Now lifted up, intense and still, Sprung from the silence of the hill He hangs upon the ledge a-glisten. And his whole body seems to listen! My pages give a little start, And he is gone! to be a part Of the old cedar's crumpled bark. A mottled scar, a weather mark!
EDWIN MARKHAM, in _Lincoln and Other Poems._
I lived in a region of remote sounds. On Russian Hill I looked down as from a balloon; all there is of the stir of the city comes in distant bells and whistles, changing their sound, just as scenery moves, according to the state of the atmosphere. The islands shift as if enchanted, now near and plain, then removed and dim. The bay widening, sapphire blue, or narrowing, green and gray, or, before a storm, like quicksilver.
EMMA FRANCES DAWSON, in _An Itinerant House._
Although we dread earthquakes with all their resultant destruction, yet it is well to recognize the fact that if it were not for them we would find here in California little of that wonderful scenery of which we are so proud. Our earthquakes are due to movements similar to those which, through hundreds of thousands of years, have been raising the lofty mountains of the Cordilleran region. The Sierra Nevada range, with its abrupt eastern scarp nearly two miles high, faces an important line of fracture along which movements have continued to take place up to the present time.
HAROLD W. FAIRBANKS, in _The Great Earthquake Rift of California._
Three years have passed, oh, City! since you lay-- A smoking shambles--stricken by the lust Of Nature's evil passions. In a day I saw your splendor crumble into dust. So vast your desolation, so complete Your tragedy of ruin that there seemed Small hope of rallying from such defeat-- Of seeing you arisen and redeemed. Yet, three short years have marked a sure rebirth To splendid urban might; a higher place Among the ruling cities of the earth And left of your disaster but a trace. Refined in flame and tempered, as a blade Of iron into steel of flawless ring-- City of the Spirit Unafraid! What wondrous destiny the years will bring!
LOUIS J. STELLMAN, in _San Francisco Globe, April_ 18, 1909.
I loved a work of dreams that bloomed from Art; A town and her turrets rose As from the red heart Of the couchant suns where the west wind blows And worlds lie apart. Calm slept the sea-flats; beneath the blue dome Copper and gold and alabaster gleamed, And sea-birds came home. But I woke in a sorrowful day; The vision was scattered away. Ashes and dust lie deep on the dream that I dreamed.