The silver-voiced bell-birds, the darlings of day-time

Songs interwoven of lights and of laughters Borrowed from bell-birds in far forest rafters.

Welcome as waters unkissed by the summers Are the voices of bell-birds to thirsty far-comers.

I look'd far back into the past, and lo! in bright array, I saw, as in a dream, the forms of ages pass'd away. It was a stately convent, with its old and lofty walls, And gardens with their broad green walks, where soft the footstep falls.

On the morning of January 11th, 1860, I passed, for the eighth time, through the Golden Gate... As the shores of California faded in the distance, and the summits of the Coast Range sank under the blue horizon, I bade farewell — yes, I do …

Tho’ sickness yet a while forbears, Yet time destroys what sickness spares; Now Helen lives alone in fame And Cleopatra's but a name; Time must indent that heav'nly brow, And thou must be what they are now.

Your most beautiful bride who with garlands is crown'd And kills with each glance as she treads on the ground... Though now she be pleasant and sweet to the sense, Will be damnable mouldy a hundred years hence.