| Augustin S. Macdonald, comp. A Collection of Verse by California Poets. 1914. | | | | To San Francisco | | By Samuel John Alexander |
| | | IF we dreamed that we loved Her aforetime, ’twas the ghost of a dream; for I vow | |
| By the splendour of God in the highest, we never have loved Her till now. | |
| When Love bears the trumpet of Honour, 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, | 5 |
| Of the flowers that spring in his footsteps, the white flower of Service is chief. | |
| As a flower 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 elements spare. | |
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| 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. | 10 |
| 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. | |
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| We are sprung from the builders of nations; by the souls of our fathers we swear, | 15 |
| 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. | 20 |
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| 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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