Augustin S. Macdonald, comp. A Collection of Verse by California Poets. 1914.
By David Starr JordanVivérols
B
There is a town called Vivérols;
I know not if ’tis near or far,
I know not what its features are,
I only know ’tis Vivérols.
By vine and moss be overgrown;
I know not if the night-owl calls
From feudal battlements of stone
Inhabited by him alone;
Knee-deep in corn stands Vivérols;
I know not if prosperity
Has robbed its life of poësy.
It could not be in Vivérols,
They would not call it Vivérols.
The grapes grow purple in the sun;
Or down its wild untrodden crags,
Its broken cliffs and frost-bit jags,
The mountain brooks unfettered run.
A place of gaudy pomp and show,
A “Grand Establishment des Eaux,”
Where to win back their withered lives
The roués of the city go.
No ray of happiness lets in;
Where wanders hopeless beggary
Mid scenes of sorrow, want and sin,
It cannot be in Vivérols,
There’s life and cheer in Vivérols!
Mid vapors out from Dreamland blown;
Built up from vague remembrances
That never yet had form in stone
Its castles built of cloud alone.
Through its old walls of crumbling stone
With moss and ivy overgrown
Together wander all alone,
Than ivy-covered Vivérols;
No grass be greener anywhere
No bluer sky, nor softer air
Than we should find in Vivérols,
Together find in Vivérols.
The sun shines o’er Vivérols,
Green is the grass, the skies are clear:
No clouds obscure our pathway, dear,
Where Love is there is Vivérols,
There is no other Vivérols.