( On Mount Hamilton )

I .

Now swings our mighty circle up the sky —
The great equator climbing to the sun
That thrills in voice of flame: " The day is done! "
Across yon darkening sea — vapours that lie
O'er Santa Clara's vale — our Pisgah eye
Discerns the day's eclipse. No solemn gun
Proclaims the obsequies, nor even one
Earth voice is heard to tell us night is nigh.

High in the zenith, o'er our bastion burns
A timid star — 'tis Alpha of the Harp.
Now gathering light, she sings out clear and sharp,
While every ear to her soft lyric turns:
" Cease, child of earth, each helpless plight to nurse,
And hear the music of the universe. "

II .

The white moon rising, floods the cloudy floor
With fleecy billows, spreading wide and far
A sea of silver with no coast to bar
Its shining verges. On the hither shore,
Great domes arise as from the earth's deep core
To turn our sight where God's blue heavens are,
And urge our souls, by vision of each star,
Into the higher atmospheres to soar.

Beneath our mountain-wings, a sea of gloom
Spreads o'er the earth its blight of war, its flood
Of desolation, pestilence and blood,
But all above those clouds of dread and doom
Is star-lumed peace that robes the vaster night
In garniture of universal light.