The wind broke open a rose's heart
And scattered her petals far apart.
Driven before the churlish blast
Some in the meadow brook were cast,
Or fell in the tangle of the sedge;
Some were impaled on the thorn of the hedge;
But one was caught on my dear love's breast
Where long ago my heart found rest.
CHARLES FRANCIS SAUNDERS,
in _Overland Monthly, July_, 1907.
APRIL 13.
For fifteen months the desert of California had lain athirst. The
cattle of the vast ranges had fled from the parched sands, the dying,
shriveled shrubs, appealing vainly, mutely, for rain, and had taken
refuge in the mountains. They instinctively retreated from the death
of the desert and sheltered themselves in the green of the foot-hills.
North, east, south, and west, rain had fallen, but here, for miles on
either side of the little isolated station * * * the plain had so
baked in the semi-tropical sun until even the hardiest sage-brush took
on the color of the sand which billowed toward the eastern horizon
like an untraveled ocean.
MRS. FREMONT OLDER,
in _The Giants._
APRIL 14.
The strong westerly winds drawing in through the Golden Gate sweep
with unobstructed force over the channel, and, meeting the outflowing
and swiftly moving water, kick up a sea that none but good boats can
overcome. To go from San Francisco to the usual cruising grounds the
channel must be crossed. There is no way out of it. And it is to this
circumstance, most probably, we are indebted for as expert a body of
yachtsmen as there is anywhere in the United States. Timid, nervous,
unskilled men cannot handle yachts under such conditions of wind and
waves. The yachtsmen must have confidence in themselves, and must have
boats under them which are seaworthy and staunch enough to keep on
their course, regardless of adverse circumstances.
CHARLES G. YALE,
in _Yachting in San Francisco Bay_, in _The Californian._
APRIL 15.
THE LIZARD.
I sit among the hoary trees
With Aristotle on my knees
And turn with serious hand the pages,
Lost in the cobweb-hush of ages;
When suddenly with no more sound
Than any sunbeam on the ground,
The little hermit of the place
Is peering up into my face--
The slim gray hermit of the rocks,
With bright, inquisitive, quick eyes,
His life a round of harks and shocks,
A little ripple of surprise.
Now lifted up, intense and still,
Sprung from the silence of the hill
He hangs upon the ledge a-glisten.
And his whole body seems to listen!
My pages give a little start,
And he is gone! to be a part
Of the old cedar's crumpled bark.
A mottled scar, a weather mark!
EDWIN MARKHAM,
in _Lincoln and Other Poems._
APRIL 16.
I lived in a region of remote sounds. On Russian Hill I looked down
as from a balloon; all there is of the stir of the city comes in
distant bells and whistles, changing their sound, just as scenery
moves, according to the state of the atmosphere. The islands shift as
if enchanted, now near and plain, then removed and dim. The bay
widening, sapphire blue, or narrowing, green and gray, or, before a
storm, like quicksilver.
EMMA FRANCES DAWSON,
in _An Itinerant House._
APRIL 17.
Although we dread earthquakes with all their resultant destruction,
yet it is well to recognize the fact that if it were not for them we
would find here in California little of that wonderful scenery of
which we are so proud. Our earthquakes are due to movements similar to
those which, through hundreds of thousands of years, have been raising
the lofty mountains of the Cordilleran region. The Sierra Nevada
range, with its abrupt eastern scarp nearly two miles high, faces an
important line of fracture along which movements have continued to
take place up to the present time.
HAROLD W. FAIRBANKS,
in _The Great Earthquake Rift of California._
APRIL 18.
APRIL EIGHTEENTH.
Three years have passed, oh, City! since you lay--
A smoking shambles--stricken by the lust
Of Nature's evil passions. In a day
I saw your splendor crumble into dust.
So vast your desolation, so complete
Your tragedy of ruin that there seemed
Small hope of rallying from such defeat--
Of seeing you arisen and redeemed.
Yet, three short years have marked a sure rebirth
To splendid urban might; a higher place
Among the ruling cities of the earth
And left of your disaster but a trace.
Refined in flame and tempered, as a blade
Of iron into steel of flawless ring--
City of the Spirit Unafraid!
What wondrous destiny the years will bring!
LOUIS J. STELLMAN,
in _San Francisco Globe, April_ 18, 1909.
APRIL 19.
O, EVANESCENCE!
(SAN FRANCISCO.)
I loved a work of dreams that bloomed from Art;
A town and her turrets rose
As from the red heart
Of the couchant suns where the west wind blows
And worlds lie apart.
Calm slept the sea-flats; beneath the blue dome
Copper and gold and alabaster gleamed,
And sea-birds came home.
But I woke in a sorrowful day;
The vision was scattered away.
Ashes and dust lie deep on the dream that I dreamed.
HERMAN SCHEFFAUER,
in _Looms of Life._
APRIL 20.
SAN FRANCISCO.
What matters that her multitudinous store--
The garnered fruit of measureless desire--
Sank in the maelstrom of abysmal fire,
To be of man beheld on earth no more?
Her loyal children, cheery to the core.
Quailed not, nor blenched, while she, above the ire
Of elemental ragings, dared aspire
On victory's wings resplendently to soar.
What matters all the losses of the years,
Since she can count the subjects as her own
That share her fortunes under every fate;
Who weave their brightest tissues from her tears,
And who, although her best be overthrown,
Resolve to make her and to keep her great.
EDWARD ROKESON TAYLOR,
in _Sunset Magazine._
APRIL 21.
They could hear the roar and crackle of the fire and the crashing of
walls; but even more formidable was that tramping of thousands of
feet, the scraping of trunks and furniture on the tracks and stones. *
* * It was a well and a carefully dressed crowd, for by this time
nearly everyone had recovered from the shock of the earthquake; many
forgotten it, no doubt, in the new horror. * * * They pushed trunks to
which skates had been attached, or pulled them by ropes; they trundled
sewing machines and pieces of small furniture, laden with bundles.
Many carried pillow-cases, into which they had stuffed a favorite
dress and hat, an extra pair of boots and a change of underclothing,
some valuable bibelot or bundle of documents; to say nothing of their
jewels and what food they could lay hands on. Several women wore their
furs, as an easier way of saving them, and children carried their
dolls. Their state of mind was elemental. * * * The refinements of
sentiment and all complexity were forgotten; they indulged in nothing
so futile as complaint, nor even conversation. And the sense of the
common calamity sustained them, no doubt, de-individualized them for
the hour.
GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in _Ancestors._
APRIL 22.
The sun is dying; space and room.
Serenity, vast sense of rest,
Lie bosomed in the orange west
Of Orient waters. Hear the boom
Of long, strong billows; wave on wave,
Like funeral guns above a grave.
JOAQUIN MILLER,
in _Collected Poems._
APRIL 23.
SAN FRANCISCO.
IN CHRISTMAS TWILIGHT, 1898.
In somber silhouette, against a golden sky,
Francisco's city sits as sunbeams die.
The serrated hills her throne; the ocean laves her feet:
Her jeweled crown the Western zephyrs greet;
Their breath is fragrance, sweet as wreath of bride,
In winter season as at summer tide.
AFTER APRIL 18, 1906.
Clothed with sack-cloth, strewn with ashes,
Seated on a desolate throne
'Mid the spectral walls of stately domes
And the skeletons of regal homes,
Francisco weeps while westward thrashes
Through the wrecks of mansions, stricken prone
By the rock of earth and sweep of flame
Which, unheralded and unbidden, came
In the greatness of her pride full-blown
And at the zenith of her matchless fame.
TALIESIN EVANS.
APRIL 24.
And let it be remembered that whatever San Francisco, her citizens and
her lovers, do now or neglect to do in this present regeneration will
be felt for good or ill to remotest ages. Let us build and rebuild
accordingly, bearing in mind that the new San Francisco is to stand
forever before the world as the measure of the civic taste and
intelligence of her people.
HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT,
in _Some Cities and San Francisco._
APRIL 25.
SAN FRANCISCO.
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.
The cataclysmal force to which we owe
Our glorious Gate of Gold, through which the sea
Rushed in to clasp these shores long, long ago,
Came once again to crown our destiny
With such a grandeur that in sequent years
This period of pain which now appears
Pregnant with doubt, shall vanish as when day
Drives the foreboding dreams of night away.
Born of the womb of Woe, where Sorrow sighs,
Fostered by Faith, undaunted by Dismay,
Earth's fairest City shall from ashes rise.
LOUIS ALEXANDER ROBERTSON,
in _Through Painted Panes._
APRIL 30.
Old San Francisco, which is the San Francisco of only the other
day--the day before the earthquake--was divided midway by the Slot.
The Slot was an iron crack that ran along the center of Market street,
and from the Slot arose the burr of the ceaseless, endless cable that
was hitched at will to the cars it dragged up and down. In truth,
there were two Slots, but, in the quick grammar of the West, time was
saved by calling them, and much more that they stood for, "The Slot."
North of the Slot were the theaters, hotels and shipping district, the
banks and the staid, respectable business houses. South of the Slot
were the factories, slums, laundries, machine shops, boiler works, and
the abodes of the working class.
JACK LONDON,
in _Saturday Evening Post._
MAY 1.
HAWAII, WEDNESDAY, MAY 1. 1907.
A year ago, Jack and I set out on a horseback trip through the
northern counties of California. It just now came to me--not the date
itself, but the feel of the sweet country, the sweetness of mountain
lilacs, the warm summer-dusty air. * * * And here in Hawaii, I am not
sure but I am at home, for our ground is red, too, in the Valley of
the Moon, where home is--dear home on the side of Sonoma Mountain,
where the colts are, and where the Brown Wolf died.
CHARMIAN K. LONDON,
in _Log of the Snark._
MAY 2.
A dull eyed rattlesnake that lay
All loathsome, yellow-skinned, and slept,
Coil'd tight as pine-knot, in the sun
With flat head through the center run,
Struck blindly back.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
The air was steeped in the warm fragrance of a California spring.
Every crease and wrinkle of the encircling hills was reflected in the
blue stillness of the laguna. Patches of poppies blazed like bonfires
on the mesa, and higher up the faint smoke of the blossoming buckthorn
tangled its drifts in the chaparral. Bees droned in the wild
buckwheat, and powdered themselves with the yellow of the mustard, and
now and then the clear, staccato voice of the meadow-lark broke into
the drowsy quiet--a swift little dagger of sound.
MARGARET COLLIER GRAHAM,
in _Stories of the Foothills._
MAY 3.
THE SEA GARDENS AT CATALINA.
The voyager when the glass-bottom boat starts is first regaled with
the sandy beach, in three or four feet of water. He sees the wave
lines, the effect of waves on soft sand, the delicate shading of the
bottom in grays innumerable; now the collar-like egg of a univalve or
the sharp eye of a sole or halibut protruding from the sand. A school
of smelt dart by, pursued by a bass; and as the water deepens bands of
small fish, gleaming like silver, appear; then a black cormorant
dashing after them, or perchance a sea-lion browsing on the bottom in
pursuit of prey. Suddenly the light grows dimmer; quaint shadows
appear on the bottom, and almost without warning the lookers on are in
the depths of the kelpian forest.
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in _Life in the Open._
MAY 4.
THE HIDEOUS OCTOPUS.
From the glass-bottom boat we can see all the fauna of the ocean, and,
without question, the most fascinating of them all is the octopus.
Timid, constantly changing color, hideous to a degree, having a
peculiarly devilish expression, it is well named the _Mephistopheles
of the Sea_, and with the bill of a parrot, the power to adapt its
color to almost any rock, and to throw out a cloud of smoke or ink, it
well deserves the terror it arouses. The average specimen is about two
feet across, but I have seen individuals fourteen feet in radial
spread, and larger ones have been taken in deep water off shore.
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in _The Glass Bottom Boat._
MAY 5.
A SIERRA STORM FROM A TREE TOP.
Being accustomed to climb trees in making botanical studies, I
experienced no difficulty in reaching the top of this one (a pine
about 100 feet high), and never before did I enjoy so noble an
exhilaration of motion. The slender tops fairly flapped and swished in
the passionate torrent, bending and swirling backward and forward,
round and round, tracing indescribable combinations of vertical and
horizontal curves, while I clung with muscles firm braced, like a
bobolink on a reed.
JOHN MUIR,
in _The Mountains of California._
MAY 6.
There is a breeziness, a spaciousness, an undefiled ecstasy of purity
about the High Sierras. Nature, yet untainted by man, has expressed
herself largely in mighty pine-clad, snow-topped blue mountains, and
rolling stretches of foot-hills; in rivers whose clarity is as perfect
as the first snow-formed drops that heralded them; and a sky of chaste
and limpid blue, pale as with awe of the celestial wonders it has
gazed upon. But there is an effect of simplicity with it all, an
omission of sensational landscape contrasts.
MIRIAM MICHELSON,
in _Anthony Overman._
The ocean is a great home. Its waters are full of life. The rocks
along its shores are thickly set with living things; the mud and sand
of its bays are pierced with innumerable burrows, and even the abyss
of the deep sea has its curious inhabitants.
JOSIAH KEEP,
in _West Coast Shells._
MAY 7.
THE COMING OF THE RAILROAD.
(IN CALIFORNIA.)
It was folded, away from strife,
In the beautiful pastoral hills;
And the mountain peaks kept watch and ward
O'er the peace that the valley fills--
Kept watch and ward lest the bold world pass
The fair green rampart of hills.
* * * * *
The rains of the winter fell
In benison on its sod;
And the smiling fields of the spring looked up,
A thanksgiving glad, to God;
And the little children laughed to see
The wild-flowers star the sod.
* * * * *
Hark! hark! to the thundrous roar!
Like a demon of fable old,
The fiery steed of the rail hath swept
Thro' the ancient mountain-hold.
And the green hills shudder to feel his breath--
The challenge of New to Old.
FRANCES MARGARET MILNE,
in _For Today._
MAY 8.
JOAQUIN MILLER TO THE MONEY GETTER.
Yes! I am a dreamer.
* * * * *
While you seek gold in the earth, why, I
See gold in the steeps of the starry sky;
And which do you think has the fairer view
Of God in heaven--the dreamer or you?
JOAQUIN MILLER.
MAY 9.
THE GLASS BOTTOM BOAT AT CATALINA.
When you land in the beautiful Bay of Avalon, on Santa Catalina
Island, you are met, not by hackmen, but by glass-bottom boatmen:
"Here you are! Marine Jimmie's boat, only fifty cents." "Take the
_Cleopatra_," or "Right away now for the Marine Gardens." These
craft, that look like old-fashioned river side-wheelers are made on
the Island, and some range from row-boats with glass bottoms to large
side-wheel steamers valued at $3000. There is a fleet of them, big and
little, and they skim over the kelp beds, and have introduced an
altogether new variety of entertainment and zoological study combined.
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER.
in _The Glass Bottom Boat._
MAY 10.
THE HANGING SEA GARDENS AT CATALINA.
The animals of the hanging gardens are not confined to the kelp or the
rocks of the bottom. The blue water where the sunlight enters brings
out myriads of delicate forms, poising, drifting, swimming, the
veritable gems of the sea; some are red as the ruby; others blue like
sapphire; some yellow, white, brown, or emitting vivid flashes of
seeming phosphorescent light. Ocean sapphires they are called; the
true gems of the sea, thickly strewn in the deep blue water. Sweeping
by, poised in classic shapes, are the smaller jelly-fishes; crystal
vases, so delicate that the rich tone of the ocean can be seen through
them, changing to a steely blue. Some are mere spectres, a tracery of
lace; others rich in colors and flaunting long trains.
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in _Life in the Open._
MAY 11.
BUILDING THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAY.
Few can realize the problem before those intrepid men, who, with
little money and large hostility behind them, hauled their strenuously
obtained subsistence and material over nearly a thousand miles of
poorly equipped road. They fought mountains of snow as they had never
before been fought. They forced their weak, wheezy little engines up
tremendous grades with green wood that must sometimes be coaxed with
sage-brush gathered by the firemen running alongside of their creeping
or stalled iron horses. There were no steel rails. Engineers worked
unhelped by the example of perfected railroad building of later times.
No tracks or charts of the man-killing desert! No modern helps, no
ready, over-eager capital seeking their enterprise! Only skepticism,
hatred from their enemies, and "You can't do it!" flung at them from
friend and foe.
SARAH PRATT CARR,
in _The Iron Way._
MAY 12.
ANGLING THE SWORDFISH.
As he brought the great fish around again, a wonderful sight with its
gaudy fins, enormous black eyes and menacing sword, the head boatman
hurled the heavy spear into it. The swordfish fairly doubled up under
the shock, deluging with water the fishermen, its sword coming out and
striking the boat. A moment more and it might have escaped; but one of
the men seized it by the sword, while another threw a rope around it,
and the big game was theirs; in all probability the first large
swordfish ever taken with a rod and reel.
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in _Big Game at Sea._
MAY 13.
The old Greeks taught their children how to sing, because it taught
them how to be obedient. This is a difficult universe to the man who
drives dead against it, but to the man who has learned the secret of
harmony through obedience it is a happy place. Discord is sickness;
harmony is health. Discord is restlessness; harmony is peace. Discord
is sorrow; harmony is joy. Discord is death; harmony is life. Discord
is hell; harmony is heaven. He who is in love and peace with his
neighbors, filling the sphere where God has placed him, hath heaven in
his heart already. Only through blue in the eye, the scientist tells
us, can blue out of the eye be seen. Only through C in the ear can C
out of the ear be heard. Only through Heaven down here can Heaven up
there be interpreted.
MALCOLM McLEOD,
in _Earthly Discords._
MAY 14.
As one approaches the mission from the road, it defines itself more
and more as a distinct element in the view: the hills ... seem to
distribute themselves on either side, as though realizing that here,
at least, they are subordinate and must not intrude. This brings Santa
Lucia into view, directly behind the mission, and thus the two most
prominent, most interesting, most beautiful objects in the landscape
are brought together in one perfect whole: Mt. Santa Lucia--Nature's
grandest creation for miles around; Mission San Antonio--man's
noblest, most artistic handiwork between Santa Barbara and Carrnelo.
CHARLES FRANKLIN CARTER,
in _Some By-Ways of California._
MAY 15.
There is what may be called a _sense_ of the sea, which is
indefinable. No lesser body of water, no other aspect of Nature
affords this. It is in the air, like a touch of autumn, and we know it
as much through feeling as through seeing. The coast is saturated for
some distance inland with this presence of the sea, much as the beach
is soaked with salt water. It is music and poetry to the soul and as
elusive as they, wrapping us in dreams and yielding fugitive glimpses
of that which we may never grasp, but which skirts, like a beautiful
phantom, the mind's horizon. Like music, it is an opiate, and unlocks
for us new states of mind in which we wander, as in halls of alabaster
and mother-of-pearl, but where, alas, we may not linger. We can as
readily sound the ocean as fathom the feelings it inspires. It is too
deep for thought. As often as the sea speaks to us of the birth of
Venus and of Joy, so also does it remind of Prometheus bound and the
thrall of Nature.
STANTON DAVIS KIRKHAM,
in _In the Open._
MAY 16.
The morning breeze with breath of rose
Steals from the dawn and softly blows
Beneath the lintel, where is hung
My little bell with winged tongue;
Steals from the dawn, that it may be
An oracle of peace to me;
For hark! athwart my fitful dreams
There mingles with the Orient beams
A wakening psalm of tinkling bell:
"God brings the day, and all is well."
CLIFFORD HOWARD,
in _The Wind Bell._
MAY 17.
CATCHING A SWORDFISH.