Classic Poem

The Cypress trees at Monterey
Have seen the angry sea,
Their gnarled and mournful, spectral forms
Record sad history.
With wide-flung desolate limbs all wrung
In desperate agony —
They seem to writhe, as the wind sweeps through
And sway despairingly.

They softly sigh for the sunken fleets
Now driftwood on the shore —
For loss of lives, whose knell was tolled
By fog-bells, in the roar
Of thundering seas, that mountain high,
Bore freights to break on rocks
Where now mild seals in sunlight loll
While the old Pacific mocks.

The Sentinel Cypress on the cliff,
Still watches all alone,
And mutely warns stray craft away,
And the deep keeps-up its moan;
But the sun smiles on the sparkling dunes,
Where wild verbenas grow,
As he sinks to rest on the ocean's breast
While the day dies in his glow.