The California Birthday Book | Page 7

scent the breeze,?Green-robed the rolling foot-hills rise?And poppies paint the leas.
HANNA OTIS BRUN.
FEBRUARY 10.
SANTA BARBARA.
A golden bay 'neath soft blue skies,?Where on a hillside creamy rise?The mission towers, whose patron saint?Is Barbara--with legend quaint.
HELEN ELLIOTT BANDINI,?in _History of California.
Dare to be free. Free to do the thing you crave to do and that craves the doing. Free to live in that higher realm where none is fit to criticise save one's self. Free to scorn ridicule, to face contempt, to brave remorse. Free to give life to the one human soul that can demand and grant such a boon--one's own self.
MIRIAM MICHELSON,?in Anthony Overman.
FEBRUARY 11.
In Carmel pines the summer wind?Sings like a distant sea.?O harps of green, your murmurs find?An echoing chord in me!?On Carmel shore the breakers moan?Like pines that breast the gale.?O whence, ye winds and billows, flown?To cry your wordless tale?
GEORGE STERLING,?in A Wine of Wizardry and Other Poems.
OAKLAND--BERKELEY--ALAMEDA.
O close-clasped towns across the bay,?Whose lights like gleaming jewels stray,?A ruby, golden, splendid way,?When day from earth has flown.?I watch you lighting night by night,?O twisted strands of jewels bright,?The altar-fires of home, alight--?I who am all alone.
GRACE HIBBARD,?in Forget-me-nots from California.
FEBRUARY 12.
On the Berkeley Hills for miles away?I went a-roaming one winter's day,?And what do you think I saw, my dear??A place where the sky came down to the hill,?And a big white cloud on the fresh green grass,?And bright red berries my basket to fill,?And mustard that grew in a golden mass--?All on a winter's day, my dear!
CHARLES KEELER,?in Elfin Songs of Sunland.
FEBRUARY 13.
THE SUNSET GUN AT ANGEL ISLAND
A touch of night on the hill-tops gray;?A dusky hush on the quivering Bay;?A calm moon mounting the silent East--?White slave the day-god has released;?Small, scattered clouds?That seemed to wait?Like sheets of fire?O'er the Golden Gate.?And under Bonita, growing dim.?With a seeming pause on the ocean's rim,?Like a weary lab'rer, smiles the sun?To the booming crash of the sunset gun.
LOWELL OTUS REESE.
FEBRUARY 14.
MY VALENTINE.
My valentine needs not this day?Of Cupid's undisputed sway?To have my loving heart disclose?The love for her that brightly glows;?For it is hers alway, alway.?Whate'er the fickle world may say,?There's nought within its fair array?That for a moment could depose
My valentine.?Where'er the paths of life may stray,?'Mid valleys dark or gardens gay,?With holly wild or blushing rose,?Through summer's gleam or winter's snows,?Thou art, dear love, for aye and aye.
My valentine.
CLIFFORD HOWARD.
FEBRUARY 15.
JOAQUIN MILLER'S HOME ON THE HIGHTS.

Rugged! Rugged as Parnassus!?Rude, as all roads I have trod--?Yet are steeps and stone-strewn passes?Smooth o'erhead, and nearest God.?Here black thunders of my canyon?Shake its walls in Titan wars!?Here white sea-born clouds companion?With such peaks as know the stars.

Steep below me lies the valley,?Deep below me lies the town,?Where great sea-ships ride and rally,?And the world walks up and down.?O, the sea of lights far streaming?When the thousand flags are furled--?When the gleaming bay lies dreaming?As it duplicates the world.

JOAQUIN MILLER.
FEBRUARY 16.
I have watched the ships sailing and steaming in through the Golden Gate, and they seemed like doves of peace bringing messages of good-will from all the world. In the still night, when the scream of the engine's whistle would reach my ears, I would reflect upon the fact that though dwelling in a city whose boundaries were almost at the verge of our nation's great territory, yet we were linked to it by bands of steel, and Plymouth Rock did not seem so far from Shag Rock, nor Bedloe's Island from Alcatraz.
LORENZO SOSSO,?in Wisdom of the Wise.
FEBRUARY 17.
We believe that when future generations shall come to write our history they will find that in this city of San Francisco we have been true to our ideals; that we have struggled along as men who struggle, not always unfalteringly, but at least always with a good heart; that we have tried to do our duty by our town and by our country and by the people who look to us for light, and that history will be able to say of San Francisco that she has been true to her trust as the "Warder of two continents"; that she has been the jewel set in the place where the ends of the ring had met; that she is the mistress of the great sea which spreads before us, and of the people who hunger for light, for truth, and for civilization; that she stands for truth, a flaming signal set upon the sentinel hills, calling all the nations to the blessings of the freedom which we enjoy.
FATHER P.C. YORKE,?in The Warder of Two Continents.
FEBRUARY 18.
FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOPS, LOOKING TOWARDS SAN FRANCISCO BAY.
From the mountain tops we see the valleys stretching out for leagues below. The eye travels over the tilled fields and the blossoming orchards, through the tall trees and along the verdant meadows that are watered