Tacoma, Monarch of the Coast!
Uncounted ages heaped my shining snows;
The sun by day, by night the starry host,
Crown me with splendor; every breeze that blows
Wafts incense to my altars; never wanes
The glory my adoring children boast,
For one with sun and sea Tacoma reigns.

Tacoma--the Great Snow Peak--mighty name
My dusky tribes revered when time was young!
Their god was I in avalanche and flame--
In grove and mead and songs my rivers sung,
As blithe they ran to make the valleys fair--
Their Shrine of Peace where no avenger came
To vex Tacoma, lord of earth and air.

Ah! when at morn above the mists I tower
And see my cities gleam by slope and strand,
What joy have I in this transcendent dower--
The strength and beauty of my sea-girt land
That holds the future royally in fee!
And lest some danger, undescried, should lower,
From my far height I watch o'er wave and lea.

And cloudless eves when calm in heaven I rest,
All rose-bloom with a glow of paradise,
And through my firs the balm-wind of the west,
Blown over ocean islands, softly sighs,
While placid lakes my radiant image frame--
And know my worshippers, in loving quest,
Will mark my brow and fond lips breathe my name:

Enraptured from my valleys to my snows,
I charm my glow to crimson--soothe to gray;
And when the encircling shadow deeper grows,
Poise, a lone cloud, beside the starry way.
Then, while my realm is hushed from steep to shore,
I yield my grandeur to divine repose,
And know Tacoma reigns forevermore!

South Framingham, Mass.
March, 1911. Edna Dean Proctor

[Illustration {p.016}: Copyright, 1906, By Romans Photographic Co.
The most kingly of American mountains, seen from beautiful Lake
Washington, Seattle, distance sixty miles.]

{p.017}
[Illustration: A party of climbers on Winthrop Glacier.]

THE MOUNTAIN THAT WAS "GOD."

I.

MOUNT "BIG SNOW" AND INDIAN TRADITION.

Long hours we toiled up through the solemn wood,
Beneath moss-banners stretched from tree to tree;
At last upon a barren hill we stood,
And, lo, above loomed Majesty.

--_Herbert Bashford: "Mount Rainier."_

The great Mountain fascinates us by its divers