Los Angeles herald., 1892-11-20
GEMS IN VERSE.
To the Colorado Desert.

| To the Colorado Desert.
Thou brown, bare breasted, voiceless mystery,
| Hot sphinx of nature, cactus crowned, what
hast thou done?
| Unclothed and mute as when the groans Of
| chaos turned
} Thy naked burning bosom 10 the sun;
| The mountain silences have speech, the rivers
sing;
! Thou answerest never unto anything.
| Pink throated lizards pant in thy slim shade;
| The horned toad runs rustling in the heat
| The shadowy gray coyote, born afraid,
Steals to some brackish spring and laps and
prowls
Away, and howls and howls and howls and
howls
Until the solitude is shakened with an added
loneliness
Thy sharp mescal shoots up a giant stalk,
Its century of yearning to the sunburnt skies.
And drips rare honey from the lips
OF yellow waxen flowers and dies.
Some engtkwise dried shapes with feet
and hands,
A2d thirsty mouths pressed on the sweltering
sands,
Mark here and there a grewsome graveless
spot
Where some one drank thy scorching holiness,
and is not.
God must have made thee in his anger and
forgot. -Madge Morris.
Mr.. Peters and His City Relations.
don't know why 1t is. but don't seem to get
on well
With them O. my relations that down in the
city dwell
Except when summers comm or when sum-
mer's reelly here;
Them times they sort o. treat me like as though
they held me dear,
Nd through July md August most generally
A ho1 of, how bop oil
trees.
But when it comes to winter. when there's
nothin much to do,
Nd l go down to see them in the town a week
two,
You'd think, the way they look at me, they'd
never heard my name,
Or that I'd brought upon 'em all some ever
lastin shame.
Why, long about last New Years time 1 hap
pened in one night
When they was havin dinner, md you'd
thought was blight.
My cousins wife, she got as red as any healthy
beet
When l declined some oyster cakes md asst for
solid meat,
Though remember mighty well at my place
last July
She turned her back on roast cornbeef md
made meal on pie.
M JuSu because aSU Il tluue tney nau at Lllat
there meal
If he was Mary Anne's young man, "Maree''
began to sQueal.
1t amt their hearts that's wantin-they're af-
fectionate enough
They show that when they come to me when
city heat gets tough.
It's in the brain-and after all amt bit sur
priSed.
By just one week of city life I'm nearly par
alyzed,
Nd all their little queernesses had ought to be
set down,
think, to that unnatural life they lead down
there in town. Carlyle Smith.
A Penalty.
The rock is veined with gold, and the silver
shines,
And the seams of the coal are black in the
neither mines.
And the copper CLEANS like u kindled furnace
spark,
And the heavy lead is dull and dark;
Yet for all the black of the coal and the gloom
of the lead,
Do they weep 10 be copper or silver or gold in
stead?
The lilies rock in a garden fair and tall.
And the daisies creep in the grass at the feet
of all,
And the yellow sunflower stares at the yellow
sun,
But the trailing yellow trefoils earthward rum
Yet for all the lilies are high and the daisies
are low,
None of them creth, why hast thou made me
so?"
Like flowers of air the kingbirds flash and fly;
They have dipt their wings in the blue of the
summer sky:
But the dusky lark that made an earthly nest
Must carry away its color upon her breast:
Yet for all the feathers are blown or feathers
are bright,
None of them saith, God doth not work
Alright"
and men spring up in their place, and golden
crown
Circles royal head, for king and clown
Rise and pass through life their several ways,
And this shall be born for trial, and this for
praise;
Yet Of every soul in every devious lot
There is none content, there is none that mur
murs not Nina T. Layard.
AGiectiyes That Need 81 Rest,