  Looking southward to the sunlands, On the ocean's ebb and flow, Keeping watch o'er Echo Mountain, Dwells the spirit of Mount Lowe— In the glowing light of noonday, In the midnight calm and lone, Gazing outward from the summit Like a ruler from his throne. At his feet sits Pasadena, Framed with fields of fruit and grain Where the valley of San Gabriel Slopes in beauty to the main— Pasadena, decked with roses And with gems of gold and green, Resting on the landscape's forehead Like a crown upon a queen. And the "City of the Angels," On her hills of bronze and gold, Stands amidst her groves of olives Like Jerusalem of old; With the purple Sierra Madres Smiling downward from the dawn, As Mount Hermon smiled on Zion, In the ages that are gone. West and south the blue Pacific, Hemmed with surf and fringed with spray, Bathes in floods of molten silver Headland, island, beach and bay; East and north the inland deserts, With their ever shifting sands— More unstable than the waters— Oh! that vision of the sunlands Where the skies are ever fair, And the Autumn woos the Winter With young rosebuds in her hair— Where the orange blooms forever And its leaf is never sere, And the mocking bird is singing To his mate the livelong year. It has haunted me in slumber, It has gleamed and throbbed again In my solitary musings, And in crowded throngs of men; Like a vanished revelation Floats the memory back to me Of that dawn upon the mountain 'Twixt the desert and the sea. James G. Clark. Mount San Antonio, July 4, 1895, As Seen from Mount Lowe. Mount San Antonio, July 4, 1895, As Seen from Mount Lowe. |
|
