“I watched the sun sink from the west,
I watched the sweet day die;
Above the dim Coast Range’s crest
I saw the red clouds lie;
I saw them lying golden deep,
By lingering sunbeams kissed,
Like isles of fairyland that sleep
In seas of amethyst.
...
“Then through the long night hours I lay
In baffled sleep’s travail,
And heard the outcast thieves in grey—
The gaunt coyotes—wail.
With seaward winds that wandering blew
I heard the wild geese cry,
I heard their grey wings beating through
The star-dust of the sky.
...
“Yet, with the last grim, solemn hour,
Stilled were the voices all,
And then, from poppied fields aflower,
Rang out the wild bird’s call;
The glad dawn, deep in white mists steeped,
Breathed on the day’s hushed lyre,
And far the dim Sierras leaped
In living waves of fire.”