The surroundings of Monterey could not well be more beautiful if they had been gotten up to order. Hills, gently rising, the chain broken here and there by a more abrupt peak, environ the city, crowned with dark pines and the famous cypress of Monterey (_Cypressus macrocarpa_.) Before us the bay lies calm and blue, and away across, can be seen the town of Santa Cruz, an indistinct white gleam on the mountain side.
JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN, in _Another Juanita._
The lark sends up a carol blithe, Bloom-billows scent the breeze, Green-robed the rolling foot-hills rise And poppies paint the leas.
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.
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._
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._
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._
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.