ON SAN FRANCISCO’S SPLENDID BAY.
Reading edition
———
BY THOMAS G. SPEAR.
———
On San Francisco’s splendid bay
The weary hours I while away,
And think me of the days, no more,
I passed upon a dearer shore.
When time began to stretch the chain
Of which a few worn links remain,
To tell me that at fate’s command,
While years on years are rolling by,
They, too, must strew life’s desert strand,
Like leaves when Autumn’s blast is nigh.
Where azure hills o’erlook the seas,
I sit me down and feel the breeze
Fresh from the billows, wild and nigh,
Borne through a bright and boundless sky,
And musing gaze the landscape o’er
From rolling height to sandy shore,
And hail the beautiful and grand,
Blent with the softest light and shade,
In Freedom’s gold-encumbered land,
The seat of empire and of trade.
O’er Yerba Buena’s lonely isle
I watch the morning’s rosy smile;
And while it gilds the wave and mast,
From Contia Costa’s summit cast,
I think of those it woke before
It touched this mountain-sloping shore.
In that far off and hallowed home
Beyond the Allegheny’s sky,
Where breaks the white Atlantic foam,
And all life’s dear affections lie!
Ah me! what of these mountain scenes,
O’er which the blue sky sweetly beams!
This land of wild romantic charms
That man’s imperial wish embalms;
This clime of gold, whose sound to greet,
Swift hither rush the world’s life-fleet.
What of these treasures wrung by toil,
Their might, their magic, and their lure,
Without one sweet domestic smile,
In which the heart may feel secure.