MADGE MORRIS WAGNER,
One of the most beautiful lakes in the world is Lake Tahoe. It is six thousand feet above sea-level, and the mountains around it rise four thousand feet higher. * * * The first thing one would notice, perhaps, is the wonderful clearness of the lake water. As one stands on the wharf the steamer Tahoe seems to be hanging in the clear green depths with her keel and propellers in plain sight. The fish dart under her and all about as in some large aquarium. * * * Every stick or stone shows on the bottom as one sails along where the water is sixty or seventy feet deep.
ELLA M. SEXTON,
in Stories of California.
A PLAINSMAN’S SONG—MY LOVE.
Oh, give me a clutch in my hand of as
Of the mane of a horse as a hold,
And let his desire to be gone be a fire
And let him be snorting and bold!
And then with a swing on his back let me fling
My leg that is naked as steel
And let us away to the end of the day
To quiet the tempest I feel.
And keen as the wind with the cities behind
And prairie before—like a sea,
With billows of grass that lash as we pass.
Make way for my stallion and me!
And up with his nose till his nostril aglows,
And out with his tail and his mane,
And up with my breast till the breath of the West
Is smiting me—knight of the plain!
Oh, give me a gleam of your eyes, love adream
With the kiss of the sun and the dew,
And mountain nor swale, nor the scorch nor the hail
Shall halt me from spurring to you!
For wild as a flood-melted snow for its blood—
By crag, gorge, or torrent, or shoal,
I’ll ride on my steed and lay tho’ it bleed,
My heart at your feet—and my soul!
PHILIP VERRILL MICHELS,
in Harper’s Weekly.
Lo, a Power divine, in all nature is found,
A Power omniscient, unfailing, profound;
A great Heart, that loves beauty and order and light.
In the flowers, in the shells, in the stars of the night.
in Shells and Sea-Life.
BACK TO THE DESERT.
Call it the land of thirst,
Call it the land accurst,
Or what you will;
There where the heat-lines twirl
And the dust-devils whirl
His heart turns still.
* * * * *
Back to the land he knows,
Back where the yucca grows
And cactus bole;
Where the coyote cries,
Where the black buzzard flies
Flyeth his soul!