The sun is dying; space and room. 
  Serenity, vast sense of rest,
  Lie bosomed in the orange west
  Of Orient waters.  Hear the boom
  Of long, strong billows; wave on wave,
  Like funeral guns above a grave.

JOAQUIN MILLER,
in Collected Poems.

APRIL 23.

SAN FRANCISCO.  IN CHRISTMAS TWILIGHT, 1898.

  In somber silhouette, against a golden sky,
  Francisco’s city sits as sunbeams die. 
  The serrated hills her throne; the ocean laves her feet: 
  Her jeweled crown the Western zephyrs greet;
  Their breath is fragrance, sweet as wreath of bride,
  In winter season as at summer tide.

AFTER APRIL 18, 1906.

  Clothed with sack-cloth, strewn with ashes,
      Seated on a desolate throne
      ’Mid the spectral walls of stately domes
      And the skeletons of regal homes,
  Francisco weeps while westward thrashes
      Through the wrecks of mansions, stricken prone
      By the rock of earth and sweep of flame
      Which, unheralded and unbidden, came
  In the greatness of her pride full-blown
  And at the zenith of her matchless fame.

TALIESIN EVANS.

APRIL 24.

And let it be remembered that whatever San Francisco, her citizens and her lovers, do now or neglect to do in this present regeneration will be felt for good or ill to remotest ages.  Let us build and rebuild accordingly, bearing in mind that the new San Francisco is to stand forever before the world as the measure of the civic taste and intelligence of her people.

HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT,
in Some Cities and San Francisco.

APRIL 25.

SAN FRANCISCO.

  Queen regnant she, and so shall be for aye
    As long as her still unpolluted sea
    Shall wash the borders of her brave and free,
    And mother her incomparable Bay. 
  The pharisees and falsehood-mongers may
    Be rashly blatant as they care to be,
    She yet with dauntless, old-time liberty
    Will hold her own indomitable way. 
  A Royal One, all love and heart can bear. 
    The all of strength that human arm can wield. 
    Are thine devotedly, and ever thine;
  And thou wilt use them till thy brow shall wear
    A newer crown by high endeavor sealed
    With gems emitting brilliances divine.

EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR,
in Sunset Magazine.

APRIL 26.

Until a man paints with the hope or with the wish to stir the minds of his fellows to better thinking and their hearts to better living, or to make some creature happier or wiser, he has not understood the meaning of art.