Page:Poems Hoffman.djvu/55

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And like proud, princely monarchs, throw
Their shadows in the lakes below;
And o'er the flowery bowers of green,
Where Calliope dwells unseen,
The grandeur of their lofty domes
Falls softly o'er the peaceful homes;
Where man can undisturbed abide
Far from the gilded pomp of Pride.
The birds, their flight through tree-tops wing
And sing at eve their vesper hymn,
And when the sunlight hails the morn,
Chant through the woods their native song.
The rivers, flowing from the hills,
The flowers, low-bending o'er the rills,—
All help to make the land more fair,
And scatter beauty everywhere.
Long years ago, our fathers came
To seek a land, whose wide-spread fame
Had echoed through the world abroad,
And sounded o'er the eastern sod;
'Till hundreds with bright hopes, elate,
Journeyed to find the golden State.
O'er wastes of land, through trials untold,
They came to dig the precious gold.
At night they made their lonely bed
Beside some winding, silvery thread.
At morn the trackless plain they pressed
And faced again the sunlit west.
O'er mountain paths, their way they wound;
"Till on fair California's ground,
They stood beneath her stately pines
And viewed at last her famous mines.
Some chose no more abroad to roam
And made the western State their home;
Some, who had come for gain and gold,
Went back to find their homes of old;
But all unsatisfied were they

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