From The Times Dispatch, May 27, 1914. By Bret Harte.
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 today.
The trail is narrow, the wood is dim,
The panther clings to the arching limb,
The lion’s whelps are abroad at play,
And I shall not join in the chase today.
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 an earthquake shock.