A mile above the ocean’s level brim
Tow’rs Palomar, the monarch of the range.
Along its western base are frostless hills
With verdure crowned, and valleys green, where bloom
And fruitage fill the air with sweet perfume.
Green pastures, rich with herbage and bright flowers,
Bedeck the eastern slopes which fall away
A lone and weary desert land to meet;
To meet a lone and weary desert land--
A rich and rocky land where mines of wealth
Have slumbered long beneath its arid wastes.
So stands in majesty this mountain grand
Between the desert and the western sea.
From ocean’s heaving breast, she upward sent
A humid vapor, in the skies to meet
And woo the softer breezes that ascend
From off the heated earth at eventide.
A gentle zephyr was at play among
The cacti beds and yuccas tall, that lift
Their spiny leaves and tufted fronds above
The burning sands; she softly breathed a sigh,
And floating upward in the milky way
She met and wed the vapor from the sea;
For each had found a true affinity.
The moon withdrew and hid her face behind
The distant isles; and from the blushing east
A ray of sunlight came and kissed the bride.
Together in the skies, these twain have wrought
A mantle, soft as down, of spotless white;
And often as the evening twilight falls,
Or dewy morning sheds her purple tints,
They come and spread it over Palomar.
Thus runs the legend which has oft been told;
And which the Indian maiden whispers low
When snow white clouds hang over Palomar.