A California Desert

The golden sun has climbed his golden stair.
From vantage his, he holds our summer land
In sweltering heat, and awful fiery glare;
He holds high carnival o’er these desert sands.
The valleys, hills and plains are brown and bare,
Where spring had decked them with unnumbered bloom
That poured unstinted fragrance on the air,
And died beneath the fiery suns of June.
Hot whirls of air encircle every hill,
Like demon’s fiery breath, from lands ablaze,
That shrivel, wither, burn, blight, smite and kill,
And make a boundless desert of the plain.
Thou heated orb, our world’s relentless sun,
Look on these burning wastes. What thou hast done!