| |
| YOU will come, my bird, Bonita? | |
| Come! For I by steep and stone | |
| Have built such nest for you, Juanita, | |
| As not eagle bird hath known. | |
| |
| Rugged! Rugged as Parnassus! | 5 |
| Rude, as all roads I have trod— | |
| Yet are steeps and stone-strewn passes | |
| Smooth o’erhead, and nearest God. | |
| |
| Here black thunders of my cañon | |
| Shake its walls in Titan wars! | 10 |
| Here white sea-born clouds companion | |
| With such peaks as know the stars! | |
| |
| Here madrona, manzanita— | |
| Here the snarling chaparral | |
| House and hang o’er steeps, Juanita, | 15 |
| Where the gaunt wolf loved to dwell! | |
| |
| Dear, I took these trackless masses | |
| Fresh from Him who fashioned them; | |
| Wrought in rock, and hewed fair passes, | |
| Flower set, as sets a gem. | 20 |
| |
| Aye, I built in woe. God willed it; | |
| Woe that passeth ghosts of guilt; | |
| Yet I built as His birds builded— | |
| Builded, singing as I built. | |
| |
| All is finished! Roads of flowers | 25 |
| Wait your loyal little feet. | |
| All completed? Nay, the hours | |
| Till you come are incomplete. | |
| |
| Steep below me lies the valley, | |
| Deep below me lies the town, | 30 |
| Where great sea-ships ride and rally, | |
| And the world walks up and down. | |
| |
| O, the sea of lights far streaming | |
| When the thousand flags are furled— | |
| When the gleaming bay lies dreaming | 35 |
| As it duplicates the world! | |
| |
| You will come, my dearest, truest? | |
| Come, my sovereign queen of ten; | |
| My blue skies will then be bluest; | |
| My white rose be whitest then: | 40 |
| |
| Then the song! Ah, then the sabre | |
| Flashing up the walls of night! | |
| Hate of wrong and love of neighbor— | |
| Rhymes of battle for the Right! | |
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