Part 1 (2/2)

Who am I and who are you to shun the sea-born rain when trees and flowers and birds are made merry by it and never think of shelter.--Adapted from Quayle.

”Flowers and fruits are always fit gifts because a ray of beauty is appreciated all over the world; because the language of the flower can be understood in any land.”--Comfort Guild.

[A]THE UNITED SEAS

The wise men from every land, believing That unseen good is often With great events allied unawares, Must be asked to unfold the meaning Involved in the uniting of the Earth's greatest seas.

For after aeons of isthmian neighborliness And ages of barrier'd friends.h.i.+p, Herculean genius has removed the mountain And stubborn nature has yielded to the union of the Pacific With the impetuous Atlantic, To be commemorated with an apocalypse of light and color, By the races a.s.sembled at the Golden Gate, Within the natural sanctuary of our Bay, Cathedralled by the mountains and the arching blue sky built o'er Immensity.

The petty Shylocks have not been invited To be there with unfilled bags for gold, Nor the sordid traffickers in human flesh, To daily swarm a city's pits of h.e.l.l And by a lewd commerce augment their filthy gains.

Sad wretches! They that holy hour would misfit and defame.

For their hands, the jewels could finger And the pageantry their eyes could observe But their souls could never divine the sublime thought Of the bridal of two vast seas.

So give way, blind temporizers!

For the seers and prophets have seen our star and have arrived Rightly to interpret the emotions struggling for utterance in that unusual hour.

In these ominous words, silencing all speech: ”The Human mind is Leaving the Log Cabin and Statehouse To Enter 'the Parliament of Man,' the Federation of the World.”

So the true from every land, vast armies of welcome guests, they come!-- The sons of kings and n.o.bles and the late-increasing hosts of freemen, so innumerable, To see the pa.s.sing of provincial national life.

And our imagination now hears the mighty tread of pilgrims, And sees this Western paradise bestirred in final preparation for its festive attire-- Our Rocky's wide slope, within its hidden laboratories, By some chemical's new magic hastening to make more enchanting its coast-wide tribute of flowers; If possible more stately its redwoods, more mighty its hills; And our stars in the heavens are brightening their lights To welcome the long caravans from the nations, The s.h.i.+ps from all the seas,-- To a ceremony epochal, from dawn into days worthily prolonged.

For the silvery Queen of Night will tarry in a veiled appreciation Until the powerful King of Day comes resplendent from the east, in a new vernal splendor, While the globe, electrified and cabled into hearing, With its armies momentarily halting in embarra.s.sed meditation, Will quiver with attention at the dawn of that momentous day When it is authoritatively announced: That the tumultuous Atlantean stalwart, the first born of the east And the interminable Austral ocean, gentle empress of the west, Have been joined in the tidal grasp of a spheric wedlock Uniting two hemisphere estates.

Sure to be conducive to international progress, Prophetic of a planetary brotherhood, And bravely resolute for world-peace.

Yes, in spite of war and carnage, The invincible human spirit will then escape the thralldom of a temporary despair; For in this land of hope and courage, which is a prophecy of the world to be, Where the strong sons of freedom's pioneers still breathe a bracing air, And drink a freeman's water fresh from every hill--and not human blood with warring kings-- Here, the vision so transforming, The vision of our fathers, will become the vision of all the sons of men!

Here, where reason and not hate is peculiarly creative, Where the intelligence of peace is so successful--and not the blind force of retrogressive men-- Here, the new spirit of World Democracy, still youthful like David, must be strengthened to slay the European Goliath; To defy Mar's staggering bluff and check the antiquated ambition of war.

For not only will the vision of our fathers become the vision of all the sons of men, But the resolution of their heroes is also to become the purpose of the race!

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