The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-02-24
DAWN ON THE
COLORADO DESERT
A Poem in Imperial Prose.
(Allen Kelly in Ell Contra Press.

(Allen Kelly in Ell Contra PreSs)
Morning on the desert is a wondrOus
thing to see. The first glimmer of light
that filters through the slowly-opening
portals of the east gives strange, in
credible form 70 the shapeless shadows
of the night. 1t stills the shrill ulula-
tions of the yodeling coyote, and that
'barefooted friar in orders of gray
glides into the dark and fades as a
ghost at cock-crOw. Gentle and faint
as the sigh of a sleeping babe, the first
breath of the morning wind caresses the
face of the desert and whispers to its
little people that the sun is coming and
it is time TO awake. Heralds of the
dawn fling their Tose-cOlOTed banners
across the eastern sky, dark cloud
masses show edges of gold. the vaulted
dome of the heavens CLEANS silver-gray,
and formless mountain walls encircling
the plain take form and color and
sharply define their peaks.
Wild things of the air feel the stir
of morning first and are on the wing
while the groundlings are yet sleeping
in the shadows. With faint swish of
wings a company of water fowl passes
swiftly overhead. and in a moment
squadrOns, regiments, brigades of ducks
are streaming across the sky, silhOuet-
ted black against silver and gold, wing
ley to the waters of the Salton Sea.
BattIeship Mirage.
With the rising of the sun, >the Cent?
of Mirage sweep their brushes over the
plain and mountains, painting impossi-
BILE pictures of things that never We're
on sea or land-giant fantasies of form
and color-playing Gargantuan jests
with nature and tricking the eve with
ha
On the southern horizon looms
monstrous battleship with three great
turrets and protruding guns. Tunnels.
coming towers, barbettes and fighting
tops shoot up, are absolute realities to
the vision for a moment. A sweep of
the brush. and the Dreadnaught is
transformed into a Monitor with one
vast turret, guns elongate to miles
and in moment contract and run back
into the turTet. Another whimsical
stroke changes the Monitor to the mass
i've bulk of the Merrimac, with sloping
top sides and ram bow. A moment more
and the three-turreted battle monster
comes again, her guns run out and
fighting tops shoot up, and every few
seconds she changes form and bulk as
does moving picture thrown upon a
screen by giant magic lantern.
Dream Cities.
To the eastward a city of dreams
looms against the horizon. Heaven
piercing spires spring into the air,
domes and minarets appear, rectangu-
lar skyscrapers are sharply defined, low
lying roofs crowd around the great
buildings, and all are reflected clearly
in the vast eXpanSe of a shimmerng
lake. The city is there as plainly as
any ever built by man. but immeas-
urably grander. Its skyline is an art
lists dream; and it melts and changes
and the spires come and go with ev-
cry stroke of the Genii's brush.
Against the northern horizon, where
the Superstition hills lie, the ancient
Chaldean city springs into life again
The magnificent arrogance of her tow
ers is there. Terrace upon terrace her
hanging gardens leap into being. and
far-stretching, bulking huge i'm the
morning light of the twentieth CEN
fury, come again to the view of man
the tabled walls of Babylon.
The whole great circle of the horizon
is the canvas upon which the Genii of
Mirage paint their weird pictures, an
ever shifting panorama of Illusions that
only the mind subconsciously recog-
nizes as unrealities. To the vision all
are solid, substantial verities.
FaIryldnd.
AS the sun climbs along it's mount
ing pathway and throws its beams up
on the plain, the phantasmagoria
sweeps from the encircling hills into
the valley, and a great lake submeiges
all the land. Upon an island i'm the
fairy sea stands an imperial city of
cleaning marble, beautiful as the
dream of genius. its palaces. monu-
ments, domes and arches mirrorad
again in the encompassing waters.
Groves, forests, Villas, ships with white
spreading sails and towering masts are
imagined i'm the shining sea, and mag
ination needs no spur to people the
dream city with white robed multitudes,
to see men and women StrOlling n
the groves, children playing on the
banks and sailors upon the docks Of
ships.