The California Birthday Book Part 31

CHARLES McKNIGHT SAIN, in _The Call of the Muse._

AUGUST 27.

THE SIERRA SNOW-PLANT.

Thou growest in eternal snows As flower never grew; The sun upon thy beauty throws No kiss--the dawn no dew.

Thou knowest not the love-warm marl Of Earth, but dead and white The wastes wherein thy roots ensnarl Ere thou art freed in light.

Where blighted dawns, with twilight blent, Die pale, thou liftest strong, A tongue of crimson, eloquent With one unceasing song.

O Life in vasts of death! O Flame That thrills the stark expanse; Let Love and Longing be thy name!

Love and Renunciance.

HERMAN SCHEFFAUER, in _Looms of Life._

AUGUST 28.

IN A CALIFORNIA GARDEN.

Thro' the green cloister, folding us within.

The leaves are audible--our ear to win; They whisper of the realm of old Romance.

Of sunny Spain, and of chivalric France; And poor Ramona's love and her despair, Thrill, like Aeolian harp, the twilight air-- So the dear garden claims its mystic due.

Linking the legends of the Old and New.

FRANCES MARGARET MILNE, in _The Grizzly Bear Magazine, June_, 1909.

AUGUST 29.

The evening primrose covers the lower slopes with long sheets of brightest yellow, and from the hills above, the rock-rose adds its golden bloom to that of the sorrel and the wild alfalfa, until the hills almost outshine the bright light from the slopes and plains. And through all this nods a tulip of delicate lavender; vetches, lupins and all the members of the wild-pea family are pushing and winding their way everywhere in every shade of crimson, purple and white. New bell-flowers of white and blue and indigo rise above the first, which served merely as ushers to the display, and whole acres ablaze with the orange of the poppy are fast turning with the indigo of the larkspur. The mimulus alone is almost enough to color the hills.

T.S. VAN d.y.k.e, in _Southern California._

AUGUST 30.

THE MARIPOSA LILY.

Insect or blossom? Fragile, fairy thing, Poised upon slender tip, and quivering To flight! a flower of the fields of air; A jeweled moth; a b.u.t.terfly, with rare And tender tints upon his downy wings, A moment resting in our happy sight; A flower held captive by a thread so slight Its petal-wings of broidered gossamer Are light as the wind, with every wind astir, Wafting sweet odor, faint and exquisite.

O dainty nursling of the field and sky.

What fairer thing looks up to heaven's blue And drinks the noontide sun, the dawning's dew?

Thou winged bloom! thou blossom-b.u.t.terfly!

INA D. COOLBRITH, in _Songs from the Golden Gate._

AUGUST 31.

CALIFORNIA PHILOSOPHY.

You kin talk about yer eastern states, their stiddy growth 'nd size, 'Nd brag about yer cities, with their business enterprise; You kin blow about tall buildin's runnin' clean up to the clouds, 'Nd gas about yer graded streets 'nd chirp about yer crowds; But how about yer "twisters" 'nd the cyclones you have there, That's runnin' 'round uncorralled 'nd a-gittin' on a tear, 'Nd a-mixin' towns 'nd counties up at sich a tarnal rate A man can't be dead sartin that he's in his native state.

You needn't talk to me about yer "enterprise" 'nd "go,"

Fer how about them river floods us folks hear tell of so, Where a feller goes to bed at night with nary thought o' fear, 'Nd discovers in the mornin' that he's changed his hemisphere; 'Nd where gra.s.shoppers eat the crops 'nd all about the place, But leave that gilt-edged mortgage there ter stare you in the face.

If that is where you want ter live it's where you'd orter be, But I reckon ol' Cal'forny's good 'nough fer me.

I sort o' low the climate thar is somewhat diff'runt too, Accordin' to the weather prophet's watchful p'int o' view.

In course, if ten foot s...o...b..nks don't bother you at all, Er slosh 'nd mud 'nd drizzlin' rain, combined with a snowfall, It's just the most delightful spot this side o' heaven's dome-- But I kind o' sorter reckon that I couldn't call it home.

When you talk about that climate, it's all tomfoolery, Fer sunny ol' Cal'forny's good enough fer me.

Oh, you live away back east, you don't know what you miss By stayin' in that measly clime, without the joy an' bliss Of knowin' what the weather is from one day to the next; It's "mebby this," "I hope it's that," er some such like pretext.

Come out to Californy' whar the sky is allers bright, 'Nd where the sun shines all the while, with skeerce a cloud in sight; You'd never pine fer eastern climes--ther's no denyin' that-- Fer when you want a heaven on earth, Los Angeles stands pat.

E.A. BRININSTOOL.

CALIFORNIA.

In all methinks I see the counterpart Of Italy, without her dower of art.

We have the lordly Alps, the fir-fringed hills, The green and golden valleys veined with rills, A dead Vesuvius with its smouldering fire, A tawny Tiber sweeping to the sea.

Our seasons have the same superb attire, The same redundant wealth of flower and tree, Upon our peaks the same imperial dyes, And day by day, serenely over all, The same successive months of smiling skies.

Conceive a cross, a tower, a convent wall, A broken column and a fallen fane, A chain of crumbling arches down the plain, A group of brown-faced children by a stream, A scarlet-skirted maiden standing near, A monk, a beggar, and a muleteer, And lo! it is no longer now a dream.

These are the Alps, and there the Apennines; The fertile plains of Lombardy between; Beyond Val d'Arno with its flocks and vines, These granite crags are gray monastic shrines Perched on the cliffs like old dismantled forts; And far to seaward can be dimly seen The marble splendor of Venetian courts; While one can all but hear the mournful rhythmic beat Of white-lipped waves along the sea-paved street.

O childless mother of dead empires, we, The latest born of all the western lands, In fancied kinship stretch our infant hands Across the intervening seas to thee.

Thine the immortal twilight, ours the dawn, Yet we shall have our names to canonize, Our past to haunt us with its solemn eyes, Our ruins, when this restless age is gone.

LUCIUS HARWOOD FOOTE.

SEPTEMBER 1.

THE SCARF OF IRIS.

Something magical is near me--hidden, breathing everywhere, Shaken out in mystic odors, caught unseen in the mid-air.