Not long after the opening of the Panama-Pacific International
Exposition, Blossom Day, an annual feature in California life was
observed, to be followed later by nature's offering of flowers on the
shores of all nations. Here are some blossoms:
* * * * *
Flowers speak in all nations of hope to the fainting heart. And in the
nation where flowers degenerate man cannot live.
* * * * *
"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of
the stars
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of
infidels."
--Whitman.
* * * * *
Who am I and who are you to shun the sea-born rain when trees and
flowers and birds are made merry by it and never think of
shelter.--Adapted from Quayle.
* * * * *
"Flowers and fruits are always fit gifts because a ray of beauty is
appreciated all over the world; because the language of the flower can
be understood in any land."--Comfort Guild.
[A]THE UNITED SEAS
The wise men from every land, believing
That unseen good is often
With great events allied unawares,
Must be asked to unfold the meaning
Involved in the uniting of the Earth's greatest seas.
* * * * *
For after aeons of isthmian neighborliness
And ages of barrier'd friendship,
Herculean genius has removed the mountain
And stubborn nature has yielded to the union of the Pacific
With the impetuous Atlantic,
To be commemorated with an apocalypse of light and color,
By the races assembled at the Golden Gate,
Within the natural sanctuary of our Bay,
Cathedralled by the mountains and the arching blue sky built
o'er Immensity.
* * * * *
The petty Shylocks have not been invited
To be there with unfilled bags for gold,
Nor the sordid traffickers in human flesh,
To daily swarm a city's pits of hell
And by a lewd commerce augment their filthy gains.
Sad wretches! They that holy hour would misfit and defame.
For their hands, the jewels could finger
And the pageantry their eyes could observe
But their souls could never divine the sublime thought
Of the bridal of two vast seas.
* * * * *
So give way, blind temporizers!
For the seers and prophets have seen our star and have arrived
Rightly to interpret the emotions struggling for utterance in
that unusual hour.
In these ominous words, silencing all speech:
"The Human mind is Leaving the Log Cabin and Statehouse
To Enter 'the Parliament of Man,' the Federation of the World."
* * * * *
So the true from every land, vast armies of welcome guests,
they come!--
The sons of kings and nobles and the late-increasing hosts of
freemen, so innumerable,
To see the passing of provincial national life.
* * * * *
And our imagination now hears the mighty tread of pilgrims,
And sees this Western paradise bestirred in final preparation
for its festive attire--
Our Rocky's wide slope, within its hidden laboratories,
By some chemical's new magic hastening to make more enchanting
its coast-wide tribute of flowers;
If possible more stately its redwoods, more mighty its hills;
And our stars in the heavens are brightening their lights
To welcome the long caravans from the nations,
The ships from all the seas,--
To a ceremony epochal, from dawn into days worthily prolonged.
* * * * *
For the silvery Queen of Night will tarry in a veiled appreciation
Until the powerful King of Day comes resplendent from the east, in
a new vernal splendor,
While the globe, electrified and cabled into hearing,
With its armies momentarily halting in embarrassed meditation,
Will quiver with attention at the dawn of that momentous day
When it is authoritatively announced:
That the tumultuous Atlantean stalwart, the first born of the east
And the interminable Austral ocean, gentle empress of the west,
Have been joined in the tidal grasp of a spheric wedlock
Uniting two hemisphere estates.
Sure to be conducive to international progress,
Prophetic of a planetary brotherhood,
And bravely resolute for world-peace.
* * * * *
Yes, in spite of war and carnage,
The invincible human spirit will then escape the thralldom of
a temporary despair;
For in this land of hope and courage, which is a prophecy of
the world to be,
Where the strong sons of freedom's pioneers still breathe a
bracing air,
And drink a freeman's water fresh from every hill--and not
human blood with warring kings--
Here, the vision so transforming,
The vision of our fathers, will become the vision of all the
sons of men!
* * * * *
Here, where reason and not hate is peculiarly creative,
Where the intelligence of peace is so successful--and not the
blind force of retrogressive men--
Here, the new spirit of World Democracy, still youthful like
David, must be strengthened to slay the European Goliath;
To defy Mar's staggering bluff and check the antiquated
ambition of war.
For not only will the vision of our fathers become the vision
of all the sons of men,
But the resolution of their heroes is also to become the
purpose of the race!
* * * * *
So, the wise men, they too have come!
Not to finger, nor to trifle;
Undismayed by war or ignorance,
Loyal advocates of unfailing providence,
Cabined not by years nor decades--
They look out upon the ages and can trace historic movements;
And for them a thousand years is no longer than a day.
* * * * *
They look northward toward Ambition;
They look eastward toward a Manager;
They look westward toward a Holy City;
They look southward toward an Isthmus;
They look inward and declare, "Man was born to grow, not stop!"
They look throng-ward, to interpret the strange spell
overcasting seers and doubters, and exclaim:
"The international mind subconscious is struggling
successfully here to become conscious.
Yea, take the scales from your eyes and you will see
That the mind of man is becoming broader
And your brotherhood from a race is to be freed
As the pilgrims from the nations become the pioneers of the
sphere--
As they catch the prophet's vision,
The Son of Man's distant vision of an essentially united earth,
When they begin to think the world-thoughts,
Irresistibly inspired by the spheric union of Jehovah's two
vast seas."
* * * * *
For the universal Father, the God of the united seas,
He is still the Lord of all might.
And His strength is in genius, in love and in truth.