Night with its revel and its song,
Night with the lights agleam—
And some sat with the festal throng,
And some lay down to dream.
Some they quaffed life's purple wine
And watched its bubbles play,
And some before a cloistered shrine
Bent low their heads to pray.
And over all who, staying late,
Kept tryst with good or ill,
The sea fogs through the Golden Gate
Crept white on bay and hill.
Soft and white the sea fogs lay
On hill and wave and shore,
While yet, before the break of day,
One grim hour waited more.
One grim hour more and then unbent
The battle guns of hell,
And from the hills the veil was rent
Where white the sea fogs fell.
Dead failed the morning wind that fills
The galleon's eager sail,
While yet the city's tumbling hills
Were rocked as in a gale.
Steeple and tower and stately mart,
Shrine and the lair of lust,
Like toppling cards were flung apart
And crumbled in the dust.
Some to grasp her trembling knees
From blasted altars came,
Some with Christ's bitter agonies,
And some with cheeks of shame;
Moan of the stricken hearts that rushed
To dust and flame-swept sky,
Till all the seven seas were hushed
And stricken with the cry.
That day the world forgot to hate,
To her its tears were sped,
The Keeper of the Golden Gate
Who wept above her dead!
* * * *
O yesterday and yesteryear,
Deep in the dust ye lie,
Dried and forgotten is the tear,
Forgotten is the cry.
Up from the ashes of the past,
From sorrow and travail,
She greets again the bending mast,
She greets the singing sail.
Steeple and tower she lifts anew,
With dauntless heart of old;
New-born she greets the skies of blue
Where gleam the Gates of Gold.
From thrice her seven hills again,
Ringing and sweet and clear,
O'er sunlit seas and stretching plain
She sends her song of cheer.
Within her heart the blood beats warm,
Her great soul leaps elate—
God save her so, safe from all harm,
The Keeper of the Gate!
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