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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13809 ***
+
+[Illustration: Portrait of Author]
+
+
+Mountain Idylls
+and Other Poems
+
+
+BY
+ALFRED CASTNER KING
+
+
+CHICAGO: NEW YORK: TORONTO
+Fleming H. Revell Company
+LONDON _and_ EDINBURGH
+
+
+1901
+FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
+MAY
+
+
+New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
+Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
+London: 21 Paternoster Square
+Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street
+
+
+
+TO THE MANY FRIENDS WHO HAVE SO
+KINDLY ASSISTED IN THE ARRANGEMENT
+OF THE MANUSCRIPTS FOR
+PUBLICATION, AFTER THE SHADOWS
+OF HOPELESS BLINDNESS DESCENDED
+UPON ME FOREVER, THIS VOLUME
+IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
+
+
+
+Table of Contents.
+
+
+Preface
+Grandeur
+Nature's Child
+To the Pines
+Reflections
+Life's Mystery
+The Fallen Tree
+There is an Air of Majesty
+Think Not That the Heart Is Devoid of Emotion
+Humanity's Stream
+Nature's Lullaby
+The Spirit of Freedom Is Born of the Mountains
+The Valley of the San Miguel
+To Mother Huberta
+Suggested by a Mountain Eagle
+The Silvery San Juan
+As the Shifting Sands of the Desert
+Missed
+If I Have Lived Before
+The Darker Side
+The Miner
+Life's Undercurrent
+They Cannot See the Wreaths We Place
+Mother--Alpha and Omega
+Empty Are the Mother's Arms
+In Deo Fides
+Shall Love, as the Bridal Wreath, Wither and Die
+Shall Our Memories Live When the Sod Rolls Above Us
+A Reverie
+Love's Plea
+Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust
+Despair
+Hidden Sorrows
+Oh, a Beautiful Thing Is the Flower That Fadeth
+Smiles
+A Request
+Battle Hymn
+The Nation's Peril
+Echoes From Galilee
+Go, and Sin No More
+Gently Lead Me, Star Divine
+Dying Hymn
+In Mortem Meditare
+Deprive This Strange and Complex World
+The Legend of St. Regimund
+As the Indian
+The Fragrant Perfume of the Flowers
+An Answer
+Fame
+The First Storm
+Thoughts
+From a Saxon Legend
+Christmas Chimes
+The Unknowable
+The Suicide
+I Think When I Stand in the Presence of Death
+Hope
+Metabole
+
+
+
+
+List of Illustrations.
+
+
+Portrait of Author
+"Grandeur"
+Mount Wilson
+Mountain View in San Juan
+Scene in Ouray
+Uncompahgre Cañon
+Mountain Scene in San Juan
+Emerald Lake
+Scene near Telluride
+Bridal Veil Falls
+Lizard Head
+Trout Lake
+Box Cañon Looking Inward
+Ouray, Colorado
+Box Cañon Looking Outward
+Ironton Park
+Bear Creek Falls
+
+
+[Illustration: "A Wilderness of weird fantastic shapes."]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+_"Of making many books there is no end."--Eccles. 12:12._
+
+
+When the above words were written by Solomon, King of Israel, about
+three thousand years ago, they were possibly inspired by the existence
+even at that early period of an extensive and probably overweighted
+literature.
+
+The same literary conditions are as true to-day as when the above truism
+emanated from that most wonderful of all human intellects. Every age and
+generation, as well as every changing religious or political condition,
+has brought with it its own peculiar and essentially differing current
+literature, which, as a rule, continued a brief season, and then
+vanished, perishing with the age and conditions which called it into
+being; leaving, however, an occasional volume, masterpiece, or even
+quotation, to become classic, and in the form of standard literature
+survive for generations, and in many instances for ages.
+
+Poetry has always occupied a unique position in literature; and though
+from a pecuniary stand-point usually unprofitable, it enjoys the decided
+advantage of longevity.
+
+The mysterious ages of antiquity have bequeathed to all succeeding time
+several of earth's noblest epics, while the contemporaneous prose, if
+any existed, has long lain buried in the inscrutable archives of the
+remote past.
+
+The two most notable of these, the Iliad and the Odyssey, are believed
+to have been transmitted from generation to generation, orally, by the
+minstrels and minnisingers, until the introduction or inception of the
+Greek alphabet, when they were reduced to parchment, and, surviving all
+the vicissitudes of time and sequent political and religious change,
+still occupy a prominent place in literature.
+
+The Book of Job, generally accepted as the most ancient of writings, now
+extant, whether sacred or secular, was doubtless originally a primitive
+though sublime poetical effusion.
+
+The prose works contemporaneous with Chaucer, Spencer, and even with
+that most wonderful of literary epochs, the Elizabethan age, are now
+practically obsolete, while the poetical efforts remain in some
+instances with increased prominence.
+
+Someone, (although just who is difficult to determine,--though it savors
+of the Greek School of Philosophy,--)has delivered the following
+injunction: "Do right because it is right, not from fear of punishment
+or hope of reward." Waiving the question as to whether it is right or
+not to compose poetry, he who aspires in that direction can reasonably
+expect no material recompense, though the experience of Dante,
+Cervantes, Leigh Hunt, and others, proves conclusively that poets do not
+always escape punishment. In fact, about the only emolument to be
+expected is the gratification of an inherent and indefinable impulse,
+which impels one to the task with equal force, whether the ultimate
+result be affluence or a dungeon.
+
+The author of this unpretentious volume has long questioned the
+advisability of adding a book to our already inflated and overloaded
+literature, unless it should contain something in the nature of a
+deviation from beaten literary paths.
+
+Whether the reading public will regard this as such or not is a question
+for the future to determine, as every book is a creature of
+circumstance, and at the date of its publication an algebraic unknown
+quantity.
+
+It was not the original intention of the author to publish any of his
+effusions in collective form until more mature years and riper judgment
+should better qualify him for the task of composition, and should enable
+him to still further pursue the important studies of etymology,
+rhetoric, Latin and Greek, and complete the education which youthful
+environment denied.
+
+On the 17th of March, A.D. 1900, occurred an accident in the form of a
+premature mining explosion which banished the light of the Colorado sun
+from his eyes forever, adding the almost insurmountable barrier of
+total and hopeless blindness to those of limited means and insufficient
+education. At first further effort seemed useless, but as time
+meliorates in some degree even the most deplorable and distressing
+physical conditions, ambition slowly rallied, and while lying for
+several months a patient in various hospitals in an ineffectual attempt
+to regain even partial sight, the following ideas and efforts of past
+years were gradually recalled from the recesses of memory, and reduced
+to their present form, in which, with no small hesitation and misgiving,
+they are presented to the consideration of the reading public, which in
+the humble opinion of the author has frequently failed to receive and
+appreciate productions of vastly superior merit.
+
+_Ouray, Colorado, March 15, 1901._
+
+
+[Illustration:
+"I stood at sunrise on the topmost part,
+  Of lofty mountain, massively sublime."
+
+MOUNT WILSON, SAN MIGUEL COUNTY, COLORADO.]
+
+
+Mountain Idylls and Other Poems
+
+
+
+
+Grandeur.
+
+Dedicated to the mountains of the San Juan district, Colorado, as seen
+from the summit of Mt. Wilson.
+
+
+I stood at sunrise, on the topmost part
+Of lofty mountain, massively sublime;
+A pinnacle of trachyte, seamed and scarred
+By countless generations' ceaseless war
+And struggle with the restless elements;
+A rugged point, which shot into the air,
+As by ambition or desire impelled
+To pierce the eternal precincts of the sky.
+
+                         Below, outspread,
+A scene of such terrific grandeur lay
+That reeled the brain at what the eyes beheld;
+The hands would clench involuntarily
+And clutch from intuition for support;
+The eyes by instinct closed, nor dared to gaze
+On such an awful and inspiring sight.
+
+The sun arose with bright transcendent ray,
+Up from behind a bleak and barren reef;
+His face resplendent with beatitude,
+Solar effulgence and combustive gleam;
+Bathing the scene in such a wealth of light
+That none could marvel that primeval man,
+Rude and untaught, whene'er the sun appeared,
+Fell down and worshiped.
+
+A wilderness of weird, fantastic shapes,
+Of precipice and stern declivity;
+Of dizzy heights, and towering minarets;
+Colossal columns and basaltic spires
+Which pointing heavenward, appeared to wave
+In benediction o'er the depths beneath.
+
+Uneven crags and cliffs of various form;
+Abysmal depths, and dire profundities;
+Chasms so deep and awful that the eye
+Of soaring eagle dare not gaze below,
+Lest, dizzied, he should lose his aerial poise,
+And headlong falling, reach the gulf beneath.
+
+Majestic turrets, and the stately dome
+Which, ovaled by the slow but tireless hand
+Of eons of disintegrating time,
+Still with impressive aspect rears its brow
+Defiant of mutation and decay.
+
+[Illustration: "Majestic turrets and the stately dome."
+
+MOUNTAIN VIEW, SAN JUAN, COLORADO.]
+
+The crevice deep and inaccessible;
+Fissure and rent, where the intrusive dike's
+Creative and destructive agency
+Leaves many an enduring monument
+Of metamorphic and eruptive power;
+Of molten deluge, and volcanic flood;
+Fracture and break, the silent stories tell
+Of dire convulsion in the ages past;
+Of subterranean catastrophe,
+And cataclysm of internal force.
+
+The trachyte wall, beseamed and battle scarred;
+The porphyritic tower and citadel;
+The granite ramparts and embattlements
+Of nature's fort, impregnable and wild,
+Stand as a symbol of eternal strength,
+And hurl a challenge to the elements!
+
+Cañons of startling and appalling depths,
+With caverns, vast and gloomy, which would seem
+Meet for the haunt of centaur or of gnome;
+The gorgon and the labyrinthodon;
+The clumsy mammoth and the dinosaur;
+Or all gigantic and unwieldy shapes
+Which earth has seen in the mysterious past,
+Would seem in more accord and harmony
+With such surroundings than the puny form
+Of insignificant, conceited man.
+
+And interspersed amid these solemn peaks
+Lie many a pleasant vale and grassy slope,
+Besprinkled with the drooping columbine,
+And fragrant growths of all harmonious tints,
+Whose variegated colors punctuate
+Grandeur with beauty, and fearless, bloom
+In the forbidding shadow of the cliffs,
+And to the margin of the snowy combs
+Which still resist the sun's persuasive ray.
+
+A lakelet, cool, pellucid and serene,
+Fed by the drippings from eternal snows,
+Lies like a mirror 'neath a frowning cliff,
+Or as a gem, majestically ensconced
+In diadem of crag and pinnacle.
+
+Down towards the distant valley's sultry clime,
+Both solitary, and in straggling groups;
+In solid phalanx, rigid and compact;
+In labyrinth of branches interspread,
+Impervious to the rain and midday sun;
+In form spontaneous, without regard
+To law of uniformity, there stand
+In silent awe, or whispering to the breeze,
+The sombre fir and melancholy pine.
+And many a denuded avenue
+Of varying and considerable width,
+Cut through the growth of balsam, spruce and pine,
+Which stands erect and proud on either hand,
+Attests the swift and desolating force
+Of fearful, devastating avalanche.
+
+[Illustration: "The trachyte wall beseamed and battle scarred."
+
+SCENE IN OURAY COUNTY, COLORADO.]
+
+The mountain rill its pleasant music makes,
+As the descendant waters roll along,
+In rhythmic flow and dulcet cantabile,
+In various concord and harmonious pitch,
+Pursuant of its journey to the sea;
+The murmuring treble of the rivulet,
+Uniting with the deep and ponderous bass
+Of torrent wild and foaming cataract;
+The thunderous, reverberating tones
+And seething ebullition of the falls
+Are blended in one grand euphonious chord.
+
+Far in the hazy distance, as the eye
+With vague perceptive vision penetrates,
+Lie the vast mesas of ethereal hue,
+Stretched in a calm and sleepy quietude,
+Dreamy repose and blue tranquillity;
+The eye which rests upon the drowsy scene
+Beholds a dim horizon, which presents
+No line of demarcation or of bounds;
+A merging union, blurred and indistinct;
+Fuliginous confusion, that the eye
+In viewing gazes, but no more discerns
+Which is the earth, and which the azure sky.
+
+              But mark the change!
+A cloud, which floated in the atmosphere,
+An inconsiderable and feathery speck
+Of no proportions, now augmented, wears
+A threatening aspect, ominously dark;
+Enveloping the heaven's canopy
+In lowering shadow and portentous gloom;
+In pall of ambient obscurity.
+The fork-ed lightnings ramify and play
+Upon a background of sepulchral black;
+The growling thunders rumble a reply
+Of detonation awful and profound,
+To every corruscation's vivid gleam;
+In deep crescendo and fortissimo,
+In quavering tremolo and stately fugue
+Echoes, reverberates and dies away!
+
+But soon the sun, with smiling radiance,
+Through orifice, through rift and aperture,
+Invades the storm, and dissipates the clouds,
+Which scatter, cowering and ephemeral,
+Hugging the cliffs, and o'er the dire abyss
+Hover, in fleecy, ever changing form,
+And in a transient season disappear;
+Vanish, as man must vanish, and are gone.
+
+The moist precipitation of the storm
+Revives, refreshes and invigorates
+The various vegetation, and bedews
+Each blade of grass and floweret with a tear;
+As nature, weeping o'er the faults of man.
+
+[Illustration:
+"Would seem in more accord and harmony,
+  With such surroundings than the puny form
+Of insignificant, conceited man."
+
+UNCOMPAHGRE CAÑON, NEAR OURAY, COLORADO.]
+
+The day recedes, and twilight's neutral shade
+Succeeds in turn, and ushers in the night,
+Whose wings, outstretched and shadowy, descend,
+And in nocturnal mantle robes the scene.
+
+A hush prevails! Oppressive and profound;
+A silence, broken only by the breeze;
+A dormant quiet-essence and repose;
+Pervading calm and sweet oblivion,--
+As nature wrapt in soft refreshing sleep.
+
+Far in the east a solitary star
+Peeps through the sombre curtain of the night--
+In hesitating dubitation burns;
+In lonely splendor, flashes for a time,
+Till scattering celestial lights appear,--
+The vanguard of an astral multitude
+Of constellations, jewelled and serene,
+Which fill the lofty dome of space, until
+The heavens sparkle with the myriad
+Of spectra, nebulae and satellite;
+With stellar scintillation, and the orbs
+Of less refulgence, which, reflective shine;
+With falling star and trailing meteor;
+In one grand culmination, glittering
+To their Creator's glory!
+
+A burst of mellow lunar radiance
+Inundates and illuminates the scene;
+The waxing moon, in her meridian full,
+Her beam vicarious disseminates,
+And shining, hides with her superior light,
+The twinkling beauty of the firmament!
+
+At the stupendous and inspiring sight
+Of cosmic grandeur of the universe,
+A sense of vague and overwhelming awe;
+Of inconceivable immensity,
+The being's inmost recess permeates;
+And man, the atom in comparison,
+In spellbound admiration, mutely stands;
+With speculative meditation, dwells
+On that most solemn of impressive thoughts,
+The goodness of the Deity to man![A]
+
+[Illustration:
+"Both solitary and in straggling groups;
+  In solid phalanx, rigid and compact."
+
+MOUNTAIN SCENE, SAN JUAN COUNTY, COLORADO.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] Composed at St. Anthony's hospital, Denver, Colo., from whence the
+author was led hopelessly blind.
+
+
+
+
+Nature's Child.
+
+
+I love to tread the solitudes,
+The forests and the trackless woods,
+Where nature, undisturbed by man,
+Pursues her voluntary plan.
+
+Where nature's chemistry distills
+The fountains and the laughing rills,
+I love to quaff her sparkling wine,
+And breathe the fragrance of the pine.
+
+I love to dash the crystal dews
+From floral shapes of varied hues,
+And interweave the modest white
+Of columbine in garlands bright.
+
+I love to lie within the shade,
+On grassy couch, by nature made,
+And listen to the warbling notes
+From her fair songsters' feathered throats.
+
+And freed from artificial wants,
+I love to dwell in nature's haunts,
+And by the mountain's crystal lake
+A rustic habitation make.
+
+I love to scale the mountain height
+And watch the eagle in his flight,
+Or gaze upon the azure sea
+Of aerial immensity.
+
+I love the busy marts of trade,
+I love the things which men have made,
+Though man has charms, none such as these,
+In him the child of nature sees.
+
+
+
+
+To the Pines.
+
+
+Ye sad musicians of the wood,
+Whose dirges fill the solitude,
+Whose minor strains and melodies
+Are wafted on the whispering breeze,
+Whose plaintive chants and listless sighs,
+Ascend as incense to the skies;
+Do solemn tones afford relief,
+With you, as men, a vent for grief?
+
+[Illustration:
+"Inverted in fantastic form,
+  Below the water line."
+
+EMERALD LAKE, SAN MIGUEL COUNTY, COLORADO.]
+
+
+
+
+Reflections.
+
+
+On the margin of a lakelet,
+  In a rugged mountain clime,
+Where precipice and pinnacle
+  Of countenance sublime,
+Cast their weird, austere reflections
+  In the water's glistening sheen,
+I strolled in contemplative mood,
+  Both pensive and serene.
+
+As in a crystal mirror,
+  In that lakelet's placid face,
+I saw the mountains upside down,
+  With all their pristine grace;
+I saw each cliff and point of rocks,
+  I saw the stately pine,
+Inverted in fantastic form
+  Below the water line.
+
+I paused in admiration;
+  And with calm complacency
+I marveled at this photograph
+  From nature's gallery;
+And as my eyes surveyed the scene
+  With solemn grandeur fraught,
+This simile flashed through my mind
+  As instantly as thought:
+
+As the stern, majestic mountains,
+  Without error or mistake,
+Were reflected in the bosom
+  Of that cool, pellucid lake,
+So our every thought and action,
+  Be it deed of hate or love,
+May be photographed in record
+  In that gallery above.
+
+
+
+
+Life's Mystery
+
+
+I live, I move, I know not how, nor why,
+  Float as a transient bubble on the air,
+As fades the eventide I, too, must die;
+  I came, I know not whence; I journey, where?
+
+
+
+
+The Fallen Tree.
+
+
+I passed along a mountain road,
+  Which led me through a wooded glen,
+Remote from dwelling or abode
+  And ordinary haunts of men;
+    And wearied from the dust and heat.
+    Beneath a tree, I found a seat.
+
+The tree, a tall majestic spruce,
+  Which had, perhaps for centuries,
+Withstood, without a moment's truce,
+  The wing-ed warfare of the breeze;
+    A monarch of the solitude,
+    Which well might grace the noblest wood.
+
+Beneath its cool and welcome shade,
+  Protected from the noontide rays,
+The birds amid its branches played
+  And caroled forth their twittering praise;
+    A squirrel perched upon a limb
+    And chattered with loquacious vim.
+
+E'er yet that selfsame week had sped,
+  On my return, I sought its shade;
+But where it reared its form, instead;
+  A fallen monarch I surveyed,
+    Prostrate and broken on the ground,
+    Nor longer cast its shade around.
+
+Uprooted and disheveled, there
+  The monarch of the forest lay;
+As if in desolate despair
+  Its last resistance fell away,
+    And overwhelmed, in evil hour
+    Went down before the tempest's power.
+
+Such are the final works of fate;
+  The birds to other branches flew;
+And man, whatever his estate,
+  Must face that same mutation, too!
+    To-day, I stand erect and tall,
+    The morrow--may record my fall.
+
+
+
+
+There is an Air of Majesty.
+
+
+There is an air of majesty,
+A bearing dignified and free,
+      About the mountain peaks;
+Each crag of weather-beaten stone
+Presents a grandeur of its own
+      To him who seeks.
+
+There is a proud, defiant mein,
+Expressive, stern, and yet serene,
+      About the precipice;
+Whose rugged form looks grimly down,
+And answers, with an austere frown
+      The sunlight's kiss.
+
+The mountain, with the snow bank crowned;
+The gorge, abysmal and profound;
+      Impress with aspect grand:
+With unfeigned reverence I see
+In canon and declivity
+      The All-Wise Hand.
+
+
+
+
+Think Not that the Heart is Devoid of Emotion.
+
+
+Think not that the heart is devoid of emotion,
+  Because of a countenance rugged and stern,
+The bosom may hide the most fervent devotion,
+  As shadowy forests hide floweret and fern;
+As the pearls which are down in the depths of the ocean,
+  The heart may have treasures which few can discern.
+
+Think not the heart barren, because no reflection
+  Is flashed from the depths of its secret embrace;
+External appearance may baffle detection,
+  And yet the heart beat with an ethical grace:
+The breast may be charged with the truest affection
+  And never betray it by action or face.
+
+[Illustration:
+"Where nature's chemistry distills,
+The fountain and the laughing rills."
+
+SCENE NEAR TELLURIDE, SAN MIGUEL COUNTY, COLORADO.]
+
+
+
+
+Humanity's Stream.
+
+
+I stood upon a crowded thoroughfare,
+Within a city's confines, where were met
+All classes and conditions, and surveyed,
+From a secluded niche or aperture,
+The various, ever-changing multitude
+Which passed along in restless turbulence,
+And, as a human river, ebbed and flowed
+Within its banks of brick and masonry.
+
+Within this vast and heterogeneous throng,
+One might discern all stages and degrees,
+From wealth and power to helpless indigence;
+Extravagance to trenchant penury,
+And all extremes of want and misery.
+Some blest by wealth, some cursed by poverty;
+Some in positions neutral to them both;
+Some wore a gaunt and ill-conditioned look
+Which told its tale of lack of nourishment;
+While others showed that irritated air
+Which speaks of gout and pampered appetite;
+Some following vocations quite reverse
+From those which nature had endowed them for;
+Some passed with face self-satisfied and calm,
+As if the world bore nothing else but joy;
+And some there were who, from the cradle's mouth,
+As they pursued their journey to the grave,
+Had felt no throb save that of misery;
+The man of large affairs passed by in haste,
+With mind preoccupied, nor thought of else
+Save undertakings which concerned himself;
+The shallow son of misplaced opulence
+Came strutting by with self-important air,
+With head erect in a contemptuous poise,
+As if the stars were subject to his will,
+And e'en the golden sun was something base,
+Which had offended with its wholesome light
+In shining on so great a personage,
+A being more than ordinary clay,
+And much superior to the vulgar herd!
+Some faces passed which knew no kindly look,
+And felt no friendly pressure of the hand;
+And if the face depict the character,
+Some passed so steeped in crime and villainy
+That Judas' vile, ill-favored countenance
+Would seem in contrast quite respectable;
+Some features glowed with unfeigned honesty,
+Some grimaced in dissimulating craft,
+Some smiled benignantly and passed along;
+Some faces meek, some stern and resolute;
+Some the embodiment of gentleness;
+Some whose specific aspects plainly told
+Their fondest dreams were not of earth, but heaven;
+A newly wedded couple passed that way,
+In the sweet zenith of their honeymoon,
+But little dreaming what the future held.
+The light and trivial fool, the brainless fop;
+The staid and sober priest and minister;
+And she who worshiped at proud fashion's shrine;
+The mental giant, serious and sad;
+The thoughtful student and philosopher;
+And some of intellect diminutive;
+The man of letters, with abstracted mien,
+And he whose every thought was on the toil
+Which made his bare existence possible;
+The blushing maiden, pure and innocent;
+The stately grandam, dignified and gray;
+The matron, with the babe upon her breast;
+The silly superannuated flirt,
+Who nursed her waning beauty day by day,
+And still essayed to act the role of youth;
+The gay coquette and belle of other days,
+Who in life's morning, with disdainful laugh,
+Had quaffed the cup of pleasure to its dregs,
+And now, grown old, must pay the penalty
+In wrinkles and uncourted loneliness;
+The widow, who, but newly desolate,
+Would grasp a hand, then start to find it gone;
+The spendthrift and the sordid usurer,
+Who knew no sentiment save lust for gold;
+The bloated drunkard, sinking 'neath the weight
+Of wassail inclination dissolute;
+The youth, who, following his baleful steps,
+Reeled for the first time from intemperance;
+And she who had forgot her covenant,
+In brazen infamy and unwept shame;--
+The good, the bad, the impious and unjust,
+The energetic and the indolent,
+The adolescent and the venerable,
+Passed by, pursuant of their various ways.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The aged and decrepit plodded by,
+Whom one would think were ripe for any tomb,
+Yet quailed at dissolution's very thought;
+The crippled and deformed, with cane and crutch,
+Came limping by, as eddies in the stream;
+The mendicant, whose eyes might never see
+The golden sunlight, felt his way along,
+And though the world was dark, still shrank from death.
+Some faces showed the trace of recent tears,
+And some revealed the impress of despair;
+Others endeavored with a careless smile
+To hide a breast surcharged with hopelessness,
+As one afflicted with a foul disease
+Strives to avoid the scrutinizing gaze
+By the assumption of indifference;
+Some whose misfortunes and adversities
+And oft repeated disappointments, dried
+The fountain heads of kindness, and had turned
+Life's sweetest joys to gall and bitterness.
+Each face betrayed some sort or form of woe;
+In more than one I read a tragedy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How complex is existence! What a maze
+Of complication and entanglement!
+Each thread combining with the other threads
+Fulfills its office in the labyrinth;
+Each link concatenates the other links
+Which constitute the vast and endless chain
+Of human life, and human destiny,--
+The strange phantasmagoria of fate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So we, in life's procession, pass along
+To the accompaniment of secret dirge,
+Or laughter interspersed with tear and groan;
+Nor pause a moment, nor retrace a step,
+But march in Fate's spectacular review
+In pageant to our common goal--
+                             The Grave.
+
+
+
+
+Nature's Lullaby.
+
+A MOUNTAIN NOCTURNE
+
+
+In forest shade my couch is made.
+  And there I calmly lie,
+With thought confined in pensive mind,
+  And contemplate the sky;
+I wonder if the frowning cliff,
+  The valley and the wood,
+Or rugged freaks of mountain peaks,
+  Enjoy their solitude.
+
+The heavens hold a sphere of gold,
+  A full and placid moon,
+Suspended high, in cloudless sky,
+  With constellations strewn;
+Its mellow beam, on rill and stream,
+  In silvery sheen I see;
+Before its light, the shades of night
+  As evil spirits, flee.
+
+In space afar, a shooting star,
+  With swift, uncertain course,
+In dazzling sparks its passage marks,
+  As it expends its force;
+The mountains bare reflect its glare
+  Of weird, unearthly light,
+And e'en the skies, in glad surprise,
+  Behold its gorgeous flight.
+
+The spruce and pine, at timber-line,
+  In straggling patches strewn,
+Surcharge the breeze with melodies,
+  The forests' plaintive tune;
+As they descend, the waters blend
+  In babbling harmony,
+And soothe to rest my tranquil breast,
+  With Nature's lullaby.
+
+[Illustration: "Where the torrent falls o'er the mountain wall."
+
+BRIDAL VEIL FALLS, NEAR TELLURIDE, SAN MIGUEL COUNTY, COLORADO.]
+
+
+
+
+The Spirit of freedom is Born of the Mountains.
+
+
+The spirit of freedom is born of the mountains,
+In gorge and in cañon it hovers and dwells;
+Pervading the torrents and crystalline fountains,
+  Which dash through the valleys and forest clad dells.
+
+The spirit of freedom, so firm and impliant,
+  Is borne on the breeze, whose invisible waves
+Descend from the mountain peaks, stern and defiant--
+  Created for freemen, but never for slaves.
+
+
+
+
+The Valley of the San Miguel.
+
+
+In the golden West, by fond Nature blest,
+  Lies a vale which my heart holds dear;
+Where the zephyr blows from eternal snows
+  And tempers the atmosphere;
+Where the torrent falls o'er the mountain walls,
+  As its thunderous echoes thrill,
+Where the sparkling mist, by the rainbow kissed,
+  Decks the Valley of San Miguel[B].
+
+Where the birds of spring, in their season sing,
+  Their spontaneous melodies;
+Where the columbine and the stately pine
+  Stand quivering in the breeze;
+Where the aspen tall hugs the trachyte wall,
+  And the wild rose bedecks the hill;
+Where the willows weep, and their vigils keep,
+  On the banks of the San Miguel.
+
+Where the mountains high, cleave the azure sky,
+  With their turrets so bleak and gray;
+Where the morning light crowns the dizzy height,
+  At the break of the summer's day;
+Where the crags look down with an austere frown,
+  O'er the valley so calm and still;
+Where the mesas blue, blend their dreamy hue
+  With the skies of the San Miguel.
+
+Where the mountains hold a vast wealth of gold,
+  In the quartz ledge and placer bar;
+Where the hills resound with the constant sound
+  Of the stamp mill's battering jar;
+Where the waters dash with the rhythmic splash
+  Of the cascade and mountain rill,
+As they laugh and flow to the lands below,
+  Through the turbulent San Miguel.
+
+Where the shadows glide, in the eventide,
+  As the sun, to nocturnal rest,
+With the dazzling rays of a world ablaze,
+  Sinks into the distant west;
+When the yellow leaf of existence brief,
+  Brings the hour when the pulse is still,
+May my ashes rest in the golden West,
+  On the banks of the San Miguel.
+
+[Illustration:
+"Where the mountains high, cleave the azure sky,
+  With their turrets so bleak and gray."
+
+LIZARD HEAD, SAN MIGUEL COUNTY, COLORADO.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[B] San Miguel, pronounced "Magill," the Spanish form of St. Michael.
+
+
+
+
+To Mother Huberta.
+
+_As repeated in chorus on the anniversary of her Names-day by the
+Sisters of St. Hubert at St. Anthony's Hospital, Denver, Col., Oct. 29,
+1900._
+
+
+Mother, our greetings be to thee,
+On the glad anniversary
+  Of this, thy festive day;
+Thy daughters, daughters not of earth,
+But bound by cords of Heavenly birth,
+  Their love and greetings pay.
+
+We thank thee, Mother, for thy care,
+Thy watchfulness, and fervent prayer;
+  And if 'tis Heaven's will,
+May many a returning year
+And namesday find our Mother here,
+  Constant and watchful still.
+
+Blest be that autumn brown and sere!
+Bless-ed the day and blest the year,
+  Of his[C] nativity!
+Blest be the hospitals, which rise,
+Resultant of thy enterprise,
+  Thy zeal and fervency.
+
+Blest be that hunter[D] saint of thine!
+Bless-ed the deer, and blest the sign
+  Between its antlers broad!
+To us, thy daughters, is it given
+To bless thee, in the name of Heaven,
+  And blessing thee, bless God.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[C] St. Hubert.
+
+[D] St. Hubert, the apostle of Ardennes, a saint of the Roman Catholic
+Church, the patron of huntsmen. He was of a noble family of Acquitaine.
+While hunting in the forests of Ardennes he had a vision of a stag with
+a shining crucifix between its antlers, and heard a warning voice. He
+was converted, entered the church, and eventually became Bishop of
+Maestricht and Liege. He worked many miracles, and is said to have died
+in 727 or 729. Spofford's Cyclopædia, Vol. 4, page 470.
+
+
+
+
+Suggested by a Mountain Eagle.
+
+
+I gazed at the azure-hued mantle of heaven,
+  The measureless depths of ethereal space;
+I gazed at the clouds, so invisibly driven,
+  And an eagle, which wheeled with symmetrical grace.
+
+I gazed at that eagle, majestically wheeling,
+  With dignity, born of the free mountain air;
+I envied that bird, with an envious feeling
+  Which springs from a heart that is shackled with care.
+
+I envied that eagle, which bowed to no master,
+  But soared at his will, through the ambient skies,
+Defiant of danger, and scorning disaster,
+  He screamed at the cliffs, which re-echoed his cries.
+
+I envied that bird, on that fair summer morning,
+  When nature lay decked with spontaneous art,
+As he circled, with aspect defiant and scorning,
+  And perched on a pinnacle's loftiest part.
+
+[Illustration:
+"And by the mountain crystal lake
+    A rustic habitation make."
+
+TROUT LAKE, SAN MIGUEL COUNTY, COLORADO.]
+
+And scanning the scene with a stern indecision,
+He spread his dark wings, with intuitive cries,
+And sped, till acute and inquisitive vision
+  Discerned but a movable speck in the skies.
+
+When the shades of the evening, so listless and dreary,
+  Descend on the valley, his wing never flags,
+As through the dark shadows he soars to his eyerie,
+  Which nestles among the impregnable crags.
+
+Ah! fain would I rise on thy feathery pinions,
+  Above the material cares of the day,
+And float over earth's most enchanting dominions,
+  As clouds, by the zephyrs, are wafted away!
+
+
+
+
+The Silvery San Juan.
+
+
+Wherever I wander, my spirit still dwells,
+In the silvery San Juan[E] with its streamlet and dells;
+Whose mountainous summits, so rugged and high,
+With their pinnacles pierce the ethereal sky;
+Where the daisy, the rose, and the sweet columbine
+Blend their colors with those of the sober hued pine;
+Where the ceaseless erosions of measureless time,
+Have chiseled the grotto and canon sublime;
+Have sculptured the cliff, and the stern mountain wall;
+Have formed the bold turret, impressive and tall;
+Have cut the deep gorge with its wonderful caves,
+Sepulchral and gloomy; whose vast architraves
+Support the stalactites, both pendant and white,
+Which with the stalagmites beneath them unite;
+Where nestles a valley, sequestered and grand,
+Worn out of the rock by the same tireless hand,
+Surrounded by mountains, majestic and gray,
+Which smile from their heights on the Town of Ouray.
+
+[Illustration:
+"Where the ceaseless erosions of measureless time,
+Have chiseled the grotto and canon sublime."
+
+BOX CAÑON, LOOKING INWARD, OURAY, COLORADO.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Wherever I wander, my ears hear the sound
+Of thy waters, which plunge with a turbulent bound
+O'er the precipice, seething and laden with foam;
+My ears hear their music wherever I roam;
+Where the cataract's rhapsody, joyous and light,
+Enchants in the morning and soothes in the night;
+Where blend the loud thunders, sonorous and deep,
+With the sobs of the rain as the black heavens weep;
+Where the whispering zephyr, and murmuring breeze,
+Unite with the soft, listless sigh of the trees;
+And where to the fancy, the voices of air
+Wail in tones of distress, or in shrieks of despair;
+Where mourneth the night wind, with desolate breath,
+In accents suggestive of sorrow and death;
+As falls from the heavens, so fleecy and light,
+The winter's immaculate mantle of white;
+Wherever I wander, these sounds greet my ears,
+And the silvery San Juan to my fancy appears.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[E] Pronounced San Wan. Spanish form of St. John.
+
+
+
+
+As the Shifting Sands of the Desert.
+
+
+As the shifting sands of the desert
+  Are born by the simoon's wrath,
+And in wanton and fleet confusion,
+  Are strewn on its trackless path;
+So our lives with resistless fury,
+  Insensibly and unknown,
+With a restless vacillation
+  By the winds of fate are blown;
+      But an All-Wise Hand
+      May have changed the sand,
+      For a purpose of His own.
+
+As the troubled and turbulent waters,
+  As the waves of the angry main,
+Respond with their undulations
+  To the breath of the hurricane;
+So our lives on Time's boundless ocean
+  Unwittingly toss and roll,
+And unconsciously drift with the current
+  Which evades our assumed control;
+      But a Hand of love,
+      From the skies above,
+      May have guided us past a shoal.
+
+Ephemeral, mobile, and fleeting,
+  Our delible paths we tread;
+And fade as the crimson sunset,
+  When the heavens are tinged with red;
+As the gorgeously tinted rainbow
+  Retains not its varied dyes,
+  We change, with the constant mutation,
+  Of desert, of sea, and skies;
+      But the Hand which made,
+      Knows each transient shade,
+  Which passes before the eyes.
+
+[Illustration: "Which smile from their heights on the town of Ouray."
+
+OURAY, COLORADO.]
+
+
+
+
+Missed.
+
+
+Pity the child who never feels
+  A mother's fond caress;
+That childish smile a void conceals
+  Of aching loneliness.
+
+Pity the heart which loves in vain,
+  What balm or mystic spell
+Can soothe that bosom's secret pain,
+  The pain it may not tell?
+
+Pity those missed by Cupid's darts,
+  For 'twas ordained for such,
+Who love at random, but whose hearts
+  Feel no responsive touch.
+
+
+
+
+If I Have Lived Before.
+
+
+If I have lived before, some evidence
+  Should that existence to the present bind;
+Some innate inkling of experience
+  Should still imbue and permeate the mind,
+If we, progressing, pass from state to state,
+Or retrograde, as turns the wheel of fate.
+
+If I have lived before, and could my eyes
+  But view the scenes wherein that life was spent,
+Or even for an instant recognize
+  The climes, conditions and environment
+Beloved by them in that pre-natal span,
+Though past and future both be sealed to man;
+
+Or, if perchance, kind memory should ope'
+  Her floodgates, with fond recollection fraught,
+'Twould then renew the dormant fires of hope,
+  Now smothered out by speculative thought;
+'Twould then rekindle faith within a breast,
+Where doubt is now the sole remaining guest.
+
+
+
+
+The Darker Side.
+
+
+They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
+  And the birds the most happy of all,
+But the sparrow, pursued by the sparrowhawk,
+  Savors more of the wormwood and gall.
+
+They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
+  But the groan may dissemble the laugh;
+E'en now from the meadow is wafted the sound
+  Of a bovine bewailing her calf.
+
+They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
+  But the moss often covers the rock;
+Every animal form is beset by a foe,
+  For the wolf always follows the flock.
+
+For the animal holds all inferior flesh
+  As its just and legitimate prey;
+Every scream of the eagle a panic creates
+  As the weaker things scamper away.
+
+They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
+  But the smiles are all needed to sweeten
+The struggle we see so incessantly waged
+  To eat, and avoid being eaten.
+
+And men, with their genial competitive ways
+  Present no decided improvements,
+For their personal gain they will sacrifice all
+  Who may stand in the way of their movements.
+
+
+
+
+The Miner.
+
+
+      Clink! Clink! Clink!
+  The song of the hammer and drill!
+At the sound of the whistle so shrill and clear,
+He must leave the wife and the children dear,
+  In his cabin upon the hill.
+      Clink! Clink! Clink!
+But the arms that deliver the sturdy stroke,
+Ere the shift is done, may be crushed or broke,
+Or the life may succumb to the gas and smoke,
+  Which the underground caverns fill.
+
+      Clink! Clink! Clink!
+  The song of the hammer and drill!
+As he toils in the shaft, in the stope or raise,
+'Mid dangers which lurk, but elude the gaze,
+  His nerves with no terrors thrill.
+      Clink! Clink! Clink!
+For the heart of the miner is strong and brave;
+Though the rocks may fall, and the shaft may cave
+And become his dungeon, if not his grave,
+  He braves every thought of ill.
+
+      Clink! Clink! Clink!
+  The song of the hammer and drill!
+But the heart which is beating in unison
+With the steady stroke, e'er the shift is done,
+  May be cold and forever still.
+      Clink! Clink! Clink!
+He may reap the harvest of danger sowed,
+The hole which he drills he may never load,
+For the powder may e'en in his hand explode,
+  To mangle, if not to kill.
+
+      Clink! Clink! Clink!
+  The song of the hammer and drill!
+Facing dangers more grim than the cannon's mouth;
+Breathing poisons more foul than the swamps of the south
+  In their tropical fens distill.
+      Clink! Clink! Clink!
+Thus the battle he fights for his daily bread;
+Thus our gold and our silver, our iron and lead,
+Cost us lives, as true as our blood is red,
+  And probably always will.
+
+
+
+
+Life's Undercurrent.
+
+
+Within the precincts of a hospital,
+  I wandered in a sympathetic mood;
+Where face to face with wormwood and with gall,
+  With wrecks of pain and stern vicissitude,
+The eye unused to human misery
+Might view life's undercurrent vividly.
+
+My gaze soon rested on the stricken form
+  Of one succumbing to the fever's drouth,
+With throbbing brow intolerably warm,
+  With wasted lips and mute appealing mouth;
+And when I watched that prostrate figure there
+I thought that fate must be the worst to bear.
+
+I next beheld a thin but patient face,
+  Aged by the constant twinge of hopeless pain,
+Wheeled in an easy chair from place to place,
+  A form which ne'er might stand erect again;
+I viewed that human shipwreck in his chair,
+And thought a fate like that was worst to bear.
+
+Within her room a beauteous maiden lay,
+  Moaning in agony no words express,
+A cancer eating rapidly away
+  Her vital force,--so foul and pitiless;
+And when I saw that face, so young and fair,
+I thought such anguish was the worst to bear.
+
+[Illustration: "Have cut the deep gorge with its wonderful curves."
+
+BOX CAÑON, LOOKING INWARD, OURAY, COLORADO.]
+
+A helpless paralytic met my eyes,
+  Whose hands might never grasp a friendly hand,
+But hung distorted and of shrunken size,
+  Insensible to muscular command;
+His face an abject picture of despair;
+I thought a fate like that was worst to bear.
+
+With wasted form, emaciate and wan,
+  A pale consumptive coughed with labored breath,
+His sunken eyes and hectic flush upon
+  His cheek, foretold a sure but lingering death;
+I thought, whene'er I met his hollow stare,
+A wasting death like that was worst to bear.
+
+That day with fetters obdurate and fast,
+  With chain of summer, winter, spring and fall,
+Is bounden to the dim receding past;
+  Time o'er my life has spread a somber pall,
+With sightless eyes I grope and clutch the air,
+My lot is now the hardest lot to bear.
+
+
+
+
+They Cannot See the Wreaths We Place.
+
+
+They cannot see the wreaths we place
+  Upon the silent bier,
+They cannot see the tear-stained face,
+  Nor feel the scalding tear,
+And now can flowers or graven stone,
+For wrongs done them in life atone?
+
+Better the flower that smooths the thorns
+  On earthly pathway found,
+Than that which uselessly adorns
+  The bier or silent mound.
+And neither tear nor floral token
+Retracts the hasty word, when spoken.
+
+Then strew the flowers ere life has fled,
+  While yet their eyes discern;
+Why waste their fragrance on the dead
+  Who no fond smile return?
+The heaving breast with sorrow aches,
+Comfort the throbbing heart which breaks.
+
+
+
+
+Mother.--Alpha and Omega.
+
+
+Mother! Mother!
+  The startled cry of childish fright
+  Rang through the silence of the night,
+  As but the mother's fond caress
+  Could soothe its infantile distress;
+  And the mother answered, with loving stroke
+  Of her gentle hand, as she softly spoke:
+  "Hush, hush, my child, that troubled cry;
+  What evil can harm thee, with mother nigh?"
+
+Mother! Mother!
+  Long years have passed, and the fevered brow
+  Of a bearded man, she is stroking now,
+  As through delirium and pain
+  He cries as a little child, again.
+  And the mother answered, with loving stroke
+  Of her careworn hand, as she softly spoke:
+  "Hush, hush, my child, that troubled cry;
+  What evil can harm thee, with mother nigh?"
+
+Mother! Mother!
+  Still time rolls on, and an old man stands
+  Trembling on life's declining sands;
+  As memory bridges the flood of years
+  He cries as a child, with childish tears;
+  And memory answers, with loving stroke
+  Of a vanished hand, and an echo spoke:
+  "Hush, hush, my child, that troubled cry;
+  What evil can harm thee, with mother nigh?"
+
+
+
+
+Empty are the Mother's Arms.
+
+
+Ah, empty are the mother's arms
+  Which clasp a vanished form;
+A darling spared from life's alarms,
+  And safe from earthly storm.
+
+In absent reverie, she hears
+  That voice, nor can forget;
+The fond illusion disappears,--
+  Her arms are empty, yet.
+
+
+
+
+In Deo Fides.
+
+
+Almighty God! Supreme! Most High!
+  Before Thy throne, in reverence, we kneel;
+We cannot realize Thine infinity;
+  Beholding not, we can Thy presence feel;
+Though veiled impenetrably, Thou dost reveal
+Such evidence as clouds cannot conceal!
+
+Acknowledged, though unseen, Almighty Power!
+  Within its secret depths, the bosom pays
+In pleasure's or affliction's calmer hour,
+  The heart's sincerest offering of praise;
+Intuitive, unuttered prayers arise
+Without the outstretched arms, or reverently clos-ed eyes.
+
+Down deep within the soul's mysterious seat,
+  The voice of reason, and inherent sense,
+Admits Thy Sovereign Power, and doth entreat
+  The guidance of a Just Omnipotence;
+Thus doth the human essence e'er depend
+On that Supreme. Eternal. Without End.
+
+Supreme, Mysterious Power! Whate'er Thou be,
+  Can e'er our mortal natures comprehend,
+This side the veil which shrouds futurity,
+  Thy Wisdom, Power, and Love? The end
+Of all conclusions, reasoned o'er and o'er,
+We know Thou dost exist! Can we know more?
+
+
+
+
+Shall Love, as the Bridal Wreath, Whither and Die?
+
+
+Shall love as the bridal wreath, wither and die?
+  Or remain ever constant and sure,
+As the years of the future pass rapidly by,
+And the waves of adversity's tempest roll high,
+  Ever changeless and fervent endure?
+
+Mistake not the fancy, that lasts but a day,
+  For the love which eternally thrives;
+That sentiment false, is as prone to decay
+As the wreath is to fade and to wither away;
+  And like it, it never revives.
+
+
+
+
+Shall Our Memories Live When the Sod Rolls Above Us?
+
+
+Shall our memories live, when the sod rolls above us
+  And marks our last home with a mouldering heap?
+Shall the voices of those who profess that they love us
+  E'er mention our names, as we dreamlessly sleep?
+
+Will their eyes ever dim at some fond recollection,
+  Or their hands ever plant a small flower o'er the breast,
+Or will they gaze with a sad circumspection
+  At the tablets, which tell of our last solemn rest?
+
+Ah! soon shall the hearts which our memories cherish
+  Forget, as they strive with the cares of their own;
+And even the last dim remembrance shall perish
+  As we peacefully slumber, unwept and unknown.
+
+But if our lives, though of transient duration,
+  Are filled with some work in humanity's name,
+Some uplifting effort, or self-immolation,
+  Our memories shall live in the temples of Fame.
+
+
+
+
+A Reverie.
+
+
+O, tomb of the past
+Where buried hopes lie,
+In my visions I see
+Thy phantoms pass by!
+A form, long departed,
+  Before me appears;
+A sweet voice, long silent,
+  Again greets my ears.
+
+Fond memory dwells
+  On the things that have been;
+And my eyes calmly gaze
+  On a long vanished scene;
+A scene such as memory
+  Stores deep in the breast,
+Which only appears
+  In a season of rest.
+
+Once more we wander,
+  Her fair hand in mine;
+Once more her promise,
+  "I'll ever be thine";
+Once more the parting,
+  The shroud, and the pall,
+The sods' hollow thump
+  As they coffinward fall.
+
+The reverie ends--
+  All the fancies have flown;
+And my sad, lonely heart,
+  Now seems doubly alone;
+As the Ivy, whose tendrils
+  Reach longingly out,
+Yet finds not an oak
+  To entwine them about.
+
+
+
+
+Love's Plea.
+
+
+I love thee, my darling, both now and forever,
+  My heart feels the thralldom of love's mystic spell,
+'Tis fettered with shackles which nothing can sever,
+  To the heart which responds to its passionate swell.
+
+I love thee, my darling, with love that is stronger,
+  Than all the fond ties which the heart holds enshrined;
+Adversity, sorrow or pain can no longer
+  Detract from this heart, if with thine intertwined.
+
+I love thee, my darling, with sacred affection,
+  Which death, nor the cycles of time shall efface;
+Nor from my heart's mirror, erase thy reflection,
+  Nor tear thy fond heart from its fervent embrace.
+
+
+
+
+Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust.
+
+
+Is there a Death? The light of day
+At eventide shall fade away;
+From out the sod's eternal gloom
+The flowers, in their season, bloom;
+Bud, bloom and fade, and soon the spot
+Whereon they flourished knows them not;
+Blighted by chill, autumnal frost;
+"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust!"
+
+Is there a Death? Pale forms of men
+To formless clay resolve again;
+Sarcophagus of graven stone,
+Nor solitary grave, unknown,
+Mausoleum, or funeral urn,
+No answer to our cries return;
+Nor silent lips disclose their trust;
+"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust!"
+
+Is there a Death? All forms of clay
+Successively shall pass away;
+But, as the joyous days of spring
+Witness the glad awakening
+Of nature's forces, may not men,
+In some due season, rise again?
+Then why this calm, inherent trust,
+"If ashes to ashes, dust to dust?"
+
+
+
+
+Despair.
+
+
+Ill fares the heart, when hope has fled;
+  When vanishes each prospect fair,
+When the last flickering ray has sped,
+  And naught remains but mute despair;
+When inky blackness doth enshroud
+  The hopes the heart once held in store,
+As some tall pine, by great winds bowed,
+  Doth snap, and when the tempest's o'er,
+Its noble form, magnificent and proud,
+  Doth prostrate lie, nor ever riseth more;
+  Thus breaks the heart, which sees no hope before.
+
+Ill fares the heart, when hope has fled;
+  That heart is as some ruin old,
+With ancient arch and wall, o'erspread
+  With moss, and desolating mold;
+Whose banquet halls, where once the sound
+  Of revelry rang unconfined,
+Now, with the hoot of owls resound,
+  Or echo back the mournful wind;
+In whose foul nooks the gruesome bat is found.
+  The heart a ruin is, when unresigned;
+  No hope before, and but regret behind.
+
+[Illustration:
+"Its noble form magnificent and proud,
+  Doth prostrate lie, nor ever riseth more."
+
+IRONTON PARK, OURAY COUNTY, COLORADO.]
+
+Ill fares the heart, when hope has fled;
+  That heart, to fate unreconciled,
+Though throbbing, is as truly dead
+  As though by foul decay defiled;
+That heart is as a grinning skull,
+  With smiling mockery, and stare
+Of eyeless sockets, or the hull
+  Of shipwrecked vessel, bleached and bare,
+Derelict, morbid, apathetic, dull,
+  As drowning men, who clutch the empty air,
+  The heart goes down, which feels but blind despair.
+
+
+
+
+Hidden Sorrows.
+
+
+For some the river of life would seem
+  Free from the shallow, the reef, or bar,
+As they gently glide down the silvery stream
+  With scarcely a ripple, a lurch, or jar;
+But under the surface, calm and fair,
+  Lurk the hidden snags, and the secret care;
+The waters are deepest where still, and clear,
+And the sternest anguish forbids a tear.
+
+For others, the pathway of life is strewn
+  With many a thorn, for each rose or bud;
+And their journey o'er mountain, o'er moor, and dune,
+  Can be plainly tracked by footprints of blood;
+But deeper still lies the hidden smart
+  Of some secret sorrow, which gnaws the heart,
+And rankles under a surface clear;
+For the sternest anguish forbids a tear.
+
+But, when the journey's end we see,
+  At the bar of the Judge of quick and dead,
+The cross, which the one bore silently
+May outweigh his of the bloodstained tread.
+The cross unseen, and the cross of light,
+  May balance in that Judge's sight;
+O'er the heart that is breaking a smile may appear,
+For the sternest anguish forbids a tear.
+
+
+
+
+O, a Beautiful Thing Is the Flower That Fadeth!
+
+
+O, a beautiful thing is the flower that fadeth,
+  And perishing, smiles on the chill autumn wind;
+A sweet desolation its ruin pervadeth,
+  A fragrant remembrance still lingers behind.
+
+O, a beautiful thing is the glad consummation
+  Of a life that is upright, untarnished and pure;
+That spirit, when freed from this earth's animation,
+  Shall live, as the heavens eternal endure!
+
+
+
+
+Smiles.
+
+
+There is the warm, congenial smile,
+  Benign, and honest, too,
+Free from deception, fraud, and guile;
+  The smile of friendship true.
+
+There is the smile most fair to see,
+Which wreathes the modest glance
+Of spotless maiden purity;
+  The smile of innocence.
+
+There is the smile of woman's love,
+  That potent, siren spell,
+Which uplifts men to heaven above,
+  Or lures them down to hell!
+
+There is the vain, derisive smile,
+  Of cynical conceit;
+The drunken leer, the grimace vile,
+  Of lives with crime replete.
+
+There is the smile of vacancy,
+  Expressionless, we find
+On idiot physiognomy,
+  The vacuum of a mind.
+
+There is a smile, which more than tears
+  Or language can express;
+The grim disguise which anguish wears,
+  The mask of dire distress
+
+There is a smile of practiced art,
+  More false than treason's kiss;
+But penetrate that dual heart,
+  And hear the serpent's hiss.
+
+A smile, the visage shall embrace,
+  When nature's cup is full;
+Behind the stern and frowning face
+  There lies a grinning skull.
+
+
+
+
+A Request.
+
+
+When close by my bed the Death Angel shall stand
+  And deliver his summons, at last;
+When my brow feels the chill of his cold, clammy hand,
+  And mortality's struggles are past;
+When my pain throbbing temples, with death sweat are cold,
+  And the spirit its strivings shall cease,
+As with muscular shrug, it relaxes its hold,
+  And the suffering clay is at peace;
+
+E'er my spirit shall plunge through the shadowy vale,
+  My lips shall this wish have expressed,
+That all which remains of mortality frail,
+  In some fair enclosure may rest;
+Where disorganized, this pale form shall sustain
+  The fragrant and beautiful flowers,
+And reproduce beauty, again and again,
+  Through nature's grand organic powers.
+
+
+
+
+Battle Hymn.
+
+
+Almighty Power! Who through the past
+  Our Nation's course has safely led;
+Behold again the sky o'ercast,
+  Again is heard the martial tread!
+    Our stay in each contingency,
+    Our Father's God, we turn to thee!
+
+For lo! The bugle note of war
+  Is wafted from a southern strand!
+O Lord of Battles! we implore
+  The guidance of Thy mighty hand,
+    While as of yore, the hero draws
+    His sword in Freedom's sacred cause!
+
+And when at last the oaken wreath
+  Shall crown afresh the victor's brow;
+And Peace the conquering sword resheath,
+  Be with us then, as well as now!
+    Our stay in each contingency,
+    In peace or war, we turn to Thee!
+
+
+
+
+The Nations Peril.
+
+_Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
+Where wealth accumulates and men decay.
+--Goldsmith._
+
+
+I fear the palace of the rich,
+  I fear the hovel of the poor;
+Though fortified by moat and ditch,
+  The castle strong could not endure;
+Nor can the squalid hovel be
+  A source of strength, and those who cause
+This widening discrepancy
+  Infringe on God's eternal laws.
+
+The heritage of man, the earth,
+  Was framed for homes, not vast estates;
+A lowering scale of human worth
+  Each generation demonstrates,
+Which feels the landlord's iron hand,
+  And hopeless, plod with effort brave;
+Who love no home can love no land;
+  These own no home, until the grave.
+
+The nation's strongest safeguards lie
+In free and unencumbered homes;
+Not in its hordes of vagrancy,
+Nor in its proud, palatial domes;
+Nor can the mercenary sword
+  E'er cross with that the freeman draws.
+Nor oil upon the waters poured
+  Perpetuate an unjust cause.
+
+Eternal Justice, still prevail
+  And stay this menace ere too late!
+Ere sturdy manhood droop and fail,
+  The law, immutable, of fate;
+No foe can daunt the stalwart heart
+  Of him who guards that sacred ground
+Where every hero owns a part,
+  Where each an ample home has found.
+
+No more shall battle's lurid gleam
+  The cloudless sky of peace obscure;
+Nor blood becrimson field, or stream,
+  Nor avarice grind down the poor;
+But onward let thy progress be
+  A pageant, beautiful and grand;
+May He who e'er has guided thee
+  Protect thee still, my native land!
+
+
+
+
+Echoes from Galilee.
+
+
+What means this gathering multitude,
+  Upon thy shores, O, Galilee,
+As various as the billows rude
+  That sweep thy ever restless sea?
+    Can but the mandate of a King
+    So varied an assemblage bring?
+
+Behold the noble, rich, and great,
+  From Levite, Pharisee and Priest,
+Down to the lowest dregs of fate,
+  From mightiest even to the least;
+    Yes, in this motley throng we find
+    The palsied, sick, mute, halt, and blind.
+
+Is this some grand affair of state,
+  A coronation, or display,
+By some vainglorious potentate,--
+  Or can this concourse mark the day
+    Of some victorious hero's march
+    Homeward, through triumphal arch?
+
+Or, have they come to celebrate
+  Some sacred sacerdotal rite;
+By civic feast, to emulate
+Some deed, on history's pages bright?
+    Or can this grand occasion be
+    Some battle's anniversary?
+
+But wherefore come the halt and blind?
+  What comfort can the pain-distressed
+In such a tumult hope to find?
+  What is there here, to offer rest
+    To those, whom adverse fate has hurled,
+    Dismantled, on a hostile world?
+
+Let us approach! A form we see,
+  Fairest beyond comparison;
+For such an heavenly purity,
+  From other eyes, hath never shown;
+    Nor such a calm, majestic brow
+    On earth hath ne'er appeared, till now.
+
+Draw nearer. Lo! a voice we hear,
+  Resonant, soft, pathetic, sweet;
+In ringing accents, calm and clear,
+  He sways the thousands at his feet,
+    With more than mortal eloquence,
+    Or man's compassion, in his glance.
+
+Ah! Strange, that such a form should stand
+  In raiment soiled, and travel stained;
+Yes, mark the contour of that hand,
+  A hand by menial toil profaned.
+Can one from such a station reach
+    All classes by sheer force of speech?
+
+Can eloquence from mortal tongue
+  Break through the barriers, which divide
+The toiling and down-trodden throng
+  From affluence, and official pride?
+    Then how can yonder speaker hold
+    An audience so manifold?
+
+He spake as never orator
+  Before, or since, with burning thought,
+In parable, and metaphor;
+  Each simple illustration taught
+    Some sacred truth, some truth which could
+    By sage, or fool, be understood.
+
+With similes of common things,
+  The lilies of the field, the salt
+Which lost its savour; gently brings
+  A lesson, from the common fault
+    Of self-admiring Pharisee,
+    Of ostentatious piety.
+
+And from the prostrate penitent,
+  The Publican, who beat his breast,
+Remorsefully his garment rent,
+  And thus, with tears, his sin confessed;
+"Lord, Lord, a sinner vile am I,
+    Be merciful, and hear my cry!"
+
+And from that man, beset by thieves,
+  And left upon the road, to die;
+No aid or comfort he receives
+  From Priest, or Levite, passing by;
+    How the despised Samaritan
+    Proved the true neighbor to that man.
+
+Yes, finished with such fervency
+  Of gesture, and similitude;
+Such depths of love, and purity
+  His hearers marvelled, as they stood;
+    Nor through his discourse, was there heard,
+    Abusive, vain, or idle word.
+
+Who may this wondrous speaker be?
+  Is he some judge, or orator?
+Some one in high authority?
+  Physician, prince, or conqueror?
+    Answer, thou ever restless sea,
+    Who may this wondrous person be?
+
+With echoes soft, the sea replies,
+  This is a Judge, and Orator;
+A Judge, beyond all judges wise,
+  And eloquent, as none before;
+A Judge, majestic, calm, serene;
+    And yet, an humble Nazarene.
+
+He is a Ruler, whose command
+  The myriads of the skies obey,
+As in the hollow of His hand
+  He holds all human destiny.
+    The tempest wild concedes his will,
+    And calms before His "Peace, be still."
+
+A great Physician, too, is He,
+  Whose word, the leper purifies;
+The mute converse, the blind ones see;
+  At his command, the dead arise;
+    He cures the ravages of sin,
+    And makes the foulest sinner clean.
+
+He is a Prince, a Prince whose power
+  Knows neither limit nor degree,
+Whose glory, not the passing hour,
+  Nor cycles of futurity,
+    Can augment, alter, or decrease--
+    Prince is He, the Prince of Peace.
+
+He is earth's greatest Conqueror,
+  But conquers not with crimson sword;
+Love is the weapon of His war,
+  Forgiveness, and gentle word;
+    But, greatest of all victories,
+    O'er the dark grave, His banner flies.
+
+
+
+
+Go, And Sin No More.
+
+
+  When the poor, erring woman sought
+    In tears the Master's feet,
+  Her breast, with deep contrition fraught,
+    Repentance, full, complete,
+  Divine compassion filled His eyes,
+    He spake, says Sacred Lore,--
+"O, erring heart, forgiven, rise,
+    Go, thou, and sin no more."
+
+  The tear of contrite sorrow, shed
+    By penitence, cast down,
+  Shall flash, when solar rays have fled,
+    In an eternal crown;
+  That tear shall scintillate, and shine,
+    When comets cease to soar;
+  If thou would'st wear that gem divine,
+Go, thou, and sin no more!
+
+
+
+
+Gently Lead Me, Star Divine.
+
+
+  Gently lead me, Star Divine,
+    Lead with bright unchanging ray;
+  O'er my lowly pathway shine,
+    I shall never lose my way;
+  Though uncertain be my tread,
+Pitfalls deep, and mountains high,
+  Safely shall my feet be led,
+    By Thy beacon, in the sky.
+
+  Long ago, while journeying
+    Westward, o'er the desert wild,
+  Sages sought a promised King
+    In the person of a child;
+  By Thy bright illuminings,
+    To that manger, in the fold,
+  Thou did'st lead those shepherd kings;
+    Lead me, as Thou lead'st of old.
+
+[Illustration:
+"Wherever I wander my ears hear the sound,
+Of thy waters which plunge with a turbulent sound."
+
+BEAR CREEK FALLS, UNCOMPAHGRE CAÑON,
+NEAR OURAY, COLORADO.]
+
+
+
+
+Dying Hymn.
+
+
+  The hour-glass speeds its final sands,
+    In splendor sinks the golden sun,
+  So men must yield to death's demands
+    When human life its course has run.
+
+  We view the ruins of the past,
+    We stand surrounded by decay,
+  Our transient hours are speeding fast
+    And, e'er we think, have passed away.
+
+  Weep not, nor mourn with idle tear
+That hour, inevitable and sure;
+  We move, our sojourn finished here,
+    To nobler realms which shall endure.
+
+
+
+
+In Mortem Meditare.
+
+DYING THOUGHTS.
+
+
+As Life's receding sunset fades
+      And night descends,
+I calmly watch the gathering shades,
+As darkness stealthily invades
+      And daylight ends.
+
+Earth's span is drawing to its close,
+      With every breath;
+My pain-racked brain no respite knows,
+Yet shrinks it, from the grim repose
+      It feels in death.
+
+The curtain falls on Life's last scene,
+      The end is neared;
+At last I face death's somber screen,
+The fleeting joys which intervene
+      Have disappeared.
+
+And as a panoramic scroll
+      The past unreels;
+The mocking past, beyond control,
+Though buried, as a parchment roll,
+      Its tale reveals.
+
+I stand before the dread, unknown,
+      Yet solemn fact;
+I see the seeds of folly sown
+In wayward years, maturely grown,
+      Nor can retract.
+
+My weaknesses rise to my sight;
+      And now, too late,
+I fain would former actions right,
+Which years have buried in their flight;
+      Now sealed by fate.
+
+My frailties and iniquities
+      I plainly see;
+Committed acts accusive rise,
+Omitted duties criticise
+    In mockery.
+
+I feel I have offended oft,
+      E'en at my best
+Have failed to guide my course aloft;
+Perhaps in trival hour, have scoffed
+      With idle jest.
+
+Prone to misgiving, prone to doubt,
+      And frail from birth;
+More light and frivolous than devout;
+With life's brief candle flickering out,
+      I speed from earth.
+
+Can grief excuse indifference
+      With groan or tear?
+Can deep remorse and penitence,
+Or anguish mitigate offense
+      With pang sincere?
+
+Ah! Tears can ne'er unlock the past
+      Which opens not;
+And what is done is welded fast,
+Through all eternity to last,
+      Nor change one jot.
+
+Whate'er may lie beyond the veil
+      I calmly face,
+And sink, as grievous tears bewail
+My faults and imperfections frail,
+      In death's embrace.
+
+And as I think the matter o'er,
+      Pensive and sad,
+While its shortcomings I deplore,
+The fruits which my existence bore
+      Were not all bad.
+
+From all which can rejoice or grieve
+      I shortly go,
+And now, in life's declining eve
+I wonder, hope, try to believe--
+      Soon I shall know!
+
+My spirit flees, as night enwraps,
+      To its reward;
+The earth recedes, I feel it lapse;
+I sink as dissolution snaps
+      The silver cord.
+
+O, Thou whose presence I can feel
+      Each hour I live,
+While passing through death's stern ordeal,
+Wilt Thou Thy mercy still reveal,
+      And still forgive?
+
+
+
+
+Deprive This Strange and Complex World.
+
+
+Deprive this strange and complex world
+  Of all the charms of art;
+Deprive it of those sweeter joys
+  Which music doth impart;
+But oh, preserve that smile, which tells
+  The secret of the heart!
+
+The world may lose its massive piles
+  Which point their spires above;
+May spare the tuneful nightingale
+  And gently cooing dove;
+But woe betide it, if it lose
+  The sentiment of love!
+
+
+
+
+The Legend of St. Regimund.
+
+
+St. Regimund, e'er he became a saint,
+Was much imbued with vulgar earthly taint;
+E'er he renounced the honors of a Knight
+And doffed his coat of mail and helmet bright,
+For sober cassock and monastic hood,
+Leaving the castle for the cloister rude,
+And changed the banquet's sumptuous repast
+For frugal crusts and the ascetic fast;
+Forsook his charger and equipments for
+The crucifix and sacerdotal war;
+While yet with valiant sword and blazoned shield
+He braved the dangers of the martial field,
+Or sought the antlered trophies of the chase
+In forest and sequestered hunting place;
+Or, tiring of the hunt's exciting sport,
+Enjoyed the idle pleasures of the court,
+Whiling away the time with games of chance,
+With music and the more voluptuous dance,
+The hollow paths of vanity pursued,
+Laughed, jested, swore, drank, danced, and even wooed;
+No tongue more prone to questionable wit,
+Nor chaste, when time and place demanded it;
+His basso voice, both voluble and strong,
+Excelled in wassail mirth and ribald song;
+He swore with oaths most impious and unblest;
+Ate much, drank more, on these lines did his best;
+Caroused by day, caroused by candle light,
+In fact behaved like any other knight.
+
+This medieval knight (the legend saith)
+For months would scarcely draw a sober breath;
+But as his appetite grew more and more
+Drank each day worse than on the day before;
+Was drunk all night, all day continued so,
+Indulged in every vice he chanced to know.
+But long debauch and riotous excess
+Reduce their strongest votaries to distress;
+When nature can the strain no longer stand
+She chastens with a sure and irate hand,
+So when the day of reckoning had come,
+She smote with fever and delirium
+This valiant knight whom we have tried to paint;
+A very slim foundation for a saint!
+
+The crisis reached, his fever stricken brain
+Surrendered reason to excessive pain;
+Nor moment's respite, comatose and kind,
+Relieved the raging furnace of his mind;
+And gruesome spectres, awful and unreal,
+Through his disordered vagaries would steal;
+When last his scorching temples sought repose
+In hasty nap or intermittent doze,
+His eyes beheld, though starting from his head,
+A grizzly figure leaning o'er his bed,
+With aspect foul beyond descriptive word,
+As one for months in sepulchre interred,
+Restored again to animated breath,
+A weird composite type of life and death;
+With countenance most hideous and vile,
+Leering with ghastly and unearthly smile;
+Pointing its shriveled finger, as in scorn,
+Of mockery and accusation born.
+
+As he beheld in terror and surprise
+This gruesome shape which mocked before his eyes
+He could distinguish in its haughty mien
+A bearing, something as his own had been;
+Nor had its withered visage quite the look
+Of vampire, ghoul or evanescent spook;
+And as the apparition o'er him bent,
+He saw that every seam or lineament,
+Contour of feature, prominence of bone,
+Bore all a striking semblance to his own.
+
+The horror stricken knight essayed to speak,
+But words responded tremulous and weak,
+And mustering his dissipated strength,
+A sitting posture he assumed at length,--
+"Whate'er thou art, thou harbinger of gloom,
+Thou fiend or ghoul, fresh from the new made tomb,
+Thou vampire, diabolical and fell,
+Thou stygian shade or denizen of hell,
+I charge thee, thing of evil, to confess
+Why thou hast thus disturbed my sore distress.
+Why hast thou burst my chamber's bolted door
+Where guest unbidden never trod before?
+Break this suspense, so horrible and still!
+Declare thy tidings, be they good or ill,
+Be thou from Heaven or from the realms below.
+I charge thee speak, be thou a friend or foe;
+Break thou thy silence, ominous and deep,
+Or hence! Pursue thy way and let me sleep!"
+
+The grizzly spectre, still more ghastly grown,
+Surveyed with visage obdurate as stone,
+Then smiled with grimace of derisive craft,
+And in a most repugnant manner, laughed,
+But all the knight discerned with eye and ear,
+Was his own maudlin laugh and drunken leer.
+"Breathe thou thy message," shrieked the frantic knight
+"Discharge thy purpose, though it blast and blight,
+I charge thee, speak, by all that is most fair.
+By all most foul, I charge thee to declare;
+By my bright armor and my trusty sword;
+I charge thee, speak, by Holy Rood and Word!"
+He sank exhausted, in such pallid fright
+The snowy sheets looked dark beside such white.
+The spectre paused in silence for awhile,
+Then broke into a most repulsive smile,
+And answered in a weird and hollow tone,
+Enough to freeze the marrow in the bone:
+"I am thy blasted spirit's counterpart,
+A body fit for thy most evil heart,
+I am thy life, its psychic image sent
+To bear thee company, till thou repent."
+
+'Tis said, for forty days the spectre stayed.
+For forty days the knight incessant prayed;
+With scourge, with vigil and ascetic rite,
+With fast, with groan remorseful and contrite,
+He cleansed his blackened spirit by degrees,
+And purified it from its vanities;
+And as he prayed, the spectre's gruesome scowl
+Grew day by day less hideous and foul,
+As he waxed holy, it became more bright;
+And after forty days, arrayed in white
+It spread its spotless arms, devoid of taint
+Above this erstwhile knight and henceforth saint
+In benediction, as he knelt in prayer,--
+Then vanished instantly to empty air.
+
+Such is the tale, embellished by the Muse,
+'Tis true or false, believe it as you choose;
+Some folks accept the story out and out,
+While some prefer to entertain a doubt.
+But if it be fictitious and unreal,
+'Tis not subscribed and sworn, and bears no seal;
+It points a moral, as the legend old,
+If it conveys it, 'twas not vainly told,
+For should I such an apparition see--
+I think t'would almost make a monk of me.
+
+
+
+
+As The Indian.
+
+_Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind
+Sees God in the clouds and hears Him in the wind.
+--Pope._
+
+
+Within the wind, my untaught ear
+  The voice of Deity can hear,
+And in the fleeting cloud discern
+  His movements, vast and taciturn;
+    For in the universe I trace
+    The wondrous grandeur of His face.
+
+I see him in each blade of grass,
+  Each towering peak and mountain pass;
+Each forest, river, lake and fen
+  Reveals the God of worlds and men;
+    His works of wisdom prove to me,
+    A wise, creative Deity.
+
+
+
+
+The Fragrant Perfume of the Flowers.
+
+
+The fragrant perfume of the flowers,
+Exuding in the summer hours,
+E'en as the altar's incense rare
+Disseminated through the air,
+May never reach the azure skies,
+Yet can the earth aromatize.
+
+And so the voice of secret prayer,
+Ascending on the wings of air,
+Though it should reach no listening ear,
+Of Deity inclined to hear,
+Still soothes the anguish of the mind,
+And leaves a tranquil peace behind.
+
+
+
+
+An Answer.
+
+
+When passing years have streaked with frost
+  These tresses now as jet,
+When life's meridian is crossed
+  And beauty's sun has set,
+When youth's last fleeting charm is lost,
+  Wilt thou be constant yet,
+Nor time thy sentiment exhaust
+  And cause thee to forget?
+    If so--
+      My answer, I confess,
+    Shall be a calm, decided "Yes";
+      But otherwise a "No"!
+
+
+
+
+Fame.
+
+
+There is a cliff, no matter where,
+  Which softened by the agencies
+Of rain, exposure to the air,
+  And alternating thaw and freeze,
+    Most readily admits the edge
+    Of chisel, or the sharpened wedge.
+
+The travelers, while passing by,
+  Within its shade find welcome rest;
+And one of them mechanically,
+  As is a custom in the west,
+    Upon its surface stern and gray
+    Carved out his name, and went his way.
+
+Though inartistic and uncouth,
+  That effort of a novice hand
+Exemplifies a striking truth,
+  And may Time's ravages withstand,
+    To be by future ages read,
+    When years and centuries have fled.
+
+So on life's mighty thoroughfare,
+  The multitude of every class
+Leave no inscriptions chiseled, where
+  Their transient footsteps chanced to pass,
+And waft to each succeeding age
+    No echoes from their pilgrimage.
+
+Though many pass, yet few record
+  Their names in characters sublime,
+By grand achievement, work or word
+  Upon the monolith of Time;
+    But few inscribe a lasting name
+    On the eternal cliffs of Fame.
+
+
+
+
+The First Storm.
+
+
+The leafless branch and meadow sere,
+    The dull and leaden skies,
+Join with the mournful wind and drear
+In dirges for the passing year,
+    Which unreturning flies.
+
+The night in starless gloom descends,
+    Nor can the pale moonshine
+Break through the clouds whose veil extends
+In boundless form, and darkly blends
+    With the horizon's line.
+
+Fond nature, in a playful mood,
+    In cover of the night,
+Arrays the plain and forest rude,
+The city and the solitude,
+    In robe of spotless white.
+
+
+
+
+Thoughts.
+
+
+I dug a grave, one smiling April day,
+  A grave whose small proportions testified
+To empty arms, and playthings put away,
+  To ears which heard, when only fancy cried;
+    I wondered, as I shaped that little mound,
+    If in my home such grief should e'er be found.
+
+I dug a grave, 'twas in the month of June;
+  A grave for one who at his zenith died;
+When, on that mound with floral tributes strewn,
+  The tear-drops fell of one but late his bride,
+    I wondered if upon my silent bier
+    Should rest the moist impression of a tear.
+
+I dug a grave by Autumn's sober light,
+  A grave of full dimensions; 'twas for one
+Whose hair had changed its raven hue to white,
+  Whose course had finished with the setting sun;
+    I wondered, as I toiled with pick and spade,
+    Where, and by whom, would my last home be made.
+
+
+
+
+From A Saxon Legend.
+
+
+Within a vale in distant Saxony,
+  In time uncertain, though 'twas long ago.
+There dwelt a woman, most unhappily,
+  From borrowed trouble, and imagined woe.
+
+Hers was a husband generous, and kind,
+  Her children, three, were not of uncouth mold;
+Hers was a thatch which mocked at rain and wind;
+  Within her secret purse were coins of gold.
+
+The drouth had ne'er descended on her field,
+  Nor had distemper sore distressed her kine;
+The vine had given its accustomed yield,
+  So that her casks were filled with ruddy wine.
+
+Her sheep and goats waxed fat, and ample fleece
+  Rewarded every harvest of the shear;
+Her lambs all bleated in sequestered peace,
+  Nor prowling wolf occasioned nightly fear.
+
+With all she fretted, pined, and brooded sore,
+  Harbored each slight vexation, courted grief,
+Shut out the smiling sunshine from her door,
+  And magnified each care to bas relief.
+
+Still waxed her grievous burden more and more,
+  Till, with a resolution, rash and blind,
+At dead of night she fled her humble door,
+  As if to leave her grievous load behind.
+
+She journeyed as the night wore slowly on,
+  Unmindful of the tuneful nightingale,
+Till in due time her footsteps fell upon
+  A hill, the demarcation of the vale.
+
+As Lot's wife, in her flight, could not refrain
+  From viewing foul Gomorrah's funeral pyre,
+From one last glance across that ancient plain,
+  At guilty Sodom wreathed in vengeful fire;
+
+So when this woman reached the summit's crest,
+  She turned her eyes in one last farewell look,
+The fruitful vale lay stretched in placid rest,
+  And all was silent save the breeze and brook.
+
+The moon in partial fullness, mild, serene,
+  Flooding the landscape with her mellow light,
+Illumined every old familiar scene,
+  Brought their associations to her sight.
+
+When, lo! as if by touch of magic wand,
+  On every roof, of tile, of thatch or wood,
+As instantly as magic doth respond,
+  A cross, of various size and form there stood.
+
+O'er homes unknown to frown or grievous word,
+  O'er homes where laughter hid the silent wail,
+O'er homes where discontent was never heard,
+  Huge crosses glistened in the moonlight pale.
+
+A cross o'er every habitation rose,
+  O'er ducal palace, and the cottage small
+Where slept the husbandman in deep repose;
+  And, lo, her cross was smallest of them all!
+
+
+
+
+Christmas Chimes.
+
+
+  Once more the merry Christmas bells,
+    Are ringing far and wide;
+Their chime in rhythmic chorus swells,
+  While every brazen throat foretells,
+    A joyous Christmastide.
+
+  What is the burden of your chime,
+    Ye bells of Christmastide?
+  What tidings in your clangorous rhyme,
+What message would your tongues sublime
+    To human hearts confide?
+
+  Our chime is of salvation's plan,
+    And every Christmastide
+Since Christmas bells to chime, began
+  We've caroled Heaven's gift to man,
+    A Saviour crucified.
+
+
+
+
+The Unknowable.
+
+
+O! Sun, resplendent in the smiling morn,
+  As thou dost view the wastes of earth and sky,
+Canst thou behold the realms of the Unborn,
+  Canst thou behold the realms of those who die?
+Where dwells the spirit e'er its mortal birth,
+        E'er yet it suffereth
+The pain and sorrow incident to earth?
+        Where after death?
+The Sun gave answer, with refulgent glow:
+Child of a fleeting hour, thou too must die to know.
+
+Canst tell, thou jeweled canopy of space,
+  Bewildering, and boundless to the eyes,
+Knowest thou the unborn spirits' dwelling place?
+  Knowest thou the distant regions of the skies
+Where rest the spirits freed from mundane strife,
+        From mortal grief and care?
+Knowest thou the secret of the future life?
+        Canst thou tell where?
+From Space infinite echoed the reply:
+Child of a transient day, thou too, to know, must die.
+
+Ye Winds who blow and cleave the formless skies,
+  Ye Winds who blow with desolating breath,
+Can ye reveal pre-natal mysteries,
+  And can ye solve the mystery of death?
+Within thy ambient and viewless folds
+        Imprisoned in the air,
+May not the spirits wait their earthly moulds?
+        Then tell ye where.
+The answer came invisible and low:
+Frail child of earthly clay, thou too must die to know.
+
+What are your tidings, O ye raging Seas?
+  Do your waves wash the islands of the blest,
+Or view the Gardens of Hesperides?
+  Know you the unborn spirits' place of rest?
+And do your waters lave that unknown shore?
+        And when the night is gone,
+Shall the freed spirit, tired and faint no more,
+        Behold the dawn?
+The sad sea murmured, as its waves rolled high:
+As all those gone before, thou, too, to know, must die.
+
+
+
+
+The Suicide.
+
+
+What anguish rankled 'neath that silent breast?
+  What spectral figures mocked those staring eyes,
+  Luring them on to Stygian mysteries?
+What overpowering sense of grief distressed?
+
+What desperation nerved that rigid hand
+  To pull the trigger with such deadly aim?
+  What deep remorse, or terror, overcame
+The dread inherent, of death's shadowy strand?
+
+Perhaps the hand of unrelenting fate
+  Fell with such tragic pressure, that the mind
+  In frenzy, uncontrollable and blind,
+Sought but the darkness, black and desolate.
+
+Perhaps 'twas some misfortune's stunning blight,
+  Perhaps unmerited, though deep disgrace,
+  Or vision of a wronged accusing face
+Pictured indelibly before the sight.
+
+Perhaps the gnawing of some secret sin,
+  Some aberration fraught with morbid gloom,
+  A buried hope which ever burst its tomb,
+Despondency, disaster, or chagrin.
+
+That heart which throbbed in pain and discontent
+  Is silent as the grave for which it yearned;
+  That brain, which once with proud ambition burned,
+Now oozes through the bullet's ghastly rent.
+
+Those eyes, transfixed with such a gruesome stare,
+  Once beamed with laughter, innocent and bright;
+  The morning gave no presage of the night;
+A smile may be the prelude of despair.
+
+Whate'er his secret, it remains untold,
+  For why to human anguish add one groan?
+  Is grief the deeper grief because unknown?
+So let the grave his form and burden hold.
+
+Ye who have felt no crushing weight of care,
+  From blame profuse, in charity refrain;
+  Some depths of sorrow overwhelm the brain,
+Some loads too great for human strength to bear.
+
+
+
+
+I Think When I Stand in the Presence of Death.
+
+
+I think when I stand in the presence of Death,
+  How futile is earthy endeavor,
+If it be, with the flight of the last labored breath,
+  The tongue has been silenced forever.
+
+For no message is flashed from the lustreless eyes,
+  When clos-ed so languid and weary,
+And no voice from the darkness re-echoes our cries,
+  In response to the agonized query!
+
+We gaze at the solemn mysterious shroud
+  With a vague and insatiate yearning,
+And perceive but the sombre exterior cloud,
+  With our vision of no discerning.
+
+Not a whispering sound, not a glimmer of light,
+  From that shadowy strand uncertain;
+But He who ordained the day and night,
+  Framed also Death's silent curtain.
+
+
+
+
+Hope.
+
+
+Hope is the shadowy essence of a wish,
+  A fond desire which floats before our eyes;
+With lurid aberration, feverish,--
+  We clutch the shadow which elusive, flies;
+Though at our grasp the mocking fancy flees,
+Hope still pursues and soothes realities.
+
+Hope, as a mirage on the desert waste,
+  Lures the lost traveler, by a vision fair
+Of gushing fountains which he may not taste,
+  Of streamlets cool depicted on the air;
+With tongue outstretched and parched he onward speeds,
+But as he moves the phantom scene recedes.
+
+In the foul dungeon or the narrow cell,
+  The prisoner doth pace his lonely beat,
+And as he treads, his shackles clank a knell
+  Responsive to each movement of his feet;
+Yet through his grated window, he discerns
+The star of hope which ever brightly burns.
+
+A noble ship her ponderous anchor weighs,
+  Glides from the harbor and is lost to sight;
+A young wife waves farewell. As many days
+  In passing turn her golden tresses white,
+She scans the horizon through a mist of tears,
+Hopes for that vanished sail which ne'er appears.
+
+A galley slave in age and clime remote,
+  Chained to his seat, unwilling plies the oar;
+Before his eyes fond dreams of freedom float,
+  He hopes amid the battle's crash and roar;
+And as the waves the imprisoned wretches drown,
+Hopes, as his fetters draw him swiftly down.
+
+A mighty host in force of arms we see,
+  With march invasive, cross a boundary line;
+At its approach no freemen turn and flee,
+  Each with his life defends his family shrine;
+As burning homes illuminate the sky
+With ghastly light, they hope and fight and die.
+
+Beside the bed where rests the pallid form,
+  Of loved one stricken with the fever's breath,
+E'en when the loving hands, no longer warm,
+  Portend the sure and swift approach of Death,
+Hope holds the spirit in its house of clay,
+And with that spirit only, soars away.
+
+The guilty wretch, for murder doomed to die,
+  Hoped, in his dungeon as the death watch paced,
+Hoped, as the death cap veiled his evil eye,
+  Hoped, as the noose around his neck was placed,
+Hoped, as the chaplain read his final prayer,
+Hoped, as he struggled in the viewless air.
+
+In the glad sunshine of life's vernal spring,
+  Hope buoys the spirit with expectancy;
+Hope with her dulcet voice and fluttering wing,
+  Sings of life's goal with siren harmony;
+When silvered temples tell that life declines,
+That goal, though yet unreached, still brightly shines.
+
+Yes! As through failure and vicissitude,
+  We sail along with many an adverse wind,
+Hope plants her beacon in the tempest rude,
+  And leads with generous radiance unconfined;
+And when the yawning grave receives its prey,
+Hope speeds the spirit on its astral way.
+
+
+
+
+Metabole.
+
+AN APOSTROPHE TO THE MOON.
+
+
+O, silvery moon, fair mistress of the night,
+Thou mellow, ever vaccilating orb,
+How many eons of unmeasured time
+Hast thou, observant from thy astral poise,
+Thy ever-changing station in the skies,
+Beheld the wastes of earth, of air and space--
+Ruling the waters, and the sombre night?
+
+Pale queen of night, fair coquette of the skies,
+Thou, who with fickle, sweet inconstancy
+Receives the smile from the admiring sun,
+And straight transmits it to the sordid earth,--
+How many cycles of the silent past
+Hast thou beheld the rise and fall of man,
+His proud ascendency and swift decline;
+His zenith and his pitiful decay;
+E'er he emerged from out the dismal cave,
+His habitation rude and primitive;
+E'er yet the forest trembled at his stroke,
+E'er his indenting chisel cleaved the stones
+And framed the first crude human domicile?
+
+As time rolled on and human skill advanced
+By almost imperceptible degrees
+Of slow, experimental tutorage,
+Along a nobler, more artistic plane,
+He hewed the stones in form of ornament,
+Sculptured device of various design,
+Embellishment of cunning symmetry,
+Man's first attempt to scale the realms of art.
+
+Thou hast beheld him on his suppliant kneel,
+Engaged in worship, audible or mute,
+Invoking thy protection and thy aid,
+Thy gracious favor and beatitude;
+With arms outstretched in reverential awe,
+Propitiating thee, with fervent prayer
+For the remission of thy baleful stroke.
+Thou hast beheld his superstitious fear
+And heard his curses, and his solemn prayers
+As thy dark form eclipsed the smiling sun.
+
+Thou hast beheld him fashion and adorn
+The gorgeous altar and the totem pole;
+With fervent zeal, and blind simplicity,
+From base materials of wood or stone,
+Carve out a God, then kneel and worship it.
+
+Thou, too, hast heard the slave-whip's poignant crack,
+The sound of avarice and turpitude,
+As hands unwilling plied their arduous task,
+Creating monuments to iron will,
+Human injustice, greed and servitude.
+
+Thou hast beheld him shape the pyramids,
+Heap up the mound and build the massive wall,
+Create the castle and the towering spire,
+The ponderous dome and stately edifice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From thy observant orbit in the skies,
+Did'st thou behold that sacrilegious tower,
+Which reared its massive form on Babel's plain,
+Built by misguided and presumptuous men,
+In vain and ineffectual attempt
+To scale the heavens surreptitiously?
+
+E'er the completion of the impious pile,
+Thou mayest have heard, with silent nonchalance,
+That strange catastrophe of human speech,
+That dire confusion of the languages,
+Confounding all the tongues and dialects
+To unknown chaos of peculiar sounds.
+
+Changing the conversation of the day
+To accents strange and unintelligible,
+Unlike to common and accepted terms;
+To tones mysterious and unnatural,
+Conglomerated forms of utterance
+Which bore no semblance to the human voice.
+Some rent the air with unaccustomed words
+Striving in desperation to converse,
+With ears which heard, but could not understand.
+
+Some cursed, with oaths unknown to all but them,
+While some essayed to frame the words of prayer,
+Or to articulate the stern command,
+And one, in most supreme authority,
+Declaimed a ponderous regal ordinance,
+But heard a sea of unfamiliar sounds,
+Confused and desultory turbulence, and dissonance of harsh,
+          discordant tones,
+Instead of due attention and applause;
+Nor were his words and usual forms of speech
+Respected by the idle, wondering craft,
+Which lately comprehended and obeyed.
+
+Workmen addressed each other, but conveyed
+No sense of meaning in their jargonings;
+Nor had cognizance from the stammered tones,
+Answered in turn, in verbal nothingness;
+The crabbed cynic might no longer rail;
+Nor those of sober countenance discourse
+In melancholy and foreboding strains;
+Nor light and frivolous sons of levity
+On others perpetrate the humorous jest;
+Fathers attempted to correct their sons,
+Who, listening with filial reverence,
+Heard but unknown and strange garrulity.
+
+Some shrank in terror, as their ears discerned
+Their own distorted efforts to converse;
+Some ran in aimless frenzy to and fro,
+Falling upon the earth with frantic cries;
+Some stood in gaping wonder, nor perceived
+The dire calamity, which bound them all
+In one unbroken chain of misery.
+Some beat their breasts in paroxysmal woe;
+Some wore the driveling look of idiocy;
+Some lost their reason and serenely smiled;
+Some stalked with features imperturbable,
+Finding no tear nor vent for their distress;
+Some groaned, some shrieked, some wept in their despair,
+Relaxing all attempts at vocal speech;
+Some recognized the face but not the voice
+Of some familiar friend, and grasped the hand,
+Spoke with the eyes, when words no longer served.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Did'st thou behold that temple which arose
+On Mount Moriah's slope, the proud result
+Of the endeavors of a noble race,
+Whose tireless energy and wondrous skill
+In architecture and the various arts
+Were famed throughout the world; whose nimble hands
+Carved out the pillar and the pedestal,
+The column, polished and cylindrical,
+The slab and ornamented architrave
+From Parian marble of unblemished hue;
+With stately cedars from the sloping sides
+Of proud but long denuded Lebanon,
+Erected that superb and marvelous pile
+Whose wondrous grandeur and imposing form,
+Correct proportions and true symmetry
+And perfect uniformity of shape,
+Beauty of contour and embellishment,
+Splendor of finish and magnificence,
+Excelled the proudest edifice of earth--
+A fitting tribute to the Deity?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thou hast beheld the triumphs of his skill
+Touched by the desolating hand of time,
+Crumble, disintegrate and pass away--
+Resolved to pristine particles of dust.
+
+His strongest castle, bold and insolent,
+Of warlike aspect and defiant mien,
+With wall and rampart unassailable,
+Impregnable to the assaults of man--
+Surrender at the mold's insidious tread.
+
+             Thou hast beheld
+His palace and his most exalted courts
+Bestrewn with fragments of the Peristyle;
+The broken column, slab and monolith
+O'erhung with pendant moss and slimy mold;
+Its dismal haunts and gloomy apertures
+Become the habitation of the bat,
+The hissing serpent and the scorpion,
+The basking lizard dull and indolent,
+And forms of reptile, foul and venomous.
+
+The throne where ruled the king with iron sway
+Is vacant as the empty wastes of air,
+Is ruled by desolation and decay.
+No more the sceptered voice in stern command
+Rings through its halls, nor can the dazzling flash
+Of the tiara and the diadem,
+The ensign and insignia of power,
+The emblazoned crest and jeweled coat of arms,
+Or proud escutcheon of illustrious name
+Excite with envy or inspire with fear.
+
+The boisterous carousal and the sound
+Of wassail mirth, inebriate and loud,
+And midnight revelry, is hushed and still.
+
+            Time shifts the scenes--
+The haughty prince and the most abject slave,
+Who cowered and trembled 'neath his austere glance,
+The fawning and ignoble sycophant,
+The courtier and the basest serf, have met
+On equal terms beneath the silent dust.
+
+From thy celestial 'minions thou hast seen
+His proudest temples sink into decay,
+Grim desolation and desuetude;
+The silent hush succeed the plaintive hymn,
+The anthem cease to swell in rhythmic praise,
+Or vaulted dome re-echo with the sound
+Of pipe, of organ, harp and dulcimer;
+The voice of sacerdotal eloquence
+Become as silent as the unborn thought;
+The fragrant perfume of the frankincense,
+The scent of swinging censor and of myrrh,
+Supplanted by foul odors of decay;
+The sacred flame extinguished and forgot,
+Its votaries and congregations fled;
+The forms who ministered and forms who knelt,
+The burnished altar and the hoary priest,
+Commingling their atoms in the dust.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thou, too, hast heard the clash of hostile arms,
+The blast of trumpet and the martial tread,
+The neigh of charger anxious for the fray,
+The din and the confusion of the fight,
+The noise and turmoil of contending hosts,
+The crunch of breaking bones and shrieks of pain;
+The angry challenge and defiant taunt,
+The cries of rage and curses of despair,
+The dying groan and gnash of clench-ed teeth,
+The plea for mercy, with uplifted arms,
+As through the bosom plunged the ruthless steel;
+The clank of shackles and the captives groan,
+As marched the vanquished forth to servitude,
+To ceaseless toil rewarded by the scourge;
+To stand within the slave marts and endure
+The taunts and bear the chains of slavery.
+
+Did'st thou look down with neutral radiance
+On that incursion from the Scythian plain,
+A surging multitude beyond the power
+Of mental computation and which seemed
+A seething mass of spears and shapes of war,
+A sea of bellicose barbarity,
+O'erwhelming helpless and ill-fated Tyre
+With a resistless deluge of the sword?
+
+Or when that vast and uncomputed horde
+Swept westward from the steppes of Tartary
+With stern Atilla riding at its head,
+Leaving in ruthless Mongol truculence,
+Awake, both red and blackened by the torch;
+The scourge[F], perhaps of God, perhaps of Hell!
+
+Did'st thou not flinch when t'ward the Christian west
+The fell invasion of the Saracen
+Headed its course with crimson scimitar;
+Supplanting the mild precepts of the Cross
+With those of lust, of hate and bigotry?
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Did'st thou not weep when proud Atlantis sunk
+Beneath the surging and engulfing waves,
+The aftermath of Earth's most tragic shock;
+Or when the ark, upon that greatest flood,
+Which from the black and pregnant heavens fell.
+For forty days and forty weary nights,
+Above the ruins of a deluged world,
+Floated in safety with its living freight?
+
+Did'st Thou look down in idle apathy,
+When grim Vesuvius, from his dormant rest
+Awoke, in molten fury, and o'ercame
+With liquid flood and scoriaceous hail
+The sleeping cities which beneath him lay;
+Interring with such fiery burial
+That neither remnant nor inhabitant
+Escaped from that both grave and funeral pyre;
+Nor vestige of their proud magnificence
+Rose from the scene with charred and blackened form;
+And rolling centuries, in passing, left
+But dim remembrance in the minds of men?
+
+Did'st thou, in age more ancient and remote,
+Gaze from thy poise with cold complacency
+Upon the guilty cities[G] of the plain,
+Surcharged with lust and the extremes of sin,
+Which Holy Writ avers, when 'neath the shower
+Of well deserved combustion from the skies,
+They sunk in conflagration with their vice;
+And perishing, to ages yet to come
+Bequeathed a foul and blasted heritage,
+An infamous and execrated name?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Art thou to human anguish so inured
+That thou hast neither sentiment of grief
+Nor sense of pity for terrestrial ills?
+Can agonizing and heart-rending scenes
+Relax thy obdurate and placid face
+To semblance of emotion? Can man's woes
+Excite thy tranquil immobility
+To the pathetic look of tenderness,
+Or touch thy bosom's calm indifference
+With profuse throbs of sympathetic ruth?
+Can'st thou unmoved behold the widow's tears,
+Or those of orphaned childish innocence,
+Or those which wondering infant eyes have shed
+On unresponsive breasts, which nevermore
+Throb with maternal warmth and suckle them?
+Can'st thou with cold, unsympathizing light
+Illuminate the ruined maid's despair
+Without the echo of a lunar groan?
+Hast thou no pang of sorrow or regret
+For guilty man, nor tear for his distress,
+Or are the tides within thy moist control
+The copious weepings of thy mellow lids--
+Thy sea of teardrops shed for human woes?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Did'st thou behold, when that most favored star,
+Transcending in refulgence all the orbs
+Of boundless and bejewelled firmament,
+With flash of overwhelming brilliancy
+Plunged through the wondering heavens, whose pale spheres
+In contrast dimmed to insignificance,
+And gliding through the twinkling realms of space,
+Burst with such splendor as the envious stars
+Had never witnessed since the heavens stood;
+Halting in glory o'er Judea's plain?
+
+Halted and burned in stellar reverence,
+Above a fold where wrapped in swaddling clothes
+A new-born infant in a manger lay;
+In humble contrast to the throne of light,
+He left to tread the thorny paths of earth;
+In undefiled and stainless innocence,
+Which earth with all her foul iniquities
+Might never tarnish nor pollute with sin.
+
+Perhaps upon that sage triumvirate
+Which journeyed from the famed and affluent East,
+In regal pomp and rich munificence,
+To lay their costly presents at His feet
+And worship at that new-born infant's shrine,
+Thou shed'st thy mellow rays and lit the way
+O'er deserts to the hills of Bethlehem;
+Dividing honors with that prince of stars.
+
+Wert thou a witness on that selfsame night
+When humble shepherds on Judea's hills,
+Watching their flocks with all attentive care,
+Beheld unwonted grandeur in the skies?
+The ordinary stars were glittering
+In unaccustomed glory, and the orbs
+Which twinkle in that pale celestial train
+Which cleaves in twain the ambient universe,
+Had changed their milky hue to that of gold;
+But all the forms of stellar brilliancy
+Made way for that most bright and luminous
+Which glowed with holy radiance, which might
+Not emanate from aught but sacred star;
+Dispensing such serene magnificence
+That e'en the admiring heavens stood abashed.
+
+                At such a sight,
+Though savoring more of blessing than of curse,
+Small marvel 'twas their unenlightened minds
+Were seized with sudden and peculiar fear,
+So that their trembling knees together smote.
+And as they stood
+In awestruck trepidation and alarm
+The heavens as the bifurcated door
+Of some familiar, hospitable tent,
+Parted their gorgeous curtains and disclosed
+A multitude of the celestial host,
+Numerous beyond all efforts to compute,
+Solemn of countenance, yet beautiful
+Beyond the comprehension of the eye,
+Surging in such immaculate array
+Of various raiment as the stainless white
+Of snows which countless centuries have placed
+On rugged Ararat's tremendous heights,
+Were blended in an essence!
+
+                Then for a moment's time
+The heavens were silent as those forms were fair;
+Then instantly throughout the realms of light
+Was heard a crash in sacred unison,
+As all the trumpets and the harps of heaven
+And all the varied instruments of earth
+Had burst in one grand, detonating chord;
+Now rose the quavering, vibratory tones
+Of flageolet and solitary reed;
+Now as a blending of all instruments
+In echoing harmonics, sweet and low,
+In soft reverberating resonance;
+The voice of cornet and sonorous horn
+Blent with the warbling accents of the flute
+And chime of mellow bells, unknown to earth;
+Pæan of dulcimer and harpsichord
+In combination of concordant tone,
+Melting the stars with dulcet symphony.
+
+But sweeter than those instruments of joy,
+Tuned by angelic fingers, rose the strains
+Of vocal concord and mellifluence,
+As swelled in chorus those seraphic throats
+In falling cadence and ecstatic flight,
+Surpassing heaven's grandest melody
+In all that appertains to choral song!
+The acme of celestial harmony
+Which angel ears discerned with glad surprise;
+But sweeter than that song, the glad refrain
+Wafted from angel tongues innumerable,
+To earth and the inhabitants thereof,
+"Peace! Peace on Earth, the Deity's Good Will!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Didst thou not shrink, when on Golgotha's crest
+Three crosses as three grizzly spectres rose,
+Spreading their ghastly arms protestingly,
+In silent malediction o'er the scene,
+And even nature paused and stood aghast
+In shuddering horror at the awful sight,
+Relaxing with the trembling earthquake shock
+Her sympathetic tension?
+And when the lightning rent the canopy
+Of black sepulchral clouds, which like a shroud
+Enveloped earth on that terrific night,
+They lit a face compassionate and pure,
+E'en from beneath the cruel crown of thorns
+Glancing in pity, kindled not with wrath
+At his tormentors, those who loved him not--
+The multitude which surged about the cross
+Cursing with accents vile and crying loud,
+Crucify Him! Crucify Him!
+
+"Rejected and despised of men--"
+Earth, which hath ever slain her noblest sons,
+Slays also her Redeemer!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Creation is but systematized decay,
+And _Change_ is blazoned on the very skies,
+As in ephemeral telluric scenes,
+And through the whole cosmogony of worlds,
+Is written and rewritten!
+
+Thou who hast seen the stately mastodon
+Roam at his will o'er earth's prolific plains,
+And the unwieldy megatherium
+Dragging his cumbrous, disproportioned weight
+Through quaternary marsh and stagnant fen;
+Or watched the ichthyosaurus plow the seas,
+Churning the waters till the glistening foam
+Rode on the greenish undulating waves;
+And huge saurian and reptilian shapes
+Amphibious and pelagic, swim and crawl,
+Cleaving the waters with tremendous strokes,
+Writhing with foul contortions in disport,
+Splashing and laving in the thermal seas
+Of the remote and prehistoric past;
+Thou who hast seen them fail and pass away
+Shalt also shine when man has disappeared.
+
+Thou who hast seen the rank luxuriance
+Of vegetation flourish and decay,
+Vanish and pass away insensibly,
+Perish from off the earth which nourished it,
+And time supplant its rich exuberance
+With arid wastes of bleak sterility;
+Wilt thou look down in silent unconcern
+When countless eons of denuding time
+Have rendered earth as barren as thyself,
+Bereft of verdure's last habiliment;
+When men, with all their passions and desires,
+Their strange combines of evil and of good,
+Their proud achievements and exalted aims
+Have passed away forever?
+
+The universe is but a sepulcher
+For worlds defunct, as earth for living forms!
+And thou, O Moon, who hast surveyed all this
+Thyself shalt be consumed with fervent heat,
+For e'en the firmament shall pass away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+                Supreme Intelligence,
+Thou who createst worlds and satellites,
+(And Who canst estimate the universe)
+Weighing the heavens in Thy balances,
+Who hast ordained the laws of cosmic space
+To guide aright the planetary spheres;
+Thou Ruler of the infinite and great,
+Alike of vast and infinitesimal;
+Thou fundamental cause of all that is,
+In process of creation and decay,
+In the mutation and the ravages
+Sequent of constant lapse and flight of time
+Reveal Thy laws that we may follow them:
+Help us to recognize in all Thy works,
+Whether of atom or stupendous mass,
+The hand of Deity.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[F] Atilla was believed by the early Christians to have been a scourge
+sent direct from God, and some historians aver that he himself
+encouraged the belief.
+
+[G] Sodom and Gommorah.
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+FINIS.
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+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mountain idylls, and Other Poems
+by Alfred Castner King
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13809 ***