WELCOME
[In honor of the presence in California of the
Governors
of the States of the United States, July, 1933]
Welcome was here in the old days of Spain
For every stranger, came he soon or late
By inland trails or from the rolling main
With white flung sail to win the Golden Gate.
Soft speech was here that bade him long to stay—
And, must he go, to speed him on his way.
Welcome was here with bright and lingering glow
Of happy care-free days of Mexico.
The welcome still that bade the stranger bide
Long past the stirrup cup and dusk of night,
heedless of dawn in fall of eventide
And pageantry of stars, however bright.
All doors were open, every table spread,
And ever, everywhere a waiting bed.
Nor yet was welcome from our bright land fled
When days of Spain and Mexico were sped,
And silent in their gray and crumbled towers
Bells of the Missions were no long rung
With memories of lost and happy hours
When life and love and all the world were young.
Till when—the Golden Fleece their quest—
Came over plain and desert from afar
The Bald Eagle's brood, flown from its nest,
To set aflame an Empire's restless dreams,
Their campfires' glow upon our golden streams.
Songs of a newer race from minaret
And snow-crowned peaks and sunset sea
Hushed strummed guitars and castanet
With the wild sagas of our destiny.
Yet were old welcomes left us still, nor cast
From clinging memories of a mellowed past.
Here is the welcome still, the same fond hail
That greeted from the sea the wandering sail,
And from the plains the dusty caravan
That flung the Flag across the span
Of the wide continent, from sea to sea,
Daring white mountain peaks and desert gates,
That our vast, ocean-guarded land might be
enfolded in the sisterhood of States.
For you who keep the convent and the scroll
The law and compact of old days and new,
Here where Pacific's tides and billows roll,
The old, fond welcome waits, elate, for you.
For you, the sea, the hill and valley calls—
Yosemite's white misted waterfall,
Sequoia's groves of immemorial trees,
Our stately cities with their busy marts—
The ultimate West and all its destinies
Embrace you now and fold you in our hearts.
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