Written especially for the California birthday book.

  Let us make each day our birthday,
    As with each new dawn we rise,
  To the glory and the gladness
    Of God’s calm, o’erbending skies;
  To the soul-uplifting anthems
    Of Creation’s swelling strains,
  Chanted by the towering mountains,
    Surging sea, and sweeping plains.

  Let us make each day our birthday—­
    Every morning life is new,
  With the splendors of the sunrise,
    And the baptism of the dew;
  With the glisten of the woodlands,
    And the radiance of the flowers,
  And the birds’ exultant matins,
    In the young day’s wakening hours.

  Let us make each day our birthday,
    To a newer, holier life,
  Rousing to some high endeavor,
    Arming for a nobler strife,
  Toiling upward, looking Godward,
  Lest our poor lives be as discords,
    In Heaven’s symphony of love.

S.A.R.,
College Notre Dame, San Jose, Cal.

JANUARY 1.

A NEW YEAR’S WISH.

  May each day bring thee something
  Fair to hold in memory—­
  Some true light to shine
  Upon thee in the after days. 
  May each night bring thee peace,
  As when the dove broods o’er
  The young she loves; may day
  And night the circle of
  A rich experience weave
  About thy life, and make
  It rich with knowledge, but radiant
  With Love, whose blossoms shall be
  Tender deeds.

Helen Van Anderson Gordon.

JANUARY 2.

THE MIRAGE ON THE CALIFORNIA DESERT.

To the south the eye rests upon a vast lake, which can be seen ten or twelve miles distant from the slopes of the mountains, and when I first saw it, its beauty was entrancing.  Away to the south, on its borders, were hills of purple, each reflected as clearly as though photographed, and still beyond rose the caps and summits of other peaks and mountains rising from this inland sea, whose waters were of turquoise; yet, as we moved down the slope, the lake was always stealing on before.  It was of the things dreams are made of, that has driven men mad and to despair, its bed a level floor of alkali and clay, covered with a dry, impalpable dust that the slightest wind tossed and whirled in air.

Charles Frederick holder,
in Life in the Open.

JANUARY 3.

  When the green waves come dashing,
  With thunderous lashing,
    Against the bold cliffs that defend the scarred earth,
  He wheels through the roaring,
  Where foam-flakes are pouring,
    And flaps his broad wings in a transport of mirth.