BY SCARLET TORCH AND BLADE
ALL the land is lying listless and a warm September breeze
Has brushed the green to silver on the rustling orchard trees,
And the near-by hills are curtained with a doleful, yellow cloak,
For the world is swathed and sweltering and blanketed in smoke.
Up the Sacramento Valley from the 'Frisco country south,
To Seattle and Vancouver there's a thirsty, baking drouth;
From the Rockies to the Coast Range 'neath the heavy-hanging haze
Leagues and leagues of trees are giving up their ghosts in smoke and blaze;
There are endless acres smouldering, their trunks forever dead—
Oh, is it any wonder that the sun's a red-hot red!
Has brushed the green to silver on the rustling orchard trees,
And the near-by hills are curtained with a doleful, yellow cloak,
For the world is swathed and sweltering and blanketed in smoke.
Up the Sacramento Valley from the 'Frisco country south,
To Seattle and Vancouver there's a thirsty, baking drouth;
From the Rockies to the Coast Range 'neath the heavy-hanging haze
Leagues and leagues of trees are giving up their ghosts in smoke and blaze;
There are endless acres smouldering, their trunks forever dead—
Oh, is it any wonder that the sun's a red-hot red!
From the towns they're rushing fighters—rushing, rushing them by rail.
[3]
