Excerpt from Songs of the Sunset Trail The Desert When aeons ago the receding waters Of the earth left a barren waste on the Far western portion of this great continent, There arose an awe-inspiring landscape, Where, beneath the rays of the summer's sun An empire, as vast as ancient Greece or Rome, Lay silent and dead, forgotten by God. Beautiful islands, once lapped by the waves Of a mighty ocean, became majestic Mountains in a sea of ever-shifting sand. And then, ashamed of its nakedness, It drew over itself a drouth-resisting Mantle of mesquite, cactus and sage. Where once the fishes and crustaceans sported In the briny waters, creepings things now Darted to and fro under a pitiless sun. Countless years passed, when lo and behold, Man, In search of new lands to conquer, found this Mystery of the new world, and ever since Has paid the toll for his intrusion. The Sandstorm When the subtle wind in all its fury blows, And whirls and swirls the sands like Arctic snows, The gray coyote and the lizard fear Its mystic voices coming far and near. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.