CXV. FATE.
Francis Bret Harte (b. 1839,—) was born in Albany, N.Y. When seventeen years old he went to California, where he engaged in various employments. He was a teacher, was employed in government offices, worked in the gold mines, and learned to be a compositor in a printing office. In 1868 he started the "Overland Monthly," and his original and characteristic poems and sketches soon made it a popular magazine. Mr. Harte has been a contributor to some of the leading periodicals of the country, but principally to the "Atlantic Monthly."
1. "The sky is clouded, the rocks are bare;
The spray of the tempest is white in air;
The winds are out with the waves at play,
And I shall not tempt the sea to-day.
2. "The trail is narrow, the wood is dim,
The panther clings to the arching limb;
And the lion's whelps are abroad at play,
And I shall not join in the chase to-day."
3. But the ship sailed safely over the sea,
And the hunters came from the chase in glee;
And the town that was builded upon a rock
Was swallowed up in the earthquake shock.