San Francisco

Who now dare longer trust thy mother hand?

So like thee thou hadst not another child;

The favorite flower of all thy Western sand,

She looked up, Nature, in thy face and smiled,

Trustful of thee, all-happy in thy care.

She was thine own, not to be lured away

Down joyless paths of men. Happy as fair,

Held to thy heart—that was she yesterday.

To-day the sea is sobbing her sweet name;

She cannot answer—she that loved thee best,

That clung to thee till Hell's own shock and flame

Wrenched her, swept her, from thy forgetting breast.

Day's darling, playmate of thy wind and sun—

Mother, what hast thou done, what hast thou done!