The California Birthday Book: Prose and Poetical Selections from the Writings of Living California Authors with a Brief Biographical Sketch of each
General
The California Birthday Book: Prose and Poetical Selections from the Writings of Living California Authors with a Brief Biographical Sketch of each
American literature -- California; Birthday books; California -- Description and travel; California -- Poetry
Queen regnant she, and so shall be for aye
As long as her still unpolluted sea
Shall wash the borders of her brave and free,
And mother her incomparable Bay.
The pharisees and falsehood-mongers may
Be rashly blatant as they care to be,
She yet with dauntless, old-time liberty
Will hold her own indomitable way.
A Royal One, all love and heart can bear.
The all of strength that human arm can wield.
Are thine devotedly, and ever thine;
And thou wilt use them till thy brow shall wear
A newer crown by high endeavor sealed
With gems emitting brilliances divine.
EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR,
in _Sunset Magazine._
APRIL 26.
Until a man paints with the hope or with the wish to stir the minds of
his fellows to better thinking and their hearts to better living, or
to make some creature happier or wiser, he has not understood the
meaning of art.
W.L. JUDSON,
in _The Building of a Picture._
CALIFORNIA ON THE PASSING OF TENNYSON.
All silent ... So, he lies in state ...
Our redwoods drip and drip with rain ...
Against our rock-locked Golden Gate
We hear the great, sad, sobbing main.
But silent all ... He passed the stars
That year the whole world turned to Mars.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
APRIL 27 AND 28.
In ended days, a child, I trod thy sands,
The sands unbuilded, rank with brush and brier
And blossom--chased the sea-foam on thy strands,
Young city of my love and my desire!
I saw thy barren hills against the skies,
I saw them topped with minaret and spire,
On plain and slope thy myriad walls arise,
Fair city of my love and my desire.
With thee the Orient touched heart and hands;
The world's rich argosies lay at thy feet;
Queen of the fairest land of all the lands--
Our Sunset-Glory, proud and strong and sweet!
I saw thee in thine anguish! tortured, prone.
Rent with earth-throes, garmented in fire!
Each wound upon thy breast upon my own.
Sad city of my love and my desire.
Gray wind-blown ashes, broken, toppling wall
And ruined hearth--are these thy funeral pyre?
Black desolation covering as a pall--
Is this the end, my love and my desire?
Nay, strong, undaunted, thoughtless of despair,
The Will that builded thee shall build again,
And all thy broken promise spring more fair.
Thou mighty mother of as mighty men.
Thou wilt arise invincible, supreme!
The earth to voice thy glory never tire,
And song, unborn, shall chant no nobler theme,
Proud city of my love and my desire.
But I--shall see thee ever as of old!
Thy wraith of pearl, wall, minaret and spire,
Framed in the mists that veil thy Gate of Gold,
Lost city of my love and my desire.
INA D. COOLBRITH.
APRIL 29.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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