Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO SAN FRANCISCO, by S. J. ALEXANDER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO SAN FRANCISCO, by                    
First Line: If we dreamed that we loved her aforetime
Last Line: Leash at her feet.
Subject(s): San Francisco Earthquake & Fire (1906)


IF we dreamed that we loved Her aforetime, 't was the ghost
of a dream; for I vow
By the splendor of God in the highest, we never have loved
Her till now.
When Love bears the trumpet of Honor, oh, highest and
clearest he calls,
With the light of the flaming of towers, and the sound of
the rending of walls.
When Love wears the purple of Sorrow, and kneels at the
altar of Grief,
Of the flowers that spring in his footsteps, the white
flower of Service is chief.
And as snow on the snow of Her bosom, as a star in the
night of Her hair,
We bring to our Mother such token as the time and the elements spare.

If we dreamed that we loved Her aforetime, adoring we kneel
to Her now,
When the golden fruit of the ages falls, swept by the wind
from the bough.
The beautiful dwelling is shattered, wherein, as a queen at the feast,
In gems of the barbaric tropics and silks of the ultimate East,
Our Mother sat throned and triumphant, with the wise and
the great in their day.
They were captains, and princes, and rulers; but She, She
was greater than they.

We are sprung from the builders of nations; by the souls of
our fathers we swear,
By the depths of the deeps that surround Her, by the height
of the heights she may dare,
Though the Twelve league in compact against Her, though the
sea gods cry out in their wrath,
Though the earth gods, grown drunk of their fury, fling the
hilltops abroad in Her path,
Our Mother of masterful children shall sit on Her throne as of yore,
With Her old robes of purple about Her, and crowned with
the crowns that She wore.

She shall sit at the gates of the world, where the nations
shall gather and meet,
And the East and the West at Her bidding shall lie in a
leash at Her feet.





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