(OPENING OF THE CALI… Brief words, when actions wait, ar… The prompter’s hand is on his bell… The coming heroes, lovers, kings, Are idly lounging at the wings;

O BELLS that rang, O bells that… Above the martyrs’ wilderness, Till from that reddened coast-line… The Gospel seed to cheer and bles… What are your garnered sheaves to-…

Down the picket-guarded lane Rolled the comfort-laden wain, Cheered by shouts that shook the p… Soldier-like and merry: Phrases such as camps may teach,

I have found out a gift for my fai… I know where the fossils abound, Where the footprints of Aves decl… The birds that once walked on the… Oh, come, and—in technical speech—

Behind the footlights hangs the ru… A trifle shabby in the upturned bl… Of flaring gas and curious eyes th… The stage, methinks, perhaps is no… And hardly fit for royal Richard’…

(AN AERIAL RETROSPECT) What was it filled my youthful dre… In place of Greek or Latin themes… Or beauty’s wild, bewildering beam… Avitor!

Oh, say, have you seen at the Wil… So charming and rurally true— A singular bird, with a manner abs… Which they call the Australian Em… Have you

Where West Point crouches, and wi… Turns the whole river eastward thr… Whose jutting crags, half silver,… Like bossy bucklers of Leonidas; Where buttressed low against the s…

There is peace in the swamp where… Where the waters are stagnant, the… Where the musk of Magnolia hangs… And the lilies’ phylacteries broad… There is peace in the swamp, thoug…

High on the Thracian hills, half… Thyme, and the asphodel blooms, an… She of Miletus lay, and beside he… Scratched his ear with his hoof, a… Vainly the Maenid and the Bassari…

They say that she died of a broken… (I tell the tale as ’twas told to… But her spirit lives, and her soul… Of this sad old house by the sea. Her lover was fickle and fine and…

SERENE, indifferent of Fate, Thou sittest at the Western Gate; Upon thy height, so lately won, Still slant the banners of the sun… Thou seest the white seas strike t…

We meet in peace, though from our… The sun that sparkles on our birth… Glanced as he rose on fields whose… With darker tints than those Auro… Though shorn his rays, his welcome…

‘Who comes?’ The sentry’s warning… Rings sharply on the evening air: Who comes? The challenge: no repl… Yet something motions there. A woman, by those graceful folds;

(SIERRAS, 1876) DRAMATIS PERSONAE First Tourist Second Tourist Yuba Bill, Driver