THE SUNSET GUN AT ANGEL ISLAND

A touch of night on the hill-tops gray;
A dusky hush on the quivering Bay;
A calm moon mounting the silent East--
White slave the day-god has released;
Small, scattered clouds
That seemed to wait
Like sheets of fire
O'er the Golden Gate.
And under Bonita, growing dim.
With a seeming pause on the ocean's rim,
Like a weary lab'rer, smiles the sun
To the booming crash of the sunset gun.

LOWELL OTUS REESE.

FEBRUARY 14.

MY VALENTINE.

My valentine needs not this day
Of Cupid's undisputed sway
To have my loving heart disclose
The love for her that brightly glows;
For it is hers alway, alway.
Whate'er the fickle world may say,
There's nought within its fair array
That for a moment could depose
My valentine.
Where'er the paths of life may stray,
'Mid valleys dark or gardens gay,
With holly wild or blushing rose,
Through summer's gleam or winter's snows,
Thou art, dear love, for aye and aye.
My valentine.

CLIFFORD HOWARD.

FEBRUARY 15.

JOAQUIN MILLER'S HOME ON THE HIGHTS.

* * * * *

Rugged! Rugged as Parnassus!
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 canyon
Shake its walls in Titan wars!
Here white sea-born clouds companion
With such peaks as know the stars.

* * * * *

Steep below me lies the valley,
Deep below me lies the town,
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
As it duplicates the world.

* * * * *

JOAQUIN MILLER.

FEBRUARY 16.

I have watched the ships sailing and steaming in through the Golden
Gate, and they seemed like doves of peace bringing messages of
good-will from all the world. In the still night, when the scream of
the engine's whistle would reach my ears, I would reflect upon the
fact that though dwelling in a city whose boundaries were almost at
the verge of our nation's great territory, yet we were linked to it by
bands of steel, and Plymouth Rock did not seem so far from Shag Rock,
nor Bedloe's Island from Alcatraz.

LORENZO SOSSO,
in _Wisdom of the Wise._