The California Birthday Book Part 11

You rode three miles on the flat, two in the leafy and gradually ascending creek-bed of a canyon, a half hour of laboring steepness in the overarching mountain lilac and laurel. There you came to a great rock gateway which seemed the top of the world. * * * Beyond the gateway a lush level canyon into which you plunged as into a bath; then again the laboring trail, up and always up toward the blue California sky, out of the lilacs, and laurels, and redwood chaparral into the manzanita, the Spanish bayonet, the creamy yucca, and the fine angular shale of the upper regions. Beyond the apparent summit you found always other summits yet to be climbed, and all at once, like thrusting your shoulders out of a hatchway, you looked over the top.

STEWART EDWARD WHITE, in _The Mountains._

MARCH 23.

DONNER LAKE.

So fair thou art--so still and deep-- Half hidden in thy granite cup.

From depths of crystal smiling up As smiles a woman in her sleep!

The pine trees whisper where they lean Above thy tide; and, mirrored there The purple peaks their bosoms bare, Reflected in thy silver sheen.

So fair thou art! And yet there dwells Within thy sylvan solitudes A memory which darkling broods And all thy witchery dispels.

DANIEL S. RICHARDSON, in _Trail Dust._

MARCH 24.

DONNER LAKE.

Donner Lake a pleasure resort! Can you understand for one moment how strange this seems to me? I must be as old as Haggard's "She," since I have lived to see our papers make such a statement. It is years since I was there, yet I can feel the cold and hunger and hear the moan of the pines; those grand old trees that used to tell me when a storm was brewing and seemed to be about the only thing there alive, as the snow could not speak. But now that the place is a pleasure resort--the moan of the pines should cease.

VIRGINIA REED MURPHY.

MARCH 25.

THE LURE OF THE DESERT LAND.

Have you slept in a tent alone--a tent Out under the desert sky-- Where a thousand thousand desert miles All silent 'round you lie?

The dust of the aeons of ages dead, And the peoples that tramped by!

Have you lain with your face in your hands, afraid, Face down--flat down on your face--and prayed, While the terrible sandstorm whirled and swirled In its soundless fury, and hid the world And quenched the sun in its yellow glare-- Just you and your soul, and nothing there?

If you have, then you know, for you've felt its spell, The lure of the desert land.

And if you have not, then you could not tell-- For you could not understand.

MADGE MORRIS WAGNER, in _Lippincott's._

MARCH 26.

One of the most beautiful lakes in the world is Lake Tahoe. It is six thousand feet above sea-level, and the mountains around it rise four thousand feet higher. * * * The first thing one would notice, perhaps, is the wonderful clearness of the lake water. As one stands on the wharf the steamer _Tahoe_ seems to be hanging in the clear green depths with her keel and propellers in plain sight. The fish dart under her and all about as in some large aquarium. * * * Every stick or stone shows on the bottom as one sails along where the water is sixty or seventy feet deep.

ELLA M. s.e.xTON, in _Stories of California._

MARCH 27.

A PLAINSMAN'S SONG--MY LOVE.

Oh, give me a clutch in my hand of as much Of the mane of a horse as a hold, And let his desire to be gone be a fire And let him be snorting and bold!

And then with a swing on his back let me fling My leg that is naked as steel And let us away to the end of the day To quiet the tempest I feel.

And keen as the wind with the cities behind And prairie before--like a sea, With billows of gra.s.s that lash as we pa.s.s.

Make way for my stallion and me!

And up with his nose till his nostril aglows, And out with his tail and his mane, And up with my breast till the breath of the West Is smiting me--knight of the plain!

Oh, give me a gleam of your eyes, love adream With the kiss of the sun and the dew, And mountain nor swale, nor the scorch nor the hail Shall halt me from spurring to you!

For wild as a flood-melted snow for its blood-- By crag, gorge, or torrent, or shoal, I'll ride on my steed and lay tho' it bleed, My heart at your feet--and my soul!

PHILIP VERRILL MICHELS, in _Harper's Weekly._

MARCH 28.

Lo, a Power divine, in all nature is found, A Power omniscient, unfailing, profound; A great Heart, that loves beauty and order and light.

In the flowers, in the sh.e.l.ls, in the stars of the night.

JOSIAH KEEP, in _Sh.e.l.ls and Sea-Life._

MARCH 29.

BACK TO THE DESERT.

Call it the land of thirst, Call it the land accurst, Or what you will; There where the heat-lines twirl And the dust-devils whirl His heart turns still.

Back to the land he knows, Back where the yucca grows And cactus bole; Where the coyote cries, Where the black buzzard flies Flyeth his soul!

BAILEY MILLARD, in _Songs of the Press._