C.H.  KIRKHAM,
in In the Open.

JULY 30.

  Said one, “This city, as you know,
  Though young in years, as cities go,
  Has quite a history to repeat
  If records have been kept complete. 
  Oft has it felt the earthquake shock
  That made the strongest building rock. 
  And more than once ‘gone up’ in smoke
  Till scarce a building sheltered folk. 
  The citizens can point to spots
  Where people fashioned hangman’s knots
  With nimble fingers, to supply
  Some hardened rogues a hempen tie,
  Whom Vigilantes and their friends
  Saw fit to drop from gable-ends.”

PALMER COX,
in The Brownies Through California.

JULY 31.

ROSEMARY.

  Indian summer has gone with its beautiful moon. 
  And all the sweet roses I gathered in June
  Are faded.  It may be the cloud-sylphs of Even
  Have stolen the tints of those roses for Heaven. 
  O bonnie bright blossom! in the years far away. 
  So evanished thy bloom on an evening in May. 
  The sunlight now sleeps in the lap of the west,
  And the star-beams are barring its chamber of rest. 
  While Twilight is weaving her blue-tinted bowers
  To mellow the landscape where slumber the flowers. 
  I would fain learn the music that won thee away,
  When the earth was the beautiful temple of May;
  For our fancies were measured the bright summer long
  To the carols we learned from the lark’s morning song. 
  They still haunt me—­those echoes from Child land—­but now
  My heart beats alone to their musical flow.
  Then I never looked up to the portals on high,
  For our Heaven was here; and our azure-stained sky
  Was the violet mead; the cloud-billows of snow
  Were the pale nodding lilies; the roses that glow
  On the crown of the hill, gave the soft blushing hue: 
  The gold was the crocus; the silver, the dew
  Which met as it fell, the glad sunlight of smiles. 
  And wove the gay rainbow of Hope, o’er our aisles. 
  But the charm of the spring-time has vanished with thee;
  To its mystical speech I’ve forgotten the key;
  Yet, if angels and flowers are closely allied,
  I may trace thy lost bloom on the blushing hillside;
  And when rose-buds are opening their petals in June,
  I’ll feel thou art near me and teaching the tune. 
  Which chanted by seraphim, won thee away
  On that blossoming eve, from the gardens of May.

MARY V. TINGLEY LAWRENCE,
in Poetry of the Pacific.

A VOICE ON THE WIND.