POEMS

HARTE

ELEGIAC AND NATIONAL

SAN FRANCISCO

(FROM THE SEA)

SERENE, indifferent of Fate,
Thou sittest at the Western Gate;

Upon thy height, so lately won,

Still slant the banners of the sun;

Thou seest the white seas strike their tents,
O Warder of two Continents!

And, scornful of the peace that flies
Thy angry winds and sullen skies,

Thou drawest all things, small or great,
To thee, beside the Western Gate.

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Wrap her, O Fog, in gown and hood
Of her Franciscan Brotherhood.

Hide me her faults, her sin and blame;
With thy grey mantle cloak her shame!

So shall she, cowlèd, sit and pray
Till morning bears her sins away.

Then rise, O Fleecy Fog, and raise
The glory of her coming days;

Be as the cloud that flecks the seas
Above her smoky argosies;

When forms familiar shall give place
To stranger speech and newer face;

When all her throes and anxious fears
Lie hushed in the repose of years;

When Art shall raise and Culture lift
The sensual joys and meaner thrift,

And all fulfilled the vision we
Who watch and wait shall never see,

Who, in the morning of her race,
Toiled fair or meanly in our place,

But, yielding to the common lot,
Lie unrecorded and forgot.

THE MOUNTAIN HEART'S-EASE

By scattered rocks and turbid waters shifting,
By furrowed glade and dell,

To feverish men thy calm, sweet face uplifting,
Thou stayest them to tell

The delicate thought, that cannot find expression,
For ruder speech too fair,

That, like thy petals, trembles in possession,
And scatters on the air.

The miner pauses in his rugged labour,
And, leaning on his spade,

Laughingly calls unto his comrade-neighbour
To see thy charms displayed;

But in his eyes a mist unwonted rises,
And for a moment clear,

Some sweet home face his foolish thought surprises And passes in a tear,

Some boyish vision of his Eastern village,
Of uneventful toil,

Where golden harvests followed quiet tillage
Above a peaceful soil.

One moment only; for the pick, uplifting,
Through root and fibre cleaves,
And on the muddy current slowly drifting
Are swept thy bruised leaves.

And yet O poet! in thy homely fashion
Thy work thou dost fulfil;

For on the turbid current of his passion
Thy face is shining still!

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GRIZZLY

COWARD, of heroic size,
In whose lazy muscles lies
Strength we fear and yet despise ;
Savage, whose relentless tusks
Are content with acorn husks;
Robber,-whose exploits ne'er soared
O'er the bee's or squirrel's hoard;