Farewell, this ends my rhyming, submitted at its worth. Lest I forget--pride goes before the fall, on earth And exceeding fine if slowly, grind the mills of angry gods-- The muses' steed, a versifying bronco had I caught And recklessly I rode; but fast as thought Fate overtook me when Pegasus bucked me off. Sorely distressed I hear a satyr's mocking laugh As on my laurels resting, on my seat of honor cast And thanking you for kind attention now your indulgent censure ask. THE BIRTH OF ARIZONA. (AN ALLEGORICAL TALE.) On the summit of a mountain I staked my claim; in the shade of a balsam-spruce I built my hut. When the south wind that rises on the desert climbs to the mountain's ridge and rustling among silvery needles, rattles the cones on boughs and twigs--the tree-giant whispers with resinous breath, bemoaning the fate of a prehistoric civilization, and lisps of the mystery and romance of a humanity long extinct, mourning for races forgotten and vanished. Alone--unrivaled in her weird, wild grandeur stands Arizona where spiry rock-ribbed giants stab an emerald, opal-tinted sky, and terraced mesas of wondrous amber hue form natural stairways, that grandly wrought were carved step after step, through successive epochs of erosion, affording thus an easy ascent to the rugged profile of this land of the Western Hemisphere. All this is of historic record in stony cypher of geology indelibly engraved by time on the rocky walls of deepest canyons, as traceable from the primordial archaean to our present era, the age of man. In tremor-spasms of terrestrial creation, 'midst chaotic fiery turmoil of volcanos, out of the depth of globe-encircling waters, from the womb of Universe--Eternity--came the Almighty Word, and then was born fair Arizona. Fraught with golden prophecy was her horoscope, cast by fate's oracle for her birthday fell under the sign of the scorpion when in the path of planets Venus contended with the Earth for first place of ascendency to the second house of the heavens. High above the tidal wave rose Arizona, as fleecy clouds float in the rays of Apollo's sun-torch when at eventide his flaming chariot plunges into unfathomed depths of the Pacific Ocean. With her first breath this daughter of Columbia, born of gods, clamored for aid. Neptune was first among the planets to heed the plaintive cry and held her to his breast, with fond caresses. The grandest canyon on the face of earth with flowing streams and limpid crystals he gave her as a birthday present. These crystals rare are famed as Arizona diamonds now. Bright, lovely Venus, the sister of Earth, a shining planet, gave the ruby-red garnet, her pledge of love and Arizona hid it in her bosom. There shall you find it, if worthy so you be, in the hearts of happy maidens. Saturn gave her his ring of amethysts and Uranus the greenish malachite, of buoyant hope the emblem. This, in time, was changed to copper, the king of all commercial metals.