With eyes nnlifted and with hopes unsung. 
 
 He knows no future, but Today is all ; 
 About him hangs dark Superstition s pall, 
 And specters follow where his footsteps fall. 
 
 The Holy Cross gleams near across the way, 
 The same sun shines upon it, the same day 
 Brightens outside as darkens where we stray. 
 
 Darkens within the temple where he kneels 
 
 To his dumb idols, and the daylight steals 
 
 Like some ghost s shadow which the dark reveals. 
 
 Smoking his pipe, his half-closed eyes grow dim, 
 
 Looking, you see only the beast in him 
 
 Not manhood s face nor manhood s strength of limb 
 
 Dark are the ways amid his hovels there, 
 
 The gambler s den is hidden in his lair, 
 
 And home, sweet home, is found not anywhere. 
 
 O Christ ! smile on this corner which doth lay 
 Like some dark blot upon the face of Day, 
 And let Hope s footsteps come along this way. 
 
 Let Faith s bright morning shed its holy ray 
 Along the haunts where these poor heathen stray, 
 And idol worship to God s love give way. 
 
 THE UNWRITTEN PAST. (1899.) 
 
 O the great Past ! How full it is of soul, 
 Of names undying and of deeds unsung! 
 
 Can pen be found to write its wondrous whole 
 To tell its story since the world begun? 
 
 How far and dim does Time s young morning stand 
 When Eden bloomed and all its fragrance poured 
 
 L T pon the wondrous, new-created land, 
 While in its womb was all the future stored. 
 
 How far the first young nation that did rise 
 To proud dominion in the distant East, 
 
 How faint the pennant neath the Orient skies 
 That marked the power of earthly king and priest. 
 
 O mighty Past ! Unwritten and unsung 
 
 Are deeds of glory and foul deeds of crime, 
 
 No voice amid thy silences has flung 
 With a world-crash whose terror was sublime 
 
 Words that would tell thy inmost deeds of wrong, 
 Such as smite Heaven as with a sense of woe, 
 
 Nor wove into the melody of song 
 
 Grand deeds unnumbered that but God doth know. 
 
 When that last day of judgment comes to men, 
 When God s great book is opened and we see 
 
 Each thought, each deed of all the race, O then 
 How shall we tremble at man s history ! 
 
 Tremble at wrong, yet in joy, in goodness, too, 
 Wonder at love and all its holy fire, 
 
 Humble ourselves before our God anew, 
 And loving Him, to higher life aspire. 
 
 173 
 
Unclassified Poems. 
 
 OUR TWO WORLDS. 
 
 On snowy heights white Winter sits enthroned, 
 
 Above our smiling valleys emerald clad, 
 
 Where Summer lingers with the closing Year, 
 
 And with her dainty fingers weaves his crown 
 
 His fragrant crown of buds and flowers. 
 
 We see old AVinter s face, his icy wand 
 
 Clasped by his frozen fingers as he leans 
 
 His head on the far blue of heaven, 
 
 Sitting the monarch of that mountain world. 
 
 We do not feel his breath, he is so far 
 
 From our sweet vales, nor e en the touch of frost. 
 
 The golden orange swings its ripening spheres 
 
 Amid its full-leaved boughs of green; 
 
 The happy birds a sweet rich tide of song 
 
 Pour on the sunny air ; the wild bees hum 
 
 Is like an undertone of melody; 
 
 The flies are rainbow-winged and swim in light, 
 
 The cricket chirps his hymn amid the grass, 
 
 And bright-winged butterflies do gaily pass, 
 
 And sip sweet nectar from the blooming flowers; 
 
 The green grass blades are lifted to the Sun, 
 
 The spider s web upon their tips is hung, 
 
 And all this lower world is bright as June, 
 
 Sun, stars and earth and everything in tune 
 
 With Summer gladness. But, oh, lift your eyes! 
 
 See Winter s robes are round him on the heights, 
 
 His snowy mantle wraps his shoulders round; 
 
 His footstool is the frozen cataract 
 
 Where the hushed thunders of the waters lie. 
 
 Two worlds we see, the one of chill and frost, 
 
 The other where all chill and frost are lost; 
 
 Cradled in sunshine lies this lower world, 
 
 Cradled in cold the upper, where is hurled 
 
 The snowy avalanche against the rocks 
 
 Which feel the thrill of the wild tempest s shocks. 
 
 O valley lands ! We love your summer heart, 
 
 Lovely are ye and never ye have part 
 
 With Winter s life, which stands upon the crest 
 
 Of those vast heights where cloudy specters rest. 
 
 There Winter frowns, here lovely Summer smiles, 
 
 And all the cares of weary Time beguiles. 
 
 IN THE FIELDS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 (An address to Chautauqua graduates assembled at Long 
 
 Beach, Cal., August 28, 1885.) 
 
 While standing here I hear the tramping 
 
 Of many thousand feet; 
 They are passing from life s levels, 
 
 They are toiling up the steep, 
 Reaching out for higher knowledge, 
 
 For a better vanfage ground, 
 And Chautauqua s ever-widening Circle 
 
 Xobly, grandly clasps them round. 
 See what glorious heights ! what summits ! 
 
 What vast fields of knowledge gleam, 
 Like some Nebo s mount of vision, 
 
 Whence the Promised Land is seen. 
 
 Nevermore life s lower levels 
 
 Will their feet contented tread, 
 Nevermore the dusky twilight 
 
 While Truth s sun shines overhead. 
 
 Live to our vision, old and vanished thrones, 
 
 And mighty peoples that long since have passed; 
 We hear the sound of warfare, and the groans 
 
 Of dying thousands, and the angry blast 
 Of trumpets, and we see the shining spears 
 
 Bristling along the heights, the arrows sped, 
 The captured cities, womanhood in tears, 
 
 And murdered captives with their children dead. 
 
 Through the vast empire of the vanished years, 
 
 Where not an echo answers to our tread, 
 Whose only rivers are of human tears, 
 
 Whose only people are the silent dead, 
 Whose only cities are the ruins old 
 
 Of palace halls and fallen temples shrine, 
 And broken columns stony white and cold 
 
 Time s marble ghosts that mock the pale moonshine; 
 To ancient Thebes upon the far-off Nile, 
 
 To buried cities on Italia s plains, 
 In the warm sun of ancient Egypt s smile, 
 
 To mighty Rome, where godlike Caesar reigns; 
 To the dim twilight that before the dawn 
 
 Of England s day lay cold upon its isles, 
 We wander on; again above it all 
 
 Glorious and warm the living sunlight smiles. 
 
 Wide opes for us the starry deep of skies, 
 
 We trace its golden page, its story con, 
 To the far North the Bear before us flies, 
 
 While through the East comes giant Orion, 
 Standing with arm uplift sublimely grand, 
 
 Marching all night the highway to the West, 
 With his broad shield within his outstretched hand, 
 
 Through which not mighty Mars could pierce his breast. 
 There s not one golden star that gilds the Night, 
 
 One shining world within its starry crown, 
 One planet woven in its lyre of light 
 
 But sends a heavenly message to us down. 
 We hear the sounding music of the spheres, 
 
 And catch the keynote of their heavenly strain, 
 As circling down the pathway of the years 
 
 They sound anew Creation s grand refrain. 
 
 Ye who have trod our Circle s fullest round, 
 
 Your lives have broadened like the world at Dawn 
 As it steals onward from the darkened bound 
 
 Of the Night s shadow, and the Day is born. 
 Fair Truth has bridged your dark ravines of Doubt, 
 
 And History spanned the chasms of the years; 
 Astronomy her star-sown paths spread out, 
 
 Creation s story on the rocks appears; 
 Art in her marble poems you have read, 
 
 And in divine Comedia have seen 
 The wondrous pictures that her brush has spread 
 
 In colors true the centuries between. 
 
 174 
 
Mid Olden Days. 
 
 For you the kings of noble Thought draw near, 
 
 You mingle with them and your hear their speech; 
 You listen! Shakespeare fills your wondering ear, 
 
 You clasp great Pindar s hand, and walk with each 
 Philosopher of those far ancient days; 
 
 You catch Hypatia s words, you silent steal 
 With Socrates along familiar ways; 
 
 You walk with Bryant, and with him you kneel 
 Within the groves, the temples vast and grand 
 
 The God-built temples of the world s first years, 
 Then you with Solon and with Raphael stand, 
 
 With Galileo catch the music of the spheres. 
 
 With all this conquered realm of human thought, 
 Life still will broaden as you onward go; 
 
 Be yours like theirs, who long since lived and wrought, 
 "The godlike power to do, the godlike aim to know." 
 
 MID OLDEN DAYS. (1893.) 
 
 The palms and peppers swaying o er my head 
 
 Are like new friends, with faces strange and sweet ; 
 
 They were not in my childhood, I did meet 
 
 In those young days, which now so long have fled, 
 
 But oak and beech, and the great pines which led 
 
 The forest armies; somber, grand and tall 
 
 They stood, like monarchs looking over all 
 
 The wooded hosts encircling their feet. 
 
 And there its torch the flaming maple lit, 
 
 When Autumn came, and all the world grew bright 
 
 With gold and scarlet, and the mellow light 
 
 Of Autumn suns, and happy I did sit, 
 
 Breathing sweet Childhood s air, while watching flit 
 
 The year s last birds across the high, far blue, 
 
 While fell the dead leaves round me, colored through 
 
 With splendor like Summer s sunset light. 
 
 Golden the haze that Autumn s fingers drew 
 Across the skies and glowing deeps of air, 
 While days lay cradled, as if dreaming there 
 Of Summer gone, of blossoms and the dew 
 With its white gems clear, shining through 
 Spring s emerald grasses, till, day by day, 
 The hills grew dun, and all the woods were gay 
 In scarlet riot till they all were bare. 
 
 And then to noisy roar the river woke, 
 And marshaled clouds grew angry with the storm, 
 And myriad snowflakes from their bosoms broke, 
 And mid the snowdrifts was the Winter born. 
 
 OUR SUMMER WORLD. (1893.) 
 
 The world is full of sunshine, full of song; 
 Birds sing rejoicingly and pour their tide 
 Of tuneful melody from bush and tree 
 The happy birds whose life is song, whose breath 
 Is music. God must love them well and hold 
 Them in His tender care; not a sparrow, 
 Even, falleth to the ground but that He 
 Seeth it. And note the insects hum, which 
 
 Brimmeth o er with gladness; it is a song 
 
 The happy things breathe through their wings unto 
 
 The fragrant air breathe through all their tiny 
 
 Frames to the great world, with suns and 
 
 Stars filling the vault above, like dust from 
 
 God s own fingers dust of light from the far, 
 
 Pave of heaven. The butterflies, those winged 
 
 Jewels which flutter in the Summer air, 
 
 Feeding on net-tared sunbeams, and on the 
 
 Hidden honey of the flowers, dot the 
 
 Sweet air with beauty. The crickets chirp in 
 
 Undertones a note of merrymaking; 
 
 The caterpillar his many colors 
 
 Shows unto the light. The rivers tinkle 
 
 Softly as they flow; the grass lifts up its 
 
 Tiny blades where fall caressingly the 
 
 Golden sunbeams; and the flowers, like God s 
 
 Smile, brighten all things, while their 
 
 Delicious odors, sweet as melody 
 
 That thrills our hearts unspeakably as melts 
 
 Sound into Silence, make Earth seem still as 
 
 If twere Eden. A fountain drops its pearls 
 
 And pours its diamonds sparkling with the 
 
 Light upon the emerald sward. A happy 
 
 Song-bird dips its beak and splashes its small 
 
 Wings within the mimic sea, then into 
 
 Notes that hold the gladness of air, sky and 
 
 Sun, and green-boughed trees, and tiny opening 
 
 Bud, and perfect flower, and ever-flowing 
 
 Streams, and hum of bees, and sound of children s 
 
 Laughter it breaks, till all the wide, glad space 
 
 Receives its baptism of song. God s world is fair, 
 
 The blue sky smiles, the sunshine sheds its gold, 
 
 The mountains lift their faces to the Sun, 
 
 The shining rivers crystal-footed run, 
 
 And every day is the same story told, 
 
 In God s great world of beauty manifold. 
 
 Tongued silences and odors rich as wine, 
 
 And colors, language-laden, all combine 
 
 To speak the glory of this Summer-World divine. 
 
 COCOANUT ISLAND HILO BAY. 
 
 A fairy island dreaming on the deep; 
 
 The cool palm shadows, lying as asleep 
 
 In the clear waters circling the green land, 
 
 Where, in their gracious beauty, they do stand 
 
 Waving their feathery branches. Everywhere 
 
 The sea is motionless and gleaming fair 
 
 As silver in the sunlight. To the beach 
 
 The slow tide s silver fingers reach; 
 
 The light waves creep with lapping sound 
 
 To the low points, and linger round, 
 
 Leaving soft kisses on their tender green; 
 
 And diamond drops of water hide between 
 
 The moss-grown rocks, like emeralds lain 
 
 On the green isle s breast, and resting there, 
 
 With plumage sun-like, tropically fair, 
 
 Are strange, bright birds, whose songs, if songs they ing, 
 
 Must be most marvelous, to match the wing 
 
 175 
 
Unclassified Poems. 
 
 In beauty and completeness; and skies lean, 
 Like a clear, shining sapphire, o er the green, 
 Fair island. Water and sky meet on the brim 
 Of the horizon s verge, and the clear Night, dim 
 At first with its few shining stars, as drops 
 O er the sea and plumy palm-trees, tops 
 The darkness, brightens with glowing light 
 Of countless star-worlds breaking on the sight, 
 Noiselessly as if new-born within the vast 
 Infinity of ether. A mirror cast 
 The waveless sea, and in its pulseless deeps 
 Another sky with all its star-worlds sleeps. 
 
 WHITTIER. (1893.) 
 
 Great souls there are who live and pass from earth, 
 
 Leaving a glory brightening with the years, 
 
 As plainer to us in their lives appears 
 
 The angel that was hidden in their worth. 
 
 Their thoughts were like a garden where no dearth 
 
 Of flowers or beauty is, and where gleam 
 
 Colors with sweetness blended, like a dream 
 
 Of heaven scarce touched with tint of earth. 
 
 Such was thy life, O poet whom we sing! 
 
 Thy songs were like the Day-Star shining clear 
 
 When Dawn nears and the Night is swift to close; 
 
 Hope shone forth in them; Freedom, wakening, rose 
 
 From their tongued deeps, no longer blind and dumb, 
 
 The slaves chains loosed, their longed-for noon had come. 
 
 METEORIC SHOWERS. 
 
 (Midnight on Echo Mountain, 1894.) 
 
 Bending above us is Night s cloudless blue, 
 The moon afar sinking within the west, 
 Blushing deep red as on the Ocean s breast 
 
 A moment lingering ere she sinks from view, 
 Saying good-night to all the many stars, 
 And all the many hills. The planet Mars 
 
 Uprises soon, and looks upon us there, 
 
 Sitting to watch each meteor s passing glare. 
 
 We sit so still, so wonderingly we gaze 
 
 On the wide, starry deeps! Out from the North, 
 From its far silence swiftly shooting forth, 
 
 Come the bright strangers through the pathless ways, 
 Trailing their light past sleeping planets high, 
 Past starry suns that twinkle where they fly 
 
 Through midnight silences, as if to light 
 
 To some sky chamber hidden from our sight. 
 
 What is your mission, ye swift-fleeting things, 
 And what your meaning? Are ye messengers 
 With a God-word to some new world that stirs 
 
 Instinct with soul-life, which immortal springs 
 In the new morning of some starry dawn? 
 Or there amid the stars is some grand science born 
 
 Of higher knowledge that can transmit thought 
 
 From world to world some science man has not? 
 
 Are ye the flash signs on electric waves 
 
 That sweep the universe, sent by star-souls 
 To other star-souls, wheresoever rolls 
 
 This unseen tide, which, viewless, ever laves 
 Created vastness, or but fiery dust 
 Of mighty comets which is earthward thrust 
 
 From the vast spaces of their boundless sweep 
 
 Into the vortex of our starry deep? 
 
 We musing sit, while in the dewy dark 
 The valley sleeps, but like another sky, 
 Filled full of stars, beneath us it does lie, 
 
 Its shining lights but the electric spark 
 
 Which man has caught, imprisoned by his skill, 
 And made the servant of his tireless will; 
 
 And shall he yet from far-off star to star 
 
 Make it his courier that shall the bar 
 
 Of the world Silence lift and give us speech 
 Earth with the planets? Ruddy Mars we see 
 And long to pierce his shining mystery. 
 
 Can we not find some messenger to reach 
 His starry threshold through electric might, 
 Making a pathway for us through the Night 
 
 Speech-paved? O shining Mars! Men halting wait 
 
 Some open sesame through thy blazing gate. 
 
 THE MODERN PRINTING-PRESS. (1895.) 
 
 What power is it that makes Today so great, 
 
 This new Tomorrow of old Time so fair 
 
 So different from its Yesterdays? What 
 
 Has broadened so our thought-horizons? Ah! 
 
 Tis that upon the wide expanse of life 
 
 The world is thrown; the lettered Press tells all 
 
 Its daily history. The days are no 
 
 More fruitless than in elder years, when men, 
 
 With slow, uneager eyes, wrought each alone, 
 
 Undreaming of his brother, and feeling 
 
 Seldom the warm, subtle touch of spirit. 
 
 Not as now in those old days did we clasp 
 
 Hands sunset with sunrise, and read the whole 
 
 World s story, pulse answering pulse, while all 
 
 Girded themselves for Progress. L T nto us 
 
 Some new marvel doth each hour, each day bring 
 
 To be brooded on; some new thought, or some 
 
 High purpose that shall move mankind, nor let 
 
 The race slip downward. Ah, mightier than 
 
 The Sword the hands of those who guide the Pen, 
 
 And lift the sleepy lids of ignorance, 
 
 Make plain the unguessed riddles of our lives. 
 
 Tis they who make these later days so great. 
 
 Invention hath wrought for them and builded 
 
 For them Time s latest wonder the Modern Press. 
 
 Looking at this gigantic, iron-ribbed 
 
 And noisy monster, like some hugh Cyclops 
 
 Feeding on the white-webbed and letterless 
 
 Paper, which in a breath it draws through its 
 
 Vast frame, leaving the impress on it of 
 
 The great world s action the story of the 
 
 Way God hath ruled men since Yesterday telling 
 
 176 
 
and tlie Stars. 
 
 What Change hath wrought and white-faced Purity, 
 
 And what black and hydra-headed Crime hath 
 
 Done; how Peace hath smiled and grim-visaged War 
 
 Hath breathed with threatening thunders; how winds have 
 
 Swept with cyclonic footsteps, and mighty 
 
 Floods surged through river arteries and burst 
 
 Them, leaping on the land and swallowing 
 
 .Men like atoms; how, in high 
 
 Places, men have hatched out party schemes, and 
 
 The smooth robber, wearing Friendship s guise filched 
 
 Gold with treacherous speech from trusting dupes; 
 
 How Science hath sped on, unveiling wonders, 
 
 Till all the Story of a Day is told 
 
 In one short moment s space. I could but marvel, 
 
 While self spake with self, and said, this wondrous 
 
 Iron Thing is clothed upon with mind; human 
 
 Thought is on it like a garment. Not a 
 
 Wheel but is mind-touched and inspired to 
 
 Action. Xot a revolving cylinder, 
 
 Or a swift-rolling belt, rushing like a flying 
 
 Comet, but is the full embodiment 
 
 Of inventive thought. It is marvelous ! 
 
 A creation almost godlike in its 
 
 Completeness. Unimpressionable, yet 
 
 Quick answering to the sway of mind ! 
 
 Thoughts leaping from its metal ringers as if 
 
 A human brain filled all the massive iron 
 
 Frame, and thought stirred at the lever s touch to 
 
 Finest action ! O the age is great ! Men, 
 
 Will and matter, dead, inert and senseless, 
 
 Thrill like a living soul and stand forth in 
 
 Wondrous combinations, each complicate 
 
 Machine doing the work of scores of 
 
 Brawny arms, as if God said unto the 
 
 World, "Hest and let Matter serve thee." 
 
 NIGHT AND THE STARS. (1891.) 
 I sat the other eve beneath the tent 
 Of starlit sky. Those shining worlds swinging 
 Through space so infinite, through voids so vast, 
 Made not a sound that my dull ear could hear. 
 The wind, soft-stirring as an infant s breath, 
 Brought me but fragrance of the blooming flowers, 
 But ne er a sound wafted from sun or star. 
 
 There Heaven s warrior with his mighty shield- 
 Orion old as Time, marched, as he has 
 Marched since first the Earth began, with lifted 
 Arm, sublimely threatening all the starry 
 Powers. That polar monster, the Ursa Major 
 Of the skies, turned changeless front the frozen 
 Pole unto, as if to find the hidden 
 Chambers of the cold. Cassiopea 
 Leaned like a goddess in her regal chair, 
 Her robes all star-fringed and her eyes shining 
 With light. Andromeda, the glory of 
 All starry worlds upon her forehead, filled 
 The near heavens with beauty. Perseus, 
 Still watching her, and all the constellated 
 Worlds familiar with her story, stood by, 
 
 Twinkling with gladness. The Milky Way, 
 
 Thick-sown with worlds as is the ocean s deep 
 
 With water drops, stretched to infinity 
 
 Beyond the farthest ken of human 
 
 Vision, farther than thought can range into 
 
 The unknowable realm of God s untrod 
 
 Kternity. The Night breathed stillness. The 
 
 Beaded dew sparkled like diamonds where 
 
 The white-robed lily stood, and on the rose which 
 
 With bowed head her rosary seemed telling, 
 
 The odor of the violet was like 
 
 The breath of angels, and the swaying boughs 
 
 Or palm and orange stirred like holy wings 
 
 Of hovering seraphs, while down the ages 
 
 To my inner ear came ringing like a 
 
 Breath outblown from those constellated worlds 
 
 That Gloria in Etcelsis which the 
 
 Psalmist sang: "The heavens declare the glory 
 
 Of our Father God, and wherever shine 
 
 These worlds of His, His voice is heard. 
 
 Day unto day doth utter speech, while night 
 
 Unto night doth knowledge boundless show." And 
 
 Then it seemed as if the stars did all their 
 
 Faces lift, worshiping in stillness, while 
 
 A soft, white mist crept landward from the sea, 
 
 Veiling the sky in folds diaphanous, 
 
 1 h rough which white moonbeams fell in silver silence. 
 
 IN VALE AND ON HEIGHT. (1892.) 
 
 I walk within the quiet garden places, 
 
 Where tropic palms and orange blossoms grow, 
 
 And gay poinsettias upward lift their faces 
 Above the whiteness of the lily s snow. 
 
 Where roses bloom in all their fragrant splendor, 
 
 And modest violets open to the light, 
 Ana morning-glory bells ring soft and tender, 
 
 A faint, sweet requiem for the passing Xight. 
 
 Where fuchsias swing and blush in radiant gladness. 
 
 And lilies lift their censers to the Sun, 
 And the glad bree/es riot in their madness. 
 
 Kissing each blossom as they onward run. 
 
 Where purple pansies dream in quiet beauty, 
 And sweet alyssum pours its fragrant wine, 
 
 And with the emblems of man s highest duty 
 The Cross and Crown swayeth the passion-vine. 
 
 But here, above these vales where Summer lingers. 
 
 Lying on softest bed of grasses green, 
 Slipping the stars upon his frozen fingers. 
 
 From the far mounts does hoary Winter lean. 
 
 Brothers of Time these monumental mountains, 
 The valley s sentinel who guard and keep 
 
 Our vales made verdant with snow-melted fountains 
 Which from their sides in crystal streamlets leap. 
 
 Grand are these mounts with planets circling near the 
 Hearing the songs of star-worlds and of suns. 
 
 With clash of winds the mighty tempests cheer them, 
 With Gloria in Ejrcelnis rivers run. 
 
 177 
 
Unclassified Poems. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BROWNING.* (1886.) 
 
 He is no man of the people, for the people know him not, 
 They but catch the veriest tatters of his soul-wrought 
 
 mystical thought; 
 
 He dwelleth above them, breatheth an air whose light 
 They have never looked on, never have seen through 
 
 their night. 
 
 It is alight with the flashes of soul, it is full of the deep 
 Flood of feeling, and full of the sentient sweep 
 Of fancies that soar, broad-winged, to the skies, 
 Of soul-walks, where lonely he wanders, truths hidden 
 and dim to surprise. 
 
 Let us walk in the way that he s traversed, 
 let us gather his books 
 
 And look them carefully over, and tread in the humble 
 nooks 
 
 Of his fancies the highest we never may reach, 
 
 Unless some ladder he s dropped, some wide-open stair 
 way of speech. 
 
 Let us take now, for instance, his story, the 
 
 one we so often have read, 
 Of Christmas Eve in the church we ll follow him softly, 
 
 we ll tread 
 
 Till all the quaint scene that he pictures opens to sight, 
 Till we see the "little old- faced peaking sister," and 
 
 the chapel s wonderful light. 
 
 Wonderfully real the scene that he paints there 
 we see it again, 
 
 The old fat woman purring with pleasure, "the shoe 
 maker s lad," and the men 
 
 Snuffing "the dew of Heaven," as they sit there at their 
 ease 
 
 Quiet of conscience are they, self-righteous, with noth 
 ing to tease 
 
 Or to fret them. How full of disgust does he fill us, 
 as holding them up 
 
 In the light of dissection he pulls them apart. The 
 horrible rut 
 
 Which grovelers tread in he makes us to see, and with 
 him we turn 
 
 To go out of the chapel, away from the crowd, with feel 
 ings that yearn 
 
 Toward the skies. How pure are the stars ! 
 
 How grand is the sweep of the sky ! 
 How holy its silence! The clouds like God s 
 
 garments sweep by! 
 
 We grow calm; we rise upward, and seemingly near, 
 God speaketh to us; in mountains and stars 
 
 His voice do we hear. 
 
 And then, oh, what vision he brings to our gaze as 
 
 we look 
 As we stand in this grand colonnade Geth- 
 
 semane shook 
 Once with the presence He brings to our sight. 
 
 He makes us to see 
 *Read at a Chautauqua Assembly, July 19, 188C. 
 
 Not the world, not the grandeur of night witli 
 
 its stars and its sea, 
 But something holier far a presence the hem 
 
 of whose robe 
 Is dropping with mercy no face does the 
 
 tremulous globe 
 Of his vision behold, only the back of a form 
 
 in vesture of white; 
 His soul leaps to the fact of the God-Christ 
 
 he feasteth his sight 
 
 On the figure receding through the storm he 
 leadeth us still 
 
 In the visions he sees, the questions he pon 
 ders; the force of his will 
 
 Is as the sweep of a wing. His faith it is 
 strong, it is pure, it is high, 
 
 A mirror of truth and of trust, a broad open 
 door to the sky. 
 
 But what is the lesson taught in the poem 
 
 which we have read, 
 Which is running through and through it 
 
 like a shining golden thread, 
 While he waits as if God s finger had hushed 
 
 him to silence there, 
 As not knowing the way to worship he stands 
 
 in the house of prayer 
 
 Or follows the Christ laying hold, in despair 
 of the hem 
 
 Of his vesture, with all his soul s needs look 
 ing up to him then? 
 
 Study it closely, read it well, and the golden 
 thread will glow 
 
 Like a plumb-line dropped from the Living 
 Love to the love of hearts below. 
 
 Mid the pomp and the glitter of worship, the 
 
 snarl of the creeds 
 That are dead with formality, dry as dust, 
 
 unfit for the needs 
 
 Of the soul that is faint in its quest for the truth, 
 He stands with his soul full of hunger, 
 
 "forms burlesque and uncouth," 
 
 Neath which he sees the disguise of the 
 
 Tempter, his trap to ensnare, 
 Weary of "the pig-of-lead-like presence" of 
 
 the preacher there. 
 Mid the lull in the wind and the rain, with 
 
 the moon risen high, 
 He flings himself out from the chapel to 
 
 breathe neath the infinite sky. 
 
 Away from the truths falsely twisted, in the 
 
 fog of conceit 
 And of ignorance looming immense, yet 
 
 looking unmeet 
 
 178 
 
Morning. 
 
 For the soul, shedding no light but dim rays 
 
 that never could guide 
 The soul out of darkness, he seeks for the 
 
 Christ; whate er should betide 
 
 This guest he must keep. The rivers run to 
 
 the sea, the stars roll 
 In their infinite orbits, and so ever perforce 
 
 must man s soul 
 
 Tend upward to God straight up through the world 
 To the heart of its Maker, there to rest. God s 
 
 love is unfurled 
 
 In its tenderness, and the poet, if I read 
 
 him aright, 
 Feels that form of worship the best for his soul 
 
 that lifts him quite 
 Face to face with his Father, through no 
 
 trammel of creed, 
 Or dead forms to shut from his soul s sight 
 
 its infinite need 
 
 Of forgiveness. God s measureless love is 
 
 his cradle of rest ; 
 Like the sunlight tis round him; he would 
 
 stand where tis best 
 For him and the world of his brothers; a 
 
 pathway, maybe, 
 So creed-paved, he d stumble, may help them 
 
 to walk, and perchance thus to see 
 
 Through the form and the symbol what else 
 would be hid to their sight; 
 
 Some must feel their way through the dark 
 ness while some walk in the light. 
 
 But strong are the pinions of faith which our 
 poet hath spread, 
 
 And sure is the sweep of his wings from the 
 earth to his God overhead. 
 
 MORNING. 
 The luminous Morn stands on the hills, 
 
 Day lifts her eyelids, fringed with golden beams, 
 
 The birds sing as if waking from Night s dreams; 
 And gladness the wide realm of Nature fills, 
 While gurgling laughter from the tiny rills 
 
 Mingles with the wind s breath; the tall trees gleam 
 With the first sunrays; each grassy blade 
 Is pearl-tipped; Sunlight and Shade 
 
 Clasp hands beneath the many trees, 
 While overhead, all yellow-winged and fair, 
 
 Soul of a flower, the butterfly 
 Findeth a pathway through the sunny air, 
 
 Afar I see, as if another sky, 
 The hushed Sea s breast, its great heart still, 
 
 Its waves soft-lapping the white sands, 
 As if twere mother of some sleeping rill 
 Twere loath to wake; the islands fill 
 Wide spaces on the harbor s breast, 
 Like rounded emeralds on the waters prest. 
 
 I 
 
 179 
 
 High and still higher the bright sun climbs, 
 
 Kisses the earth like some new lover, 
 Stirred by its beauty, passionate 
 With the warm blood of youth innate 
 
 With tenderness; his warm beams hover 
 Where buds sleep and blossoms ope their eyes, 
 Where trees tower upward to the skies, 
 Reaching for heaven; the mosses cling 
 To earth, but still the sun gazes 
 With loving eye upon their faces 
 Touching them softly till they smiling yield 
 To his fond wooing. Forest and field, 
 
 And all the wide sea s restless heart, 
 And all the singing birds and running brooks 
 
 Share now his touch, and all have part 
 In the day s glory. Into forest nooks, 
 Some glad beams steal silently, and make 
 Glory, and life, and loveliness awake. 
 
 Berkeley, November, 1894. 
 
 THE OTHER DAY. 
 
 Oh, did you see the dappled sky 
 
 The other day? 
 A thousand little airy things 
 Which looked like snowy birds whose wings 
 Were all so widely spread to fly, 
 
 Were floating in the blue away, 
 
 The other day. 
 
 They called them clouds, but I could see, 
 
 The other day, 
 
 An angel there with smiling face, 
 And there a lovely woman trace; 
 And something which did seem to me 
 
 A mighty ship with pennons gay, 
 
 The other day. 
 
 I wonder where within the air, 
 
 The other day, 
 
 The <rolden ship was sailing to; 
 I saw one star a-peeping through 
 The sunset gates so bright and fair, 
 
 While drifted slow the clouds away, 
 
 The other day. 
 
 Oh, where is Fairyland so bright? 
 
 The other day 
 
 I dreamed it lay below the West, 
 Or else above the mountain s crest. 
 And that those clouds so fleecy white 
 
 Were sailing to its isles of light, 
 
 The other day. 
 
 What did they find in Fairyland 
 
 The other day? 
 Perhaps a little girl like me, 
 Perhaps some birdie singing free, 
 Perhaps a boy upon the strand 
 
 Among the star-worlds there at play, 
 
 The other dav. 
 
Unclassified Poems. 
 
 SWEET CONTENT. (1904.) 
 
 I wish that a little bird were I, 
 
 Singing beneath the cloudless sky, 
 
 Singing, just singing the whole day through, 
 
 Under the beautiful sunny blue. 
 
 And Johnny looked with a longing gaze 
 Down through the beautiful sunlit ways, 
 Where a bird poured forth from a leaf-clad tree 
 A song of the richest melody. 
 
 And I wish that I were a rosy fair, 
 Filling with sweetness the summer air, 
 Just a rose, said Jenny to me, 
 Pretty as this white rose you see. 
 
 Then little Mary, with eyes so blue, 
 And clust ring curls of a golden hue, 
 And a lovely dimple just tucked in 
 Like a rose-leaf pure in her pretty chin, 
 Just mamma s girl I d rather be, 
 Like God did make when He made me. 
 
 BUTTERFLIES AND BEES. (1884.) 
 
 Sweet little butterfly, 
 
 Roaming mid the flowers, 
 Gay be your happy life 
 
 Through the bright summer hours. 
 Lift, lift your golden wings, 
 
 And through the sunny sky 
 Float at your own sweet will, 
 
 O darling butterfly! 
 
 And pretty honey-bee, 
 
 Now singing on your way, 
 Sipping sweets from the rose, 
 
 O stay with me, I pray; 
 Here the golden sunshine 
 
 Smiles all the whole year long, 
 And never comes a day 
 
 When birds forget their song. 
 
 And the lilies blossom, 
 
 And the roses smile, 
 Laughing in the sunshine, 
 
 Nodding all the while, 
 As if they had some secrets 
 
 They would like to tell, 
 Some happy little story 
 
 Hid in leaf or bell. 
 
 I wonder if they tell it. 
 
 To the butterflies and bees, 
 Or the birds that sing 
 
 Within the leafy trees? 
 If they do, honey-bees, 
 
 Won t you come this way, 
 And buzzing softly, tell me 
 
 What it is they say? 
 
 THE BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Little butterfly, with your golden wing, 
 Are you a child of the Sun do you spring 
 From the warm kiss he has given the air, 
 In whose tides of rich splendor you float? 
 Or, say, are you kin to the note 
 Which the bird flingeth free 
 In rivers of song from the tree? 
 
 Are the roses your sisters the violets, too, 
 
 Which look born of the skies, O wing-blossom like you? 
 
 Who marketh the paths you travel today 
 
 With your fluttering wings? O whither away, 
 
 As upward you rise as you fade from our sight 
 
 In Day s golden ocean of beauty and light? 
 
 BIRD ANTHEMS. (1884.) 
 
 The woods are full of voices; anthems ring 
 
 From the high trees where feathered choirs pour out 
 
 Their jubilee full-throated sing to the 
 
 Glad Morning, which, all dewy-eyed, wakes and 
 
 From the arms of Night springs glorious as 
 
 Eden. What say the birds? What living soul 
 
 Of thankfulness in liquid music voices 
 
 Itself in their full-chorused harmony? 
 
 Know they of Him who made them Him whose own 
 
 Hand fashioned each tiny wing so fashioned 
 
 It as to secure the perfect poise, and 
 
 The sure swiftness of each sudden flight? O 
 
 Bird ! losing thyself within the deeps of 
 
 Air, lost to our straining vision within 
 
 The unseen chambers of the sky what meetest 
 
 Thou? Some intangible presence of 
 
 Ministering messenger who with no 
 
 Art that we call language, but with some 
 
 Higher speech of subtler power wakes thee 
 
 To knowledge stirs within the breast of bird, 
 
 Of singing lark and soaring eagle that 
 
 Which gives will to mount to the far heavens; 
 
 Gives song unto singing things, a soul 
 
 To praise, and Him to know while feeling His 
 
 Presence in His tender care, without which 
 
 Not even the sparrow falls, nor the young 
 
 Ravens cry? Is bird-song something more than 
 
 Sweet, full-throated melody more than the 
 
 Mere gladness of simple being? More 
 
 Than the joy which Summer sunshine gives, spread 
 
 Goldenly amid the boughs, where the soft 
 
 Air floats flowery incense and odorous 
 
 Balm from forest deeps? "The groves were God s first 
 
 Temples," and mayhap He walketh still 
 
 In their cool shadowed aisles, while Nature with 
 
 Her thousand tongues pours forth His praise, 
 
 And fills the wide, infinite deeps of skies, 
 
 And with His unseen presence thrills the 
 
 Telephonic air till every breath in 
 
 Those far, azure fields is message-laden 
 
 For all winged things. Who knows, and who shall answer 
 
 180 
 
Charlotte 11 route. 
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. (1885.) 
 
 Within the firmament of thought there are 
 Fixed stars and central suns to which the world 
 Turns with a sense of reverent wonder. 
 They light our skies: upon our dim horizons 
 Shed their beams. 
 
 Thought has its spheres, its upper 
 And its lower heavens low, dim, dark and 
 Starless reaches, where, heavy-winged and blind, 
 \Ve flutter aimless till we fall to earth. 
 Tis but the few who soar to the far heights, 
 But few whose words ring through the ages vast; 
 Few whose thoughts, like the perpetual Sun, 
 Flood the world with living light and beauty, 
 .Making our lives, which else were barren, rich 
 With their grand creations. How they let down 
 The bars for us that shut us out from the 
 Infinite realms of glowing fancy! How 
 Sweep with magic touch of genius the film 
 From our far duller visions! How on their 
 Kagle pinions bear us up to their own 
 Grand creations, where world on world of 
 Shining, starlit thought glows in their mental 
 Heavens! Below it lies Karth s sordidness; 
 Its groveling cares, its pettiness and 
 Frivolous folly, which sweep on, casting 
 Their shadows on the race, and darkening 
 Universal being. How narrow life 
 To those whose life is but self within self 
 Revolving. What would the race achieve with 
 Only such to make its history? Man 
 Was not meant to grovel. She whose name we 
 Sing today was not of higher race or 
 Better clay than we. She was but noble 
 Type of gracious, cultured Womanhood of 
 The large woman whose expanded soul proves 
 That great thought is sexless, that to such 
 Mental stature as the man attains there 
 Is no bar to her attainment. Unto 
 The highest heights she, too, may reach, and win 
 The luster of a fadeless name. 
 
 With what cunning hand did she lay bare the 
 
 Inner realms of thought ! She took the soul of 
 
 Man and hold it up to view. The quivering, tremulous 
 
 Throbbing of the heart; its vague longings; its 
 
 Unspoken hopes; its faltering purposes; 
 
 Its infinite desires, and its great world 
 
 Of unfathomable tenderness she 
 
 Made tangible, and clothed them all in the 
 
 Warm garments fashioned by her pen until 
 
 Each man and woman, and each little child 
 
 Lives with us daily, and our hearts hold them 
 
 She was a grand creator, and she lives 
 Today in what she wrought. In every 
 Throb of passionate power, in every 
 Impulse of the human heart, we find the 
 Pictures she has painted, and we hear her voice. 
 
 EASTERN WOODS. (1885.) 
 
 Ye grand old woods that stand upon the hills 
 
 Through all the Summer s splendor, with your emerald 
 crown, 
 
 Where gentle breezes loiter, and the running rills 
 Pour silver-throated music to the meadows down; 
 
 Where golden sunlight flecks the velvet moss, 
 And cooling shadows lie beside the brooks, 
 
 And bird calls unto bird the boughs across, 
 Through the dim cloisters of the forest nooks: 
 
 I see the splendor of your forest spires, 
 
 When frost has tipped each* emerald leaf with flame. 
 And Summer, like some pagan queen, expires 
 
 On golden harvest sheaves which crowd the plain. 
 
 THE OLDEN THANKSGIVING. (1883.) 
 
 Here in this semi-tropic calm 
 
 My thoughts go back to other days, 
 
 The orange bloom and stately palm, 
 
 The golden light of cloudless days, 
 
 The bird-song and the perfumed air, 
 
 December with her golden hair, 
 
 As rosy-lipped as when the Year was young, 
 
 With breath as sweet, with smile as brignt, 
 
 As shone upon the New Year s face 
 
 In its first radiant morning s light; 
 
 The song of birds with shining wings, 
 
 The bright-winged, happy butterfly, 
 
 The perfumed lily s fragrant breath, 
 
 Which fills the South-Wind floating by, 
 
 The golden Dawns, the Sunset s calm, 
 
 The mellow Xoons, so full of light, 
 
 They hold me not as beckons now 
 
 The frozen Winter-Land of snow. 
 
 My fancy sees a land of white, 
 
 Of mountains clad with solemn pines, 
 
 Of leafless forests where the winds 
 
 Wail through the naked boughs at night; 
 
 Where shriek in fury winter storms, 
 
 Where muffled forms make haste to go 
 
 Out from the maddened whirl of snow 
 
 Into the happy hearthstone s light. 
 
 I see the open fireplace shine, 
 
 Piled with its forest logs aflame. 
 
 I see the faces bright with smiles 
 
 Of those who many weary miles. 
 
 To music of the jangling bells, 
 
 O er frozen ways, through drifts of snow, 
 
 Through forest wastes, where wolfish yells 
 
 Curdled the warm blood s happy flow. 
 
 Have come to keep Thanksgiving Day 
 
 Beneath the dear old home-roof tree; 
 
 That olden time when we were young 
 
 A Nation just begun to be; 
 
 When Puritanic maidens smiled, 
 
 With faces meek and saintly fair, 
 
 181 
 
Unclassified Poems. 
 
 And went, with thankful lips and hearts, 
 
 With lovers to the place ot prayer. 
 
 The Nation s heart was lifted then 
 
 Beside that wintry eastern sea, 
 
 As one man s for the blessings poured 
 
 Upon this Nation s infancy. 
 
 The old church spires, like finger-tips, 
 
 Pointed to heaven the shining blue 
 
 Was but the curtain hiding Him 
 
 His glory almost shining through 
 
 Whose name upon their trusting lips 
 
 Hung with the glad thanksgiving hymn. 
 
 And when the hour of praise was done, 
 
 The blessings of the year were told 
 
 Around the board; both sire and son 
 
 The grandsire and the happy child, 
 
 The maiden and the matron old 
 
 Sat down where Plenty s feast was piled. 
 
 Around those boards what happy pulses beat! 
 
 Content was there to bless the bounteous feast, 
 
 And God in all things, and in this was peace. 
 
 IN THE COUNTRY. 
 (Iron Sulphur Springs, 1885.) 
 
 Across the bending emerald seas, 
 
 Just tipped with crimsoned-purple glow 
 The green alfalfa meadow seas 
 
 I watch the shadows come and go; 
 I watch the golden sunlight fall, 
 
 I watch the wandering breezes kiss, 
 I hear the merry crickets call, 
 
 And see the lazy cattle whisk 
 The myriad flies that tease them so, 
 
 While the lush grasses round their knees 
 Toss in a billowy, soundless flow; 
 
 And hear the hum of careless bees; 
 I see the lovely pepper boughs, 
 
 Those bright-faced hermits of the plain, 
 Lift to the smiling skies their brows 
 
 Which never pale for lack of rain. 
 I hear the linnet sing at dawn 
 
 Where the tall grasses bend and sway, 
 As if the Spirit of the Morn 
 
 Was melting into song away. 
 And far beyond lies still and brown 
 
 The wide-extended, sunny plain, 
 Beyond the purple mountains crown 
 
 Above skies filled with golden rain; 
 And cross the bending emerald seas, 
 
 Just tipped with crimsoned-purple glow 
 The green alfalfa meadow seas 
 
 I watch the shadows come and go. 
 
 THE MAID OF ORLEANS. (1883.) 
 
 O what a path we travel ! what a way we tread ! 
 We walk through vanished ages with their light 
 Undimmed, shining as clear as if their suns 
 Had never set; as if the dark eclipse 
 
 Of dead old years o ershadowed not their wide, 
 
 Vast realm. We look into the face today 
 
 Of ancient kings, whose ashes the wild 
 
 Winds have made their playthings, whose bones, mayhap, 
 
 Have been refashioned into green and shining 
 
 Grasses, or into giant trees that mock 
 
 The centuries with their undecaying strength, 
 
 But to our sight they live again. With 
 
 Plume and helmet, and with shining spear they 
 
 Come, the fragrance of the White Rose and the 
 
 Red stealing upon our startled senses. 
 
 Out from their graves at History s magic 
 
 Touch spring buried generations. We see 
 
 The race from which our old forefathers sprang 
 
 In all their wild barbaric strength might making 
 
 Right, brother with brother battling. AVe 
 
 See the fair white sails of England s fleets, 
 
 Which long ago went down in stormy seas, 
 
 Or with the old and yellow pennons and worm- 
 
 Eaten hulks dropped to decay, set sail again, 
 
 As in the centuries agone they sailed, their 
 
 Decks trodden by warriors in whose untamed 
 
 Breasts burned steadily the all-consuming 
 Love of conquest. The blue seas flash beneath 
 The summer sun; the white foam leaps around 
 Their vessels prows as down they bear upon 
 The sunny coasts of proud old Normandy. 
 
 Bend low, fair skies, above those heaps of slain! 
 Warm with thy sun those pale dead forms to life! 
 Let soft winds fan them on the bloody plain 
 The harvest-heaps Death garnered in the strife 
 Of Agincourt. But never the warm sun 
 Kissing mid leafy shadows those white brows, 
 Nor the soft airs lifting with unseen touch 
 The silken locks that rest above them like 
 A crown, shall wake to life those princely sons 
 Of struggling France, swept to their death by 
 Cruel hands of English plunderers. Through 
 All the years of larger life and broader 
 Human creeds, of that humanity which 
 Makes the whole world kin, the battlefields of 
 Poictiers and Agincourt stand out 
 The monumental plains of Wrong, the 
 Pyramids of that rude age of conquest 
 Which makes the history of the younger 
 Life of races and of nations. 
 
 The lovely plains of France are green and fair, 
 The Earth is gemmed with blossoms, and her hills 
 Rise vine-clad toward the deep-blue shining air, 
 Whose hush the laugh of running streamlets fills. 
 
 In the wide market-place at Rouen, see! 
 
 An angry crowd has gathered men are there 
 
 With cruel-visaged faces, with brows that be 
 
 Knit into angry scowls; with seamed lines of care, 
 
 And discontent, and pride that will not brook 
 
 Control, and savage passions furrowing deep 
 
 Their cheeks; with fierce eagle eyes that look 
 
 As pity could not touch, nor sorrow make them weep. 
 
 182 
 
In the Old Earth s Heart. 
 
 And others stand with strong arms folded tight 
 Upon their manly breasts, with pale lips firmly set, 
 Their noble faces of an ashen white, 
 Their pitying eyes with tearful moisture wet. 
 
 Down through that sullen silence conies at length 
 Like some bright presence that we see in dreams, 
 A girl with noble face, where shines undying strength 
 Of highest purpose, transfiguring with its beams 
 Each perfect feature in its holy light. 
 Erect she walks and firm; her long rich hair 
 Falls like a mantle o er her shoulders white 
 Her rounded cheeks are wonderfully fair. 
 
 Chained to the stake, she like a statue stands, 
 With eyes uplifted, and with calm, white face; 
 Like spotless lilies lie her folded hands 
 Upon her breast their quiet resting-place. 
 
 The sun sinks slowly in the cloudless West, 
 The market-place is still; even the 
 Quiet summer breeze forgets to whisper. 
 And amid the myriad leafy trees 
 Not one leaf stirs the solemn hush of silence. 
 The angry crowd has vanished, but from the 
 Deserted market-place rises one faint 
 White line of smoke, like a thin, ghostly 
 Finger pointing to the skies; and here the 
 Ashes lie of that fair Maid of Orleans; 
 Let them rest. 
 
 Looking from the fair heights on which we stand today. 
 
 Back to that twilight time of nations, 
 
 The infancy of Progress, glad may we 
 
 Be that in the light of this late century 
 
 The bright, clear noontide of the human race 
 
 Our lot is cast, and from the lessons of 
 
 That gloomy, struggling Past may we learn 
 
 Wisdom that will make us true to noblest 
 
 Deeds and grandest purposes. 
 
 IN THE OLD EARTH S HEART. 
 (A Fancy.) 
 
 (1882.) 
 
 Have ye not heard the story of the land 
 
 That lies warm in the old Earth s heart? A fair, 
 
 Sweet Summerland a land cradled in the 
 
 World s lap, with portal at the Pole, through whose 
 
 Wide gates, o er path of shining waters, lit 
 
 By the brightness of electric suns, vast 
 
 Fleets might sail, and in that inner world, fanned 
 
 By soft Summer airs, drift past wide continents 
 
 And glorious isles that star the under 
 
 Seas? Out from that mighty portal, wide as 
 
 The great world s surface, round the far end of 
 
 Its vast axis laid, streams the electric 
 
 Flood, till all the outer skies, lit by the 
 
 Auroral lights, blaze forth a beacon for 
 
 The world, bright as a living sun. 
 
 Let Fancy spread her sails; her ship will pass 
 
 Swift through the ice-seas, sailing northward still 
 
 To that far region of the Midnight Sun, 
 
 Where the still waters of the under sea 
 
 Lave with soft ripples all the silver sands 
 
 Of those strange shores, and laugh in ecstacy, 
 
 Forever tossing soft, white arms of spray 
 
 Round the green mosses that, like emeralds set 
 
 Within a rocky rim, gleam on the borders of the 
 
 Sapphire seas that catch the Midnight s gold and violet, 
 
 And crimson glory of the sinking Sun, 
 
 Which, resting on the threshold of the coming Day, 
 
 For one brief moment shuts Ins eyelids down; 
 
 Then lo! the Morning with its shining crown 
 
 Of light upon the golden hilltops stands, 
 
 And with its smiles sets dimples in the seas. 
 
 And here our eyes shall see fair cities rise, 
 
 And people strange walk on those wondrous shores, 
 
 And palm trees wave beneath the sunlit skies; 
 
 And maidens with fair faces like the snow, 
 
 Just touched with kisses of the sunset light, 
 
 And locks like woven sunbeams falling low, 
 
 In shining ripples to their dainty feet, 
 
 Upon the pebbly beach walk to and fro 
 
 With young A polios, kingly to the sight. 
 
 And all the air is filled with song of birds, 
 
 That rest like golden blossoms mid the trees, 
 
 Or flash like rubies o er the shining blue 
 
 Of the still lakes that sleep erewhile the breeze 
 
 Forgets to blow. The gardens of Hesperides, 
 
 With all the golden fruitage of their boughs, 
 
 Were not as fair as these beneath the skies 
 
 Of the Aurora-land about the Pole. 
 
 Here clear, warm rivers shine, and as they roll 
 
 With murmurous music to the ocean flood, 
 
 Their banks are fragrant as the spicy isles. 
 
 And mid the groves of banyan and of date, 
 
 Rise palace walls, and shining fountains play, 
 
 And sculptured marble stands, as if the gods 
 
 Had hid among the trees; and royal arches rise, 
 
 And temples with their spires of gold 
 
 And shining crosses. There is the sound of 
 
 Bells all silver-tongued, and melody of 
 
 Music, and happy childhood s faces like 
 
 White lilies mid the grasses, and dimpled 
 
 Hands, like pure, soft snowflakes, touch the flowers. 
 
 The hills rise to grand heights as whispering 
 
 To the stars. The Moon peers through the 
 
 Leafy boughs of the tall trees, 
 
 As if it were cradled in the emerald 
 
 Of their whispering leaves. Like shimmering 
 
 Silver from the lowly rocks drops many 
 
 A laughing waterfall, and brooks sing 
 
 An echo of the wild bird s song. 
 
 The sunlit seas are white with many a 
 
 Sail freighted with rare spices and untold 
 
 Odorous sweets, rich silks and jeweled treasures. 
 
 Here is Edona s lovely vale, and bright 
 
 183 
 
Unclassified Poems. 
 
 Viva s fountain flo\vs, leaping in laughter 
 To the bending skies. The outer earth, 
 Smitten and scarred by wrong, finds here no 
 Counterpart. It is the Beulah Land, the 
 Fair Utopia of our dreams, all shadowless 
 Lying upon the border of the realms 
 Of blessed Peace. 
 
 CHILD-FAITH THE COMET. (1882.) 
 
 From out my open window, looking to 
 The East, I leaned. The dusky splendor of 
 The starlit skies brooded above the 
 Silence. All the winds were hushed; not e en a 
 Whisper breathed they to the leaves jeweled with 
 Dewy diamonds that hung pulseless in 
 The arms of Night. Silence seemed dropping from 
 The heavens, which leaned upon the mountain 
 Tops, as if between them lay secrets too 
 Vast for speech. Far overhead, threading the 
 Pathway of the countless stars, its flaming 
 Length thrust upward through immeasurable 
 Fields of wide, world-lighted space, flamed the bright 
 Comet. 
 
 A golden-headed darling woke 
 From her sweet, dreamless slumber, her rosy 
 Lids unclosing like the flower which opes 
 Its petals to the Sun, and with clasped hands 
 Upward looked. One little hush of silence, 
 Then her soul leaped up, shouting its gladness 
 In her happy speech : " Look ! Look and see 
 God s arm among the stars !" 
 
 DOLCE FAR NIENTE. (1878.) 
 
 The sky was wrapped in veil of soft, white mist, 
 
 As if its Summer bridal hour had come, 
 
 And one swift gleam of gold and amethyst, 
 
 A wandering sunbeam into glory kissed 
 
 By the near sunset splendor, shone 
 
 A crown upon the fog-veiled mountain peak. 
 
 The West rained sunset kisses on the Sea, 
 
 Till all the dimples on its pure, fair cheek 
 
 Showed lovelier than sea-shell tints; in ecstacy 
 
 Laughed the bright waves, and rushed along their way, 
 
 And threw white arms of foam, and flashing spray 
 
 Upon the waiting sands, that, silver-white, 
 
 Waited their coming through the day and night. 
 
 The emerald fields of grain had lost their green, 
 
 And ripened sheaves showed only glint of gold, 
 
 And there, high-piled by Labor s hand, they lay 
 
 Like the vast, silent pyramids of old. 
 
 They looked as if some secret in their breast, 
 
 Beyond where prying sunbeams dared to stray, 
 
 Might lurk sure-hidden and find happy rest. 
 
 Perhaps they held the whisper of the way 
 
 That Nature nursed the tiny seed which, dropped 
 
 In her warm breast, found life and strength to grow 
 
 And send out roots and tender shoots, nor stopped 
 
 Its circling saps, like life-blood flowing through 
 
 The stalk and tender leaf, till ripened grain 
 
 Showed golden billows on the wind-swept plain. 
 
 The white mists rolled above me, and the blue 
 
 Made shining rifts only within the west, 
 
 And the Sun lingered there, and smiling threw 
 
 Around his form a gold and crimson vest. 
 
 And lying there, with arms above my head, 
 
 And eyes far-reaching to the deep of skies, 
 
 The warm, sweet Earth beneath me for iny bed, 
 
 That grain-wrought pyramid with all its rich supplies 
 
 So near beside me that my hand could reach 
 
 And touch its yellow blades; with mountains near, 
 
 With emerald seas of orchards at my feet, 
 
 The echoing roar of waves upon the beach 
 
 Coming in softened whispers to my ear, 
 
 And June s soft, tender kisses on my face, 
 
 As if she were my lover, and her place 
 
 Beside me there to whisper hope and peace 
 
 And bid life s futile vexing worries cease, 
 
 I lay in calm content so full and sweet, 
 
 While perfumed odors wrapped my head and feet. 
 
 UNTOUCHED BY TIME. (1878.) 
 O the world is old and the world is young! 
 Today is born as fresh and fail- 
 As the first days in Eden were, 
 When Time had just begun. 
 And the golden light in the East at dawn 
 Comes stealing down through sky as blue, 
 O er fields as bright with diamond dew, 
 As Earth s first perfect morning knew; 
 And as sweet as the scents of Paradise, 
 
 Which wings of angels loved to reach, 
 As if the flowers to them were each 
 An altar, with a soul to teach 
 
 Some fresh, new truth Heaven had revealed, 
 But from their angel sight concealed 
 As sweet as these the flowers today, 
 As sacred what their soul would say. 
 
 And the bright-winged birds in our sunny skies 
 Dip their slender beaks in song 
 And float through the shining air along. 
 With notes as glad as Paradise. 
 
 And these mountain heights with their gates of pearl 
 Fog-wrought, with marge of golden mist, 
 And set with ruby and amethyst 
 Had Eden glory such as this? 
 
 And did ever her crystal rivers show 
 Their silver ripples by lilies kissed 
 Soft and warm in the sunset glow, 
 A single sparkle that we have missed? 
 
 O the world is old and the world is young ! 
 Today is born as fresh and fair 
 As the first days of Eden were, 
 When Time had just begun. 
 
 184 
 
Sweet Bird-Son^- Stilled. 
 
 SWEET BIRD-SONG STILLED. (1885.) 
 
 It was the springtime in the distant East, 
 
 And the cold winds of Winter all had ceased 
 
 To blow, and in the forest stirred 
 
 The roots of wild-flowers, and the happy bird; 
 
 The brook had flung its icy fetters far, 
 
 And through clear skies down looked the Evening Star. 
 
 The wild rose had put on its leaves of green, 
 
 The spider spun his web of silver sheen ; 
 
 The cricket chirped, the smiling daisy s lid 
 
 Was lifted among the grasses hid 
 
 The droning beetle, and happy in the sun 
 
 Buzzed swarming flies, and one by one, 
 
 All golden-winged, with spots of velvet brown, 
 
 Gay butterflies among the flowers dropped down ; 
 
 And in the silver of the forest brook, 
 
 Where swept its waters through each shadowed nook, 
 
 In cool deep pools, just flecked with sunny light, 
 
 The speckled trout swam o er the pebbles white. 
 
 The tall reeds dropped their shadows in the stream 
 
 O er which they leaned as if in happy dream; 
 
 The tender leaves upon the forest trees 
 
 Swung to and fro, stirred by the gentle breeze. 
 
 Two happy birds had built their summer nest 
 
 Within a maple tree. Its leafy crest 
 
 O ershadowed it, and kept it dry and warm 
 
 Through all the rain of every summer storm. 
 
 Four little birds were in that summer home, 
 Just waiting there until their wings were grown 
 Waiting to fly through all the golden air, 
 To sing their songs and make the woods more fair 
 With their sweet notes; and day by day 
 With joyous twittering in their nests they lay, 
 While the soft feathers grew upon their wing, 
 And Summer came and took the place of Spring. 
 
 One lovely morning when the world was fair, 
 
 And not a cloud filled all the Summer air, 
 
 When thousand wild-flowers their sweet odors gave 
 
 To fill the woods, and on the silver wave 
 
 Of the glad brook, which babbled on its way, 
 
 Such shining specks of golden sunshine lay; 
 
 When all the world was full of happy notes, 
 
 Poured in sweet music from the feathered throats 
 
 Of all the birds within the tree-tops high, 
 
 These nestling birds first sought to reach the sky. 
 
 They stretched their wings, then up and up they flew, 
 
 Finding a path the pleasant sunshine through. 
 
 They sped unto a distant tree-top high, 
 
 And here each birdling stopped to rest its wing, 
 
 And full of gladness all together sing. 
 
 So sweet their song the air itself grew still 
 
 And listened, and the running rill 
 
 Made haste more softly, rippling on its way, 
 
 As if it would, to hear their music, stay. 
 
 The happy bees hushed too their busy hum, 
 
 The meek-eyed cows unto the brookside come 
 
 Chewing their cud, their ears a-listening turned; 
 
 And e en the hawk his wider pathway spurned, 
 
 And in the forest swiftly lighted down 
 Upon the nearest tree-top s spreading crown. 
 The tall tree-trunks long colonnade 
 Of slender slanting shadows made, 
 Like some grand aisle in temple dim. 
 And down it poured the young birds hymn. 
 They sang as if their breath was song, 
 And through the meadows swept along, 
 With breath of flowers and hum of bee 
 The sweetness of their melody. 
 
 Oh, what a wondrous world is this, 
 With fragrance and with sunshine kissed ! 
 So fair with fields and trees and flowers, 
 So warm with lovely summer hours; 
 So grand with mountains tall and high; 
 So vast with blue and bending sky; 
 So bright with sunlight and with dew; 
 So glad with sounds all strange and new; 
 So full of life and happy things, 
 Of butterflies with golden wings, 
 And flies from out whose gauzy sheen 
 The colors of the rainbow gleam. 
 Oh, we could sing our lives away, 
 The happy bird-song seemed to say. 
 
 Just then adown the meadow lane. 
 With guns upon their shoulders, came 
 Three thoughtless boys on sport intent, 
 To the bird-song no thought they lent ; 
 Yet still they heard the song, and sped, 
 With hurried feet and swifter tread, 
 Along the border of the brook, 
 To where its babbling waters took 
 To wider shallows, and its sands 
 Gleam brighter as its breast expands, 
 And on the pebbles round and white 
 Its laughing silver ripples light 
 With touch so soft that scarce a sound 
 Is stirred within the waters round. 
 
 A little bird with sudden sweep 
 
 Drops to the brook and dips its beak 
 
 Within its crystal cool and bright, 
 
 Then turned with swift and noiseless flight, 
 
 And soon a speck within the blue, 
 
 Its little form is lost to view. 
 
 And like a saint, so pure and fair, 
 
 The fragrant lily bendeth there. 
 
 The dandelion s yellow crown 
 
 Gleams in the woods and meadows round, 
 
 And all things seemed so glad and gay 
 
 Upon that perfect summer day. 
 
 And still their happy songs they sing 
 
 Those little birds the meadows ring 
 
 With their glad notes, and echoes stir 
 
 In every forest corridor. 
 
 And now across the golden sands 
 
 Of the brook s shallows, with their hands 
 
 Holding their guns, towards the tree 
 
 The boys move swift and noiselessly. 
 
 185 
 
Unclassified Poems. 
 
 A gladder song, full-throated, clear, 
 Breaks from the birds as they draw near. 
 But with the sweetest note there came 
 A sudden sound, a flash of flame. 
 O thoughtless boys ! your work is done, 
 And from the tree-top, one by one, 
 Those glorious song birds, shot by you, 
 Their tuneful throats all riddled through, 
 Drop down, their song forever stilled 
 Whose glad notes all the morning filled. 
 
 A quiet on the forest falls, 
 
 A hush is on the stream, 
 While red their little blood-stained breasts 
 
 Lie still the flowers between. 
 
 No more their happy songs shall float 
 
 And fill the sunny air 
 Above the silver shining brook, 
 
 And summer meadows fair. 
 
 WHAT THE BROOK SAYS. (1886.) 
 
 Warm shone the Sun, and the grasses stood 
 Tall and green like slender spires, 
 And the wandering breezes touched the lyres 
 
 Of the thousand leaves of the Summer wood. 
 
 Ah ! what musical murmurs went 
 Down through the dim old forest aisles, 
 Where the fragrant violet and bluebell smiles, 
 
 And the running brook its gladness lent. 
 
 What shadows fell on its waters clear, 
 Shadows of flowers that love to lean 
 And watch the ripples the rocks between, 
 
 And shadows of reeds, you could almost hear 
 
 Growing, with slender roots thrust down 
 Where they could drink the waters sweet, 
 Flowing like silver round their feet, 
 
 And shadows of floating thistle-down, 
 
 Borne along on the breeze s wing, 
 
 Floating away in the sunny light, 
 
 And drifting slowly out of sight, 
 Up to the boughs where the robins sing. 
 
 Ah ! what wonderful sounds we hear, 
 Down in the beautiful forest ways, 
 In the heart of the lovely Summer days. 
 
 There is the robin singing clear; 
 
 There are the cheerful roundelays 
 
 Of the cricket, down in the mosses hid, 
 And the song* of the merry katydid, 
 
 And all that the rippling Water says. 
 
 I think that a story all its own 
 
 It tells to the mosses and flowers that keep 
 Watch where its crystal waters sleep 
 
 Tells in the softest undertone. 
 
 Why do I think so? Why, one day 
 
 I lay half asleep where the mosses grow, 
 And something I heard that sounded so, 
 
 Something the running Brook did say. 
 
 At first I thought it was nothing more 
 Than the water rippling round a stone, 
 On which the loveliest moss had grown, 
 
 And where its spray like a rainbow shone. 
 
 Then, surely I heard the Water say, 
 As it floated like silver where it grew, 
 " I think there s nothing so fair as you, 
 
 And O how I love to come this way ! 
 
 "You lie like an emerald on my breast, 
 
 You glad my heart with your cheerful face, 
 You brighten with beauty all the place, 
 
 You build a throne where the birds may rest 
 
 "Rest, and dip their pretty beaks 
 
 Right in the heart of my waters bright, 
 And gather strength for their further flight, 
 
 To the sunny crests of the mountain peaks." 
 
 Then the Water kissed the Mosses cheek, 
 
 And ran along on its shining way, 
 
 Touching the grasses with its spray, 
 And bathed the drooping flowers feet. 
 
 Then where the fair green meadows spread, 
 
 And all the shining hills stood high 
 
 Beneath the brightness of the sky 
 The happy Brook soon found a bed, 
 
 And grew into a lovely Lake, 
 
 Beneath the shadow of the hills, 
 
 Where ran to meet it all the rills, 
 As glad their rest with it to take. 
 
 And here the white pond-lilies grew 
 
 Fair enough for any fairy, 
 
 Floating light and sweet and airy, 
 And the sunshine kissed them through. 
 
 There the little Brook does rest, 
 
 And the birds above it sing, 
 
 And the flowers about it spring, 
 And the lilies kiss its breast. 
 
 "THE TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS." (1887.) 
 (On The Times Building.) 
 
 Ages ago, when Chaos ruled the Earth, 
 And mighty Saurians thronged the troubled seas, 
 As round the formless continents their waters rolled, 
 Though mad convulsions crept the shuddering deeps 
 Along, and wild upheavals of new lands 
 Arose islands and mountains, born from out 
 The seas still from its granite base the rock- 
 Ribbed world swayed not. Eons on eons wrought 
 In Nature s tortured realms to harden and 
 To mold the granite rock. Seas slept upon 
 
 186 
 
In the Fields of Ohio. 
 
 It to weigh it clown, and mighty mountains 
 Pressed their ponderous bulk, and the vast and huge- 
 Limbed continents stamped on its bed, ere man 
 Awoke in Eden. God works through ages, 
 And he builds for time. The centuries are 
 But minutes in His sight. Nature s thousand 
 Forces are but tools of His omnipotence. 
 
 So all the ages on the granite wrought ; 
 
 Feldspar and mica and the needed quartz 
 
 Were welded and made fair and strong, foundation 
 
 Meet for Earth s rock-piled strata, and fit, no 
 
 Less, for human builder, defying storms 
 
 And earthquake s crumbling forces, time-enduring, 
 
 And, when hewn and shaped in massive blocks, 
 
 High piled by skillful builders hands, and 
 
 O er-roofed, as monumental as old Time s 
 
 Long centuries. 
 
 So meet it was that we, 
 Building for no Today alone, but for 
 The unexampled years of a grand future, 
 That shall be rich in all that maketh great 
 And opulent, should take the granite which 
 The ages wrought for us to build our "Times" 
 Citadel, where we may fight for Truth, do 
 Mighty battles gainst the Wrong, weigh well in 
 Scales of Justice questions which do vex and 
 Tease, and keep aglow, with a warm light, the 
 Paths Progression treads, with beacon beams from 
 All our granite towers. 
 
 IN THE FIELDS OF OHIO. (1887.) 
 
 Over the green summer hills of Ohio the morning looked 
 down, 
 
 And on hinges of gold swung open the gates of the East, 
 Gilding with glory the forest, the river and town, 
 
 As if from the world all things but beauty had ceased. 
 
 The flow of the river was full of melody s tone, 
 
 Twas afloat in the glory of sunrise, pure amber its 
 waves, 
 
 From East to West the birds sang, filling that morn 
 With the floods of their song, the still air s infinite caves. 
 
 Just the lightest of breezes were winged, bearing the 
 
 sweets 
 
 Of the numberless flowers, and tossing the grass 
 Into billowy emerald waves, that rippled and shone 
 
 As Glory were trailing her garments through the fields 
 of the Morn as she passed. 
 
 The leaves of the trees were like wings just stirring to 
 
 bless 
 
 With the breath of the winds the birth of the Day, 
 And they held all the hills in the soft clasp of their 
 
 shadows, 
 
 That twinkled in coolness or danced like a child in its 
 play. 
 
 The bees were glad in the grasses, the butterflies floated 
 
 along, 
 Like a bit of the sunshine the humming-birds hung on 
 
 the edge 
 Of the roses, like wing6d jewels of fluttering light. 
 
 And like a fair diamond, sparkling and clear, the water 
 flashed mid the sedge. 
 
 The dandelions lifted their yellow heads, and the daisies 
 Swung mid the grasses, and the young clover was sweet 
 
 with its bloom, 
 And there, too, the dimple-cheeked children, with lips like 
 
 the roses, 
 
 Dream in the light of the Morning and wait tor the 
 golden Noon. 
 
 But the Day creepeth upward, its garment of gold on 
 
 the hills 
 Is selvedged by Noon; open-faced the Sunflower looks 
 
 to the Sun 
 
 Floating calm in its ocean of sky, no cloud in its path, 
 And the winds breathing soft as the breath of a babe 
 newly come. 
 
 Was ever Nature more fair, with her redolent breath full 
 
 of peace? 
 With her sky raining glory, and Earth full of fragrance 
 
 and calm? 
 With the Sun lying proud on the breast of the Sky like a 
 
 king, 
 
 Throwing lances of light to the Earth by the might of 
 his arm? 
 
 THE FIRST SABBATH IN EDEN. (1888.) 
 
 The world was young, and on the ether s breast 
 
 It lay, a thing of light and beauty. Fair 
 
 Was the sun-orbed sky; no shadow fell of 
 
 Cloud upon it; no stain on all its blue deep, 
 
 So infinite stretching in sunny brightness, 
 
 As it might touch the throne of Him who is 
 
 Center and life of all things. Eden lay fair, 
 
 The dew of Morn upon her flowers, which 
 
 Shed the incense of their sweet perfume on 
 
 All the air. Winged with caressing lightness 
 
 Stirred the breeze, lilting the leaf of rose and 
 
 Stately lily, as if to breathe sweet sense 
 
 Of coolness on them. The orange bloom scented 
 
 The air with fragrance, while goldenly the 
 
 Orange swung perfect in ripeness. All fruits 
 
 That to the sight were pleasant, or were good 
 
 For food, brightened the garden adown whose 
 
 Shady ways walked Adam, and leaning on 
 
 His arm, Eve, mother of us all, with face 
 
 Of heavenly purity. Her eyes, large, blue 
 
 And softly shining, were unto Adam 
 
 Like to guiding stars; her hair hung like spun gold 
 
 Of morning sunbeams, covering her form 
 
 And reaching to her lilied feet ; her lips 
 
 Arched like the young Moon s crescent, and her cheek 
 
 Like the petal of the peach-tree s flower 
 
 187 
 
Unclassified Poems. 
 
 In its pure, pinky whiteness. No Sabbath 
 Bell disturbed Eden s stillness. No stir of hurried 
 Feet broke holy silence. Nature was 
 Priestless there. The rivers sang an anthem 
 With their rain of many waters. The small 
 Brooks joined the chorus with an undertone 
 Of song. The birds on all the tree-tops from 
 Their feathered throats poured melody; the bee 
 Gave its small voice, and all the forest leaves 
 Took tongues of worship. Beneath the palm-tree s 
 Shade the tiger lay, and the lion strong 
 Nestled beside him. The elephant gave 
 Touch caressing to the bear, beside which 
 Lay the lamb, with head pillowed upon his 
 Paw. The gay birds of paradise brightened 
 The trees, their plumage trailing like a 
 Banner from the boughs. Down through the long tree- 
 Columned paths walked our first parents with their 
 Reverent feet, feeling God s presence near. 
 At length they hear a voice, and quick they kneel 
 In worship. Over her eyes live spreads her 
 Taper fingers, and bends her head, while her 
 Pure lips, as if anointed, murmur, "Our 
 Father!" God s unseen Hand has touched her, and 
 Her faith has quickened. Adam, with his broad 
 Brow uplifted, and with eyes -filled with his 
 Heart s devotion, with speech which was like music, 
 Murmurs, "Father, we thank Thee for this day, 
 And for Thy holy presence. Teach us to 
 Worship Thee, and make us grateful for Thy 
 Gifts bestowed. We see Thy presence in the 
 Curtained sky spread o er us, and these majestic 
 Trees are thoughts of Thine visible to us. 
 These flowers are the sweet-tongued speech of Thy 
 Beneficence, and this garden, made holy 
 By Thy presence, is man s most fitting temple 
 For Thy praise." 
 Then Adam knelt in silence, 
 
 And o er all things God s glory rolled, and through 
 The trees of Eden, and o er its silver 
 Tides of flowing waters our parents heard 
 The Sabbath song of angels sounding; and 
 Then Earth broke into singing. Each leaf was 
 Like a lute wakened to melody. Each 
 Flower had fragrant breath of seraph, and 
 The waters joined with all the morning stars 
 That sang together. Thus the first Sabbath 
 Of the world dawned in Earth s sinless Eden. 
 
 THE MOCKING-BIRD AND THE MORNS OF JUNE. 
 
 Oh, clear was the sky, and it bent as blue 
 
 Over the Earth as if it knew 
 
 Every flower that grew below, 
 
 And every breeze that did softly blow 
 
 As it had an ear for every tune 
 
 That filled the air in the morns of June. 
 
 The little brook with its waters bright 
 Mirrored the sky and the sunny light, 
 And the grasses bent like a fairy s wand 
 To reach the brook where it touched the land; 
 And the birds splashed softly within its tide, 
 As it sang to the banks on either side. 
 Birds and water, how sweet their tune, 
 In the morning hour of a day in June. 
 
 O bird of song that came to me ! 
 
 Perched on the top of the tallest tree, 
 
 Came to sing in strain divine 
 
 Songs that were sweeter than any rhyme; 
 
 Always there on the tree-top high, 
 
 So soon as the morn was in the sky. 
 
 bird of song, with voice in tune, 
 
 In your breast was the singing soul of June. 
 
 Mocking-bird, what of the bobolink 
 
 You have heard his voice, do you never shrink 
 
 From the music his wonderful throat has poured, 
 
 Lest the note you miss? From the music stored 
 
 In the feathered throat of the robin, too, 
 
 Singing the song he has taught to you? 
 
 Bird of song, your heart in tune 
 
 With the music and sweetness of days in June. 
 
 Often and often my fancy strays 
 Back to the summers of other days 
 Back to a spot set round with trees, 
 With beds of flowers, where honey-bees 
 Came when the dew lay soft and fair, 
 Like a veil of silver everywhere, 
 On rose and lily and passion-flower 
 Lay like a sparkling diamond shower. 
 
 1 breathe the air that is wafted in, 
 Pure and cool on the sea-breeze wing; 
 I note the ripple of tiny stream, 
 
 The lily s white and the red-rose gleam; 
 
 Again I drink of the silver tide 
 
 That sparkles and babbles my path beside; 
 
 I sit in the shade of the cedar-tree 
 
 And dream of the Junes which used to be. 
 
 And still I hear, as I heard of yore, 
 
 The beautiful mocking-bird sing once more 
 
 From the top of the tallest tree that grew, 
 
 As though he knew it was nearer to 
 
 Heaven than the trees that were not so high 
 
 Nearer the angels in the sky. 
 
 Hour by hour that mocking-bird 
 Day after day my ear has heard; 
 And he wore a vest of golden hue, 
 While the songs of every bird he knew; 
 Over and over he sang to me 
 From his skyward perch in the cedar-tree. 
 Never was morn of a flower-lipped June 
 When his beautiful voice was out of tune. 
 
Morning Out of 
 
 A SECRET. 
 
 Out from the deeps of the air {rather the clouds, 
 
 Their whistling battalions sweeping the sky 
 
 Of Winter. Silently, yet steadily 
 
 On they come, their marshal the Wind blowing 
 
 His trumpet, sweeping the seas with his breath. 
 
 The leaves of the forest catch the sound of 
 
 His coming, and his couriers run through 
 
 Their leaves with a tremulous step, and all 
 
 A-shiver they stir at the touch, as if 
 
 Each had a heart in its breast. Grand army 
 
 Of Clouds! ye cover the field of the sky 
 
 And then let your batteries loose on the 
 
 World. Ye have hidden redoubts, ye have paths 
 
 That we cannot discern, and forces that 
 
 Take us with swiftest surprise, sometimes in 
 
 This Land of the Sun sometimes on the verge 
 
 Of the Summer. Where gather ye then your 
 
 Soldiers gay, your army of raindrops 
 
 Which sometimes descend just to tickle the 
 
 Earth with their lances, then withdraw, with bright 
 
 Banners of rainbows, to hide from the Sun? 
 
 Where away do ye wander as Summer 
 
 Draws near? () luminous Mountains! with heads 
 
 Sky-pillowed and bold, are ye so far-visioned 
 
 Ye see what keepeth the calm of our Summer, 
 
 The sheen of the skies from the storm? Hear ye 
 
 Who sayeth "Depart" to Winter s storm-clouded 
 
 Battalions, so that o er the blue eye of 
 
 Summer there never is seen the eyelid 
 
 Of cloud fringed with tear-drops of rain? Ah, yes, 
 
 I think ye know somewhat of the secret. 
 
 Winds, Sea and Mountains, ye are lovers 
 
 Together of this Summerland fair, and. 
 
 Her eye that is shining with laughter, her 
 
 Breath that is sweet with the flowers, and her 
 
 Garments with orange-scent laden, ye love 
 
 As a mother doth love her babe in its 
 
 Cradle, and well you could tell the secret 
 
 Of her sun-shining Summer and calm. 
 
 A MORNING OUT OF DOORS. 
 
 Little bumble-bee, little bumble-bee, 
 
 Where are you going, will you tell me, pray? 
 
 I m after honey in the heart of the flowers, 
 And so I am flying, flying away. 
 
 Pretty butterfly, golden-winged as the Dawn, 
 Floating like a smile through the sunny air, 
 
 Can t you stop to play with me, little butterfly, 
 Why need you now be flying any where ? 
 
 I must wing my way to the opening rose, 
 And I must flutter in the sunshine, too. 
 
 For happy-hearted children love to see my wings astir 
 When the Day is bright with the Sun and dew. 
 
 O little cricket ! sitting in the shadow 
 
 Of the swaying grasses tall and green, 
 Get out your bow and fiddle and play a pretty tune, 
 
 And sing your song where the bending roses lean. 
 
 No, I only sing in the Evening s pleasant shade, 
 
 For I m busy all the day a-thinking 
 What music I shall sing when the twilight shadows fall, 
 
 And the Sun within the West is sinking. 
 
 O spider! your silver web a-spinning, 
 
 Just stop a minute from your work, I pray; 
 
 No, child, I cannot, for a fly is buzzing near me, 
 
 And my silver threads must bind it before it flies away. 
 
 squirrel ! sitting on the bending bough, 
 Your tail of silver shining mid its leaves, 
 
 I ve a pocketful of nuts and acorns lovely, 
 Just come and sit with me, and help me crack them, 
 please. 
 
 Darling child, you must not tempt me ever, 
 For if I let you gather nuts for me, 
 
 1 fear that all too soon I should very lazy grow, 
 
 Then, when the Winter comes, what would become of me? 
 
 O bird upon the tree-tops ! swinging sweet, 
 
 With your tiny breast so full of song, 
 Drop down within my garden where flowers blossom fair, 
 
 And amid the roses make the echoes dance along. 
 
 No, my darling, for on the tree-top high 
 
 I must sing unto the sunshine overhead. 
 On the glorious tree-top near the bending sky, 
 
 Just so soon as ever Night s shadows dark have fled. 
 
 O little brook ! with your sparking water, 
 
 Just stop a moment where your banks are green. 
 
 Where the blessed shadows fall so cool and softly. 
 And the lily-bells hang the swaying hedge between. 
 
 No, my child, for I can never loiter, 
 
 For afar the Sea is calling to me, 
 And its billows spray would melt along the shore 
 
 If the brooks and rivers should linger lazily. 
 
 O little toad ! pray what have you to do, 
 
 As you sit there a-blinking in the Sun? 
 Oh, I m watching for the careless bugs that come my way. 
 
 And so they shall not harm things, I eat them every one. 
 
 Well, now, if everything is busy 
 
 With work it ought to do, I think that I, 
 Although a little child, have some duty waiting for me. 
 
 And to find out what it is I will surely try. 
 
 "THE GOLDEN ELEPHANT." 
 
 [The following extracts are taken from an unfinished poem 
 by Mrs. Otis, entitled "The Golden Elephant A Romance 
 of the Middle Ages."] 
 
 . . . Side many a pool, 
 Sleeping in shadows sweet and cool, 
 Were statues that my hand had wrought 
 Of bronze and copper. Living thought 
 
 189 
 
Unclassified Poems. 
 
 Seemed stirring in them; you would swear, 
 
 While looking at them, that the air 
 
 Poured whispers in their ears which sent 
 
 Swift gladness through them, and which lent 
 
 A subtle sense of vision to 
 
 Their lidded eyes, and, looking, you 
 
 Would wait for motion, wait for speech 
 
 To break the silence which on each 
 
 Bronzed lip was set, and you would deem 
 
 A god was there, perhaps in dream 
 
 Of dumbness standing, while there shone 
 
 A halo round him, and the glade, 
 
 Filled with bright birds whose presence made 
 
 The air in liquid music melt, 
 
 Seemed but a temple which you felt 
 
 Were fitting for him. . . . 
 
 Some days thereafter, in the glow 
 Of the fair Morning s splendor, slow 
 Upon a milk-white courser there, 
 Nearing the purple mountains where 
 Uplifted like a firmament 
 They rose above the workman s tent, 
 All clothed in softest samite, came 
 Fair Edith tentward. Alighting, slow 
 She with untrammeled grace did go 
 To seek the workman. . . . 
 
 He felt the beauty of her eyes 
 Veiled with their lids, and he did rise 
 As with white hand she gently drew 
 Sidewards the curtain and looked through 
 Unto his presence, and did come 
 Slow-gliding, as within the dome 
 Of Heaven moveth a white cloud. 
 
 Her face 
 
 Glowed with its blushes for a space, 
 Then melted into whiteness, through 
 Which, so silken soft, showed the blue 
 Veins like sapphire threads. Her fringed lids, 
 Neath which the unshed tears were hid, 
 Like golden arches trembling lay 
 Above her eyes, as luminous 
 As starry midnight even thus 
 They seemed to him, as if untold 
 Fathomless depths they could unfold; 
 As if somewhere a moon might sleep 
 And burn within them, and yet keep 
 Horizons hid beyond explore, 
 And passionate seas of feeling o er 
 Which no wind of speech might blow. 
 
 . . When the Noon 
 Leaned breathless o er the blue lagoon, 
 And the white lily s lifted face 
 Xo lightest breeze stirred from its place, 
 They sat in silence for a space. 
 And with his many thoughts entranced, 
 
 He mused with knitted brows, and glanced 
 Not any whither. Moveless down 
 His heavy-lidded eyes were cast, 
 Looking as if before them passed 
 Some visioned shape. She sat as drowned 
 In the warm sunshine flooding round, 
 Nor dared to speak, as if a sound 
 Would fright his vision, which she deemed 
 Meant her deliverance. . . . 
 
 .... The still Noon 
 Slept without his tent as in a swoon, 
 The Sun seemed lying on the wave, 
 And all the cool, sweet shadows gave 
 No sign of motion as they bent 
 Neath where the silent grasses leant 
 The water o er. He paused and sat 
 As looking through vast distance at 
 Something invisible. At length, 
 Like a great Hercules, his strength 
 Showed in his knotted muscles, when 
 He started suddenly, and then 
 Lifted cyclopean hammer, and 
 Rent with one stroke an iron band 
 About an old chest standing there, 
 The swift blow striking the still air 
 Like sound of thunder. . . . 
 
 . Her timid gaze was lifted; there 
 A world of tenderness. Despair 
 Fled in its light, and vast spheres 
 Of shining hope shone on him. 
 
 SANTA CLAUS LAND. (1893.) 
 
 Oh, gray the sea and white the shore 
 That lie where sullen breakers roar, 
 On which the Polar Star looks down, 
 And Ursa Major casts his frown. 
 
 Two great ships tossed upon the wave; 
 The men upon their decks were brave, 
 Far wanderers from a southern land 
 Unto this frozen Arctic strand. 
 
 But breaks the ice, and blue aisles lie 
 To northward, where they cast their eye; 
 Aisles of clear water open wide, 
 Touching the far horizon s side. 
 
 The white sails of their ship they spread, 
 By favoring winds their canvas fed, 
 Along these watery ways they go 
 To Polar fields of ice and snow. 
 
 But no! As on and on they sail 
 
 To farther north, the dying gale 
 
 Gives place to soft-winged zephyrs, bound 
 
 With spicy odors, such as round 
 
 190 
 
Great flower-beds linger. Scent of rose 
 And fragrant lily they disclose, 
 And breath of orange, and the flowers 
 That breathe through spicy tropic bowers. 
 
 And soon the open sea grows wide, 
 No longer giant icebergs glide, 
 Slow-sailing on the deep of seas, 
 Gray, frozen, mount-like mysteries. 
 
 But wide and fair the waters lie 
 Beneath the cloudless Polar sky, 
 And green the shores that sleep afar 
 Beneath the light of Polar Star. 
 
 And strange birds flit within the blue, 
 Bright birds of every size and hue; 
 Some red as is the Summer rose, 
 And some as white as Winter snows. 
 
 And some are purple-breasted seen, 
 With crest of gold and wings of green; 
 And some of glowing amber show 
 Their wide, warm wings, slow-sailing, low 
 
 Against the warm West s glowing rim. 
 And others, lark-like rise, till dim 
 In the blue heavens they cease from sight, 
 Lost in the flooding sunshine s light. 
 
 Then down wide waterways there float 
 Rivers of song the bulbul s note, 
 Sweet as a dream of joy is heard 
 The silver silence all is stirred. 
 
 Then, northward, with its shores of green, 
 A mighty continent is seen, 
 Stretching afar, a land unknown, 
 Filling this farther Polar zone. 
 
 And here, O wonder strange and new! 
 Opens the wide earth to their view, 
 Another world within this sphere, 
 And other light is shining clear. 
 
 For strange electric flashes play, 
 Chasing the darkness all away, 
 And through this under hemisphere 
 Sweep all earth s waters flowing clear. 
 
 No harsh winds in this under world 
 Have ever angry billows curled 
 Round its fair lands and shining isles, 
 Where only placid Summer smiles. 
 
 The Borealis gleams and glows, 
 Brighter than suns the light it shows, 
 And silver rivers pour their tide, 
 While shell-like boats upon them ride. 
 
 Soft-lipped the laughter that they hear, 
 And sweet the speech that rings so clear 
 From rosy lips; like stars which shine 
 The maiden s eyes like rosy wine, 
 
 Red are their lips; as dewy sweet 
 As opening flowers of twin buds, meet 
 For Summer fragrance, while their hair 
 Seems spun of sunbeams, tis so fair. 
 
 And on these new-found shores did cast 
 The ships their anchors, lying fast 
 Beyond the warm and fragrant beach, 
 Stretching as far as eye could reach. 
 
 And here the peepul trees grew fair, 
 And lotus bloom was everywhere 
 O er the bright pools, and palsa trees 
 Waved fragrant blossoms in the breeze. 
 
 And sun-birds spread their wings of gold, 
 Flashing with light, and gay birds told 
 Their nesting songs in love notes sweet, 
 Where boughs of palm and cedar meet. 
 
 And such large cities stretched away 
 To the far rim of northern day; 
 Houses of onyx, stately, grand, 
 With tall carved column which did stand 
 
 Mid fountains where bright rainbows played, 
 And happy youths and maidens strayed 
 Througli fragrant gardens banked with flowers, 
 And robins twittered through the hours 
 
 From morn to sunset. Into dark 
 Melted yet never the last spark 
 Of glowing light; the Aurora shone 
 Like a new sun within this zone 
 
 Making the night more fair than day, 
 Fuller of splendor than the ray 
 Of midday suns, till all the air 
 Was white with shining everywhere. 
 
 Here peacocks strutted in their pride; 
 White herons by the water side 
 Stood on pink legs; bright parrots swung 
 Chattering the palm-tree s boughs among. 
 
 And, O the little trixies who 
 Danced all the flowery meadows through, 
 Playing on lutes, or waving wands 
 Of purest gold above the sands. 
 
 Then oft upon the calm sea s tide 
 Their little boats went sailing wide, 
 Seeking for mermaid s hidden caves 
 Which lay beneath the silver waves. 
 
 To see the ships at anchor there 
 
 Came crowds of people, young and fair, 
 
 Dressed in gay garments, silver-like 
 
 As Morning s mist, which shimmers white 
 
 When through and through the sunbeams sift 
 Their purest rays, ere it is lift 
 Like a white curtain, and the blue 
 And stainless skies shine forth anew. 
 
 191 
 
Unclassified Poems. 
 
 Some rode on yellow horses, made 
 All bright with golden trappings laid 
 On them; music from bells of gold, 
 Sweet-tongued, yet tiny, from each fold 
 
 Of their rich garments sounded low 
 As a brook s voice in silver flow; 
 And bells from coral anklets hung 
 And tinkled softly as they swung. 
 
 A hundred boats of pearl they reach 
 Lying in splendor near the beach, 
 And filling them, quickly glide 
 From silken mantles round them spread. 
 
 With wonder dumb the ship s crew gazed 
 As o er the shining waterways 
 The hundred boats of pearl drew near 
 From this strange, unknown hemisphere. 
 
 But they were gay and happy folk, 
 And every tongue on earth they spoke; 
 "Come with us," they had cried, "and see 
 The land we live in, and the tree 
 
 Whose ripe fruits make us young and fair, 
 And whose rare fragrance fills our air 
 With breath of youth that never dies." 
 The captain for his crew replies 
 With many thanks ; the boats are manned 
 And soon they re sailing toward the land. 
 
 But who is this upon the beach 
 With hands outstretched to welcome each? 
 They look and smile, and quick they spring 
 To reach the land where he is king. 
 
 Tis Santa Claus, with face as fail- 
 As Summer flowers, his shining hair 
 We dream so white has turned to gold, 
 And not a thread is white or old. 
 
 He shows them treasures, endless, vast, 
 Enough for all while Time shall last; 
 Great marble palaces stand there 
 Filled full of gifts, and everywhere 
 
 The busy little nixies run 
 To pack the toys when the} 7 are done; 
 And busy fairies flit through rooms 
 Filled with rich silks and rare perfumes. 
 
 O golden days with Santa Claus! 
 In that bright land where never pause 
 Auroral lights; where calm seas roll 
 Round the fair isles beneath the Pole. 
 O sad their hearts and sad the day 
 When from those shores they sailed away! 
 
 ON MY VERANDA. (1892.) 
 
 Out on the day with sunshine filled I look, 
 
 The air all golden, throbbing in its warmth, 
 
 Each breeze winged with soft light ; upon the flowers 
 
 The bees hovering so gaily, buzzing 
 
 So merrily, of all this fair, bright day 
 
 Seemed but a part. The butterflies, amber 
 
 And brown-winged with flecks of red, like little 
 
 Stars dotting them, are like jewels on the 
 
 Brelfet of Noon. The roses pour their fragrance 
 
 For the air to drink; the honeysuckle 
 
 Leans on its trellis and distills odors 
 
 Better than wine; geranium hedges 
 
 Laugh with rich color, while they from sight 
 
 Cover brown fences that have grown old with years, 
 
 With mossy flecks upon their sides, and holes 
 
 Worm-eaten. But the lush young leaves, blossoms 
 
 And climbing stalks hide all of this and hedge 
 
 The old fence round with youth and bright color, 
 
 And beauty, filling the eye with gladness. 
 
 How blue the sky as I peer upward through 
 The green vine leaves at it, like a sapphire 
 Shining far above them, wondrous in clearness. 
 The emerald grasses at my feet seem 
 Whispering together, and I catch their 
 Soft breath as they stir, and note their lightest 
 Motion. An undertone of harmony 
 Sweeps mid their slender blades. The shadows touch 
 Them lightly as they fall from orange trees 
 And palms and graceful peppers. The little 
 Ants run to and fro mid sand-built cities; 
 Geranium s scarlet bloom invites the 
 Humming-bird, while overhead, in the cool 
 Chambers of the walnut s boughs, the breast of 
 Some glad linnet is full of song. Rippling 
 Down the glad air it comes, and pours itself 
 Into my ear. Afar the mountains rise, 
 Those grand and solemn heights kindred with sun 
 And stars. Veiled in purple glory stand they 
 At this hour, as in a dream, silent, vast, 
 Majestic bulwarks of the world. Do they 
 Not know the secrets of the air, and tongued 
 With waterfalls, did we but know their language, 
 Might they not reveal the story of the 
 Skies? Could they not talk of proud Orion s 
 Martial head, and with their flinty fingers 
 Let loose the Ursa Major, and smooth the 
 Golden tresses of sad Andromeda, 
 Or tell us of far-off Mars, so ruddy- 
 Faced, so proud a warrior? 
 
 I saw one night 
 
 The moon rising above the mountains, and 
 She poured a silver river on their crest, 
 Or what looked like liquid silver. It was 
 A narrow stream, like a shining ribbon 
 On their shoulders, but how it glorified 
 Them! It was as if heaven had let down 
 Its threshold, and one step from thence would take 
 Us to the skies. O mountains, sun and stars ! 
 And ever-blooming flowers, and little 
 Blades of grass, and singing birds amid the 
 Leafy boughs, and bright-winged butterflies, 
 And buzzing bees, and ever-shining skies, 
 I love ye all! Ye are God s finger-prints, 
 And sitting here and looking at ye all, 
 I worship Him. 
 
To Our Little One. 
 
 TO OUR LITTLE ONE. 
 
 [At "The Bivouac," on the m<xrning of January 8, 1901, a baby 
 
 girl was born.] 
 
 At early dawn, soft floating on the blue, 
 I saw a white cloud drifting low and fair; 
 I wonder, Baby, could it have been you 
 Your little, sinless soul astir, 
 Seeking some cunning shape to call your own 
 Bright eyes and rosy fingers, pink-tipped toes, 
 Sweet face and tiny arms, and shining hair 
 And perfect limbs? Ah, Baby sweet! Daughter 
 Of this bright clime, born in the lap 
 Of Nature s royal beauty, where God s crown 
 Is set on all things, may your life 
 Be like the glory of the world about you, 
 Fair ever as the beauty of these vernal fields, 
 Sweet as the fragrance that the roses yield, 
 Pure as the perfect lily s bloom, 
 Which fills the air with rich perfume. 
 Baby, we bid you welcome! 
 
 OUR BABY. 
 
 (Fort Moore Place, Feb. 12, 1903.) 
 Into your perfect little frame 
 Out of the Somewhere a new soul came; 
 
 How did it enter thy body fair, 
 
 With its soft, blue eyes and silken hair? 
 Out of the deeps of the sun-filled blue 
 Did it come stealing softly through, 
 
 Till it found the dimpled hands and feet, 
 
 The baby face and the eyes so sweet, 
 That never had looked on the earth before 
 The soul-light touched them on this far shore? 
 
 Baby, thy soul by our Father s hands 
 Was tenderly fashioned. He understands, 
 
 He guided it here, made ready for thee 
 
 The baby form that today we see 
 Where thy soul abides. May His tender care 
 Be round about thee everywhere; 
 
 Still may He guide the little feet 
 
 Through the paths of Time and ever sweet 
 Make the roses bloom and the lilies spring 
 And th birds of Hope round thy pathway sing. 
 
 Give thee a noble manhood, grand 
 
 With high endeavor, make thee stand 
 
 Where the Right is strong and the Soul is high, 
 And base, skulking Wrong shall pass thee by. 
 
 Welcome, sweet baby ! let Gladness grow 
 
 Flowers for thy feet as on ye go. 
 Let Duty pave all the paths ye tread, 
 And by Love s own hand may your feet be led, 
 
 And when life is over and sets its sun, 
 
 May you hear our Father s blest, "Well done." 
 
 THE FIRST NIGHT IN EDEN. (1904.) 
 
 What did the first man think when evening came, 
 And daylight faded in the West away, 
 When all the shining stars within the sky 
 
 Looked from the blue so still and silently? 
 
 Oh, did he dream that angels eyes were these, 
 
 Watching the earth as it did lie so fair 
 
 In its sweet slumber, the whispering breeze 
 
 Crooning its lullaby among the trees? 
 
 And when the Moon climbed up the silent East, 
 
 Unlike the Sun in splendor, yet as fair, 
 
 Shedding her silver glory round him there, 
 
 Making for his wide-open eyes a feast 
 
 Of wondrous loveliness all silvered o er 
 
 With soft moonlight was Eden s garden floor, 
 
 Paved with green mosses and countless blossoms fair, 
 
 Pouring their perfumed incense on the air. 
 
 Sometimes among the trees a night-bird stirred. 
 
 And a low note from feathered throat was heard 
 
 Did he then dream that nearer unto him, 
 
 In the sweet twilight and the hush of night, 
 
 Drew the All-Father, though unto his sight 
 
 Invisible? So sweet, so free from care. 
 
 So still, with beauty round him ev rywhere, 
 
 With the high stars o envatching him, the blue 
 
 Of Heaven drawn like a curtain o er his head, 
 
 The breath of love within the silent air, 
 
 The whole wide earth a moonbeam-laden bed, 
 
 From which Night s gloom had all so quickly fled. 
 
 Heaven must have seemed but just above the blue, 
 
 The stars its sands of glory shining through. 
 
 THE LITTLE CHILDREN. (1902.) 
 
 The dew of innocence is on their brows, 
 
 And on their cheeks the bloom of purity; 
 
 Content doth linger in their happy smile, 
 
 And hope is in the atmosphere they breathe. 
 
 No shadow dark within life s skies they see, 
 
 No wrong they know to fright their happy dream 
 
 Their trust is like a flower, unfolding fair, 
 
 Their faith is like the sun without eclipse. 
 
 They know not Doubt, that brother of Despair, 
 
 Nor Guile, which is a poison for the lips, 
 
 They know not Envy, that foul imp of Wrong; 
 
 Like flowers they blossom on the slopes of Time, 
 
 To glad our lives and make the world more fair, 
 
 And make a holv Eden in our hearts. 
 
 EMBLEMS. (1902.) 
 
 Our lofty mountain heights they grandly stand, 
 
 Shining in whiteness, as if th unseen Hand 
 
 Of the great God had touched them, brushing thence 
 
 The stain of Earth and Time, leaving but sense 
 
 Of purity. Like angel s garments white, 
 
 Transfigured in the glory of the light, 
 
 The snows upon their lofty summits lie, 
 
 And like a crown rests there the sapphire sky, 
 
 So near to heaven, they breathe the upper air, 
 
 No sound of strife or sin could reach them there; 
 
 The whispers of the Night must reach their ears, 
 
 And all the music of the starry spheres. 
 
 193 
 
Unclassified Poems. 
 
 The Sun walks there in all his glory dressed, 
 Time dreameth not of change as he doth rest, 
 Halting to view the splendor at his feet, 
 Where Summer smiles in her secure retreat, 
 Mid orange groves and never-failing flowers, 
 Whose fragrance fills the long year s passing hours. 
 
 O happy land beneath these mounts of snow ! 
 Where falls on us the Summer s softest glow, 
 God s love enfolds us here, and as we raise 
 Our eyes to them we sing His power and praise. 
 Emblems of power, O lofty mounts ! are ye, 
 Emblems of love the fruitful valleys be. 
 
 194 
 
of Song, 
 
 Mocking-bird, mocking -bitd, singing in t^e tree! 
 
 LOVE. (1878.) 
 
 Within my heart a little bird hath built its nest, 
 
 With folded wing and songful breast 
 
 It sitteth there the whole day long, 
 
 Nor findeth rest but in its song, 
 
 And all the music of its every strain 
 
 Begins and ends with this same sweet refrain 
 
 The only sound on my heart s full sea 
 
 "I love, love, love thee, so remember me!" 
 
 Joyful Day. (1879.) 
 
 day so bright, O day so free! 
 
 1 kneel in my love to worship thee ! 
 The clouds like rosy petals lie 
 
 On the tender breast of the sunset sky, 
 And the breath of the winds is soft to me, 
 And I feel the kiss of the restless sea ! 
 And life is glad it is joy to be! 
 O day of beauty! I worship thee. 
 
 Earth s Fair Morning. (1888.) 
 
 When Earth s fair mornings come, 
 
 Each stealing one by one 
 
 Up to the dark steeps of night, 
 
 Their pathway by the stars 
 
 Soft-shining through the bars 
 
 Of twinkling, golden light 
 
 Made free from gloom, 
 
 How up the eastern sky 
 
 Dawn creeps, and there makes room 
 
 In the wide East, where sleeping breezes sigh, 
 
 Where shadowy curtains fall, 
 
 For the new Day s birth. 
 
 How Earth her censer swings, 
 
 Filled with all perfumed things 
 
 Of leaf and flower! 
 
 How trembles the soft air 
 
 With music everywhere 
 
 As the Sun lays his cheek 
 
 Upon the mountain peak 
 
 When Day has come! 
 
 Song. 
 
 Butterflies, butterflies, lend us your wings, 
 Let us float with you through the summer air, 
 Where the happy robin sings, 
 Where the golden poppies bloom, 
 Where the lily blossoms fair. 
 
 Mocking-bird, mocking-bird, singing in the tree, 
 Who has filled your happy breast with song? 
 Did the breezes floating free 
 Through the fragrant orange tree 
 Bear the strains along 
 
 From the land where bulbuls sing, 
 
 Where the spicy breezes blow, 
 
 And the glad brooks whisper low 
 
 To the bluebells as they ring, 
 
 Ring, ring, as on slender stalks they swing? 
 
 Where the fireflies twinkling pass 
 Such a shining host and fair 
 With their lanterns, through the grass, 
 Making all the earth as bright 
 As the starry skies at night. 
 
 O the breath of orange bloom 
 Floating down the river ! 
 O the sweetness of the lilies 
 On their stems a-quiver ! 
 O so light of heart we sail 
 Up the shining river! 
 
 The Mountain Stream. 
 
 Hast thou a soul, O rippling water! thou 
 That with thy ceaseless murmur glidest by, 
 A thing of song and tireless melody? 
 Along thy banks a fringe of blossoms now 
 Bends lovingly and fair, and rushes lean 
 As if some whispered secret lay between 
 Their hearts and thine 
 Secret divine, 
 
 That only fields and flowers may know 
 Along the ways thy waters flo%v. 
 
 At Noon. 
 
 It was high noon, no shadows fell 
 
 Across the brightness of the sun-filled sky, 
 
 And all the birds that in our summer dwell 
 Sang softly to the breezes floating by. 
 
 The air was full of fragrance, perfumes sweet, 
 And odors of all odorous things that bloom 
 
 Seemed like pure incense round me there to meet, 
 Drowning in sweetness all the glowing noon. 
 
 The small brooks rippled soft a silver tune, 
 The blue sky gleamed, a dome of shining light, 
 
 It was December, yet it seemed like June, 
 The year s glad morning rather than its night. 
 
 An Arctic Day. 
 
 I think I was not dreaming, but some way 
 
 Self slipped from self, and then unhindered sped 
 Beyond the seas where mighty icebergs stray, 
 And half the year is night and half is day. 
 
 Shuddering, within that hoary-frozen zone, 
 
 Which seemed the mighty ruins of a sphere 
 In its dead silence, lo! I stood alone, 
 With not e en tossing billow to make moan. 
 
 195 
 
Snatches of Song. 
 
 How dreadful was the solitude! It seemed to me 
 
 As if the world had died, and only I 
 Upon that awful, silent, frozen sea 
 Of all things earthly had not ceased to be. 
 
 Love s Dream. (1891.) 
 
 I dream of thee by day as flowers dream of the light, 
 And toward thee turns my heart as in the night 
 The sweet Earth turns to greet the coming Dawn. 
 Without thee it is night; with thee tis morn. 
 
 Thy words are my heart s flowers whene er they breathe 
 Thy love to me; and when Love s smile doth wreathe 
 Thy lips, my sun is shining clear, 
 There is no cloud in all Joy s hemisphere. 
 
 Sonnet. (1892.) 
 
 There is a soul within this day so fair, 
 
 A heart pulsing in the soft winds that sweep 
 Past us so noiselessly on viewless feet, 
 Breathing the sunshine of this cloudless air, 
 Calm as a maiden s heart that s free from care. 
 Autumn, sweet Autumn, youth is still with thee, 
 And not a wrinkle on thy face we see, 
 
 Xo sign of age amid thy golden hair, 
 
 And luminous thy bending skies of blue; 
 Sweet smiles November as she peereth through, 
 Wrapping herself in mantle of green leaves, 
 Crowning herself with many buds and flowers, 
 Divinely sweet the tropic charms she weaves, 
 And spun with gold these sunny days of ours. 
 
 Love s World. (1892.) 
 
 Oh, it is sweet to live and ever know 
 
 A perfect love is yours, one full of grace, 
 With never in its perfectness a place 
 
 For any thought but that does upward grow 
 
 To loyalty and tenderness to know 
 
 You one true heart s most secret thoughts may share. 
 Doubling its joys and halving all its care. 
 
 Life is worth living when we live it so; 
 The world is fair, we do not see its tears, 
 Xor feel its griefs, nor tremble at its fears. 
 
 Tis always morning in the heart of love; 
 
 Tis always youth, for Love does ne er grow old, 
 Tis summer always, doubt alone is cold, 
 
 Love s world is fair as any world above. 
 
 196 
 
Sl)ort Verse. 
 
 Where Nature s blood ran pure, and cool, and sweet." 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 Rockwell. (1876.) 
 
 Peaceful thy rest, dear friend ! 
 Above thee blue skies bend, 
 And the glad bees hum; 
 And all the long, bright year 
 The flowers bend low and sweet 
 To kiss thy head and feet. 
 
 And sweet-voiced birds of song, 
 From all the watching trees, 
 Pour music on the breeze, 
 To soothe thy quiet sleep; 
 On Nature s tender breast, 
 Wrapped in her sunshine, rest. 
 
 Stringed Pearls. (1884.) 
 
 The sky is hid behind the clouds, 
 
 And only dim, soft shadows fall. 
 
 The long, black lines the sunlight shows 
 
 Of tall tree-trunks and waving boughs, 
 
 And lesser ones, which rich mosaics make, 
 
 Of nodding flowers so dewy-eyed and sweet. 
 
 Of birds on wing, and dainty butterfly. 
 
 And airy bees, that buzzing make their way 
 
 Through air all bridged with sunshine as they go. 
 
 I cannot find today, for shadows are 
 
 But twin with sunshine, as sorrow is with joy. 
 
 A Mountain Lake. (1886.) 
 
 It sleeps among the hills serene and cool, 
 With scarce a ripple on its placid breast, 
 
 Mirroring the sky, as if it had dropped down 
 Within its deeps for slumber and for rest. 
 
 The leaning trees unto their shadows bend, 
 As in a dream the softest breezes blow, 
 
 Flower turns to flower as if it sought a friend, 
 And o er its blue the birds they come and go. 
 
 Nature is here and man hath not a place, 
 But silence lingers save when breezes stir 
 
 Or wild-birds sing, or silver-footed rain 
 
 Comes pattering down through forest corridor. 
 
 Or when the crickets chirp within the shade, 
 Or acorns drop from off the bending tree, 
 
 Or the wild stag comes bounding down the slope 
 To drink its waters which are flowing free. 
 
 () placid lake, so cool, so still, so fair! 
 
 A gem upon the bosom of the wild, 
 Beloved of hills and of the running streams, 
 
 Of mountain springs thou art the cherished child. 
 
 How Far? (1887.) 
 
 The earth spins round, while o er it lies 
 The sun-filled, star-strewn deep of skies; 
 The sunlight but a golden sea, 
 Beyond whose deeps the planets be. 
 O golden floods of light! how far 
 Beyond your deepest deeps is star 
 And outmost world, whose orbit nears 
 God s throne, the center of the spheres? 
 
 Life. (1887.) 
 
 Life hath such little worth if life is all 
 But life of earth; if with the pall 
 Of death covering our senseless clay 
 Our being passes into nothingness away. 
 
 The Summer Brook. (1887.) 
 
 It was a summer day; the woods were green, 
 
 The sky was wondrous fair, without a speck 
 
 Of cloud; with golden, sunny sheen 
 
 The hills were dressed, while from their sides between 
 
 A little glad brook ran, with here and there a fleck 
 
 Of shadow on its breast of swaying leaf, 
 
 Or happy singing bird, whose wing 
 
 Swept the bright air, or flew from bough to bough, 
 
 As if in search of larger room to sing. 
 
 The brook ran merrily the summer meadow through, 
 
 Leaping sometimes in laughter o er the stones, 
 
 Kissing the flowers, as if its love were new, 
 
 Then singing to them as a mother croons 
 
 In softest tones her baby s ear unto. 
 
 And then it lay, with shining face and still, 
 
 In silent pools, with sunshine only shed 
 
 Upon its edge, a golden border spread 
 
 Of lingering sunbeams holding souls of noons. 
 
 O happy brook! the sky looked down to it 
 
 And lost itself in looking in its breast; 
 
 And on its banks did dreaming lovers sit, 
 
 Heart answering heart beneath the quiet lip. 
 
 While to its mirror all the grasses prest, 
 
 And dipped their green blades in its silver tide. 
 
 And Noon breathed softly sitting it beside, 
 
 And lost the fever of her sultry heat 
 
 Where Nature s blood ran pure, and cool, and sweet. 
 
 Happy Bird! (1891.) 
 
 O happy bird sitting at dawn in the leafy tree, 
 
 What do the breezes whisper to you, blowing so free? 
 
 Do you see their airy, fairy fingers so lightly 
 
 Lifting all the pretty green, and swaying dancing leaves? 
 
 Do you see the shining sunbeams as they so brightly 
 
 Paint with gold the highest crests of all the tallest trees 
 
 197 
 
Other Short Verse. 
 
 Sitting on your nest with all its leafy curtains drawn, 
 Do the sunbeams come a-knocking in the early Dawn? 
 Do you see Night s shadows as slowly they slip away 
 Down the unseen hillsides of the purple-tinted West? 
 Do you see the shining East with the twinkling star of Day 
 Like a jewel on the brightening glory of its breast? 
 
 Dolce Far Niente. (1891.) 
 Not a cloud anywhere in the sky, 
 Not a breath in the wide air astir; 
 Not the spread of a sail, or the whirr 
 Of a wing in its flight through the deep, 
 Luminous sky ; the bee is asleep ; 
 The flowers are breathless and still; 
 It is noon in the sky, on the hill, 
 In the valley and canon, and I, 
 Beneath the blue tent of the sky, 
 Dream, bathed in the gold of the hours, 
 And drowned in the perfume of flowers. 
 
 Sweet By-and-By. 
 O shining land ! Sweet By-and-By, 
 
 How dear and fair thou art; 
 You live in dreams of beauty rare, 
 
 Forever in my heart; 
 My castles high of hope and love 
 
 I rear within thy light, 
 And hope makes all thy stars and suns 
 
 Resplendent to my sight. 
 
 How clear thy silver waters flash, 
 
 How vast thy mountains stand; 
 How soft thy spicy winds do blow 
 
 Round me on either hand; 
 And Love pipes on his silver reed, 
 
 Pipes tenderly and long, 
 Till all my spirit seems to melt 
 
 In answering love and song. 
 
 An Eastern July Noon. 
 
 The blue air palpitated with the Summer s heat, 
 The sky let fall its drooping lids upon the hills, 
 And through the sultriness the Summer rills 
 Hummed drowsily, as if half in dream, 
 And the patient cattle stood within the stream, 
 And lazily the butterfly, with yellow wings, 
 Just stirred the air, which lightly breathed, 
 Like a great soul asleep, while wreathed 
 In luminous haze, like a soft curtain drawn 
 Which shut out all the dewy scents of morn, 
 The Earth lay swooning in the arms of Noon. 
 
 * The Stars. (1897.) 
 
 But oh, the stars ! the far-off, silent stars, 
 Holding their own within the blue of Night, 
 Twinkling with glory on our wondering sight 
 
 Their beams down-falling like the silver spars 
 
 From some swift meteor, moving on through space; 
 Unto our earth-ears silent, vet the face 
 
 Of Nature turneth to them, and her ears 
 Catch the full chorus of all starry spheres. 
 
 Our Summer Land. 
 
 The earth is starred with blossoms beautiful, 
 With lily and with rose her lap is full; 
 The lily leans upon her slender stem, 
 The roses weave a wondrous diadem. 
 Earth smiles unto the sky, and back again 
 Drop sun and stars their answering smile to men. 
 
 This Summer Day. (1897.) 
 
 O day of days ! divinely fair and sweet, 
 
 With summer in the sky and at our feet; 
 
 Her hair so golden and her eyes so blue, 
 
 Feasting on sunshine and on silver dew; 
 
 Her breath is like the perfume of the flowers; 
 
 Her voice like bird-song through the shining hours; 
 
 Her smile, ah me! could angels brighter be, 
 
 As drops its light upon our land and sea? 
 
 One little line above must lie between 
 
 This realm of beauty and the realm unseen. 
 
 The Sabbath. 
 
 The Sabbath comes, a pause within the week, 
 
 A breath from Heaven, a gleam from Eden s day; 
 
 O would its brightness still might round us stay 
 
 In the high mountains of our cares so bleak! 
 
 Would we might breathe amid their chilling snows 
 
 Diviner airs, and see Hope s stars arise, 
 
 And neath the clouds that ofttimes dim our skies, 
 
 Behold the river of God s love which round us flows. 
 
 Our Father. 
 
 God s silent kiss is on the shining sky, 
 
 His tenderness upon the whispering leaves, 
 
 His footsteps wander in the sunbeams by, 
 His bounteous love is in our ripened sheaves. 
 
 Thanksgiving. 
 
 The laughing sunlight ripples through the trees, 
 The blue skies bend above us, calm and clear; 
 Flowers pour their incense on the atmosphere, 
 And yellow-breasted, light-winged argosies 
 Of honey-bearing bees flit here and there; 
 Full-flooded sunshine gleameth everywhere. 
 With Nature as with us it is Thanksgiving time, 
 And songs of happy birds seem set to rhyme, 
 And soul of melody is in each passing breeze 
 Which stirs the leafy tongues of all the trees 
 Until they pour a psalm so full and sweet 
 The blossoms haste its music to repeat. 
 
 A New-born Babe. 
 
 Say, baby sweet ! 
 
 Out of the beautiful blue of the skies did you come, 
 With the light of the shining stars in your eyes, 
 And the lingering glory of Paradise 
 
 198 
 
The Pen Falls. 
 
 In the smile which is round your soft lips curled? 
 And did Aurora lean in some far-off world, 
 
 With the breath of spices upon her lips, 
 
 And kiss your dimpled finger-tips? 
 Kiss them till warm as her mouth they grew, 
 Just touched with the pink of the sunrise, too? 
 Say, baby sweet ! 
 
 A Sunset Psalm. 
 There was a glory on the tree-tops when the day \vs 
 
 dying, 
 
 As if Heaven s finger lay upon their crests; 
 The winds just stirred them, and its gentle sighing 
 Was like the sound of birds soft cooing in their nest. 
 
 How danced the leaves of shimmering vines and roses, 
 How sweet the psalm of fragrance from their lips; 
 
 How rare the Gloria in Excelsis pouring 
 From all the myriads of their shining tips! 
 
 A Fragment. 
 
 God s unseen hand I think is everywhere 
 Doth He not lead the wandering bird in air- 
 Else how o er pathless distances can it, 
 Sure-winged and strong and all unerring flit, 
 Without a line or compass in the sea 
 Of sky all islandless, and wide and deep 
 As the far spaces where the stars do sweep? 
 
 The Lily s Death. 
 
 A swaying lily fell asleep, 
 
 And low its head was bent upon its stem, 
 
 And wandering breezes kissed its milk-white hem, 
 
 And honey-bees hid in its golden heart, 
 
 Till fierce winds tore its fragile leaves apart ; 
 
 Then Autumn came and gathered to her breast 
 
 The snow-white petals, and with noiseless feet 
 
 Bore them where Summer s dying head did rest. 
 
 Who Knows? (1902.) 
 
 The hush of calm is on the air, 
 
 The winds scarce breathe within the light, 
 
 The grasses slumber everywhere, 
 And lovely roses, red and white, 
 
 Shed richest fragrance; lilies sweet 
 
 Wall in the pathways of my feet. 
 
 The lake uplifts its shining face, 
 
 With scarce a ripple on its breast; 
 Within the sky there is no place 
 
 For any cloud; the sunbeams rest, 
 A soundless sea of golden light, 
 Filling the spaces infinite. 
 
 The soul of fragrance seems to lie 
 
 Within the air; the soul of song 
 Is hidden, too, within the sky, 
 
 And every breeze wafts it along. 
 Oh, who can solve the mystery 
 Of air-filled deeps of melody? 
 
 Day. (1903.) 
 
 With silent feet Night walks the way, 
 All silver-paved by shining stars, 
 
 But oh, how swift, when nears the Day, 
 She hides behind Morn s golden bars. 
 
 Then how the little birds awake, 
 Pour tides of song upon the air, 
 
 And blossoms fuller perfume shake 
 From dew-bathed petals everywhere. 
 
 Day smiles, the Sun pours forth his light, 
 Growth walks abroad unhindered, free, 
 
 And golden glory fills the sight, 
 And oh, how sweet it is to be. 
 
 To be, in God s great world of sun, 
 
 In God s great world of night and stars, 
 
 Then lo! when time for us is done, 
 Death endless Life s wide gate unbars. 
 
 Good-Night. 
 
 The day has gone to sleep within the vales, 
 Shadows are cradled in the em rald grass, 
 
 And on the heights the roseate sunset pales, 
 And from the clouds the crimson colors pass. 
 
 Good-night, sweet Day ! The stars come out on high 
 To watch the pathway which your footsteps trod, 
 
 And pave with vastness the great deeps of sky. 
 And bring our souls in fuller touch with God. 
 
 THE PEN FALLS. 
 November in Sunland. 
 
 [The last poern of Mrs. Otis, written Nov. 8. 1904, on 
 the bed from which she never rose.] 
 
 In the far East the Autumn s fires are burning, 
 The forests burst into a crimson glow, 
 The air is full of whispers of the snow, 
 
 The winds awake, the river s tides are turning 
 To meet the frosts that will enchain them soon 
 And weld their icy fetters till the noon 
 
 Of the glad Springtime. But here the Summer s 
 
 breath 
 
 Still lingers, the many blossoms wake, 
 Color and sweetness from the sunshine take, 
 
 They show no signs of fading or of death; 
 The Summer trails her lovely garments still, 
 And smiles at us from every vale and hill. 
 
 The leaves are green, the waters ripple by, 
 And bird-song floats upon the sunny air, 
 The butterflies are flying everywhere 
 
 On their wings, like blossoms in the sky; 
 November comes with heart of sunny June, 
 With Summer s loveliness tis all attune. 
 
 199 
 
PART II. 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE PROSE. 
 
BRIDAL VEIL FALLS, YOSEMITE. 
 
IN THE YOSEMITE. 
 
 CAMPING AND CLIMBING IN WONDERLAND. 
 
 IN the summer of 1878, Mrs. Otis, with a 
 congenial party, including two lady com 
 panions, an artist, a botanist and others, 
 made a notable wagon-trip from Santa Barbara to 
 the Yosemite Valley and return. On the trip she 
 wrote numerous graphic descriptive letters, 
 which were published and read with keen 
 pleasure. These letters are not reproduced in 
 this volume, but the compiler cannot refrain 
 from selecting at least one of them and also one 
 chapter from an unpublished sketch by the 
 author, describing the closing of her trip, " From 
 the Seacoast to the Sierras, with Glimpses of 
 the Yosemite." 
 
 SIGHT-SEEING IN THE YOSEMITE. 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE VALLEY. 
 
 YOSEMITE VALLEY, July 31, 1878. Yosemite cannot 
 he put into words. For the colossal grandeur of its 
 rock-wrought walls language can find no cunning device 
 of expression that will paint them; speech no words with 
 graphic power sufficient for their delineation. A Divine 
 Architect reared its lofty ramparts, chiseled its "Cathe 
 dral" and shaped its "Domes," carved its "Royal 
 Arches," and dropped from its cloud-capped heights 
 its "Vernal" waterfalls. 
 
 In the old eternity of the past in the far-off glacial 
 epochs Nature, perhaps with her chisels of icebergs 
 and flow of torrents, wrought through the silent ages 
 to hew and carve and shape its architectural grandeur. 
 Or, perchance the hand of convulsions rent the solid rock, 
 and with the ploughshare of the earthquake furrowed the 
 valley and formed its bed. Or with instantaneous crash 
 the solid mountains, shaken by internal throes, may 
 have snapped asunder, and down into unfathomable 
 abysms sunk the vast mass, once lying between its now 
 vertical walls, and Yosemite, with all its magnificent 
 grandeur, stood a complete creation the wonder of all 
 lands, the perfection of Nature s architectural tri 
 umphs. 
 
 The wonders of Yosemite touched even the untutored 
 heart of the savage, and not a colossal rock, not a shin 
 ing waterfall, not a dome or peak or "Cathedral" tower 
 from the bold and lofty front of El Capitan to the 
 majestic heights of Clouds Rest, but has its legend of 
 wonder or its tale of mystery. Yosemite is not an after 
 thought of Creation. Xo lessons of chance, no hand 
 writing of inharmonious law, are inscribed like blind 
 
 hireoglyphics upon its lofty sides, but on all its rock- 
 ribbed walls, and towering "Sentinel Rock," law is writ 
 ten, and the wisdom of Infinite Design is eternally pho 
 tographed. 
 
 The Yosemite Valley is a wild and rock-walled carton 
 a vast gorge or depression between nearly vertical 
 granite walls, averaging nearly 4,000 feet in height, and 
 rising at some points to the stupendous altitude of 5,700 
 feet. The bed of the valley is nearly level, and is about 
 six miles in length and from half a mile to a mile in 
 width. The main Merced River, fed by the eternal 
 snows of the Sierras, flows through it, not with the rush 
 of an angry torrent, but with murmuring, musical ca 
 dences, blending the symphony of its swift-flowing 
 waters with the wind-born harmonies of rustling leaves 
 and forest anthems. 
 
 The valley is 4,060 feet above sea level, and in por 
 tions is thickly tree-cladstudded with lofty pines and 
 cedars. Its attractions are infinite and varied. 
 
 As the tourist approaches it from the Mariposa road, 
 the massive, solid front of El Capitan lifts itself up 
 3,300 feet, clear-out in shining granite. To its right, 
 across the entrance to the valley, the Three Graces ma 
 jestic heights, carved and rounded, and leaning with 
 graceful inclination towards the cartoned deep of Yo 
 semite, rise skyward 3,750 feet the giant sentinels which 
 guard the valley s gates. 
 
 The panoramic effect of the approaches to, and of 
 the exterior walls of the valley are indescribable, in 
 company with our botanist I came in full view of them 
 on horseback. We stopped a few moments, and, with 
 uncovered heads, looked and were silent. Speech seemed 
 like profanation. As we moved on, a sort of terror 
 seemed to seize our horses. The walled heights before 
 them, white in the glare of the noonday sun, attracted 
 even their brute gaze, and they shivered and drew close 
 together, and with heads erect, with distended nostrils, 
 and ears thrown back, they moved on only through con 
 stant urging. Its effect upon them was so noticeable 
 we both remarked it. 
 
 The general color of the walls of the valley is a light 
 gray, but in the full noonday sunlight they dazzle with 
 their whiteness. Some portions of the walls are vertically 
 striped with gray, brown and black lines, which pro 
 duce a peculiar yet far from unpleasing effect. 
 
 In passing from Inspiration Point, the tourist, taking 
 the wagon road which runs in zigzag lines down the 
 steep mountain sides, makes a descent of nearly 3,000 
 feet before he reaches the level of the valley. In the 
 course of this descent the dominant features of the 
 valley are presented to the eye. The Domes, Cathedral 
 Rock, with the lofty spires rising 500 feet above the 
 main body of the cathedral-like mass; the central view 
 of the valley, glimpses of the carton of Tenayn Fork, 
 Sentinel Rock, and far off the shining whiteness of 
 
 201 
 
In the Yosemite. 
 
 Clouds Rest, are all within sweep of the vision. And 
 all along the way down to the valley s entrance gleams 
 the Bridal Veil with its gossamer-like tissue, its diamond 
 mist, and its swaying folds touched with prismed beauty. 
 The principal waterfalls are the Bridal Veil, Yosemite, 
 Vernal, Nevada, South Fork, Sentinel, and Royal Arch 
 Fall. The principal mountains are Half Domes, or 
 Tis-sa-ack, the significance of which is Goddess of the 
 Valley; Clouds Rest, North Dome, Washington Tower, 
 Cap of Liberty, Mt. Starr King, Glacier Rock, Sentinel, 
 Cathedral Rock, Three Graces, Three Brothers, and El 
 Capitan, or Tu-toch-ah-nu-lah the Great Chief of the 
 Valley. Of all these points I propose to write you, giv 
 ing a separate letter to each, as I visit and explore them. 
 In no other way can I give you any just conception 
 of them, or of their surroundings. [The letters were 
 written and published Ed.] 
 
 There are two small ranchos in the valley under 
 cultivation. The ranch-houses, standing at the base of 
 the precipitous walls of the valley, look like playthings 
 when contrasted with them. 
 
 We have gone into permanent camp in the upper part 
 of the valley, opposite Glacier Rock, and with the Royal 
 Arches in our rear. Each evening brings us the grand 
 illumination of the Royal Half Dome. Clouds Rest, 
 beyond it, catches the glowing red of the sunset glory, 
 and stands gleaming afar like the Mount of Trans 
 figuration, and as the sunlight fades, the starry firma 
 ment sinks and rests on the uplifted heights of the 
 magnificent North Dome and the purpling crest of 
 Sentinel Rock. Behind the shadow-enveloped heights 
 of the Cap of Liberty, like a gem in the royal diadem 
 of the mountain, rises Jupiter, in the clear radiance of 
 his starry light, and the eyelids of the day shut softly 
 down over the silent mountains and the slumbering 
 valley. Not a sound from the outer world reaches us 
 here, not an echo of its bustle or its strife. Peace folds 
 us in, and Night s stars watch over us. 
 
 A FORTY-MILE RIDE TO CLOUDS 
 REST. 
 
 Where is there a more melodious name than that which 
 was the birthright of Yosemite Ah-wah-nee? It has in 
 it the melody of its waterfalls and the rhythmical full 
 ness of its swift-flowing river. 
 
 And every morning in Ah-wah-nee was a beautiful 
 poem. The undertone of the song was written in the cold, 
 gray light of daw. But after that came symphony and 
 sweetness and melody. 
 
 There is no drowsiness when you open your eyes in the 
 woods. Nature has a thousand voices with which she 
 woos you from your slumber. From your tent you watch 
 the gray shadows fade, as the flush of the perfect morn 
 lights up the East. First is the touch of pale yellowish- 
 gfeen; then come richer flushes and warmer tints. The 
 
 dull orange changes to a great deep of shining gold. 
 Then there is a flame of scarlet; there is a glory on the 
 hilltops; the gray, cold crags light up. Some invisible 
 finger gilds and transforms them. The trees sway and 
 whisper in the breeze that stirs at sunrise. What a glory 
 there is in the tree-top when the sun first strikes it ! 
 There must be gold somewhere among its emerald. What 
 music there is in the woods ! One can only be glad, for 
 Nature s peace is on the world and upon the heart. 
 
 I made my farewell tour in and about the Yosemite, go 
 ing to Clouds Rest, twenty miles distant from our camp. 
 We started at dawn when the sun had only begun to 
 brighten the East, and the faint, rosy tints of light 
 gleamed as through a curtain. Well mounted on trusty 
 mules, we moved away, and before riding far our feet 
 were aching with the cold of the early hour. 
 
 The whole atmosphere lay as if asleep and pulseless, 
 till we neared the vicinity of the Bridal Veil, and then 
 Pohono the "Spirit of the Evil Wind" whom the 
 Indians say haunts the region of the fall, caught us and 
 pursued us till we reached the gateway of El Capitan, 
 where Tu-toch-ah-nu-lah s image stands carved in the 
 solid rock, the enduring monument of the mighty chief 
 who loved the children of the sun who dwelt here in the 
 early days of Yosemite. 
 
 It is not strange that the untutored mind of the savage 
 should be stirred to superstitious fancies in regard to this 
 wind, for when the entire valley is breezeless, and not a 
 pulse of air is astir elsewhere, through this narrow gate 
 way between these mighty walls there is the rush of 
 winged winds, and a strong, swift current of air that 
 sometimes blows with a force almost, amounting to fury. 
 
 Passing beyond this, we found not a breeze afloat, and 
 as we passed Cathedral Rock the golden gleams of the 
 sunrise lighted up the front of El Capitan, and touched 
 the lofty brows of the Three Brothers as they stood the 
 silent guardians beyond the river. 
 
 I looked with a sigh of regret at the bare, rock-built 
 height from which the falls of the Yosemite had vanished. 
 Not a trickling drop of water fell from the granite lip 
 of the precipice. There was just a long dark line adown 
 the rock, marking the bed of the fall, which lay a pall- 
 like shadow where once its flashing waters fell. 
 
 Arriving at Barnard s, a pleasant addition was made 
 to our party in the person of the winsome daughter of 
 the genial host, and then we moved on up the southern 
 bank of the Merced towards Snow s. 
 
 The sunlight touched the water and dropped shining 
 gleams upon its waves. The old brown cedar logs which 
 lay in the bed of the stream, and over which the miniature 
 billows rippled, looked bronzed by the action of the sun 
 and waves, till they appeared like treasures that the miner 
 might covet. There were delightful shadows and flashes 
 of sunlight among the pines; there was the nodding of 
 cedars, and after a time a whispering among the firs as 
 if they wondered at our early coming, and half resented 
 this early intrusion upon the forest quiet. 
 
 The sun was up above the valley s walls as we entered 
 the mountain trail leading to Snow s, which we climbed, 
 
 202 
 
The 
 
 of Liberty. 
 
 and toiled upward till we were at the base of the zigzag 
 which leads to the elevated plateau above the Nevada 
 Falls, and beyond which is the entrance to the Little, or 
 Upper Yoseniite. 
 
 This trail I have already described, together with the 
 grand picture presented along its way. The downlook 
 from these vast heights into the seemingly bottomless 
 deeps of the canons below; the rush and glory of Vernal 
 Falls; the battlemented heights over which the Nevada 
 Fall drops with its thunders; the glimpses of dome after 
 dome all these and more I have written of. 
 
 But it was not until this trip tnai I realized the magni 
 tude and grandeur of the Cap of Liberty. It rises up 
 on the left side of Nevada Falls in complete isolation, a 
 vast, rock-wrought pyramid 4600 feet, a cap-like mass 
 of granite, with a narrow gorge on either side of it, out of 
 which issues the sublime utterance of the waters. It is al 
 most perfect, as far as shape is concerned, in its resem 
 blance to the "soldier caps" worn during the war, and it 
 is a splendid monument to the liberty which our soldiers 
 bought. 
 
 Climbing the zigzag on the left of the falls, we entered 
 the beautiful valley of the Little Yoseniite. We passed 
 through a charming, meadow-like expanse, shaded by tall 
 pines and cedars, but beyond it were walls of granite, 
 and above them the towering, snow-clad heights of the 
 Sierras, Mount Starr King stood out bolder than ever 
 to my view, a lofty, rounded, dome-like structure, bare 
 and white as a frozen rock. 
 
 We climbed up, and still up, over rocks and between 
 them; past gigantic boulders that only the hand of ter 
 rible convulsions could have planted; through forests 
 that are the glory of these outlying heights; past rippling 
 streams whose waves shone over golden sands, till we 
 reached a grove of cedars at the base of Clouds Rest. 
 Here by the side of a running stream we stopped for 
 lunch, and turned our tired animals into a patch of the 
 brightest emerald grasses, watered by springs and fed 
 by a running rivulet. It seemed strange to find such a 
 spot in September, and at such an elevation not less 
 than 8000 feet above the sea. 
 
 There are numberless little brooks that murmur through 
 the long year to these mountains. There were always 
 trees and green grasses where they run such glorious 
 green nooks as one would never dream of finding at such 
 great altitude. There was no dearth of flowers. The 
 golden-rod threw out its long yellow wand and waved it 
 to every passing breeze. The wild white lily shone like 
 a star, and a delicate little purple blossom the Erigeron 
 folios ium opened its many slender petals to the sun. 
 We found here, too, the golden-eyed blossoms of the 
 I olenlilla glandasa, and all the banks of the streams were 
 bright with bud and blossom. 
 
 The day was somewhat warm in the valley. It was 
 hot as we climbed the steep zigzag by the Nevada 
 Falls. The bare white rocks reflected the heat beside, 
 before and behind us. The white sands caught the 
 glare of the sunshine and flung it back like a furnace 
 breath into our faces. But when we reached the valley 
 
 of the Little Yosemite the snow-tempered breezes from 
 the Sierras fanned us with a touch of delightful coolness. 
 
 Here the botanist, riding on in advance, encountered 
 a huge rattlesnake. There was a terrible battle between 
 the two, but finally a well-aimed blow from the botanist s 
 sharp, heavy pick severed the reptile s head from his 
 body. Instead of taking the scalp of his snakeship, the 
 professor cut off fourteen vattles as a trophy of his 
 victory. 
 
 Getting up into the Little Yosemite, one is alone with 
 primeval Nature, for the valley has in no way ever been 
 disturbed by improvements. Its waters sing on unchanged 
 and changeless. Its surrounding forests sweep as proudly 
 and as far now as they did ages ago. It lifts up still 
 the same mighty battlements of rocks, shows still the 
 same fair, placid sweep of meadow, fringed along the 
 river s banks with willows, sycamores and cedars, and 
 everywhere are the fairy-like adjustments of light and 
 shade, the dropping of tree-shadows, and the flooding of 
 the sunshine. Above, on the hillsides, are the pines, great 
 forest zones of them, lifting themselves up till their 
 pointed tops seem to pierce the blue. 
 
 We found here a quiet world. There was the occa 
 sional falling of the heavy cones. The busy squirrel was 
 collecting his breakfast, and the daintiest epicure would 
 have enjoyed sharing it with him. I am afraid that we 
 trenched somewhat upon his stores, for we captured some 
 of the pine cones that he had cut off and rolled up 
 against the foot of the tree, all ready for his work of 
 picking out from them the ripe seeds. We also gathered 
 some of the immense cones of the sugar-pine, which were 
 from eighteen to twenty inches in length long, slender, 
 tapering things, full of resinous sweetness. 
 
 In the meadow-like expanse near the mouth of the 
 Little Yoseniite we found the ground bright with the 
 creamy, purple-flecked blossoms of the Spraguea umbel- 
 lata. It grows in shining, circular clusters like a crown, 
 the flowers nestling among the long, slender green leaves 
 of the plant, which surround them like a fringe. All the 
 wide stretch above the Nevada Falls was starred with 
 them. 
 
 " Oh, what lovely souvenirs ! We cannot have too many 
 of them!" exclaimed the enchanted botanist, and so with 
 the spade-end of his pick he carefully uprooted them 
 and put them into his flower press as tenderly as if they 
 hiiu possessed a life akin to his own, and today some of 
 them lift up as bright faces to me from the pages of 
 my flower album as they did from the beauty of their 
 native meadow. 
 
 Farther up the earth smiled with the beautiful blue 
 gentian. There are garden spots far up on these lofty 
 heights that rise about the Yosemite which thrill one with 
 the bright beauty of their numberless blossoms. In this 
 upper, silent world it would seem that the Sun watches 
 the F.arth with a tenderness that he does not feel for the 
 regions lying farther down. Here the Sky brightens for 
 the Earth, and the Earth blooms for the Sky. 
 
 We should have loved to loiter for hours in the charm 
 ing spot where we lunched. The air was full of piney 
 
 fragrance, and the shadows fell cool on the slope where 
 
 203 
 
In the Yosemite. 
 
 we sat by the side of the rippling water. There was a 
 huge cedar log stretched along the edge of the grassy 
 plot, like a slumbering giant. Beyond the green expanse 
 rose the mountain walls covered with trees along their 
 base, and higher up with a heavy growth of shaggy under 
 brush, shining in great glowing patches of red, brown 
 and green. 
 
 Above this wild, tangled zone rose the white, bare uplift 
 of granite rock. It looked as high as the sky above us. 
 A hawk circled in the air far below it, and there was 
 nothing to break the silence upon its crest. 
 
 The eagle loves this spot, and builds here his eyrie. 
 On those sunlit crags he can rear his young nor fear 
 human molestation. All the wild solitudes of the air and 
 of the mountains are his. He is the Robinson Crusoe 
 among the birds, the grand monarch of all this upper 
 world of air and sunshine. He is serene amid the storms, 
 and unmoved amid the tempests of these awful deserts 
 of volcanic peaks, and his dark wings sweep the ether 
 like lonely sails upon a silent sea. 
 
 After a short rest we went on. The trail was almost 
 obliterated by the passage of large bands of sheep, and 
 one not thoroughly acquainted with the route would be 
 unable to find the way to the summit without a guide. 
 It is rocky and steep, and in places, for one not perfectly 
 at home in the saddle, is, on account of its steepness and 
 rockiness, dangerous. 
 
 It is the only trail leading to points of interest about 
 the Yosemite where the services of a guide are neces 
 sary, but here they are really indispensable. 
 
 We lost our trail two or three times, and wandered off 
 into the one leading into the wild solitudes of the Mono 
 Pass, trodden years ago by so many patient gold diggers. 
 
 I longed for time to enable me to go out into some of 
 these byways of the Yosemite, where Nature lies in such 
 strange, savage wildness. I had heard so much of Mono 
 Lake that beautiful, shining silver disk, "surrounded 
 with sage-brush and ashes, with volcanic cones rising in 
 clusters towards the south, and blue mountains far 
 beyond, swelling range over range, and fading on the 
 glowing horizon," that my thoughts reached out with a 
 strong yearning to visit it. All this grand, untamed wild- 
 ness of Nature was in keeping with my mood. With a 
 saddle for my pillow and a blanket for my bed, sheltered 
 by the starry brightness of California s skies, I could find 
 delightful rest wherever night might overtake me. This 
 wild, free life out of doors ! I reveled and exulted in it, 
 and with the glorious beauty of the cloudless blue above 
 me, with the rich, golden strata of sunshine covering all 
 the earth, and with the wildness and mystery of the 
 Sierra regions stretching, it seemed, into infinity beyond 
 me, there was everything to entice me onward. 
 
 But we came back again and went up the steep sides 
 of the sky-reaching promontory towards the summit of 
 Clouds Rest, sometimes passing along rocky ledges, 
 where was only the narrowest foothold for our mules. 
 Once a treacherous hole entrapped one of the hind feet 
 of my animal. Sitting in my saddle while she strug 
 gled to pull her foot out again, I thought of a child s 
 
 definition of a mule: "A mule is a animal with four 
 legs, one at each corner." But surely my mule was all 
 corners. They stuck out everywhere, and it did not seem 
 as if there were less than four legs at each corner, and 
 every one of them was letting out perpetual motion. 
 
 Finally the foot was extricated, and her next diver 
 sion was to break through an old rotten stump in our 
 path, which scattered into as many splinters as there 
 are stars in the Milky Way, and from that the animal 
 gave a frightened bound to the ledge below, landing 
 within an inch of its edge. 
 
 I managed to keep my saddle through all this by-play ; 
 but I was not sorry when it was over, for I did not care 
 to practice any more gymnastic feats "on the hurricane 
 deck of a mule." 
 
 We were a little off from our trail when all this 
 happened. Our guide was far in advance, searching for 
 the lost trail. We could only see his broad sombrero 
 above the top of the shaggy chaparral. My lady com 
 panion was behind me, sitting securely in her saddle, with 
 all the brave coolness of a trained mountaineer. I was 
 thankful that she was not given to feminine shrieks and 
 hysterical displays, for the mule had enough to occupy 
 her without them. I was reassured when I heard her 
 merry, ringing laugh as my mule landed on all fours on 
 the ledge below, and she exclaimed: 
 
 "Oh, you ve no idea how funny you looked when you 
 went diving into that stump; and when the mule jumped 
 she looked like a spider with six legs, for her ears were 
 as long as her legs and bobbed as frantically." 
 
 Fairly down, I felt a momentary fright at what I had 
 gone through, and with characteristic feminine positive- 
 ness declared that I would not go another step until the 
 right trail was discovered. 
 
 "Wandering around in this underbrush, there is no 
 knowing what pits we may fall into, or how many more 
 rotten stumps we may demolish. Just as likely as not 
 we shall drop into a coyote s hole, and he won t welcome 
 us, or pitch into a nest of rattlesnakes among these 
 rocks." 
 
 So we turned our animals around and went down the 
 steep mountainside towards a beckoning cedar, there to 
 sit in its pleasant shadow till the guide should return. 
 
 It was a lovely picture which lay below us there. The 
 variegated expanses of undergrowth on the mountain 
 side below that the narrow belt of cedars and pines 
 mingled with the light-green of the alders which skirted 
 the banks of the silver-faced rivulet, and farther on, the 
 green and shining dell covered with rich grasses and 
 bright, alpen-like blossoms; still farther away, the sweep 
 of the solemn pine forests, and overtopping them, and 
 stretching to the far horizon s verge, the unbroken sweep 
 of mountains. 
 
 The green meadow was inclosed by a rustic fence; 
 curved and crooked it was, built of boughs and twigs. 
 But it made the place seem less solitary. The beauty of 
 the charming spot which it surrounded warms all of my 
 memory, even today. There was not only a running 
 brook, but there were cool, shining pools and springs in 
 
 204 
 
Clouds Kent. 
 
 its heart that washed every blade of the sweet grass. 
 Close against the bright greens were brilliant spots of 
 scarlet and crimson blossoms and flecks of golden-rod. 
 It was the very spot for a fairy s tenting-ground, and 
 had we been there on a midsummer night, when all the 
 wood fairies are supposed to be visible to human eyes, 
 I could not indulge in a moment s skepticism in regard 
 to their appearance. 
 
 The little brook which runs along, draining the south 
 flank of Clouds Rest, makes lovely journeying to meet 
 Nevada Creek. It is usually about five feet wide and 
 a foot deep, and is one of the sweetest singers on those 
 heights. Geologists say that it has flowed unfailingly in 
 one channel throughout all the long post-glacial centuries. 
 
 I wondered if its musical voice was trilling the won 
 drous story of the Past. What secrets of Nature it must 
 hold, what memories of Change! If we could only learn 
 its language and understand its story ! I do not doubt 
 but it has a soul, or that it utters its own sweet prophe 
 cies, and bubbles of all that it has seen; but our ears 
 are too dull to understand it. 
 
 There is but one of its utterances that I can read it 
 is that of sweet content and joyousness. It has coquettish 
 ways, though. Old as it is, it has not learned the lessons 
 of soberness. It dances along, and at times leaps up 
 over the stones in its pathway and kisses the bending 
 grasses. It coaxes the ferns to its brink and breaks into 
 ravishing ripples when the coy blossoms pour out their 
 fragrance above it. The trees bend and reach down 
 tender arms to its waves, and it kisses their feet and 
 laves them with its soft waters, and they drop pretty 
 billet doux of leaves upon its bosom, which it catches up 
 quickly and runs away to read their secrets. But it has 
 >i face of such child-like purity, I do not think there is 
 any designing artfulness in these ways, but they spring 
 from the outgushing love and gladness of its joyous 
 nature. 
 
 There were numerous little ant hills along our path, 
 where the busy things worked and threw up wonderful, 
 mound-like structures. Near them were, almost always, 
 the pits of the ant-lions, always waiting for their prey, 
 laying treacherous snares for them, so that even here, so 
 near it seemed to heaven, the same life-and-death strug 
 gle was progressing as in the world of everyday life. 
 
 The rock scenery is rich in the vicinity of Clouds 
 Rest. It is a magnificent field for the artist. There 
 are pictures there on those granite heights and amid 
 those massive Ixnilders which I am sure no artist would 
 want to leave unpainted. 
 
 Our art teacher had been struggling with disease all 
 summer, and had not the strength to climb much and 
 take easel and paints with him. But he had held a sort 
 of high-art carnival on Glacier Point. He had climbed 
 the steep trail on his mule and taken a pack animal 
 along with painting materials, blankets and provisions, 
 and camped on the high summit back of Union Point. 
 There he had made his picture of the valley. Jack Frost 
 assailed him while there, pinching and worrying him at 
 night. But he stood like another Casablanca at his post, 
 
 and did not leave until he had the valley in miniature 
 upon his canvas. On the summit of Clouds Rest the 
 outlook was different. It seemed an epitome of Nature 
 in all her infinite variety of expression. It was a whole 
 grand gallery, with every subject full of inspiration. 
 
 Far up in a little sunny pool, where the sun fell with 
 a soft, golden rain upon the crystal water, we found a 
 part of the tiny skeleton of a child, evidently that of an 
 Indian. One could fancy the little brown, waxen face 
 and form Iving statue-like and still under waveless 
 waters. But nothing in that mountain world mourned 
 for the little life that was lost. The birds sang on in 
 the same sweet carols; the sunshine fell as warm and 
 bright upon the water, and the blue sky spread the same 
 smiling canopy above the world. That was years and 
 years ago, and perished is the wigwam of the primitive 
 people who lost the little one long ago. 
 
 After awhile the men of our party returned and in 
 formed us that the right route lay farther away to the 
 northeast, and so we moved on in that direction till we 
 struck a clear, solid trail, evidently leading up to the 
 heights of Clouds Rest. 
 
 This is a point which every tourist should visit. The 
 view of the valley from its summit is perhaps not so 
 extensive as that from Sentinel Dome, or so grand as 
 that from the still loftier summit of the Half Dome, 
 but it affords a more extensive view of the grand Sierras. 
 Never before have I seen such magnificence of moun 
 tain, or looked on peaks when they seemed to tower so 
 far upward into the infinite deeps of the sky. 
 
 The fields of snow lay white and dazzling before the 
 vision, and the far-off sides of Mount Clark that mighty 
 obelisk of the centuries showed to us the shadow of its 
 awful crater its once vast, blazing mouth of fire. Over 
 the mighty maze of peaks and forests below it, it rose 
 gray and hoary the twin brother of Time. 
 
 Mountains red, gray and black were before us. Afar 
 off to our left towered Cathedral Peak, one of the noblest 
 landmarks of the Sierras. It is a lofty mass of rock 
 "cut square down on all sides for more than a thousand 
 feet, and having at its southern end a beautiful cluster 
 of pinnacles which rise several hundred feet above the 
 main body." It is a vast, God-wrought cathedral, sub 
 lime in all its proportions a mountain temple, a taber 
 nacle of the upper air. Its summit is at least 2500 feet 
 above the surrounding plateau, and about 11,000 feet 
 above sea level. During the occasional summer storms 
 of the Sierras the lightnings play about its crest and 
 hang about its summit like the Pillar of Fire, 
 
 Unicorn Peak, with its horn-shaped outline, is also 
 distinctly visible, and Mounts Lyell and Dana lift their 
 heads 13,000 feet into the infinite ether. It is a grand, 
 illimitable, alpen-like picture of nameless spires and 
 dome-like masses, of towering mountain peaks the 
 Mont Blancs of these our American Alps. 
 
 I sat down on a gray granite rock and looked over 
 the wide wilderness of solitude. Words jarred upon 
 my senses, for it seemed as if over that world of the 
 upper air, brooding in its awful, frozen silence, was the 
 overshadowing Presence of the Infinite. 
 
 205 
 
In the Y one mite. 
 
 Two weeks before our visit to Clouds Rest the botanist 
 of our party had pushed out alone into this region of 
 solitude and grandeur. He left our camp in the valley 
 one morning with his blankets, and with one tin plate 
 and cup, a tin can for a teapot, a knife and fork, and 
 provisions enough for a ten days tramp strapped behind 
 him on his saddle. Far up into these great mountain 
 byways of Nature his path lay. It was a glorious morn 
 ing when he moved out from camp, but the afternoon 
 was half sunshine and half storm. The angry echo of 
 the thunders rolled along the heights, and the vivid flash 
 of the lightnings which played among the mountain 
 peaks sent its reflection into the valley below. The rain 
 came down on the heights above the Yosemite as if Na 
 ture was bent on pelting the lonely explorer of her secret 
 domains. 
 
 But Nature does not frown long in this land of sun 
 shine. Summer storms are not frequent in the Sierra 
 regions. Nature takes kindly to her children here, and 
 sends out such warm, sunny welcome that her lovers turn 
 eagerly to her embrace. After one of these rare storms 
 all the world seems wakening to a fresh youth. 
 
 The botanist did ten days of hard work. Mountains 
 were no barrier to his footsteps. He scaled the rounded 
 side of the Half Dome, and gathered floral treasures 
 from its lofty crown; then he pushed out alone for his 
 ten days journey into the wilderness, into the very birth 
 place of the ancient glaciers. Nature in her untamed 
 majesty filled all that mountain world. There were vast, 
 jagged mountains at whose feet slept shimmering lake 
 lets; yawning chasms ploughed by mighty glaciers; green 
 and shining valleys, and wandering waves of golden sum 
 mer air; miniature seas, round whose quiet isles the 
 dimpling waves broke in the light, musical cadences of 
 eternal song; there was the deep azure of the cloudless 
 skies, and the velvety texture of emerald meadows. 
 There was wondrous loveliness and harmony of color 
 the blue of the firmament, the gray granite of the 
 mountain walls; the expanse of piney forests, of carved 
 and rocky domes and peaks, with the vast, impenetrable 
 curtain of the higher ranges. 
 
 The shining, dazzling glory of the snow-fields was be 
 fore us, and the awful frozen terror of the living glaciers. 
 Added to all was the mighty leap of cascades, and bare 
 volcanic stretches, where Nature, even now, sits frowning 
 as if meditating on her fiery past, with its molten floods 
 and surging lava tides. Gray, glistening mountains of 
 granite are intermingled with those of red or black, and 
 rocky ramparts rise like crumbling ruins, tinted and 
 stained and colored as by the brush of the Almighty 
 Painter. 
 
 The botanist macle the ascent of Mounts Lyell and 
 Dana, those overshadowing peaks, both of which rise over 
 13,000 feet above sea-level. He gathered rare and in 
 teresting plants, some of which are scarcely known to 
 botany; among them the loveliest tufts of bloom from 
 the highest spurs of Lyell, 13,217 feet above the ocean 
 world. 
 
 On the summit of Mount Dana were found the true 
 dwarfed alpine plants, which are rarely collected, for 
 their day is short, their blossoming beauty lasting 
 scarcely more than an hour. 
 
 Charming white columbines were among the treasures 
 found children of the snowy wilds. We took them, at 
 first, to be a species of the famed alpine edelweiss, and 
 round them we wove the pretty romance which belongs 
 to that flower. They are just as charming and sweet, 
 any way, and very fair in their pure whiteness. 
 
 Interesting dwarfs were also found, of the Erigeron 
 family the Tom Thumbs of the flower-kingdom tiny 
 little treasures with parti-colored eyes, which were found 
 peeping out from the red and green-striped rocks, 
 "forming," said the botanist, "the circling tiaras of 
 that grand peak dominating all from Shasta to Whitney." 
 
 There are mighty, swift rolling rivers which have their 
 source in these regions. The snows feed them through 
 the centuries. Away up amid the wild, sunny beauty of 
 these mountain streams, the ousel and the robin sing and 
 add their share to the sweet enchantment. 
 
 The Douglas squirrel is at home here, too. These 
 grand Sierra forests are his harvest field, his workshop 
 and his playground. He is at home in the forest lines 
 that skirt the higher Californian Alps, as well as farther 
 down in the lower forest zones. We came across the 
 lively, genial little fellow many a time in our wander 
 ings, and watched his cunning ways with a sense of full 
 delight. His presence made the woods instinct with 
 motion and happy life. He robbed the old forests of 
 silence, and stirred all the stillness with the twinkle of 
 his nimble feet. We found him somewhat cautious, but 
 not particularly timid. He had his share of curiosity, 
 and was always ready to investigate the character of 
 such intruders as ourselves. His approaches were grad 
 ual, and he would study us first from some safe over 
 hanging limb before he ventured on any nearer advances. 
 He is as swift and breezy as the wind, and as free from 
 dyspeptic moodiness as the sunshine. He is about four 
 teen inches in length from his head to the tip of his 
 silvery tail. He kept us company during our day and 
 night in the silver-fir forest on Eagle Peak. From tree 
 to tree he rushed like a flash of winggd silver, and his 
 bright, sharp eyes looked down on us like so many 
 shining dots amid the piney greens and silvered firs. 
 We found him a wonderfully early riser, stirring all the 
 breezy morning with his energy. The cones that he 
 gathered for his breakfast began to fall soon after 
 dawn, and his brave little voice was full of cheerfulness. 
 It was a delightful reveille, and all our senses were 
 awake when it was sounded. No doubt he has a won 
 derful work to do in the economy of Nature in replant 
 ing and keeping alive these grand coniferous forests. 
 How many seeds drop from his little paws ! He pushes 
 them into curing holes, and the wind covers them, and 
 the rain and the sunshine find them. Thus do these 
 agencies all work together. 
 
 One of the beauties of our out-of-door summer life 
 was the insight which it gave us into the wonderful har 
 monies of Nature. We saw how, hand in hand, animate 
 
 206 
 
Little Yose mite "Some Injuns." 
 
 and inanimate Nature wrought in the great work of 
 development and change. We saw God in all things, 
 and the trace of infinite law in the dropping of a leaf, 
 the sweep of the wind, and in the daily life of this 
 happy little forester. 
 
 The closer we came to Nature the more clearly did 
 we see how full and wonderful the revelations which 
 she holds and invites us to read. 
 
 I sat a long time enthroned on my granite rock in 
 that upper kingdom of air. I was loath to turn away 
 from the grand, outstretching vista, but the sun had 
 rushed rejoicingly on through his great blue, silent path 
 way towards the west, and had dropped far down from 
 the zenith. So we turned our faces campward, crossing 
 the rippling brook as we reached the base of Clouds 
 Rest, and dipping into the soft yielding grasses, then 
 into the pathway under the fragrant cedars. It was a 
 sinuous way, but every curve we rounded disclosed new 
 beauties. 
 
 Some of the old Titanic deities must have wrought 
 many of the wonders amid the rocks which we passed. 
 Quaint yet glorious architecture it was of temples and 
 forums and wide-sweeping amphitheaters, of carved pul 
 pits and altars along the pure silver aisles of the brooks. 
 The wind swept through the cathedral arches of the 
 cedars, and chimed in with the musical symphonies of the 
 running waters. 
 
 We walked a little distance so as to catch the low, 
 sweet undertones of the pretty stream, stooping down, 
 now and then, to dip up with our leaf-formed cups the 
 cold crystal water. 
 
 Going down the steep, rocky trail to the Little Yo- 
 semite, to the left of us was an Indian with a light, 
 swift-footed pony. In some way the pony made a mis 
 step, and the Indian shot from him like an arrow. The 
 pony fell, and, struggling to regain his footing, he rolled 
 down the rocky steep, over and over into the yawning 
 chasm. The Indian was unharmed, but his poor beast 
 lay a quivering, bleeding mass down in the valley below. 
 All our way down, after leaving the base of Clouds 
 Rest, we noticed the print of moccasined feet prints 
 which had been made since we had passed over the trail 
 in the morning. 
 
 It was sunset when we were again within the walls of 
 the Little Yosemite, and here we saw a party of Indians 
 camped on a large rock by the river. They had been 
 deer-hunting, and were just in over the Mono trail. 
 They held up to our view, with an air of triumph, a 
 pair of large, splendid, branching antlers. 
 
 The Indians were dressed in a semi-civilized fashion, 
 the men in red flannel shirts and rude trousers made of 
 skins of sage-brush rabbits, and the bronzed squaws in 
 loose-fitting garments, soiled and dirty to such a degree 
 it was impossible to determine their original color and 
 the texture of their skins. There were fifteen or twenty 
 of them. They had built their campfire upon the large 
 flat rock, and were busy in cutting up the deer and 
 hanging its flesh upon the branches of trees to l>e con 
 verted into "jerk" by the sun and air. 
 
 There was one great broad-shouldered, brawny-armed 
 head man among them, with a face as savage as Sitting 
 Bull s. It would not have surprised me to hear him roar 
 like an angry bull of Bashan in tones loud enough to 
 startle the echoes on every crag and peak. But he only 
 glared at us in stolid, savage silence. 
 
 We called out " Adlos" as we left them, and they 
 responded in plain, familiar English, "Good-by." 
 
 At this point the Merced moves on with a gentle, 
 gliding motion, giving out only a soft, murmuring whis 
 per. The sunbeams fall caressingly into its embrace, 
 flowers grow upon its banks, and the trees are mirrored 
 in its crystal deeps. But farther on it breaks into the 
 trilling notes of rapids, the laughter of flashing cas 
 cades, and the Dooming anthems of mighty waterfalls. 
 Its life is varied, yet full of romance. It is placid and 
 still among the smooth meadow levels, but riotous and 
 noisy as a bacchanal when it rushes down to mate with 
 the gray-brown boulders. Still farther on it drops again 
 into its quiet ways, and goes on crooning its low-voiced 
 melody. 
 
 I was glad to see the ugly faces of the Monos fade 
 out from my sight. Once I fancied that I heard their 
 cat-like tread behind me, but it was only the little, swift- 
 footed Douglas squirrel that made a quick rush across 
 the path. 
 
 It was sunset when we reached the summit of Nevada 
 Falls. Old Sol had slipped from sight behind the might} 
 turrets of the mountains, but the deep blue was winged 
 with golden clouds, hanging like shining crowns alx)ve 
 the beetling cliffs, or floating in silence through the azure 
 air. There was a rosy glow on every mountain top, 
 while purple shadows lay far down in the valley, two 
 thousand feet below us. 
 
 Moving silently on, enjoying the beauty of the hour, 
 we were startled by an unusual sound a dull, muffled 
 rumble, followed by a noise like the crunching of an 
 earthquake, and far away over the canons cliffs we 
 saw the descent of might} boulders, the wild leap of a 
 gigantic avalanche, whose furious rush made the air gray 
 with clouds of granite dust. 
 
 About half a mile below the base of the Nevada Falls 
 is Snow s "La Casa Nevada." It is built on a rocky 
 plateau between the Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls. It 
 is a lovely mountain house for tourists seeking the heart 
 of Nature s wilderness. 
 
 Some years ago an earthquake shook the heights about 
 it, and the rocks, dust and stones that it loosened fell 
 like hail and mist about the house, almost blinding the 
 guests, who, unsuspecting, sat at the table in the moun 
 tain-girt castle. 
 
 Yet one would think that its foundations could never 
 be stirred, for they are of solid granite, white and smooth, 
 stretching over acres of space. Even the river here has 
 a rocky bed, and it is so firm that the waters, with their 
 strongest tides, have ploughed in it scarce a single fur- 
 rov,-. 
 
 A little below Vernal Falls the rock was pointed out 
 to us on which Lady Franklin sat, on her visit to the 
 falls, and sketched the grandeurs of the magnificent sur- 
 
 207 
 
Other Sketches of Travel 
 
 roundings. The rock stands out in the midst of the 
 stream, where she could look full into the face of the 
 cataract. They told us pleasant stories of her gentleness 
 and dignity, and her enthusiastic appreciation of the 
 grandeur of Yosemite. 
 
 Our way home by moonlight through the dark canons 
 of the Merced was difficult. I happened to be in ad 
 vance and the trail was too narrow for those behind me 
 to pass. The forest was so dense that, in places, not a 
 ray of moonlight pervaded it, and so dark that often 
 not a trace of the narrow trail was visible; but faithful 
 Dolly s head was down snuffing the stones, and her un 
 erring instinct led us safely on, past towering boulders 
 and broken rocks, into open meadow lands, where the 
 moonlight paved our way, and the river sang its wel 
 come. A hospitable repast awaited us at Barnard s, and 
 we reached camp about 10 o clock, not sorry to find rest 
 after our ride of forty miles on the back of our patient 
 mules. 
 
 And so ended our last day in Yosemite the beautiful 
 Ah-wah-nee of the long ago. 
 
 OTHER SKETCHES OF TRAVEL. 
 
 FROM ROSES TO SNOW. 
 
 Roses and snow are not usual combinations in Nature, 
 but Southern California, the land of marvelous sur 
 prise and sharp contrasts, where eternal Summer sits 
 within her vales and hills, and hoary old AVinter, wrapped 
 in his mantle of snow, at times confronts her from the 
 mighty mountain summits, where he has his throne, often 
 presents it. Grand and impressively sublime are her 
 lofty mountain heights, some of them rising nearly 
 14,000 feet skyward, piercing the shining ether like God- 
 built pyramids, almost infinite in their vastness. The 
 eternal sunbeams wrap their forms; the transparent air 
 enfolds them, and the mystic etchings of ever-changing 
 lights and shades upon their sides present wonderful 
 pictures to the eye, and hold the vision entranced with 
 their beauty. 
 
 With the first heavy winter rains snow usually falls 
 upon these mountain summits, and their dazzling white 
 ness shines out against the deep blue of the infinite 
 skies like a crown of glory. But while the snows fall 
 upon their alpine crests, the life-giving rains descend 
 upon the hills and valleys at their base. They come 
 like the harbingers of a resurrection day. The brown 
 vales and hillsides feel the throb of a new life. As the 
 storm passes, the unclouded sun looks forth and the 
 earth feels the warm thrill of his touch. Roots at once 
 are astir. The very air seems trembling with the sense 
 of new life and .beauty. It is laden with the nursing 
 breath of bloom and sweetness. One feels the touch of 
 universal life in the atmosphere he breathes. Summer 
 looks out from the eyes of December and he puts on 
 his most gallant ways, decks himself with roses, strews 
 flowers along his path, clothes himself with emerald 
 grasses and pours out his free libations of sunshine 
 until the very Earth laughs as if it were June. 
 
 And all Nature is in sympathy with this new life. 
 The birds wake to glorious jubilees of happy song; the 
 bees give forth a sound of murmurous gladness ; the flies 
 buzz in an undertone of delight; the cricket s chirp is 
 heard; the rivers leap upon their beds and send forth a 
 volume of crystal cadences, and on the heights the voice 
 of the waterfall sounds forth like a grand organ peal 
 amid the echoing rocks. The newcomer from the East 
 begins to question the reliability of the almanac as day 
 by day the earth grows greener and the swelling buds of 
 flowers unfold. With the opening of the new year the 
 earth is garmented like June. The skies are infinitely 
 clear, and in them unknown depths are mirrored. The 
 air is filled with the perfume of a thousand flowers. 
 The rhythm of gladness is in everything. It is a new 
 world that the eastern dweller sees; fairer, more fully 
 alive than any that he finds upon the Atlantic borders, 
 even in midsummer. He fills his lungs with the pure, 
 delicious air, and his delighted nostrils with the perfume 
 of flowers. He sees the flash of bright birds among the 
 trees. Not the robin and mocking-bird alone sing for 
 him. The Baltimore oriole in his gay colors is here, the 
 most charming of feathered songsters, and the gay little 
 linnet warbles forth his gladness in the most enlivening 
 tones. The robin is found among the hills in company 
 with the meadow-lark, singing as if inspired by the blue 
 skies above them and the beauty in the world around. 
 
 The mocking-bird revels amid our trees and orchards. 
 Not content to sing by day alone, he sometimes breaks into 
 the most ravishing notes under the midnight stars. His 
 voice often comes to us through the open window on the 
 breath of the orange perfume and the scent of the roses. 
 It is like the mingling of enchantments, and the weary, 
 frozen visitor from the Land of Snow is wont to feel 
 that amid such surroundings simply to be is bliss, and he 
 breathes long, full breaths of content, and loses himself 
 in quiet restfulness. 
 
 But some are there with whom perfect content any 
 where is an unknown quantity, and they think that for a 
 few days, at least, they would like to breathe the old 
 winter atmosphere again. Or, perhaps, they are at 
 tracted by the grandeur of our Mother Mountains, whose 
 lofty heights beckon to them and allure. It is a pleasure 
 excursion that they seek, and none more delightful can 
 be had than the trip "From Roses to Snow." To make 
 this there are many points in our grand mountain range 
 that invite us. If we wish to go to Mount Lowe or Echo 
 Mountain we may set out at almost any hour of the day 
 from the blooming valleys. Starting from Los Angeles 
 we are borne in the swift-moving electric car past lovely 
 homes and green fields and gardens, bright with an in 
 finite variety of flowers, past many a home whose sides 
 and roof are hidden by climbing roses and buried in the 
 glowing wealth of blossoms which they yield. 
 
 The sinuous course which the mountain road thither 
 pursues opens wonderful pictures to the vision. Down 
 mighty gorges, 3000 feet deep, looking vast as if the 
 bowels of the earth had been rent asunder, one may gaze 
 as if from the edge of another sphere. And there may be 
 seen the countless peaks and spurs of this upper moun- 
 
 208 
 
7l*RAHj 
 
 Of THE 
 
 /ERSITYl 
 
 *, OF 
 
 In War-Times. 
 
 tain world, white in Winter s embrace. Mount Lowe lifts 
 itself to the height of 6000 feet, and the ascent beyond 
 this line of road is easily made in the saddle. 
 
 "From roses to snow" is like a dream trip, and one, 
 in every direction, filled with the most romantic beauty. 
 It may be made to other points in our mountain realm. 
 Wilson s Peak, 6000 feet above the sea level, with its 
 enchanting views, beckons to the lover of Nature, and 
 tliere one may be comfortably housed and fed and enjoy 
 the calm repose and sublime wonders of the scene about 
 him. Peak rising above peak, pine-clad and snow- 
 mantled, fill the tireless vision, and far below lies Summer 
 on the breast of the green and flower-gemmed Earth. 
 Away back, amid the eternal fastnesses of these mighty 
 peaks, rises "Old Baldy," king of this mountain world, 
 upon whose Titan shoulders the mantle of Winter lingers 
 till May s soft breezes blow and the summer of the al 
 manac is here. For half the year this mountain giant 
 beckons one " from roses to snow," while the ethereal 
 splendor of his snow-capped form flashes down upon the 
 valleys where the roses pave the pathway for our feet 
 with their wealth of color and perfume from January 
 to December. 
 
 IX WAR-TIMES. 
 
 It was in the second year of the War of the Rebellion 
 that I took a government steamer at Marietta, Ohio, and 
 steamed down the Ohio River to Gallipolis, and from 
 there up the picturesque Kanawha to Charleston, West 
 Virginia. That was a rebel town, and the home of many 
 old and aristocratic Virginia families, who were not 
 slow to show their hatred, as far as they dared, to 
 our Union soldiers. It is a small city, right on the 
 banks of the broad river, beyond which, upon the high 
 hills overlooking the stream, was, at that time, a large 
 fort built by our soldiers, and commanding the river 
 as well as other approaches to the town. Later I 
 traversed the whole length of this valley above Charleston 
 in a government ambulance. There was a Union officer 
 and his wife who journeyed with me, and whose desti 
 nation, like my own, was Fayette Courthouse, a little 
 town picturesquely situated in the wild and hilly region 
 of the New River. 
 
 I shall never forget my trip up the valley, which, at 
 that season of the year, is interesting. The Kanawha 
 valley at that time was not thickly settled, but still 
 we passed many homes on our way, some of them 
 small and unpretentious, and others fine, large, aristo 
 cratic mansions, surrounded by trees and flowers. I 
 remember Cannelton, a little mining town, composed 
 almost entirely of the humble cabins of the miners, which 
 were built along the roadside, and upon the rocky cliffs 
 and mountain sides. It was a miserable, dirty little 
 place, some miles below the junction of the Kanawha 
 and Gauley rivers, full of smoke and dust, and in the 
 evening lit with the glare of torches. The miners were 
 about with black and smutty faces, and their neglected- 
 looking wives and children stood in the doorways as 
 we drove by, and altogether I was glad to pass out of 
 
 sight of the place. The hills beyond the village looked 
 very beautiful, lighted up with the warm glow of the 
 sunshine, and the river ran cool and clear to our right. 
 We stopped for the night at the home of Mrs. Tompkins, 
 an aunt of General Grant, and an aristocratic rebel. It 
 was a fine old mansion where she lived, and furnished 
 in a most comfortable way. The lady was all alone 
 with her daughter and her old colored servants. She 
 had two sons, but they were both away in the rebel army. 
 I had a room all to myself, a large, elegantly-furnished 
 chamber, in which was a big mahogany bedstead with 
 its satin-lined canopy, large arm chairs, richly uphol 
 stered, together with other necessary furniture. I remem 
 ber feeling a little timid and wondering what we should 
 do if we were surprised by rebel bushwhackers before 
 morning. I noticed a recess at the head of my bed 
 before which were some heavy curtains. Thinking there 
 might be a door there which I might wish to fasten, I 
 lifted the curtains, and there I found a large number 
 of rifles stacked, enough for me to make a brave defense, 
 I thought, if they were only loaded. I did not try 
 them to see if they were. But no bushwhackers dis 
 turbed us, and we woke in the morning to find the sun 
 shining gloriously. We sat down to a palatable breakfast 
 of broiled chicken, fried potatoes, corn muffins, waffles 
 and hot coffee, and soon after set out on our way up 
 the valley. 
 
 A short ride brought us to the ruins of a pretty 
 little church which had been destroyed since the war 
 began, and had been built by Mrs. Tompkins. Nothing 
 was left of it but broken arches and blackened walls, 
 which even the cheerful morning sunshine could not 
 brighten. 
 
 Our troops had possession of the valley, so we rode 
 along with a pleasant sense of security, enjoying the 
 wild and rugged scenery, crossing the Kanawha just 
 below the falls in a ferryboat, and reaching Fayette 
 Courthouse about sunset. From Kanawha Falls to Fay 
 ette and beyond is a rugged region of country, with 
 many hills and quiet valleys, like recesses, among which 
 are the simple homes of the farmers with now and then 
 a fine house owned by some rich Virginian, who in those 
 days was hardly ever found to be a friend to the Union. 
 Among the mountains were the rude cabins of the moun 
 taineers. They were built mostly of logs, in lonely 
 places, sometimes where no roads were found running 
 near them, but only narrow bridle paths, over which it 
 would be impossible for a wagon to pass. It was a 
 very primitive class of people that we found in these 
 homes. A great many of them had never seen a city 
 or a large town; they had never seen a railroad or a 
 steamboat, an omnibus or a stage-coach; had never been 
 inside of a hotel; had never heard the sound of a church 
 bell, nor the music of a piano or organ. One of them 
 said to me one day: "If the war ever lets up, I low 
 I ll git down to Charleston to see one of them steam 
 critters on the river" meaning a steamboat. They 
 dressed in plain homespun clothes, ate pork and corn 
 pone, kept chickens and pigs, and there was always a 
 whole army of cats and dogs about the place. 
 
 209 
 
In War -Times. 
 
 In the cabins were large, old-fashioned fireplaces, where 
 the fire was never allowed to go out upon the hearth 
 either in summer or winter. A good many of them had 
 never seen a match, and being without matches it was 
 their habit to cover up the coals every night with ashes, 
 and in the morning it was only necessary to rake open 
 the little pile, and there the coals were ready to be 
 fanned into a blaze as soon as the kindlings were laid 
 on. Wood was plenty, for there were miles on miles 
 of forests, and the trees were cut down and logs were 
 chopped the right length for the fireplace, and when 
 green they burned and sputtered slowly, not throwing 
 out a great amount of heat, but giving to the big, bare 
 rooms a more cheerful look than they would otherwise 
 have possessed. 
 
 Twenty-three years ago I spent a few weeks in this 
 region of West Virginia in the upper part of the 
 Kanawha Valley and along the borders of New River. 
 I remember the rude little cabins, with their bare, 
 unpainted floors, their plain, pine tables, split-bottom 
 chairs and broad, open fireplaces, where the huge logs 
 were piled, and the cat sat in one corner of the hearth, 
 and the dogs stretched themselves upon the other side 
 with their noses upon their forepaws, and outside the 
 hens cackled, the cocks crew, and the pigs squealed in 
 lively chorus. A brigade of Union soldiers had gone 
 into winter quarters the winter before at Fayette, and 
 though the spring and summer had come and gone, their 
 white tents still covered a large space just outside the 
 little town, which had been almost entirely deserted by 
 its inhabitants, who were mostly rebels. Only a few 
 families of Unionists were left, but they were loyal- 
 hearted and brave and willing to sacrifice everything 
 for the sake of the country they loved. But in the 
 country beyond the town the people generally had not 
 left their homes, although most of them were rebels. 
 
 They used to come with their produce twice a week to 
 the outposts of our army and receive in exchange for 
 it money, tea, coffee, tobacco, etc. supplies that they 
 were not able to get elsewhere. They were not allowed to 
 come within our lines, though of course they would have 
 been glad enough could they have done so, for then they 
 would have been able to carry much information to the 
 enemy. 
 
 Among the few Union families who lived in the vicinity 
 
 was Mr. F . His family consisted of himself, his 
 
 wife and two young daughters, about sixteen and eighteen 
 years of age. The autumn had come again, and a little 
 party of Union scouts had been stationed at Boyer s 
 Ferry, a few miles from the headquarters of the brigade 
 and not far from the home of Mr. F. One morning 
 two of the scouts at the ferry had received permission 
 to cross the river on a foraging expedition, in order to 
 obtain some supplies for the camp. They climbed the 
 summit of the hill which lay beyond, when they were 
 discovered by a party of rebel soldiers who were 
 approaching. Knowing Mr. F. to be a firm Unionist, 
 the rebels supposed that the scouts would flee there for 
 safety. So they at once surrounded the house, under 
 cover of the woods, determined to capture them. One 
 of these brave young girls, understanding their object 
 ana fearing for the safety of the scouts at the ferry, at 
 once determined she would save them. Very cautiously 
 she went out and reconnoitered, and all alone made her 
 way beyond their lines. Down over the lonely hill passes, 
 through the woods where the rebels might be hidden 
 behind the sheltering trees, along the solitary footpaths, 
 till she came in sight of the little forest camp across 
 the stream, she made her way, when by some signal she 
 made them aware of their danger, and they set out at 
 once in pursuit of the rebels. The rebels, perhaps aware 
 of their movements, made their escape. 
 
 210 
 
EDITORIAL WRITINGS. 
 
 BESIDES her favorite work as a poet and 
 descriptive writer, with a broad, graphic 
 and luminous style, Mrs. Otis was an 
 editorial writer of recognized cleverness, strength 
 and beauty. In the course of her long alliance 
 with The Times a connection terminated only 
 by death she contributed very many columns to 
 its editorial pages. During later years she wrote 
 much for the editorial page of the Illustrated 
 Sunday Magazine, and always with interest and 
 benefit to its readers. From a large number of 
 such contributions the following are reproduced 
 here. The range of the subjects treated further 
 shows the breadth, versatility and beauty of her 
 prose style. 
 
 THE GARDEN-SPOT OF AMERICAN 
 FREEDOM.* 
 
 The clear skies of June are overhead; the glory of the 
 sunshine fills the air; the land is full of blossoms and 
 of fragrance; fruits are ripening, harvests are being 
 gathered; the longest days of the year have come; it is 
 Summer in California. 
 
 But all which this implies is not understood by those 
 in other sections of this great land of ours. Summer 
 here is something so widely different from this season 
 in other parts of the country that one must come to 
 know it through experience to fully appreciate its 
 charms. 
 
 The Holy Land, it is claimed, has much of climatic 
 resemblance to Southern California, and there God 
 planted His chosen people and nurtured them until they 
 attained national greatness and power, and there they 
 would have continued to remain had they not forsaken 
 Him and walked in all the ways of the idolatrous na 
 tions He had cast out before them. 
 
 Palestine was a land flowing with milk and honey, a 
 land bearing goodly harvests of grain; a land of the 
 vine and fig, of stately cedars, and of bloom and fra 
 grance. And California is such a land. Here the silver 
 green of the olive leaves shimmers in the sunshine, the 
 vines grow heavy with their rich clusters of grapes; the 
 fig-tree is laden with its ripening fruit; the bee ranchos 
 are full of honey, and abundance of milk is yielded by 
 the thousands of kine within our fields. Here the cedar 
 grows tall and stately as the cedars of Lebanon, and the 
 land is one to delight the soul of man with its abundance. 
 
 And it has other charms. Xo sultry summer heat is 
 ours to contend with. We are favored all the summer 
 with cool, life-giving breezes from the world s greatest 
 sea; we fear no sudden storm or tempest; no death- 
 dealing cyclone; no life-destroying thunderbolt. It is 
 June 28, 1902. 
 
 a land where we shall grow great and prosperous, and 
 where men should find that elixir of health and longev 
 ity which is hidden in the perpetual life-giving sunshine. 
 
 California is by no means, as yet, purely Ameri 
 can, for she has upwards of 50,000 Spanish-speaking resi 
 dents; but the rapid influx of Americans is continually 
 obliterating the old Spanish civilization which was 
 planted here with the founding, in 1769, of San Diego, 
 where was established the first of the Spanish missions. 
 But the active and enterprising Yankee is rapidly taking 
 possession of this rich and fertile Wonderland of the 
 continent, and is building up a civilization which con 
 tains the best elements of our modern life. It is alert, 
 active, progressive. It has to give no time to battling 
 with the elements, and has consequently so much the more 
 leisure for solving the great problems of the age. 
 
 And here Nature continually beckons to the world to 
 come hither and find what life means under the most 
 favorable conditions of existence. It is difficult to esti 
 mate the fullness of its meaning now, but the future will 
 untold it in the better type of advancement and attain 
 ment that shall be achieved here. The plans of Jehovah 
 were vast when he builded California, reared her lofty 
 mountain ranges, spread out her vast valleys, bordered 
 her with the illimitable sea, and made her fit to become 
 the garden-spot of American freedom. 
 
 CALIFORNIA.* 
 
 "The nation back of us, the world in front," is a 
 saying which gives us an idea of the importance of 
 California. It is no longer a frontier land with a vast 
 unpeopled space behind it, or a land where the waters 
 of the great "half-world sea" break on silent shores, 
 and "hear no sound save their own dashing," but a great 
 and growing empire, rapidly unfolding and beckoning to 
 the world. 
 
 The historic Orient, where the race was cradled, is 
 our neighbor, and today, when we can flash a message 
 around the world in twelve minutes of time, it is not 
 so far off. It is not so far away in the future when 
 we with telephonic power shall be able to hear the daily 
 speech of that ancient East, and be fully in touch with 
 its daily life. With the new scientific discoveries which 
 this century will yet unfold there will be no such thing 
 as national isolation, for the world will clasp hands 
 across the seas and continents, and the tide of progress 
 will roll onward as never before. 
 
 And California, fronting the great world, and keeping 
 wide ajar her Golden Gate, will be the Mecca of the 
 freedom-loving future. Here, as in the Canaan of old, 
 grow the palm and the cedar, the olive and the fig, 
 and the sunshine pours its beams over a land flowing 
 with milk and honey. There can be no doubt but that 
 a marvelous future is before this great State. . . . 
 November 8, 1903. 
 
 211 
 
Editorial Writings. 
 
 OUR PROUDEST BOAST. 
 
 The greatest modern poem of humanity is the Con 
 stitution of the United States." Regarded as such, it 
 is the great epic of human freedom, its tones resonant 
 with hope and promise. Its promulgation marked a 
 new era in the hopes of the race, and the doors of human 
 captivity and bondage swung backward to let in the 
 light of the new day upon the world. 
 
 Since the adoption of the Constitution of the United 
 States the world has made marvelous advances in en 
 lightenment and progress. The social and educational 
 aspect of the country bears today scarcely a resemblance 
 to its condition at that period of its early history. Un 
 der that Constitution there has been a great broadening 
 of the idea of liberty. We have grasped the idea, as a 
 nation, that liberty means perfect freedom of action 
 under law, that law is necessary to liberty, and that 
 there is a vast difference between lawlessness and free 
 dom. We are treading far higher levels today than we 
 were a hundred years ago. We are conscious of vaster 
 possibilities. Life has reached out in numberless new 
 directions; has unfolded to nobler ideas, till there is 
 scarcely a limit to its scope. We have, with the Consti 
 tution as the foundation, been building upward till in 
 all the history of the race no such structure for human 
 happiness was ever before reared. 
 
 But the work which we have to do now is to guard 
 that structure, and to protect it from the various dan 
 gers which threaten its destruction. We cannot sit 
 supinely down, content with the work that we have 
 accomplished, and feel that freedom is secure without 
 further vigilance on our part. It was never truer in the 
 world s history than it is today that "eternal vigilance 
 is the price of liberty." 
 
 A sense of the value and dignity of citizenship should 
 be cultivated. A better knowledge of public affairs 
 should be taught to the rising generation, together with 
 the principles upon which the government is based. A 
 higher reverence for law should also be instilled into the 
 public mind, and a greater pride in the achievements of 
 our past. In this way a deeper love of country may be 
 fostered, and the time may come when the proudest 
 boast of men may be, " I am an American citizen." 
 
 The American idea is the idea that it is to conquer 
 the world for freedom. It is working like leaven among 
 the Old World kingdoms. It is lessening the tyranny of 
 thrones, and is gradually weakening the shackles of the 
 enslaved everywhere. If we are true to ourselves, to the 
 principles which underlie our constitutional rights 
 and liberties, we shall yet conquer the world for free 
 dom. Ours will be a bloodless victory, a triumph not by 
 the force of arms, but by the might and power of undy 
 ing principles. Afid of all victories, such are the most 
 enduring and the grandest in their result to the race. 
 
 OUR SEMI-TROPIC LAND.* 
 
 November, the season of the sere and yellow leaf in 
 other sections of our country, has dawned upon us here. 
 November 2, 1902. 
 
 But it comes, not with the warning notes of decay, the 
 falling leaf, the world of dead blossoms, the chill of 
 frost and the whisper of approaching Winter. There is 
 nothing in all the glorious beauty of our sun-filled days 
 to suggest the departure of Summer, or the coming of 
 hoary Winter. 
 
 The attractions of Southern California are, perhaps, 
 more fully realized at this season than at any other 
 period of the year by those who have been always ac 
 customed to the changes of the East at this time, when 
 the forests are bare, the first flurries of snow fall, and 
 one is compelled to breathe the air of furnace-heated 
 rooms and to look out upon a world where Nature seems 
 dead, save for the sunshine which seems to hold no 
 warmth-giving power and no suggestion of invigorating 
 growth. 
 
 But how different is everything here! The year holds 
 no days more beautiful or more suggestive of growth 
 than our late Autumn and Winter days. With the first 
 coming of the Winter rains the marvelous transforma 
 tion begins. The skies are washed free from stain, and 
 the infinite deeps of air grow vaster and more gloriously 
 sun-filled and clear. At the caressing touch of our early 
 Winter showers the brown hills and plains grow green 
 with the swift-springing grasses. The little streams 
 gurgle along their way and unnumbered flowers begin 
 to unfold. Soon the whole earth is starred with blos 
 soms; the trees, washed free from dust, smile in fresh 
 beauty, the air is filled with the melody of birds and 
 the swift flutter of wings. Like winged blossoms the 
 many-hued butterflies float along within the sunshine, 
 bees buzz in their happy flight, the little ground squirrel 
 leaps in joyous gladness, and everywhere our world is 
 filled with beauty and with light. 
 
 The magical charm of life here at this season is felt 
 most intensely by the newcomer from colder climes. The 
 conditions of life are all so different, it seems as if the 
 wonders of Enchantment were at work creating some 
 thing vastly more entrancing than all the wonders of 
 Aladdin. The possibility of living so largely out of 
 doors, during our so-called Winter, warmed by the per 
 fect sunshine, fanned by gentle breezes, breathing air 
 filled with fragrance and perfume, kept in doors only by 
 occasional rains, affords the fullest delight to the invalid 
 who comes here in search of health. The atmosphere is 
 full of life-giving qualities. There are instances when 
 people far gone in consumption have come to Southern 
 California and lived out of doors during the day and 
 slept in their tents by night, until they finally conquered 
 that dread disease and were fully restored to health. 
 
 One of the great secrets of the healthfulness of our 
 climate lies in this possibility of an almost continuous 
 life of comfort out of doors throughout the year, the 
 escape from the extremes of temperature, both of heat 
 and of cold, from the daily breathing, during the winter, 
 of the vitiated air of furnace-heated rooms, which are 
 of themselves disease-breeding and enervating. Life at 
 this season in the winter-locked and snow-mantled East 
 has few charms to offer compared with what may be 
 
 212 
 
The Old 
 
 found in Southern California, where our nearest ap 
 proach to cold and snow is upon our lofty mountain 
 heights, uplifted high above our smiling valleys, above 
 great orange orchards, and spreading vineyards in the 
 wide valleys where eternal summer reigns amid ever- 
 ripening harvests and undying bloom and fragrance. And 
 this Land of the Sun forever beckons to all who will to 
 come hither. 
 
 It is a great and growing empire, with a future be 
 fore which the old East will dwindle. The strength, the 
 power and the glory of future civilization will flourish 
 here, and we shall find that this great semi-tropical West 
 is indeed, as it has been so aptly designated, "The Right 
 Hand of the Continent." 
 
 THE VAST SOUTHWEST. 
 
 California is a part of that great Southwest which lias 
 been for a long period so little known and so incorrectly 
 conceived of in the history of human affairs. It is an 
 empire in itself, vaster in extent than many of the Old 
 World s most powerful kingdoms. In this wide-reaching 
 Southwest "are the greatest deserts and waste places in 
 America, and side by side with them are the richest 
 farming lands in America." More than this is the grand 
 ly sublime, the beautiful and picturesque in Nature, and 
 here may yet be found the future schoolroom of the He- 
 public, for there is no agency so powerful in the forma 
 tion of character as the nature of our environments. The 
 language of the lofty mountain peak is very different 
 from that of the dead level of the plain, and the ex 
 panding, prairie-like distances have an altogether differ 
 ent alphabet from that of the narrow, hill-guarded valley. 
 Take the portion of that which is denominated the 
 Southwest which lies within the boundaries of California, 
 and you have a section of country that cannot be equaled 
 anywhere on this broad continent for diversity of soil 
 and productions, for grandeur of scenery and climatic 
 charm. We talk about Alpine scenery and the gran 
 deur of Switzerland, and yet Switzerland, with all her 
 mountain wonders, has only four peaks above 13,000 feet 
 high, and not more than 150 square miles which are over 
 8000 feet above the sea, while in the grand mountain 
 regions of California there are numerous peaks above 
 13,000 feet, and more than 300 square miles which are 
 over 8000 feet above the sea. 
 
 As an illustration of the marvelous grandeur of world- 
 building, there is no land upon this globe that will out 
 rival California, and this fact the world is but just be 
 ginning to appreciate, and to acknowledge that there is 
 no land anywhere that is better worth knowing. It is 
 no longer regarded as a land of sage-brush and desert 
 wastes, of vast, barren reaches and desolate mountains, 
 but a land that beckons, a land which needs but the 
 magic touch of water to make it everywhere bud and 
 blossom like the rose. 
 
 Speaking of the great Southwest as a whole, "which 
 may be said to comprise all of the Territories of Ari 
 
 zona and New Mexico, the greater portion of Texas, 
 Southern California east of the Coast Range, and the 
 western half of Oklahoma, including the strip, " a recent 
 writer in the Century says: 
 
 The Southwest is peopled with the very best 
 Americans, segregated by the eternal law of evolu 
 tionary selection, with almost no substratum of the 
 low-caste European foreigner to lower tne level 
 of civilization. Of course, there is no danger from 
 Indians, negroes, Mexicans, or Chinese, because there 
 is rarely any mixing with them by marriage, as 
 formerly. With such a start and such a commingling 
 of Americans from all parts of the Union, the 
 man from Boston rubbing elbows with the Atlanta 
 man, and Kansas working side by side with Mississip 
 pi, it would seem that the region Would one day produce 
 the standard American type. ... So the South 
 west is becoming a distinct entity, and the south- 
 westerner a personage. Character is here building, 
 with the promise of virgin power and new ideas of 
 statecraft, in economics, in agriculture. Men are lay 
 ing deep and strong the foundations of an immense 
 future population, and preparing for the responsibil 
 ities which that population will entail. 
 
 It is a new, a broader and a nobler civilization which 
 will be the product of this great Southwest in the future; 
 and here in California, where all things conduce to 
 a higher standard of physical health, and consequently 
 of mental vigor, we may look to see ultimately evolved 
 a richer type of manhood, a higher form of statesman 
 ship, and a great and splendid commonwealth, rich in 
 noblest possibilities for the future. Step by step is Prov 
 idence paving the way for the realization, in our great 
 Southwest, of the highest hopes of Freedom. 
 
 THE OLD MISSIONS. 
 
 The old missions of California are a landmark in the 
 history of the State, and the monument of its earlier 
 civilization. While the Puritanism of the East was sow 
 ing the seeds which were to spring up bearing the fruits 
 of the larger religious and political freedom of today, 
 a different civilization and a different religious faith 
 were struggling to gain a foothold on these far shores 
 of the Occident. With difficulties no less grave to en 
 counter, and obstacles no less formidable to overcome 
 than the Pilgrims of the Mayflower had to face, the 
 church Fathers, those bold pioneers of the Cross, planted 
 upon these sunset shores, as the centers and the strong 
 holds of their faith, the old missions of California. 
 Linked as they are with the first dawn of modern civili 
 zation in the West, monuments of struggles and priva 
 tions, of untiring religious zeal and energy, of devotion 
 and self-sacrifice, there lingers about them today a ro 
 mantic interest such as centers about nothing else in our 
 midst belonging so wholly to the past. But these ancient 
 buildings are gradually falling to decay. Their walls 
 of solid masonry are crumbling, and the ravages of time 
 will, in a few years, leave no trace of many of these 
 historic piles beyond ruined walls and arches, unless 
 measures are taken for their repair. 
 
 213 
 
Editorial Writings. 
 
 Among all of these old missions that at Santa Barbara 
 is perhaps the best preserved. In its quaint Moorish 
 style of architecture, with its square, white towers, in 
 which swing the bells brought more than a century ago 
 from Spain, it stands outlined against the hills, one of 
 the most prominent features of the landscape. 
 
 The idea of preserving for the eye of future genera 
 tions these old mission buildings was conceived some 
 years ago by the late Henry C. Ford, formerly a prom 
 inent artist of Santa Barbara. He visited all the old 
 missions in the State and sketched them on the spot, and 
 where they were fallen into decay, by reference to early 
 pictures, he, by the magic touch of his pencil, restored 
 them to their original form and outline, and he gave 
 them to the world in the shape of carefully-executed 
 etchings, true in their minutest details to the originals. 
 
 Accompanying the pictures is a brief and well-written 
 history of each mission. The work was most conscien 
 tiously and satisfactorily accomplished, and it should 
 have a place not only in the family, but in every public 
 library of the State, as well as in those of other States, 
 for the interest centering about these historic piles is 
 not merely local. The pictures themselves are an elo 
 quent story of a past that is of national interest to a 
 country like ours, extending from ocean to ocean, and 
 of immense value to the future historian who shall write 
 the history of American civilization and the beginnings 
 from whence it sprung. 
 
 Catholicism and Puritanism are looked upon generally 
 as opposing forces, but here each had its work of prepa 
 ration to accomplish, and each did it well, and today 
 they stand face to face without a thought of conflict. 
 
 Puritanism commends the work accomplished by those 
 early Mission Fathers, and comes here to sow and to 
 reap in the soil which they prepared and which they 
 made ready for the larger and grander life of this later 
 century. 
 
 The work proposed by the Landmarks Club, "to con 
 serve the missions and other historic landmarks of 
 Southern California," is a most commendable one and 
 should have the hearty support of every public-spirited 
 citizen of the State, for there is no page in the past his 
 tory of California that is more eloquent of sacrifice, of 
 patient and devoted endeavor, than these old missions 
 supply. 
 
 THE BORDER LAND.* 
 
 American life is one of the most marvelous and com 
 plicated studies of the present age, not only from polit 
 ical, commercial and industrial standpoints, but from a 
 religious one also. Although a Christian nation, we 
 have almost every so-called religion represented among 
 our conglomerate population, which is made up from 
 nearly every land under the sun. The idol finds here its 
 home in heathen temples. The Chinese has his joss- 
 house where he worships, and where the incense which he 
 *August 31, 1902. 
 
 offers mingles with that which arises from other altars 
 where other gods than his are reverenced and adored. 
 
 Already at Sacramento, the capital of our Golden State, 
 has a Buddhist temple been erected by the Japanese of 
 that city the first temple for the worship of Buddha 
 that has been built in the United States. Lying, as Cali 
 fornia does, at the gateway to the Orient, it is the door 
 of entrance for those Old World religions which have 
 brought forth only the harvests of barbarism and super 
 stition. Thousands of their followers are coming into 
 our midst, and are seeking to keep alive the seeds of their 
 faith in this New \\ orld. It is an age of conflict. Super 
 stition never rests, but it is aggressive and ready to at 
 tack the Christian faith whenever it comes in contact 
 with it. 
 
 It is a strange sight to see the joss-house and the Bud 
 dhist temple in this land of the Mission Fathers and 
 among the descendants of the Puritans who have come 
 hither to these western shores. The pulse of the Orient 
 is felt along with the heart-beats of the West, and to 
 gether they will throb along the lines of life here for a 
 time; for heathenism, even under the Stripes and Stars, 
 will make no voluntary surrender until it is enlightened 
 by truth, and its conscience set free from the bondage 
 of superstition and darkness. 
 
 Rev. Arthur H. Smith, writing in the New York Ob 
 server, says: "It is now more obvious than ever that the 
 Chinese consider Confucianism to be in and of itself 
 sufficient for all the needs of mankind, and that outside 
 of those directly influenced by the Christian religion 
 there is no perception of the imperative need of a re 
 form in Chinese character, nor of the development of 
 Chinese national conscience." 
 
 California, then, may yet be one of the battlegrounds 
 between these old and corrupt faiths and the vital, soul- 
 saving truths of Christianity, and it behooves us to not 
 only keep the individual conscience right, but the pub 
 lic conscience also. Political purity, high morality, no 
 less than consistent Christian endeavor, must be main 
 tained. Our responsibility is large, and we have a work 
 to do that no other section of the country can do for 
 us. Let us look to it that this Border Land between 
 the corrupt and decaying institutions of the Orient and 
 the life-infused and progressive Occident is made 
 worthy of all that is great and enduring in modern 
 Christian civilization. Let us have a pure morality, un 
 questioned political honesty, and active Christian insti 
 tutions, that shall energize every progressive force at 
 our command. Then, indeed, shall our State be the Bor 
 der Land of hope to the distant Orient. 
 
 THE GLORY OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Perhaps there is no study that the world is so inter 
 ested in at present as the study of the American people. 
 What is to be its future; what the influence it is to ex 
 ert upon the life and history of other nations, and is 
 the marvelous growth of the past hundred years of its 
 history to continue? are some of the questions about 
 which other nationalities are deeply concerned. 
 
 214 
 
Some Pen Pictures. 
 
 As thoughtful Americans study their own history and 
 see the marvelous changes which have transpired in our 
 national life, the almost miraculous development which 
 has taken place all along the lines of Progress, they, too, 
 feel that there exists for us some great purpose for the 
 future, and that this nation has a destiny far beyond 
 that of which the past dreamed in the beginnings of our 
 national life. 
 
 One fact which is most gratifying to the religious 
 element of the country is that which is brought out by 
 the religious department of the United States Census, 
 and which is proved by the religious statistics compiled 
 for the year 1901, which show that the number of Chris 
 tians in the United States is growing faster than the total 
 population of the country. "Figuring on a total of 77,- 
 COO.COO, there was a gain of 2.18 per cent, in the popu 
 lation of the country during the past year, while the 
 gain in the church membership of the country was 3.67." 
 
 This certainly is an encouraging growth, and may well 
 give us larger hopes for the religious future of the land 
 we love. With Christianity at the helm, we may antici 
 pate the ultimate wiping out of the many evils now ex 
 isting among us. As has been truly said, "The proper 
 cure for the wounds from which society suffers is the 
 training of men and women in mercy and compassion." 
 This Christianity will do, and will not a people thus 
 trained exert an untold influence for good in the world 
 of human affairs? and under such conditions may not 
 America yet become the great peace-making power among 
 the nations? 
 
 We are, as we count the age of nations, a young 
 people. The cradle of our infancy is yet fresh and 
 green; yet still we are a power that the Old World fears 
 to offend, and from the grandeur of whose achievements it 
 does not withhold its reverence. We are an example to 
 other nations, a teacher of freedom and of the blessings 
 of religious liberty. We are great in the field of in 
 vention, and in the application of our scientific knowl 
 edge; we have spanned the continent with wires that 
 carry our speech from sea to sea; we have with the 
 Iron Horse almost annihilated space as we travel; we 
 have planted the printing press, the schoolhouse and the 
 church in almost every town and hamlet of the land; 
 our flag has been carried to the farthest seas; we have 
 uncounted stores of wealth, and uncounted millions yet 
 hidden in our soil; and if with all this we are yet strong 
 in righteousness, and make justice and mercy our watch 
 word for the future, we have but made the beginning of 
 our growth and greatness have but entered upon its 
 dawn. The glories that the noon will reveal will be far 
 brighter, and will shine with a radiance not yet perceived. 
 
 We were planted here in the wilderness, far from the 
 Old World s tyrannies and strifes, that we might exem 
 plify the great principles of human freedom and the 
 beauty of that Christianity which is the basis of our Con 
 stitution and the energizing life of American freedom. 
 Shall we be true to these high purposes until America 
 becomes the glory of the world? 
 
 SOME PEN PICTURES. 
 
 It is well for us at times to look at life as it is, to 
 see both sides of existence in the great city, for contrasts 
 are strong in the stirring life of every metropolis, and 
 many are the unwritten lessons which we should do well 
 to heed. We want a few glimpses today, with our 
 readers, at life as it exists in some parts of Los Angeles, 
 find instead of discussing any of the great questions of 
 the day, permit us to draw a few pen pictures of some 
 of the byways of our busy city. 
 
 It is the new life that walks abroad in our principal 
 thoroughfares, that meets the eye in our chief residence 
 sections, that confronts us in our church edifices, our 
 business houses, and our schools, hospitals and colleges. 
 But, turning aside from these, in our quaint Sonoratown, 
 how do the Old and the New clasp hands? What stories 
 those blind adobe walls tell that align the streets of that 
 section! They are always a study to the thoughtful, and 
 what phases of life do we find there today! There, in 
 those primitive dwellings, where once the dark-eyed and 
 lovely senorita smiled, sits today the dull-faced Celestial. 
 There is his queer little shop, filled with his wares. He 
 goes in and out of the narrow open door. His face is 
 stolid. It is not in sympathy with the world about him. 
 And beside him, in the room adjoining, is the place 
 where the second-hand furniture man has located, and 
 what a medley he has to show ! He is not of the better 
 class of dealers in that line, for he has only the cheapest 
 of articles for sale. Yet he makes a living somehow, and 
 does not seem to be cast down. 
 
 And alongside him is the shoemaker, who sits on his 
 old-fashioned bench not far from the open door. In the 
 back of the room is the low bedstead. It has no white 
 covering, but a quilt of patchwork is spread over it. 
 There is a deal table against the wall, and an unpainted 
 chair, and a few bits of crockery upon the shelf. This 
 is his home. But we do not see any wife or children 
 there. No, he lives alone. His life is solitary. To eat 
 and work and sleep that fills his day. Does he see the 
 glory of the sky above him? No, for he does not look 
 up. Does he see the splendor of the fair blossoming 
 earth? No, for he does not look away to the hills. That 
 little dark room is his world. Beyond it his thoughts 
 scarcely go, unless they wander away sometimes back 
 to the dim, far-off years of childhood, when he chased 
 the butterflies in the fields, or lay down in the green 
 grass, drinking the sunshine. But there, next door to 
 him, now is the saloon. What blear-eyed men and women 
 enter its doors ! What a nursery of sin and shame and 
 want it is ! He would like to get away from it if he 
 could, but he is poor, and here rents are cheap, and so 
 he will have to stay on. But it is dreadful to have to 
 do it. Yet life doesn t hold anything else for him. He 
 will have to face it right here to the end. 
 
 With this comes the thought, what will the end bring? 
 He doesn t know. He thinks maybe it will bring him 
 rest, and he thinks it will be pleasant to lie with folded 
 hands and quiet feet. Oh, readers, has the world nothing 
 
 215 
 
Editorial Writings. 
 
 to do with him? Is there no voice to tell him of the 
 "green pastures" and the larger life? There is the 
 foreign mission box. Shall we help to fill it and let him 
 go? Shall we do nothing to lift him and other dwellers 
 about him out of this meager life which is hardly more 
 than mere existence? 
 
 Oh, the highways and the byways of a great city! 
 What do they not show and what do they not conceal? 
 And have we, the well-fed and prosperous, nothing to 
 do with those who are found there? Shall we put out 
 of sight the principle of universal brotherhood and act 
 in all the affairs of the city upon the principle, "Each 
 man for himself?" Let us answer this question each 
 to his own conscience, and then do our whole duty as 
 we see it to the humble dwellers in the byways of Los 
 Angeles. The light and gladness and the progress of 
 the Twentieth Century should penetrate every nook 
 and corner of our city, and until it does our duty is 
 unfulfilled. 
 
 AFTER THE RAIN.* 
 
 Strangers here in California who are really lovers of 
 Nature seemed to look upon our world with a wonderfully 
 enlarged vision after the rain of Sunday night. The 
 marvelous clearness of the atmosphere on Monday morn 
 ing was a wonderful revelation to them. The grand 
 mountain heights, glowing in the sunlight like jeweled 
 piles of ever-changing colors, appealed to their sense of 
 magnificence and grandeur. How near even the farther 
 ranges seemed in the transparent atmosphere! How 
 clearly and well-defined stood out the vast mountain 
 canons and the glowing peaks ! How unlike the lofty 
 ranges that have peered at us from out the dust-laden 
 atmosphere of the past few weeks! Transfigured, they 
 seem to touch the glowing skies and to beam with a 
 like splendor of beauty. They stood like mighty altars 
 lit with sunbeams. Before, all the great canoned deeps 
 had been veiled. We saw only solid mountain fronts, 
 rock-ribbed and frowning. Now there were shapely 
 pinnacles and domes, and tree-lined deeps, and reflections 
 manifold of wondrous colors. The majestic peaks were 
 stupendous mosaics such as none but the hand of the 
 Infinite could carve. The far-away distances seemed to 
 draw nigh, and the towering ranges approached nearer to 
 us. It was a transformation such as those accustomed 
 only to forest-clad heights had never before witnessed, 
 and it filled them with surprise and admiration. It was 
 one of the surprises which this Wonderland of ours has 
 to offer, one of the delights which the true lover of 
 Nature who comes to us does most enjoy. 
 
 And we shall have further delights to offer him when 
 heavier rains have fallen; the delights of green fields 
 and hillsides, of unnumbered blossoms and of great 
 orchards neath cloudless skies. Surely this is the land 
 that beckons, and it is to be the Mecca of the industrial 
 future, as well as the land glowing with beauty and with 
 grandeur. 
 
 "January 24, 1904. 
 
 RAIN-WASHED CALIFORNIA.* 
 
 A new world will open soon before the eyes of de 
 lighted visitors to this section of California, who, during 
 this dry, rainless season have seen the country at its 
 worst, with bare, brown plains, without growing harvests 
 or evidence of agricultural wealth or beauty. They have 
 enjoyed the charms of our climate, the soft, balmy air, 
 the golden sunshine, the resplendent beauty of our cloud 
 less skies, the glorious uplift of our Sierra heights and 
 the picturesque loveliness of our surroundings; but of the 
 wondrous beauty that is born after the bounteous winter 
 rains they know nothing, and they will marvel at the 
 rapidity of growth which will be ours with the returning 
 sunshine. 
 
 It is wonderful how things grow in the rich soil of this 
 region after an abundant rain. A few days of sunshine 
 and a green mist covers the earth. Millions of grassy 
 blades have pushed their way through the soil. All blos 
 soming things are springing into budding life. Fragrance 
 fills the .air. The skies grow resplendent with the clearer 
 light, and the infinite deeps of ether seem vaster, richer 
 than before. All the birds of the air awake to fresh 
 singing; the happy butterflies spread their wings, the bees 
 hum a gayer tune of gladness, millions of new flowers 
 unfold, and the great poppy fields grow golden "in the 
 sun. Of the beauty of these fields one who has never 
 seen them has no conception, as they lie bright and glow 
 ing in the nursing sunlight. Of them the poet of the 
 Sierras has sung: 
 
 "The golden poppy is God s gold, 
 
 The gold that lifts, nor weighs us down, 
 The gold that knows no miser s hold, 
 
 The gold that banks not in the town. 
 But singing, laughing, freely spills 
 
 Its hoard far up the happy hills; 
 Far up, far down, at every turn 
 
 What beggar has not gold to burn ! " 
 
 Another week of sunshine and the whole earth will be 
 emerald-clad and flower-dotted. The breath of June 
 will be in the atmosphere, and soon will come the won 
 derful splendor of color and fragrance that is born of 
 the newly opening flowers. The great rocky domes of the 
 Sierras will stand ovtt clearer against the rain-washed 
 skies. The soft murmur of streams will grow into the 
 melody of song. Rich, glowing emerald will take the 
 place of brown upon the hillsides. The waving harvests 
 of grain will cover the plains; the trees, washed free from 
 dust, will shimmer in brightness, and gleam in the golden 
 splendor of the sun. Everything clean and fair on Na 
 ture s face, the world full of harmony and unfolding life, 
 with no harsh winds, no chilling airs to mar the comfort 
 of our days, the renewed beauty of the land will take 
 strangers hearts captive, as it long ago did our own, and 
 many of the visitors who are now with us will doubtless 
 remain most willingly to make their future homes here, 
 made captive by Nature s charms. 
 *February 21, 1904. 
 
 216 
 
The Louisiana Purchase. 
 
 THE IDEAL NATION. 
 
 Every patriot citizen loves his country, and is proud 
 of the greatness and the glory which America has 
 achieved. Hut we do not rest there; we want to see it 
 go on and on along the ever-unfolding lines of Christian 
 civilization and progress. But how often do we as citizens 
 )f this great Republic stop to earnestly and carefully 
 consider the weight of personal responsibility in this 
 regard? It is not enough that a man votes, and votes 
 as he thinks is for the right and for the good of the 
 nation at every election, that he pays his taxes promptly 
 and honestly, and does his duty as a soldier or public 
 servant. There is an obligation behind all this which is 
 not properly considered by the masses, all-important 
 and weighty as it is, and which has been denominated by 
 a recent writer as "the obligation of personal character." 
 In speaking of this the same writer observes: "Each 
 citizen owes to the nation the duty of maintaining in 
 himself a high, clean, moral character. His personal 
 morality is a debt to the nation. Indeed, it is a part of 
 the nation s morality. . . . It is of primary import 
 ance, an obligation which is binding upon all citizens, 
 and binding at all times and in all places. There is 
 no break or cessation in its force, and there are no 
 conditions or circumstances under or by which any citizen 
 is released from its demands. It is the only duty which 
 underlies all others; with it we may hope to realize some 
 thing of the greatness and nobility of citizenship in this 
 Republic; without it the loudest voices of assumed pa 
 triotism are but "sounding brass and tinkling cymbals." 
 
 Good character in the individuals that compose the na 
 tion is the only thing that can make it great, that can 
 make it invincible against wrong and oppression, and 
 which will enable society to overcome the moral enemies 
 which are assailing it on every hand. "But what is good 
 character?" do you ask. In the words of David E. 
 Brewer, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, "It is righteousness in the soul. It is the 
 shining jewel of life, that to which we all look up, which 
 we all admire. It makes the chasm which separates man 
 from the brute, the great gulf fixed which the brute 
 cannot cross, and the man ought not to cross. It is the 
 link which binds him to the divine. In flesh we are 
 brothers of the beast, living without thought, unmoved 
 by conscience, ignorant of purity and dying without hope 
 or remorse. In nobility of soul, in elevation of charac 
 ter, we are heirs, not merely of the ages, but of eternity; 
 we clasp hands with the Infinite and Eternal, and are 
 bold to say of Thee and Thine. " 
 
 The beginning of the Twentieth Century sees a world 
 of unrest. It sees the different nations eyeing each other 
 with suspicion and jealousy. It beholds the mustering of 
 mighty armies, and the organization of great naval fleets. 
 Suspense sits brooding over the Occident and the Orient 
 alike, and it seems at times as if the world were upon 
 the verge of the greatest conflicts that the earth has ever 
 known. And how is this Republic to stand in relation 
 to these great world conflicts? With the "solemn sense 
 
 of responsibility" that fills the heart of the American 
 people, may we not hope that they will always be found 
 true to their high ideals of liberty and justice, true to 
 that priceless heritage which we possess, a national char 
 acter unstained by usurpation, loving justice and hating 
 oppression, foremost among the nations speaking for 
 peace, and holding sacred our ideals of a still nobler 
 life for the Republic? 
 
 As Justice Brewer has so truly said: "Among the 
 ideals filling the aspiring soul of every citizen of these 
 United States should be the ideal nation. Neither him- 
 belf nor his family, his friends, the community of which 
 he is primarily a citizen, should fill the measure of his 
 thoughts and labors but the great Republic, of which 
 both himself and his family, friends and community, and 
 State are but parts, should ever rise like Mont Blanc 
 among the Alps, the supreme object of devotion and 
 toil. One clear purpose of every life should be to help 
 in making the nation better. . . . We must live with 
 the idea that we owe a solemn duty to this Republic; 
 that we are its large debtors, and that the only limit to 
 our obligation is our capacity to help in lifting its life 
 to a higher and nobler plane." 
 
 If we do live in this way we shall be an invincible 
 people, a nation against which all the powers of the earth 
 cannot prevail, for the God of Battles will be on our 
 side, the Lord of Hosts our captain. 
 
 THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE.* 
 
 It sometimes takes centuries for men to interpret the 
 providences of God in the affairs of nations and to under 
 stand the bearing which they have upon the history of 
 the race. Occurrences which are vast and far-reaching in 
 their effects at times transpire with never a suspicion on 
 the part of those involved in them of the wonderful fac 
 tors which they will prove to be in the unfolding of the 
 future. How truly has this been the case in different 
 periods of the history of the American people! Take, 
 for instance, the Louisiana Purchase, one of the most im 
 portant date-marks in the story of American progress 
 and the advancement and growth of civilization, and note 
 what the effects of that transaction have been, for which, 
 at the time, those hostile to Jefferson so ridiculed him, 
 but which we, a hundred years afterward, are preparing 
 to celebrate with rejoicing and ceremony, recognizing in 
 it the providence which made it possible for us to be 
 come a nation of continental greatness and world-wide 
 influence. 
 
 The area included in that purchase is 875,000 square 
 miles, an area 54,056 square miles greater than the whole 
 of the original thirteen States. And out of this vast 
 territory we have carved almost the whole of twelve 
 great commonwealths, namely, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mis 
 souri, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, 
 Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana be 
 sides Oklahoma and the Indian Territory. Says The 
 World s Work: "This region is nearly a third of the 
 August 16, 1903. 
 
Editorial Writings. 
 
 area of the present United States, and it gives homes to 
 almost a fifth of its inhabitants. Its population of 50,000 
 in 1803," less than half as many as Los Angeles contains 
 today "had expanded to 14,708,616 in 1900, or nearly 
 three times the population of the entire United States in 
 1800, and nearly four times the whole country s popula 
 tion at the time Washington was first inaugurated as 
 President." 
 
 Thus we see that vast solitudes have been peopled, and 
 uncultivated wildernesses have changed to fruitful and 
 populous territories. It has become also one of the great 
 granaries of the world, also a large industrial center, a 
 center of some of the greatest manufacturing activities 
 of civilization. It is rich, too, in mineral wealth. In 
 speaking of the Louisiana Purchase, the same authority 
 says: 
 
 One of the dozen States of the purchase, Colorado, 
 produced more gold in 1902 ($28,000,000) than the 
 entire territory of the present United States produced 
 from the discovery of America in 1492 to James W. 
 Marshall s great strike in the raceway of Sutter s mill, 
 on the American fork of the Sacramento, in 1848. 
 In proportion to its area, the Cripple Creek district 
 in Colorado is the richest piece of gold-bearing 
 ground on the globe except the Rand district in South 
 Africa. Colorado has produced $308,000,000 in gold, 
 $372,000,000 of silver, $116,000,000 of lead, and 
 $16,000,000 of copper, or $812,000,000 for these four 
 metals. Montana also in four metals has added much 
 more than $1,000,000,000 to the world s wealth in the 
 less than forty years which have passed since Fair- 
 weather, Edgar and their companions made the gold 
 strike on Alder Gulch, the site of the present Vir 
 ginia City, which started the inrush from all over 
 the world that put Montana on the map. Copper has 
 yielded $391,000,000 for Montana since 1882. Out of 
 its mines have been dug $357,000,000 of silver and 
 $282,000,000 of gold. 
 
 The whole story of that purchase, as we read it in the 
 light of today, is more wonderful than the imagination 
 alone could conceive. We can readily perceive at pres 
 ent that it meant a mighty uplift for American great 
 ness and American civilization. Without that purchase 
 the annexation of Texas, New Mexico, Oregon and the 
 Golden State of California would have been impossible. 
 Hostile powers might easily have grown up on our 
 western borders, and other flags than that of freedom 
 have waved beyond the western banks of the Mississippi. 
 Xo open highway to the Orient would have been ours 
 without the acquisition of this vast territory, and as we 
 see our flag of glorious Stars and Stripes borne across 
 the mighty waters of the Pacific and planted upon the 
 Islands of the Sunrise, carrying with it political freedom 
 and the blessing* of Christianity, we read the larger 
 meaning of the Louisiana Purchase and trace the provi 
 dence of God along all the paths that we have come. 
 
 And well may we celebrate the centennial of that pur 
 chase, . . . for it was one of the great events of the 
 ages, without which America could never have become 
 the World Power that she is today. 
 
 God struck the anvil of His wisdom and 
 Moulded the Future for us, though we knew 
 It not. His Providence welded for us 
 The mighty continent, and He from sea 
 To sea furrowed the highways of Freedom, 
 And stretched across the deep the unseen lines 
 Of His great purpose, until today we 
 Say, behold what God hath wrought ! 
 
 EASTER.* 
 
 The day before the dawn of earth s first Easter Sab 
 bath the Christian world was enveloped in despairing 
 gloom. The light of spiritual hope had gone out and the 
 blackness and silence of death touched the hearts of 
 those who had followed the lowly Nazarene, believing 
 that it was He who should redeem Israel and bring life 
 and immortality to light. But Death had conquered 
 Him, and in His rock-hewn sepulcher, whose door was 
 closed with a great stone, He lay cold and breathless, 
 the dew of death upon His brow, His lips still and 
 speechless, and His sightless eyes closed in the darkness 
 of the tomb. 
 
 How often in other days had His voice thrilled them 
 as He proclaimed, "I am the Resurrection and the Life; 
 whosoever believeth on me shall never die." How often 
 had He proclaimed His divinity and His eternity as He 
 so plainly asserted, "I and my Father are one" the one 
 eternal God who could not die, and in whom alone was 
 the hope of endless life. And in the face of all this He 
 had died the shameful death on the Cross. Numbered 
 among transgressors, amid awful thunders and darkness 
 and the earthquake shock, the spirit that His disciples 
 had so loved had passed; the Christ was dead, and with 
 Him had died the glorious hopes that had thrilled them 
 of eternal life with Him and of a kingdom all powerful 
 where He should reign forever. What wonder that His 
 loving followers stood stunned with sorrow, and that 
 life looked dark, and desolate and hopeless? Where 
 should they turn for succor and for comfort? Could He 
 who had healed the sick and raised the dead, and who 
 had proclaimed Himself the living Christ and the hope 
 of a dying world, be indeed an impostor? Why could 
 He not conquer Death for Himself as well as for others? 
 Oh, whither should they look for succor, whither for the 
 hope of immortality? Mocked by that stony sepulcher in 
 which He lay, from whence should the whispers of 
 Hope spring, and in what soil should faith again take 
 root? 
 
 O broken-hearted disciples! was ever hour so dark to 
 the Christian believer, so full of mystery and gloom as 
 this? 
 
 The night before the Easter dawn was slowly paling. 
 The winds breathed softly, and the fragrance of the 
 dew-wet lilies filled the air. A pale flush of light crept 
 upward in the East, which gradually brightened and 
 filled the world with beauty. Around that silent sepul- 
 *April 12, 1903. 
 
 218 
 
Our Strenuous Life. 
 
 cher in the lonely garden a soft, translucent glory shone. 
 There was something like the waft of unseen wings and 
 the melodious whisper of unearthly voices. The great 
 stone at the door of the sepulcher was rolled away, the 
 air grew resplendent with light, and from the grave 
 the Conqueror of Death came forth, our risen Lord. 
 The work of redemption was fully wrought, and earth 
 awakened to new hopes and the full assurance of a 
 glorious immortality through the world s Redeemer. 
 
 The instinct of human nature desires the proper ob 
 servance of those days that mark epochs in the lives of 
 men and that affect the destiny of nations and the race. 
 There is a natural craving in the human heart for the 
 commemoration of all that which ennobles human des 
 tiny and lifts it to a higher plane of thought and action. 
 The patriot celebrates those days which brought honor 
 and glory to his country. He rejoices in all that which 
 enlarges human freedom and popular government and 
 which opens a broader path for human progress. 
 
 The religious nature of man is not oblivious to this 
 sentiment, for the religious instinct is stronger within 
 his breast than any other that moves him. He is by 
 nature given to worship. With no definite knowledge 
 of a creative power, he lifts reverent eyes to the sun as 
 worthy of his adoration, and builds his altars upon 
 lofty mountain summits, or makes the groves his tem 
 ples. What wonder, then, that this instinct is kindled 
 to its highest inspiration where Christian faith points 
 backward to that time in human history when the re 
 demption of the race was accomplished and the hope of 
 immortality sprang from the open grave of the risen 
 Christ? All Christendom unites with us today in the 
 celebration of Easter. 
 
 "In the beauty of the lilies 
 Christ was born across the sea." 
 
 And here upon this sunset slope, "in the beauty of the 
 lilies," we celebrate His glorious resurrection from the 
 grave and the triumphs of the principles which He 
 taught. 
 
 The fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man is 
 the proclamation which Easter brings to us. We see 
 the gates of Death and Sin swing backward and the 
 light of eternal hope streams through them. Well may 
 our hearts be glad, for we celebrate today the dawn of 
 immortal hope. Again are we assured that as Christ 
 arose, so may we arise from the grave, for He has con 
 quered Death for us, and bids us rejoice in the hope of a 
 like resurrection through faith in His name. 
 
 OUR STRENUOUS LIFE* 
 
 We do not believe that man lives as long as he ought 
 to, or as long as he well might if he would only live 
 rationally and intelligently, always with high aims and 
 a hopeful spirit. Our modern civilization is getting too 
 far away from Nature, and is not sufficiently in touch 
 with its influences. It is wedded to the city s streets, 
 May 3, 1903. 
 
 and loves the rush and whirl of metropolitan life, and 
 is not content unless environed by it. The life of the 
 average denizen of the city is one that is wrapped up 
 in business enterprises, and he has no time or opportunity 
 to study the marvelous lessons inscribed upon the broad 
 pages of Nature in our fields and woods, and on our 
 mountain heights. 
 
 The quiet charm of the country is enough to win the 
 heart of every lover of the beautiful in nature, and to 
 quicken his desire for a higher life. At the present time, 
 here in semi-tropical California, the winds scarce 
 breathe aloud. The leaves flutter in the delicious air, 
 which is full of fragrance. The sunshine is mildly tem 
 pered by delicious sea-breezes. Bird-song is abundant, as 
 if the world were one charmed temple of melody. Could 
 anything be more perfect than the blue of the sky, the 
 soft breathing of the incense-laden air? Anything di 
 viner than the gold of the sunshine and the splendor of 
 opalescent lights upon the mighty uplift of mountains? 
 Anything more beautiful than the rich mosaics of the 
 fields with their golden blooms and numberless shades 
 of green, and the cool emerald of the many trees over 
 shadowing them? Aught more ravishingly fair than the 
 millions of blossoms of every shade and hue laughing 
 in the sun and tossing from every petal their fragrance 
 into the enveloping atmosphere? 
 
 Nature is beautiful, and why should not all men find 
 inspiration in its charms? Why are not men more 
 largely influenced by the lessons of beauty and wisdom 
 which might be drawn from its great open volume? May 
 not the answer to this query be found in the assertion 
 of Ruskin when he says, "The trouble with most men is 
 that they go through the world and never look up." 
 
 The haste to get rich marks the spirit of the age, and 
 men of affairs consider that they have little time for 
 matters which they deem of such small moment as "this 
 browsing out of doors, with no particular end in view." 
 They do not comprehend the largeness of Nature, nor 
 the soothing influence which she exerts upon the tired 
 brain and restless spirit. If we were better students of 
 Nature and maintained with her a closer comradeship, 
 the civilization of today would lose much of its sordid 
 spirit and its pronounced selfish aims. We should come 
 to realize that wealth is by no means the sine qua non of 
 happiness, but that greater joy and contentment may be 
 realized from the simpler pleasures of life, which may be 
 had without money and without price. If the present 
 generation upon the stage of action will not heed these 
 truths, let us so train our children that they may be 
 wiser than we, and that they may come into closer touch 
 with the great world about them, till they shall find 
 sermons in stones, and voices in the running brooks, and 
 shall understand that they stand as the crown and 
 glory of this marvelous creation which God has made 
 for the high and noble purposes of good. Not to gain 
 wealth and power alone, but to illustrate the beauty 
 and grandeur of a high and noble manhood, should be 
 the ulterior aim of the civilization of today. 
 
 219 
 
Editor la I Writings. 
 
 WHITHER ARE WE TENDING?* 
 
 It is worth the while sometimes to sit clown and con 
 sider ourselves seriously, to look below the surface of 
 things into the seething cauldron of events that go to 
 make up the life of a great people. There are in every 
 land gigantic evils which take root and grow if not 
 regarded by the watchful eye of the public, evils which 
 threaten the very life and safety of the nation which lets 
 them pass unheeded and unrebuked. 
 
 America is now a great world power. She claims to be 
 a Christian nation a land where the Sabbath is re 
 garded, and where the church-spire may be found ris 
 ing everywhere across the wide spaces of the continent 
 from ocean to ocean. She is a land also of newspa 
 pers, of public schools, of colleges and universities, 
 of scientific advancement, of invention, and of all that 
 enters into the progressive life of this early morning of 
 the Twentieth Century. The world respects her and dares 
 not ignore her when considering the affairs that are of 
 moment to the well-being of different lands. 
 
 And well it may so regard us, for America is patriotic, 
 she loves freedom, she loves justice, she loves human 
 ity. But as we study the life and practices of the Amer 
 ican people closely we find the existence of appalling 
 evils in our midst, and there are figures presented by 
 public statistics that are startling in their character and 
 import. Among these is the divorce evil, which is con 
 stantly growing, and is assuming such proportions as to 
 make the thoughtful lover of his country anxiously in 
 quire, "Whither are we drifting?" for upon the home 
 rests the safety and permanency of our national life. 
 
 The Christian home is the corner-stone of our liberties, 
 the place where the statesmen, the philanthropists, the 
 great men of our future must be bred and nurtured 
 and the lessons of a noble manhood be learned. That 
 home must be kept inviolate and the sanctity of mar 
 riage be maintained, and our children educated to the 
 belief that the marriage vow is binding and cannot be 
 lightly broken and cast aside. 
 
 But how do we compare with other nations in this 
 respect? Says W. S. Harwood, in "The World of To 
 day:" "In the thirty- four years between 1867 and 1901, 
 the divorces granted in the Dominion of Canada num 
 bered sixty-nine. In the same period in the United States 
 the number of divorces granted was nearly seven hundred 
 thousand. The population of the United States during 
 this period has averaged about twelve times as large as 
 that of Canada; its divorces, compared with those of the 
 main portion of the Dominion, have been two thousand 
 times as many. If divorces in the United States during 
 the three decades had been the same per capita as in 
 Canada, there would have been less than two thousand 
 in the entire country. In other words, the divorces granted 
 in the United States would have been reduced by 668,000." 
 
 Does not this show an appalling amount of laxity 
 among the people of this country upon this matter, a 
 *March 13, 1904. 
 
 laxity which threatens the very life and well-being of the 
 nation? A divorce is an easy thing to be obtained here, 
 often upon the most trivial pretexts. But in Canada it 
 is different. Says the writer before quoted: 
 
 In Canada the conditions are radically different. 
 The people have been educated in a different school. 
 They have been taught that the marriage vow is 
 essentially indissoluble. They have been taught that 
 marriage is not lightly to be entered into; that, once 
 contracted, it is not to be dissolved save by death. 
 The only parties to a marriage in Canada are a man, 
 a woman and God. The Canadians do not believe in 
 any law pertaining to the abrogation of marriage 
 which in its enforcement ignores any one of these. 
 They have been educated to see in the marriage con 
 tract not only an abiding bond between man and 
 woman, but a definite assurance of strength for the 
 state. 
 
 In Canada there are but two things which can dis 
 solve marriage death and infidelity. An applicant 
 for divorce must act under the provisions of a law 
 marked at every step by the most rigorous limita 
 tions. If a man or tt woman for the requirements 
 are the same wishes to secure divorce in Canada he 
 must resign himself at the outset to publicity. Pub 
 licity, absolute publicity, is an essential to divorce 
 in the Dominion; there is no such thing as securing 
 a divorce on the quiet. A formal notice, couched in 
 the prescribed form of the law, announcing intention 
 to apply for divorce, giving the names of applicant 
 and accused, with the ground of accusation, must be 
 inserted for six months in two newspapers published 
 in the town or city where the applicant resided at 
 the time of separation. A similar notice must also 
 be printed in the Canada Gazette, the official organ 
 of the government. 
 
 The one applying for divorce may not hope to be 
 represented on the trial by his counsel, he must be 
 present in person. His advocate may be by his side, 
 but here, as at every step, the public must be per 
 mitted the full view* of the family skeleton. Xor is 
 the hearing in the matter to come before any court. 
 Xo court of law in the Dominion of Canada has any 
 thing to do in granting divorce, no judge on any 
 bench has authority to consider any case in which 
 the marriage contract is to be annulled, though he 
 may, in certain matters, say whether a marriage has 
 been solemnized or not. To obtain divorce in Canada 
 the applicant must go to the Dominion Parliament, 
 the highest legislative body in the realm. It is in 
 the chamber of the Divorce Committee of the Na 
 tional Senate that he must appear who sues for 
 divorce. This Divorce Committee, consisting of nine 
 members, has full power. It can perform all the 
 essentials of a court without being a court. Its 
 object is to get at all the facts, not to consider some 
 and suppress others. It is not bound by any set 
 rules or by precedents. It is not open to prejudice 
 or bribery. It has only one course to follow; to hear 
 the evidence and decide whether, in the judgment 
 of its members, the applicant should be granted the 
 freedom sought. 
 
 These things are certainly a matter for serious thought 
 by the people of the United States. The family life must 
 be kept pure, and the marriage relation be held sacred, 
 if we would not see the government and the character of 
 our free institutions decay. The magnitude of this 
 divorce evil must be overcome. Only think of it. One 
 million two hundred thousand married people have been 
 
 220 
 
The He aeon Light. 
 
 separated and their homes been broken up, here in free, 
 so-called Christian Anieriea, within the past generation ! 
 Is not this stupendous fact appalling, and may we not 
 well ask, "Whither are we tending?" 
 
 THE BEACON LIGHT OF THE WORLD.* 
 
 Silently, persistently, ceaselessly, for more than half 
 a century have the invisible boundary lines, which early 
 in our history were set up between the East and that 
 portion of our country which was vaguely denomi 
 nated as the "Great West," receded, until now we often 
 hear the question asked, "Where is the West where 
 are its limits, and how far do its boundaries extend?" 
 Technically speaking, it has vanished, its wild and 
 woolly flavor has disappeared, and it is no longer the 
 great stamping-ground of the untutored cowboy, or 
 the primitive dwelling place of a non-conventional, non- 
 producing population, dependent upon the East for all 
 the necessaries as well as the luxuries of life. The 
 mighty primeval wilderness is a thing of the past. The 
 wide-stretching and uncultivated prairie is but a memory, 
 for it is now dotted with towns and cities, and its still 
 air is stirred by the whir of the countless wheels of 
 industry; its great canons and its once silent plains echo 
 the rush of the Iron Horse and the mighty stir of traffic. 
 
 Says AVilliam R. Lighton in the July number of The 
 Outlook: "Within a very few years it will be seen of 
 all men that the West is no longer a wild and woolly 
 sort of No-Man s-Land, where spurred and pistoled 
 bravos do nothing all day long but fling defiance in the 
 face of heaven and its laws; it will be seen that the 
 "\\ est has, by hard, patient, persistent labor, won an 
 unequivocal station and dignity as the chief source of 
 the world s food supply. Very few persons appreciate 
 the volume of traffic in western foodstuffs. Secretary 
 Shaw, in a recent address in Chicago, declared that a 
 single western city (Minneapolis) now manufactures and 
 sends abroad a carload of flour for every ten minutes of 
 day and night, the year round. He said also that the 
 Detroit River (one of the links in the Great Lakes 
 traffic) carries four times as much tonnage as does the 
 Suez Canal. The significance of these figures is tremen 
 dous; but it must be remembered that they represent 
 only a small fraction of the whole commerce. Since 1890 
 the trans-Mississippi country has discovered that the 
 logical outlet for its export trade is by way of the gulf 
 ports, rather than by New York and Baltimore; a very 
 large proportion of western meat and grain and flour is 
 now sent to the South, and thence to Europe, with a 
 large decrease in cost of transportation. The West is 
 thus evolving a commercial independence of the Eastern 
 States, saving to itself the percentage once paid to east 
 ern middlemen. 
 
 "Heretofore the bulk of exported foodstuffs has gone 
 
 to Europe, but within three or four years Asiatic markets 
 
 have begun to yawn for American corn and wheat. In 
 
 1901, for the first time in her history, Nebraska sent 
 
 October 11. 1903. 
 
 221 
 
 trainloads of grain across the mountains to the Pacific 
 ports, for shipment to India and China. This is but the 
 beginning." 
 
 This industrial supremacy is not by any means the only 
 encouraging feature in the life of the great West today, 
 for from the same authority above quoted we learn that, 
 "If you will look at the matter without prejudice, you 
 will discover that the balance of the law-abiding spirit 
 is decidedly in favor of the West. In proportion to 
 population, there is today twice as much crime in Massa 
 chusetts as in Nebraska." 
 
 In matters of education the balance lies in favor of 
 the West. Says the same writer: "In proportion to 
 population, Nebraska s expenditure for educational pur 
 poses is annually twice as great as that of Massachusetts; 
 and in the same proportion illiteracy is reduced by one- 
 half. Prairies and mountains are speckled with college 
 towns. In point of efficiency in preparing men and 
 women for the serious business of life, western educa^ 
 tional institutions are second to none. Some of the great 
 est industrial feats of this generation have been wrought 
 in the Far West by men born, bred and educated on the 
 sunset side of the Missouri." 
 
 This great, real West, extending from Illinois to Cali 
 fornia, is not only "the inexhaustible food garden of the 
 world," but it is the modern Land of Promise, the desired 
 Canaan of modern civilization for which the ages have 
 unknowingly waited. In God s providence, which kept 
 it hidden from the knowledge of the world for so many 
 long centuries, there was no blind Chance, but an infinite 
 Purpose for the good of the race. It was designed for 
 the home of Freedom, for the kingdom of the sovereign 
 citizen, and here is his broad, open gateway to the Orient, 
 the pathway for the Flag which heralds all that is best 
 and highest for humanity. 
 
 There have been no accidents in our history, and this 
 gradual, glorious unfoldment of the great West of our 
 continent presages not only a marvelous destiny for our 
 republic, but sublimer hopes for Freedom, in which the 
 whole world shall share. God s finger is upon the main 
 spring of our destiny, and this great land of Freedom 
 with its golden West shall yet become the beacon light 
 of the world. 
 
 The mighty prairies, billowed with vast oceans of grain, 
 and dotted with populous towns and cities; the great 
 valleys, orchard-crowned and vineyard-laden, filled with 
 happy, prosperous homes and opulent industries, with 
 schools and churches, in whose trail follow the printing 
 press and the daily newspaper this boundless West, 
 with its climatic wealth, its fruitful soil and unhindered 
 sunshine, joined to our earlier settled eastern borders, 
 makes a domain of which Freedom may well be proud, 
 and where, firmly intrenched, she is well-nigh invincible. 
 It is the land where the best hopes of the race are 
 centered, and out from which shall flow the great educa 
 tional tides, and the tides of Christianity that shall 
 redeem the race from tyranny, superstition and barbar 
 ism. Plymouth Rock was the threshold of a new future, 
 of a domain that should stretch from the sunrise to the 
 
Editorial Writings. 
 
 gates of the sunset, and where Freedom should unfurl 
 her banners to the world. 
 
 Our Puritan ancestors, while they firmly believed in 
 an overruling Providence, had no conception of the possi 
 bilities in stare tor this New World. But when the story 
 of all the centuries is written we shall find that Christian 
 America was the most powerful instrument in the hand 
 of God for uplifting the world. 
 
 PLANT TREES.* 
 
 "Oh, what a thought was that when God thought of a 
 tree!" The grandeur and beauty of these wonderful 
 "natural spires and minarets and turrets in ever-living 
 green" appeals most powerfully to the earnest lover of 
 Nature. 
 
 "The groves were God s first temples," says the poet, 
 and they are more beautiful than the most magnificent 
 ones ever reared by human hands, and their whispered 
 wind-born symphonies are an inspiration to lift the 
 thoughts of men to something higher than the petty 
 a if airs of everyday life. 
 
 It has been truly said: "Ignore the subject as we may, 
 the loss of the forests has a retroactive effect upon the 
 people, and the climatic conditions best suited for the 
 growth of trees are also best suited for the growth and 
 development of man. It is noteworthy that in countries 
 where forests have been laid waste without renewal by 
 man or Nature, the inhabitants have generally deterio 
 rated." 
 
 Nature has been very lavish in her gift of trees to 
 California. Here she has reared the majestic sequoias, 
 those monarchs that have survived the centuries, whicli 
 often attain the height of three hundred or three hun 
 dred and twenty feet. Here also are the sugar, the 
 yellow and the Jeifrey pine, often growing to the height 
 of more than two hundred feet. Then there is the 
 beautiful Douglas spruce, which in the Sierra region 
 often grows to the height of three hundred to four hun 
 dred and fifty feet; while our noble firs and world- 
 renowned redwoods seem like the mighty sentinels of 
 Time, proclaiming the possibility of forest grandeur here 
 such as exists nowhere else on the face of the globe. 
 
 Among the most attractive and beautiful sights that 
 Japan has to offer the traveler and sightseer, there is 
 nothing that so excites the admiration as the road to 
 Nikko, which is a great avenue of trees, thirty miles long. 
 A recent writer says of it: 
 
 But the trees! If one finds it difficult to describe 
 the temples, one is utterly at a loss for adjectives 
 that shall fitly paint the beautiful cryptomerias, 
 which, after all, are Xikko s chief wealth and beauty. 
 An avenue of these splendid pines, thirty miles long, 
 leads up to the sacred shrines. On either side of the 
 road stand these great sentinels, often in rows four 
 deep, interweaving their branches overhead and form 
 ing a complete arched passageway thirty miles in 
 length, to the temples beyond. When one reaches 
 
 "October 4, 1903. 
 
 the temples, one finds himself in a grove of these 
 huge giants of past centuries, thousands and thou 
 sands of them, standing erect and sentinel-like on 
 the hillside, crowning every swelling mound of earth, 
 springing up in every temple courtyard, overshadow 
 ing every magnificent lacquer shrine. These, indeed, 
 are Xikko s true glory. These dwarf and belittle the 
 temples made by man, magnificent as they are, prov 
 ing once more how much more beautiful and glorious 
 are God s first temples than anything that the highest 
 skill and art of man can attain. 
 
 The traditional story regarding them is worth record- 
 
 ing: 
 
 It is said that when the great leyasu demanded 
 contributions for this temple from the daimios in all 
 parts of Japan, some sent money, some sent mag 
 nificent bronzes, and others great stone lanterns of 
 curious workmanship; but one daimio sent word that 
 he was poor and could not contribute money, or 
 carvings, or lanterns, but that he would plant some 
 trees. So he sent his servants to plant thousands and 
 tens of thousands of little pine trees, wherever they 
 could find soil for their rootlets. And now the fame 
 of this Japanese leads all the rest, for while the 
 donors of old lanterns are forgotten, the story of the 
 daimio who planted the trees is told to the children 
 and the children s children, through all the generations 
 of those who care for Xikko the Magnificent. 
 
 With all that Nature has done for us, generous as she 
 has been with her gift of trees, and her tender care in 
 nurturing them, what hinders our having avenues like 
 this all along our highways and our cities streets 
 throughout the State? If California were fully awake to 
 the glory and the beauty of the trees, she might in this 
 respect become in a few years the wonder and admira 
 tion of the world. Let us adopt at once some system of 
 tree planting along our city streets that shall show a 
 just appreciation of the wonderful tree wealth that is 
 ours, and the marvelous possibilities in tree culture that 
 we may command. 
 
 "He plants the forest s heritage, 
 The harvest of the coming age, 
 The joy that unborn eyes shall see 
 These things he plants who plants a tree." 
 
 THE MECCA OF FREEDOM.* 
 
 Former denizens of Los Angeles who come back to us 
 after an absence of a couple of decades find little with 
 which they were familiar in the Los Angeles of other 
 days. Old landmarks have vanished, even the hills have 
 been changed, and the broad levels are covered with beau 
 tiful homes of varied and modern architecture, and the 
 city has expanded toward the mountains and the sea, 
 stretched outward toward every point of the compass, 
 leaving behind it almost everything that is not modern 
 and up to date. 
 
 The old Mission Church near the Plaza still smiles in 
 the sunlight, and its hoary old walls catch the golden 
 glint of the sunbeams as of yore, while its tall palms 
 *August 30, 1903. 
 
 222 
 
The Dai 1 i/ 
 
 drop their swaying shadows upon the grass, and the 
 mission bells stir the silence of the summer air. Only a 
 part of ancient Sonoratown lingers. The old adobes are, 
 mam- of them, crumbling, and some of them are being 
 crowded by more modern dwellings. The black-eyed 
 senoras and senoritas feel hardly at home upon its streets, 
 for does not the swift electric car break with its noisy 
 rush the brooding silence of the past, and tell only of 
 the busy life of today? Even the old cemetery s walls 
 where their dead sleep are dropping into decay, and 
 Greed has reared the tall derrick right by the gates of 
 their city of the dead. All about them has the modern 
 city crept, and the clang of traffic is heard and modern 
 architecture confronts them until they feel that the old 
 past which they so loved has utterly vanished. 
 
 Farther down town we see the tall sky-scrapers rising, 
 and immense business blocks in process of erection, 
 which are different from anything Los Angeles knew ten 
 or fifteen years ago. They are fireproof, and their great 
 iron girders tower far upward above the other buildings 
 that surround them, as if they were reaching for the 
 stars. Then how the streets run on and on to the 
 southward ! Gone are the old orange groves and vine 
 yards that lifted their emerald branches to the sun; gone 
 the quietness of those outlying streets and the unpeopled 
 distances. The rush, the stir and the populousness of 
 growing life are about us everywnere. We are in God s 
 country, where the future beckons, and where Promise, 
 spelt with the biggest P, lurks and whispers to us of 
 coming greatness and good. This land is to be the Mecca 
 of Freedom, the Promised Land, where shall blossom and 
 ripen the golden fruitage of her highest hopes. 
 
 Religious sentiment and educational wealth are strong 
 here, and they will lay secure foundations for that great 
 ness which springs from these sources. The modern cul 
 ture of the Puritan East is coming to us daily, and we are 
 building churches and institutions of learning without 
 number. There is a Providence shaping our ends and 
 gradually molding the public character of this people 
 so that we may become the fit custodians of all that is 
 best and highest in Christian patriotism and Christian 
 civilization. 
 
 THE DAILY NEWSPAPER.* 
 
 How many and varied are the agencies which Provi 
 dence makes use of in promoting the forward march 
 of civilization and the advancement of the race! And 
 perhaps in all the wide realm of human agencies which 
 He uses there is no force outside of Christianity that 
 tells more for human progress than the daily news 
 paper. A glance through the exchanges which come 
 daily into a metropolitan newspaper office will give a 
 person some idea of the wonderful activity of this 
 busy work-a-day world. The history of a world s day 
 a single twenty-four hours is something marvelous. It 
 holds comedies more curious than ever were written by 
 September 27, 1903. 
 
 human pen. It has farces more ludicrous than ever 
 stirred an audience to tumultuous laughter. It witnesses 
 tragedies more ternole than human language ever de 
 picted. It is an ever-changing panorama, a shifting 
 scene of lights and shadows, of struggle and success, of 
 laughter and despair. 
 
 Could the pen of the journalist portray to the lightest 
 heart-throb, to the minutest act, and the smallest spoken 
 word, the life of a single city for a single day only, it 
 would be such a drama as would put to blush the genius 
 of a Shakespeare, or the most brilliant efforts of a 
 Milton or a Dante. Could The Times gives its readers 
 all of yesterday, with every impress made upon it by the 
 entire people of Los Angeles, the paper would be read 
 with a wonder beyond words, with a breathless and 
 intense interest. 
 
 But it is these everyday events which make history 
 these individual actions and emotions which are the 
 momentum of human progress. The live journal gathers 
 up the straws which are afloat upon the current, and 
 which serve to point out the direction in which the tide 
 is flowing. With all the varying interests which it touches 
 and the incidents which it notes, it does nothing more 
 than reach the surface of things. The entire story of a 
 single day has never been written. 
 
 Dependent as we are upon the daily paper, it is a 
 mystery to the present time how the world ever got on 
 simply with a weekly journal. If the world had held as 
 many people then as now it could not have done so. The 
 daily newspaper is needed now, not only as a maker 
 of history, as a disseminator of the news, as a record 
 of progress, but as a detective. The worst enemy of 
 crime is the enterprising, outspoken newspaper. It is 
 Argus-eyed, and the criminal finds it everywhere difficult 
 to escape from its omnipresent glance. He fears it as 
 he fears the majesty of the law which he has outraged. 
 He may go to the desert, and it will follow him ; to the 
 most distant lands, and it confronts him still. It is 
 oftener through the newspaper than any other agency 
 that he is unable to escape the consequences of his 
 crimes, for it is the voice of public sentiment, and it 
 will not let him go unpunished. No gigantic evil can 
 long exist when its corruption is daily laid bare by the 
 universal press before the eyes of a law-respecting people. 
 
 The newspaper is also a potent factor in immigration. 
 What did the populous Fast know of this distant Pacific 
 Slope before the daily journals of the Coast were estab 
 lished? The rumors of its greatness and its fertility, 
 and its climatic charms, were as idle tales to those upon 
 the other side of the continent. But the pictures of 
 its charms thrust upon them daily, their interest became 
 enlisted, and now there is scarce a city or town upon 
 the Atlantic borders, or in the great midland valleys 
 of the continent, where the story of the Pacific Coast is 
 not read, attracting in this direction a tide of immi 
 gration that is fast overflowing the whole State. 
 
 In no portion of the country is the journalistic activity 
 of California excelled. The number of newspapers 
 established in this State is a peculiar feature of its 
 
 223 
 
Editorial Writings. 
 
 progress. No sooner is a new town started than conies 
 the demand for a newspaper. These papers, too, are 
 generally well sustained, and they can only be regarded 
 as indices of the intelligent and progressive character 
 of the people who are flocking to this Coast. Well- 
 sustained, honest and fearless journals will always 
 attract homeseekers, and will do their part in the work 
 of upbuilding the State. They will make crime less ram 
 pant and Progress surer footed in its onward march. 
 The high-toned, fearless and courageous journal is the 
 good physician who controls the pulse of public senti 
 ment and lessens the fevered heart-throbs of the world. 
 
 WHAT SHALL THE END BE? 
 
 The thoughtful mind finds great delight in following 
 the achievements of Science, and dwelling upon the possi 
 bilities that may result therefrom. With what Science 
 has already accomplished we may well feel that there 
 need be scarcely a limit to the achievements of our 
 scientific future, and that at no distant period the isola 
 tion of nations will be a thing impossible, for all will 
 be linked together, though seas divide them, in such a 
 way as to make the life of all commingle. The unseen 
 nerves of the air are thrilling beneath the intelligence 
 of man s will. Already, as Marconi has fully demon 
 strated, a person may stand upon the shores of this 
 continent and converse without the aid of wires with his 
 friends in the Old World. The sea is no barrier to 
 speech, and with an enlarged spectograph at our com 
 mand it may not be to our vision. A recent writer has 
 suggested that if we wish knowledge of our friends 
 abroad, "we could soon learn by telephone where and how 
 they were, and could commune with them by holding up 
 a dispatch before a mirror for their inspection." 
 
 Science is just beginning to discover the power and 
 the possibilities which lie concealed in the electrical pul 
 sations of the atmosphere, and it is every day reaching 
 out to subjugate them to its use. We are just begin 
 ning to realize the vastness of the material which Provi 
 dence has placed within our reach for the advancement 
 of human knowledge, and to realize that universal law 
 governs all things ; and let us once discover the key 
 which unlocks that law, and lo! man is master of the 
 universe, which he may make subject to his will. In 
 view of the rapid march of discovery and invention, we 
 may well say that there is nothing too wonderful to 
 be possible, and we may find a new and larger meaning 
 in the scriptural injunction given by Jehovah to Adam, 
 "Replenish the earth and subdue it." 
 
 The heart of^ man thrills with hope in view of the 
 conquest over Nature that he has already made, and 
 new revelations, still undreamed of, may yet be unrolled, 
 till this New Century stands out brilliant in its light of 
 discovery and progress. 
 
 Among other important discoveries of the past year 
 or two is that of Jacques Loeb, of the University of 
 Chicago, who, in the course of his investigations, "brought 
 
 forward experimental proof of the vital influence in 
 life phenomena of those solutions of salts and acids 
 which conduct and likewise give rise to electricity. 
 With seawater of varying strength he was able to bring 
 about artificial fertilization. Eggs that had known no 
 contact with the male cells developed into normal living 
 beings. Biological theories of half a century went down 
 in a day. Then Prof. Albert P. Matthews, a protege of 
 the excellent Prof. Wilson of Columbia, and now pro 
 fessor of physiological chemistry in the same university 
 with Prof. Loeb, took up these fecund ideas. He applied 
 them to the phenomena of nervous action, showing how 
 this most mysterious and baffling of puzzles might be 
 simply and clearly explained by electrical action. The 
 nerves are jelly-like solutions of highly-phosphorized 
 fatty bodies, inclosed in a thin, non-conducting sheath. 
 The albuminous bodies inside are charged with positive 
 electricity, and these charges give rise to, they induce a 
 negative charge in the surrounding water. A slight 
 jar, beat, a flash of light, the presence of a new supply 
 of food materials, may break this delicate equilibrium; 
 the nerve current traveling to and from the brain is 
 the result." 
 
 In the field of electrical research there seems to be 
 scarcely a limit to the wonderful discoveries accom 
 plished. In a recent number of Harper s Weekly we 
 find the following: 
 
 Prof. Loeb s discovery of this year, the second of 
 those which will make the Chicago meeting memor 
 able, was the application of the same theory of elec 
 trical charges to questions of life and death. The 
 fresh spawn of sea-urchins, unfertilized, die in a few 
 hours. Prof. Loeb put them in a cyanide solution 
 and kept them for seven days. This may be called 
 the first step in the scientific search for immortal 
 life. Still another paper from this same unwearied 
 investigator sought to prove that the vital energy 
 supplied by food is due to the electricity it affords 
 rather than to the heat it develops, as present-day 
 physiology holds; in brief, that all life actions are 
 of an electro-dynamical nature. 
 
 In view of these discoveries we may well exclaim, 
 How little we have known, and how blindly have we 
 walked the paths of life, unheeding the marvels of the 
 universe within our reach! What shall the end be? 
 
 BEAUTIFYING OUR SCHOOLS. 
 
 Beauty is beginning to be recognized as one of the 
 most potent factors in the formation of well-rounded 
 and fully-developed character. As education assumes 
 higher standards and the needs of childhood are more 
 fully discerned, the determination to make more attrac 
 tive the school life of our children is becoming more 
 pronounced, and we are not satisfied with what the past 
 had to offer four bare white walls, with hard, unpolished 
 wooden benches, with no statues or pictures to delight the 
 eye, no blade of grass, or flower, or tree within the yard 
 surrounding the school building; nothing to please the 
 fancy of the child or to inspire its imagination and 
 quicken its thoughts. 
 
 224 
 
Christmas Dai/. 
 
 But today the progressive schools of the country are , 
 beautiful temples of learning, made charming within 
 by pictures and other fine works of art, and without by 
 trees and flowers, lovely landscape gardens in which the 
 children take pride and delight. 
 
 It is about ten years since the Eastern States awoke 
 to the importance of this movement, and since then the 
 work has been going steadily onward, until it has ex 
 tended itself throughout the country. 
 
 It was Ruskin, with his love of the beautiful, who first 
 roused Europe to this need of better adornment for her 
 schools. Bravely has she responded, and today she can 
 count 81,000 school gardens which are the delight of her 
 rising generation. 
 
 This New World has been quick to catch this spirit 
 ot enthusiasm for higher beauty, and to adopt the opin 
 ion of the wise bishop who said, when being remonstrated 
 with for giving nis garden over wholly to flowers instead 
 of growing salads also, "Ah, the beautiful is as useful 
 as the useful. I m not sure but it s more so." As a 
 recent writer upon this subject has said: "The school 
 beautiful enthusiasts believe that by ennobling the en 
 vironment of children, and cultivating in them a love of 
 painting, sculpture and flowers, they are adding to the 
 higher education an influence not imparted by any text 
 book." 
 
 These little ones thus trained may eventually find 
 through their quickened vision not only "sermons in 
 stones and songs in running brooks," but they may find 
 that "flowers are the alphabet of angels," which are 
 written lessons of goodness and of love, and poems of 
 (iod s care. The flower is ofttimes a wonderful teacher, 
 and the tall tree a powerful orator. 
 
 We well remember the exclamation of Henry Ward 
 Beecher which we first read in a treeless land: "Oh, 
 what a thought was that when God thought of a tree!" 
 It was a thought which will influence all the ages and 
 will lift up the child-mind to the infinite Creator who 
 gave it life. "How does the tree grow, and what lifts 
 it up so high above the ground? Who paints the flow 
 ers, and what makes them smell so sweet?" are ques 
 tions that mean infinitely more for the child s develop 
 ment than the full formula "two and two are tour" and 
 "three from six leaves three." The flowers and the trees 
 help him to look up; the pictures and the sculptures, 
 copies of the old masters, turn his thoughts backward, 
 till he wishes to know more of that vanished past and 
 more of that infinite Power which gives color and fra 
 grance to the flowers and lifts the trees above his head. 
 Then let this work of school decoration progress, for 
 we cannot estimate the value of its influence upon the 
 rising generation. 
 
 And in addition to this, in various cities "school dec 
 oration has extended its influence to the neighborhood. 
 School beautiful promoters hope that the public schools 
 of the future will not only have paintings on their walls 
 and flowers in the garden, but will l>e a community cen 
 ter wherein parents may meet with children and teach- 
 
 225 
 
 ers for lectures, concerts and social intercourse. Many 
 a principal declares that the beautifying has already ltd 
 to a closer relationship between the school and its 
 patrons." 
 
 May the outreach of the Xew Century continue to be 
 toward higher development along esthetic lines, as well 
 as in the whole domain of public education; then indeed 
 shall our schools be a bulwark of safety for the Nation. 
 
 WHAT CHRISTMAS DAY EMBODIES. 
 
 Christmas is a day that is pregnant with meaning for 
 the whole human race. It has meaning that is infinite, 
 that compasses the immortal nature of man; it opens the 
 golden door of hope to him; it gives wings to Progress, 
 and it furnishes the basis of all Christian civilization. 
 
 Before the world s first Christmas the fullness of 
 infinite love had not arisen upon the earth. The dark 
 and heavy shadows of doubt lay everywhere, and men 
 walked in the impenetrable gloom of uncertainty. How 
 often was the question asked, "If a man die shall he 
 live again?" The belief in the universal brotherhood of 
 the race was not accepted. The golden key of Christ s 
 love had not unlocked the door to men s hearts. "Glory 
 to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will to men," 
 had not been sung until the angels woke the anthem 
 when Christ was born. And its echoes have been ringing 
 down the ages ever since that first Christmas dawn. It 
 has made possible Today, with all its enlightenment, its 
 benefactions, and its sense of universal brotherhood. 
 
 Dr. Storrs, in his interesting work, "The Divine Origin 
 of Christianity as Indicated by Its Historical Effects," 
 points out these eight results of Christianity: "It 
 brought, first, a new conception of God; second, a new 
 conception of man; third, a new principle of the duty 
 of man to God; fourth, a new principle of the duty of 
 man to man; with, fifth, a new teaching of the duty of 
 nations to each other; it has had a constantly inspiring 
 effect, sixth, on the mental culture of mankind; seventh, 
 on the moral culture of mankind, and, eighth, on the 
 world s hope of progress." 
 
 Surely with these results springing from it, it should 
 be the day of days to man; a day that we should keep 
 joyously, reverently and thankfully. To blot out the day 
 from human history would be like throwing pall of 
 blackness over the whole past and future of the human 
 race. It would be like binding all nations with the 
 heavy chains of barbarism; it would be like putting out 
 the sun in our spiritual heavens and leaving us to wan 
 der in the darkness of doubt and despair. 
 
 Take from us the Christ whose birth we commemorate 
 on Christmas Day and we take all that illumines with 
 brightness the paths of life; all that fills the heart with 
 hope and an enduring gladness. As the Rev. Newell 
 Dwight Hillis says in his work, "The Influence of Christ 
 in Modern Life:" "Today with the great scholar we may 
 well exclaim, Calvin and Edwards make me fear and 
 tremble; Bishop Butler makes me to be amazed; Liddon 
 
Editorial Writings. 
 
 and Beecher make me believe; but Jesus Christ makes 
 me hope and love. O happy generation in the midst 
 of which stands the divine Savior, teaching our age how 
 love casts out all fear and fulfills all law. In the realm 
 of state our citizens have become patriots not through 
 fear of the traitor s death, but through love of home and 
 native land. In the realm of the beautiful our artists 
 are achieving excellence not through hatred of ugliness, 
 but through love of beautiful faces and landscapes. In 
 the realm of higher education our city is being pro 
 foundly influenced not because these teachers hate 
 falsehood, but because tney have a mighty love for 
 truth. . . . Thus all the columns of society are 
 journeying upward not because they are fleeing away 
 from the thunder of Sinai, but because they are allured 
 upward by the beauty of Calvary." 
 
 Well, then, may we commemorate the beautiful Christ 
 mas Day, and celebrate it with hearts overflowing with 
 love, not only for those who are bound to us by the strong 
 ties of relationship, but by the ties of human need and 
 fellowship. Let us remember the poor as well as those 
 who are especially dear to us, and help to swell anew 
 the glorious anthem the angels sang on the world s first 
 Christmas, "Peace on earth, good will to men." 
 
 THE EXTENT OF OUR DOMAIN.* 
 
 This great country of ours at the time when the Dec 
 laration of Independence was issued to the world was 
 but a mere infant in size compared with what it is today. 
 How closely it hugged our Atlantic borders, while the 
 vast West behind it was practically further from its life 
 than the Old World is today. What did our Revolu 
 tionary fathers know of the unpeopled wildernesses lying 
 between them and these Pacific shores? And never once 
 did they dream of the march of American civilization 
 across the continent upon highways bordered by bands 
 of steel, while across the mighty distance the lightnings 
 traversed the air, the swift couriers of speech, placing 
 the Atlantic and Pacific dwellers in constant communi 
 cation with each other. We have grown in every direc 
 tion, north, south, east and west, and we take pride in 
 the great land over which floats the Stars and Stripes. 
 
 But there are really but few people, even among the 
 most intelligent, who realize fully the extent of our do 
 main. Take, for instance, Alaska. But few people 
 appreciate what an empire of space is embraced in our 
 Alaskan possessions alone. The lowest boundary is 50 
 deg. 40 min. north, and the highest, the Arctic Ocean. 
 The eastern limit is 130 deg. west of Greenwich, and the 
 western 187 deg. 20 min. San Francisco is about five 
 hundred miles nearer the farthest point of Maine than 
 it is to the western coast of Attou, the most remote of 
 the Aleutian Islands. Thus San Francisco is only about 
 two hundred and fifty miles short of being the geograph 
 ical center of United States territory. 
 March 8, 1903. 
 
 One-sixth of the area of the United States is repre 
 sented by our Alaskan possessions, once belonging to 
 the Muscovite Czar. A portion of this Arctic land is a 
 region girdled with fire, for it is the seat of several 
 active volcanoes, which tower thousands of feet upward 
 above the sea, their lofty crests mantled with eternal 
 snows, and frowning forever upon the valleys at their 
 base. 
 
 Of Alaska a recent writer says: "Of the ethnologi- 
 cally interesting aboriginal inhabitants of Alaska the 
 Thlinket Indians, with their totem poles, the clever 
 Aleuts in their kayaks braving the sea, the jovial Eski 
 mos I did not propose to speak, but the mention of the 
 trading companies reminds me that while here is a 
 country that, with all its hardships of climate, might yet 
 support a large population . . . The country so far 
 has been formerly merely exploited. . . . An area of 
 land covering nearly 600,000 square miles, even if situ 
 ated near the North Pole, must show considerable diver 
 sity of conditions, and cannot be described by wholesale 
 characterizations. The information regarding Alaska 
 is now increasing almost as rapidly as that of Africa 
 did a few years ago as a result of systematic explora 
 tion. We find that there is as good an opportunity for 
 a population of over two millions as there is in Norway, 
 and the thousands of Americans who visit annually the 
 fjords and glaciers and forest-clad hills of Norway 
 should know that for grandeur and variety of scenery 
 of the same sort, their home possession far excels that of 
 the Scandinavian peninsula." 
 
 As we regard the facts in reference to the extent of 
 Alaska given above, and the growth of our country from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific borders, what a grand march 
 i)f empire do these facts suggest ! We have a country 
 upon which the sun never sets. As its first rising beams 
 shed their light upon its far Atlantic shores, the last 
 warm glow of the sunset is resting upon those farthest 
 Aleutian isles that lie asleep upon the waters of the 
 Eastern Hemisphere. What a country! and what a 
 mighty destiny is ours if we be but true to liberty and 
 the right ! 
 
 SOME EVILS THAT THREATEN US. 
 
 The modern world has much to contend with that our 
 older civilization knew nothing of. There are pictures 
 of want and woe and wretchedness, the producing cause 
 of which did not exist in America fifty years ago, and 
 thoughtful men are asking what is to be the future con 
 dition of our country if these things continue and are 
 allowed to exert a molding influence upon society. The 
 boycott and the strike are bad enough, and are un- 
 American in their character. They strike a blow at the 
 very root of individual independence and manhood. They 
 would crush the very foundation stones of freedom, the 
 right of every man to be a man, to dispose of his labor 
 as he sees fit and at his own price, without let or hind 
 rance from those who demand from him the acceptance 
 
 226 
 
" Lest We Forget" 
 
 of certain conditions or associations before he shall be 
 free to exercise his right as a free man in this respect. 
 
 The workingman of the United States has been the 
 glory and the strength of this country, and he has been 
 in advance of the workingnien of other countries, be 
 cause he has been intelligent and self-respecting. He 
 has been the bone and sinew and the strength of the re 
 public. It was largely the workingmen of the land who 
 carried the "thinking bayonets" that gave us the vic 
 tory in the Civil War, and saved the life of the Union. 
 Loyal hearts were the men who left forge and plow and 
 hammer and all the utensils of labor to fight their coun 
 try s battles. Noble sons of noble sires who fought on 
 bloody battlefields that the government of the people 
 and for the people and by the people should not perish 
 from the earth. Such men as these, lovers of human 
 liberty and right, we do not find engaged in the unlaw 
 ful boycott and strike which so threaten the peace and 
 prosperity and the good name of the communities where 
 they occur. The breed of strikers and boycotters is not 
 generally native born, but they are the conception of 
 Old World tyrannies, where men are not sovereign citi 
 zens, but servile subjects. 
 
 But here is a gloomy companion picture, which we 
 glean from World s Work, that illustrates another great 
 evil with which our modern civilization has to contend, 
 and which in its results may be as inimical to the 
 wellbeing of society as the unlawful boycott and the 
 antagonistic methods of labor unions. The power of 
 great trusts, with millions at their command, if not 
 rightly employed, might work untold injury to commu 
 nities where they exist. Says the writer: "It has been 
 pointed out that perhaps one man or a small group of 
 men, by the mere act of signing art order to close up a 
 plant, could exercise a power of life or death over thous 
 ands of human beings. Something akin to this hap 
 pened in the beautiful New England village of New 
 Hartford, Conn., last August and September, when the 
 comparatively large cotton duck mills of that place were 
 ordered closed. Nearly one thousand persons of the 2300 
 in the place were compelled to leave the town. Nearly 
 a hundred houses were boarded up, and rents were of 
 fered free to the mill hands who remained, for some men 
 who had worked thirty, forty or even fifty years in the 
 plant were too old to get work elsewhere. 
 
 "With the population cut almost in half, the mer 
 chants of the place thought they saw ruin before them. 
 The pay rolls of the mills had been more than $175,000 a 
 year, and when the spending of this money stopped, it 
 seemed as if the community must die. The income of 
 the churches was cut down, a large part of the foreign 
 congregation of the Catholic church disappearing as if 
 swept out by a cyclone. There were fewer children for 
 the schools. The value of real estate declined, and those 
 who had put their savings into homes found themselves 
 unable to get rid of them. There were too many mer 
 chants, too many physicians, too many barbers and, 
 one and all, they sat down to see who would go away or 
 
 go to the wall first. Gloomy forebodings as to the in 
 crease of the poor fund of the town arose; the bells 
 of the mills ceased to ring; the town band, that gave a 
 concert every week, ceased to play; a water power, esti 
 mated as worth from $200,000 to $300,000, lay idle; the 
 machinery of the mills was being shipped to the trust s 
 mills in Alabama; only the four walls of three large 
 buildings remained. The town was dead; the heavy hand 
 of a trust seemed to have crushed it." 
 
 How to deal with these threatening dangers is one of 
 the great problems that confront the American people 
 today, and to solve them we need no less wisdom and 
 patriotism than that which guided our forefathers when 
 they framed that glorious Constitution which is the life- 
 giving instrument of our great American Republic. 
 
 FORGET NOT ALL HIS BENEFITS.* 
 
 At no period in the history of this great Republic have 
 we had greater cause for thanksgiving than at present. 
 A vast country lying between the world s two greatest 
 seas, occupying an area of 3,728,830 square miles, at 
 peace with all the world; free from pestilence and famine; 
 our great industries prosperous; our gathered har 
 vests rich in their abundance; our educational facilities 
 of the best; our churches multiplying, and with all the 
 adjuncts of a great, growing Christian civilization at 
 our command, well might the nation gather, as it did 
 on Thanksgiving Day, and render thanks to the Infinite 
 Giver of all good for the manifold blessings with which 
 He has crowned us. Blind indeed should we be if we 
 did not recognize the guiding hand and the controlling 
 power of an overruling Providence directing all things 
 for the good of this people, who have become one of 
 the great world-powers of today, and base would be our 
 ingratitude if we failed to render thanks to the Benefi 
 cent Giver of all good who has guided our ship of state 
 into the calm waters of the great ocean of Peace. 
 
 The Old Frag has been planted in the Orient, and 
 with it shall go the blessings of freedom and Christianity. 
 A new day is dawning beneath its folds in the lands of 
 barbarism and superstition. Many dark-skinned races 
 shall yet awake to a new life of freedom and spiritual 
 enlightenment. The first gun fired at Sumter meant 
 no more to "the downtrodden slave than did the sound 
 of Dewey s guns in the Bay of Manila to the barbarous 
 races beneath the iron heel of Spanish despotism. The 
 doors of the Orient swung open wide as their thunders 
 beat upon them, and the morning of a new day dawned 
 for America and the world. 
 
 Never before has America had a Thanksgiving Day 
 so pregnant with mercies and so filled with blessings as 
 the one which has just passed; and in reviewing all our 
 causes for thankfulness, well may the American people 
 exclaim, "Bless the Lord, O my soul! and forget not all 
 His benefits." 
 
 227 
 
Edituria I Writings. 
 
 YESTERDAY AND TODAY.* 
 
 How impossible a half century ago such a gathering 
 [the National Federation of Women s Clubs] as is now 
 being held in Los Angeles would have been ! California 
 was then an infant State which had been newly cradled 
 in the arms of the Union, and the Stars and Stripes had 
 hardly more than been unfurled under its cloudless skies. 
 It was a land afar off, with the space of a wide conti 
 nent between it and the East, holding a different civiliza 
 tion and linked by no bands of steel to the progressive 
 civilisation of today. What vast spaces of silent and un 
 inhabited wildernesses lay then between our Atlantic and 
 Pacific borders? A telegraphic line across the continent 
 was beyond the wildest dreams of the ordinary thinker. 
 
 The spirit of conquest, it is true, had stirred, and the 
 expanding Empire of civilization and invention was mak 
 ing ready for the future. The giant minds of the time 
 conceived ami slowly matured the stupendous projects 
 which made possible this golden Today. The continent 
 was spanned with lines of steel, and the Iron Horse let 
 loose upon their path; the wires were stretched through 
 space until the vast distance became a wide whispering- 
 gallery, where we receive almost as soon as uttered the 
 messages sent us from the farthest shores of this great 
 continent. We go and come as if the distant East were 
 upon the very threshold of this wide, golden West. In 
 stead of weeks and months, it is only a few days of 
 travel that lie between us and our friends on the Atlantic- 
 borders. We are not divided, but we are one great, 
 united people,, interested in the same methods of progress, 
 working in the same intellectual fields, engaged in the 
 same work of philanthropy,, and pursuing the same meth 
 ods for the uplifting of the race. 
 
 It is this that makes possible the national federation 
 not only of women s clubs, but of other organizations 
 throughout the country, and makes us feel that we are 
 not strangers, but are linked together in the universal 
 brotherhood of the race, and our friends coming to us 
 from all parts of the land will find us fully in sympathy 
 with the work which they are doing, and also that we are 
 keeping step with them in the noble work which woman is 
 accomplishing for the world. AVe are not blind to the 
 fact that Providence is opening wider than ever before 
 the doors of Opportunity for woman. That old past is 
 dead when she was a mere plaything or a slave; and to 
 day the influence that she wields in all the affairs of life 
 is beyond computation. Club life does not unsex her, 
 but it brings her more fully in touch with humanity at 
 large, gives her broader views of life, and more vital 
 interest in all that tends to the betterment of humanity. 
 
 Woman s influence in the world is growing daily, and 
 every year finds ^her better equipped for her special 
 work, and the new century will see her occupying new 
 fields, and seizing tipou new and golden opportunities 
 which will have their share in helping the world for 
 ward in the path of Progress. The Golden Age for woman 
 is fast advancing, and to Christianity, more than to 
 anything else, does she owe its dawn. It is only in 
 May 4, 1902. 
 
 Christian lands that her equality with man is recognized, 
 and the gates of usefulness are left ajar that she may 
 enter where she will. Then let her be up and doing under 
 the banner of Progress and the Cross. 
 
 THE LAND OF OUT-OF-DOORS. 
 
 The Winter rains are over, and the gray fogs that have 
 visited us are just a prelude to the beautiful, cloudless 
 Summer days that are close at hand. Clear, radiant, 
 perfect days are Hearing, days when simply to be fills 
 us with ecstatic delight, when sunshine, fragrance and 
 happy bird-song fill the world to overflowing, and colossal 
 calm and peace everywhere abound. 
 
 These wondrous days were a marvel to us when we first 
 came to the State from the stormy realms of the East. 
 Day after day of cloudless sunshine had been ours as 
 the Summer neared, till at last the thought came to us 
 that we would count the successive days that should come 
 that were wholly without a cloud. And this we did until 
 forty days had come and gone without a cloud even as 
 large as a man s hand to dim the brightness of the 
 wonderful blue. There were only the golden clouds of 
 sunset when the sun sank to rest in a pavilion of glory 
 and the grand mountains bathed in the warm glow of 
 the evening lights were transformed into glowing piles of 
 rubies and of amethysts. 
 
 It was a marvelous revelation to us of the perfection 
 of California s climate, for they were not only cloudless 
 days, but days in which 
 
 "The winds were hushed nor dared to breathe aloud, 
 
 The sky seemed never to have borne a cloud." 
 
 And how things grow in such a season ! You can almost 
 see Nature s advancement from day to day. The green 
 blades of grass steadily grow higher, the flowers unfold 
 swiftly, and today is not as yesterday, for it is clothed 
 in richer beauty and more splendid growth. 
 
 Oh, this Summer Land is the land in which to live and 
 be glad, for it is the land of out-of-doors, where all the 
 long season you can, if you will, live under the tent 
 of sky, and dream beneath the stars! It is the land 
 for the camper, for through the long Summer months 
 he has no fear of rain or sudden storms. Starlit skies 
 forever bend above him at night, soft and fragrant 
 breezes blow, and regenerate Nature breathes only to 
 bless him. And sleep, such sleep as comes to him in his 
 tent or under the trees, is full of refreshment and 
 life-giving strength. And here he can live heart to heart 
 with Nature and study her mysteries and become familiar 
 with her charms, learning to look from Nature up to 
 Nature s God. 
 
 COMING INTO HER OWN. 
 
 Woman suffrage is not essential to woman s highest 
 advancement. Although she has by many long been 
 considered the weaker vessel, she is, in this modern 
 age of progress and broader enlightenment, coming to 
 
 228 
 
October: A Khajwtdy. 
 
 participate more fully in the world s work in the field 
 of public action, and her influence is being felt in the 
 industrial world, as well as in other directions, as it never 
 heretofore has been felt. 
 
 Of course, all will admit that woman s first and highest 
 sphere is in the home. What our modern civilization 
 needs more than anything else ... is consecrated 
 homes. They can do as much for the advancement of 
 civilization as the pulpit can do. It is the consecrated 
 homes of the nation that are the hope of the land and 
 its bulwark of strength. Take these away and civiliza 
 tion would go backward, and the enlightenment of this 
 century would cease. Multiply these and yon multiply 
 all that gives hope to life, beauty and sacredness to ad 
 vancement, and strength and power to the nation. You 
 give to your children a heritage of sacred memories, a 
 reverence for all that is good and true, and you help 
 them to lay hold upon hopes that are undying. 
 
 In the Christian home we find the larger percentage of 
 good citizenship, and here it is that woman can exert a 
 grander and more abiding influence than in the realm of 
 state. But all women are not mothers, and not all have 
 homes in which to employ their energies and efforts. What 
 shall we do with them, do you ask? For them, at the 
 present day, the door of Opportunity swings wide, and 
 without any fear of unsexing themselves we find women 
 coming into honorable competition with men in mimlerless 
 fields that were once closed against them. How well 
 and faithfully have they done their part is described in 
 a sermon on "Women," recently preached by the Rev. 
 N. D. Hillis of the Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. In the 
 following words of warning to men, he says: 
 
 If you don t want women to outstrip you in the 
 industrial race and compel you to come to them when 
 you want 50 cents, you would better stop drinking 
 poor whisky and quit gambling at race-tracks and 
 in poolrooms. Women, in spite of man s refusal to 
 give them the rights and privileges to which they are 
 entitled, are today in 145 branches of business, and 
 in instances showing more ability than the men. In 
 one of the greatest financial institutions of this city 
 not long ago a well-known man, drawing a salary 
 of $25,000 a year, suffered a nervous collapse. The 
 directors selected the young woman who for ten 
 years had been their stenographer. She, the directors 
 told me, has done letter work than the man she 
 succeeded, and ks doing it for $10,000 a year. In 
 fifty years the women will know more than the men. 
 They have more time to read and study, and they 
 are improving their time. Eventually they will 
 vote, and tell the men for whom they shall vote. 
 Eventually all the universities will be coeducational, 
 and the women will carry off all the prizes. 
 
 We are hardly as optimistic in this regard as the 
 brilliant and well-known preacher whom we have quoted; 
 but, as says a recent writer in speaking of these 
 statements, "as a matter of fact there is a great deal 
 of truth in what he says, and young men can take his 
 word to heart without fear of being the losers. In the 
 history of the world never has there been a time when 
 the young men meet with so many temptations that unfit 
 them for the exacting duties of life, and never before 
 were those duties so exacting." 
 
 These temptations do not appeal to the young woman 
 as they do to the young man, and the well-educated, 
 moral and aspiring young woman enters the field 
 unshackled by vices and ready to do her best in the 
 work assigned her. Her ambition is kindled, her spirit 
 of self-reliance is awakened, and she has become a 
 competitor not to be disregarded or lightly overlooked 
 by those of the other sex who are busy in the industrial 
 world. The world is changing, broadening in its scope 
 of action, and everywhere woman is coining into her own, 
 not by means of the ballot, but through the door of golden 
 opportunities which are no longer being withheld from 
 her grasp. 
 
 A PICTURE. 
 
 At the present time the charms of a Southern Cali 
 fornia landscape may be fully appreciated by the true 
 lover of Nature. What a picture is presented here in the 
 vicinity of Los Angeles! Drive out beyond the city s 
 busy streets into the country s broad highways, and what 
 do we see? Vast grass-covered fields gleaming in em 
 erald richness, jeweled with ten thousand wild-flowers 
 of various hues; pepper trees with their rich foliage in 
 terspersed with countless clusters of bright red berries; 
 great orange orchards with golden fruitage hanging amid 
 boughs which are just bursting into fragrant bloom; 
 blossoming pea fields and acres of golden poppies which 
 lie like sunset clouds upon the sloping hillsides; purple 
 fields of alfileria brightening in the sunshine; acacias 
 with their crowns of yellow blossoms; great fields of 
 springing grain; butterflies winging their way through 
 the sun-filled air; bird wings spread everywhere be 
 neath the blue; palms waving in the sunlight; roses 
 climbing to the roofs of many a cottage home; gera 
 niums making scarlet hedges along the way; long lines 
 of calla lilies swaying in the soft breeze, and everywhere 
 the melody of birds, and, rising far beyond the sun-filled 
 vales, the lofty mountain peaks white with Winter snows, 
 and gleaming beneath the cloudless blue of sun-flooded 
 skies. Far off is the sweep of the sea which cradles 
 isles of eternal Summer; the low voice of the shining 
 tides is heard upon the white sands of the beach; but in 
 land is hush and calm, the green pastures and blossom 
 ing glory of numberless flowers. It is the land of eter 
 nal Summer, the sun-kissed land of the great South 
 west, toward which is the mighty march of Empire. We 
 hear the rush of its oncoming, and see afar the brightness 
 of its new dawn, and wait with hope for the unclouded 
 brightness of that new day of Freedom that shall yet 
 break beside this western sea. 
 
 OCTOBER A RHAPSODY.* 
 
 October comes golden-shod to our shores; the air is 
 full of warm, mellow sunshine and delicious calni. 
 There is no whisper anywhere of approaching Winter. 
 The touch of frost is not laid upon the trees. The flow 
 ers still bloom and fill the air with fragrance. Butterfly 
 October. 1902. 
 
 229 
 
Editorial Writings. 
 
 and bee are winging their paths through the sunny air. 
 Bird-song is not hushed. The trees yet stand leaf-clad, 
 many of them hung with luscious fruits. We say it is 
 October, but it might well be June, for the spirit of 
 June is in all things, and Nature is full of beauty. 
 
 And here all the day may be spent out of doors, hand- 
 iu-hand with comfort and delight. The little ones may 
 tumble on the grass in our parks, or on the green lawns 
 in front of their homes, watching the butterflies on the 
 wing; listening to the song of the cricket in the grass, 
 or the merry notes of the frog in the pool. The fra 
 grance of flowers is wafted to them on every breeze, the 
 sunlight plays hide-and-seek amid the million emerald 
 leaves over their heads ; the green vines clamber over 
 roof and wall; the skies are without a cloud, and October 
 sits in the lap of Summer and smiles as if the year were 
 young, and flowering June were here to crown the year 
 with golden light and beauty. There is no rush of angry 
 tempest or fierce gale, no touch of frost, no whisper of 
 waiting cold. The eyelids of Day are fringed with 
 golden sunbeams, and Night silvers the air with her 
 starry rays. Beauty, calm, sweetness and growth are 
 everywhere. Oh, who would not live in a land like this ! 
 
 THE AMERICAN SOLDIER. 
 
 America is a peaceful nation, a nation without a 
 great standing army, yet withal, in the truest sense, she 
 is, as the late war with Spain has revealed to us and 
 the world, a fighting nation, out of whose citizens can 
 be made at the briefest notice great armies of brave, 
 valorous and unconquerable soldiers, men whose daring 
 and courage cannot be surpassed by any regularly trained 
 soldiery in the world. 
 
 And what is equally true, these volunteer armies of 
 ours do not lack for competent leaders, for skilled 
 strategists who would snatch victory even out of the 
 jaws of defeat in the face of superior numbers. A free 
 and independent people, we are also an intelligent people, 
 knowing our rights, and knowing, we dare to maintain 
 them. 
 
 The history of the American nation is almost as in 
 teresting as the history of Israel of old, in that we can 
 trace from its beginning the care and the guiding hand 
 of Providence, which runs through it all in golden lines 
 of unfailing blessings. Our army was but a handful of 
 poor, imperfectly equipped and hungry soldiers when 
 we fought the Mother Country, and, judging by the cir 
 cumstances against us, there was little hope that we 
 should be victorious. But behind all of our needs and 
 poverty of meaus there was the Puritan s unfailing 
 trust in the God of Battles, and his imperishable love 
 of freedom which made his universal battle cry: "Give 
 me liberty or give me death ! " Men like these are in 
 vincible, and they will fight as boldly as Israel did when 
 led by the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire 
 by night, feeling that God was on their side and that 
 He would disconcert their enemies. 
 
 We are, technically speaking, a Christian people, recog 
 nizing hardly less than did God s chosen people the 
 leading and guiding hand of an overruling Providence, 
 who has the destiny of men in His hand, and who out of 
 all the great events transpiring in our relations with 
 other peoples has some great purpose to be fulfilled, 
 some end to be achieved for the good of the race through 
 our instrumentality. 
 
 Our fuller contact with the nations of the Old World 
 is not without purpose. The enlightening of our eyes in 
 regard to our own strength and power will make us 
 stronger and more ready to answer to the call of duty. 
 We feel that the arm of the American volunteer is as 
 strong and as sure as that of the trained soldier of the 
 Old World. He is no fighting machine, no puppet to 
 be moved at the will of despotic rule, but he is a man 
 of large intelligence, of high moral purpose, and an un 
 quenchable love of country. He is fired with Spartan 
 courage and he is liable to read between the lines the 
 fullest meaning of the history that he is making. He 
 does not believe in war, except in the last extremity, 
 but when that extremity exists and war is forced upon 
 him, he is fired with the spirit of daring and is ready 
 to fight to the bitter end for the cause which he espouses. 
 
 It will be worth something to us that the world is 
 learning more of the characteristics of the American 
 soldier. It has discovered that he is a good marksman, 
 that he is energetic, and never satisfied with his work 
 unless he accomplishes something. As has been re 
 marked: "He goes to war not as a trade, but to kill 
 people." He does this that he may win the triumph of 
 the principle for which he fights. War means death 
 battlefields covered with the slain and to the victor a 
 great harvest of dead foes means ultimate peace and the 
 triumph of the principles for which he has fought. 
 
 And it is surprising how quickly the American volun 
 teer soldier becomes once more, after the war is over, 
 the American citizen, loving the avocations of peace, 
 ready to take upon himself the duties of the State and 
 to labor for the advancement of the common weal. He 
 lays down the sword to take up the pen or to follow 
 the plow, or any of those pursuits which make great and 
 prosperous the commonwealth. The love of country has 
 been deepened by the conflict in which he has engaged, 
 and his country s Flag is fuller of rich meaning. The 
 songs of peace are no less sweet to his ear than the 
 thunders of the cannon, and he comes home ready to lay 
 aside his uniform, conscious, whether he has been at the 
 front or only a patient waiter in the camp, that he has 
 done his duty as fully as those who fell. 
 
 THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 We are a nation of more than 70,000,000 of people 
 how many more the approaching census will inform us. 
 This number of people live under the Stars and Stripes 
 upon this continent, and it does not include the popula 
 tion of our recently annexed territory. We are a people 
 who love liberty and whose banner is but the outspoken 
 
 230 
 
The Brotherhood of the Race. 
 
 synonym for freedom. The great palpitating heart of 
 the nation is for universal sovereignty; for the man 
 above the king; the people the great masses above the 
 throne. 
 
 There can be no question but what the fundamental 
 principles of our government are based upon righteous 
 ness, and if carried out to the letter we shall find the 
 science of human society more grandly developed by 
 American freemen than it has hitherto been in the whole 
 history of the race. 
 
 It has been claimed that "the history of western civil 
 ization is simply the natural history of the Christian re 
 ligion, and it is to the softening influence of the spirit 
 of that unexampled conception of self-abnegation that 
 we owe the evolutionary force that has been behind the 
 entire process of social development which has trans 
 formed a primitive organization of society into the mod 
 ern State, which is still pursuing its course unchecked 
 among us." But the masses, or the unthinking element, 
 do not take into consideration what we, as a people, 
 owe to Christianity. Has heathenism ever proclaimed in 
 all the long centuries of the past that "all men 
 are created equal and entitled to the right of life, 
 liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" In the whole 
 world s history have not barbarism and cruelty and 
 oppression been found to exist wherever the Christian 
 religion did not prevail? Rome in the very height of 
 her power and splendor was cruel. Universal manhood 
 was not recognized; the right of man to be a man was 
 not acknowledged. In the historic and storied past we 
 find that it was the Jews, with their belief in one uni 
 versal and divine Father, who first, as a people, cheer 
 fully promulgated the belief in the grandeur of human 
 ity. It was not the teaching of any of the ancient 
 peoples, save the Jews, who accepted God as the Father 
 and Maker of men. It is Christianity that teaches us 
 the value of man as a creature endowed with immortal 
 powers and made in the image of the Divine Creator. 
 
 Freedom, then, is an inspiration of Christianity, and 
 just so long as we adhere to Christian teachings and 
 base the control of our public affairs upon them shall 
 we be a free and prosperous people, growing in great 
 ness and power, realizing the value of humanity and the 
 grandeur of its possibilities. Christianity is like a pow 
 erful searchlight thrown upon human needs, and it 
 quickens the sympathies of men in such a way that they 
 are anxious to supply those needs. 
 
 A nation grows great only as it realizes the grandeur 
 of man and stands ready for the work of his uplifting. 
 It is true that among the American people there are 
 many who have not become reconciled to the American 
 idea of Christianity and freedom aliens who mistake 
 liberty for license and Christianity for dogma and creed. 
 But that leaven of faith which permeated the atmos 
 phere which our Puritan fathers breathed is working to 
 day in the very spirit of our free institutions, and is 
 controlling us in our policy and laws, no less than in our 
 relation toward other nations. Underlying popular senti 
 ment throughout the country is the love of justice, hu 
 manity and the right. And, living under the stress of 
 
 such sentiment, the American people can never become 
 oppressors. We have not removed the Spaniard from 
 Cuban and Filipino that we might forge for them the 
 chains of a political slavery. . . . 
 
 The installation of our national power in those far 
 islands was not ot this government s seeking. It was a 
 something thrust upon us by the providence of God, and 
 lie is calling today upon the American people to aid 
 in the solution of the problem of uplifting ignorant and 
 semi-barbarous peoples. We are solving that problem 
 in a way that we did not desire, by the help of 
 the sword, but every bullet He may make speak for 
 Him in the behalf of freedom and for a nobler future 
 for that race. Each tomorrow of Time has its night 
 in which the sun is hid, but when the tomorrow of 
 America s relation with these islands shall dawn, we 
 shall see for them the promise of a better day. 
 
 The providence of God is not working idly. It was 
 through war that we have again been cemented into one 
 great and undivided nation. The baptism of blood is 
 upon our Flag, but we have been led to see the hand of 
 Providence in all these varied affairs of government, 
 and to feel that we were being guided by that same hand 
 into new paths that we have not sought, and that out of 
 them, sooner or later, would come the revelations of 
 God s purpose, while we would say, " Here, O Lord ! are 
 we, Thy people; use us as Thou wilt!" 
 
 THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE RACE. 
 
 "Xo man liveth to himself," is a saying that is cen 
 turies old- old as the Christian era, when the great 
 Teacher enunciated so emphatically the truth of the 
 brotherhood of the race, and taught men that funda 
 mental principle of Christianity, "Do unto others as you 
 would have them do unto you." 
 
 It is this innate feeling of universal brotherhood that 
 is stirring the world today and moving it to indignant 
 protest against the attitude of France, which in the con 
 demnation of Dreyfus has dared to defy the sentiment 
 of Christendom and withhold from him the meed of jus 
 tice. France has dared in this to voice her hatred of 
 the Jew and to heap upon him unmerited ignominy and 
 shame. The nations stand aghast at her daring, at the 
 travesty of justice which she exhibited in her recent trial 
 of the accused, and the general feeling is that she 
 stands upon a political volcano which at any moment 
 may break forth into eruptive force and destroy her. 
 
 Xo nation, any more than the individual, can trample 
 upon justice, upon human rights, and bid bold defiance 
 to that sentiment which recognizes the brotherhood of 
 man, without punishment coming in due time. "The 
 mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceed 
 ing small," is a truth that was recognized by the an 
 cients, with their multitudinous gods whom they wor 
 shiped. But that old mythological age has passed, and 
 those gods born of men s unbelief have vanished. Jehovah 
 stands at the helm as He did even in those days of misty 
 doubt and unbelief, and He is making ready to assert 
 
 231 
 
Editorial Writings. 
 
 His justice and to stay with the right hand of His 
 power these long ages of oppression and wrong. After 
 nineteen hundred years of the Christian era the world is 
 not going to stand tamely by and silently witness such 
 mockery of justice, and this persecution of the Jew as 
 a Jew, when no stain of crime is found upon him. The 
 Christian world does not forget how much it owes to the 
 Jew of all that is best and highest in human hopes. It 
 does not forget that the Great Teacher was a Jew, and 
 that from the Jew it received its Bible, in which are 
 hidden all the hopes of its future, all the promises of 
 immortality. There is nothing in keeping with the spirit 
 of the age in the result of this trial of Dreyfus, and 
 France cannot trample upon the enlightened sentiment 
 of the world and hope to escape her punishment. Re 
 publican France will soon be a thing of the past if out 
 rage is to be permitted to sit in her halls of justice and 
 pronounce the verdicts for her judges. The whole en 
 lightened world protests against it, and it recognizes the 
 claim which this persecuted and wronged son of Abraham 
 has to its sympathy and its aid. 
 
 This trial will help the Jew where he is guiltless of 
 wrong, and the Christian sentiment of the world will be 
 with him, and will extend to him the hand of brother 
 hood. Day by day do we more fully realize that "God 
 hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth," 
 and just so far as we supinely permit the rights of any 
 man or any people to be trampled upon, just so far do 
 we endanger the principles of freedom and the claims 
 or universal brotherhood. And God will not deal witli 
 nations with wrong in the aggregate less severely than 
 with individual wrong. The scales of justice will weigh 
 surely, and in the end the wrong shall be punished and 
 the brotherhood of the race shall be established. 
 
 LIBERTY UNDER LAW. 
 
 The power and strength of the Republic is evidenced 
 in times like the present, when the Chief Magistrate of 
 the nation lies stricken by the hand of the assassin, and 
 the heart of this great people is stirred with an intensity 
 of anxiety and sorrow. But there is no pause in govern 
 mental affairs, no disorder throughout the wide realm 
 of our country s domain; no panic in business circles 
 and no attempt to lawlessly avenge this awful crime 
 against humanity and all civilized government. 
 
 The blow of the assassin was not a blow struck at one 
 man, but it was aimed at the State, at the majesty of 
 law and the protective hand of authorized authority. It 
 was a revelation of human depravity such as may well 
 appall us, and which would make us tremble did we not 
 realize that God still rules, and out of all this evil He 
 can bring good, An overruling Providence! That is 
 what the American people have to thank God for today, 
 and they may rest assured that out of this darkness He 
 will yet make the light to shine and the greatness of His 
 purposes concerning us to be revealed. 
 
 The great blessings of freedom and constitutional lib 
 erty have we not been inclined to accept as a matter of 
 course and to guard lightly the inestimable privileges 
 
 which they have bequeathed us? Have we realized the 
 sacredness of liberty and the wide difference there is be 
 tween liberty and license? The one is heaven-born and 
 holy; the other is altogether a thing of evil, working only 
 destruction and the annihilation of every established 
 safeguard of society. There is no freedom that equals 
 that which is enjoyed under obedience to righteous law, 
 and he who would wipe out all law is an enemy to man 
 kind and a willing tool of the Prince of Evil. 
 
 As a people we cannot doubt that we are true to the 
 principles of sovereign, individual liberty, and yet much 
 that is subversive of those principles has of late crept 
 into our various communities, and the God-given right 
 of men to live and labor and provide for the needs of 
 those dependent upon them has been denied them ex 
 cept under certain conditions. The right of man to be 
 a man, to think and act and decide for himself under 
 law, has been assailed, and thus the very seeds of anarchy 
 and misrule have been sown broadcast, and the causes 
 which naturally lead to such dastardly and damnable 
 crimes as that so recently perpetrated at Buffalo have 
 been set in motion and brought into activity. 
 
 Perhaps the American people needed just such an 
 awfid lesson as is presented by the assassination of our 
 great and good President to lead them to pause and re 
 flect whither they are tending. We do not believe the 
 work of this nation is yet done, but rather that it has 
 only paved the way to a grander and more golden fu 
 ture, and Providence has perhaps taken this means of 
 opening our eyes to see where we stand, that the dan 
 ger which threatens us may be averted. 
 
 Christian America is the hope of the world, and the 
 eyes of all nations are upon her. Let her not go back 
 ward or take one step downward in her grand march of 
 progress and enlightenment. Let justice and righteous 
 ness be embodied in all the principles of her government 
 and the sovereign rights of the individual citizen be 
 maintained. A great world power, our duties cannot 
 be ignored or lightly cast aside. We have been schooled 
 in a century of freedom such as no other people have 
 enjoyed. A broad, vast continent is ours, and here all 
 that is best and most beneficent in human government 
 should be promulgated and the grandeur of liberty un 
 der law be most fully illustrated. 
 
 THE "LAND OF THE AFTERNOON." 
 
 Nature is a lover of romance and of poetry, and 
 there are some pages in her great volume that are all 
 aglow with beauty; pages on which she has written her 
 grandest epics with the alphabet of majestic mountains, 
 towering foothills, wide-spreading plains, deep, rock- 
 walled canons, and the great seas clasping the shining 
 sands of her white shores, which lie all the year in the 
 lap of the eternal sunshine. 
 
 We have read much in that great volume which she 
 has written, turning its pages again and again from the 
 Atlantic to the Pacific, studying her vast forests, her 
 towering waterfalls, her rolling plains, her swift-rushing 
 
 232 
 
The "Land of tlic Afternoon: 
 
 rivers and her inland seas, but nowhere have we found 
 tne grand epic of Nature so eloquent and so full of 
 splendor and sublimity as on that marvelous page where 
 the wondrous glory of California is written in an alpha 
 bet all her own. 
 
 This Land of the Afternoon, as we contemplate its 
 varied charms, seems to us, in contrast with other sec 
 tions of the continent, like a miracle of Xature. In all 
 its vast extent it has nothing commonplace; nothing but 
 what is built upon the largest and most perfect plan. 
 It is an empire in extent, embracing a larger area than 
 many an Old-\Vorld kingdom. It has great blossoming 
 and fertile valleys, some of which are greater in area 
 than the whole State of Massachusetts. Figures may tell 
 the story of its vastness, yet how little do we compre 
 hend them. It is a State 770 miles in length, and at its 
 greatest width 330 miles in extent, containing within 
 its borders 188,981 square miles. The old Empire State 
 of the older East is like a pigmy beside it, for this 
 wonderful California is four times the size of New York 
 and twenty-four times larger than Massachusetts, the- 
 cradle of so much that is grand in our history, and 
 within its limits H4 States of the size of Rhode Island 
 might be planted and yet find room. 
 
 Cradled in the sunshine, guarded by sentinel moun 
 tains, traversed by broad valleys, fanned by the delight 
 ful breezes of the world s greatest sea, with a soil of 
 unsurpassed fertility, and the home of the products of 
 every zone, California invites the world to her enfolding 
 arms and bids the home-seeker come hither and help 
 to build a glorious future, such as shall find no parallel 
 in all the proud, historic past. 
 
 If we but study the latent possibilities of this Land of 
 the Afternoon, we will find that they are scarcely with 
 out limit, and that everything exists here which tends 
 toward the highest physical and intellectual develop 
 ment of the race. Here are all the elements necessary 
 for the nurture of art; for the inspiration of the poet; 
 for the unfolding of the scholar, of the philanthropist 
 and the patriot. Men who are forever companioned by 
 lofty mountains, those mighty apostles of greatness and 
 sublimity, are not apt to grow small and mean. Where 
 the whole of one s natural surroundings are built on the 
 grandest scale, men are not inclined to narrowness of 
 thought. Unconsciously Xature is their teacher, and 
 they drink in something of the large spirit that is abroad 
 in her realm, especially where so great a proportion of 
 life may be lived out of doors with the voices of Growth 
 and Sunshine forever speaking to us, and with the forms 
 of beauty and color enshrined in everything we see. In no 
 country in the world has Xature so excelled in her handi 
 
 work as in this State, and we can but feel that it is a 
 State which she has built for the future; that it is a 
 workshop where she may give birth and development to 
 her human masterpieces, who shall bless the world. 
 
 Here we front the wide realm of the Orient, rich in 
 historic memories. It was the cradle of civilization, the 
 nursing mother of art and poetry and song. But the 
 light of its early morning has grown dim; its intellectual 
 giants have passed, and the world s sunlight shines bright 
 est today in the West. And in all this wide AVest there 
 .-. no section so full of promise, where Xature offers so 
 many aids to advancement, as in this golden Land of 
 tl.e Afternoon, where everything invites to action, to 
 growth and prosperity. If you but tickle the soil and 
 water it, abundant harvests grow and ripen in the un 
 failing sunlight. Breathing the pure air and living in 
 the great world out of doors, health is our natural herit 
 age. Relieved from severe battling with extremes of 
 heat and cold, we have perfect physical comfort, and our 
 thoughts are not distracted by this warfare with the 
 elements to the neglect of greater things that tend to 
 progressive development. It is as if Xature said to 
 us: "I have set but few hindrances to growth here, and 
 I have made it possible in this land for the race to reach 
 the highest stage of human advancement. Here I look 
 for the intellectual giants of the future and the culmi 
 nation of all that is best in Christian civilization. Here 
 the horn of plenty shall be full. Rivers of oil and har 
 vests of fruit and grain shall be abundant. The land 
 shall laugh with its rich harvests and grow glad in its 
 unfailing calm and sunshine, and all that I ask in re 
 turn is that you shall be true to manhood ana to freedom. 
 O Land of the Afternoon let your future be glorious!" 
 
 GEMS. 
 
 Have you seen the glorious poppy fields lying like sun 
 set clouds upon the hills? They pave a pathway of gold 
 for your feet, till you think of the shining streets of 
 the Celestial City, and you almost wonder if they can 
 be fairer than these flower-decked paths that lie so gold- 
 enly along our sunny slopes beneath our skies of blue. 
 
 The world doesn t grow old, it renews its youth with 
 every springtime, and laughs at time and change forever. 
 O happy earth! 
 
 All the land is smiling with beauty and the air is full 
 of fragrance and the songs of birds. Our abundant 
 rains have set the crown of perfection upon all things. 
 
 233 
 
LAY SERMONS. 
 
 MRS. OTIS was not only a singer of songs, 
 she was a preacher of sermons, and 
 eloquent ones. Here are a few of the 
 many she wrote: 
 
 I. 
 
 THE SUPREME HOPE. 
 
 Last night the world saw the sun go down and the 
 glory of the light melt into darkness. Everywhere the 
 shadows fell, and color faded, and over all the landscape 
 was dimness and night. 
 
 But as the darkness increased, out of the immensity 
 of the sky the stars flashed, and the glory of their 
 brightness was revealed. Men could see then that afar 
 off was the infinity of worlds and unnumbered suns 
 circling through space and proclaiming by their presence 
 the. greatness of creative power. 
 
 Thus, it seems, does the night of sorrow fall upon our 
 lives, bringing to them the grandest revelations of Divine 
 Love and Goodness. 
 
 If there were no night, what should we know of star- 
 strewn space? Suns and planets would circle on forever, 
 sweeping their vast orbits, hidden from our sight by the 
 glory of the light. Beyond the limits of our minor 
 planet our knowledge could not range. The sun of our 
 intelligence would be vastly lessened, our conception of 
 creative wisdom be most materially decreased. And 
 thus it is in the night of man s sorrow. Then the starry 
 hemispheres of God s love are revealed, and the vast 
 planets of His tender mercies swing into view. There 
 is a white, Milky Way, which Faith treads, lighted by 
 the suns of Hope and the shining spheres of Faith and 
 Trust. Brighter than the Southern Cross is the starlit 
 cross of our redemption. The glory of Calvary lights 
 every zone, and sheds its beams upon every night dark 
 ened by sin, if the sould but turn toward it. 
 
 The beauty of religion is its joyousness and its clear- 
 visioned trust. Is the Christian weak, there is Infinite 
 strength to which he may cling. Is he tempted, there 
 is One who "was tempted in all points like as we are, 
 yet without sin, and who is touched with the feeling of 
 our infirmities." Is he sad, down through the long ages 
 comes the voice to him, "Blessed are they who mourn, 
 for they shall be comforted." Is he lonely and com- 
 panionless, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the 
 end of the world." Does he fear death, fear to go 
 away into its silence and mystery, there is still a tender 
 voice speaking, "Blessed are the dead who die in the 
 Lord." Is he homeless and a wanderer, divine compassion 
 fails him not, but affirms, "In my Father s house are 
 many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you." Does 
 he fear disaster and failure, still like music to his soul 
 he hears, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want; 
 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth 
 me beside the still waters." Does sickness come to him 
 and bear him down into the very depths of Jordan, as 
 he enters the flood upon his forehead is the touch of 
 Divine Compassion, and ere his ear is so dull that he 
 cannot hear, in accents tenderer than human speech comes 
 the voice of his Redeemer, "Today thou shalt be with 
 me in Paradise."^ 
 
 In view of such a religion as this, which meets every 
 human need, how strange that man should turn aside 
 from the simplicity of gospel faith to scoff and to doubt ! 
 
 For ages the world lost sight of immortality. Super 
 stition held it in darkness. Idolatry kept burning her 
 altar fires. Unnumbered gods were worshiped. Greek 
 and Roman deities peopled Olympus, and upon the 
 heights of Mars Hill was reared a temple "to the 
 Unknown God." How kneeled hoary old Egypt before 
 
 the shrines of Osiris, Isis and Jupiter Ammon, in the 
 worship of beast and bird and reptile along the banks 
 of her sacred Nile. How countless were the followers 
 of Baal and bloody Moloch among the nations beyond 
 Palestine. Upon what a world of doubt and hopelessness 
 rose the Star of Bethlehem the star which for almost 
 two thousand years has shed its light upon our night of 
 sin, revealing the glory of redemption. 
 
 Would we not suppose that a religion thus adapted to 
 every human need, to every noble desire of the soul, 
 would be received with gladness by every one who has 
 heard the glad tidings of "peace on earth, good-will to 
 man ? " 
 
 But no! in Christian America today there are the 
 worshipers of other gods. Not less in number than the 
 Olympian deities are the idols which are still set up 
 in this and other lands. The shrine of Mammon is 
 thronged today as it was before the dawn of the Christian 
 era, and men we find everywhere, even under the shadows 
 of our churches, who have their altars to their unknown 
 gods. The isms of doubt are the pits into which they 
 fall. Skepticism takes many forms. We are surprised 
 by it in various shapes and under various names. 
 
 There is the materialist, who will tell you that man 
 is nothing but a material organism, to which conscious 
 existence death puts an end forever; that he lives on 
 in the race, but the individual perishes. There is nothing 
 of him but mere matter. How this matter becomes 
 possessed of intelligence and is capable of hope and 
 fear, of joy and of sorrow, is the possessor of a con 
 science, of moral as well as intellectual qualities, he 
 does not explain. He simply affirms. 
 
 But what a farce this materialistic philosopher makes 
 of human life. "The chemic lump arrives at the plant 
 and grows; arrives at the quadruped and walks; arrives 
 at man and thinks." Did heathenism ever put forth 
 ideas more inconceivable or preposterous than this? And 
 yet it finds root in the soil of a Christian land near the 
 year 2000 of the Christian era. It is the uplifting of 
 a puny, finite arm that would sweep God from the 
 throne of His own universe, annihilate mind, and make 
 nian but the brother to the clod. 
 
 But to the eye of Christian faith, above all doubt and 
 unbelief, shines unhindered forever the day-star of 
 Hope. Borne upward on the unfailing wings of divine 
 promises, above the surging seas of time, his spirit cries, 
 "I know that my Redeemer liveth." The waters of life s 
 ocean break for him upon no darkened shores of unbelief. 
 Immortal vistas where 
 
 "God s own light, unhindered and undarkened 
 By a sun shines forth alone in glory," 
 
 burst upon his view. Day dawns, and life without end 
 begins for him. 
 
 O change ! O wondrous change ! 
 
 Burst are the prison bars ! 
 This moment here so low, 
 So agonized and now 
 
 Beyond the stars. 
 
 II. 
 NATURE S UNIVERSAL SPEECH. 
 
 Nature has by the wayside many preachers voices 
 speaking to men who heed them not, eloquent though they 
 are with many lessons for our help. 
 
 Yonder is a eucalyptus tree, thrusting its tall trunk 
 upward eighty feet toward the blue dome of the sky. 
 How the lightest breeze sways its shimmering leaves ! 
 
 234 
 
The "Everlasting Anns." 
 
 How the sunlight glorifies its topmost boughs! The 
 earth at its base lies in shadow, for the sun is going 
 down, but there is a golden glory upon its highest boughs. 
 It leans above the earth, and seems to say, "O Earth ! above 
 thy shadows is the sunshine. Though you are in dark 
 ness, higher up the light still shines. I see beyond the 
 West where the sun is sinking, and there is light there. 
 I turn my face to the East, where, when the night has 
 passed, a new dawn will brighten, another day appear. 
 Only for a little time are the shadow and the night, 
 and even they shall be lessened by the coming of the star 
 light. O Earth ! Earth ! look up !" 
 
 How like faith is that monarch tree with its leaves 
 breathing in the upper air ! How gloriously free and un 
 shackled is it ! How it drinks in the warmth of the sun 
 shine, the purity of the atmosphere ! The passing breezes 
 toy with its leaves but to give them strength. Slender 
 though their stems, they are not broken, for they move 
 with the breeze and float with the currents of air. Oh, if 
 we were only like them! If we would but let faith lift 
 us high, as the tree lifts its swaying boughs, where we 
 could catch the light and glory of God s love if, in 
 stead of resisting His will, we would let our lives be 
 swayed by His purposes and His love as the leaves are 
 swayed by the breeze, we should never be broken by sor 
 row and disappointment any more than are the tiny steins 
 of the leaves broken by the sweep of the winds which 
 stir them. This is the lesson of faith which the trees 
 teach us. And still another lesson do they preach. When 
 the tempest comes, and black clouds of storm veil the 
 heavens; when the winds are unloosed and the strong 
 tempest bends them like a blade of grass, how their arms 
 are tossed and shaken, and their giant trunks bend low 
 like suppliants, and then lift themselves again erect 
 against the tempest. How are strengthened the sturdy 
 old trunks by such battlings, how sweeps with fresh vigor 
 the circling sap through their veins! There is a new 
 shimmer to their leaves, and a sound like the melody of 
 a wind-harp through their topmost branches. So, for 
 you, O man, swept by the tempest of temptation, bowed 
 by the awful storm of trial and sorrow, yet helped by 
 God s grace to resist and conquer, when the storm has 
 passed, and again you are lifted up where the clear, 
 unhindered light of God s love shines on you, you feel 
 stronger for the tempest through winch you have passed, 
 and which has brought spiritual health to your soul. 
 
 Do you doubt God s love? Come with me and look 
 upon this tender little wayside flower. It brightens no 
 garden; it is tended by no human hands. Not long ago 
 it was but a dry and tiny seed. The winds blew it into 
 its resting-place and covered it with sheltering particles 
 of soil. The clouds gathered overhead and poured down 
 the gentle rains to water it. Then again the winds blew 
 and dispersed the clouds. Soft and warm fell the sun 
 light upon it. The soil like a gentle mother nurtured 
 it and soon its roots unfolded and its leaves were lifted 
 timidly above the ground. Day by day, warmed by the 
 sunlight, nurtured by the soil, it grew, till by and by, 
 above its small green leaves the perfect blossoms unfolded 
 to glad human eyes and brightened the earth. What 
 is its voice to you? "If God so clothed the flowers of 
 the field, how much more shall he clothe you, O ye of 
 little faith!" 
 
 Yonder, beyond the hills, is a field of corn. Every day 
 the stalks are lifted higher. Folded in its green sheath 
 the ear appears, and then comes the full corn in the 
 ear. Day by day it ripens until it is ready for the 
 harvest. Just so much moisture, just so much sunshine 
 is needed for its perfection. Does Nature know how 
 much? No; but behind all Nature s laws is the force 
 of intelligent will. God gives the sunshine and the shower, 
 and it is His bounty that bestows upon us the ripened 
 grain. "Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it," He 
 
 saith to us from every field of corn and grain that covers 
 the land. 
 
 The vast Sierra wall lifts itself beyond the borders of 
 the Angel City. How grand and firm and majestic they 
 rise, as if rested upon them the dome of eternal skies. 
 Their bright crests catch the first golden gleam of the 
 sunrise and the last shining beam of the departing day. 
 Their rocky fronts proclaim their strength. How do 
 they remind us of the hiding places of God s power, and 
 as the eagle circles above them, his eye fixed upon the 
 sun and his strong pinions outspread, we are reminded 
 of Jehovah s promise, "I will cover thee with my wings 
 in the shadow of my wings ye may trust." 
 
 Climb to the heights about the city and cast your eyes 
 over the extended landscape. Far and wide the fertile 
 plains stretch away, crowned witli vineyards whose grapes 
 are like the grapes of Eschol, with orchards lying upon 
 the borders of wide pastures where the cattle feed; view 
 the vast extent of sea, whose balmy breezes take from 
 our summers their sultry heat, and if its billows are 
 lashed by tempests and broken upon the shore, hear the 
 voice saying, "The Lord on high is mightier than the 
 noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the 
 sea," and learn the unfailing lesson of trust. 
 
 Are you a stranger among us, far from home, and 
 weary and lonely, standing on these heights, view the 
 great line of encircling hills which are about us on every 
 hand, and listen to the comforting words which they 
 speak to you, "Like as the mountains are around about 
 Jerusalem, so is the Lord around about His people." 
 
 Traverse the plains where our orchards lift themselves 
 like emeralds to the sun; walk amid the green fields 
 of alfalfa fed by living moisture, and still again to 
 your ears comes the voice of blessed hope for the future: 
 "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh 
 me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside 
 the still waters." 
 
 Do the lowlands still stretch out at your feet, unfolding 
 to the embracing hills, as you raise your eyes to the 
 breezy uplands, where the golden sunlight lingers still, 
 your soul thrills with exultation as you whisper, "I will 
 lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my 
 help. My help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven 
 and earth." 
 
 There is not a mountain or hilltop; not a blade of 
 grass nor a budding flower, not a swaying leaf nor a 
 whispering breeze; not a growing thing in the world of 
 Nature but hath speech for us of God s love and care 
 for us, if we will but hear its voice. They are friends 
 and teachers, prophets prophesying gloriously. They tell 
 us that seed-time nor harvest shall not fail us, and that 
 God s eye is over all and in all, blessed forever. The 
 immensity of sky proclaims the infinitude of its Maker, 
 | and the boundless sunshine is the emblem of God s 
 immeasurable love. 
 
 TIT. 
 THE "EVERLASTING ARMS." 
 
 The earth through our dry summer months grows brown 
 and bare. The rich green of the grasses fades. The wild 
 flowers which lend a glory to the hillsides, and star the 
 valleys and the plains with plenty, are withered and 
 dead . Only the trees, which lift themselves above the 
 earth, are green, swaying serenely in the open air. 
 
 The brooks, too, are dry, and the rivers sink below their 
 bed of white sands, and the melody of running waters 
 is stilled. In the glare of the hot sun the earth is parched 
 and thirsty, and growth is slow. 
 
 So it is of ten in the summer of man s prosperity, 
 running rills of trust are dry, the strong rivers of faith 
 
 235 
 
Lay Sermons. 
 
 sink beneath the sands of worklliness, and the soil of our 
 hearts is parched with the fever of gain. 
 
 Prosperity is not always the richest boon that can be 
 given to man, for it is not that which stirs the roots of 
 his finer feelings, it is not that which is promotive of 
 moral inspiration and a quick spiritual life. 
 
 Prosperity is like our summer. Its atmosphere is warm 
 and pleasant, and we love to sun ourselves in its light. 
 In the gardens of blossoming plants we love to walk, and 
 lie contentedly beneath the boughs of worldly hopes. We 
 muse upon our future and see ourselves growing rich 
 and influential. The years spread out before us and our 
 corn and grain increase; our houses and our lands are 
 multiplied. Men bow before us, for they honor success, 
 and our children sit in the gates. The best that earth 
 can give is ours. We eat of the fatness of the land, and 
 our mouths are satisfied. Milk and honey and wine are 
 poured into our storehouses, and our coffers are filled 
 with silver and gold. Xo shadow is upon the heights 
 where we stand and no darkness of cloud is above our 
 head. What wonder that the spiritual rills of our nature 
 are dry, and that we are satisfied with the fleshpots of 
 Egypt and long never for the fullness of Canaan. 
 
 "This world is good enough for us," we say; "it is one 
 of ease and luxury and pleasure. Every day do our 
 coffers grow in fullness, and the grandeur of success is 
 achieved. I am sufficient unto myself." 
 
 But let sorrow come. Let business failure overwhelm 
 you. Let death enter the home-circle and take from it 
 the one most dearly loved; where then, O man, is the 
 greatness of thy strength? where the pride that lifted 
 thee up and set thee upon high places? Where is the 
 fullness with which thou wast satisfied? Earth has none 
 of it left. Then it is that the poverty of this life stands 
 forth, and the nakedness of thy soul is discovered. But 
 blessed art thou if into this eventide of thy sorrow there 
 cometh light; if upon thy dry and thirsty heart is poured 
 the dews of divine love and the rains of comforting 
 grace. How, then, shalt thy soul blossom anew in its 
 gladness, and thy hopes take hold upon the blessedness 
 of immortality ! Sorrow is a benediction in that it shows 
 us our helplessness and our need of a Divine Helper. 
 It is a blessing, too, in that it tends to quicken human 
 sympathies; but most of all is God s love revealed to us 
 through sorrow if it leads us to Him who was "a man of 
 sorrows and acquainted with grief." Then is the winter 
 ot our life made glorious. How are all spiritual graces 
 watered by tears, M hile through each one shines the rain 
 bow of hope, and the light of Love Divine. "The Lord 
 loveth whom He chasteneth." 
 
 And that love! It was from it that the world sprang. 
 It was that which brightened Eden, and shed the fullness 
 of Hope upon the darkness of Calvary. It was that 
 which opened the door of the tomb upon the morning 
 of the resurrection in the lonely garden. It is that which 
 dispels the darkness of the grave, and makes the dying 
 bed a mount of vision. It is that which takes from death 
 its sting and makes us "conquerors and more than con 
 querors through Him who hath loved us." 
 
 There are no dry and sunburnt wastes in the life that 
 God has redeemed. Xo hunger of souls, no unsatisfied 
 longings. Men stand there on the high levels of trust, 
 and though the darkness may be round about them, and 
 destruction threaten to overwhelm them, they know that 
 beneath them are "the everlasting arms." Man is happy 
 when his higher or spiritual nature is satisfied. All ills 
 that befall him then are lesser ills, over which the spirit 
 may triumph. With his will subservient to God s will 
 there is no conflict. All warring passions are hushed, all 
 struggling has ceased. As in subjection to the law there 
 is liberty, so in man s submission to the infinite will is 
 there the largest freedom and happiness. So, too, is 
 there the largest growth and the truest development of 
 man s nature. Our spiritual athletes are those who do 
 
 most frequent and successful battle with temptation. 
 Our modern Davids are those who have slain the Goliath 
 of sinful lusts and have put on the breast-plate of right 
 eousness. Sorrow is God s hand stretched out to us by which 
 He would lead us. It is the rod with which the rock 
 is smitten that the waters may gush out that shall satisfy 
 the thirst of our spirits, which have wandered in the 
 desert of sin and found no living fountain of which it 
 might drink. The greatest blessings which we receive 
 ofttimes come to us through the benediction of suffering. 
 
 IV. 
 
 REDEEMED. 
 
 It is beautiful to watch the night fade and behold the 
 coming of the Morn. 
 
 Looking to the East, there is the faintest shade of rosy 
 purple which warms and brightens until a soft line of 
 amber marks the yet unopened portals of the Day. From 
 that the light creeps upward. In the whole broad East 
 the darkness is melting; the purple shadows are gone. 
 The hills are born anew out of the womb of Night. Each 
 wears upon its crest a shining crown. Golden arrows 
 of light shoot downward, pale amber, rose and crimson; 
 and the faintest warm violet border; in the East the 
 deep, overhanging blue of the sky. The amber brightens, 
 its pale shade turns to shining gold. In all the branches 
 of the trees birds twitter, and, lo! the million diamonds 
 of dew upon the grass! The faintest breezes stir, and 
 the gates of the day swing wide. The shining sun stands 
 on the threshold of the morn, and day has come. 
 
 So out of the night of Death breaks the resplendent light 
 of the eternal morning. All the shadows of time fade, 
 all its darkness vanishes. The glory of immortality is 
 shadowless. Its brightness is unhindered by a cloud. 
 Xo gloom rests upon it. The Eternal City with its gates 
 of pearl is transcendent in its brightness, for "the Lord 
 God is the Light thereof." 
 
 Death is beautiful to the Christian, first of all, because 
 it brings freedom from sin. Xo more wrestling with 
 temptation and besetting doubts and fear. Redemption 
 is accomplished. The fetters of fraility and human 
 weakness are broken, and the redeemed one, in the new 
 life, stands "conqueror and more than conqueror through 
 Ilim who hath loved him." 
 
 Death is desirable also for the larger life that it 
 brings the spiritual expansion the change from seeing 
 "through a glass, darkly," to that of seeing "face to 
 face." Xo longer will the Eternal Father be" a mystery 
 to us, for there we "shall see Him as He is." The eternal 
 morning will be brightened by His presence. Side by 
 side with "our Elder Brother" the Redeemer of men 
 shall we walk the golden streets of the Xew Jerusalem, 
 and sit with Him in "the many mansions." The melody 
 of heaven will fill our ears, and the grandeur of the 
 created universe sweep before our unhindered vision. 
 
 The home of the Infinite may be the center about which 
 all worlds do circle, and standing by it we shall hear 
 "the morning stars sing together, and all the sons of 
 God shout for joy." From the mightiest planets of the 
 skies may come other souls to share with us the glory 
 and the bliss of the eternal years, but among them all 
 none will stand nearer to the loving Father than we 
 whose blessed immortality has been purchased through 
 the blood of Christ. The sweetest song of heaven will be 
 the song of the redeemed, from whose faces all tears 
 shall be wiped away, and to whom shall come no more 
 sorrow, nor any more pain, nor any more death. 
 
 Fled forever the cares of earth, its changes and sorrows. 
 Xo more beds of anguish and of wasting sickness. No 
 more battling with wrong and falling by the way. Xo 
 
 236 
 
Gleams of Immortality. 
 
 more bitter regrets and remorse, and sense of weakness 
 and helplessness. Faith will have wings and weakness be 
 changed to strength. 
 
 Oh, the wonderful unfolding of Divine Love ! Oh, the 
 moment of breathless interest when shall be unveiled to 
 us the Father s face! Oh, the inconceivable glory, and 
 majesty, and tenderness that will shine upon us there! 
 Ohj the floods of new life and gladness that will overflow 
 us! We shall feel that the fullness of being has been 
 attained, and we shall be ready to drink at the fountain 
 of eternal wisdom through the endless ages of immor 
 tality. 
 
 Oh, blessed death that brings to us this longer life, this 
 cloudless, eternal day! "O Death! where is thy sting? 
 O Grave! where is thy victory?" 
 
 V. 
 GLEAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Nature for many days has been under a cloud. We 
 have walked beneath a gray canopy of mist, and all the 
 golden tints of the sunshine have been veiled. But above 
 that gray curtain of cloud we knew that the sun was 
 shining, and that sooner or later it would break forth 
 in its splendor, wrapping the world in its light and 
 glorifying all things. And when yesterday the clouds 
 vanished and the sky was spread above us like a grand 
 dome of blue, radiant with light and filled with warmth, 
 there was no surprise, for it was but what we had looked 
 and waited for. We knew that God s hand held the 
 universe, and that the order of things would not change. 
 And why, O Christian, should not our faith be as strong 
 in Our Father in spiritual things as in the things of this 
 world? Is this natural world more to Him than the souls 
 of His children, and the promises which He has given 
 them? Where is the Christian s faith that he should ever 
 be despondent, when, "Like as a Father pitieth His 
 children, so the Lord pitieth those who fear Him." O 
 days of clouds and sorrow, of disappointment and grief, 
 why are we overlooked by them when still the promise is 
 ours, that "These light afflictions which are but for a 
 moment shall work for us a far more exceeding and 
 eternal weight of glory!" 
 
 Sorrow is one of God s most blessed angels, and the 
 peace which it will ultimately give is sweeter and holier 
 than ever joy alone could bring us. Sanctified sorrow is 
 God s best gift to us. It sets the eternal gates ajar, 
 and gives us glimpses of our heavenly inheritance. We 
 may rejoice in this world, for it is pleasant, but we see 
 beyond it a better one which is eternal, and the heavenly 
 mansion "whose builder and maker is God." 
 
 Have our friends passed over to the celestial shores, 
 we feel that we have, then, an earthly center in that 
 land as well as a heavenly one; that there is human as 
 well as divine love awaiting us there, hearts whose celestial 
 feelings are tenderer than they were when with us, in 
 that the heavenly life is larger and more complete, and 
 the earth dross is all swept away. We feel that heaven 
 and earth are wedded now, since so much earthly love is 
 there, and sometimes we fancy that Jesus, our "Klder 
 Brother," may walk "in the green pastures and beside 
 the still waters," and talk with our beloved of His 
 purposes toward us and His pity for us amid earth s 
 struggles and pains, and that down through the sun- 
 lighted stillness of space the thrill of His tenderness 
 may reach us to gladden and strengthen us. Why put 
 the Infinite and Omnipresent so far away when faith and 
 sorrow may bring them so near? Why walk as if alone 
 and uncomforted, when 
 
 "God has marked each sorrowing day 
 
 And numbered every secret tear, 
 And Heaven 
 
 s long age of bliss shall pay 
 s children suffer here?" 
 
 For all His 
 
 Into all the deeps of human sorrow may fall the 
 sweet and placid sunshine of God s love, and the voice 
 of Hope may penetrate our ears above the noise and the 
 confusion of the tempest, saying: "Sorrow endureth but 
 for the night; jo\ cometli with the morning." 
 
 We weigli life s worth by its uses and its ends. If it 
 were our lot to be only for a few short years, to suffer 
 and endure and then perish, small would be the value of 
 this earthly existence, for it would not mean anything. 
 The universe would be, in the end, no better for all that 
 men do and achieve. But when through the shadow of 
 death the gleams of immortality break, and the promises 
 of God are sure, then it is that the heart grows 
 triumphant even amid its tears, and the sense of life s 
 vastness and its worth, together with faith in the 
 imperishable love of God, brings us consolation. Life is 
 worth living, if we live it well, for after it is all over 
 we may enter into our inheritance, "which is incorrupti 
 ble, unclefiled and which passeth not away." 
 
 VI. 
 JOY IX SERVICE. 
 
 Have you ever thought of the bounteousness of the 
 sunshine how it floods every mountain peak, every broad 
 valley, every deep and quiet canon, and the wide sea? 
 There is no part of the earth that is not touched by it; 
 no plant, nor leaf, nor blade of grass, nor flower, nor 
 tree that is not nurtured by its influence and glorified 
 by its beams. Even the night is brightened by it, for 
 afar off through the trackless realms of space are set 
 countless suns lighting unnumbered planetary spheres, 
 which shed their reflected glory upon our night. Light 
 is everywhere, brightening the universe, and bringing its 
 revelations of creative power and goodness. It permeates 
 the earth; it floods the skies; it illuminates the seas, and 
 there are star-beams reaching unbroken from the earth 
 to the farthest worlds that we can see through the aid 
 of the telescope a wonder of glory are they, a marvel 
 of divine power, a voice of God to us. "The heavens 
 declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth 
 His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and 
 night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech 
 or language where His voice is not heard." 
 
 And so over the race is the blessed light of God s love, 
 powerful and deep; all-permeating and all-abounding. 
 Can you escape from it can you go so far over seas of 
 sorrow, across continents of doubt, onward to isles of 
 sophistry, past frozen icebergs of dead faith, and into 
 the clouded night of superstition, that it shall not reach 
 you? Xo. It will follow you still, as the starbeams and 
 as the sunlight never-failing, though you may not per 
 ceive it, and it will be all about you like the atmosphere 
 which you breathe. 
 
 Ah, what a heart is that of the Infinite Father! 
 a sparrow falls to the ground without His notice, 
 even the very hairs of your head are all numbered." 
 
 "Ah, but I have trouble," you say, "and cares 
 sorrows and disappointments. I grow weary of 
 sometimes; its burdens seem heavy; and its hope 
 dim. I can see no light in all the gray, cold horizon 
 before me. I hear no song of bird, no voice of melody; 
 nothing but clouds and darkness encompass me." 
 
 But be joyful and open your eyes to the light of God s 
 truth, and your ears to His voice, saying: "Like as a 
 father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth those that 
 
 Xot 
 and 
 
 and 
 life 
 are 
 
 237 
 
Lay Sermons. 
 
 fear Him." Know that He is a "friend who sticketh 
 closer than a brother," and that these "light afflictions, 
 which are but for a moment, work for us a far more 
 exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 
 
 You have a little child ; it goes astray sometimes. The 
 puny, helpless thing disobeys you. If you take no note 
 of its disobedience the loving heart of your child will 
 be changed. It will grow up into waywardness, to 
 selfishness and rebellion, ignoring your authority and 
 seeking its own will. But you love this little one never 
 theless, for are you not its father? and with great tender 
 ness you set yourself to bending its will to your own. 
 The child is not pleased with the punishment which you 
 inflict; it sees no love in the correction which you give it, 
 but by and by it yields to you, and later it discerns the 
 strong cords of love which bind you to it, and severity is 
 no longer needed. Whatever you bid it do, it does 
 cheerfully, and it trusts in you. 
 
 So, O man, does Our Father deal with us, till by and 
 by, out of the pain of discipline and the sorrow of re 
 bellion, comes the clear, shining morning of faith, when 
 we can look up and say, "Yea, though he slay me, yet 
 will I trust Him," and over the fogs and the mists and 
 the darkness of this world our clear-visioned eyes look 
 out to the glory and the brightness of the life to come. 
 
 Discipline gives us strength. The man who has never 
 been tempted is not the strong man. The man who has 
 never been called to resist temptation, who has never been 
 compelled to fight any battles with bis evil and sinful 
 inclinations, is not the triumphant and exulting warrior 
 who sings: "I have fought the good fight, I have kept 
 the faith, henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of 
 righteousness." No; it is through much tribulation that 
 we enter into the kingdom. The most spotless robes 
 among the immortal saved will be those worn by those 
 who have been washed in the blood of the Redeemer, and 
 been made "perfect through suffering." Oh, the allelu- 
 iahs that martyrs will raise, and the glory of the shin 
 ing crowns that they will wear! Starry crowns will 
 they be, for through their steadfastness men will be led 
 to trust like them, and to conquer. 
 
 And oh, the joys and the blessedness of immortality ! 
 They are without measure and without end! Heaven is 
 forever. No storms can sweep its skies; no doubt cloud 
 its sunshine; no fear disturb its gladness. Face to face 
 with the Redeemer walk the redeemed, "into green pas 
 tures and beside the still waters," as through the streets 
 of the city of the new Jerusalem. The love of Christ 
 is like a river, which "maketh glad the city of our God." 
 It sweeps onward, like a glorious anthem filling our ears. 
 The melody of heaven would be soundless without it. 
 
 The Christian life is not a sad life, for it is full of hope 
 it is full of riches. Everything which we behold is 
 our Father s. We are rich in all that His hand has 
 made. The gates of pearl and the gold of heaven are ours. 
 The streets of Paradise were paved for our feet. Eter 
 nity without end, filled with all its joys, is for us. Into 
 the mysteries of our redemption, so full of wondrous 
 love, so crowned with divine pity, the angels desire to 
 look but are not able. Higher seats than theirs are those 
 kept for redeemed man. The God incarnate is his brother 
 as well as his Refleemer and Creator. Oh, wonderful 
 mystery! Oh, ecstatic joy! Let the sorrows of earth slip 
 by us, while we "fight the good fight of faith and finish 
 our course. At the end is the crown, and the robes of 
 Christ s righteousness, and the welcome plaudit. Well 
 done, good and faithful servants; enter ye into the 
 joy of your Lord." How then shall our souls be satis 
 fied when we awake in His likeness. 
 
 VII. 
 
 LIFE IS INDEED WORTH LIVING. 
 
 We sometimes hear the question asked, "Is life worth 
 living?" In answering this inquiry, there is still another 
 question of overwhelming importance to be considered 
 in connection witn it. It is this: For what purpose is 
 life given us? It is the end to be attained which makes 
 existence valuable or otherwise. If this be all of life 
 these shadowy, fleeting days, into almost every one of 
 which some sorrow creeps, and into all of which some 
 shade of disappointment must enter we well may hesi 
 tate before we reply. 
 
 If we look, too, at the number of wasted lives, given 
 over to dissipation and folly, and, worse still, to crime, 
 the question comes home to us with more potency than 
 ever. 
 
 If we consider, also, the butterfly existence of many, 
 living simply for pleasure, having no delight in anything 
 beyond social display anu idle gayety, the question again 
 recurs to us, "Is life worth living?" If we look at the 
 world of business, and see men whose every energy is 
 devoted to securing wealth, who have no thought nor am 
 bition beyond their business pursuits, yet who battle 
 bravely with disappointment, and evince an unconquer 
 able heroism in overcoming the obstacles in the way to 
 their success, and ultimately win all that they have strug 
 gled for, so that in the evening of their days they can 
 sit down in the enjoyment of what they have achieved, 
 can we, if this be all if beyond the evening of old age, 
 with the infirmities and the failing strength, and the 
 weakening faculties, there be no glad morning for the 
 spirit assert that life is worth living? 
 
 But there is a mistake in this question. Men have not 
 framed it aright. The question for us to consider is 
 simply this: Shall I so shape my life, so mold its pur 
 poses, so direct its aims, so spiritualize its hopes as to 
 make it worth living? 
 
 A human life! In its broadest sense what does it 
 mean? An eternity of existence, either for joy or for 
 sorrow. No little today can bound it. All the yester 
 days and all the tomorrows of time are not vast enough 
 for its circumference. It is a force projected into all 
 the eternal future. Nothing can hinder its being felt, 
 nothing can annihilate its individuality. 
 
 It is not those who contemplate life with a large spirit 
 ual vision, who recognize their obligations to a divine 
 power, and bear about them a continued sense of respon 
 sibility who raise the sad interrogation which voices the 
 spirit of skepticism, "Is life worth living?" They are 
 like the brook which runs always, singing to the sea. 
 Over them always are the bending skies of Infinite Love. 
 Faith reveals to them the silver lining to every cloud. 
 In the misfortunes, disappointments, trials and sorrows 
 of life they recognize their needed discipline. No doubt 
 overwhelms them, and beyond life s vexing cares they 
 are assured that there is peace and rest. They have the 
 spirit of the warrior, and they do brave battling with 
 wrong. Though wounded sometimes, their eyes are fixed 
 upon the glorious banner of Christ s Righteousness. Be 
 yond the battlements of time is the crown which their 
 Great Captain the Lord of Hosts has in reserve for 
 them and there are the glorious uniforms the robes of 
 the redeemed in the chambers of the skies. And what is 
 more, there is eternal life, eternal progress, eternal joy. 
 Ah, is not life worth living with all these at the end? 
 
 But, as night falls upon the world, so does night some 
 times fall upon the soul a night of doubt, of blind 
 questioning and unbelief. Human lips could scarcely 
 frame a sadder petition than the one said to have been 
 offered by a poor, trembling soldier upon the eve of 
 battle: 
 
 238 
 
The Tree of Life. 
 
 "O God, if there be a God, save mv soul, if I have a 
 soul." 
 
 It was the lack of faith which lent piteousness and 
 pathos to this cry to the Infinite Father. It was no 
 voice of trusting prayer poured into the ear of the 
 Helper by the Helpless; it was the despairing cry of one 
 who felt the need of that infinite tenderness and pity 
 which God has for his children, but who in the darkness 
 01 doubt trembled upon the brink of the unknown. 
 
 Look at a soul like that, fronting the life to come, 
 and all the dread mystery of death, with no ray of faith 
 to shed its light upon the darkness, and you" need not 
 wonder if from the lips of such a one you hear the 
 mournful interrogation, "Is life worth living?" 
 
 But to those who believe in a Supreme Presence over 
 ruling all things for the good of His children, and whose 
 Omnipotent Hand is upon the helm of the universe, there 
 is a spirit of rejoicing even in sorrow; the soul is tri 
 umphant over the weakness of the flesh, and nothing can 
 bar them out from God s protecting love; nothing can 
 quench their faith or destroy the sweetness of their trust. 
 Life is worth living, for it is a sure stepping-stone to im 
 mortality; it is their field of labor wherein they lay up 
 treasures for a life to come, and about them everywhere 
 are the visible tokens of God s love. The starry skies and 
 the flooding sunshine; the beauty of tree and flower; the 
 majesty of the mountains and the loneliness of the plains; 
 the swelling of tides and the infinite deeps of ether are 
 but the visible signs of that Infinite Presence in which all 
 Nature rejoices, and whose glorious and sure rewards of 
 trusting obedience and intelligent faith make life, bevond 
 all doubt, worth living. 
 
 VIII. 
 THE TREE OF LIFE. 
 
 There are men who say that the Bible is no more to 
 them than any other book. That its grand truths are 
 like so many myths; its wise teachings and beautiful 
 parables are not the utterances of inspiration, but of 
 well-regulated philosophy which it is well enough for us 
 to heed so far as it is promotive of our happiness. 
 
 But take all the books that have ever been written 
 by the wise men of all ages and all lands, and where 
 do we find one that so fully answers to every human 
 need as does the Christian Bible? What other book goes 
 back to "the beginning" and gives to us a rational 
 story of the Creation, and of the redemption of the race? 
 From what other source did man ever draw such wisdom; 
 such knowledge of himself; such pleas for the right 
 and such condemnation of the wong as from His living 
 word? Through what other source is borne to human 
 ears the song of the morning stars as they sang together 
 while all the sons of God shouted for joy, as the work 
 of creation was complete? Who like the prophets of 
 old, who spake through these pages, has been able to 
 look down through the long vistas of time and foretell 
 what was to be? Where else can we find a Cross and a 
 Redeemer, bearing our sins, and opening for us the 
 doors of an eternal Paradise? What book is there in all 
 the wide realms of the world s literature that so answers 
 every yearning of the human heart, that is so pure and 
 ennobling in its tendencies? On the pages of what 
 other volume can we find a philosophy which will enable 
 men to triumph over death and to rejoice amid the 
 flames of martyrdom? Where else such glorious hopes 
 and such triumphant assurances? Even a Cicero, in 
 speaking of the hopes of the future, was compelled to 
 exclaim, "All things are involved in deep obscurity," and 
 the last and highest effort of Grecian philosophy reached 
 no further than to erect an altar "to the Unknown God?" 
 
 239 
 
 Equally ignorant were all the heathen ancients in 
 regard to creation. The great First Cause the Divine 
 Creator, was beyond their conception. Sages and phil 
 osophers of antiquity believed matter to be eternal. 
 Their most brilliant fancy could conceive of no gods 
 mighty enough to form something out of nothing Crea 
 tive power was a thing undreamed of. "Out of nothing 
 nothing could be made," they held to be an incontro 
 vertible axiom. But how numerous the gods they wor 
 shiped, and how full of human passions and human 
 frailties were they all. How blindly men groped after 
 a knowledge of the will of these gods, and how constant 
 the fear of their displeasure. The gods of the people 
 were a great multitude, and their so-called religious life 
 was a burden of vows and sacrifices. Rome s deities 
 were those of all lands, which she had conquered, and 
 corrupt Egypt worshiped with shameful rites her Osiris, 
 Serapis, Isis and others. Brahminism had its three 
 principal gods Brahma, Vishnu and Siva and in its 
 essence is nothing but polytheism, or rather pantheism, 
 teaching that at the end of every calpa, or formation, 
 "all things are absorbed in the Deity," and that "at a 
 stated time the creative power will again be called into 
 action." 
 
 China and Eastern Asia followed Buddhism, which in 
 effect is little less than sheer atheism. 
 
 Socrates, great and wise as he was, yet believed in 
 many gods, and declared that "a wise and good man 
 ought to worship the gods recognized by the country to 
 which he belonged," while the able Seneca affin ned, 
 "whatever that be which has determined our lives and 
 our deaths, it binds the gods also by the same necessity; 
 human and divine things alike are carried along an 
 irrevocable course." 
 
 And the learned Aristotle declared: "The chief deity 
 resides in the celestial sphere and observes nothing and 
 cares for nothing beyond himself." 
 
 How unlike is this hopeless loneliness of the soul to 
 the faith which the Bible gives us in Our Father s divine 
 tenderness when it says: "Like as a father pitieth his 
 children, so the Lord pitieth those who fear Him." "For 
 God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten 
 Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish 
 but have everlasting life." Listen yet farther to the 
 cheerful utterances of the Book upon which we build 
 our faith. "In the beginning God created the heavens 
 and the earth." 
 
 "He upholdeth all things by the word of His power, 
 and by Him all tilings consist!" 
 
 "He maketh His sun to rise upon the evil and the 
 good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust." 
 
 "He feedeth the fowls of the air; He arrays the lilies 
 of the field as was not Solomon in all his glory." 
 
 "He is the God and Father of us all; in Him all live 
 and move and have their being." 
 
 There is no doubt here. The soul has found its blessed 
 anchor of hope. Contrast this assurance of Christian 
 faith with the world wisdom of the past. "The aim of 
 all philosophy," says Seneca, "is to despise life. Seest 
 thou yon steep height? Thence is the descent to freedom. 
 Seest thou yon sea, yon river, yon well? Freedom sits 
 there in the depths. Seest thou yon low withered tree? 
 There freedom hangs. Seest thou thy neck, thy throat, 
 thy heart? They are the ways of escape from bondage." 
 
 Again, mournfully sings Anacreon, the devotee of 
 pleasure: "My temples are gray, and white my head; 
 beautiful youth is gone. Not much remains of sweet 
 life. Therefore I often sigh, fearing Tartarus, dreadful 
 abyss of Hades. Full of horror is the descent thither, 
 and whoever has once gone down there never returns." 
 
 Could but some voice have whispered to these despairing 
 souls the promises of revealed truth, how would their 
 spirits have been comforted! How would their hopes 
 have kindled could they have turned to the Book which 
 
Lai/ Sermons. 
 
 brings life and immortality to light upon its pages. No 
 more upon the tombs of their dead loved ones would 
 have been traced such inscriptions as these: "I was not 
 and became; I was and am no more." "We all, whom 
 death has laid low, are decaying bones and ashes; nothing 
 else," but rather the triumphant, "Blessed are the dead 
 who die in the Lord?" "O Death! where is thy sting? 
 O Grave! where is thy victory?" 
 
 O the immeasurable pricelessness of the book which 
 dispels the hopelessness and the despair of heathen dark 
 ness and unfolds to the soul visions like these: 
 
 "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the 
 first heaven and the first earth were passed away." 
 . . . "And God shall wipe away all tears from 
 their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither 
 sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; 
 for the former things are passed away." ..." And 
 he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as 
 crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and the 
 Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either 
 side of the river, was there the Tree of Life, which have 
 twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every 
 month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing 
 of the nations. 
 
 "And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of 
 God and the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall 
 serve him. And they shall see His face; and His name 
 shall be in their foreheads. 
 
 "And there shall lie no night there; and they need 
 no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God 
 giveth them light; and they shall reign forever and ever." 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE DIVINE COMING. 
 
 The sun is the center of light, of life and beauty to 
 the solar system. Blot it from the heavens and the 
 planets would go out in darkness, and the swinging 
 constellations tremble. 
 
 And what of the round earth should the sun die? 
 The blackness of darkness and eternal death. No more 
 would come the gentle and balmy breezes from the south, 
 bearing the breath of sweetness and delicious fragrance. 
 No more the blossoming brightness and the beauty of 
 the flowers, for there would be no living rays of light 
 to paint their colors, no warmth to nurture their delicate 
 or spicy odors. Nevermore the seed-time and harvest, 
 the golden splendors of the dawn and the crimson glories 
 of the sunset hour. No more through the deeps of air 
 would soar the pinion of bird. No more through its 
 glad pathway of light would flash the gay butterfly, 
 like a winged blossom of beauty, nor would the rainbow- 
 hoed wing of the fly stir in the silence of the ether. The 
 song of feathered singers would be hushed and their 
 happy carol be heard no more forever. 
 
 The sun is the source of light and life. Darken it, 
 and through all the great solar system destruction would 
 push its mighty plowshares, and there would be heard 
 the crash of worlds and the falling of spheres. Through 
 all the illimitable vastness of the universe would be 
 discerned the thrill of such dire calamity, and multi 
 tudinous stars would 
 
 "Wander darkling in eternal space, 
 
 Rayless and pathless, and the icy earth 
 
 Swing blind and black ning in the moonless air." 
 
 The grand poise of the heavens would be broken. With 
 what infinite skill has the Divine Creator held the scales 
 in which He has weighed the circling suns and planets 
 of this created universe! Not a grain of sand too much 
 
 does a planet hold. Not an unneeded drop of water 
 in all the mighty seas. In the balances of Omnipotence 
 each world is weighed, and each sphere adjusted in 
 its relation to all other spheres. Through all the track 
 less and untrodden universe of God s creation this law 
 of delicate adjustment exists. Eternal fitness and har 
 mony is the law of eternal space. System within system; 
 millions of suns and millions of circling worlds, but 
 for them all one law, one Creator, one mighty undis 
 covered center around which they forever revolve. 
 
 So it is in the spiritual world. Take from it the 
 "Sun of Righteousness" and what spiritual darkness 
 would result ! Take from Christianity its divine Christ, 
 and where, O soul, is the center of thy hope, where the 
 light of thine immortality? Out into the darkness of 
 eternal doubt would the spirit swing into the midnight 
 of utter hopelessness and despair. For man has sinned. 
 He has broken divine law. He has outraged justice. 
 How, then, is he to escape? If he begins today to do 
 the right, he does no more than he should have done 
 from the beginning. He can by so doing wipe out no 
 past transgression, atone never for the long, long years of 
 violated law, and of opposition to the divine require 
 ments. If we take the life of a human being today, 
 and then henceforth live uprightly, honestly, justly, do 
 we thus pay for the awful crime we have committed, 
 and can we look forward through our after good deeds 
 to stand acquitted of our guilt? In the day that thou 
 sinnest thou shalt surely die, is the decree of eternal 
 justice. And God is not a man that He should die. 
 Death is the unfailing penalty of sin unless there be 
 found for the sinner a Redeemer and a Savior. 
 
 The Bible is old. It is the Book upon which all 
 Christendom leans, and upon its sure basis it builds its 
 spiritual hopes. Its pages were written before the light 
 of Science dawned. But though not intended to demon 
 strate scientific truth, it made no mistakes in that 
 then unknown domain. The richness of Bible truth is 
 immeasurable, and everywhere does it teach us that "the 
 universe is God s name writ large." Ages of thought 
 and study have given to us the science of geology, but 
 the germ of its sublime lessons the Bible gave us ages 
 ago. Modern geology tells us that the strata of the 
 earth were produced by the action of water, and that 
 once over the mountains rolled the mighty billows of 
 the deep. And what does this ancient book declare? 
 " Thou coverest the earth with the deep as with a gar 
 ment. The waters stood above the mountains. At thy 
 rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted 
 away. The mountains ascend, the valleys descend into 
 the place thou hast founded for them." 
 
 And still in that dim old past, when men of learning 
 knew nothing of the story which geology traces upon 
 the rocks, is the brief and comprehensive utterance: 
 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, 
 and the earth was without form and void, and darkness 
 was upon the face of the deep." Afterward came the 
 work of molding, shaping and stratifying it through the 
 long formative ages when it was being made ready for 
 habitation. 
 
 And how blindly did ancient heathen philosophers 
 search for reasons by which to account for the earth 
 being upheld in its place. Gigantic elephants, serpents 
 and turtles were devised by their imagination as the 
 foundations upon which our earthly sphere rested; yet 
 plainly did Job declare that "God stretcheth out the 
 north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon 
 nothing." 
 
 If, then, even as regards material things, the teachings 
 of the Bible are beyond question, and far, far wiser 
 than the generation in which they were written, shall 
 we accept its religious teachings but in part, because, 
 forsooth, our finite minds cannot grasp all their mys 
 teries? Shall we blot out the one great shining light 
 
 240 
 
"What Constitutes a State?" 
 
 that gilds its pages and that imparts hope and salvation 
 to the race? Love, infinite love is the keynote to the 
 New Testament. Christianity is of itself a kind of 
 miracle, as it appears in its pages, in that it reveals to 
 us a perfect character a divine, sinless man. With the 
 testimony of the ages to sustain it, and the influence of 
 His life upon believers of all succeeding generations, shall 
 we decline to accept the gospel teachings concerning 
 Him? 
 
 From the beginning of Time prophecy pointed to 
 Christ s coming. His is the central figure of all revealed 
 truth. He is "The Lamb of God who taketh away the 
 sins of the world." As portrayed in the New Testament, 
 His character was one of innocence without weakness, 
 a superhuman manhood, sublime in its dignity, yet devoid 
 of vanity; poor and lowly, yet filled with a moral 
 grandeur before which the lordly and self-righteous 
 Pharisee shrank in self-conscious abasement. 
 
 Human repentance begins with sorrow for sin, but 
 while the righteousness and goodness of Christ s charac 
 ter are above question, never do we know of His ex 
 pressing sorrow for a word spoken or an act performed. 
 Nowhere is there an admission of human fallibility or 
 wrong, but when accused He boldly responds: "Which 
 of you convinces me of sin?" 
 
 Look at Him again, "despised and rejected of men;" 
 homeless, with not where to lay His head, with calm and 
 dignified utterance He confronts the great and powerful 
 with the words: "I came forth from the Father." "Ye 
 are from beneath, I am from above," and then with the 
 wisdom of the Nation before Him, "Behold a greater 
 than Solomon is here." "I am the light of the world 
 the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto 
 the Father but by me." \Ve read these sayings of His, 
 but in our hearts do we question His right to make 
 these declarations does not rather His whole life justify 
 such utterances? 
 
 O "man of sorrows acquainted with grief!" O "God 
 made manifest in the flesh!" O Redeemer, saying 
 unto us, "Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest." Shall we crucify Thee 
 afresh, and trample upon the blood of the cross? Out 
 of the poverty of our own good works shall we hope 
 for redemption, while "God so loved the world that 
 He gave His only begotten son that whosover believeth 
 in Him shall receive everlasting life?" 
 
 X. 
 "WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE?" 
 
 It is not bigness alone that makes people great; not 
 vast extent of territory; richness of soil; wealth of 
 climate; unlimited resources; varied productions; abund 
 ance of gold and silver; populous cities; advanced cul 
 ture and learning; extensive navies and mighty standing 
 armies. A nation may have all these, with a glory as 
 great as that of ancient Babylon; a splendor like that 
 of Greece in her palmiest days; with power and suprem 
 acy that might overshadow even that of imperial 
 Rome, and yet not be, in the broadest sense of the term, 
 truly great. 
 
 The greatest and grandest events of the world s history 
 occurred in the little nation occupying a strip of 
 territory but 145 miles in length and with lint an average 
 breadth of forty-five miles. The small land of Palestine, 
 whose shores are washed upon the west by the waters 
 of the Mediterranean, and whose eastern borders are the 
 valley of the Jordan, and which on the north is guarded 
 by the mountains of Lebanon and at whose foot stretches 
 out the desert of Sinai, is the parent of the hopes of the 
 race. Within its limits the most profound truths have 
 
 been enunciated; the grandest laws promulgated, and 
 the sublimest teachings, known to men were set forth. 
 In comparison with what has transpired among that 
 people, all the greatness and grandeur of human achieve 
 ments elsewhere dwindle into insignificance. Modern 
 civilization has been made possible only through Jewish 
 inspiration. The Ten Commandments are the basis of 
 all civilized law. In them are found the elements of 
 all justice and mercy, and by them we regulate law 
 and the relations of men to men; justice determines 
 what is equitable and right. How sublime, yet simple, 
 the enunciation: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." 
 
 And what was it that constituted the greatness of this 
 Jewish people and that enabled them to make laws wise 
 enough for all ages? What was it that set their poets 
 and singers far above those of all preceding and all com 
 ing centuries? That lifted them above heathen nations 
 and made of them a peculiar people in whose debt 
 mankind will forever remain? It is simply that they 
 were the exponents of undying truths, truths upon which 
 all nations must build or perish. 
 
 How rich in prosperity were they when they adhered 
 to those truths ! How fell their enemies before them ! 
 How mighty their throne and their conquest! How 
 immortal their poets and lawgivers! Just so long as 
 truth triumphed they were invincible. As the cloud fleetli 
 before the wind, so fled their foes before the inarch of 
 their armies. "And the fear of the people was upon the 
 nations round about." 
 
 And is not truth always the same in its results? If 
 adherence to the immutable principles of divine law 
 made Israel great, will it not also make great the nations 
 of today? Can a nation any more than the individual 
 violate divine law and yet prosper? We talk about the 
 great and grand future of this free republic, yet what 
 right have we to expect that future if we do not regard 
 the right? 
 
 A nation is made up of individuals, and so it is with 
 the individual that reformation must begin. It is for 
 the individual to set his face unchangingly against the 
 wrong, to live a life that shall be a constant rebuke 
 to the evildoer. We want men of whom it can be said, 
 "I believe in that man, because his everyday life is in 
 accordance with what he preaches." We need men who 
 are incorruptible and unpurchasable; who set the right 
 above everything; who never parley; never excuse evil- 
 doing or indulge in specious sophistry. 
 
 It is the man who adheres to the right for right s 
 sake that makes his influence felt who has the spirit 
 of martyrdom for the truth. We do not want to sit 
 down and deplore the wrong and yet not lift a hand 
 to rectify it. We cannot convert others until we our 
 selves are right. Let the mote in our brother s eye alone 
 until we have disposed of the beam in our own eye, and 
 when we have done that, then we may lift up strong 
 hands and clean in the work which we would do for 
 tiiose about us. 
 
 What a power was Moses among his people! Before 
 him the idolatrous tribes trembled. His word was law, 
 which they dare not disobey or ignore. This man, beloved 
 of God, was pre-eminently the statesman of the ages, 
 and the secret of his strength and his wisdom lay in his 
 goodness. 
 
 All the lessons of history teach the same truth 
 (joodness is strength. It also assures the march of 
 progress along one grand highway. There are no devious 
 byways of expediency to be pursued, no Sloughs of 
 Despond to engulf the feet, for straight on does the 
 right lead to the uplands of prosperity and happiness. 
 
 We hear a great deal about the evils of the present 
 
 . age; the greed for wealth; the purchase of power; the 
 
 laxity of principles; the desecration of the Sabbath and 
 
 all the multitudinous wrongs which characterize us as 
 
 241 
 
Lay Sermons. 
 
 a people. They arc to be most deeply deplored, and 
 most earnestly should we seek a remedy for them. But 
 let every one of us who cries out against them look first 
 into his own life and see if it is right see if there is 
 nothing to be found requiring cleansing. 
 
 Philanthropy is grand and noble and high, but grander 
 is it to first set ourselves right, to destroy within 
 ourselves all that which offends goodness, and make 
 ourselves what we would have the world be. 
 
 There is no limit to the grandeur which this American 
 republic may attain if it become in the truest sense 
 of the term a Christian republic; if we take the religion 
 of our churches into our everyday life, and carry its 
 devotion and live its professions through the week. Let 
 Americans embody the teachings and the precepts of 
 the noble men who are the "beacon lights of history "- 
 the grand, illustrious and heroic men whose names and 
 whose lives have lent a fadeless luster to that little 
 country whose shores are washed by the Mediterranean 
 and the Jordan, and the splendor of national power and 
 strength and glory shall shine as effulgent!? in these 
 later days of the world as they did in its dawn. Let us 
 be in the fullest sense of the term a Christian people, 
 and we shall wax stronger and stronger, and with us 
 shall culminate the glory of the race. Peace and progress 
 and safety will be in all our gates. 
 
 XI. 
 "NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE!" 
 
 How swiftly the days and weeks pass! Time never 
 rests. We are all of us a week nearer Life s ending 
 than we were last Sunday. A week nearer to our Father s 
 House. And with this remembrance should come home 
 to us the inquiry: Are we in thought, in devotion to 
 His work, in love to Him and His cause, nearer to our 
 Father than we were then? Has this past week been 
 a week of service? Have we opened the doors of our 
 hearts to our King and bid Him enter? Have we sought 
 to correct any of the faults of which we are conscious? 
 Have we striven to live upon a higher plane? Have we 
 kept in view the mountain peaks of faith and of hope, 
 or have we lived only upon the dead levels of worldly 
 purpose? 
 
 We believe in an ever-present Father. In a God who 
 walks beside us in His Providence and abiding love; in 
 a God whose hand is always outstretched to lead us, and 
 whose spirit the blessed Comforter is ever ready to 
 take up His abode with us. 
 
 People say sometimes, "Oh, God is so great and so 
 infinite that I never can think of Him as taking note 
 of the little things of this life. He is so high above 
 us that I do not believe that he ever condescends to 
 trouble Himself about the small affairs of this world." 
 
 But the very vastness and infinitude of God s greatness 
 is manifested not alone in His care of suns and planets 
 ana rolling spheres, but in the fact that while "He 
 holdeth the waters in the hollow of His hand," directs 
 the course of every star as it circles through boundless 
 space, not a sparrow falls to the ground without His 
 notice, and every hair upon the heads of earth s uncounted 
 millions are ail numbered. There never fell a tear of 
 human sorrow that His pitying eye did not behold it; 
 there was never a human heart rent with grief with 
 which the Divine heart did not throb in sympathy. There 
 was never an earnest prayer for help uttered but what 
 His ear heard and His hand was outstretched to succor. 
 "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth 
 those that fear Him." 
 
 Down through the long centuries, breaking the awful 
 silence of doubt and despair, comes the voice of our I 
 
 Maker, "The Lord loveth whom He chasteneth, and 
 scourgeth every son and daughter whom He receiveth." 
 O blessed baptism of sorrow; through it we are purified 
 and cleansed and brought into more intimate and tender 
 relations with God. If we are weak we "have not an 
 high priest who is not touched with the feelings of our 
 infirmities, but one who was in all points tempted like 
 as we are, yet without sin." 
 
 Then, O child of God! what courage should we have 
 in our work, what joy, what hope! The love of God 
 which we share we should seek to impart a knowledge 
 of to others. In every act of our lives should we live 
 Christ and embody His spirit. It is the little acts that 
 breathe of His love, that proclaim us as His children. 
 They are the leaven which leavens the whole lump. 
 
 If we but cherish this divine love in our hearts for 
 those about us it will break down the barriers of silence 
 between our lives and other lives. It will fill our hearts 
 with sympathy such as will be strong to discern the 
 needs of others, and it will make our hands swift to help 
 where help is needed. 
 
 The noblest life that was ever lived was that of our 
 Divine Master, but it was a life of constant work and 
 sacrifice. Let us emulate that life, making our lives 
 lives of service, then as each week brings us nearer our 
 Father s House, which is to be our home, we shall march 
 on with our hands full of gathered sheaves. 
 
 "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least 
 of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me." 
 
 How much force there is in this inasmuch. It means 
 God s acceptance of us; it implies satisfaction with us, 
 and pardon, and that infinite delight in us which will 
 bring us into the household of the Infinite Father into 
 one of the "Many Mansions." 
 
 Look at it closely and you will discover that there is 
 nothing in God s great universe so divine, so supreme 
 as love, and that the more of love there is in us the more 
 are we like the Infinite. 
 
 Love is grander than intellect, stronger than strength 
 and as enduring as the eternal years. 
 
 XII. 
 THE ETERNAL MORNING. 
 
 We stand under the blue skies in the soft, warm 
 splendor of the sunset. Beyond us is the glorious 
 uplift of mountains, voiceful of Omnipotent Power. 
 Around us are the leaf-crowned trees; the brightness 
 and fragrance of blossoming plants. How wide and far 
 stretch the billowy plains. With what splendors do they 
 gleam in the sunset lights, and how radiant grow the 
 flaming mountain tops above the whiteness of their crests 
 of snow! 
 
 But slowly the sun sinks from sight and all this mani 
 fold beauty* fades into darkness. Where light shone but 
 a short space since is now shadow and deepening night, 
 and later the cold, gray fog creeps in, leaving to the 
 sight but a dead, dark blank, as if the world had been 
 wiped out, the mountains swept from their foundations, 
 and the beauty of flower and tree had perished. But, 
 though our eyes cannot longer behold them, we know 
 that, abiding as Time, they are still there; that above 
 the clouds, touching the stars, are lifted yet the eternal 
 fronts of the hills, and when at dawn the morning stars 
 shall sing together, the darkness and the cloud will 
 vanish, and again our eyes shall behold them bathed in 
 the effulgence of the sunrise, and that out from the 
 shadow and dimness of night will again appear, more 
 fragrant for the dew, more glorious for the night of 
 rest, the tender flower and the leaf-crowned tree. 
 
 242 
 
What of the Boy? 
 
 So it is with man when the night of death conies. The 
 beloved ones slip from our sight, and we lay their bodies 
 away in the silence and darkness of the" grave. We 
 stand there while the rain of sorrow sweeps over us; 
 while our hearts are darkened by our night of woe, and 
 lay them away, "ashes to ashes and dust unto dust." 
 But above the clouds of grief the stars of hope are 
 sinning, and upon the freed spirit breaks the dawn of 
 immortality. A new day has come, a new sun has arisen, 
 even the Sun of Righteousness, whose brightness shall 
 soon dissolve the darkness of the grave, and that which 
 was "sown in corruption shall be raised in incorruption, 
 and death shall be swallowed up in life." 
 
 "I know that my Redeemer liveth," so "O Death! 
 where is thy sting? O Grave! where is thy victory?" 
 The night of death is but for a little space, and after it 
 cometh the morning. And what a morning! 
 
 Have you not seen the mountains sometimes at sunrise 
 wrapped in luminous mists of pearly whiteness, glowing 
 and gleaming as if the beams of ten thousand suns had 
 been melted into a translucent veil which floated round 
 them, while they seemed to be lifted up to vaster heights 
 and more abounding greatness? Thus, after the night 
 of Time breaks upon the redeemed, the glory of eternal 
 gladness. Oh, the luminous brightness of eternal day! 
 Oh, the transcendent heights of redeeming grace! O h, 
 the waking from the shadows of earth from night to the 
 morning of eternity! Friends who are standing with 
 the sunset lights of time about you, when the darkness 
 of earth envelops you, we shall know that ye are no 
 more lost than are the mountains that fade from our 
 sight in the deepening twilight; than are the trees, and 
 the sweet and tender blossoms that are buried in the 
 night. Ye have not slipped from your places in God s 
 great universe. After the night sha ll come the morning, 
 and then our eyes shall behold the triumphs of redeeming 
 love. Then with the new morning shall come the eternal 
 day. Xo more night. Xo more silence with folded hands 
 upon our pulseless breasts. We shall wake with the dew 
 of divine grace upon our souls and the fragrance of 
 undying love upon our spirits. Up to vaster heights 
 shall we be lifted, to the melody of new spheres, and the 
 purer atmosphere of diviner knowledge. Life, illimitable 
 life, will break upon us like the sunrise splendor upon 
 the mountain tops. The vast plains of eternal being 
 shall unfold before our vision and the blossoms of eternal 
 truth shall make them fragrant and beautiful for our 
 immortal feet. Then indeed shall we be satisfied. 
 
 "Strange words for earth! Through all we dream and do 
 
 We go down to the grave with hope denied ! 
 Karth has her triumphs and her crowns, but who 
 Was ever satisfied? 
 
 "There are few sweet fountains in the wilderness, 
 
 And flowers by the loneliest wayside, 
 And joys come often, yet the happiest 
 Are never satisfied. 
 
 "What voice the yearning first interpreted? 
 
 What soundless, shoreless ocean spreading wide 
 Rose clear and calm before his sight who said 
 I shall be satisfied. 
 
 "Before the thought our restlessness is stilled, 
 
 As once again the veil is drawn aside 
 Oh, land where every void earth leaves is filled 
 And all are satisfied. 
 
 "A heaven worth winning! Tho that land is fair, 
 
 With beauty to our sight and thought denied, 
 One thought surpasses all the visions 
 There I shall be satisfied. 
 
 "There all the shadows past all secrets plain, 
 
 If not in vain I shall have lived and died, 
 If loss at last may turn to bitter gain, 
 I shall be satisfied. 
 
 "If I may look upon the Face, whose calm 
 
 Within the glory dims all else beside, 
 It were enough without the crown and palm 
 I shall be satisfied. 
 
 "If I may drink and never thirst again, 
 
 And in that rest forevermore abide; 
 If in Thy likeness I awake Oh, then 
 I shall be satisfied." 
 
 XIII. 
 WHAT OF THE BOY? 
 
 We will take as our text today the following: "The 
 boy is the father of the man." 
 
 You may look your Bibles all through and you will 
 not find it, but you cannot turn over a single page of 
 human experience where you will not see it written. 
 Everywhere in the history of the human race do we 
 discover that it has held triie, and that it is a fact beyond 
 all question or refutation. 
 
 "The boy is the father of the man." 
 
 This proposition being accepted, the question naturally 
 arises, what shall we do with the boy? 
 
 The civilization of the Xineteenth Century is beginning 
 to awake to the importance of this question. Public 
 intelligence, thoughtful philanthropy and benevolent 
 Christianity have all arrived at this conclusion, that the 
 greatest amount of good is accomplished for the race in 
 working for the rising generation. 
 
 That trite and homely old adage, "An ounce of pre 
 vention is worth a pound of cure," is coming home to 
 the world with tremendous meaning. It is full of untold 
 wisdom, and indirectly it answers the problem, "What 
 shall we do with the boy?" 
 
 "As the twig is bent the tree is inclined." Make a 
 just estimate of the character of the boys in any com 
 munity today, and you can easily determine what the 
 character of that community will be when they shall 
 have grown to manhood, and the control of its affairs 
 is placed in their hands. Let the boys grow up without 
 restraint, without the influence of refinement and culture; 
 without education; with no law of action but the grati 
 fication of their own desires, no pursuit but that of 
 selfish pleasure, and where would be the development 
 of their manhood, where their respect for law and the 
 rights of others? 
 
 It is time that the Church as an organization, and the 
 Christian as an individual, began to ponder the question 
 more seriously: What shall we do with the boy? 
 
 It is not so much the boy who has a Christian home 
 where he is carefully trained and educated, and made 
 acquainted with his duties and obligations to his Creator 
 and his fellow-men, to whom the attention of the church 
 and the individual needs to be given, as to the poor 
 little homeless waifs and outcasts that abound in every 
 city the boys whose education is confined to the streets, 
 to the low saloons and grog-shop; who are familiar early 
 with intemperance and sin; with theft and falsehood, 
 and the infamy of immorality; whose heads have never 
 felt the caressing touch of a loving mother s hand, and 
 whose lips have never been taught to say "Our Father" 
 the poor little wandering Arabs of our streets, who are 
 kicked here and there, and whose ears are familiar with 
 curses; the boys whose parents are low and ignorant 
 and degraded, who give them no teachings but those 
 
 243 
 
Lay Sermons. 
 
 of sin, and whose example, if followed, would lead their 
 children to our inebriate asylums, our houses of correc 
 tion, and to our jails and State prisons. Have our 
 churches nothing to do with these? Does the individual 
 Christian owe them no debt of obligation? 
 
 Let the churches of Los Angeles as a whole, and every 
 single individual member of them, ask themselves this 
 question: Are we doing our whole duty when we are 
 making liberal contributions to our foreign missionary 
 societies, and are giving nothing for the little, untaught 
 souls in our midst ? 
 
 Take, for instance, the two or three hundred newsboys 
 in this community, many of them without homes, oft- 
 times going hungry and poorly clad; finding their 
 associates upon the street, sometimes among men hardened 
 in sin; sleeping ofttimes in open hallways, or in empty 
 boxes under the pavements, or in back yards, with only 
 the sky and stars above their heads bright boys; quick 
 to learn; easily won by kindness, but readily yielding 
 to the influences around them; boys who with proper 
 training would become some of the noblest men of the 
 future, but who, if left to themselves, will be found 
 years hence among the criminals in our penitentiaries 
 and State prisons, and then answer to your own con 
 science where your duty lies, and tell us, what shall we 
 do with the boy? 
 
 The church is rich enough to support all its mis 
 sionaries in foreign fields, and to care for all who need 
 its help among the rising generation in our own land, 
 but if it is ready to care for but one, which class 
 shall it be? 
 
 True Christian benevolence implies sacrifice. When 
 we give that which we do not miss there is no real 
 benevolence in it. We are simply parting with what is 
 not necessary to us. Have we ever solved the richness 
 of the widow s mite? "For she of her penury hath 
 cast in all her living." How many of us have ever 
 approached to such giving? When our so-called benevo 
 lence brings with it some self-denial, some spirit of 
 self-sacrifice, then shall we really begin to give in the 
 right spirit, and then will there be some hope of the 
 world s evangelization. Then shall we begin to look 
 about us and see the work that is to be done in our 
 Lord s vineyard, and the little waifs of our streets will 
 be gathered in and trained for good citizenship and 
 usefulness in all the different walks of life. Our 
 Newsboys Home will not have to be abandoned because 
 there are no funds for its support, while the comfortable 
 Christians of our churches sit about their own firesides 
 enjoying the luxuries of life and all its ease and pleasures, 
 unmindful of the boys that are homeless and whose feet 
 are tending downward in the paths of temptation and sin. 
 
 Can we shut our eyes to their needs and let the doors 
 of their home be closed, and go to church with sancti 
 monious faces and thank God for all the privileges of 
 a Christian land, and believe we have done our whole 
 duty, and dwell at peace with our own consciences? 
 
 What humanity needs, what the church needs, is a 
 larger spirit of self-denial; a more open-eyed benevo 
 lence; hearts more Christ-like large enough and warm 
 enough to take in the needs of the whole world. When 
 we have that, then shall we answer as we should the 
 question that now confronts us: What shall we do with 
 the boy? 
 
 XIV. 
 THE MYSTERIOUS SEPULCHER. 
 
 "And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, 
 over against Bethpeor; but no man knoweth of his 
 sepulcher unto this day." 
 
 We all admire whatever is grand and beautiful in 
 Xature. The stupenduous vastness of great mountain 
 
 ranges excites our wonder. The broad and illimitable 
 sea, with its mighty billows beating against the land, 
 brings to us a sense of hidden power. How are our 
 souls moved, too, by the beauty of field and meadow 
 when clothed in greenness and starred with many blos 
 soms, and how reverently do we lift our eyes when night 
 comes, and the sun, retiring from his place in the heavens, 
 all the grandeur of shining planets and of circling suns 
 is revealed; and how, then, are we tempted, like the 
 psalmist, to exclaim, "When I consider the heavens, 
 which are the work of Thy fingers, the moon and stars, 
 which Thou hast ordained, what is man that Thou art 
 mindful of him?" 
 
 The psalmist must have been a close student of Xature. 
 When lie kept his father s sheep, his heart went out to 
 Nature as to a mother. It was then that he learned 
 her secrets and her wisdom. She was to him like a 
 well of living water, from which he drank deep and 
 continuously. He slept upon her breast in times of 
 danger and amid her serrated rocks and riverless deserts 
 she still spoke to him of the God in whom he trusted. 
 The grandest of poets, he penned the psalmody for all 
 the ages, but how many of its most delightful strains 
 did Nature inspire? Speaking of the good man, he 
 bursts forth triumphantly, "And he shall be like a 
 tree planted by the river of water, that bringeth forth 
 his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither, 
 and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." He was a great 
 man this warrior king and Nature was one of his 
 wisest teachers. 
 
 Surveying this wide realm of Nature, it is but natural 
 that we be inspired with a sense of insignificance. These 
 starry skies; these worlds innumerable; this boundless 
 planet, with its mighty seas and majestic mountains; 
 the vastness of its continents and its innumerable islands 
 are suggestive of the immensity of being, and again we 
 exclaim, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him?" 
 
 But we do not hesitate to assert that a good man is 
 the crowning glory of all the created universe of God. 
 There is nothing else that equals him in grandeur, and 
 nothing which, in the divine estimation, exceeds him in 
 value. 
 
 As a representative of the noblest Christian manhood, 
 let us take that inspired prophet, the determined liberator 
 and heroic leader of the Jewish people, Moses, the son 
 of a Hebrew bondswoman. 
 
 Driven from his place of power and glory in Egypt, 
 he retires to the desert of Midian and becomes a humble 
 shepherd a keeper of flocks. Surrounded by barren 
 sands, by dreary and desolate mountain ranges and vast 
 pyramid-like peaks, red and glowing, as if touched by 
 fire, he gives himself to meditation. For forty years 
 he communed with Nature and with God in this lonely 
 wilderness. All the learning and the lore of Egypt are 
 his. He has been the companion of priests and of 
 kings. But from his mother, the humble daughter of 
 Levi, he received that which he holds higher than all 
 things else the knowledge of the one true and living 
 God. And this lonely desert solitude is to Moses the 
 temple of the living God. It is here that he worships 
 Him and studies His purposes. 
 
 "And never earth s philosopher 
 
 Traced with his golden pen 
 On the deathless page truths half so sage 
 
 As he wrote down for men" 
 
 amid the loneliness of this Midian desert, for it was 
 here, it is supposed, that he wrote the book of Genesis, 
 with its sublime history of creation and of patriarchal life. 
 Ah, what a story is that of his after life, from the 
 time that he appeared before the haughty Egyptian King 
 
 244 
 
Penitent Peter. 
 
 and demanded the release of his people, till with 
 dying eyes, from the summit of Pisgah, lie surveyed 
 the Promised Land. Is there anything upon the earth 
 or amid the stars that so stirs our souls as does the 
 faithful story of this man s life? Has Nature anywhere 
 a voice like this life so resonant with meekness; so 
 tender with pity; so accented with mercy; so strong with 
 faith; so fearless with justice and so eloquent with 
 hope? Swing, () ye stars! on your mighty courses; 
 lift up your heads into the very deeps of the skies, () 
 ye everlasting mountains ! break with your resounding 
 billows upon all earthly shores, C) mighty sea ! spread 
 out wide as the vast continents, O bending skies ! Yet 
 ye all are nothing, nothing in God s sight in comparison 
 with one of His redeemed. It was not for vou, O 
 earth! swinging in the boundless ether; it was not for 
 you, O ever-shining suns and circling planets or sweep 
 ing comets! not for you, O star-built constellations in 
 the infinitude of space, that Christ died. But it was 
 for Man the child of yesterday, today and tomorrow. 
 It was for him, because his soul was priceless; because 
 for him heaven waits and the thrones of glory are 
 prepared. Take all the suns and all the planetary 
 spheres of God s great universe and put in the scale 
 beside them a human soul and its worth would outweigh 
 them all. Suns may go out in darkness and stars may 
 wander from their places, and Time may throw the 
 pall of death over them all, but radiant with immortality, 
 rejoicing forever in God s eternity of gladness, the 
 redeemed soul lives on forever more. Oh, eloquent of 
 God s love and of His tender remembrance is the fact 
 that God s own hand prepared for this faithful follower 
 his final earthly resting-place. 
 
 And with what joyful visions of the future of his 
 people did Moses make ready for that secret burial. 
 What voice of triumph and exultation in his final song: 
 "Who is like unto thee, O people saved by Jehovah, 
 the shield of thy help and the sword of thy excellency?" 
 "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are 
 the everlasting arms." And with those "everlasting arms 
 underneath" him, Moses, the prophet and leader of 
 Israel, ascended the lonely hill. To the far heights of 
 Pisgah he climbed, and beside him God stood. And 
 there He showed him all the Land of Promise the land 
 of beauty and fullness, "flowing with milk and honey." 
 And then from mortal sight passed the great Jewish 
 lawgiver, and God s own hand buried all that was left 
 to earth. 
 
 "That was the grandest funeral 
 
 That ever passed on earth, 
 But no one heard the tramping 
 
 Or saw the train go forth 
 None but the bald old eagle 
 
 On gray Bethpeor s height, 
 Which from his lonely eyrie 
 
 Ixioked on the wondrous sight. 
 
 "And had he not high honor 
 The hillside for his pall 
 
 To lie in state while angels wait 
 With stars for tapers tall; 
 
 And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes, 
 Over his bier to wave, 
 
 And God s own hand, in that lonely land, 
 To lay him in the grave. 
 
 "O lonely tomb in Moab s land! 
 
 O dark Bethpeor s hill! 
 Speak to these curious hearts of ours 
 
 And teach them to he still. 
 God hath His mysteries of grace. 
 
 Ways that we cannot tell; 
 He hides them deep like the sweet sleep, 
 
 Of him he loved so well." 
 
 XV. 
 
 PENITENT PETER. 
 
 It was a mournful commentary on the weakness and 
 moral cowardice of human nature that was presented to 
 the world when Peter denied his Master the Master 
 with whom he had lived for nearly three years, and to 
 whose divine teachings he had listened; whose love he 
 had shared, and the marvels of whose miracles he had 
 witnessed. Even with the memory of the Mount of 
 Transfiguration before him; of the dead called back 
 from their rocky sepulchers; of the tossed and stormy 
 sea stilled at His voice; of devils cast out; of lepers 
 healed; and of those born blind who were made to see; 
 in the presence of danger his faith faltered, and he 
 made haste to deny his Lord. 
 
 From the Garden of Gethsemane Christ had been 
 brought by the mob and delivered up. A prisoner in 
 the palace of the high priest, He stood before His 
 accusers. His disciples had forsaken Him and fled as 
 He was led away from the garden by the emissaries 
 of the chief priests and elders. But as the steps of 
 the multitude tended toward the palace. Peter and 
 another disciple had followed Him afar off. There was 
 no l)old and outspoken adherence to Him, but behind 
 the crowd they walked with quaking hearts, fearful for 
 their own safety. Peter could not quite forget Him. 
 His heart was troubled for His Lord. But he did not 
 say, "I am His disciple. I believe in Him and wherever 
 He goes there shall I be found with Him." But with 
 anxious face and hesitating step he enters the priest s 
 palace and sits with the servants in the great hall to 
 see the end of this hasty trial. He sees his Lord buffeted 
 and spat upon. He notes the majesty and calmness of 
 His demeanor, he hears the charges brought against 
 Him by false witnesses, and the voice of the high priest 
 saying, "I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell 
 us whether thou be the Christ the Son of God," and 
 the solemn, responsive declaration: "Thou hast said. 
 Nevertheless, 1 say unto you, hereafter shall ye see 
 the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and 
 coming in the clouds of heaven." 
 
 Yet Peter makes no sign of loyalty. To the Jewish 
 maid-servant and the accusing officers he returns the 
 same cold, deliberate response, "I know Him not." 
 
 But one glance of the Master s eye was enough to 
 touch his heart. That tender, sorrowful, rebuking look 
 of Jesus was like Moses rod smiting the rock and from 
 Ins flinty heart gushed the warm tides of penitential 
 sorrow, and Peter "went out and wept bitterly." The 
 strong man was bowed and prostrate with his sense of 
 guilt. He had no reproaches left for the crowd that 
 mocked and jeered at the Son of God; no word of 
 condemnation for those who cried "Away with Him! 
 Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" In his abhorrence of 
 his own faithlessness and sinful denial he saw himself a 
 sinner above all others. 
 
 Alone, amid tears and terrible self-reproaches, was 
 the fearless, unfaltering Christian manhood of Peter 
 born. No more faltering for him after this experience. 
 No more trusting to his own strength; no more disloyalty 
 or shrinking from persecution. Peter became the typical 
 rock of enduring faith, the- bold apostle bearing the 
 messages of divine love to a perishing world. 
 
 And this story of Peter has a wonderful power to 
 help the weak iii these days. It shows us that if. when 
 weak and tempted, we sometimes fall, there is hope for 
 us still. Even should we deny our Savior, if we turn 
 to Him, He is ready to forgive and welcome us. Though 
 we fall into sin we need not be discouraged. We 
 cannot sink so low but that the -hand of our Redeemer 
 is stretched out still. Like Peter, we may arise to nobler 
 life and more enduring faith and courage. The waters 
 of repentance are bitter, but they are cleansing. Moral 
 
 245 
 
Lay Sermons. 
 
 courage and spiritual strength are what we most need 
 in our warfare with sin. We must put self behind us 
 and lay hold upon the Cross. We must not be strangers 
 to the valley of humiliation. In that valley we can best 
 discern what we are. There will our faults be perceived 
 by us, and there shall we be ready to lay hold upon the 
 promises. 
 
 XVI. 
 THE ETERNAL ROCK. 
 
 Above us, looking down upon the valley s busy life 
 above its dust and turmoil, its clouds and its storms is 
 lifted the mighty snow-clad front of our loftiest Sierra 
 peak. Calm and immovable amid the tempests and the 
 earthquake shock, it stands, a monument of power and 
 an emblem of endurance. Time s old centuries make no 
 impress upon it in passing. It stands today as it stood 
 when the first human eye was lifted to behold it 
 grand, impressive, majestic, strong the rocky rampart 
 of the world. 
 
 How like is it to the mighty Rock of our Salvation, 
 the enduring and eternal strength of our Redeemer. 
 Persecution has assailed that rock ; skepticism, with its 
 mighty floods, has sought to drown it; the earthquakes 
 of infidel revolutions have endeavored to destroy its 
 foundations, but eternal and changeless as the stars, the 
 Rock of Divine Truth stands firm and enduring. 
 
 Christianity is today the mightiest force in the universe 
 of men; it is the power which lifts us from the low 
 levels of wantonness and wrong to the shining hills of 
 righteousness. Truth gives steadfastness, strength. It 
 is memorable as the mountain, clear, white, shining in 
 its purity as its snow-clad crest. The world, ever since 
 man s fall, has been the battleground between Right and 
 Wrong, Truth and Error. The hosts of Error have been 
 mighty. The blood of martyrs has flowed since Time 
 was young. How does the infidel hate the name of 
 Jesus, although the name is but a synonym of love and 
 redemption the one name given among men through 
 which we may hope to be saved. "I want no Christ," 
 says one, "I do not believe in Him. A being both divine 
 and human I cannot understand, and so I cannot accept 
 of Him." But if that be your plea, O unbeliever! how 
 can you accept of God, your Maker? Can you compre 
 hend the eternity of His being? Can your finite mind 
 grasp His omnipotence and His infinity? Tell me what 
 God is so that I may understand Him. Show me the 
 hiding places of His power. Explain to me how in 
 obedience to His fiat the world stood forth how "He 
 spake and it was done." Is there, O man ! no truth 
 beyond what you can think? Cannot the Infinite out 
 reach beyond the feeble limits of your thought? Can 
 you measure His ways and His purposes? May there 
 be no law beyond the realm of law of which you are 
 cognizant, no being beyond that which you are able to 
 compass? 
 
 O man ! treading the narrow bridge of doubt, wandering 
 in the darkness of unbelief, strike in your blindness and 
 doubt, but your puny arm lets fall its blows upon the 
 mighty Rock to which Ages cling. Strike! but high 
 upon that Rock we climb, and all of Time s stormy 
 billows roll beneath us. Strike! but He who conquered 
 death and th/ grave proclaims that "No man cometh 
 unto the Father but by me." Strike! and proclaim that 
 there is no Christ, no Redeemer of Men, the tempest of 
 your unbelief cannot shut out that still small voice that 
 is heard above its roaring billows, "He that denieth me 
 denieth the Father also." 
 
 O world deluged with sin! the ark of thy Redemption 
 is this Christ whom thou scornest. The "God made 
 manifest in the flesh" to whom "every knee shall bow 
 and whom every tongue shall confess." 
 
 To that mountain of holiness look up. Climb to its 
 heights of faith. The "Rock of Ages" is the hope of 
 the race. No storm of earth can sweep you from it. 
 No billows of doubt or of sorrow can overwhelm you 
 there. 
 
 "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence 
 cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, who 
 made heaven and earth." He is the Rock of our Salva 
 tionlike the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. 
 
 XVII. 
 CHRISTIANITY MEANS ACTION. 
 
 Christianity is not merely, as some suppose, a certain 
 definable condition of feeling, a fixed attitude of faith, 
 but it is life, a life that implies action and which holds 
 and embodies the mightiest forces of the universe. 
 
 The Christian s life is illimitable in its correspondences. 
 His regenerate nature, with all its higher faculties, is in 
 close correspondence with the Infinite. His life becomes 
 fuller and his gladness richer as it is brought into wider 
 correspondence with the Heavenly Father. This cor 
 respondence we call communion with God, or sometimes 
 it is spoken of as faith or love which goes out from 
 the human heart toward the Divine. 
 
 But "faith without works is dead." And it is just 
 here that the Christian Scientist makes his mistake. 
 Faith and prayer he expects to do the work that God 
 intended to he accomplished, or hoped, through human 
 instrumentalities. Prayer is a good thing and is essential 
 to Christian growth it is the vital breath of Christian 
 life but if the intelligent Christian has a very sick 
 friend he will supplement his progress with the best 
 medical skill to be obtained, and then when he has done 
 his part, used the means which God has provided for 
 healing and asked the blessing of God upon their use, 
 he may wait with some degree of confidence for the 
 answer to his petitions. 
 
 There must be something more than passivity in the 
 Christian life; there are times when action must be the 
 watchword and the human and divine forces must co 
 operate. We cannot stand with folded hands when God 
 bids us work idlers in His vineyard. 
 
 "Act, act in the living present, 
 Heart within and God o erhead." 
 
 That is our mission here that is duty. Then when sor 
 row and darkness and deceit come we can lift up our 
 hearts and our hands unto God, and we shall find that it is 
 the upstretched hand of ours that meets with the down- 
 stretched hand of the Divine Father. 
 
 Not until we positively set out upon the path which 
 Christ has marked out for us, do we become disciples. 
 Obedience to God can alone convince us of the love of 
 God. Oneness with God is the strongest desire of the 
 Christian s heart, for life separated from its causative 
 life is not true life. The earnest Christian is alive in 
 every fiber to all that is pure and lovely and high and 
 beaiitiful and holy. He not only wishes to be blessed 
 but he longs to bless others. To bring men into sym 
 pathy with and to a knowledge of the truth is the prin 
 ciple which actuates him. To have men know God and 
 Jesus Christ, whom He has sent it is that for which he 
 labors. 
 
 And what does such knowledge bring? Eternal life. 
 "He that hath the Son of God hath life, and he that 
 hath not the Son, hath not life." "This, as we take it," 
 says Drummond, "defines the correspondence which is 
 to bridge the grave. This is the clew to the nature of 
 the life that lies at the back of the spiritual organism. 
 And this is the true solution of the mystery of Eternal 
 
 246 
 
Steadfastness. 
 
 Life. . . . The fact to note at present is that this is 
 not an organic correspondence, but a spiritual correspond 
 ence. It comes not from generation but from regener 
 ation. The relation between the spiritual man and his 
 environment is, in theological language, a filial relation. 
 With the new spirit, the filial correspondence, he knows 
 the Father and this is Life Eternal. This is not only the 
 real relation, but the only possible relation. Neither 
 knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to 
 whomsover the Son will reveal Him. And this on purely 
 natural grounds. It takes the Divine to know the Divine 
 but in no more mysterious sense than it takes the human 
 to understand the human." 
 
 But sometimes even the brightest faith is clouded. 
 But if we read our Bibles as we should we shall find 
 there a rebuke for every doubt. Listen to the trium 
 phant voice of faith in Romans viii: 35-39: "Who shall 
 separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or 
 distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, 
 or sword?" "Nay, in all these things we are more than 
 conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am per 
 suaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor prin 
 cipalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
 come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall 
 be able to separate us from the love of God, which is 
 in Jesus Christ our Lord." 
 
 Oh, glorious hope to the Christian believer! One with 
 God through all the eternal ages. Living in His pres 
 ence, sharing His life, drinking from the fountains of 
 His knowledge and growing continually with fuller cor 
 respondence with all the perfections of the Divine char 
 acter. This is the direction in which true Christianity 
 tends. It is no mere selfish desire for personal safety, 
 but it is love to God and love to the race. And it means 
 labor and sacrifice. It means that the Christian shall be 
 instant in season and out of season in his labor for the 
 salvation of souls. It is faith and works combined that 
 constitute Christian manhood. No idle vaporings, no 
 ecstatic faith unaccompanied by works, no proclamations 
 of personal sinlessness, will you hear from him who is 
 fighting "the good fight of faith." But you will find 
 the Christian warrior, battling continuously with sin, 
 clinging with one hand to his sword by which he resists 
 besetting temptations, and laying hold with the other 
 hand upon the cross of Christ where his redemption has 
 been wrought and the hope of salvation secured. It is 
 in the cross of Christ alone that he glories and at that 
 cross he lays all his triumphs down. 
 
 XVIII. 
 STEADFASTNESS. 
 
 The world is full of themes from which we may draw 
 instruction. We may find sermons alike "in trees and 
 running brooks;" in" flowers and starry worlds; in the 
 mighty and resistless ocean, and in the mountains whose 
 loftv heads are familiar with the skies. From these and 
 numberless other sources in Nature may we gather in 
 spiration. 
 
 But none of these themes will we contemplate today, 
 but we will turn over the pages of sacred history and 
 study there some of the characters set forth. We will 
 take" for our theme Christian Manhood, and glance at 
 the influence which it has exerted upon the race. 
 
 First, let us go down into Egypt, the ancient land of 
 wealth and learning; the cradle of the arts and sciences; 
 the land from whose priestly teachings and religious 
 mysticism Grecian philosophy formulated some of its 
 wisest teachings, and from which Plato perhaps borrowed 
 his idea of the soul s immortality. 
 
 Surrounded by the pagan superstition of the masses, 
 among whom almost every animal had its worshipers, 
 while the sun and stars and all the passions which con 
 trol men were represented by some deity, we find a 
 young man named Joseph, the" great grandson of Abra 
 ham the "Father of the Faithful" exalted, after some 
 of the most trying vicissitudes and painful experiences 
 to kingly power and dignity, the favorite of a pagan 
 sovereign, and second only to him in authority. Within 
 the splendid palaces of Egypt he was an honored guest. 
 Gifted intellectually beyond most men of his age; pos 
 sessing rare personal beauty and charm of manner, he- 
 was the most popular man in social as well as political 
 spheres among those ancient, pleasure-loving Egyptians. 
 
 Cleopatra was not the only siren of ancient Egypt. 
 The dark and liquid-eyed sorceresses of the Nile were 
 
 about him in palace hall and in all the mazes of pleasure 
 that he was obliged to tread. He was no stranger to the 
 bright smiles of Egypt s loveliest daughters. Like the 
 melody of softly-falling waters were the voices of these 
 enchantresses. Like the sun shining on the faces of the 
 flowers were their smiles. The worship of Isis and Osiris 
 was the popular worship. Monotheism was but a single 
 thread in the religion of the Egyptian. Alone amid 
 superstition and the unnumbered gods of Egypt, Joseph 
 stood in his reverence for the one true God. Think of 
 the temptations that assailed him on every hand; of the 
 pleasures that were spread as nets for his feet; of the 
 enticements of wealth; the luring voice of flattery; of 
 the winning tones of pagan enchantresses; of the pomp 
 and pageantry that filled his life, and remember that 
 amid all this "splendor of power; amid all this popular 
 adulation; amid all these temptations to worldliness and 
 greed for greatness, he still kept his simple faith in the 
 God of his fathers and remained strong in his integrity, 
 spotless in his morality, mighty in his trust in Jehovah. 
 
 How grand the work which he accomplished as the 
 instrument under Providence, for the preservation of the 
 Hebrew people. He nourished and fed them while 
 they were yet small, and planted them in a fertile land, 
 and here they increased and multiplied, while Joseph 
 walked before them in his uprightness, loyal at all times 
 to the God of Israel. Take his name from the early 
 history of the Hebrew people in Egypt and how would 
 it darken! The name of Joseph is an honored name, 
 not alone for his rank and power, but as the noblest ex 
 emplar of Christian manhood of the age in which he lived. 
 And now we will turn backward a few pages in sacred 
 history to the time when the world was young, and 
 many peoples dwelt in tents, leading a wandering, 
 pastoral life, simple in their habits, and drifting here 
 and there according to the necessities of their flocks and 
 herds. At this period, in the pagan city of Ur, in the 
 land of the Chaldeans, was born Abram, the son of 
 Terali, a descendant of Shem. This city, even in that 
 earlv morning of civilization, was one of the proudest of 
 ancient days. Here were nurtured commerce and the 
 arts and sciences; here poets sang, and the astronomers 
 studied the mysteries of the stars. But the Christianity 
 inculcated by the earlier patriarchs had become almost 
 a dead letter. Idolatry flourished, and the knowledge o; 
 the true God had gradually faded from the minds of 
 men. The demoralizing effects of superstitious worship 
 had its influence upon the people by whom this early 
 follower of Jehovah was surrounded. So out from their 
 midst God called him, and at the first intimation of the 
 divine will he made ready to depart. Ur of the Chal 
 deans faded from his vision, with all its pride of civili 
 zation, and all the intimate associations of his cnilcl- 
 hood and earlier and later manhood. Distinctly recog 
 nizing the personality of the God who bids him forth, a 
 solitary Christian among an idolatrous people, he de 
 parts "unquestioningly, at the divine command, in 
 known lands. 
 
 247 
 
Lay Sermons. 
 
 Follow him in all his journeyings, go with him where 
 he rears his altars for worship underneath the blue of 
 the bending skies the roof of man s first temple. See 
 him sitting in the door of his tent at Mainre. Venerable 
 and white-haired, yet with the dignity of a majestic 
 manhood, look at him as he goes out in the heat of the 
 day, and, standing upon the plain with his face turned 
 toward Sodom, hear him as he pleads for the doomed 
 city. Follow him as at the age of 1:20 years he goes out at 
 the command of God to offer as a sacrifice his young and 
 tenderly loved son Isaac, in whom was centered all his 
 hopes for the fulfillment of God s promise that he should 
 become the father of a great people. Fancy the an 
 guish with which his heart was rent, as taking the wood 
 of the burnt offering and laying it upon Isaac s shoulders, 
 and then with the fire and knife in his own hand they 
 set out together, and Isaac turning to him the face that 
 he so loved, said: "Behold the fire and the wood, but 
 where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" How wisely 
 must Isaac have been trained, how implicit must have 
 been his trust, not only in his father, but in that unseen 
 God whom he worshiped ! There was no struggle to 
 escape, no outcry, no resistance; but like a lamb he was 
 laid upon the altar for sacrifice. 
 
 How sublime the faith that could stand a test like 
 this and not falter! What wonder that his name is 
 crowned with immortality ! Xo more earthly trials for 
 his faith, for over this greatest one he had risen supreme. 
 It was that religious faith of his which exalted him 
 above his age, and sent the story of his life ringing clown 
 to us through all the intervening centuries. The proudest 
 title that earth can give is his, "The Father of the Faith 
 ful." This fidelity to duty is the crowning glory of his 
 Christian manhood; it is the beacon light of his history. 
 
 One of his grandest characteristics was consistency. 
 He believed in God, and he exalted Him above all his 
 earthly desires. AVhatever God commanded he was ready 
 to perform. Implicit faith sprang from his acceptance of 
 God. There was no half-way devotion in the love which 
 he gave his Maker. There was no question of expediency 
 in his worship. 
 
 Do the annals of the race furnish a sublimer exemplar 
 of loyalty? What the church wants today is this same 
 exalted Christian manhood; this unswerving devotion to 
 duty; this sublime heroism of purpose which lent to the 
 name of the patriarch Abraham a luster which the lapse 
 of four thousand years has not been able to dim a reful 
 gence which shall not wane with the latest of time s cen 
 turies. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 "RING OUT, O EASTER BELLS!" 
 
 Our thoughts naturally go back this morning "back 
 through the tangled thicket of years" to a quiet 
 garden, not far from Jerusalem, in which was a rock- 
 hewn sepulcher. Sentinel soldiers, stern Romans, had 
 been placed beside its closed doors to guard it and 
 keep it. For three days had the still sleeper lain in 
 hushed and breathless silence behind that sealed en 
 trance. During that time there had been no stir of life 
 within. There was no question but what the mystery 
 of death was there. It had succeeded the agony of the 
 cross. It had followed swift upon the dying utterance 
 of Calvary: "Jt is finished." 
 
 The shadows of night still lingered in the East. But 
 a single faint thread of light told of the coming dawn. 
 Yet Jerusalem slept. Bethany was hushed in rest. Even 
 to those who had lingered longest at the cross in tears and 
 sorrow, sleep had come at last. But as the dawn ap 
 proached, Mary awoke; her heart heavy with its woe. 
 She could not rest and so she arose, and with quiet haste 
 made ready to wend her way to the garden where her 
 Lord was laid. On Moab s peak there was a faint, rosy 
 
 gleam, and Olivet was brightening, and on the pools of 
 Hinnom fell a flush of light, while the Temple s spires 
 gleamed goldenly against the sky. The birds twittered 
 softly in the trees, and everywhere were sounds that 
 told another morning had come. In Mary s hands were 
 spices, and precious ointment, and odorous frankincense, 
 which she was bearing to make sweeter the rest of Him 
 she had loved and worshiped. Faithful Mary! She did 
 not understand, but still she believed and loved. Christ, 
 though dead, was still her Christ, her Savior. Under 
 neath all this mystery of His death she must have felt 
 the stirring of some undefined hope. 
 
 The dawn grew brighter as she entered the garden 
 place and drew nearer to the tomb. Where were the 
 sentinels? Where the stone? What meant that open 
 door? Not yet does she comprehend, but with tearful 
 eyes she and the other faithful women who have joined 
 her draw nearer and look within. They see not the 
 body of their Lord, but two men stood by them in shin 
 ing raiment, saying, "Why seek ye the living among the 
 dead? He is not here, He is risen." 
 
 Sing, sing, O Earth ! and break forth into gladness ye 
 rocks and trees ! Pour, ye waters, richer tides of melody, 
 and ye everlasting hills break forth into rejoicing, for 
 the Lord has risen ! 
 
 But still Jerusalem and the world sleeps; sleeps while 
 angels tune their harps to higher notes of praise at re 
 demption accomplished and immortality made sure for 
 man. That first Easter dawn was unnoted but by few 
 among men, but heaven rang with alleluias and the song 
 of the Lamb that was slain. Easter is especially sug 
 gestive to us of three things love, hope, and immortality. 
 First of all is the infinite love of Christ for man. His 
 death was the seal of that love. It was the purchase 
 price of man s pardon. It is the gospel of love that 
 Christ brings to us. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." this is 
 the foundation of all that Christ taught us. It is a 
 simple creed this gospel of love to God and love to man. 
 And this divine teacher tells us that we should love God 
 because He first loved us. 
 
 Take the beautiful Easter Day, then, and let it be 
 love-crowned. Pause over it the fullness and sweet 
 ness, the joy and the completeness of divine compassion. 
 Let it breathe of immortal hopes and undying faith. 
 Fill it with songs of victory and of triumph; shout 
 aloud: "O Death ! where is thy sting? O Grave ! where is 
 thy victory?" for on this day the risen Christ did con 
 quer death and gave immortal life to man. Now, as our 
 friends pass from us, we know that, while Death keeps 
 the key on this side of the door through which they 
 pass, Love keeps it upon the other the Love that is 
 mighty to save. So good-by to fear; good-by to doubt 
 and sorrow; since the tomb is but the pathway to heavenly 
 life and immortality. Hope! What do we hope for? 
 Ring out again your peals, O Easter bells, and let the 
 sweet, glad air thrill with the music of hope. Listen: 
 "As in Adam all died, so in Christ shall all be made 
 alive." "The Lord is risen." O endless life to come! 
 That is the melody that the hills ring of today. The 
 risen Christ is our Redeemer. Through Him we have 
 all things not the hope of this life only, but that which 
 is to come. He hath conquered death for us. His arm 
 hath vanquished our foe. 
 
 Immortality! "In my Father s house are many man 
 sions. I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am 
 there ye may be also." 
 
 Ring out, O Easter bells! again ring, not only of 
 eternal life, but of home. Those many mansions are ours, 
 and are they not significant of home? Oh, there, in the 
 life to come, we shall be no restless wanderers upon un 
 tried shores. The home is there, the blessed resting place; 
 the mansion furnished and prepared by Him who has 
 risen, and there sometimes He may come and sit with us 
 
 248 
 
The Black Man. 
 
 while He unfolds to us all the mystery of His provi 
 dence and the fullness of His love; and there, in those 
 heavenly chambers, may we entertain the loved of earth, 
 who may sit with us there, not only with the Master, 
 but with angel and archangel, while we study with them 
 the wonders of the created universe, and the marvels 
 of infinite love. 
 
 So ring once more, O bells of Kaster ! ring of Love, 
 of Hope, and Immortality; ring of mansions celestial, 
 of joys divine. King of the lowly sepulcher in the 
 lonely garden, and of Him who is "the Resurrection and 
 the Life," the Christ, the Lord of Life and of Glory. 
 
 THE BLACK MAN. 
 
 There is nothing in life that makes us so cheerful as 
 unfailing faith in the Heavenly Father. Such faith is 
 strong; it is bold; it is sustaining. Xo matter what may 
 befall us, if behind it all we are able to recognize the 
 hand of Our Father, we do not shrink. We say, God 
 knows, and I will trust Him. It looks dark to me now, 
 but I know that by-and-by all this darkness will be 
 illuminated, and the mysteries of Providence will be 
 revealed. Time does not exist for God, for to Him "a 
 thousand years are as one day," and shall we seek to 
 fix limitations for Him shall we fail to trust Him 
 because He does not fly to our rescue speedily, as soon as 
 we cry out to Him? 
 
 Down the long track of eternal years God sees. The 
 past and the present are all open to His sight. Not 
 only the beginning of things, but all the ten thousand 
 influences which surge in upon them, and which shape 
 and mould and determine results. Not a thread in all 
 the web of human destiny but He holds in His hand. 
 Not a result but what He determined all the infinite 
 causes which brought it about. 
 
 History is a wonderful revealer of the ways in which 
 God deals with men. Very clearly are we enabled, oft- 
 times, to trace the wisdom of His purposes, and the lines 
 of His beneficence through the darkness of the centuries. 
 
 Take, for instance, the history of American slavery, 
 and the condition of the black man in the wilds of 
 Africa. No well-established national life and policy 
 existed among these black men who were brought as 
 slaves to this country. They knew nothing beyond tribal 
 relations, and recognized no law save that of blind devo 
 tion to their chiefs. Through that was evolved in their 
 dull minds the idea of obedience, and submission to some 
 form of authority. But still they were wild and untutored 
 barbarians, far beyond the realm of civilization, and in 
 the midst of environments that were hostile to all the 
 advance of civilizing forces. But cupidity and the lust 
 for gain were the missionaries in disguise which reached 
 them. They did not come of their own free will and 
 plant their colonies in the wild wastes of America s then 
 uninhabited wilderness, thus grafting upon this New 
 World the savagery of the Old, but they came as slaves, 
 confronting civilization, set down at once upon the plan 
 tation and in the homes where they were brought daily 
 into association with the higher life of the most cultured 
 people. In the majority of cases they were, without 
 doubt, well treated and comfortably housed and fed. 
 Their masters were men accustomed to being obeyed, 
 men of character, of culture, and with qualities com 
 manding respect. This long period of slavery was in 
 many respects just what the black man needed; it was 
 the lever by which he was to be lifted out from his sav 
 agery higher and higher toward the plane of civilization. 
 It was an education for him, for the negro is imitative 
 and always anxious to adopt the habits and the language 
 
 of his superiors. In the old days there were many "Uncle 
 Toms" among the slaves, men of great, tender hearts, 
 with natures redeemed from every trace of barbarism, 
 and inspired by an immeasurable love for Christ. 
 
 And now we have millions of these children of the 
 "Dark Continent" in our midst, large numbers of whom 
 are acting well their part as citizens of this great 
 Republic. It is marvelous to note the advance that the 
 race has made in America in the past 200 years. There 
 are men of brilliant minds among them; scholarly men; 
 there are men who, since the war, have acquired fortunes 
 which are estimated by hundreds of thousands of dollars; 
 they are, considering how recent theii emancipation from 
 slavery, industrious and thrifty; they do not fall below 
 the wiiite race in their aptness for acquiring knowledge, 
 and for the black man we admit that a bright era has 
 been ushered in, with large possibilities for his future. 
 
 In all this we cannot be blind to the workings of an 
 overruling providence, and we are not slow to see the 
 methods by which He has wrought out these grand 
 results; yet a century ago no person whose sympathies 
 were with the enslaved would have thought of advancing 
 the idea that southern slavery was the best school that 
 could have been provided for the education of colored 
 freemen. But in no other way would they have been 
 so naturally brought into such an educational relationship 
 with the white man. A few missionaries in the interior 
 of Africa, laboring never so faithfully, could not have 
 hoped for or realized such large results from their lalmrs 
 as have been brought about through the providence of 
 God, in the transplanting of these millions from Africa 
 to the homes and cotton-fields of the South. 
 
 Still these results do by no means excuse the sin and 
 wrong of slavery; it is God alone who has overruled it 
 for good. But it teaches us that God s hand is still at 
 the helm of human affairs, although His ways are not 
 always man s ways. 
 
 So let our faith be firm, our trust unfaltering in the 
 providence of God. Let us never forget that there are 
 no chance happenings in this universe; that law is as 
 dominant in the spiritual as in the natural world. God 
 is everywhere sovereign rider of this vast universe. Noth 
 ing can occur that He does not permit for some wise 
 purpose, and all that is evil He will overrule for good. 
 
 With this faith in Him we may have the trust and 
 the feeling of safety possessed by the little child who 
 believes that its father is able and its mother is willing 
 to give it all it needs and asks for, and so is secure 
 from anxiety and dread, its little life full of the sunshine 
 of peace and rest. " Underneath thee are the Everlasting 
 Arms," and God s love shall bear them up as an eagle s 
 wings far above the storms of life, overshadowed by His 
 protecting providence and enveloped by the sunshine of 
 His abiding presence. Cradled in our Father s care, the 
 storms of Time may blow about us, but they cannot 
 narm. Joy and safety shall be ours forever. 
 
 XXI. 
 SABBATH-BREAKING. 
 
 The American republic is built upon Christianity. It 
 is the very foundation stone upon which it is laid. From 
 over the pathless seas our pilgrim fathers came to the 
 wilderness of this New World for freedom, to worship 
 God according to the dictates of their own consciences, 
 to a land where they might reverence the Sablmth and 
 rear their humble church-spires; where, independent of 
 the dictation of the State, they might worship as they 
 saw fit, unawed by priests or prelates or the powers that 
 be. In their Declaration of Independence all human 
 rights were recognized as God-given, and as they met 
 
 24J 
 
Lay Sermons, 
 
 in convention to frame that noblest of human instru 
 ments, the Constitution of these United States, not a 
 step was taken until prayer was offered for the divine 
 blessing upon the work before them. \Ve have inscribed 
 also upon some of the coin of the country that noble 
 declaration, "In God we trust." The Bible is the book 
 upon which our most solemn oaths of office are taken, 
 and witnesses in our courts are sworn to tell the truth 
 in the name of the God of this Christian people. Every 
 where we meet with evidence of the universal recognition 
 of a divine, overruling power, to whom we owe allegiance. 
 All over this broad land, from ocean to ocean, the church 
 spires are lifted with fingers pointed to the skies. The 
 Sabbath bells ring out the call to worship, and the sacred 
 hush of the day is felt as traffic ceases and business 
 generally is laid aside, and Christian people rejoice in 
 this clay of blessed hope. 
 
 But there are many things that make us tremble for 
 the future of this nation, for how can we remain a 
 Christian people and yet perpetually trample upon divine 
 law? 
 
 Even to the least observing among us it must be 
 apparent thai Christian America is in danger of having 
 the American Sabbath supplanted by the continental 
 Sabbath of Europe, where God s holy day becomes a 
 holiday and the highest needs of man are unrecognized. 
 
 The Sabbath day was given us for rest, for moral and 
 spiritual culture, as a something to answer our sense of 
 those diviner needs of men which the merely material 
 cannot satisfy. But the continental Sabbath thrusts all 
 those higher needs aside. It calls simply for pleasure, 
 as if all that man needed on this God-given seventh day 
 of rest was to be idle and to be amused. The spiritual 
 needs of the race it utterly ignores. Hence our Sunday 
 theaters, Sunday excursions, Sunday baseball games, 
 Sunday concerts, and the like all innovations that have 
 crept in upon our American Sabbath, which was originally 
 one of worship and delightful family communion. The 
 baseball game, balloon ascension, pleasure excursions and 
 Sunday theatricals are no more in keeping with the spirit 
 of our American Sabbath than are the Chinese temples 
 in our midst or the heathen worship of idols. "Remember 
 the Sabbath day to keep it holy." That is God s law, and 
 if we would be His people we must obey it. 
 
 A Sabbath independent of worship is not a Christian 
 Sabbath, and take away all worship and the American 
 Sabbath could not be perpetuated. Take the veriest 
 infidel in search of a home, and he would feel far more 
 secure to build his home in a place where there were 
 Christian churches and recognized Sabbaths than in one 
 where none existed. His feelings, though he may not 
 give them expression, are in keeping with those of a 
 party of African explorers who were lost in the midst 
 of the Dark Continent and feared that they might lose 
 their lives by the hands of the relentless savages. Climb 
 ing a slight elevation, they looked down in the valley 
 below them and espied the spire of a Christian church. 
 With that sight all their fears fled and they exclaimed, 
 "We are safe! We are safe!" 
 
 The Christian Sabbath is the only thing that stands 
 between our working-men and incessant toil. Take from 
 it the recognized sacredness of the day, and the civil 
 enactments that hedge it in from labor, and it would 
 soon disappear. Make it simply a holiday and traffic 
 would quickly <encroach upon it, greed would seize upon 
 it, and toil would become a relentless task-master, exact 
 ing service through seven days instead of six. Sin always 
 brings its penalty, and trample upon the Sabbath and 
 punishment will as surely follow as the night succeeds 
 the day. We cannot be a Christian people and a Sab 
 bathless people. We cannot continue free and enlightened 
 and prosperous and yet disregard this one sacred day 
 which is given us for rest and worship, for moral culture 
 
 250 
 
 and improvement. Ignore the claims of the Sabbath 
 upon us as a people and we drift out into lawlessness, to 
 oppression, and the denial of the spiritual and moral 
 rights of man. 
 
 Count Montalembert, one of the greatest French states 
 men, once wrote: "Men are surprised sometimes by the 
 ease with which the immense city of London is kept in 
 order by a garrison of three small battalions and two 
 squadrons, while to control the capital of France, which 
 is half the size, 40,000 troops of the line and 60,000 
 national guards are necessary. But the stranger who 
 arrives in London on Sunday morning, when he sees 
 everything of commerce suspended in that gigantic 
 capital in obedience to God; when in the center of that 
 colossal business he finds silence and repose, scarcely 
 interrupted by the bells which call to prayer, and the 
 immense crowds on their way to church, then his astonish 
 ment ceases. He understands that there is another curb 
 for a Christian people besides that of bayonets, and that 
 where the law of God is fulfilled with such a solemn 
 submissiveness, God himself, if I dare use the words, 
 charges himself with the police arrangements." 
 
 But what is the continental Sunday? O laboring man, 
 toiling through six days of the week, bearing your heavy 
 burdens unrestingly, take one look at it as portrayed 
 by those who have lived where it exists. Bremmer, in 
 his work entitled "Excursions in Russia," thus portrays 
 the continental Sabbath in that empire: "People are 
 everywhere busy at work in the fields and the market 
 places, in all the provincial towns are crowded the 
 peasants, selling potatoes, mushrooms, apples, turnips, 
 cucumbers, etc., just as on ordinary week days." The 
 only difference, he informs us, is that "there is more 
 trading, by far, on the Sabbath than on any other day, as 
 it is the favorite shopping day with all classes." 
 
 Ah! what a picture of that blessed day of rest does 
 this afford us ! Does America long for such a Sabbath 
 as this? Are we blind to the fact that our Sunday base 
 ball games, our picnics and excursions, our Sunday 
 theatricals and balloon ascensions, and all things else that 
 strike at the sacredness of the day, are but the entering 
 wedge of the continental Sabbath, that would take from 
 us our American Sabbath, with its hours of sacred rest, 
 its release from all toil, its opportunity for moral cul 
 ture and enlightenment, and its privileges, which place 
 the humblest laborer on the same level with the richest 
 capitalist as a worshiper of the one God and Father of 
 us all in His house. 
 
 America cannot give up her Sabbath and hope for 
 continued freedom. Out of it springs our sense of uni 
 versal brotherhood, and the universal need of divine help. 
 In it the patient toiler finds his best time for moral and 
 intellectual culture. In it he can answer the demands 
 of his higher manhood, enjoy his home, and be blessed by 
 the uplifting influence of his little ones. They appeal to 
 his nobler manhood, and as he listens to their loving 
 prattle he feels the best that there is within him arise and 
 demand recognition. 
 
 "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for 
 the Sabbath," says the divine Master, and it does not 
 serve its best purpose when it is given to idle pleasure. 
 The "blue Monday" follows the Sabbath excursion and 
 the various kinds of Sunday amusements, but where it 
 is consecrated as a day of rest and worship, Monday 
 finds those who have properly regarded the day refreshed 
 and cheerful and ready for renewed toil, looking out 
 upon life more hopefully and better fitted for its duties. 
 
 "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy!" Well 
 would it be for America if that command were engraved 
 upon each heart of this great people. To what a glori 
 ous future might this nation then look forward; to what 
 a surcease from crime; to what decrease in poverty; to 
 what higher morality and better public character. And 
 
Daughters of the King. 
 
 in addition to all these earthly blessings, with what con 
 fidence might we look forward to that eternal Sabbath 
 in God s kingdom into which toil and hardship and sor 
 row shall never enter, but where the greatness of im 
 mortal being shall be unfolded and our life be filled with 
 God s life and tne eternity of knowledge and gladness. 
 Oh, let us " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." 
 
 XXII. 
 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. 
 
 The work of the Redeemer was nearly done. The 
 great scheme of man s redemption was almost finished. 
 The agony of Gethsemane and the death upon Calvary 
 were near at hand. In an upper chamber at Jerusalem 
 Jesus had gathered his disciples to eat the Last Supper, 
 and when that was ended, "He put water into a basin 
 and began to wash His disciples feet." But Simon Peter, 
 His ardent yet impulsive follower, protested against His 
 Lord s performing such menial service for him, saying, 
 "Lord dost Thou wash my feet?" Jesus answered and 
 said unto him, "What I do thou knowest not now, but 
 thou shalt know hereafter." Peter saith unto Him: 
 "Thou shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, 
 "If I wash thee not, thou "shalt have no part with me." 
 This incident in the life of our King has its lesson for 
 us, and the great truth to be drawn from it is that the 
 Christian s life is a life of service one of thoughtful- 
 ness and care for the needs of others. 
 
 To be a Christian is to be like Christ; to be filled with 
 His spirit, and to do the works that He did; to live as 
 He lived; and if we study His life we shall find that its 
 whole grand story is told in the simple sentence, "He 
 went about doing good." 
 
 Studying His life, we find that it was one of cease 
 less activity and of unresting service. There was noth 
 ing which appealed to Him so strongly as human need. 
 It always impelled Him to action; it was, and is, the 
 mainspring of divine helpfulness. When human help 
 lessness confronted our King He never rested until He 
 had met it with divine helpfulness. 
 
 We can fancy Him as He journeyed through Pales 
 tine, after the fame of His marvelous works had gone 
 abroad among the people. What a panorama of human 
 suffering there was in the great crowds that thronged 
 Him. And did He ever turn one away unhelped? The 
 lame, the blind, the maimed, the leprous, whosoever suf 
 fered from human ill or spiritual hunger had but to tell 
 their needs and they were all relieved. The voice of hu 
 man suffering our King was quick to hear, and that He 
 might the better help us He became our burden-bearer. 
 
 Christ s test of discipleship is this: "By this shall 
 all men know that ye are my disciples if you have love 
 one to another." This spirit of earnest Christian love 
 will very quickly place us in touch with humanity every 
 where, and there is nothing that will so quicken us to 
 see the work that we should do as this spirit of love 
 for the race which possessed Christ, for love is never in 
 different, never blind; it never forgets. Self is very 
 small in love s eyes, for love always makes the needs of 
 others paramount to its own. If we would always put 
 Christ between us and self how quickly would the chains 
 of selfishness be loosed and our hands always be ready 
 to help others. Looking upon Him who so loves us, we 
 snould forget all selfish ends and our one great thought 
 would be how we might best serve Him through helping 
 others, and like Him we should go about doing good. 
 
 And one of the first truths that Christ inculcated was 
 the forgiving love of God. I am confident that never 
 a day passed during all the years of Christ s earthly 
 
 ministry when men did not hear from His lips the invi 
 tations of His love and the assurance of God s readiness 
 to forgive, or when the hand of our King was not out 
 stretched to help the suffering and the needy, His pity 
 and His all-comprehending love were as infinite as His 
 Godhood. It embraced all sorrow, all frailty, all human 
 want and weakness, and its language ever was, "Come 
 unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I 
 will give you rest." 
 
 Therefore the fact that we are the children of a King 
 does not imply that we shall be served and yet withhold 
 ourselves from serving. Instead of this, such relation 
 ship brings with it responsibility. If God has freely 
 given us all things, as His children, does that gift im 
 pose upon us no duty but that of the selfish enjoyment 
 of our own glorious hopes and anticipations of future 
 blessedness? "Heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ 
 to a heavenly inheritance," shall we leave our Redeemer 
 to bear alone the burden of man s sins, and to carry on, 
 witn no active, living sympathy from His children, the 
 work of the world s salvation? 
 
 We should ever bear in mind that the more earnest 
 and active we are in the service of the King the nearer 
 we shall come to Him, and the more shall we grow into 
 his image. 
 
 As King s Daughters we are a "sisterhood of service," 
 and that is our privilege of honor. And the more we 
 serve the greater will our love be. I am filled every day 
 with the sense of our need of greater consecration and 
 willingness tor sacrifice. Here are souls perishing all 
 about us. AVhat shall we do to awaken them to a sense 
 of their need these souls that Christ loves and for whom 
 He died? Is it enough that the hope of a glorious im 
 mortality is ours? The King was willing to die for these 
 souls. Shall we not be willing to ever tell them of His 
 love and seek to lead them to Him? 
 
 We should never be willing to let a day pass without 
 doing some special earnest work for our Father. And let 
 us always remember that it is not the (/reatness of the 
 work we do, but the spirit in which it is done, that He 
 considers. The story of the widow s mite is for us. The 
 proud and the rich who saw her cast her offering into 
 the Lord s treasury doubtless looked with scorn upon her 
 humble gift, it was such a small pittance, but Christ said, 
 "She hath cast in more than the - all." So He will ac 
 cept whatever we have to bring if we give it in His 
 name and for the love of souls. "Whosoever giveth a 
 cup of water in my name shall not lose his reward." 
 
 Let us ever have that cup of water in readiness for 
 thirsty souls, and cry aloud to them, "Ho, every one that 
 thirsteth, come ye to the waters." 
 
 O the overflowing springs of God s love! Let us drink 
 more freely of them, and as we drink consecrate our 
 selves anew to this life of service, remembering that the 
 work our King began He has left for us to finish. No 
 matter how slight the threads of duty may seem, we must 
 not let any one of them drop. No duty is small; no work 
 for the Master ends with today; but down the pathway 
 of the eternal years the influence of duty faithfully per 
 formed is felt forever, and its story will never end. This 
 eternity of thought and of action is what makes life so 
 vast, so solemn, tor neglected duty will not alone con 
 front us here, but it will take a whole eternity to unfold 
 the results arising from duty undone. Time can never 
 measure the extent of our influence. Faithfulness to 
 every duty, then, is what we most need to emulate in the 
 example of the Master. 
 
 Daughters of the King, let us always wear the white 
 raiment of charity; let us wrap ourselves in the mantle 
 of unselfish devotion; let our feet be shod with the san 
 dals of good will, and our hands ever be ready to give, 
 "in His name," the cup of cold water to thirsty souls. 
 
 251 
 
Lay Sermons. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 THE DEFIANT MOTHER. 
 
 If a person with no experimental knowledge of Chris 
 tianity desires an example of its sustaining power in 
 times of affliction, let him read the book of Job. Nowhere 
 in human history will he find the record of more endur 
 ing heroism born of faith in God than he may find here. 
 Earthly possessions all swept away; bereaved of his chil 
 dren; tempted by his wife "to curse God and die;" smit 
 ten with disease and tortured by suffering, he could yet 
 exclaim, "What! shall we receive good at the hand of 
 God, and not receive evil? The Lord gave and the Lord 
 hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. 
 . . . Yea, though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." 
 
 faith sublime! O trust that failed not nor ques 
 tioned the righteousness and the goodness of God! There 
 was no spiritual darkness there; no doubt of the divine 
 beneficence; no selfish complaining; no plea for humanity 
 from evil on account of his own uprightness, but a faith 
 born of spiritual knowledge, that God would do right, 
 and though the dealings of His providence were dark, 
 yet he would not question His right to do with him as 
 He pleased. He looked beyond the darkness of time to 
 that eternal day when, standing face to face with his 
 Maker, he would know and understand what the divine 
 purpose had been, and he believed that when that was 
 made fully manifest he could rejoice and triumph in the 
 love of God. 
 
 Men sometimes need to be taught just such lessons of 
 trust in their Heavenly Father. What virtue is there 
 in trusting God when all is serene, and life moves on 
 witn nothing to mar our hopes or to try our faith? Is a 
 faith that is never tested apt to grow strong? Is a love 
 that is never tried as likely to grow perfect as that which 
 is and yet endures? 
 
 There are many ways in which the trials and sorrows 
 of life are made blessings to the children of God. First 
 of all, they bring us into closer relationship with Him. 
 When His hand is heavy upon us, then we feel the need 
 of His help and the insufficiency of earthly things. And 
 if we call upon Him then, He draws near to us by His 
 spirit. "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be 
 comforted." There is not a sorrowing Christian but has 
 felt the fullness of that comfort and the richness of sus 
 taining grace. 
 
 "The Lord loveth whom He chasteneth," and He re 
 veals that love in times of affliction, when life seems dark 
 and its burdens too heavy to be borne. It is like the 
 sunlight which breaks through the rifts in the dark 
 clouds, full of warmth and brightness, telling of the 
 glory that shall come when the storm has passed and the 
 clouds all rolled away. 
 
 How near Christ came to Mary and to Martha at the 
 grave of Lazarus ! What j oy there must have been in 
 the sense of His tender and compassionate love when 
 "Jesus wept!" What a sense of His divine power and 
 goodness when the stone was rolled away and His voice 
 was heard, saying, "Lazarus, come forth!" 
 
 And we need sorrow sometimes, so that the great stone 
 of unbelief maybe rolled away from our hearts, and that 
 the voice of His love may reach our dull ears, bidding 
 us to come forth from our worldliness into the light of 
 duty and faith and worship. We need to be made to 
 sit at His feet and learn of Him that we may find rest. 
 
 Once there was a mother who had a little son full of 
 winning ways and happy laughter, who was the delight 
 of her eyes and the idol 01 her heart. He was amiable 
 and affectionate unless his strong will was crossed, and 
 then he rebelled and yielded to an unbridled temper. 
 
 252 
 
 But the mother saw no fault in him and was ready to 
 yield to his most unreasonable demands. At last the 
 little boy fell sick, and to all appearances lay dying in 
 his mother s arms. Then all the rebellious spirit in that 
 mother s heart was aroused, and she said to the physi 
 cian: "My darling must die, you say? I tell you he 
 shall not die. God shall not take him from me. He shall 
 live. He shall live!" 
 
 To the surprise of every one the dying boy rallied and 
 his feet came up from the banks of the river, and health 
 returned. He grew to manhood, but it was a dishonest 
 manhood, stained by crime, and he met his end upon the 
 gallows. "Oh," said the poor mother, "Oh, that he had 
 died when lie was an innocent child in my arms! But I 
 rebelled against God s will, and He gave me my will. Oh, 
 my son, my son ! your blood is upon my head. God 
 would have taken you from the evil to come, but I would 
 not give you up. I defied Him, and now my sorrow is 
 greater than I can bear." 
 
 Ah! God s ways are best! Let us ever bear this in 
 mind, and let us ever yield our wills to His will. He does 
 not willingly grieve or afflict us, but He sees the end 
 from the beginning, and when His providences are dark, 
 let us remember that behind them "He hides a smiling 
 face." Then will our trust grow and our faith in God be 
 strong. Life s burdens will never be too heavy for us to 
 bear, for the Lord, even our God, will be our comforter. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 "REJOICE! REJOICE!" 
 
 Does it -not strike you as something very strange that 
 there may be found in God s kingdom such a personality 
 as an unhappy Christian? And yet there are hundreds 
 of them. Where does the fault lie"? Is it with us or with 
 God? What is our Heavenly Father s word to us? "Re 
 joice, again I say unto you, rejoice." Does He mean 
 this when He commands it, or is He laying upon us a 
 command that it is utterly impossible for us to fulfill? 
 That is not like our Heavenly Father. His commands 
 are always given with a purpose, and with the promise 
 of grace sufficient to enable us to obey them. Where 
 does the trouble lie, then? If not with God, then it must 
 be with ourselves. If we look into our own hearts we 
 shall find it there, and it is wrapped up and hidden in 
 the napkin of distrust. Not that the earnest Christian 
 conscientiously distrusts his Heavenly Father! It would 
 shock him if you should tell him that he did, but still 
 he does it. 
 
 Let us look at the case very carefully. Here is a 
 Christian who loves God. There is no doubt of that. 
 He would not be tempted to give up his love for Christ 
 for the whole universe. But there is something in the 
 past, perhaps, that he cannot forget. His whole lan 
 guage is, "Oh, if I could undo that past; could blot out 
 the memory of the wrong that I did, then I coulci be 
 happy." And all the while the tender voice of the Re 
 deemer is saying, "I have put thy transgressions behind 
 me, and thy sins are covered; rejoice always, and again 
 I say unto thee, rejoice!" 
 
 These mistakes and shortcomings of ours teach us many 
 lessons which we need to learn. First of all, they bring 
 to us a sense of our dependence upon God s grace. They 
 teach us how vain it is to rely upon our own strength, 
 our own righteousness, and while we sorrow that we have 
 erred, we should be filled with rejoicing that we have 
 One who is mighty to save and ready to forgive. Oh, 
 if we could only learn to put all our past behind us, 
 as God does when we turn to Him, and to remember 
 
Easter Morn. 
 
 only that lie pardons and covers all of our transgressions, 
 how easy would it be for us to "rejoice in the Lord al 
 ways," and losing sight of the things which are behind, 
 press forward and onward and upward to a higher life. 
 
 Then another reason for Christian rejoicing is this: 
 "we are heirs, joint heirs with Christ, to a heavenly in 
 heritance," and if we have not so very much of this 
 world s goods, we have that "heavenly inheritance" await 
 ing us which includes all good, all glory and fullness and 
 happiness. 
 
 "Joint heirs with Christ;" how can such a one be poor? 
 Are not those eternal riches far better than the decaying 
 wealth of time? Should we not rejoice forevermore at 
 the assurance of that heavenly inheritance? 
 
 Then another thing in which the Christian should re 
 joice is the assurance that when he enters into that 
 heavenly inheritance he will leave behind him his sinful 
 nature, all the dross of earth, all his tendency to err. 
 That is the great beauty of salvation our escape from 
 sin. It is not escape from danger that the Christian 
 considers so much as escape from sin. That is the one 
 awful and appalling reality that confronts us here, and 
 it is only through God s grace that we find any escape 
 from it. But that opens a path all luminous with His 
 love, all bright with mercy, through which we may walk 
 and be saved. 
 
 And heaven may come to us here in doing God s 
 will, in following in the footsteps of the Master who 
 "went about doing good." What we want is a vitalized 
 Christianity, one instinct with love to humanity, such 
 as springs from love to God. Let us put Christ between 
 us and all the sorrows and the burdens of our life, cling 
 to His promises, walk in His footsteps, minister to the 
 needs of others, and forever keep our ears open to that 
 blessed assurance that "all things shall work together for 
 the good of those who love God;" and then shall we be 
 able to obey the command that Christ, our elder brother, 
 has laid upon us, "Rejoice; again I say unto you, re 
 joice!" 
 
 XXV. 
 EASTER MORN. 
 
 The centuries move onward down the path of time, na 
 tions rise and fall, and the memory of great men grows 
 dim as the ages slip into the dead past which engulfs 
 all things human. But as precious to the world today 
 as it was almost nineteen hundred years ago is that im 
 mortal morning when the Conqueror of Death rose from 
 His stone-hewn sepulcher as the first Easter dawned upon 
 the world. 
 
 The great city of Jerusalem slept. Its busy streets 
 were still silent. The high priest and the members of 
 the Sanhedrim were hushed in slumber, and Pontius Pilate 
 lay undreaming of the gladness of that resurrection 
 morning which was breaking upon the surrounding hill 
 tops, upon the temple s spires and the whole sleeping 
 world. Perhaps in his troubled dreams Pilate might still 
 have seen the noble and untroubled face of the Christ 
 whom he had delivered, even against his better judg 
 ment, to be crucified, for the sense of wrong must have 
 continually haunted him. "I find no fault in him," was 
 the language of Pilate, yet he gave him over to the rabble, 
 to the Cross to cruel crucifixion. O day of shame! 
 well might the sun hide its head in darkness and the 
 trembling earth quake in that moment of horror; and yet 
 there were redeeming features to that hour, such as lifted 
 
 humanity nearer God than ever it had risen before. 
 Have we ever considered how marvelous was the faith 
 of the thief upon the Cross? There was one who claimed 
 to be divine and infinite in heaven, yet dying at the 
 hands of a merciless rabble, suffering the same condem 
 nation as the sinful malefactor. Yet such was his 
 bearing that faith blossomed like a flower in the breast 
 of the dying thief, and there amid the agonies of death 
 his lifted eyes were fixed upon the Christ and his lips 
 gave utterance to his dying prayer: "Lord, remember me 
 when Thou comest into Thy kingdom." O dying thief! a 
 faith like thine is sufficient unto salvation. Christ s 
 heart must have been comforted with love like this. The 
 faith of the Disciples did not die, though He whom they 
 worshiped was laid away in the tomb. The doubting 
 Thomas was there, it is true, but Peter and Mary were 
 early at the sepulcher. His life had left its divine 
 impress upon them, and the blessed Master, they be 
 lieved, was mightier than Death and would yet prove to 
 the world that He had made no false claims. 
 
 But still the awful silence when He was laid away in 
 that new-made sepulcher with the great stone rolled 
 against its mouth. How heavily upon their hearts fell 
 the measured tread of the sleepless sentinels! How long 
 the hours of day and night as they passed in weary suc 
 cession! Day and night, day and night! Oh, anxious, 
 listening ears, is there no sound to be heard in the 
 tomb of the Crucified no movement where He sleeps? 
 Day and night pass and the city goes about its duties 
 and its pleasures unmindful of the late tragedy upon 
 Calvary. Men laugh in careless mirth, and imperial 
 Romans think only of power, and dream of an even 
 grander future. The sentinel s tread is ceaseless at the 
 tomb. The unbelieving Jew would guard against de 
 ception and would make sure that none of Christ s 
 many disciples steal the body and proclaim to the world 
 that their Lord had risen. But a mightier power than 
 that of imperial Rome or Jewish people is there. The 
 dawn neared slowly in the purple east on that first 
 day of the week after the Lord had died. The sun had 
 not yet risen when from the blue of heaven the angels 
 came, and with their own hands rolled back the great 
 stone from the door of the tomb. Back swung its 
 heavy weight, and into the still morning walked the risen 
 Lord. Then, fairer than the glory of the approaching 
 sun, shone man s hope of immortality. Despair died 
 when redemption was wrought. Mightier than death or 
 sin was He who died to save a sinful world. Xo longer 
 is human hope clouded, for the risen Christ brings life 
 and immortality to light. Well may we greet the day 
 with joy and thanksgiving, for no longer is death the 
 king of terrors; no longer the grave a pathway of dark 
 ness and despair, but the highway through whose portals 
 the Redeemer passed before us, lighting all the way with 
 the sun of His love. 
 
 Then welcome the beauty of the Easter dawn. Let 
 Faith gather new strength and Hope spread her pinions 
 for a nobler flight. Life blossoms into larger meaning 
 and time leads on to an eternity of joy. Through Christ 
 eternal life is made glorious. All the long, eternal years 
 are crowned with the brightness of immortality. In the 
 "green pastures beside the still waters" with this liv 
 ing, risen Christ may His children walk while He unfolds 
 to them Creation s wonders and the immensity of in 
 finite love. 
 
 "O Easter dawn! the glory of thy light 
 Through ages streams; the gladdened earth 
 Rejoices in hope of the immortal birth, 
 
 And heaven s celestial shores burst on our sight." 
 
 253 
 
Sermons. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 THE GRAND ILIAD OF TIME. 
 
 Nature is, in many ways, a powerful preacher, far 
 more eloquent than human lips. If our ears are properly 
 attuned we recognize in its various language the voice 
 of God speaking to us from tree and flower, from the 
 blade of grass, as well as from the mighty ocean and 
 majestic uplift of mountains. There are certain phases 
 of Nature which reveal to us not only the grandeur of 
 divine character, but its benevolence as well. They bring 
 us face to face with the manifestation of God s care for 
 us, His thought fulness for the higher needs of man s 
 nature. He might have made the world bare of loveliness, 
 and furnished it in such a way as to have answered only 
 the requirements of our actual necessities. But He did 
 not do that. He implanted within the human soul the 
 love of beauty, and then with His own hand He supplied 
 that which answers to that love and is thrilled and 
 gladdened by it. When Moses, the servant of God, 
 standing amid the awful silence of the desert, in the 
 vicinity of Mount Horeb, saw the burning busn, and 
 that it was not consumed, he felt that God was in that 
 place. So we feel the presence of an almighty power 
 in the sublime grandeur of lofty mountains, in the voice 
 of the mighty cataract or the greatness of earth s encir 
 cling seas. 
 
 There are many chapters in the volume of Nature, each 
 of which teaches us a different lesson. The chapter on 
 beauty is marvelous, and is written in the warm colors 
 of the sunset, in the alphabet of the flowers, in the 
 perfection of each blade of grass, the different leaf of 
 each shrub and tree, the gleam of the shining waterfall; 
 in rounded hills and sleeping vales, and in the kaleido 
 scopic glory of ever-shifting lights and shadows. But 
 the chapter on God s omnipotence is the grand Iliad of 
 time. In this State we find it written with an alphabet 
 of sky-towering Sierras ; of great cataracts leaping thous 
 ands of feet through the shining air; in a Yosemite 
 which is the wonder of the world, with its granite domes, 
 its cathedral spires, and its carved granite walls which 
 rise upward like a rocky firmament. No intelligent 
 person can look upon the wonders of that valley, cradled 
 amid that wilderness of mountains, and yet believe that 
 it is the work of blind Chance, for the power of God 
 is graven upon that eternal granite, and the voice of 
 Deity echoes unceasingly in those waterfalls that seem 
 dropping from the skies. 
 
 Look on those granite domes, lifted a mile upward 
 into the bending heavens, the far skies resting upon their 
 crests, and the clouds mantled about their shoulders when 
 the storm draws near. They do not speak to us of a 
 blind and soulless chance, "but of omnipotent power. 
 They are the eloquent priests of Nature, whose voices 
 are never silenced, proclaiming the infinite and immutable 
 God. The summer lightnings play about their crests with 
 forked tongues of flame, gleaming like the burning bush 
 of Horeb. The pillar of cloud is above them, and thun 
 ders like those of Sinai sometimes make the wilderness 
 to tremble. 
 
 But in the midst of all this sublimity God s benevolence 
 and love for us is seen, for He has mingled beauty such 
 as gladdens the heart with this awe-inspiring grandeur. 
 He has spanned the waterfalls with rainbows ; sown the 
 valley with wonderful wild-flowers; carpeted it with the 
 richest emerald and filled it with the melody of innumer 
 able birds. Millions of bright-winged butterflies sport 
 in the sunlit air, and the full-rhythmed voice of the 
 crystal river is never hushed. Fed by the eternal snows 
 of the vast heights above it, its melodious flow is unceasing, 
 and it pours a full-voiced anthem resounding with 
 strength and power. At sunset and sunrise those granite 
 
 walls look as if paved with gold and precious stones. 
 They flash back the golden sunbeams and look like vast 
 altars of flame. Like modern Sinais or lofty Horebs, 
 they shine with the light of God s presence, and it would 
 not seem strange to hear the command of old: "Take 
 thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou 
 standest is holy ground." 
 
 This omnipresent, omnipotent God who rules the universe 
 is shadowed forth and revealed in all things. Even the 
 poor Indian sees His smile in the sunlight and feels His 
 breath in the welcome summer breeze. He dreams of 
 the happy hunting-grounds beyond the shadows of Time, 
 and lifts hopeful eyes to the shining sun, which shall 
 light his footsteps thither. How much more should we, 
 in the clear light of Faith, look forward to that rest 
 which remaineth for the people of God, beholding in all 
 things, as we may, an ever-present Father, the God of 
 Nature and the God of man, who so cares for us that 
 even the very hairs of our heads are all numbered, 
 and not a sparrow falleth to the ground without His 
 knowledge. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 WHEN HARPS WERE HUNG UPON THE 
 WILLOWS. 
 
 "By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down, yea we 
 wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps 
 upon the willows in the midst thereof. For they that 
 carried us away captive required of us a song, and they 
 that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one 
 of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord s 
 song in a strange land." 
 
 Is there anywhere in the English language a more pa 
 thetic and forcible expression of homesickness than is 
 found in the words above quoted? God s captive people 
 were strangers in a strange land, and their hearts, as 
 they sat by these foreign streams, heard no melody in 
 flowing waters. Their tinkling drops, as they swept on 
 in silvery cadences, were to them but an undertone of 
 sorrow, reminding them of the distance lying between 
 them and their beloved Zion. Oh, for the deep, full an 
 them of Jordan s waters, or the melody of the brook 
 Kedron, whose clear waters flowed between the holy city 
 and the base of Olivet. The blue skies of the Holy Land 
 gleamed fair within their memories. Their hearts held 
 the fragrance of its blossoming fields and the glory of 
 its summer beauty, and their harps were untouched and 
 hung upon the bending willows, as they said one to an 
 other: "How shall we sing the Lord s song in a strange 
 land?" 
 
 And we are strangers in a strange land, and are 
 journeying to that better country, if we are Christians, 
 where Our Father dwells, where are our houses not made 
 with hands, to that city which "hath no need of the sun, 
 nor of the moon, for the glory of God doth lighten it." 
 
 That better country! do our hearts ever go out in long 
 ing for its rest and peace and sinlessness? Do we wish 
 more of that divine presence to illumine and brighten 
 our spiritual lives, and make us ready to see Our Father 
 face to face in the land where we may dwell forever in 
 His presence? 
 
 The Christian should not be content with this earth 
 life alone. He should not regard this world as his 
 home, but he should forever keep in his heart that love 
 for heaven that shall actuate all his desires and kindle 
 his most blessed hopes. The glory of the ancient Zion 
 and the grandeur of its sacred temple have all departed, 
 but our Zion will not fade, nor its beauty vanish. If we 
 are led captive by sin, let us turn our faces toward that 
 
 254 
 
Humility, Hope and Duty. 
 
 New Jerusalem, and tune our hearts to fresh praise. Then 
 will the glory of that land be wafted into our lives here. 
 Then may we journey in gladness while the airs of heav 
 en are borne to us, and the clear vision of faith enables 
 us to behold its walls and towers, and its streets of gold. 
 Then may our heart.-, be filled with singing and our lips 
 with praise. "Homeward Bound," is the song which we 
 may sing, while the chains of sinful captivity slip down 
 ward, and our hearts are made free by the love of God. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 HUMILITY, HOPE AND DUTY. 
 
 I have been looking today at the beauty of the sun 
 shine as it touches the earth, gilding with its golden light 
 the waving grass, the fragrant flowers and the swaying 
 leaves. The world is made very beautiful by it, and all 
 its charms are revealed. So is it with God s love in our 
 hearts. Life is illuminated by it, our natures expand 
 under its influence, life broadens and deepens, and 
 through it we take hold upon infinity. What is worthless 
 drops away from us and what is noble and grand be 
 comes a part of our very being. There is nothing worth 
 less that is born of love. There is nothing unholy 
 that springs from it. It is the regenerating power of the 
 universe, the spring of all excellence and purity, the 
 source of all good. 
 
 Love is without limitations, without self-seeking, al 
 ways exalting that which it loves. As the sun sweeps 
 from the earth its vile miasmas, so love sweeps from our 
 hearts all the vileness of human depravity, and the 
 poisonous mists of sin. It lifts us out from self into the 
 atmosphere that God breathes, and is the great key that 
 unlocks the door of human progress. Without it we 
 grovel; with it we take wings and tend upward, and 
 heavenward. 
 
 It is love which is the soul of life; without it we may 
 exist, but we do not live. And what is being worth un 
 less it broadens? Is that life worth living which em 
 braces nothing more than mere existence, without one in 
 telligent heart-beat, one throb of the soul? Is that life 
 worth living which does not make the world better be 
 cause it has been lived, and God himself richer in the 
 sum of human goodness? Ah, but you say, dear reader, 
 "I am poor and humble, the world will not take note of 
 what I do." But do you not remember that God will 
 take note of it, and that all of right living helps to swell 
 His treasury of human remembrances? We have read in 
 His word of the poor widow who cast into His treasure 
 the "two mites," which God held to be worth more than 
 all the offerings of the rich, because they were sanctified 
 by love. The great world was dear to her heart and she 
 longed to do what she could for its uplifting, and the 
 "two mites" were "all her living." What a grand, un 
 selfish nature was hers, and the story will be told to all 
 the ages. Love, infinite love, holds her higher than the 
 monarch upon his throne, and all the eons of eternal 
 years will be sweeter for the incense of her sacrifice. 
 
 Ah, the greatest thing in the world is love, for it leads 
 us to give the best that we have and are to God and 
 the world. 
 
 It was love to God, and love for holiness that led to 
 the self-abasement of the publican, and led him as he 
 stood alone in the temple to smite upon his breast and 
 cry aloud, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." And out 
 of that humility, that love for the right, a noble man 
 hood was born, and a grander spirituality evolved, and 
 that man went down from the temple to the daily duties 
 and cares of life "justified" with God. 
 
 This justification by faith is another of the fruits of 
 love, for there can be no faith without love, no taking 
 
 hold of God s promises, which are like supports thrown 
 across every abyss of life, every hard place which our 
 wayward feet have to tread. 
 
 If love is the atmosphere that we breathe, how life 
 brightens for us! When we think of self alone, life seems 
 hard and sorrowful, for there is nothing that makes one 
 feel so lonely as to stand face to face with self and dwell 
 upon its needs and longings. But if we consider God s 
 love for us we do not feel lonely, for it is great enough 
 to fill our hearts, to satisfy all of our desires. Human 
 love is sweet, but still we must have something more than 
 that to fully satisfy. The immortal within us calls out 
 for the immortal. It is not earth, but heaven, that can 
 satisfy. 
 
 But the beautiful thought comes home to us that 
 the path of duty, however hard, leads straight to 
 love and happiness. The road is white and shining at 
 the end, even if it be dark and thorny at the outset. 
 The lions in our way are like those which Christian saw 
 before the door of the Interpreter s house, without power 
 to hurt us. Love has chained them and will not let them 
 harm us. Even here we may have visions of the Delect 
 able Mountains which lie onward in our paths and the 
 Beulah Land we may yet reach. Let us believe that God 
 is good, and infinite, and loving, and ready to give us 
 all tilings if we but trust Him. "Like as a father pitietli 
 his children, so the Lord pitietli those that fear Him." 
 And God s pity is tender and it will make every hard 
 place smooth if we but trust in its infinite fullness. 
 
 "I may not draw aside the mystic veil 
 That hides the unknown future from my sight, 
 Xor know if for me waits the dark or light, 
 But I can trust. 
 
 "I have no power to look across the tide, 
 To know while here the land beyond the river; 
 But this I know, I shall be God s forever, 
 So I can trust." 
 
 XXIX. 
 WEALTH AND BEAUTY EVERYWHERE. 
 
 Life is full of wealth, and greatness and beauty, if 
 we only take it in its largeness and perceive all that it 
 holds for us. First, and highest of all things, is God s 
 love for us, reaching out into all of our experiences if 
 we are His children. Can you imagine God forgetting 
 for one moment the children of His love? Did He for 
 get, the thread of life would snap and somewhere into 
 the vastness of the universe we should slip, being blotted 
 out forever. But there is not a moment of our exist 
 ence that does not hold God s thought for us, and that 
 is not vital with His love. 
 
 And that love of God is more than all things else. It 
 holds for us joy and peace and the perfection of beinp. 
 Heaven may be here upon earth if we have God s 
 presence and that communion with Him which is the 
 birthright of His children. "Nearer, My God, to Thee, 
 Nearer to Thee!" this should forever be our prayer, and 
 the strength of our desire. And no such longing will 
 be unanswered, for with it God s presence will envelop 
 us like the atmosphere, and His spirit will overshadow 
 us, and make the sunlight of our souls. 
 
 Then how much of natural beauty there is in the world 
 about us, and can that soul grow sordid whose eyes are 
 open to behold it? How many tongues it finds in trees, 
 how many voices amid the flowers. The little blades of 
 grass, swaying in the soft summer breezes, seem to whis 
 per, "God" is here;" the bird-song is full of melody that 
 tells of heaven. There is nothing sordid in Nature. She 
 is large-hearted and she is continually giving of her 
 largess to those who love her. The sun shines not for 
 
 255 
 
Lay Sermons. 
 
 the earth alone, but for you and me. It shines that our 
 eyes may behold beauty and our lives feel its nurturing 
 warmth and light. The stars twinkle in the firmament 
 and reveal to us the infinity of creative power, and from 
 these pages of nature we learn lessons of humility and 
 of love. "When I consider the heavens, which are the 
 work of Thy fingers, the moon and stars, which Thou 
 has ordained, what is man that Thou are mindful of 
 him, and the Son of Man, that Thou visitest him?" Then, 
 pondering this, hear the final and triumphant assurance 
 of the Psalmist: "Thou hast made him [man] a little 
 lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and 
 honor." But, remember, all these starry worlds shall 
 perish, but he shall still endure. There is no death for 
 his soul if he is Thine. O Father, Thy love crowns him 
 with immortality; limitless life stretches before him, and 
 no power can take from his lips the cup of knowledge. 
 There is forever the rich unfoldment of God s power and 
 goodness for him to study. He is not a thing apart from 
 nature but he stands at the head of the long line of 
 created things, the crown and glory of them all, the in 
 telligent link between the divine and the universe, which 
 He has created. 
 
 Situated thus, is not life worth living? Is it not full 
 of grandeur, and may it not be made rich in all things 
 to be desired? If life is a failure is not the fault ours? 
 But can any life be a failure that io hid in Christ, that 
 is inspired by love to Him and blessed by His mercy? 
 O Christian ! never despair. Cling to the cross of 
 Christ, where all earth s burdens slip from us. Fight 
 the good fight of faith, and finish your course with re 
 joicing. Life is good with the love of God to cheer us 
 and with His promises for our rest. Do your part and 
 Goa will do His, and through him you shall triumph over 
 all evil, and the blessedness of eternal being and eternal 
 peace and gladness shall be yours. Live near to Him 
 here, and there you shall see Him face to face and your 
 life shall be without a cloud, forever bright in the sun 
 light of His forgiving mercy. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 LEND A HAND. 
 
 Grander than any book that has ever been written, 
 mightier in its influence for good, is noble, well-rounded 
 character. The man who possesses such a character is a 
 man who opens his eyes to the needs of the age in which 
 he lives, and who is earnest in his efforts to help answer 
 those needs. One of the most decisive duties required 
 of us is that we should serve our own generation. We 
 read of David, in Acts xiii, 36: "For David, after he had 
 served his own generation by the will of God, fell on 
 sleep." He did the required work of the time in which 
 he lived. He did much for his country and for his peo 
 ple. He was a man of intellectual and spiritual strength, 
 and he was called to the throne at a time when the na 
 tion was waking up to a sense of its unnumbered de 
 ficiencies. Intellectually and spiritually what vast strides 
 forward it made while he was upon the throne! What 
 an uplifting of literature and poetry! The sweetest 
 psalms the agjs have ever heard were penned by him, 
 and from the influence of his example and teachings came 
 to the Jewish people a richer manhood and a better gov 
 ernment. 
 
 And the duty of every one of us is "to serve his own 
 generation." And how can we do this? Not alone by 
 giving of our wealth to the church and the state, and to 
 philanthropic purposes, but, first and greater than this, 
 we must give ourselves. It has been truly said that "the 
 
 most valuable thing a man can bestow upon his age or 
 his native land is himself, provided always he is good for 
 anything. And the best service a man can render his 
 church, or city, or town is to throw the light of a fresh, 
 God-inspired personality upon it." 
 
 Who of us has ever proved to the uttermost his 
 powers? Who of us has tested the limits of his possi 
 bilities, or measured the extent of influence? Or who 
 of us considers continually the fact that we shall be held 
 responsible not only for what we do, but for that which 
 we might do and yet do not? 
 
 How many of us realize the solemnity of living? We 
 talk of the solemnity of death, but there is nothing to 
 be dreaded in dying if we have lived right. It is right 
 living that determines for us a happy future, and death 
 is but the open door for us then to a better tomorrow. 
 What our life here is for, is to serve God and humanity. 
 We want to serve our own generation, and through it all 
 coming ones. We must strive to help others climb the 
 lofty Pisgahs of high purposes and of earnest devo 
 tion to duty. The work of our lives is not done when 
 we have made ourselves comfortable, improved the op 
 portunities for our own advancement and won for our 
 selves high place and position, if meanwhile we have kept 
 ourselves aloof from others needs, and failed in helping 
 to benefit society and the world. No one can live unto 
 himself and yet be true to himself and his obligations. 
 
 The cry of this age, as of every age, is for men, 
 earnest, Christ-like men and women ready for the Cross, 
 ready for self sacrifice, and full of brotherly good-will. 
 We stand face to face today with a sorrowing, care- 
 burdened world. Persecution is abroad; want and need 
 and destitution confront us, tyranny has laid its iron 
 heel upon the necks of thousands, and shall we sit su 
 pinely down, caring only for our own pleasure and in 
 different to the work which we might do for others. 
 
 What the world needs today is more earnest consecra 
 tion and stronger purposes. God wants every one of us 
 to " serve his generation," and He will help us to do it 
 if we are ready. What the age requires today is an 
 army of cheerful, willing Christians. 
 
 Said an earnest, thoughtful Christian to me once, "I 
 don t believe that sad men can aid in converting this 
 world, and I don t believe that frivolous men can do it. I 
 think some persons have a sort of gayety because they 
 don t think, because they have never grasped life s 
 mighty issues, nor heard sounding in the chambers of 
 thought the solemn peals of time." What we do need 
 is a cheerfulness like the apostles in their prison cell at 
 Philippi, born of trust in God, of faith in His purposes 
 and of strong Christian courage and determination. A 
 divine cheerfulness, the outgrowth of holy purpose, and 
 the sense of Christ s nearness. 
 
 With such trust and faith in God this generation 
 would come off conquerors and more than conquerors 
 through Him who hath loved us. Let every child of 
 God do his whole duty in serving his generation, and so 
 powerful would be the influence of such lives that wars 
 would cease, persecutions would have an end, and God s 
 kingdom would speedily come. 
 
 Let no one, however humble, refuse to serve his gen 
 eration, and excuse himself by saying, " I have nothing 
 that I can do." 
 
 " Nothing to do, thou Christian soul ! 
 Wrapping thee round in thy selfish state, 
 Off with the garments of sloth and sin; 
 Christ, thy Lord, hath a kingdom to win. 
 Nothing to do! There are prayers to lay 
 On the altar of incense day by day; 
 There are foes to meet within and without ; 
 
 256 
 
The Trials of Life. 
 
 There is error to conquer strong and stout. 
 Nothing to do! There are minds to teach 
 The simplest forms of Christian speech; 
 There are hearts to lure with loving wiles, 
 From the grimmest haunts of sin s defile. 
 Nothing to do! and thy Savior said 
 Follow thou me in the path I tread! 
 Lord lend Thy help the journey through 
 Lest faint we cry, so much to do! " 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 THE TRIALS OF LIFE. 
 
 Why is it that the future life that endless life of the 
 soul takes so little hold upon our thoughts and affec 
 tions? The life which we now live is merely prelimi 
 nary to the great hereafter that is to roll on through the 
 eternal years, grand in its infinity, great and joyous, 
 if we are Christ s because through it all we shall be 
 growing into His image, with an ever-enlarging capacity 
 for happiness. 
 
 Life here has its trials and its limitations. It em 
 braces more of the human than of the divine in its 
 characteristics, but the divine is slumbering within, lying 
 dormant and wakened sometimes only through sorrow. 
 I always look now for the shining garments which sorrow 
 wears underneath her black robes, and when I see them 
 then how quickly does her frowning visage change to one 
 of tender smiles and pity. Sorrow is God s most faithful 
 messenger to us, and she holds the key to His tenderest 
 love and care for us, and behind her I ever hear His 
 gracious voice saying, "My child has wandered from me 
 down the paths of pleasure and of sin, and Sorrow only 
 can bring him to feel his need of me, and so I send her 
 that she may bring back my wanderers into the fold." 
 
 Are you grievously afflicted, and can you see no bright 
 ness for your tears, hear the voice of the Pitying One 
 saying, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." 
 
 "The way is dark, my child, but leads to light; 
 I would not always have thee walk by sight; 
 My dealings now thou canst not understand, 
 I meant it so, but I will take thy hand, 
 
 And through the gloom 
 
 Lead safely home 
 My child ! 
 
 " The path is rough, my child ! But, oh, how sweet 
 Will be the rest for weary pilgrims feet, 
 When thou slialt reach the borders of that land 
 To which I lead thee, as I take thy hand, 
 
 And safe and blest 
 
 With me shall rest, 
 My child! 
 
 "The cross is heavy, child! Yet there was One 
 Who bore a heavier one for thee; My Son, 
 My Well Beloved. For Him bear thine, and stand 
 With Him at last, and from thy Father s hand, 
 
 Thy cross laid down, 
 
 Receive a crown, 
 My child !" 
 
 Our Father! It is that thought which helps us to 
 walk trustingly on through the hard places of life, know 
 ing that He is with us, and that all our burdens He gives 
 us to bear, that we grow stronger in our faith in Him, 
 and feel more deeply our need of being led by His hand. 
 Earthly pleasure never leads us to look up; it never 
 leads to that grand development of the soul which makes 
 the child of God Christlike and strong, heroic in his pur 
 
 poses, and unselfish in his aims. The diamond has to 
 be ground and cut and polished before its true beauty 
 appears, and so God has to work with His children 
 before the genuine beauty of Christian character is 
 made manifest, and all our burdens are but tokens of 
 that love which would bring us nearer to itself and make 
 us meet for our heavenly inheritance, and beautiful in 
 His sight. Let us dwell more upon the life to come 
 that life free from sin, from sorrow, and which is one 
 of constant expansion and growth. All the fullness of 
 infinite life will be open to us there, and the companion 
 ship of our Father and Redeemer. That life will be love 
 with all its sacred fervor and its unselfish delights. It 
 will be constant advancement and the unfoldment of all 
 the powers of the soul. All the wide realms of knowl 
 edge will be open to us; all the blessed companionship of 
 saints and angels; all fear of sin and of death will have 
 forever vanished, and we shall drink of the fullness of 
 
 jy- 
 
 With all this before the Christian, may he not well be 
 patient for a little time with the ills of earth. Let us 
 puc Christ between us and our sorrows, and the shining 
 of His face will rob them of their gloom. Let us listen 
 to His voice as He says: 
 
 " The day goes fast, my child ! But is the night 
 Darker to me than day? In me is light! 
 Keep close to me and every spectral band 
 Of fears shall vanish. I will take thy hand, 
 
 And through the night 
 
 Lead up to light, 
 My child. 
 
 " The way is long, my child ! But it shall be 
 
 Not one step longer* than is best for thee; 
 
 And thou shalt know, at last, when thou shalt stand 
 
 Safe at the goal, how I did take thy hand 
 
 And quick and straight 
 
 Lead to heaven s gate, 
 My child!" 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 CLOSER TO CHRIST. 
 
 "I am the Resurrection and the Life." Down the long 
 ages, wrapped in the silence of the past, do these glori 
 ous words come to us from the lips of our Redeemer, our 
 loving and waiting Savior, to cheer us when we shrink 
 from the thought of death and the grave, and then we 
 feel that if we love Him, as surely as He lives shall 
 we live, and that He will clothe us with immortal glad 
 ness and beauty. Then it is that death loses its terrors; 
 for we do not look upon it as the end of life, but rather 
 as the entrance way to a better life that shall have no 
 
 How much there is in the glad gospel of Christ that 
 brings Him near to us, that makes our souls feel in full 
 est touch with Him, and feel assured that He does not 
 stand apart from us. We feel, as we read His words, 
 tnat we have His sympathy, His tender and comprehend 
 ing love, and that" He never forgets us. The sense of 
 loneliness slips from our lives, and we never feel that we 
 walk alone. 
 
 Thus knowing Christ and loving Him, the feeling of 
 strangeness and unreality, which many have, of the life 
 beyond, slips from us, and we look forward to death as 
 to a home-going, where we shall find our best friend He 
 who has redeemed us from sin, and made us heirs with 
 Him to a heavenly inheritance. 
 
 How many there are who pray to God as to some one 
 afar off. I heard a poor soul say the other day, "Oh, I 
 want to be saved, I want to live for Christ, but He 
 
 257 
 
Lay Sermons. 
 
 seems so far away I cannot realize that He hears me; I 
 cannot form any conception of God such as enables me 
 to pray to Him understandingly." 
 
 Dear friend, take home to your heart just this one 
 truth, and do not try to go any further just now: 
 "God is Love." Isn t that enough? Is not love always 
 ready to hear, always ready to bless? Is not love tender 
 and forgiving? Is not love always ready to take us to 
 its great heart and wrap our lives round with joy, and 
 hope, and blessings? Need we ever be afraid of love, 
 or shrink from it? With our lives filled with it, how can 
 they be other than glad? This is the God we want the 
 God who is love. We need not try to comprehend any 
 thing more of the character than this when we go to 
 Him, but in our daily companionship with Him, He 
 will reveal Himself more fully to us as a God of justice 
 and of mercy, and of infinite power. Blest is that soul 
 who sees in Him. "Our Father." Where our Father 
 is we do not hesitate to go, for it is home. 
 
 It is death that takes us home into His immediate, vis 
 ible presence, but we may be at home with Him here, 
 for He is ready to dwell in our hearts, and though our 
 earthly eyes may not behold Him, we may feel His pres 
 ence and know that He is near, and at all times, in the 
 midst of sorrow and of trial, and all the changing scenes 
 of life, we may hear His voice saying, "It is I; be not 
 afraid." 
 
 Walking with Christ this it is which makes life 
 beautiful and glad, which takes away the sting of death 
 and fills us with undying hope and joy. Read your 
 Bibles and you will find Christ there revealed in charac 
 ters of light. Always ready to help the needy; never 
 turning from the sinner, and often raising the dead, 
 bringing joy again to houses of mourning and sorrow, 
 and forgiving sins. And, remember, dear reader, that 
 this Christ is our Christ, "the same yesterday, today and 
 forever." Accept Him and you will find joy even in 
 sorrow, and in death, life everlasting. 
 
 "We cannot see our Lord unless we die; 
 This mortal must take immortality. 
 To his own heaven He has gone away, 
 But bade us follow thither day by day. 
 
 "One moment! then shall I be changed and see 
 My Lord, turning with love to look on me? 
 Now sinful, all afraid, with vision dim. 
 Shall I awake in heaven beholding him? 
 
 "Ye angels! roll for me the stone away, 
 My sepulcher hath light and joy today. 
 His spirit softly whispers, passing by, 
 Ye cannot see your Lord unless ye die." 
 
 258 
 
THE SAUNTERER. 
 
 WE have had a touch of hot summer weather, .and 
 yes, I must confess it Los Angelenos have 
 been guilty of the undignified act of perspir 
 ing just like the common herd of humanity. But before 
 we forgot what was ours by right of climatic inheri 
 tance, the hot wave drew off, fans were relegated to their 
 proper places among our unused relics of the past, and 
 smiles and refreshing coolness took the place of frowns 
 and anathemas at the unusual state of things, and 
 Southern California was herself again. 
 
 But there is one thing, O army of now defunct grum 
 blers ! that I wish to call your attention to. There was 
 mercy mingled with our discomfort, for even on those 
 days when the noonday sun blazed hottest the heat could 
 not hold the land in its hot grasp throughout the night. 
 At 4 o clock the quivering heat died. Cool, delicious 
 breezes began to creep in from the sea, and the whole 
 heated world felt the thrill of their coming. The mer 
 cury clambered down swiftly from the highest nail on 
 which the thermometer was hung to a point that we 
 could reach with the easiest, softest breathing, and it 
 clasped hands with rest and comfort. And the nights- 
 how full of balm and fragrance, of soft, unheated, de 
 licious air! Slumber found us without trouble. There 
 was no weary tossing, no perspiring restlessness, no oven- 
 like rooms filled with burnt-out air, but our chambers 
 were cool, the night air purified in Nature s vast alembic 
 and made fit to minister to our comfort. 
 
 With such a state of things we are inexcusable if we 
 permit ourselves to grumble at a few hours of midday 
 heat, such as has recently visited us, when the ther 
 mometer dared to climb up amid the nineties, and toy 
 with them as if they were really at home at such ail 
 unnatural elevation and with such figures. Like every 
 thing else that rears itself above its proper sphere, it 
 had to have a fall, and now it is down, down where the 
 cool little sea breezes linger and men are ready to talk 
 of the "best climate that God ever made," and let their 
 hearts bubble over with thankfulness that their lot is cast 
 in a land like this, where the climate generally lets you 
 alone and you feel that simply to be is bliss. 
 
 Nature had a little bit of by-play all her own way 
 on Monday evening, and so unusual was it with us here 
 that we enjoyed it like some grand drama, marvelous 
 and strange, in which is the soul of some great master 
 mind which seeks expression through it in words of fire. 
 As night drew on, light, filmy clouds gathered in the 
 north and east above the high mountain crests. Then 
 all at once came flashes of fire. Heat lightning stirred 
 the soft waves, and from north to south flashed the bright 
 radiance. It was like an ethereal pulse-beat, and little 
 children all unused to the lightning flash looked on in 
 strange surprise. "Oh, mamma," exclaimed one little 
 tot as she sat, clasped in her mother s arms, upon the 
 wide veranda, "Oh, mamma, did God wink his eyes?" 
 
 The Chamber of Commerce rooms are a good place for 
 us to take our visitors, for there we find a full epitome 
 of Southern California productions. It is gratifying to 
 
 our pride to witness the number of exclamation points 
 our eastern visitors require in order to give vent to their 
 surprise at what confronts them there. 
 
 "Why," exclaimed one of them on Monday who was 
 "doing" the rooms, "you can grow anything here that 
 is grown anywnere in the world, can t you? And I 
 never dreamed that oranges and pears grew so big, and 
 olives black olives I never saw any before, and such 
 pumpkins ! I ll believe now the story of 4 Peter, Peter, 
 pumpkin-eater, for surely any woman could hide away 
 in a pumpkin as big as that. It s a revelation to come 
 in here, not only of this productive upper world, out of 
 that great under world beneath the water. What beauti 
 ful shells they are from Catalina, you say can I buy 
 any of these anywhere to take home with me? Such 
 wonderful colors I must have some, for we find nothing 
 like them at home. And the palms how beautiful they 
 are! Oh, Southern California is a lovely land, and I 
 want to come back and make my home here, some time." 
 Thus talked one of the ladies* of Chairman Hooker s 
 party. California was so novel to her. " I can hardly 
 realize that I am in my own country," she said, "every 
 thing here is so different." 
 
 "Yes, but the greatest glory of it all," said The Saun- 
 terer, " is that over us, as over you, waves the Stars and 
 Stripes, the glorious banner of the free." 
 * # * 
 
 The city is donning its fiesta colors, and we shall 
 soon be ready for our grand yearly carnival. Life 
 wakens afresh and pulses along our streets, and throbs 
 tuimiltuously along the pave. Kverything is awhirl, and 
 our hearts are in keeping with the brightness of the 
 season, and bud and blossom are in league with us to 
 make all things lovely. 
 
 What a cosmopolitan city we are! Pass along our 
 streets and you would think that the world had emptied 
 itself into them. Never a chance is there for us to be 
 provincial, for we touch shoulders with people from 
 every land and from every quarter of the globe. 
 
 I could but notice, as I was out one day last week, 
 how true it is that extremes meet in this world of ours. 
 I saw a daintily-dressed little girl, clad in soft and silken 
 stuffs, frilled with choice laces and bright-colored rib 
 bons, herself as dainty as the opening rose. She was a 
 child of fortune, and costly was the pretty ring that 
 flashed in the sunlight from her white and dimpled fin 
 ger. But she was a willful daughter of fortune, and 
 was full of discontent and waywardness, if her will was 
 crossed. 
 
 That same afternoon I sauntered out into the fields, 
 where I saw four happy boys in an old wagon, the bot 
 tom of which was covered with sweet-smelling grass, 
 which they had plucked from the hillside. They were 
 dressed in cotton trousers, which came only to their 
 knees. Feet and limbs were bare below them, and the 
 sun had browned them, and their clothes were old and 
 worn, but never a happier group did my eyes light upon. 
 Their laughter was in tune with the running stream, and 
 their happy faces were as bright as the mellow sun 
 shine. It did me good to see them, and to read the 
 content which was written upon their faces. 
 
HOUSE AND HOME. 
 
 THERE is nothing more suggestive of the "whited 
 sepulcher" than houses with unbroken, white 
 walls, every room spotless and staring at its 
 inmates with that dead, blank whiteness that chills, while 
 it is suggestive of loneliness and vacancy. I am glad 
 that the furore for hard finish and kalsomined walls 
 is giving place to the beautiful decorative work, which, of 
 itself, is a picture that pleases the eye and delights our 
 esthetic sense. I have, now and then, seen walls which were 
 as attractive as paintings which were really works of fine 
 art, never trying to the eye, and against which pictures 
 stood out with all their several points made prominent by 
 the fitting and appropriate background. When it is pos 
 sible, those whose lives are largely spent at home should 
 have the most attractive surroundings. The little home- 
 world should be made to expand into beauty, and it 
 should have the charm of variety. With the story of 
 every work of real art within its walls, the child should 
 be made familiar. Through the Madonnas he should 
 become acquainted with Raphael and Leonardo, with 
 Perugino and Bernardino Luini. Through statuary 
 should be taught to the child the history of sculpture. 
 The names of the great masters should be familiar to him. 
 The history of the ages of art is told in stone. What 
 vast distance lies between the period when a Graeco- 
 Roman school of sculpture was founded and the age 
 when Michael Angelo lived and wrought into marble 
 the suggestion of the Infinite; between the rude paintings 
 of primitive art and the glorious conceptions of the 
 great masters; between the humble alphabet of art and 
 the grand forms, the tragedies and the histories traced 
 by the brush in the hands of the world s renowned 
 painters! Every noble statue, every truthful painting 
 has an educating power over the mind of the child who 
 is trained to interpret its meaning. Of the roof of the 
 Sistine Chapel at Rome one of the most learned men in 
 Europe said: "I have spent thirty years in studying it." 
 The figures painted there are not mere outline and color, 
 but the "mothers of ideas, the embodiment of eternal 
 beings." They are voiceful of intelligence, and seem 
 ready to cry out with human lips. 
 
 Among the fine statuary of today which we find in 
 many homes is the well-known "Rogers statuary." In 
 many of these you find, told in the mute yet powerful 
 eloquence of attitude and expression, some of the most 
 pathetic stories of the War of the Rebellion. Xo in 
 telligent child looking at these but would imagine their 
 meaning. They would be to him a most interesting text 
 book of history. How freely in these, too, are told the 
 idyll of Rip Van Winkle s long slumber and the wonder 
 of his waking! Would the child forget that story after 
 reading it, not only in written words, but from the 
 historic marble? 
 
 A person in these days, when really fine works of art 
 are multiplied by so many processes, can gather to 
 gether, without a very extravagant outlay, a choice col 
 lection of pictures for the home. Photography has done 
 much for art lovers, and one can look upon the world as 
 it is, and upon the duplicates ot the masterpieces of 
 sculpture and architecture through the eye of the stereo 
 scope. Steel engravings and chromos supply pictures 
 that are secondary only to the best productions of the 
 easel, and our walls may be made attractive with these, 
 and full of the lessons of beauty and of story. I have 
 a picture a fine, large engraving that speaks to me as 
 eloquently as the simple story in the gospel of the great 
 tragedy of the Crucifixion. It is a copy of Dante s 
 work, ""Christ Leaving the Praetorium." The whole 
 story of the mockery of that trial before Pilate, of the 
 triumph of his accusers, of the divine forbearance and 
 pity of the godlike sufferer, stands out in the picture 
 like a living reality of today. You forget the ages that 
 have rolled away since the scenes were enacted; forget 
 that perhaps today the winds of the Orient are busy with 
 
 the ashes of the great throng who witnessed the expiring 
 agonies of Calvary, and you face them as if you were of 
 and with them, waiting for the end. 
 
 Into your homes, then, where your children s lives are 
 to be moulded, where they are to be educated and trained 
 for a life of usefulness, bring the beautiful in art, in 
 poetry and song. Let the home-life broaden until with 
 in its atmosphere whatever is best, purest and most sacred 
 shall enter to glorify it. 
 
 Outside of pictures there are a thousand simple ways 
 suggested by an educated taste in which the home may 
 be embellished and beautified. Beauty is not always 
 expensive, and often costs hardly more than the free 
 sunshine or the glory of the flower and tree. Let me 
 suggest a few simple ornaments for the home that cost 
 but little, yet add to its attractiveness. 
 
 An ingenious way to make a pair of vases appear to 
 be larger tnan they really are is to get two blocks of 
 wood, in size and shape about like a quart bowl, leav 
 ing a space large enough to set the vase in and have a 
 little margin; cover them with plush and put one at each 
 end of the mantle. Curious vases of bronze and brass 
 show to good advantage on these little pedestals. The 
 vase must be large enough to give an impression of 
 strength and safety. A round piece of plush may be used 
 to cover them, laying it in plaits where it is necessary. 
 
 A handsome umbrella-stand can be made from three 
 feet of terra-cotta pipe, eight to twelve inches in diame 
 ter. This should oe set upon a turned wooden stand, 
 which is to be painted the same color, or on a brass 
 plate. The latter would, perhaps, be more effective. The 
 stand should be painted with varnish, in colors to suit 
 the taste of the decorator. A stork and a palm tree, a 
 marsh or water scene with a frog leaping across, or a 
 duck flying through the reeds on a river bank, are sug 
 gestions. 
 
 A silk handkerchief can be so arranged as to make 
 one of the daintiest of work bags for holding crochet or 
 knitting. One of pale blue or pink brocade is the pret 
 tiest for the purpose. Lay the handkerchief out flat, 
 turn over to the inside a small portion of each corner, 
 and hem each one down with silk to match. About two 
 inches from the edge, all the way round, sew, as a cast 
 ing, a ribbon half an inch wide, and through this run 
 drawing strings of narrower ribbon, the same color. 
 Trim the edge all round with a fine lace two or three 
 inches wide. The work is placed in the middle of the 
 bag and the strings drawn to gather the bag, thus mak 
 ing the lace ruffle at the top. It will be found much more 
 convenient than any other bag, and remarkably pretty. 
 
 An open grate adds nothing to the attractiveness of 
 the sitting-room in the summer, and it is a positive an 
 noyance if it is closed by the unsightly, black cover; it 
 may have instead of this a pretty Japanese parasol for 
 a cover, or a small screen made of a large round fan, 
 with the handle cut off, with the exception of an inch or 
 two, which should be glued into an opening in a small 
 block of wood. This block may be bronzed or painted. 
 If you care to make a very handsome screen the fan 
 may be used for a foundation simply, and it may have a 
 silk and velvet cover upon which a great deal of effective 
 ornamentation may be lavished. If you choose, some 
 other shape rather than round may be used. 
 
 Panels that are very effective may be made out of the 
 delicately tinted pictures, which are something of the 
 nature of decalcomaine, transferred onto crepe. A beau 
 tiful panel recently seen has two outside pieces of 
 blue plush ten inches long and three wide, with lower 
 ends pointed and finished by a gilt horse-shoe with 
 hanging bells of chenille. The center of the panel is a 
 piece of rose-colored crepe four inches wide, headed at 
 the top by a piece of plush like the outer strips. Upon 
 the crepe a suitable picture has been carefully trans 
 ferred. The lining is stiff, white muslin, and the lower 
 
 260 
 
House and Home. 
 
 edge is finished by a row of silver fringe. A similar 
 panel with a decorated center replaced by a strip of 
 satin harmonizing with the plush, can be made upon 
 millinet, or even thin cardboard foundation, and made 
 to serve a useful as well as ornamental purpose by se 
 curing at the back three or four sheets of blotting paper, 
 which must be several inches shorter and narrower than 
 the outside. 
 
 II. 
 
 The condition of a housekeeper s linen closet is held by 
 many to be the test of her housekeeping. And there is 
 surely no one thing that tends so much to a sense of com 
 fort and completeness and pleasant living as a full supply 
 of napery and bed linen. Of course there are many peo 
 ple who have not been trained to appreciate the value of 
 such things. What money they have to spend, if the 
 supply is not large, they prefer to invest in something 
 that will make more display. They do not appreciate 
 the inherent beauty there is in fine linen, nor its educat 
 ing influence in matters of taste and of beauty. There is 
 a suggestion of easy competency and of cleanliness in 
 the abundance of the linen closet. What is more in 
 viting, when one is weary, than the clean bed made up 
 with fresh linen with just the faintest tint of perfume 
 
 lingering about it the odor of lavender or violet? It 
 awakens a certain sense of delicate refinement and purity 
 such as is not apt to be associated with coarse and illy- 
 laundered cotton bedding. Of course we all know that 
 the finest and best linens come from Ireland, but there 
 are excellent articles in German linen, the weight and 
 
 Duality of which is superior to anything found in the 
 rish linens for the same money. For table linen a very 
 popular article just now among those who cannot afford 
 the finest Irish damask for daily use, is the half-bleached 
 Scotch linen, which is very durable and comes in pretty 
 patterns and designs. This linen is from fifty to sixty 
 inches in width, and at our best houses may be bought 
 for fifty cents per yard, a wonderfully satisfactory price 
 when we take into consideration its width and good quality. 
 I chanced in at a friend s house the other day just 
 at lunch time. The table was spread with the daintiest 
 damask, white French china lay like snowflakes on the 
 linen, the glass was of the best," and sparkled like frost 
 work. There was no display of silver, aside from 
 knives, forks and spoons, yet the table, with its pure 
 linen damask cover, glass and china, was charmingly in 
 viting and appetizing. One could not fail of having 
 a good appetite to sit down at such a table if possessed 
 of any degree of health at all. The manner in which 
 food is placed before us, as we are all aware, has a vast 
 bearing both upon appetite and digestion. 
 
 261 
 
OUR BOYS AND GIRLS. 
 
 DID you ever wonder, like me, what the birds are 
 saying when they sing? I have often wished that 
 I could understand their language. Their song 
 is so full of sweetness that I think it must be full of love 
 and gladness. 
 
 Shall I tell you the story of a little humming-bird who 
 once built his nest so near that I could look down into 
 it from my chamber window? He was a beautiful bird 
 with a coat of dazzling color, and I could hear him hum 
 ming about in the early morning sunshine. One day 
 there came up a heavy shower. The raindrops fell, the 
 bird seized a leaf in his bill and flew with it to his nest. 
 Then he spread it over its top and in some way fastened 
 it down. After the shower I reached out and looked 
 into the nest, and there it was as dry and snug as my 
 own chamber, for not a drop of rain had fallen into it. 
 Don t you wish we could slip a roof onto our houses as 
 quickly as the bird did? 
 
 I was thinking this morning of the little babies that I 
 used to see way up in the Pribylov Isles of the Bering 
 Sea. They were queer little black-eyed babies, with high 
 cheek-bones, and eyes that seemed to have been tipped 
 up edgewise. All the little babies there nave wonderfully 
 big names. There are no little Gracies nor Marys, no 
 little Doras nor Mabels in those islands, but there are 
 little Paraskeevies, Faoklas and Oosteenies among the 
 girls, and Osceps, Alexayes and Lukayleans among the 
 boys. 
 
 But the way the natives fix up those little babies would 
 make you very sorry for them. For six months they 
 are swathed in wide bandages, which are wound round 
 and round their little bodies and their legs till they feel 
 like small logs of wood when you lift them. They can 
 not crow and toss their feet* in delight as our pretty 
 babies do, for they are bound up so tight they can 
 scarcely move at all. This is done to make them straight, 
 but they are no straighter than the boy and girl babies 
 we see in our own homes and who are left free to grow 
 ana toss their little limbs about just as they please. 
 Those people had no cradles for their babies, but when 
 they cried or were sleepy I have seen their mothers 
 sit down on the floor, stretch out their limbs straight 
 before them and lay their babies upon their knees, and 
 by a slight motion, which somewhat resembled rocking, 
 roll their babies back and forth until they fell asleep. 
 I have seen as many as half a dozen mothers sit down 
 on the church floor at one time to "rock" their crying 
 infants. Poor little ones! I used to feel sorry for them, 
 for the church was cold and there were no seats for 
 mother or baby. The mothers used to stand through the 
 long service with their children in their arms if they 
 did not cry, but if they did, down mother and baby 
 would go on the floor, and generally the little one would 
 go to sleep. 
 
 That is better than babies are treated away up in 
 Swedish and Norwegian Lapland. There the poor little 
 swaddled things are put into a hole just outside of 
 church and buried in the snow, in which only a little 
 opening is left, one large enough to give them air to 
 breathe, while their parents go inside the cold church to 
 worship. The babies are warm and comfortable enough 
 here, and they are bound up so stiffly that they cannot 
 wiggle about and get lost in the snow. But I am sure 
 American babies would object very loudly to being 
 treated in this way, and I think that their parents would 
 not hear much of the sermon on account of their cries. 
 
 What a difference there is in the people who live in 
 different countries. And how different they look, too. 
 
 Some are white, some black, some brown, and some are 
 yellow. Some have long, straight black hair; others are 
 almost all of them light and flaxen haired, while the 
 poor negro has woolly locks, twisted into tight curls. All 
 the causes which produce this difference we do not under 
 stand, though I suppose that climate, food and modes 
 of life have much to do with it. 
 
 It is pleasant to visit different lands and to study 
 different people. We can learn much in this way, but 
 I am sure when we return to our own country, if we 
 should go abroad, we should feel that no land was fairer, 
 and none more to be desired than this land over which 
 the Stars and Stripes wave as the glorious banner of 
 Freedom. 
 
 I was out in the woods one day when I came across 
 a charming house-builder. His house was done and he 
 was near by, looking at it with what I regarded as a 
 most contented air. He was a handsome fellow, dressed 
 in the gayest of suits, and as clean and trim as if he 
 had never done an hour s work in his life. His coat 
 was of green and gold, and his vest of the loveliest 
 crimson. He was humming a happy song, and gliding 
 about as if he was too happy to be still. Pretty soon 
 I saw him taking his breakfast, and such a breakfast 
 as it was I am sure it was fit for a king, and he ate 
 it with all the grace that a king could have used. I sat 
 and watched him and thought that I should like to get 
 a taste of his sweets, but he did not seem to be aware 
 of my presence, and so his breakfast was taken alone. 
 But he appeared to be perfectly content without com 
 pany, and I really do not think that he knew what it 
 was to be lonely. 
 
 Do you wonder who my happy house-builder was, who 
 looked so gay about his work? He was not a dude 
 with all of his finery, for his dress, bright as it was, 
 seemed the most proper thing for him to wear, and I 
 am not sure that I should have known him in any 
 other dress. 
 
 Well, I will tell you his name. It was Master Hum- 
 ming-Bird, who lives on the flowers. One would think 
 he never was still when he is not in his nest. It is 
 very rarely that you see him sitting quietly on a branch 
 like other birds. He does not even rest while he is 
 taking his breakfast, but he puts his long bill into a 
 flower and supports himself by his fluttering wings. He 
 hardly seems to fly like other birds, but shoots like an 
 arrow with a sudden start from blossom to blossom. 
 
 Well, as I told you, I came across his nest one morning. 
 I had never seen one before, and I looked at it very 
 curiously. It is the very smallest nest that is made by 
 any bird. Mr. Humming-Bird is not ambitious to have 
 a bigger house than he needs, and he is content to 
 build it just as his grandfather did before him. No 
 bay-windows or verandas does he deem necessary for 
 these modern days, but he builds his round nest and 
 makes it soft and warm inside with down and other 
 things. The outside he generally covers with moss which 
 he gathers from the trees or fences. I wonder if he 
 has any fear that the boys may discover his nest? What 
 made me think that he might have is that he is very 
 careful to make it of nearly the same color as the bark 
 of the branch on which it is built, so that unless you 
 look closely you would hardly be likely to observe it at all. 
 
 It distresses me to see boys who are fond of robbing 
 birds nests. The birds do so much to gladden the world 
 with their beauty and their song, we ought never to molest 
 them. 
 
 262 
 
LIGHTS AND FLASHES. 
 
 IF it were not for the darkness we should know noth 
 ing of the stars. Night reveals immensity of 
 space, while day curtains it from our sight. 
 
 Never teach anything which you fail to practice. 
 Precept without example is the cart before the horse. 
 
 There is not another such inveterate bugbear and 
 mischief-maker in the whole social world as irresponsible, 
 unreliable "They Say." 
 
 There is nothing so destructive to true dignity and 
 self-respect as the habit of constantly watching for 
 slights, and the indulgence of petty resentments for 
 trifling impertinences. 
 
 Human hopes are like wild-flowers, God-given and 
 free. They redeem life from barrenness, and glorify 
 its darkness of sorrow as do night s moon and stars 
 earth s sunless dark. 
 
 Sunlight at the East fills the air on its cloudless days, 
 but it docs not flood it as it does here. It seems as if 
 the very earth were gladder here than on our far At 
 lantic borders. 
 
 It is well, if possible, to form the habit of courageous 
 battling with whatever is adverse to our hopes, aims 
 and pursuits. Look at obstacles only long enough to 
 properly estimate them, then give attention to the de 
 vising of some method to surmount them. 
 
 "Isn t that God a-coming down?" inquired a little tot 
 the other day as she heard the thunder reverberating 
 among the distant mountains. How near to God is the 
 child s thought, and in the mysteries of earth it sees 
 Him. 
 
 A man will work as hard to obtain office as a woman 
 will to get a new shirt waist. 
 
 The evils of life grow as we dwell upon them. What 
 really are slight obstacles, easily surmounted with a de 
 termined will to back us, grow into gigantic barriers if we 
 look at them shrinkingly and with fear. There is no 
 force in Nature more potent than will force. It is the 
 power that moves the universe. 
 
 Self is a terrible idol to worship, for stunted affec 
 tions and neglect of the needs of others are the sure re 
 sult of such idolatry. 
 
 Aim always to do right and then never trouble your 
 self about what the world says of you. 
 
 It is the earth s resurrection time here in California, 
 and the springing grasses are an emerald song writ by 
 the fingers of the sun and rain, and there is added a per 
 fumed interlude of flowers. 
 
 People about us take their color a good deal from the 
 thoughts which we cherish regarding them. If we are 
 always suspicious of evil in them we shall always find 
 more or less in our intercourse with the world for these 
 suspicions to feed upon. 
 
 Our weather croakers are learning that it does not 
 pay to take the anxious seat too early. It is a great 
 deal better to cultivate hopefulness and learn to wait. 
 Nature is not prone to disappoint us here in this land 
 of rich soil and sunshine. The rains have not forgotten 
 to fall, nor the grasses failed to remember how to weave 
 their garments of green. So let us be glad. 
 
 There is no power that is so able to aid us to win suc 
 cess in this life as the spirit of dogged determination. 
 It is unresting, earnest, sure, and nothing but death can 
 come between it and the goal of our ambition. 
 
 "Oh," exclaimed a precious darling the other day us 
 she stood delightedly by a bed of glowing pansies, "I 
 do think there is a little girl in this flower, for don t you 
 see her smile?" Beautiful flower, she found in it a soul. 
 
 Life is about what we make it. Man is the carver of 
 his own destiny, and Providence is always ready to 
 help those who strive to help themselves. It is only the 
 idle and worthless who lay blame for what they are 
 upon society. 
 
 Nature with us here lies now in a state of expectancy, 
 waiting, not as at the East, for death, but for life a 
 royal springtime in the heart of winter. 
 
 It is not years alone which make old age. It is the 
 letting of life s burdens press upon you. He who fights 
 manfully is never weak. He who is buoyant with hope 
 and inspired by a strong, steady purpose, is never feeble, 
 never old. There need be no old age for the spirit, 
 no infirmity of years for the heart. 
 
 We cannot step into greatness or perfect happiness 
 all at once. Discipline comes first, and patient struggles, 
 and unceasing endeavor. Always, all through life, the 
 Cross before the Crown. 
 
 In the lesson taught by contrasts there is an infinity 
 of meaning, and from them we may learn to subdue, as 
 well as much to impel us to nobler efforts. 
 
 Human nature is everywhere the same, and the chil 
 dren of enlightened peoples are, in their natural ten 
 dencies, but "whitewashed savages." 
 
 "Give me the Bible and Shakespeare," some one has 
 said, "and you give me a valuable library." These two 
 contain an epitome of all the most valuable knowledge 
 the world possesses. There is no height nor no depth 
 that is not touched by them. They are the keys which 
 unlock the mysteries of all being and which enable us 
 to probe the profoundest depths of human feeling. 
 
 America has begun to be, what she yet will be in the 
 future in a larger, fuller sense, the teacher of the race. 
 She has taught the world the lesson which monarchs 
 tremble to have to learn the invincible power of a na 
 tion whose people are its king, and she has only to show 
 that she knows how to use the grand triumph which she 
 has achieved over a foreign foe to give to republicanism 
 a prestige among the nations that a century of pro 
 longed peace and prosperity alone would never have 
 secured. 
 
 There is no philosophy like that of a good, consistent 
 life. It is more powerful for conviction than logic; 
 more forcible and persuasive than eloquence, and more 
 harmonious than song. Doubt never voices itself in its 
 presence, and the world never questions its truth. 
 
 I wonder if we do not all have a God, who is in some 
 measure the creation of our own minds? How far can 
 we form the idea of the infinite and incomprehensible 
 without in some measure ascribing to Him attributes 
 which spring alone from our own individual mentality? 
 
 263 
 
THE AUTHOR. 
 
 HER CHARACTER, PERSONALITY, CAREER, LIFE WORK AND DEATH. NOTES 
 
 ON THIS VOLUME. 
 
 IT is a proud and a grateful task that I have 
 undertaken joyous, albeit sad this work 
 of assembling, grouping and editing the con 
 tents of the present volume. 
 
 From the great mass of rich material pro 
 duced by Mrs. Otis in the course of her long and 
 active literary life, covering well-nigh the third 
 of a century, the poems and prose appearing 
 between these covers have been chosen. Dur 
 ing that period she impressed herself deeply, 
 through her facile pen, upon the public mind, 
 heart and conscience. 
 
 A loving and conscientious effort has been 
 made by the compiler and the publishers to clothe 
 these writings in a dress worthy of them. The 
 result is before a critical public. But even had 
 these children of her immortal thought been 
 clothed in typographical rags, they would still 
 be glorious in their strength and beauty. The 
 real honor belongs to the author to her from 
 whose brain and heart and soul came the 
 nobly-expressed and uplifting thoughts now 
 spread anew upon these pages. She reared with 
 her own brain and hands a noble monument to 
 herself. The most that the compiler has been 
 able to do is to reverently perform his part of 
 the delicate task with what judgment, skill and 
 care he could command. 
 
 The versatile quality and wide range of the 
 writings of Mrs. Otis are indicated in some 
 degree by the table of contents, even though it 
 gives only the main divisions, or groupings, 
 under which the matter is presented. Follow 
 ing the several division heads will be found the 
 particular titles of the poems or prose articles. 
 
 The illustrations are not numerous, but are 
 designed to be appropriate, and in some degree 
 historic, rather than merely new. 
 
 The scope of the author s broad mind is 
 notably shown in this book. Her work ranges 
 from noble verse descriptive of fruitful plains, 
 vast forests, mighty mountain gorges and for 
 bidding deserts, to sweet songs in lighter vein, 
 telling of rippling waters, bird-song, lilting 
 grasses and the laughter of innocent children, 
 
 whom she loved so much ; from luminous word- 
 pictures describing wild scenes in frost-bound 
 Arctic regions to flowing stanzas on the climatic 
 allurements of the sensuous South; from gentle 
 child-verse, repeating those old, familiar stories, 
 ever sweet, ever new, which so delight the hearts 
 of the young, to the discussion of practical 
 domestic topics treated over the nom de plume 
 of " Susan Sunshine," and the cheering up of 
 tired housewives and the faint-hearted in all 
 places ; from majestic lines, radiant with patriotic 
 ardor, paying lofty tribute to valor and greatness, 
 and reciting the splendid story of the Nation and 
 the Flag in the strenuous times of war, to the 
 gentle lays of peace ; from dignified editorials and 
 impressive lay sermons to melodious snatches of 
 song ; from graphic narrative in prose and 
 poetry, describing the all-compelling march of 
 Westward Empire, to the unique story of old 
 Mission days in California ; from unnumbered 
 patriotic memories clustering about the Nation s 
 Capital to mystic Memnon and historic Mex 
 ico ; from illuminated Cloud s Rest in our own 
 Yosemite Valley to sky-reaching Mount San 
 Antonio and far-famed Popocatepetl ; from New 
 England s childhood days to the verge of the 
 Great Beyond, seen at last through waiting eyes 
 from these sunset shores. 
 
 Her style was her own ; it was not an imitative 
 style in any sense. She wrote almost invariably 
 in an optimistic vein. Her strong and gentle 
 heart was animated by high courage, hope and 
 faith, buoyed up, even under the stress of en 
 vironment, fatigue and illness, by a perennial 
 cheerfulness by supreme endurance, by a beau 
 tiful devotion to family, home and country, and 
 by a spirit of unselfish sacrifice to duty as she 
 saw it, at all times and everywhere. She was 
 the incarnation of love and loyalty. She had 
 a gracious personality and a joyous nature. 
 
 She loved the Master and followed His foot 
 steps throughout her long and useful life with 
 such trust and steadfastness as made her a woman 
 among women. And yet she loved the things 
 of earth in a healthful and rational way, and 
 
 264 
 
IN 1903. 
 
Personal Sketch. 
 
 was wont to exclaim, with enthusiasm, " This 
 is a beautiful world!" always regarding her 
 brief earth-life as but the beginning of that 
 life which knows neither years, centuries 
 nor eons of time. 
 
 With all her literary industry her devotion 
 to books, to history and literature, to poetry, art 
 and music Mrs. Otis showed in her daily life, 
 first of all, the essential qualities of a good wife, 
 mother, friend, companion and neighbor She- 
 was all of these, and more. She was a patriot, 
 an ardent lover of her great country, and of 
 California, her chosen home for twenty-eight 
 years. She knew the Republic when it was 
 passing through the fiery crucible of Civil War, 
 and saw it emerge triumphant. She was no 
 stranger to camp, battlefield or army hospital ; 
 and I, her husband, who had the honor to march 
 under the Nation s flag in those pregnant and 
 puissant days, and thirty-three years later under 
 the same standard in the Orient, proudly and 
 gratefully acknowledge her quick sympathy and 
 priceless support. 
 
 By a host of citizens, including elders, juniors 
 and all who knew her in life, and many who 
 knew her only through her prolific pen, is her 
 death deplored. I cannot even undertake here 
 to give expression to my own personal loss, or 
 to the loss of the surviving members of my 
 family.* 
 
 After a long, sweet, useful life, punctuated 
 by countless good deeds, she lay down in the 
 sun-swathed " Bivouac " the home she loved 
 so well and died. Her bier was flower- 
 crowned and beautiful ; her speaking face looked 
 as in life ; scores of tear-flooded eyes looked upon 
 it for the last time ; and she was laid under the 
 sweet sod of Hollywood, where she rests well. 
 
 It is not inappropriate for me to quote here 
 what I said of the lost one to my journalistic 
 and business associates upon the occasion of our 
 recent annual meeting in October, 1905: 
 
 A sad duty falls upon me. Death has made a 
 gap in The Times phalanx. I must record here 
 the passing, during the year covered by this 
 report, of one of our choicest spirits. The last 
 call from the mysterious realms came to Mrs. 
 
 * The children of Mrs. Otis are: Mrs. Lilian Otis-Mc- 
 Pherron of Hollywood; Mrs. Marian Otis-Chandler and 
 Mrs. Mabel Otis-Booth of Los Angeles. 
 
 Eliza A. Otis on the I2th day of November, 1904. 
 She passed over to the Other Shore after a long 
 life marked by good deeds, gracious acts and 
 endearing relationships, deeply mourned by her 
 family and friends, by her associates in this jour 
 nal, and by thousands of its readers, many of 
 whom never knew her in her lifetime, but 
 admired her because of the superb pen-work that 
 she did. For twenty-two years she had stood 
 with us in the line of love and duty. She 
 wrought arduously for the upbuilding of The 
 Times, which she loved for itself and served with 
 affectionate enthusiasm served faithfully, ably 
 and well, and for its distinct benefit. She was 
 an owner, and had been a director in the Com 
 pany, and a member of the editorial staff from 
 the beginning. A writer of recognized grace and 
 power, she dealt masterfully with great ques 
 tions questions of home, country, patriotism 
 and humanity. She was also a well-known 
 descriptive prose writer, wielding a facile pen 
 and commanding a graphic and luminous style. 
 Mrs. Otis was perhaps best known as a writer 
 of noble verse, widely recognized as of a high 
 order. She possessed the soul of a poet, and 
 loved to sing the songs which, as a faithful 
 servant of the Master and an ardent lover of 
 Nature, she could not help singing. She knew 
 and loved California, and delighted to describe 
 with an ever-ready pen her unique and manifold 
 charms ; and this she did with peculiar accuracy 
 in countless beautiful lines. She knew Califor 
 nia s sun and sky ; her blithsome airs, her 
 mountains, canons, hills and dales; her trees, 
 grasses and flowers, and her perennial summer 
 time. She possessed a large, lofty, splendid con 
 ception of California, of her possibilities, and of 
 her manifest destiny; and she gave telling 
 expression to that conception on numberless 
 occasions. Possessing a polished mind, a rare 
 intellect, a high soul and an all-embracing 
 human sympathy, she was a rare woman. She 
 bore in her responsive breast a true and tender 
 heart, loving her friends, comrades and com 
 patriots with a deep and abiding affection. She 
 was a noble example of the true woman, wife 
 and mother; and we who survive her, no longer 
 working by her side, may well cherish her sweet 
 memory and gracious deeds as a priceless, an 
 imperishable legacy to those whom she was com 
 pelled by the Great Reaper to leave behind when 
 she set sail on her mysterious voyage to the 
 Undiscovered Country. 
 
 She has gone to bivouac on the shining plains 
 of God ; her unfettered soul dwells with the 
 immortals. Peace be to her precious dust ! 
 Sweet be her final rest ! Forever green be the 
 turf above her honored grave ! Joyous, let us 
 believe, was her waking on the eternal morning ! 
 
 265 
 
Personal Sketch. 
 
 This volume may be appropriately closed 
 with some account of the dedication of the 
 touching memorial a chime of twelve bells 
 recently erected in honor of her who has 
 gone before. The bells are hung in the tower 
 of the chapel at Hollywood Cemetery, where 
 reposes her honored dust. This memorial was 
 created through the reverent and thoughtful 
 efforts of the Eliza A. Otis Memorial Associa 
 tion, seconded, to the best of their ability, by 
 her husband, family, friends and associates of 
 the Los Angeles Times. This association is 
 composed of good men, women and children 
 (nearly three hundred in number) living far 
 and near, who united in thus paying tribute to 
 the noble life, high character and deathless 
 name of one who did what she could to make 
 
 the world better by living in it, and who wore 
 worthily the white flower of a blameless life.* 
 HARRISON GRAY OTIS. 
 
 The Bivouac, 
 November 12, 1905. 
 
 * The unique idea of the Memorial Chimes was the 
 conception of a member of the Executive Committee, 
 which is composed of the following named ladies and gen 
 tlemen, all of whom were friends and admirers: Mrs. 
 Jefferson D. Gibbs, chairman; Rev. Wm. Horace Day, 
 vice-chairman; Hon. Russell J. Waters, treasurer; Mr! 
 John Freeman, auditor; Mrs. Albert C. Rogers, recording 
 secretary; Mrs Will Thilenius, corresponding secretary, 
 and Mrs. D. G. Stephens. They have earned the deep 
 thanks of myself and family by their successful efforts. 
 
 The bells are the product of the long-established Buck 
 eye Bell Foundry of Cincinnati, being the skillful work 
 of many months. Each has a suitable inscription cut into 
 its brazen face to stand while Time endures perpetuat 
 ing, in telling verse, high thoughts uttered by her in 
 whose honor these melodious chimes will be often rung 
 through the years to come. 
 
 266 
 
r 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 THE MEMORIAL BELLS. 
 
"THE BELLS OF HOLLYWOOD." 
 
 BEAUTIFUL CEREMONY OF THE DEDICATION OF THE MEMORIAL CHIMES. 
 
 NO more appropriate and touching could 
 have been the exercises that were held 
 at Hollywood Cemetery on the first anni 
 versary of the death of Mrs. Otis, when the 
 Memorial Chimes erected in her honor were 
 formally dedicated. The account below follows, 
 substantially, the lines of the report published in 
 the Los Angeles Times on the succeeding morn 
 ing, November 16, 1905, though it has been 
 elaborated and perfected in some particulars : 
 
 THE EVENT AND THE SCENE. 
 Prologue. 
 
 Bells are for a poet s memory, their music the echoes 
 of the poet s songs. For the soldier, bronze; for the 
 statesman, tablet of brass; for the artificer, the sculp 
 tured stone; and for whoever else, whate er you will. 
 But for the poet bells. 
 
 One year ago it was that we looked upon our own dear 
 poet in the first day s sleep of death. One year ago, 
 when upon her lips of song the first hush fell. Then 
 stood we beside her bier, too blind with tears to see 
 beyond the grief-wrung hour, too dumb with heartache to 
 understand. But yesterday it was not so. Again we 
 stood beside her grave, again we spoke her name. 
 And a year is not long. It is only one little undertone 
 in a lifetime of sighs. Yet it is enough to clear the 
 vision and to school the soul. A year ago we stood with 
 the Angel of Grief. Yesterday the Angel of Joy smiled 
 down upon us from eyes serene with glory, while songs 
 of victory were lifted to the skies, and the bells chimed 
 from the swaying tower the deathless music of love and 
 faith. 
 
 In memory of Eliza A. Otis there was yesterday 
 [November 15, 1905,] dedicated in Hollywood Cemetery 
 a chime of twelve bells. They were made in a great 
 bell foundry of the Buckeye State, upon the order of 
 the Eliza A. Otis Memorial Association, representing 
 many people of California, who by popular subscription 
 defrayed the expense of their manufacture. It was the 
 public s recognition of a quarter of a century s unselfish 
 labor in its behalf by Mrs. Otis as a journalist, and as 
 a woman whose broad charities reached into all the walks 
 of life. It was also, and perhaps more particularly so, 
 a tribute of loving friends and admirers, a tribute to the 
 genius of Mrs. Otis as a poet and a writer of rare and 
 exquisite prose. Withal, it stands as an expression of 
 a people s gratitude so beautiful in its conception and 
 so unique in its. character as to be quite without parallel. 
 The only other public testimonial to a literary woman 
 that at all approaches it in significance is the placing of 
 a tablet in the walls of a house in Florence by the grate 
 ful Florentines in honor of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
 The Eliza A. Otis Memorial Association, formed for 
 the especial purpose of perpetuating in some befitting 
 manner the memory of a gifted and noble woman, could 
 
 not have been so happily inspired in any other concep 
 tion as it was in this idea of the bells. The work, 
 now done, will remain forever to the credit of those who 
 undertook it so gladly and prosecuted it to so splendid 
 a conclusion. In all the history of California there was 
 never a celebration like the one held yesterday in Holly 
 wood Cemetery. The day will live in the recollections of 
 those who witnessed it while remembrance lasts, and it 
 will go down into the annals of the future ineffaceable 
 in its historic beauty and importance. 
 
 The day was ideal and the scene peerless. At the ap 
 pointed hour, 2 o clock in the afternoon, more than two 
 thousand people were gathered on the spot. The sky was 
 dappled with a canopy of fleece-rolled clouds, as though 
 Nature had especially prearranged for the comfort of 
 those who came to witness the ceremonies or to take part in 
 them. There was no glare of sun, while, at the same time, 
 the air was as warm as the perfect day of Lowell s 
 June. The hills of Hollywood stood silhouetted against 
 the soft, vague outlines of the tender skies, and up from 
 the sea to the southwest blew the gentle breeze. In the 
 clear distance old Mt. San Antonio rose majestically in its 
 hood of snow, with the white cap of Telegraph Peak for 
 neighbor. From the gates of the City of the Dead 
 stretched dream-kissed highways, flame hedged With 
 flowers and reaching away to east and west through or 
 chards of olive and groves of towering eucalypti. South 
 ward lay the wrapt and listening plain, against which, in 
 hazy distance, crept the white sweep of the Sunset Ocean. 
 Now and then we heard the plaintive note of the lark 
 and a burst of song from the throat of many a winged 
 wanderer of the air. The hour was holy, and it seemed as 
 though the spirits of the unseen dead were hovering with 
 loving eagerness about the scene. 
 
 In all that was said and done throughout the whole 
 afternoon there ran one strong, unceasing and deathless 
 note of joy. This was as it should be, and as she would 
 have had it in whose memory the day had been set apart. 
 Silent, it is true, lay her dust in the grave around which 
 the concourse of her friends and lovers gathered. But 
 that was not all. She was not dead, but living in a world 
 beyond, whither she had gone at the summons of the 
 Master whom she adored. She was not dead we could 
 not feel it to be so. And when one golden-voiced speaker 
 called to her for himself and for every one there, dull 
 indeed was the soul that did not feel the very presence of 
 her spirit near. There comes not often such a time 
 on this earth as that thrilling moment when Dr. Mc- 
 Intyre wrung from his own soul and from ours that cry 
 that brought down from her shining company listening 
 overhead the soul of our lost Singer to stand once more 
 in the midst of those who breathed her name from a full 
 and tender faith. 
 
 It was all as it should have been; indeed, she herself 
 would not have had it otherwise, as well we knew. Music 
 and song and the voice of lofty thought, the high ideal, 
 
 268 
 
Story of the Dedication. 
 
 and the call to the purer life these were the things 
 that were done and said, and such were the things she 
 loved. Under the bells, swung aloft in the belfry 
 tower, were banked the fair and sweet-voiced singers of 
 the Treble Clef Club, gowned brightly for the joyous 
 event. Schubert and Mendelssohn they sang, sweet and 
 clear with ravishing melody. Twice they sang; first, 
 "The Lord is My Shepherd," and next, "Lift Thine 
 Eyes." The Rev. Robert J. Burdette delivered the me 
 morial oration as only he might deliver it, friend of the 
 dead that he was, lover of her songs and intimate 
 acquaintance of her lovely life. "Poet she was," said 
 he, "and priestess and prophetess akin to all her kind." 
 More he said, and much more, but it was all summed in 
 those words. Then Rev. William Horace Day dedicated 
 the bells, christening each with its name, and touching 
 with simple eloquence on their mission and the messages 
 they brought. Mrs. W. D. Turner read, with clearness 
 and appreciation, "California," a noble poem, selected 
 from among the best of Mrs. Otis s verse.* The 
 Rabbi Voorsanger, coming specially from San Francisco 
 to pay the tribute of the North, spoke with magnificent 
 fervor of the services that Mrs. Otis had rendered her 
 State and her country and all mankind. Afterward the 
 people went to the grave, where Dr. Robert Mclntyre 
 spoke, as before referred to, and Rabbi Hecht pro 
 nounced the benediction. 
 
 THE EXERCISES. 
 
 As early as noon friends and admirers of the late 
 Mrs. Otis began to wend their way to Hollywood Ceme 
 tery to witness the dedication of the noble chime of bells 
 erected in honor of her memory. The exercises began 
 promptly at 2 o clock, and at that hour a great assem 
 blage of people more than two thousand was massed 
 around the chapel at the entrance to the cemetery. The 
 gathering embraced people of all stations in life, coming 
 from many parts. It was not idle curiosity, but reverent 
 love and respect for one who made the world better by 
 living in it, that prompted them to fare thither. 
 
 A little to the westward of the chapel was erected a 
 commodious platform for the speakers and others par 
 ticipating in the exercises. Against the west wall of 
 the chapel was a stand with terraced seats for the accom 
 modation of the Treble Clef Club, which furnished vocal 
 music. Before the hour for the opening of the pro 
 gramme, every seat was occupied, and people stood in 
 solid ranks for a considerable distance beyond the seated 
 area. It was a notable audience that was assembled there 
 under the vaulted dome of heaven. The sky was overcast 
 with a curtain of clouds, just thick enough to soften 
 the glare of the sun without shutting off the glorious 
 autumn light, of which Mrs. Otis had so often sung. Tt 
 was, imshort, an ideal day for such an outdoor gathering. 
 
 Introductory Address. 
 
 At 2 o clock p.m. Mrs. Jefferson D. Gibbs, chairman 
 of the Eliza A. Otis Memorial Association, graciously 
 
 The poem will be found on page 2, numbored III. 
 
 called the assemblage to order and stated the object of 
 the gathering, briefly, as follows: 
 
 "Members of the Memorial Association and Friends: 
 Our work of love is ended. From this chapel tower 
 swing deep-throated bells, whose silver tongues shall tell, 
 long after we have crumbled into dust, the story of our 
 love and loyalty to her whose law of life was love to 
 every living thing; shall tell throughout the changing 
 years the sweeter story of her changeless trust in God 
 and faith in man. Across, into the world invisible, love 
 seeks the way and finds it. Speaking in her name, these 
 chiming bells shall voice her messages; in morning song 
 and evening hymn give comfort to the sorrowing, hope 
 to the discouraged and strength to every listening soul 
 to bear the daily grind of common duty. So shall the 
 sweet influence of her noble life forever live to bless 
 the world and make it better. 
 
 "For months we have looked forward to the full 
 fruition of our hopes. The hour has come, and now, in 
 the name of the Executive Committee, I thank the mem 
 bers of this association for their cordial co-operation and 
 assistance in perfecting and carrying to completion the 
 plan for this unique and beautiful memorial which has 
 been erected in honor of the precious memorv of Mrs. 
 Eliza A. Otis." 
 
 Vice-Chairman Day. 
 
 Mrs. Gibbs then gave way to the vice-chairman of the 
 association, Rev. William Horace Day, as director of 
 ceremonies. Mr. Day in turn introduced Rev. Dr. Hugh 
 K. Walker, pastor of Immanuel Presbyterian Giurch, 
 who delivered an eloquent invocation. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Walker s Prayer. 
 
 Almighty God and Gracious Heavenly Father: Thou 
 who art the source of all light and life and beauty 
 the inspirer of all harmony, the dispenser of all good 
 we give Thee heart-felt thanks for the lives of all Thy 
 saints, who, having finished their labors, find everlasting 
 rest and felicity in Thee. 
 
 Especially do we praise Thee at this time for the life 
 and service of the one who was so dear to all our hearts 
 and whose memory is to all of us a precious heritage. 
 We thank Thee for the love which she ever manifested 
 toward her fellow-men and for her unswerving loyalty 
 to Thee and to all the interests or Thy Kingdom. We 
 thank Thee for the Heavenly harmonics that she brought 
 into this earth-world of ours, and for this golden land 
 which she glorified with her pen and made more beau 
 tiful by the gracious deeds of her loving and loyal life. 
 
 We rejoice in the fact that hearts touched by her 
 blessed ministry devised this beautiful and permanent 
 memorial this chime of bells, a fitting symbol of a life 
 which poured forth such rich harmonies. 
 
 We invoke Thy blessing upon all who are gathered 
 here these friends and neighbors who come to show 
 honor to their dear dead friend; and yet we know she 
 is not dead, but will ever live in myriads of hearts made 
 better by her presence. 
 
 We especially remember those to whom she was most 
 dear the charmed home-circle where her loss is even 
 more keenly felt as the days go by. Wilt Thou comfort 
 them and cause them to rejoice in the thought that her 
 influence has so blessed and glorified the world ! 
 
 We ask that Thy blessing may rest upon all the exer 
 cises of this hour, and upon these bells, that they may, 
 through all the coming years, chime out their message 
 of faith and hope and love. And unto Thee, our God 
 and Father, we would render all the praise, through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 269 
 
"The Bells of Hollywood/ 
 
 Inspiring Music. 
 
 At the conclusion of the invocation the Los Angeles 
 Treble Clef Club, composed of more than two score of 
 finely-trained women s voices, sang with exquisite eifect 
 the Twenty-third Psalm, "The Lord is my Shepherd" 
 (Schubert.) Miss Blanche Rogers played the accom 
 paniment and W. H. Lott was the leader. The musical 
 programme was under the direction of Mrs. William 
 John Scholl, chairman of the Committee on Music and 
 former president of the Treble Clef Club. Many other 
 leading musical women besides Mrs. Scholl and Mrs. 
 Schallert, president of the club, are members of the 
 Treble Clef Club and took part in the programme. 
 
 THE MEMORIAL ORATION 
 By Rev. Robert J. Burdette. 
 
 This famous man humorist, journalist, soldier, orator 
 and pastor of Temple Baptist Church was at his best, 
 and spoke from the heart as one who knew Mrs. Otis 
 intimately and appreciated her genius and goodness. His 
 oration was both strong and tender. Taking for his sub 
 ject, "The Poetess of Life," Mr. Burdette said: 
 
 She loved the things she saw and heard. Life of the 
 flower and the bird, of Man and the sky appealed to 
 her. Like the Master at Cana, her loving fancy trans 
 muted earth s common things into wine. 
 
 Eliza A. Otis Poet of the things that are: If I could 
 find one word to express the theme of her many- 
 stanza d song, it would be, Life. It might have been 
 with her as with Susan Coolidge, 
 
 "Thank God for Life; Life is not sweet always, 
 Hands may be weary laden, hearts care full, 
 
 Unwelcome nights follow unwelcome days, 
 And dreams divine end in awakenings dull, 
 
 Still, it is Life, and Life is cause for praise." 
 
 But this singer made life seem always sweet to us 
 always good. 
 
 "I am come," said the Great Teacher, "that they 
 might have life, and that they might have it more 
 abundantly." This woman held out her heart, like a 
 crystal chalice, and the Lord of Life filled it from 
 celestial springs with an overflowing abundance of the 
 love of life. This made her a poet anointed her as one 
 of "God s prophets of the beautiful." Always she 
 ministered before the white altar of Truth, a priestess 
 of the great sodality of the poets who look ever Godward 
 for their sublimest inspirations; who can sing no false 
 note, because their souls are ever attuned to the universal 
 key of Nature s voice, sounded in a thousand tongues, 
 what men call the dead languages of buried yesterdays, 
 in the ringing speech of the men of today, in the unborn 
 intonation projected into the living soul of tomorrow by 
 the prophets and singers of yesterday. She was "dowered 
 with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, the love of 
 love." She walked hand in hand with Nature and life, 
 and was of a kin with all her singing kind. She looked 
 up at the peaks in the western mountains, so dear and 
 beautiful to her, and lo! while snow-capped San Antonio 
 filled her eyes, she walked upon the singing slopes of 
 "double-headed Parnassus," and twined its mrytle about 
 her brows. Here in this dark canon she sees the Corycian 
 cavern and hears the voices of the Muses and the faint 
 echoes of Apollo s harp. This fountain bubbling up in 
 the thicket of California laurel this is the Castalian 
 spring at which she stoops to drink, and the trail that 
 reaches away down the mountain slopes surely this is 
 
 the sacred road to Delphi. "Echo Mountain" was her 
 Helicon, and the spring with the Spanish name was 
 Hippocrene, and the drifting cloud of snow-white mist 
 carried before her eyes the mounting figure of the winged 
 steed. Dryad of the wood, and Naiad of the brook, and 
 Nereid of the restless sea whispered their fancies to her 
 listening heart. She saw the laughing faces of the 
 Oceanides in the curling waves, and in the thunder of 
 the surf she heard "Old Triton breathe his wreathed 
 horn." All things lived, to her, with articulate life, 
 sentient and warm and throbbing with the life that 
 touched her own. She was one of the blessed ones who 
 
 "are first to mark 
 
 Through earth s dull mist the coming of the dawn, 
 Who see in twilight s gloom the first pale spark, 
 While others only note that day is gone." 
 
 Her muse was buoyant. Her song was joyous. Tender 
 her sympathy always, and ready. Her lightest song knew 
 the deep octave of sorrow, but it was never sorrow with 
 out hope. Times there were when the clear-seeing eyes 
 were dimmed with tears, when the singing lips quivered 
 with pain, and the sweetness of the song trembled with 
 the breaking sob. But never was there a note of despair. 
 Always, when she sang, "The Night cometh" then fol 
 lowed the exultant prophecy "also the Morning!" God 
 led her down shaded paths into the valley of silence 
 into the world of quiet, and shut out from her the 
 sounds of strife and the sweet voices of friends. Bnt 
 her living soul heard on more clearly than ever, for she 
 listened with heart and eyes, and the voices of poesy 
 were never silenced, and the song grew clearer and higher. 
 We thought, as she made her affliction light by her joyous 
 faith, of the voice of another poet 
 
 "Bird of the broken wing, 
 
 Hurt beyond power to bind 
 How hast thou heart to sing 
 
 When Heaven is so unkind? 
 
 "Woe for my ruined flight! 
 
 Joy for my Heart of Song ! 
 I sing for the Song s delight, 
 
 And Heaven hath done no wrong!" 
 
 She sang of the Good, the Beautiful, the True. Of the 
 Good, for she believed in the best. Hers was not a blind 
 optimism, that calls the midnight noonday. It was the 
 optimism of faith that sees the coming of the dawn in 
 the very motion of the midnight stars. 
 
 She sang of Beauty. The "flower in the crannied 
 wall" drew her lips to it with a kiss, as the violet hidden 
 in the lowly grasses draws the caresses of the sun. The 
 wild-flowers charmed her even as the conservatory could 
 wake her harp to strains of praise. The daintiness of 
 the mountain pink and the splendor of the rose alike 
 appealed to her. 
 
 And Truth she sang. She believed well of God s fair 
 world. Good in the worst she found, and better in the 
 good. Truth was the center and soul of her songs. So 
 beautiful appeared the world to her that she might have 
 said with Miranda: 
 
 "There s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple; 
 
 If the ill-spirit have so fair a house, 
 
 Good things will strive to dwell with it." 9 
 
 Truth was the light and music of her world, because 
 it was the most beautiful thing in that world. For its 
 own sake she loved it. She believed with George Mac- 
 Donald, "There is no veil like light no adamantine armor 
 against hurt like Truth." She worshiped it, as it came 
 into the world with Jesus Truth incarnate, who looked 
 
 270 
 
Story of the Dedication. 
 
 unrecognized into the eyes of the questioning Pilate. 
 This was to her the germ of every good. To hate a lie; 
 to distrust an ungenerous thought; to despise a mean 
 action; to draw back from the frank-sounding phrase 
 with the double meaning; to shrink from the false glitter 
 of deceit as the bird trembles with fear before the cruel 
 beauty of the serpent s eyes these things were natural 
 to her. She loved the Truth, and worshiped it for its 
 nobility through all the thousands of years. She stood 
 before it, and saw the beauty and majesty of its figure, 
 the grace of its untroubled brow, the calm of its mirror- 
 clear eyes. She saw its white robes stained with blood 
 of the martyrs in all ages, women and men and little 
 children. To some she had stood in the schools of 
 paganism; to this man she had beckoned in the tortuous 
 paths of politics; and he lived for her. This one, she 
 pointed to the wreathing flames at the stake, and he 
 died for her. For herself, she laid a finger on her lips, 
 and all her woman s life she sang for Truth. 
 
 She sang the State she loved so well, where "the year 
 is one long summer;" she praised its beauties "and 
 splendors, and, with a lover s endearing possessives, made 
 California exclaim: "My hills and vales" "my skies" 
 "my clime" "the gold that fills the bosom of my 
 skies" "a cloudless pathway for the sun." Her first 
 song of the State, a quarter of a century gone by, closes 
 with California s glad, prophetic exultation: 
 
 "Swing wide, O Golden Gate of mine, swing wide! 
 Door of the world art thou, where men may come 
 And see my glory see, and enter in !" 
 
 More than two score of her songs are of her State 
 dearly loved: "A Wondrous Land, she calls it; "Our 
 Summer Land," "The Land of Sunshine." She sings of 
 her home city, "Angelcna;" of Westlake, of the bees and 
 the flowers in the parterres of "The Bivouac;" of a 
 "Hollywood Hilltop;" a vision of Berkeley in "Under the 
 Oaks;" a dream of "Catalina;" and songs of " Santa Bar 
 bara." She bent above the flowers of "The Fair, Sweet 
 Land We Love," and poppy and orange blossom, flaming 
 hibiscus, rose and abutilon and snowy water lilies, rocking 
 on the ripples of the pond, called to her muse until she 
 lifted her eyes from the dainty wild pink, "playing at 
 hide and seek amid the blades of green alfileria," up to 
 the majesty of "The Great Sequoias" "children of 
 centuries," "deathless monarchs of the mighty hills and 
 woods;" and her song changes to the majestic cadences 
 of a march. She walked among the silences of the crum 
 bling cloisters of the Missions, old and gray, and she 
 clasped the brown hands of "dusky children o f the sun" 
 back in the 
 
 "Day of Time s Days, 
 
 When on these sunlit shores there softly fell 
 The waking echoes of the Mission bell, 
 
 Stirring the silent air 
 
 With call to praise and prayer." 
 
 In love with life and all its changing moods and 
 moments, she sang of every month that circled the 
 calendar, each with its own peculiar charm from the 
 time 
 
 "Morn with her soft rosy fingers 
 
 Flung open the gates of the East, 
 And the New Year looked out from its chambers 
 
 With a smile and a blessing of peace " 
 
 through "rose-lipped May" and "June-bright skies" to 
 the "sun-crowned days" of Christmas tide, "riotous in 
 joyance," than whom "June s self were not more fair." 
 Morning, and noon, and evening, and night, with "the 
 glory that is hid by the clear shining of the noonday 
 
 sun" each passing hour had for her poetic soul sweet 
 "voices of its own, like whispers from some far-off world 
 outblown." The clouds called to her even as the sun, and 
 she mingled her prayer with "the low-voiced and per 
 fumed pleading of the flowers, the brown and sighing 
 grasses, and mute plains," and she chanted their gratitude 
 in her own prophetic strains, seeing in the slanting rain- 
 lines "blossoms sweet of many colored dyes," "and sum 
 mer dreaming in December s arms." Always the mother 
 heart throbbed in her thoughts, and she whispered, in 
 the soft crooning of a lullaby, of "Little Children" "like 
 flowers that blossom on the slopes of time, and make a 
 holy Eden in our hearts;" a hymn of welcome to the 
 little one, born, a lily bud of peace, in the home with 
 love for its threshold and the martial name of "The 
 Bivouac" on its crest a baby girl, "daughter of this 
 bright clime," "sweet as the fragrance that the roses 
 yield, pure as the perfect lily s bloom." A soldier s wife, 
 her white hands knew how to clasp the shining eagles 
 of the sword belt, and she bore her part in the wars 
 that made more glorious its story and kept unstained 
 from dishonor the flag of her country a woman s hard 
 part in war the lofty courage and pure patriotism of 
 patient waiting the long agony of suspense and heart 
 ache, when the soul is always on sentry duty always 
 watching, and hoping, and praying. Always he r country 
 was greater in her soul of true patriotism than was her 
 State, even as it is greater on the map of the world, and 
 she sang of its glories and splendor and triumphs like a 
 Deborah "Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes!" 
 
 Higher than the mountains she looked, and beyond the 
 stars her soul caught visions of "the Undiscovered Coun 
 try" when in her "Lazarus" she draws a picture of 
 surpassing beauty and tenderness of the blessed home in 
 Bethany. She voiced, as only a woman s soul can do, 
 the sad reiterated plaint of the "gentle Mary" "Why 
 cometh not the Master?" and the joyous message "The 
 Master is come, and calleth for thee!" and then the 
 climax to the scene of awe and glory "Death hath 
 found its Conqueror!" Woman and home she sang; 
 man and his conquests she celebrated, guiding, pilot-like, 
 Columbus, the Dreaming Admiral, from the "red-tiled 
 roof of blessed Rabida, loved by the morning sun," until 
 he "saw a new world rise upon far western waters, 
 where, sleeping, lay the whole world s hopes, broad ning 
 the round sweet earth!" and "all the waiting years were 
 crowned." 
 
 O friends ! if I only read to you the titles of her poems, 
 sweet perfumed buds that crown the vines which bear 
 them, they would tell the story of her dreams and life- 
 work, inwrought and interwoven, dream and task, hope 
 and duty, purpose and performance, like the warp and 
 woof of a silken web, holding a rainbow of all hues of 
 thought within its meshes of brain and soul thought and 
 inspiration; insight and revelation. From star to firefly 
 ranged her eyes and thought; from the tiny shell and 
 the seaweed stranded on the beach, to the "deep, 
 un fathomed caves of ocean" ranged her muse. This 
 was the "abundance of her life" a life that loved so 
 well and so purely, "all things, both great and small." 
 
 While through all range of time ajid world space 
 roved her thoughts, yet always this land was her theme. 
 To her it held all the world! "The Old Adobe," where 
 "the winds have dropped asleep amid the palms, breath 
 ing but lightly, as if dreaming sweet of fragrant silence 
 and of tropic cairns" this was her crumbling palace of 
 the Caesars; "its sunburnt bricks hoary with old age, 
 its red-tiled roof, breathing of the past," was to her 
 "Romance s wide, unlettered page" deep in its mystery 
 as some white ruin in old Egypt; from its old walls the 
 stony lips of Memnon woke for her in song. If all the 
 world of Romance and story and song was hers, yet 
 was her California all the world. And the nearer that 
 California clustered about her own dear home and the 
 
 271 
 
"The Bells of Hollywood" 
 
 loved ones who made it home to her, the sweeter and 
 the truer rose her song. So sweet was life, so true was 
 life to her, that Mrs. Barbauld sang her "Farewell and 
 Hail" to it 
 
 "Life! we ve been long together, 
 Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 
 
 Tis hard to part when friends are dear; 
 
 Perhaps twill cost a sigh, a tear ; 
 Then steal away, give little warning, 
 
 Choose thine own time; 
 Say not, Good night, but in some brighter clime 
 
 Bid me Good Morning! " 
 
 DEDICATING THE BELLS. 
 Rev. William Horace Day. 
 
 The dedication of the bells was a labor of love per 
 formed by Rev. William Horace Day, pastor of the First 
 Congregational Church of Los Angeles. Mr. Day, both 
 in his capacity as vice-chairman of the Eliza A. Otis 
 Memorial Association and as pastor of the church in 
 which she worshiped, took a very active interest in the 
 erection of the memorial, and it was therefore with a 
 feeling of great satisfaction that he officiated at the 
 fruition of the project. He prefaced the christening and 
 dedication of the bells with the following remarks: 
 
 "One year ago today we gathered in this beautiful city 
 of the dead to lay to rest the precious dust of Eliza A. 
 Otis. During this twelve months we have realized that 
 she being dead yet speaketh; her deeds have lived after 
 her. No such noble character can perish, though the veil 
 of flesh upon which we looked has been burned out of 
 our sight. We have come to this beautiful spot a second 
 time that we might dedicate to her memory this chime 
 of bells. 
 
 "It is appropriate that there be erected such a 
 memorial. Christians have associated with bells the 
 noblest ideals ever since Pope Sabinus, early in the 
 Seventh Century, commanded that they become the Her 
 alds of the Church. Ever since, generous men and women 
 have been dedicating bells to the work of reaching the 
 ears and of touching the heart. To this end they were 
 baptized and named as a sign of consecration to the 
 service of God and the inspiring of man. He who has 
 wandered among the cities of the Low Countries, among 
 the Swiss mountains, the highways of Germany and 
 France, or has lived in England or Spain, cannot fail to 
 be thankful for the bells that pious hands have made 
 and rung. 
 
 "We live in a land where piety early expressed itself 
 in the ringing of bells. In the old mission days the 
 sound of the Angelus was heard from San Diego to San 
 Francisco. The bells themselves were symbols of no 
 mean enthusiasm. 
 
 " When the red, molten metals hotly glowed, 
 Ready those ancient Mission Bell s to cast, 
 
 Matrons and maids of old Castile stood by 
 And threw^therein the relics of the past 
 
 Vases of silver, whence their Spanish sires 
 
 Quaffed the red wine; the chains and rings of gold; 
 
 And thus, with gifts and prayers, the Mission Bells 
 Were cast, and christened all for saints of old. 
 
 "This tower, standing in a vale so fair, begirt with 
 mountains and sloping yonder to the sea, surrounded with 
 happy homes, is to be more and more the scene of the 
 abundant life. 
 
 "May these bells serve to comfort the sorrowing as 
 they toil for the dead. Blessed are they that mourn, for 
 tney shall be comforted, said the Master, whose disciple 
 this saintly woman was. May they gladden the joyful. 
 Jesus also said: These things have I spoken unto you, 
 that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be 
 made full. May they peal in joy for Christmas and 
 Easter. May these bells serve to warn the imperiled. 
 Today great bells ring to warn the mariner of peril. In 
 the years to come may the ever present Spirit of the All 
 Father use their message to deliver the imperiled soul. 
 
 "May these bells summon men and women to all forms 
 of service. One of our modern seers has sung: 
 
 "More things are wrought by prayer 
 
 Than this world dreams of. Wlierefore let thy voice 
 
 Rise like a fountain for me night and day, 
 
 For what are men better than sheep or goats 
 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
 
 If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer. 
 
 "May this chime of bells call careless men to prayer, 
 and may the overshadowing God speak through them 
 when His children forget Him and miss the crown above 
 their heads they will not rise to receive. 
 
 "We dedicate this chime of twelve bells one of Israel s 
 sacred numbers, no less sacred in the Christian church 
 to the glory of God and to the service of man, to the 
 work of comforting the sorrowing, gladdening the rejoic 
 ing, warning the imperiled, summoning to service and 
 calling to prayer. 
 
 "Following an ancient custom, I shall dedicate each of 
 these bells by name, using the twelve Christian virtues 
 exemplified in the life of her in whose honor we are 
 assembled." 
 
 Mr. Day then described the bells one by one, the ringer 
 sounding each as the minister pressed an electric button 
 on the table before him, beginning with the smallest one, 
 producing the highest note in the musical scale, and 
 concluding with the largest, sounding a deep-toned bass. 
 He also gave the weight of each bell as it was sounded. 
 The names and dedicatory remarks were spoken in the 
 following order: 
 
 "Meekness [one stroke on the bell] I dedicate thee. 
 
 " Gentleness [ one stroke on the bell ] I dedicate thee. 
 
 " Patience [ one stroke on the bell ] I dedicate thee. 
 
 "Goodness [one stroke on the bell] I dedicate thee. 
 
 "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 
 
 " Faithfulness [ one stroke on the bell ] I dedicate thee. 
 
 "Kindness [one stroke on the bell] I dedicate thee. 
 
 "Long-suffering [one stroke on the bell] I dedicate 
 thee. 
 
 "Self-control [ one stroke on the bell ] I dedicate thee. 
 
 " In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 
 
 "Mercy [one stroke on the bell ] I dedicate thee. 
 
 " Faith [ one stroke on the bell ] I dedicate thee. 
 
 " Hope [ one stroke on the bell ] I dedicate thee. 
 
 All these abide, but the greatest of these is 
 
 " Love [ one stroke on the bell ] I dedicate thee. 
 
 "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit." 
 
 The speaker concluded by quoting the following stanzas 
 from Tennyson s "In Memoriam:" 
 
 "Ring out old shapes of foul disease; 
 
 Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; 
 
 Ring out the thousand wars of old; 
 Ring in the thousand years of peace. 
 
 "Ring in the valiant man and free, 
 The larger heart, the kindlier hand; 
 Ring out the darkness of the land, 
 
 Ring in the Christ that is to be." 
 
 272 
 
THE CHAPEL, THE TOWER AND THE BELLS. 
 
Story of the Dedication. 
 
 RINGING OF THE CHIMES. 
 
 N T o sooner was the dedication of the bells concluded 
 than they began to ring out their message of good-will to 
 all. They were rung by an authorized representative of 
 the Buckeye Foundry of Cincinnati, of which establish 
 ment the bells are the product. 
 
 The first mellow notes that welled from out their molten 
 throats were the beautiful strains of "Lead, Kindly 
 Light," followed by "Holy, Holy, Holy," and "Jesus, 
 Lover of My Soul." 
 
 The chimes were rung again, at the conclusion of the 
 exercises at the grave and as the people were leaving the 
 grounds. Among the selections given were "Rock of 
 Ages," "Abide With Me," "Nearer, My God to Thee" 
 and "America." 
 
 THE BELLS. 
 
 Names and Weights. 
 
 The twelve bells were all cast of Lake Superior copper 
 and East India imported tin. The frame that supports 
 them is of steel, and the playing-stand and attachments 
 are of the most modern and perfect construction. The 
 total weight of the bells is B222y 2 pounds, and their indi 
 vidual weights are as follows: F bell, 265 pounds; E bell, 
 303 pounds; E flat bell, 368 pounds; D bell, 352 pounds; 
 D flat bell, 334 pounds; C bell, 420 pounds; B flat bell! 
 544 y, pounds; A bell, 600 pounds; A flat bell, 646 
 pounds; G bell, 921 pounds; F bell, 1538 pounds; E flat 
 bell, 1931 pounds. 
 
 THE INSCRIPTIONS. 
 Lines Carved on the Bells. 
 
 On the large bell appears the following inscription: 
 
 To the Imperishable Memory of 
 
 MRS. ELIZA A. OTIS, 
 
 (Obit. Nov. 12, 1904) 
 Honored Wife of Gen. Harrison Gray Otis, 
 
 This Chime of Bells has been reared 
 
 by a host of devoted friends, loving hearts and willing 
 hands joined together in the Memorial Association. 
 Dedicated with impressive ceremonies on this spot, 
 
 Nov. 15, 1905. 
 
 Farewell, high and noble soul, faithful friend, light of 
 the home, charming writer and Christian gentle 
 woman, "until the eternal morning pales 
 in its glories all the lights of Time." 
 
 OTHER LINES. 
 
 Upon the other bells are inscribed poems written by 
 Mrs. Otis, as follows: 
 
 Beyond. (1904.) 
 
 The morning of my earth life, O how far 
 Lies it behind me ! Past my noon am I, 
 When golden shines the sun within the sky, 
 
 I near the hour when shines the evening star. 
 
 Vet morning lies beyond the better morn, 
 Which may be mine through Christ, the living way, 
 The glorious morning of a better day, 
 
 The clouds of earth will flee before its dawn. 
 
 Woman. (1895.) 
 
 . . . Yet today wide swing 
 The golden doors of Opportunity, 
 Where she may wisely enter if she but 
 
 Heeds the simple law of right: "Do first the 
 Duty that lies nearest thee." This doing, 
 Then bravely onward into broader fields, 
 Seize with thy might whatever duty yields 
 Work for the world, hold to the good and true, 
 And Honor s crown, O woman ! waits for you. 
 
 The Night. (1901.) 
 
 So as the darkness doth unveil the Vast, 
 Death shall enlarge our wisdom when we cast 
 The scales of flesh aside, and soul-life springs 
 Into full oneness with eternal things, 
 Drinking God s glory in until we rise 
 The soul all eye, all ear in Paradise. 
 Death shall bring the soul s morning as the night 
 Brings countless stars the daylight hides from sight. 
 
 Home. (1893.) 
 
 The world has nothing that is half so fair 
 As that green island in its desert waste 
 That we call Home. Oasis-like, it has 
 Its own delights, its pleasant atmosphere, 
 Its song and laughter, and its hearts that know 
 Not doubt, that breathe but faith and loyalty. 
 The sun shines ever there the sun of Love. 
 
 Sunrise. (1900.) 
 O Sunrise gates ! the gold of heaven 
 
 Has dropped between your bars, 
 And Light her shining curtain draws 
 
 Between us and the stars 
 The silver stars that light the skies 
 
 When Night lies dreaming sweet, 
 And Morn behind Tomorrow s hills 
 
 Has stayed her coming feet. 
 
 Life. (1896.) 
 
 In Night s vast spaces countless stars are hung, 
 And the great-bosomed hills are glorified 
 With bud and blossom, while in the far wide 
 Vales, tremulous and breeze-kissed, grassy blades 
 Thrill with Day s glory till the sunset fades. 
 
 The Spirit Unfettered. 1879.) 
 What we call death is simply life s enlargement, 
 The dropping of the fetters that have bound 
 The spirit; the loosing of prison bars; 
 A sudden growth; the birth of a feeble 
 Embryo life to full and perfect being. 
 
 Man. (1895.) 
 
 Vast as God s thoughts and boundless as His will; 
 But still, O soul of mine; yet still 
 Vaster art thou than all things; no such span 
 Measures the stars as that which measures man. 
 California. (1879.) 
 
 Close by the gates of Paradise, sometimes ajar, 
 
 Broods endless summer o er a wondrous land, 
 
 With shining skies and golden strand, 
 
 And beauty like the undimmed brightness of a star. 
 
 Love. (1892.) 
 
 Tis always morning in the heart of Love; 
 Tis always youth, for love does ne er grow old, 
 Tis summer always, doubt alone is cold, 
 Love s world is fair as any world above. 
 
 Immortality. (1901.) 
 No thought of good is ever lost to man, 
 And no kindly deed shall ever perish. 
 Today doth write itself upon the page 
 Of coming Time, and the great Tomorrows 
 Of our being are but the perfect blossoms 
 Of the budding Now. 
 
 273 
 
"The Bella of Hollywood." 
 
 The Pen Falls. 
 (Last lines, written on her deathbed, Nov. 8, 1904.) 
 
 . . . Here the Summer s breath 
 Still lingers, the many blossoms wake, 
 Color and sweetness from the sunshine take; 
 They show no signs of fading or of death, 
 The Summer trails her lovely garments still 
 And smiles at us from ev rv vale and hill. 
 
 JEWISH ELOQUENCE. 
 
 Rabbi Jacob Voorsanger of San Francisco, with " Flowers 
 From the North." 
 
 I come from the North with a message to the South 
 land; I come with a sweet burden of flowers to deposit 
 them on the grave of a good woman; flowers of speech 
 and love and tender sentiment. We, too, have known 
 and loved her; we, too, were warmed by the glow of her 
 spirit; we, too, mourned for her. And now, that 
 her household and her community have united to honor 
 her memory, we come to commune with you in this 
 heaven-domed shrine and to salute you with words of 
 peace and fraternity. 
 
 As I listened to the beautiful words of the orator of 
 the day, as my soul was stirred with the music or the 
 chimes consecrated to her memory, a thought came to 
 me that I must not withhold from you. Graveyards 
 have their object lessons. The cities of the dead, the 
 trysting places of the innumerable pilgrims, contain 
 tablets in the legends of which man may spell destiny. 
 The humblest village churchyard and the huge deserts 
 that hold the graves of empires both announce the 
 same message, that the generations of man, like the 
 waves of a river, press each other onward to the sea, 
 never to return. This is an eternal truth; if so, what 
 remains of man? 
 
 It is the privilege of the archaeologist to reconstruct 
 the life and activities of ancient times from the monu 
 mental inscriptions beneath his gaze. There he may read 
 of the rise and fall of the ancient nations, the Baby 
 lonian city builders, the Assyrian charioteers, the Phoe 
 nician navigators, the Egyptian hierarchs and canal dig 
 gers, the Greek artists and colonists, the Roman con 
 querors; but everywhere he will be confronted with the 
 same inexorable verdict: That nations and their insti 
 tutions, their languages and religions, aye, their very 
 gods! bend beneath the scythe of Time, and, expiring, 
 sink prone upon the earth, the common mother of us 
 all. He learns better than we can learn that the thous 
 and years of empire must come to an end. I often think 
 of this when strolling between the stones planted upon 
 the graves in which lie our dead must we, too, die? 
 I mean no individual when I ask this potent question: 
 must this people die? This people, heir to the fairest 
 portion of God s earth, endowed with the potencies that 
 evolve into greatness and strength must it, too, bow to 
 the law and expire with its thousand years of life? 
 Here we are, living men and women, heirs of yesterday, 
 parents of tomorrow shall this gathering be a mere em 
 blem of memory, a reminiscence of the things that were 
 and will be never again, and shall these chimes sing only 
 hymns of peace and rest, and address no stronger 
 thought to the things that are to be? Have we, too, built 
 our great cities only to enable a future race to spell out 
 their crumbling ruins: have we, too, built tracks in the 
 wilderness, only that the hands of Time may erase them ; 
 have we, too, made this land beautiful only that in after- 
 times the ugliness of the desert may again rest upon it? 
 Like you, I am always soothed and comforted with the 
 hopeful messages of religion, peace and rest for the 
 dead, eternal life for the spirit, everlasting redemption 
 
 in God but, I tell you, men and brethren, beyond 
 these magnificent ideals of the human soul, those elo 
 quent aspirations of the human heart as it ascends to 
 touch the heart of God beyond these should lie a 
 wondrous national impulse to live, not to be overtaken 
 by the fate of empire. We must live, California must 
 live, America must live! We know the causes that led 
 to the decay and death of ancient nations can we 
 avoid them? Can we rise to the maximum of civic 
 righteousness, and so perpetuate the heritage of our 
 children? I believe we can; I believe it with my heart 
 and soul; I believe it with every energy that rushes on 
 to contribute its modest share to the activities of the 
 present day. How, then, can we escape death? Power 
 crumbles like the rocks; wisdom changes like the flashes 
 of the sunlight; wealth is the most perishable thing on 
 earth. But character character! The touch of God 
 upon us! Is that not deathless? Well, then, this is the 
 secret of life. Let us be righteous let us endow our 
 children with character. To whom shall we look for the 
 performance of so glorious a task, if not to our wives 
 and mothers, the sanctified character-builders of our 
 nation? This, too, these chimes are whispering to me 
 that we shall live and not die, if righteousness be the 
 attribute of our national life, for, "not by might and 
 not by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord!" 
 
 This dear woman whose memory we cherish, whose 
 soul wa s attuned to the highest and best thoughts of 
 earth was she not, then, above all things a character- 
 Iniilder? She, the gentle wife and tender mother, was 
 she not greatest when she helped her kind to rise to 
 higher levels? She sang of the heaving seas and of the 
 budding earth, of the starry skies and the white-headed 
 mountains; to her there was poetry in the opening 
 eyes of a new-born babe and the fading countenance of 
 a venerable mother; but her songs were the songs of 
 character, and her aim was the life of her people, a life 
 made glorious by righteousness, because illuminated by 
 the soul of God! That, to many, must have been her 
 greatest attribute, and, therefore, in saluting the mem 
 ory of Eliza A. Otis, we salute the spirit of a great 
 American mother, to whom we owe the rearing of one 
 of the corner-stones of righteousness, the high attribute 
 of a virtuous nation that, aye, unto the thousandth 
 generation! shall love God and keep his commandments. 
 And this shall be our high destiny, and this shall be our 
 reward from Him on high, whilst the seas that kiss our 
 land salute us and the eternal hills keep watch that the 
 covenant between God and our nation shall never be 
 sundered! and whilst thus we think and labor, these 
 chimes may accompany the dead to their resting place, 
 but, in Eliza A. Otis s name, will tell the living that for 
 a righteous nation there exists no death! 
 
 AT THE GRAVE. 
 
 Dr. Mclntyre s High Appreciation. 
 
 Over the green-swarded grave of the dead poet had 
 been erected by loving hands a striking floral structure 
 of chrysanthemums, fashioned after the peristyle of "The 
 Bivouac," the home of which Mrs. Otis was the light, and 
 where her sweet life passed out. A monument resembling 
 a plain headstone, in white carnations, with the simple 
 inscription, "Eliza A. Otis," indicated the occupant of 
 the flower-decked tomb. Round about this mound the 
 people gathered to hear the concluding portion of the 
 memorial exercises, in which Rev. Dr. Mclntyre, pastor 
 of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles, 
 was the central figure. 
 
 Standing in the vehicle of Rev. Father Murphy, rector 
 of the Roman Catholic Church of Hollywood, drawn up 
 
 274 
 
Story of the Dedication. 
 
 in the roadway fronting the grave, Dr. Mclntyre deliv 
 ered an oration which for lofty eloquence, brilliant 
 analysis and poetic language has seldom if ever been sur 
 passed by any orator in the land. Its diction sparkled 
 with gems; its delivery was matchless; its effect was 
 thrilling. 
 
 He began his remarks by saying that in his ministerial 
 work of thirty years, in which he had come into burial 
 places to officiate at innumerable funerals, he could not 
 remember that he had in all that time come back at the 
 end of a year to stand again by the side of a grave to 
 hold a further ceremony. 
 
 "This is a unique scene," he said. "I cannot remember 
 any parallel to it. The woman we are met to honor did 
 not belong to any nobility. She was a simple, sane, 
 wholesome, industrious American woman, and yet when 
 four seasons are gone by, we, her neighbors and friends, 
 are here again. You never witnessed anything like this. 
 This is the most eloquent occasion I have known in this 
 city. 
 
 "We honor Mrs. Otis in standing here, and also we 
 honor ourselves. We are told it is a mercenary age 
 that men are rushing greedily after wealth and women 
 are mad after social honors. Here is the answer to that: 
 I look today in a thousand faces of men of affairs and 
 women of social prominence who have come here to honor 
 a woman who cared nothing for wealth or social distinc 
 tion; a woman who let others struggle for the empty 
 bauble and gathered round herself the enduring things 
 which pass not away. 
 
 "I do not know who planned yonder tower or who 
 conceived those bells, but I will say there never was a 
 more fitting or more perfect memorial since time began. 
 These bells shall bring to us again, in memory, the 
 gracious face and the musical voice of Mrs. Otis. 
 
 "Whnt is a bell? All its poetry, all its pathos, all its 
 power depends on the balance of the atoms contained in 
 it. If there is one crack the breadth of a hair on your 
 baby s forehead, every atom in that bell is ruined. Few 
 men can stand the test of the bell. But the bell in which 
 every atom is poised and set in harmony with every other 
 atom contained in it, sets forth the character of Mrs. 
 Otis perfectly. Never one tone from any bell was truer 
 than the character of this godly woman. We dignify 
 ourselves, our city and Southern California when we 
 gather around this grave to honor this daughter of 
 America." 
 
 Dr. Mclntyre then went on to relate how he first 
 became acquainted with Mrs. Otis and her writings. He 
 said some years ago, while living in Chicago, he made up 
 his mind that Southern California would ultimately be 
 his home. He wanted to know something about the coun 
 try, and the best place to get information about a locality 
 is the newspaper. So he began to procure Los Angeles 
 Sunday Times at the news stands of Chicago. One day, 
 in the Magazine Section of The Times, he came across a 
 poem on California by Eliza A. Otis. He read it to his 
 wife and children. He had never heard of Mrs. Otis, 
 but he had been a student of poetry and he recognized 
 this poem as a gem. He cut it out and placed it in his 
 scrap-book. He added to it other poems from the same 
 gifted pen, until he had a fine collection. 
 
 He then told about coming to Los Angeles and getting 
 up a series of author s readings. Mrs. Otis graciously 
 gave her help, and at the first meeting read one of the 
 most remarkable productions he had ever heard. 
 
 "But Mrs. Otis never wrote a poem as perfect as her 
 self," continued the speaker. "She did for California 
 what no one is able to do now. 
 
 "Mrs. Otis had taken hold of the soul of California. 
 Only four California writers have done it two in prose 
 ana two in poetry. The two in prose are Bret Harte 
 and Helen Hunt; in poetry Joaquin Miller and Mrs. Otis. 
 
 "A hundred men are trying to write dialect poetry. 
 Ninety-nine fail because they think the dialect is in the 
 language, when it is in the thought. James Whitcomb 
 Riley thinks dialect; that is why he is the only great 
 dialect poet. Mrs. Otis got hold of the soul of California. 
 She saw in the trees, the flowers, the foothills covered 
 with cloth of gold, an entirely new theme. To her Cali 
 fornia lifted her veil. 
 
 "Every now and then God raises up a seer. Only one 
 now is living who can get hold of the soul of California; 
 that one is Joaquin Miller. 
 
 "There once were only three perfect flower poems, 
 Burns s Mountain Daisy, Wordsworth s Daffodils, 
 Bryant s Fringed Gentian. Now there are four, for I 
 challenge the critical scholarship of America to deny 
 that Mrs. Otis s Hibiscus Flower is worthy to live in 
 the company of the classic three. It is as perfect as the 
 flower; the bloom itself is not more beautiful nor more 
 deathless than this poem: 
 
 I think the sunset, jealous of your flame, 
 
 Did pluck its crimson glory from your stem, 
 
 And there, above the amber of the West, 
 
 A glowing ruby from its diadem 
 
 Has laid it shining, on the dead Day s breast. 
 
 "She was the one seer of Southern California who 
 could hear the footsteps of the dead of the historic past, 
 and greet every bird and flower as it came to the front 
 in the procession of the seasons. 
 
 "The early rains have wakened a million seeds in the 
 soil, and in the capillaries of the poppies the hidden 
 strength is rushing up through the sod. She was always 
 first to greet them, but now they will look for her in vain. 
 
 "Riley tells how all nature ached with a sense of 
 loneliness and loss when wee Maliala died: 
 
 "Little Haly, Little Haly," cheeps the robin in the 
 
 tree; 
 "Little Haly," sighs the clover; "Little Haly," moans the 
 
 bee; 
 
 "Little Haly, Little Haly," calls the kildeer at twilight; 
 And the katydids and crickets call for Haly all the night. 
 
 The medder pears to miss her, and the pathway thro 
 
 the grass 
 Where the dew-drops ust to kiss her little bare feet as she 
 
 pass ; 
 And the old pin in the gate-post seems to kind o sort o 
 
 doubt 
 That Haly s little sunburned hands ll ever pull it out. 
 
 There s sorrow in the wavin leaves of all the apple 
 
 trees; 
 And sorrow in the harvest sheaves, and sorrow in the 
 
 breeze ; 
 
 And sorrow in the twitter of the swallows round the shed; 
 And all the song her red-bird sings is: "Little Haly s 
 
 dead." 
 
 "When the poppies lift their golden cups to catch the 
 sun they will pour libations to her who never failed to 
 greet their earliest advent. How will they wonder where 
 she fares, that she cometh not to meet them as of old! 
 The mocking-bird in the tree above the home will call in 
 vain; the shy hare will wait in large-eyed, timid expecta 
 tion; the linnet in the hedge will flute the well-known 
 welcome; the bee hid in the red blossom will question; 
 the wood-dove will croon ; the grass-hid cricket that kissed 
 her sandals will chirp: Mrs. Otis, Mrs. Ot :< s where dost 
 thou tarry? 
 
 275 
 
"The Bells of Hollywood." 
 
 "Alas, small kinfolk of the field and wood; ye little 
 people of the sky and glen; how will you change your 
 exultant cadences to sobbing threnodies as through all 
 your ranks doth run the wail: Our well-beloved is no 
 more. She who spoke for us, sang for us, is gone. We 
 cannot waken her. They have taken her away and 
 we know not where they have laid her. Mrs. Otis is 
 dead, sobs the sea, the canon sighs, the pines whisper, 
 the birds sing, the flowers mourn: Mrs. Otis is dead. " 
 
 Approaching his peroration, Dr. Mclntyre said: 
 "When God sends a poet into this sin-cursed, brutalized 
 old world, when He sends one sweet soul with singing 
 robes, He gives a benediction to all mankind. 
 
 "We never know our great ones until they are gone. 
 This gap cannot be filled. Not a poet can sing Southern 
 California now. Heaven send us another such seeing eye, 
 another such melodious soul ! 
 
 "Mrs. Otis was a very near approach to the perfect 
 woman. She was a home-lover, a helper, and never happy 
 unless she had some one to do for. Hers was the great 
 mother heart." 
 
 He then spoke of the fullness of her life as daughter, 
 wife and mother, of her devotion to her husband, and her 
 patriotism, and after extolling her many virtues he quoted 
 Tennyson s immortal lines: 
 
 "Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the 
 
 chords with might; 
 Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music 
 
 out of sight." 
 
 "That," declared the eloquent preacher, "fits her as 
 music fits the words of a noble hymn." 
 
 Quoting the poem, "She is not dead, but gone 
 away," Dr. Mclntyre, raising his hands to heaven, dra 
 matically exclaimed: "Are you people not conscious, 
 standing here, of an unseen presence? It is the sense 
 of immortality that tells us she is here. Do not tell me 
 Mrs. Otis sleeps there! No woman in this congregation 
 is as much alive as Mrs. Otis is now." 
 
 When Dr. Mclntyre had concluded, Dr. S. Hecht, 
 rabbi of Temple B nai B rith of this city, pronounced the 
 benediction, prefaced by a few eloquent remarks in 
 honor of Mrs. Otis. 
 
 CLOSING WORDS AND BENEDICTION 
 By Rabbi S. Hecht, D.D. 
 
 Our ancient sages speak of three crowns which may 
 adorn the brow of mortals in life. These crowns are 
 designated as the Crown of the Law, the Crown of Priest 
 hood, and the Crown of Royalty; but, they add, there is 
 a crown, surpassing all others in value, and that is the 
 Crown of a Good Name. 
 
 Standing here today, near the mound consecrated by 
 the dust of a noble woman, deposited here a year ago, I 
 feel that I am justified in saying, without fear of trans 
 gressing the limitaiions of truth, that she who sleeps here 
 that long, dreamless, eternal sleep, has gained the three 
 fold crown during her life on earth, and that, adorned 
 by the crown of a good name, her immortal, disembodied 
 spirit has sought and found closer union with God. 
 
 The world is poorer in having lost Eliza A. Otis; the 
 world is richer for her having lived on earth, for her 
 having sent joy and sunshine, and happiness and cheer 
 into thousands of hearts and homes. 
 
 Mrs. Otis was one of the uncrowned queens; her 
 scepter, gently swaying over thousands of her fellow- 
 beings, was love and kindness, and all who directly or 
 indirectly came to know her willingly bowed to that in- 
 signium of her rule. 
 
 She wore the crown of the Law, that is, of knowledge, 
 for she had drunk deep from the Pierian Spring, and 
 shj was a high priestess in the Temple of Knowledge, 
 ministering to her surroundings and giving forth of the 
 abundance of her mental, moral and intellectual wealth. 
 And now that her voice is hushed, her widespread in 
 fluence for good remains, a blessing to those who survive 
 her, to the generations yet unborn. 
 
 Prayerfully attuned, our hearts turn Godward in this 
 solemn moment, and with one accord, we, regardless of 
 our peculiar views on religion, united in the one strong 
 belief in His universal Fatherhood, say: O Thou Omnip 
 otent One, in whom we live and move and have our being, 
 be near us as we supplicate Thee in behalf of the liv 
 ing and the dead. Accept our thanks for that pure, 
 beautiful and devoted life which Thou, in the abundance 
 of Thy mercy, hast given and in Thy unfathomable wis 
 dom hast taken. Make us strong to bear up under Thy 
 visitations: bless those who in the taking away of Thy 
 faithful child have felt their heart-strings a-tremble. 
 May they feel and be convinced that she whom they loved 
 and revered as wife and mother is not dead, and may 
 .we feel with them that for such as she was there is no 
 death. May yonder bells, dedicated to her memory, 
 when they sound forth their chimes, waft the name and 
 memory of Eliza A. Otis as a message of cheer and 
 strength and comfort and spiritual uplifting. May the 
 inspiration of her life arouse the spirit of emulation in 
 those who survive her. Fulfill Thy gracious promise of 
 immortal life to her whose earthly remains are here 
 bedded to eternal rest, and grant her that reward which 
 Thou boldest in store for all the good and pure. And 
 upon us and upon all Thy children, the whole human 
 family, fulfil Thy gracious promise according to Thy 
 word: May the Lord bless thee and protect thee; may 
 the Lord cause His light to shine upon thee and be gra 
 cious unto thee; may the Lord lift up His countenance 
 upon thee, and grant thee the blessing of strength through 
 peace. Amen ! 
 
 At length the day was done, and with it was done the 
 deed that will not die. In the slanting shadows of the 
 afternoon, as the twilight gathered over vale and hill, 
 the concourse passed out from the company of the dead 
 to life and the things of life again. Upon their faces 
 was the light of a surpassing peace, the brooding spirit 
 of the uplifting moments through which they had passed. 
 In every voice there was a gentler tone; in every face 
 there was a kindlier glow. It seemed just then that 
 Death was robbed of all the terrors with which it had 
 been before portrayed. Out under the open sky, under 
 the shadow of the hills, God had communed with his own 
 as He was wont to do in the days of old when His 
 children were close to His heart of mercy. From the 
 swaying tower again rang out the golden chimes of 
 melody, and we said good night to hergood night to the 
 Singer who sleeps content. 
 
 This descriptive account of the unique and inexpressibly 
 beautiful dedicatory exercises is the joint work of Mr. 
 I John S. McGroarty and Mr. W. S. Livengood of The Time 
 
 I staff, who wrote with knowledge, appreciation and feelingv 
 
 276 
 
FLORAL PERISTYLE OVER THE GRAVE OF MRS. OTIS. 
 
Tributes from Other Poets. 
 
 TRIBUTES FROM OTHER POETS. 
 
 THE MEMORIAL CHIMES. 
 
 [Dedicated to the Eliza A. Otis Memorial Association.] 
 BY MRS. GUSSIE PACKARD DUBOIS (PASADENA.) 
 What say the bells, the chiming bells of Hollywood? 
 From distant merge of sunset sea and cloudless sky 
 The echoes float, and far-off purple peaks their high, 
 Sweet tones send back, like bel fried towers that long have 
 
 stood 
 
 To garner melodies; yet never chimes like these 
 Have sea or mountain heard. They fling a message wide, 
 That brims the quiet, sunlit plain, a swelling tide, 
 And rolls, a sea of sound, above the sunset sea. 
 These bells were forged of flawless Love, white Charity 
 And silvery Hope. Of shining Faith a fine alloy 
 Was made, then priceless, ringing Truth, and tranquil 
 
 Joy, 
 
 And lo! the bells were cast. Ring out o er land and sea, 
 O chiming bells! Tell in mellifluous, mellow rhymes 
 The worth of her who sleeps beneath your chambered 
 
 chimes. 
 
 Across the peaceful valley and the fruited dell, 
 Above the city s traffic, turmoil and unrest, 
 The liquid chimes peal out. And still, at her behest, 
 Who being dead yet lives, clear, through each twilight 
 
 bell 
 Shall float her thought of peace. From out the matin 
 
 blown 
 Shall ring her dauntless courage. Through the noontide 
 
 air 
 
 Shall thrill a call to action like the trumpet s blare. 
 O silvery voices ! one true voice within each tone 
 Pulsates and swells. Ye have no melody so sweet 
 Within yourselves as that sweet voice; yet, in its stead 
 Pour your sweet balm on sorrow over pain and dread; 
 Ring out your Angelus, and stay the passing feet 
 For strength and rest, that her clear singing still may- 
 seem 
 Borne over heavenly parapets as in a dream. 
 
 MEMORIAL BELLS. 
 BY MRS. J. TORREY CONNOR (OAKLAND.) 
 
 Oh, listen to the throbbing bells, 
 The sweet-toned bells a-chime! 
 A promise and a prophecy 
 Sound in their cadenced rhyme. 
 Each silver tongue a message tells ; 
 Oh, listen to the chiming bells! 
 
 Ring out, ring out, Memorial Bells ! 
 
 God is in heaven above; 
 
 Ring for the peace that earth shall know 
 
 Ring for the reign of love. 
 
 Faith conquers fear, and doubt dispels; 
 
 Proclaim the faith, Memorial Bells! 
 
 There s music in the pealing bells 
 
 A grand, triumphant song; 
 
 They ring for noble thoughts and deeds, 
 
 For triumph over wrong. 
 
 Now, loud and clear the chorus swells 
 
 Oh, hear the bells, the pealing bells ! 
 
 Ring for the past, Memorial Bells! 
 Ring for the good cause won; 
 Ring for the struggle yet to be 
 The brave fight just begun. 
 Wake echoes over hills and dells, 
 That all may heed, Memorial Bells! 
 
 Hark to the bells, the solmen bells! 
 
 They bid you doubt no more; 
 
 The ships of hope, belated long, 
 
 Will yet come safe to shore. 
 
 May you whose soul in darkness dwells 
 
 List to the message of the bells. 
 
 Ring on, ring on, Memorial Bells! 
 
 Recall the presence dear 
 
 Of one, a spirit, sweet, serene, 
 
 Who bode among us here. 
 
 Joy smiles while yet the tear-drop wells; 
 
 "Death hath no sting." Ring on, glad bells! 
 
 THE CHIMES OF HOLLYWOOD. 
 
 BY RUBY ARCHER (LOS ANGELES.) 
 Warm pulse the chimes adown the afternoon, 
 Their golden music all with sunlight blent, 
 O er waking meadows, tremulous and clear, 
 To far blue hills, the floating tones wing slow, 
 Like birds enchanted, singing though unseen, 
 Through hours more wonder-bright than open flowers. 
 
 Pale, loosened rose-leaves fall upon the earth, 
 Dying to melodies of plaintive bells, 
 Till all the evening ways are blue with shade, 
 Anu mists, like dreams, are whitely drawing near. 
 
 Faint, sweet, mysterious as the wind-borne rose, 
 Comes answer to the yearning of all souls 
 Hark! in the bells one word: Eternity. 
 
 As turns the muezzin to his olden shrine, 
 Letting his hands their labors all forget. 
 When from the mosque resounds the call to prayer 
 Thus, at this chime, rich graven with her words, 
 So thrilling in life s message unto life, 
 The hearts of all that listen cease their toil 
 And beat responsive to those tender tones; 
 Love knocks and enters with their wistful peal, 
 And countless lives are softened while they ring. 
 What fonder wish could trance a poet s soul 
 Than thus to live in Song s immortal power 
 Yea, utter deathless beauty to the world? 
 
 277 
 
INDEX. 
 
 POETRY. 
 
 California: 
 
 A Wondrous Land ..................................... 
 
 California: II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII .............. 
 
 Semi-Tropic California Our Summerland .......... 
 
 Bride of the Sun Our Fair Southland ............. 
 
 The Land We Love The Land of Sunshine ....... 
 
 The Land of Sunshine: II, III, IV .................. 
 
 Out of Doors in Suuland A Golden Sunset A 
 
 Royal Sunset: II Transfigured ................... 
 
 California s Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow My 
 
 Lady of the Angels .................................. 
 
 My Lady of the Angels: II, III, IV .................. 
 
 The Home of the Fiesta Angelena ................ 
 
 On a Hollywood Hilltop ............................... 
 
 Los Angeles to Chicago California at St. Louis 
 
 Fair Westlake ....................................... 
 
 In Westlake Park: II ................................. 
 
 Blysian Park Catalina Under the Oaks .......... 
 
 Santa Barbara at Sunset: II Santa Barbara Then 
 
 and Now ............................................. 
 
 Santa Barbara Under a Pacific Sky Castle 
 
 Rock The Channel Islands ........................ 
 
 O Land of Sun! Winter Here and There On 
 
 the Beach ............................................ 
 
 This Fair, Sweet Land We Love ...................... 
 
 Trees, Grasses and Flowers: 
 
 The Land of the Orange Tree The Great Se 
 quoiasThe Spirit of the Trees ................... 
 
 Flower Songs (7) ....................................... 
 
 The Second Birth of the Flowers The Child and 
 the Pansies .......................................... 
 
 Lilies Water Lilies Bluebells The Birth of 
 the Chrysanthemums .................... , ........... 
 
 The Birth of the Rose ................................. 
 
 Ros es Golden Abutilon Spirits of the Flowers. 
 
 Mission Days: 
 
 San Fernando The Old Missions .................. . 
 
 Santa Barbara Mission ................................. 
 
 The Passing of the Old Missions ...................... 
 
 The Months and Seasons: 
 
 How the New Year Comes To Us These New 
 
 Year s Days A New Year s Invitation ........... 
 
 The New Year The Old Year and the New ....... 
 
 The New Century: II These January Days ...... 
 
 A February Day March: Tis Only Spring 
 
 These Clouded April Days April s Close An 
 
 April Outlook ........................................ 
 
 Semi-Tropic April O Rose-lipped May! The 
 
 Maytime June A Summer Picture A Day 
 
 in June ................................... .- .......... 
 
 A Fog-Cloud in Sweet June The Flower-lipped 
 
 June June: II .................................... 
 
 June: III, IV Dying July A July Day in Sun- 
 
 land A Cloudy August First ...................... 
 
 Semi-Tropic September September : II ............ 
 
 October in the East Semi-Tropic October .......... 
 
 October: U November Days Semi-tropic No 
 
 vember Noons ....................................... 
 
 November December: II Semi-tropic Decem 
 
 berA December Idyll ............................. 
 
 Our December Days The Closing Year As the 
 
 Old Year Dies ........................................ 
 
 The Vanishing Year The Year s Last Days The 
 
 Old Year in California ............................... 
 
 The Old Year Good Night, Old Year The Old 
 Year Asleep Thanksgiving Time in California.. 
 
 20 
 21-22 
 
 This Thanksgiving Day Our Semi-tropic Win 
 ter Winter in California The Winter of Sun- 
 land 
 
 Semi-tropic Winter Our Glorious Winter 
 
 Winter Land Winter 
 
 Winter on His Semi-tropic Throne Easter (1886- 
 1898-1902) Easter Morning Summer Musings.. 
 
 Midsummer Autumn : II Sunrise The Morn 
 ing Hour 
 
 This Morn of Fog The Dawn Sunrise Upon 
 These Sunset Shores Morning: II, III, IV 
 Sunrise at Santa Barbara Noon The Beautiful 
 Day 
 
 This Summer Day Those Golden Days The Dy 
 ing Day 
 
 The Day and I From Day to Day Today: II 
 The Day 
 
 The Day: II Day Sunset: II, III A Summer 
 Sunset Sunset on San Francisco Bay Sunset 
 at Santa Monica 
 
 Evening Night: II, III, IV, V, VI Night and 
 Morning 
 
 The Drouth and the Rain: 
 
 To the Clouds in Drouth-time The Coming of the 
 Rain Storm Pictures Our Winter Rains 
 
 A Prayer for Rain Waiting for the Rain The 
 Rains Are Coming 
 
 When the Rain Comes The Blessed Rain 
 
 O Rain- washed Skies! A Rainy Day After a 
 February Rain When the Rain Came 
 
 After the Rain: II 
 
 The Rain (1878-1893) 
 
 Mountain, Desert, Canyon and Gorge: 
 
 Yosemite: II, III, IV, V, VI Morning in the 
 Yosemite 
 
 On Eagle Point, Yosemite Approaching the Yo 
 semite Bogoslov 
 
 Old Baldy Upward to San Antonio s Crest 
 Mount Wilson 
 
 Sunset on Mt. Lowe Mount San Bernardino 
 Our Mounts of Snow 
 
 Mount Wilson On Far Sierra Heights The 
 Sierra Madre 
 
 Our Mountains: II At the Grand Canon On 
 the Desert 
 
 The Royal Gorge Niagara On the Desert 
 
 The Desert On Mountain Heights Popocatepetl 
 
 Under Arctic Skies: 
 
 An Arctic Day The Pribylov Isles 
 
 Sunland and Snowland In the Land of the Mid 
 night Sun Storm-tossed on Alaska s Shore 
 
 East and West: 
 
 Flower-Land and Frost-Land Here and There 
 Sunset Gates Beside the Western Sea Pre 
 diction 
 
 Poems of Patriotism: 
 
 Dawn of the Centennial 
 
 Decoration Day: II 
 
 The Death of Ellsworth 
 
 Garfield Greatness 
 
 " The Star of Empire " The Men and the Days 
 
 of 61 
 
 The Nation s Dead Our Immortal Dead 
 
 Grant Grant Dead and Triumphant The Days 
 
 of 64 
 
 65-66 
 67 
 
 278 
 
Certificate of flfcembersbip 
 
 Chis Certifies 
 
 liza Mite .Memorial association 
 
 having contributed to the Fund for the erection of Memorial Chimea 
 /// the Chapel of Hollywood Cemetery, California, in commemoration of the life and 
 character of a woman of high and poetic soul honored and beloved for her good deeds 
 done by person and pen for home, family and Country, for God and Humanity. 
 
 Jln($ratcful Bchnoiulc^gmcnt thereof, and hy authority of the Executive 
 Committee, we have hereunto set our hands and affixed the official seal of the Association 
 at eterltte day of isos. 
 
 
Index. 
 
 Liberty s Morn The Lessons of Memory ........... 90 
 
 Westward Empire ..................................... 91 
 
 Christopher Columbus ................................ 92 
 
 Sometimes ............................................. 93 
 
 Earth s Great Seas Roll Onward When the 
 
 Battle Breaks ....................................... 94 
 
 Our Country s Call Freedom s Seed America. .. 95 
 
 The Race Shall Wake Blossoms on the Deep ...... 9ii 
 
 Freedom s Land The School of Liberty ............ 97 
 
 Anarchy America s Morning ....................... 98 
 
 This Waking We.st In Memoriam The Land of 
 
 the Stripes and Stars ......... ................ 99 
 
 In the Track of Empire The President in the 
 
 Great West Our Country .......................... 100 
 
 McKinley .............................................. 101 
 
 God and Nature: 
 
 Nature s Voices: II Out-of-Doors Tenting on 
 
 the Canon s Shore .................................... 102 
 
 The Love of God Kindred With Nature ............ 103 
 
 Bible Pictures ......................................... 104 
 
 God, Nature and I The Penitent ............... 103 
 
 God s Poems The Miracles of Nature Our 
 
 Father ............................................... 
 
 Omnipresent Deity Nature Being s Mystery 
 
 The Light .......................................... 
 
 The Deathlessness of Being With Nature - God s 
 
 World ................................................ 108 
 
 Life Through Christ A Winter Lesson In the 
 
 Open ................................................. 109 
 
 The Banner of God s Love Our Hidden Ser 
 
 vantsThe Eternal Hills ........................... 110 
 
 Nature s Temple With Nature Pictures Come 
 
 Walk With Me ....................................... Ill 
 
 With Nature and God God in All Things The 
 
 Alphabet of Deity .................................... 112 
 
 God s World Forever Nigh ......................... 113 
 
 Nature s Child God Morning Out of Doors 
 
 Nature s Lessons ................ i .................... 114 
 
 Songs of Nature: II .................................. 115 
 
 Life and Duty, Hope and Joy: 
 
 Wedding Bells This Fair, Bright Day From 
 Midnight to Morning Two ........................ ll i 
 
 Life: II Speak to Thy Soul ......................... 117 
 
 Life Is Divine .......................................... 118 
 
 Man and Woman: 
 
 The W.C.T.U. The Drunkard ....................... 119 
 
 Woman ................................................. 120 
 
 Home Earth s Divinest Thing Love s Wishes 
 to a Bride If Love Were Dead ................... 121 
 
 The True Woman ...................................... 122 
 
 The True Woman and Home Man: II ............ 123-124 
 
 The Undiscovered Country: 
 
 Lazarus ................................................ 
 
 Heart Weariness ....................................... 
 
 Life and Death The Babe of Bethlehem ...... 
 
 Look Up The World s First Sabbath Easter 
 
 Morning ............................................. 
 
 What Am I? Shall We Not Hail It? ............... 
 
 Good-Night, Dear One! The Sweets of Paradise 
 
 Life s Sunset Sea Gates Ajar ...... 
 
 Faith No Bar, O Father! Not Dying But Un 
 
 dying Soul-Speech Transfiguration ........... 
 
 The Soul s Release The World s First Christmas. 
 On the Beach " To You This Day a Christ Is 
 
 Born" Truth s Twilight and Dawn ............. 
 
 Eternity Let Me Find Thee Our Larger Life... 
 Cradled With God Christ Is Born ................. 
 
 No Place Where God Is Not The Immortal Path 
 
 way Falsehood .................................... 
 
 133 
 134 
 135 
 
 The Triune God 137 
 
 Beyond 138 
 
 The Sabbath His Ways "Lo! I Am With 
 
 Thee Alway! " 13! 
 
 All Is Well Our Unseeing Eyes 140 
 
 The Unspoken Mystery Faith My Unknown 
 
 Self HI 
 
 The Better Land Christ the Life The World s 
 
 Story 112 
 
 The Life That Is Free What Am I? 1 13 
 
 Juvenile Poems: 
 
 God Lighting the Stars The Fairies and the 
 
 Children The Story of the Fairy 144 
 
 Vision of Santa Claus 145 
 
 My Children 14t; 
 
 Cinderella, or the Crystal Slipper 147 
 
 A Little Poem 148 
 
 Lullaby Song Childhood Childhood s Days in 
 
 Winterland 149 
 
 Child Wondering The Child and the Rosebud 
 
 Care-free Childhood Childhood s Faith 150 
 
 Jennie and Johnnie Fairyland 152 
 
 Jack and Jill Dreamland 15:; 
 
 The Little Marnma and Her Dollies Out-Doors 
 
 in Sunland 154 
 
 The Flower Maiden 155 
 
 Little Boy Blue Castles in Spain 15t; 
 
 How the Cow Jumped Over the Moon 157 
 
 " Jack-in-the-Pulpit " 15S 
 
 What the Child Said A Little Maiden 15! 
 
 The Boy the Angels Loved K >0 
 
 The Night Before Christmas 1G1 
 
 A Little Maid A Child Again 1G2 
 
 My Bunny Little Ida The Faith of Childhood.. 103 
 Childhood in Summerland January The Fairies 
 
 and the Butterfly Ii4 
 
 Jack-in-the-Pulpit The Child and the Birds 
 
 Little Boy Blue Ilia 
 
 Jack and the Beanstalk 160 
 
 Unclassified Poems: 
 
 The Leper s Cleansing From My Window IfiS 
 
 Memnon The Old Adobe 1*59 
 
 The Old Adobe: II An Evening Picture A 
 Morning of the Long Ago The Clouds and the 
 
 Fairies 170 
 
 The Soul of the Day An Eastern Summer Shower 171 
 
 Clouds and Stars Art Peace 172 
 
 The Evening Star In Chinatown The Unwritten 
 
 Past 1"3 
 
 Our Two Worlds In the Fields of Knowledge.... 174 
 Mid Olden Days Our Summer World Cocoanut 
 
 Island, Hilo Bay 175 
 
 Whittier Meteoric Showers The Modern Print 
 ing-Press 
 
 Night and the Stars In Vale and on Height... 
 
 The Philosophy of Browning 178 
 
 Morning The Other Day 179 
 
 Sweet Content Butterflies and Bees Bird An 
 thems ISO 
 
 Charlotte Bronte Eastern Woods The Oldeu 
 
 Thanksgiving 181 
 
 In the Country The Maid of Orleans 
 
 In the Old Earth s Heart 183 
 
 Child Faith: The Comet DoL e Far Niente Un 
 touched by Time 184 
 
 Sweet Bird-Song Stilled 185 
 
 What the Brook Says " The Testimony of the 
 
 Rocks" !* 
 
 In the Fields of Ohio The First Sabbath in Eden. 1ST 
 
 The Mocking-Bird and the Morns of June 188 
 
 A Secret A Morning Out of Doors " The 
 
 Golden Elephant" 189 
 
 279 
 
Index. 
 
 Santa Claus Land 190-191-192 
 
 On My Veranda 192 
 
 To Our Little One To Our Baby The First 
 
 Night in Eden The Little Children Emblems. 193 
 Emblems 194 
 
 Snatches of Song: 
 
 Love Joyful Day Earth s Fair Morning 
 Song The Mountain Stream At Noon An 
 
 Arctic Day 195 
 
 Love s Dream Sonnet Love s World 19fi 
 
 Other Short Verse: 
 
 In Memoriam Stringed Pearls A Mountain 
 Lake How Far? Life The Summer Brook 
 O Happy Bird! 197 
 
 Dolce Far Niente Sweet By-and-By An East 
 ern July Noon The Stars Our Summer 
 Land This Summer Day, the Sabbath Our 
 Father Thanksgiving A New-Born Babe 198 
 
 A Sunset Psalm A Fragment The Lily s 
 Death Who Knows? Day Good-Night The 
 Pen Falls 
 
 PART II DESCRIPTIVE PROSE. 
 
 In the Yosemite 
 
 Other Sketches of Travel 
 
 In War Times 
 
 Editorial Writings 
 
 Lay Sermons 
 
 Our Boys and Girls 
 
 Lights and Flashes 
 
 Sketch of the Author 
 
 Appendix: The Memorial Bells 267-27? 
 
 Index 278-280 
 
 211-233 
 
 234-261 
 
 262 
 
 263 
 
 280 
 
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