The silence of the centuries,
    The calm where doubtings cease,
  And over all the brooding of God’s presence
    And the spell of perfect peace! 
  O Granite Cliffs that steadfast face the dawn,
    O Forest Kings that heard Creation’s sigh! 
  Teach me thy simple creed, that, living, I
    May live like thee, and as serenely die!

E.F.  GREEN.

TO THE UNNAMED FALL IN THE YOSEMITE VALLEY.

  Thou needest not that any man should name thee;
  God counts thine ethereal jewels, one by one;
  And, lest some selfish, inappropriate word should claim thee,
  Silent, we watch thee sparkle in the sun.

BENJAMIN FAY MILLS.

MAY 24.

The white man calls it Bridal Veil.  To the Indian it is Po-ho-no, Spirit of the Evil Wind.

The white man, in passing, pauses to watch the filmy cloud that hangs there like a thousand yards of tulle flung from the crest of the rocky precipice, wafted outward by the breeze that blows ever and always across the Bridal Veil Meadows.  By the light of the mid-afternoon the veil seems caught half-way with a clasp of bridal gems, seven-hued, evanescent; now glowing with color, now fading to clear white sun rays before the eye.

BERTHA H. SMITH,
in Yosemite Legends.

MAY 25.

MATCHLESS YOSEMITE.

  High on Cloud’s Rest, behind the misty screen,
  Thy Genius sits!  The secrets of thy birth
  Within its bosom locked!  What power can rend
  The veil, and bid it speak—­that spirit dumb,
  Between two worlds, enthroned upon a Sphinx? 
  Guard well thine own, thou mystic spirit!  Let
  One place remain where Husbandry shall fear
  To tread!  One spot on earth inviolate,
  As it was fashioned in eternity!

FRED EMERSON BROOKS,
in Old Abe and Other Poems.

You ask for my picture.  I have never had one taken.  I have my reasons.  One is that a man always seems to me most of an ass when smirking on cardboard.

GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in Rulers of Kings.

MAY 26.

INVITATION TO AN INDIAN FEAST IN YOSEMITE.

As the time of the feast drew near, runners were sent across the mountains, carrying a bundle of willow sticks, or a sinew cord or leaf of dried grass tied with knots, that the Monos might know how many suns must cross the sky before they should go to Ah-wah-nee to share the feast of venison with their neighbors.  And the Monos gathered together baskets of pinion nuts, and obsidian arrow-heads, and strings of shells, to carry with them to give in return for acorns and chinquapin nuts and basket willow.

BERTHA H. SMITH,
in Yosemite Legends.