The Placer herald., 1873-11-01

| CLEAN,
Leaped through the first wide opening like
stream
And as a swelling stream o'erflows its shores,
So this clear, dazzling ray its aurum pours
| Over the sundered part, the broken edge,
And for God-ike and eternal pladge
Filling with fretted gold its snuous veins.
And .orming California s mount and vale, and
plains.
Yes, California! noble, rugged land
With nature grandest bounds on either hand;
Washed all along her far extended coast
BY soft Pacific waves that landward tossed
Kiss the fair beaches with love s fond caress-
Returning ever for a new embrace
One OF the worlds great highways, crowned in
state
Entering so proudly at your Golden Gate;
Bringing the wealth of distant Orient lands
Her sea-born treasure fill your willing hands
Her fog rolls deep to mOisten field and plain;
Her heathful breezes freshen street and lane;
And though OF ceaseless winds you sometimes
tire,
They qucll the burning heat of Summers fervid
ire,
And help to form climate unsurpassed,
Where life is Just joy,dnd gears go bounding past
What State can boast milder, fairer cline?
Where tropic fruits link hands with northern
pine;
Where fertile valleys lie in one broad zone
From verge to we're, six hundred miles the bourn;
A jewel,d girdle, wrought with sylvan scenes,
Based with green bills and laced with crystal
streams.
No lapidary's art with rarest gems,
Could wreath for royal brow such diadams
AS crown your slopes, where orange groves arise
Whose sun-kissed frutage with Hesperidc's ves;
Where fig trees spread their broadly dental
leaves.
And purpling globes of nectar sweetness weave;
Where almonds lend to Spring a roseate glow.
And fairer fruits than Eastern States can show
Drop from the boughs or crowd the graceful vine
In amber drops OF promissory wine.
From sunny glades where weary Nature rests
Tis but glance to distant snow-capped crests
A glance of eye n lightning trick of thought
Behold the mountain businesses are brought
And spread before us, canons, peaks and cliffs,
The fairy dingles and earthquake riffs,
The solemn region of eternal snow,
The deep, hushed valleys, warm with Summers
glow
Yosemite's proud grandeur, domes and heights,
The airy beauty in those downward flights
OF giddy rills and wildly venturous streams
Amid whose diamond drops the rainbow CLEANS,
The wondrous beauty of that broken line,
Sharp points and angles, curvings serpentne,
The wave of beauty and the cliff wall sheer;
Enchanting solitude and desolation drear
How still the mounts when on their tops at night
The bright stars seem to linger, and each height
Holds to its heart the quivering soft moonbeams
And drowsy lakes reflect the camp-fres CLEANS.
Then, when the morning dawns and shades their
peaks
With bushes soft as lie on beauty's sheeks,
While downward creep the sunbeams thick and
fast
Till en- each tangled slope are cool deep shadows
cast.
With what new strength the sweeping forests
ring
And life seems nobler, for that far and outward
swing
OF thought over the dim blue reaches.
Yet not alone of beauty the mountain breaches.
Twas her deep hidden treasures--hoards of gold
Filling the cave,ned earth with wealth untold,
The shining promise of the sluice and mine
That lured the pioneers Of "forty-nine.'
On barron sleeps, in canons low and deep,
On many a tortuous bed the bright grains sleep;
In pockets nuggets, dust and sprays SO wrought
They equal works of human care and thought.
Oh, God of Gold! Of cunning, subtle art!
Bestowing fayors with reckless heart;
Luring the miner many a weary mile
With promises of finding soon his pile
Only to disappoint as days progress,
Seeing his fancied pile grow small and beauti-
fully less. HHLty
Or. with a sudden freak, a generous mood.
Showing beneath its dim and earthly snood
glittering prize, whose worth IN thousands
counts, ID9 III HDfi ts..I
Repaying all the toll among these serried mounts.
Once the great god, with trickfnl hand .f,r
Strewed er the surface gold like grains OF sand,
And, like the story told m Grecian lore
When the sown field crop of soldies bore
This priceless seed to germinats began,
UP rose an army quipped with pick and pan;
The earth was washed and cleaned, end washed
| again, u "a sH EAE#4 Fl E8 E~t4 E
Till scarce remained solitary grain.
Then fast the god to save his cherished wealth
Hid it in streams and crevices, by STEALTH;
But man, insatiate, dug, prospected- prowled,
While Indians murdered, Wild cayotes howled:
While all the comfort, love and cheer Of home
Were changed for miners camp and dingy cabin
lone. W-~3H a IFR..rw-r @
Until these treasure-houses plundered lay
And like poor Oliver yet "more" they say.
Now wild and frightened at the havoc made
Among his ingots, thus for safety laid,
! Once more the god, with swift and dauntless
might, 81. ~
Buried il deep, he thought. from human sight.
But what can hide the root OF good and evil
When once it's devotees have reached the level?'
| Deep shafts were sunk, the earth with tunnels
bored, ft+
And miles on miles of precious 'lodes" explored;
Blasted and washed and crushed, assayed and
coined; ffH
Millions from out the generous land pur!o'ned
And still they toll still search and not IN vain,
For still, ~ ever, some their hopes attain;
| While others find it all eludes their grasp
Till want, and work and hope and life are passed
What holds the future for this gifted State
| Tell us, o seer! for anxious hearts await
And on her welfare look with hearts sIate.
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