To San Francisco

IF we dreamed that we loved Her aforetime, ’twas the ghost of a dream; for I vow

By the splendour of God in the highest, we never have loved Her till now.

When Love bears the trumpet of Honour, oh, highest and clearest he calls,

With the light of the flaming of towers, and the sound of the rending of walls.

When Love wears the purple of Sorrow, and kneels at the altar of Grief,

Of the flowers that spring in his footsteps, the white flower of Service is chief.

As a flower on the snow of Her bosom, as a star in the night of Her hair,

We bring to our Mother such token as the time and elements spare.

If we dreamed that we loved Her aforetime, adoring we kneel to Her now,

When the golden fruit of the ages falls, swept by the wind from the bough.

The beautiful dwelling is shattered, wherein, as a queen at the feast,

In gems of the barbaric tropics and silks of the ultimate East,

Our Mother sat throned and triumphant, with the wise and the great in their day.

They were captains, and princes, and rulers; but She, She was greater than they.

We are sprung from the builders of nations; by the souls of our fathers we swear,

By the depths of the deeps that surround Her, by the height of the heights She may dare,

Though the Twelve league in compact against Her, though the sea gods cry out in their wrath.

Though the earth gods, grown drunk of their fury, fling the hilltops abroad in Her path,

Our Mother of masterful children shall sit on Her throne as of yore,

With Her old robes of purple about Her, and crowned with the crowns that She wore.

She shall sit at the gates of the world, where the nations shall gather and meet,

And the East and the West at Her bidding shall lie in a leash at Her feet.