A City Of California
By Benjamin Franklin Field
O, city of a poet’s dream!
By mountains girt about,
With valleys full of glossy gleam
Or orange trees, that often seem
To raise their arms with offerings
Of sweet and golden profferings,
Too fair for gods to doubt.
Grand mountains rise on either side,
Snow-capped in summer days
And far away to distant tide,
Throbbing, passionate, like virgin bride,
Billowy mists of green and blue
Rise and fall with every hue
That artist sees in blended rays.
And where on heights Diana drove
Now man hath wrought in nature’s ways,
Fair gardens, fit for gods to rove,
Through airy aisles and lemon grove
To smell the balm like that which blows
From Thessaly.
Man here forgets his shadowy woes,
And dreams with Love of coming days.
And looking off where vision ends,
On rolling depths the eye alights,
While azure blue of heaven bends,
Down, down, and then with ocean blends,
Until the sight of man is dim,
And mystic thoughts steal over him
And raise him up to awful heights.
O, city of a favored land!
O, virgin ne’er to mate!
Thy mountains ’round thee grimly stand,
Thy fairness is on every hand,
While Star of Empire, Westward bent,
Unto thy name acclaim has lent,
Thy future shall be great.