Three days, three nights, three fearful days
Of death, of flame, of dynamite,
Of God's house thrown a thousand ways;
Blown east by day, blown west by night—
By night? There was no night. Nay, nay,
The ghoulish flame lit nights that lay
Crouched down between this first, last day.
I say those nights were burned away!
And jealousies were burned away,
And burned were city rivalries,
Till all, white crescenting the bay,
Were one harmonious hive of bees.
Behold the bravest battle won!
The City Beautiful begun:
One solid San Francisco, one,
The fairest sight beneath the sun.
Joaquin Miller.
In San Francisco, fire followed the shock; the water-mains had been broken, and the flames were soon utterly beyond control, and raged for two days, destroying the business and principal residence portions of the city—an area of four square miles. The loss of life reached a thousand, the property loss three hundred million dollars.
SAN FRANCISCO
Who now dare longer trust thy mother hand?
So like thee thou hadst not another child;
The favorite flower of all thy Western sand,
She looked up, Nature, in thy face and smiled,
Trustful of thee, all-happy in thy care.
She was thine own, not to be lured away
Down joyless paths of men. Happy as fair,
Held to thy heart—that was she yesterday.
To-day the sea is sobbing her sweet name;
She cannot answer—she that loved thee best,
That clung to thee till Hell's own shock and flame
Wrenched her, swept her, from thy forgetting breast.
Day's darling, playmate of thy wind and sun—
Mother, what hast thou done, what hast thou done!
John Vance Cheney.
The whole country rushed to the relief of the stricken state; the Californians met their losses bravely, and started at once to build a greater San Francisco.
TO SAN FRANCISCO
If we dreamed that we loved Her aforetime, 'twas the ghost of a dream; for I vow
By the splendor of God in the highest, we never have loved Her till now.