Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Augustin S. Macdonald, comp. A Collection of Verse by California Poets. 1914.

By David Starr Jordan

Vivérols

BEYOND the sea, I know not where,

There is a town called Vivérols;

I know not if ’tis near or far,

I know not what its features are,

I only know ’tis Vivérols.

I know not if its ancient walls

By vine and moss be overgrown;

I know not if the night-owl calls

From feudal battlements of stone

Inhabited by him alone;

I know not if mid meadow-lands

Knee-deep in corn stands Vivérols;

I know not if prosperity

Has robbed its life of poësy.

It could not be in Vivérols,

They would not call it Vivérols.

Perchance upon its terraced heights

The grapes grow purple in the sun;

Or down its wild untrodden crags,

Its broken cliffs and frost-bit jags,

The mountain brooks unfettered run.

I cannot fancy Vivérols

A place of gaudy pomp and show,

A “Grand Establishment des Eaux,”

Where to win back their withered lives

The roués of the city go.

Nor yet a place where poverty

No ray of happiness lets in;

Where wanders hopeless beggary

Mid scenes of sorrow, want and sin,

It cannot be in Vivérols,

There’s life and cheer in Vivérols!

Perhaps among the clouds it lies

Mid vapors out from Dreamland blown;

Built up from vague remembrances

That never yet had form in stone

Its castles built of cloud alone.

I only know, should you and I

Through its old walls of crumbling stone

With moss and ivy overgrown

Together wander all alone,

No spot on Earth could be more fair

Than ivy-covered Vivérols;

No grass be greener anywhere

No bluer sky, nor softer air

Than we should find in Vivérols,

Together find in Vivérols.

Love, we may wander far or near,

The sun shines o’er Vivérols,

Green is the grass, the skies are clear:

No clouds obscure our pathway, dear,

Where Love is there is Vivérols,

There is no other Vivérols.