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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76651 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _Samuel R Brown_]
+
+
+
+
+  Happy Days
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  Carolings of Colorado, Etc.
+
+  By
+
+  Sam Brown
+
+  Author of
+  “May-Day Dreams,”
+  etc.
+]
+
+  DENVER, COLORADO
+  THE REED PUBLISHING COMPANY
+  Nineteen Hundred and Four
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1904
+  By SAMUEL R. BROWN
+
+
+  PRESS OF
+  The Reed Publishing Company
+  DENVER
+
+
+
+
+  Dedicated
+
+  WITH KINDEST REGARDS, TO
+  OUR GENTLE, SAD-FACED
+  TOURIST SUMMER-GUEST
+
+
+
+
+_PUBLISHERS’ ANNOUNCEMENT_
+
+
+_As in subsequent pages of this little work its author has had so much
+to say regarding himself and the land of his nativity, we deem it but
+proper that he and the reader should be made more fully acquainted here
+at the outset. Permit, therefore, this brief biographical sketch. Born
+in the sunny valley of the South Platte, near the present site of the
+Queen City of the Plains (Denver), the author is of course a native of
+the Centennial State (Colorado)._
+
+_In the days of his boyhood the wooly bison and the prong-horned
+antelope still ranged in countless droves upon the Great Plains, and
+the antlered elk and the mule deer, among the airy table-lands and in
+the more-sequestered, grassy forest-glades of the Rocky Mountains, were
+most plentiful indeed. The little red Indian papooses were his earliest
+childhood playmates, and the “big braves,” Cheyenne Charley, the
+Arapahoe chief, Black Kettle, and the fat old Ute, Colorow, are still
+well remembered by him. The long lines of freight and emigrant wagons;
+the “Overland stage coaches,” the ox and mule teams, the various motley
+crowds of old-time denizens of those then “first days” of stir and
+change, of sanguine strife and hardy enterprise, were all familiar
+objects of his youthful vision._
+
+_Being reared thus, amidst wild and savage life, and born a native of a
+then savage wild-land, his poetic efforts of these later happier days
+will no doubt prove of especial interest to the people of the middle
+Great West and the Rocky Mountain region generally._
+
+                                         THE PUBLISHERS.
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+  Portrait and Autograph of the Author      Frontispiece
+
+  Publishers’ Announcement                             4
+
+  Prefatory                                            9
+
+
+  _POEMS_
+
+  A Happy Loiterer                                    27
+
+  Angling in the Platte                               28
+
+  Autumnal Sports                                     33
+
+  At My Little Cabin Home                             42
+
+  At Littleton--“In the Good Old Summer Time”         58
+
+  At Englewood on an Afternoon in May                 59
+
+  At Manitou                                          69
+
+  At Denver                                           70
+
+  A Felicitous Medical Prescription                   75
+
+  A Requiem                                           86
+
+  Be Joyous, Be Gentle, Worthy, Kind                  52
+
+  Beautiful Colorado                                  57
+
+  Colorado Skies                                      15
+
+  Down Among the Grasses                              18
+
+  Differences of Opinion                              82
+
+  Felicitous Retroflections                           67
+
+  Greetings to Gladness                               13
+
+  In the Wild Wild-Woods To-day                       20
+
+  I’ll Sing Some Songs for Fame To-night              21
+
+  Introverse Retrospection                            64
+
+  In the Forest                                       83
+
+  King Mammon                                         45
+
+  Live Merrily                                        14
+
+  “Lo Que Es El Mundi”                                46
+
+  Little Love A-Fishing Went                          68
+
+  Maid of Denver, Are You Camping?                    22
+
+  Maid of Denver, Take My Arm                         23
+
+  My Colorado                                         56
+
+  My Motor-Cycle Girl and I                           79
+
+  My Summer Girl and Me                               84
+
+  New Glad Voices                                     91
+
+  Of Paradise, Etc.                                   73
+
+  On Immortality                                      74
+
+  Poet, May I Pail Your Cow?                          24
+
+  Pot-Hunting Beside the Platte                       35
+
+  Recuperating in Nature’s Sanitarium                 31
+
+  Regret                                              72
+
+  Seeking Our Two Little Brown Boys                   60
+
+  Sundry Sweets                                       65
+
+  Supplementary                                       89
+
+  To Ye Cheerless Hermit                              30
+
+  The Antelope Hunt                                   37
+
+  To Walter Whitman                                   44
+
+  To Ye Worthy Sailor Man                             50
+
+  Tears                                               61
+
+  To Our Little Joy-Prince--Cherub Delight            62
+
+  To Our Lady of Woe                                  71
+
+  To Those Dark Eyes that Haunt Me Still              77
+
+  Wild-Woodland Ramblings                             17
+
+  Was Man Made to Mourn?                              25
+
+  _PROSE SKETCHES_
+
+  Farewell!--I Am Still Camping                       87
+
+  May-Day Beside the Platte                           92
+
+  My Native Lakes                                     95
+
+  Those Are the Rocky Mountains                       98
+
+
+
+
+_PREFATORY_
+
+
+My dear unexacting, much-forgiving reader--lover of rural-songs and
+of rural singers: Now, since having spent many happy days in the
+health-gaining pursuit after the fleet-winged goddess Pleasure, and
+in camping on the trail of the scarcely less inconstant muse, among
+Colorado’s grassy, grove-filled valleys, arid plains, and lofty,
+snow-capped mountains, with the sad-faced “tourist friend” sometimes,
+and sometimes with some others, for the writer’s camp-fire side
+companions, and having found life good and Nature joyous, and as “There
+is more or less poetry about the souls of all men”--(and some women
+also, perhaps!) it is not strange, therefore, (is it?) that the author
+of this unpretentious little book has fallen, half-unconsciously, as
+it were, into hymning joy-notes to Nature and to disconsolate humanity
+(presumably!) likewise.
+
+Now, trusting, therefore, that a more lengthy retrospection will not
+be necessary to sufficiently apologize for our unpremeditated literary
+transgressions, our impromptu sentimental love-ditties, etc., we
+therefore, with best wishes to all and with malice to none, and with
+the reader’s kind permission, will accordingly without further delay
+or comment, proceed to the final rehearsal of our felicitous, although
+evidently artless, minstrelsy.
+
+                                         THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+
+
+HAPPY DAYS
+
+CAROLINGS OF COLORADO ETC.
+
+
+
+
+_GREETINGS TO GLADNESS_
+
+
+    Come, Bliss. Who likes a fretting child?
+      It is the mirthful spright we love.
+    On Joy, propitious gods have smiled.
+      No worthier cherub dwells above.
+
+    In laughing eyes we lingering gaze;
+    There’s beauty in a happy face!
+    If Gladness lacked in classic mould
+    Were not his charms yet manifold?
+
+    Come, Spirit, then--come, social Cheer.
+      We crave diversion and delight.
+    With thy sweet smiles dry Sorrow’s tear;
+      Bright angels’ visits make our lives more bright.
+
+
+
+
+_LIVE MERRILY_
+
+
+    Why pensive, mortals? Why still? Why sad?
+        Cheer up, dear fellows, and be glad.
+        Live merrily--live while you may,
+    Gaily, gaily tripping along life’s way,
+      Waste not--dejectedly brooding--waste not these few brief, fleeting
+        hours,
+    After death, as after night, dawns the brighter, fairer day.
+      Be happy, then, be thankful, grateful as the conscious, smiling
+        flowers.
+
+    Have hope, have faith, have charity;
+    Trust to inherit immortality.
+    At Pleasure’s fount dip deep;
+    In its pure, ecstatic tide thy troubles steep.
+    Grave saint--if righteous souls shall joyous live again
+    Why should we sorrow here? Why vainly foster care and pain?
+    Nay, nay, most happy presence, acquainted best with joy and love
+    Are those best fitted, sir, for life--for sacred, hallowed life above.
+
+
+
+
+_COLORADO SKIES_
+
+
+    Colorado skies! Colorado skies!
+    Oh, what a depth of color in them lies!
+    How bright to-day--how azure are Colorado skies!
+
+    Colorado skies! Colorado’s lustrous skies!
+    In those clear wells above,
+    Where the unimpaired optic never tires to rove,
+    Behold! two sable eagles--their wheeling flights pursue,
+    The only fleeting shadows in those arching vaults of blue.
+
+    Colorado skies! Colorado’s peerless skies!
+    Oh, what sweet dreams, what joyous hopes arise,
+    To all who cast their destinies beneath Colorado’s wondrous skies.
+
+    Colorado skies! Colorado’s splendid skies!
+    At dawn, when swift the curling mists arise;
+    When crimson-colored flame, the orient horizon o’erspreads,
+    And shy day-nymphs awake from slumber on their golden beds,
+
+      ’Tis then that smiling Fortune, lavishly rewards the bold emprise
+      Of those who wisely early rise beneath Colorado’s matchless skies.
+    Colorado skies! Colorado’s glorious skies!
+      No lowering clouds--no lingering mists arise.
+      How bright to-day--how propitious are Colorado’s skies.
+
+
+
+
+_WILD-WOODLAND RAMBLINGS_
+
+
+    Down--adown among the green, wild-woodland alleys,
+    And across the sweet valleys,
+      Through forests of spruce trees and pine;
+    With the birds, and the beasts, and the flowers for my allies
+      I rove--oh I rove, with “The Spirit Divine.”
+
+    Down, deep down in the wild rocky canons;
+      Up, high up on the cool sterile plateau’s above,
+    Joy, Joy and Hope are still my companions,
+      For, oh, for, oh, I am charmed and elated wherever I rove.
+
+    Down, then--down through the green leafy alleys,
+    And across the sweet valleys
+      Deeper, deeper still into forests of aspens and pine;
+    Thus, thus ’mongst tall, shady groves I am daily making new sallies,
+    For, oh, for oh, the much-roving spirits of gladness and of
+      song-singing madness are mine.
+
+
+
+
+_DOWN AMONG THE GRASSES_
+
+
+    Down--adown among the tall green grasses
+      By the spring-fed pool,
+    Where the flowers nod and beckon in the wind that passes--
+    Nod and beckon like sweet little lassies
+    Like fair little Hellenic lassies, (glancing with their bright eyes)
+    Like fair little Hellenic lassies, just turned loose from their
+      classical classes
+    Like glad little Grecian children just a-coming home from school.
+
+    And the dragon-flies in their bright cuirasses
+      And the crickets that chirrup by rule,
+    And the clouds floating by in great, white, cumulous masses,
+    And the small, glad voices, and the flowers and the grasses,
+      And the sky and the clouds mirrored way down in the pool,
+    Makes one dream of the old song-sacred Parnassus,
+      And of the nymph-haunted Hippocrene cool.
+
+    And we sigh for the poet’s winged-steed Pegasus
+      Just to soar away up high!
+    Just to scale those wild aerial passes,
+    Just to rise above those great, white, cumulous, cloud masses,
+      And to plunge and tumble down the blue vaults of the sky.
+
+    Away up above us--in those splendid cloud-cities!
+      With their portals of gold and their turrets so fair,
+    We seem to hear angels a-piping their wonderful ditties,
+      And we long to be there--oh, we long to be there.
+
+    White Wings! White Wings! Come bear us away,
+      Come bear us away, o’er river, o’er mountain and plain.
+    Oh, bear us away to that land of tall palms and green sassafrasses,
+      And then--oh, then, bear us back here to this wild, sweet, pretty
+        valley again.
+
+
+
+
+_IN THE WILD WILD-WOODS TO-DAY_
+
+
+    Away--far away--in the wild wild-woods to-day!
+    Underneath the spreading, cool, green boughs sitting,
+    Nesting birds above us flitting,
+    Seem to sing--seem to say:
+    “Mortals sad, be good, be good--be glad--be gay!”
+
+    Little hearts full of glee,
+    Happy as happy can be;
+    In the wavy bushes seen,
+    In the tall, tufted tree-tops between,
+    Singing, singing merrily,
+    Singing, singing--seem to say:
+    “Mortals sad, be good, be good--be glad to-day!”
+
+
+
+
+_I’LL SING SOME SONGS FOR FAME TO-NIGHT_
+
+
+    Respected fellow traveler, ’tho I can carol like a bird
+      Dame Fame my voice has never heard.
+    Hear, then, congenial tourist, comrade with delight--
+    I’ll sing some songs for Fame to-night.
+
+    Fame oft has heard the wail of Sadness;
+      Fame knows the lay of Trouble well,
+    Then I will sing for her the songs of gladness,
+      For her, for her, the tale of Joy I’ll tell.
+
+
+
+
+_MAID OF DENVER, ARE YOU CAMPING?_
+
+
+        _He_:
+    “Maid of Denver, are you camping?
+      In my field your mules are tramping.
+    Please, Miss, do not think me rude;
+    ’Tis not my intention to intrude.
+    Just this morn I saw your fire--
+    Thought I’d step down and inquire.”
+
+        _She_:
+    “Yes, sir; yes, sir; we are camping;
+      That’s our tent, there, in the willows.
+    Pa and Ma are fishing, I suppose:
+    Too bad, too bad, our team is tramping
+      In your meadow green and wide.
+    But, sir, oh, if you will kindly help me chase them out, sir,
+    My folks, henceforth, no doubt, sir,
+      Will be good enough to keep them tied.”
+
+        _He_:
+    “Maid of Denver, let them stay--let them stray;
+    They won’t hurt my clover--never, nay.
+    Happy creatures! Watch them race and leap!
+    Romp and roll, wallow in my herd’s grass--lush and deep!
+    Off! ye saucy rogues! Away, away! go frisk and play;
+    (They won’t harm my _trifolium incarnatum_, no, never--never, nay!)”
+
+
+
+
+_MAID OF DENVER, TAKE MY ARM_
+
+
+    Maid of Denver, take my arm;
+    Stroll with me, about my farm.
+    Trustier guide you’ll never know.
+    No, no, Maid of Denver, don’t say no!
+
+    Come, merry lass, come skip with me across the green;
+    Climb up steep heights where foot hath never been.
+    Just back of Frank Mann’s, on the rocks,
+    Watch Massey’s shepherds tend their flocks.
+
+    Or would you rather rove cool hills between?
+    Exploring, mayhap, many a sylvan scene?
+    Or nay--no--you wisely choose beneath tall trees,
+    To just sit here, and sweetly take your ease.
+
+    Then, Maid of Denver, here’s my hand!
+    Share, oh kindly share with me my land.
+    Fonder “hubby” you will never know,
+    No, no, my pretty maid, my city maid, I love, I love you so.
+
+
+
+
+_“POET, MAY I PAIL YOUR COW?”_
+
+
+          _She_:
+    “Poet--pastoral poet--
+    Poet, don’t you know it?
+    Poet, please, sir, may I now?
+    Poet, I would dearly love to pail your cow!”
+
+          _He_:
+    “Maid of Denver, then you may;
+    I will bait her with some hay.
+    So, boss--so, there, now!
+    So,--so--you blamed old cow!
+
+    “Just watch her kick-up, like a steer;
+    Race away in mad career;
+    But I can catch her; oh, yes, dear--
+    Snare her with my lariat
+    Snub her, stretch her out,
+    Tie her horns and tie her feet,
+    She may bellow, she may fret.
+    We shall pail her. Conquer her? Oh dear, yes, you bet!
+
+    “Maid of Denver, try her now;
+    She is humbled--s’drat that cow!
+    Did she cavort like a steer?
+    Bellow loudly in your ear?
+    She did; yes, she did. But shall we pail her?”
+
+          _She_:
+    “Well, no, nay--not just now, poet, dear.”
+
+
+
+
+_WAS MAN MADE TO MOURN?_
+
+  “Man was made to mourn.”
+
+          --Robert Burns.
+
+
+    From Eden barred, abased, forlorn
+    Man, some mortals say, was made to mourn.
+    (Some even think his wicked soul should burn!)
+    Of “sin original,” inoculated at the first,
+    His “scapegoat” race they hold accursed.
+
+    For Adam’s fault they’d make his offspring’s sweat,
+    For Eve’s one error do hateful penance yet.
+    Such silly cant--such canters--I could spurn!
+    Nay, nay, man was not made to mourn.
+
+    Joy, joy, presided at our birth;
+    Heaven sent great gladness upon earth.
+    Nature triumphed on our natal morn.
+    Creation thrilled when man was born!
+
+    Nay, nay; man was not made to mourn!
+      Discard that old familiar saw.
+    It is a rusty relic, dull and worn,
+      A heathen tool with many a flaw.
+
+    Nay, nay, it is a duty to be good;
+      It is religious to be glad!
+    O’er wrongs, o’er losses, wherefore brood?
+      ’Tis wicked--sinful--to be sad!
+
+    Nay, nay; man was not made to mourn;
+    From Grief (that vile old sorceress) let us turn,
+    At Pleasure’s shrine, far holier, happier lessons, we shall learn.
+
+
+
+
+_A HAPPY LOITERER_
+
+
+    Beneath our blue Colorado skies,
+    Where tall mountains gladden eyes,
+    Here I seek the care-free muse
+    Till life’s burdens all I lose.
+
+    Far away from Sorrow’s brood,
+    How I love serene, sweet Solitude!
+    What to me is worldling’s strife,
+    While I lead this placid, unobtrusive life?
+
+    Men or crosses, men of rules,
+    Teach me not in Trouble’s schools.
+    Wilful truant, I would lie
+    Listening to the wild-bird’s melody.
+
+    In my forest by the stream
+    Let me worship, let me dream,
+    Loving Nature and her ways,
+    I would court her all my days.
+
+
+
+
+_ANGLING IN THE PLATTE_
+
+
+    On a log beside the Platte,
+    With my tackle and my basket,
+    Sitting where I long have sat,
+    I am fishing! Should you ask it?
+
+    Idling,--dreaming time away!
+    Thinking many happy thoughts to-day.
+    Fleeting moments never heeding,
+    While the hungry fishes feeding,
+    Still I watch and still I wait;
+    Let the minnows steal my bait!
+    Mine--mine is the pleasure and repose--
+    That the never-fretting, catch-forgetting, gladness netting angler
+      only knows.
+
+    Tired worker--up! away!
+    Leave thy labors for a day.
+    At the river life is sweet;
+    At the river we shall meet.
+    Rest and play! Rejoice and be gay!
+      Recreation has its season.
+    Put thy cark and care away,
+      (Death from over-work to-day is clearly out of reason!)
+
+    Comrade,--cheerless comrade, break thy bondage and be free;
+    Nature’s self will welcome thee;
+    Countless blessings she can give,
+    Come with nature, then, and live.
+
+    Nodding, nodding, napping by the brook,
+    With no bait upon my hook;
+    Dreaming dreams of summer sweet.
+    While the ripples kiss my feet.
+    While the wind blows through my hair,
+    Know I not an earthly care.
+    Oh, the restful, rapturous repose
+    That the care-dispelling, mirth-compelling, sometimes story-telling,
+      always joyful angler only knows.
+
+    On a log beside the Platte,
+      With my tackle and my basket,
+    Sitting where I long have sat;--
+      Am I fishing?--can you--really can you ask it?
+
+
+
+
+_TO YE CHEERLESS HERMIT_
+
+
+    Arise! thou melancholy recluse--arise! Leave thy cell!
+      Turn not thy days to night.
+    Vile beasts and bats in darkness dwell;
+      For us, God made the light.
+
+    For us, the sunshine and the flowers;
+      For us, the birds, the bees,
+    The leafy trees, the odorous bowers;
+      And all our wants, God planned to please.
+
+    Come, then, come out into the day!
+      Look up! Choke down thy silly grief;
+    Fling all thy cark and care away;
+      Rejoice! Help Nature sing her psalm of life.
+
+    Gloomy scholar, drop that skull!
+      Ghoulish research there is vain;
+    Studies such are void and null;
+      From Pleasure learn the cure of pain!
+
+    Be glad! _Thy joy may cheer another!_
+      Weep not. (_Grief wounds not self alone!_)
+    Heap not thy sorrows on thy brother;
+      Old Misery’s sighs would e’en make angels groan!
+
+    Apostle of Woe, thy faith’s a fable;
+      Try schemes of sorrow ill.
+    Joy and Hope are props more stable;
+      Merry, men may be, and righteous, too, who will.
+
+
+
+
+_RECUPERATING IN NATURE’S SANITARIUM_
+
+
+    Disconsolate friend, if truly sore-distressed thou art by care and
+      pain,
+      Plunge, then, with me into the deep, continuous woods.
+    Health there, and hope, to thee will come again;
+      Untroubled there we both may well indulge our favorite, loftier
+        moods.
+
+    Remote,--afar from dust and din of crowded cities,--
+      By waters cool, how sweet! how delectable! to spend one’s leisure
+        time!
+    To listening hills, I there will croon my artless ditties
+      And shout, aye, loudly shout “heroics!” in Nature’s halls sublime.
+
+    Near by yon crystal mountain lake,
+      Hemmed in by cliff and sylvan wide,
+    My hunter’s home I there would gladly make;
+      There happy, as the famed “Tuck friar,” in the forest glade reside.
+
+    In other days,--with saddle horse and pack!
+    (Permit me, please, to trace my earlier rambles back!)
+    When “whipping for trout” the rippled mountain streams,
+    Or “prospecting,” perchance, for that yellow dross that gleams
+    Ever brightly in man’s waking dreams.
+    Again, with Hope, I scale the lofty, snow-capped peak,
+    Again, with Joy, I cross vast plateaus wild and bleak,
+    Once more a thirst for water on hot desert plains,
+    Or else, half-drowned, I camp out in the rains!
+
+    ’Mongst pleasing memories thus, learn, oh, learn to live thy summers
+      o’er and o’er;
+    Again to stand exulting on the storm-lashed shore.
+    Dear heart! thy Great Creator’s joy is largely thine;
+      No want he made but gave food to supply.
+    This is a universal law divine;
+      The very wish thou hast to gain immortality,
+      Is strongest proof that “thou shalt not surely die.”
+
+    Thus idling, grudge not, yet, to spend some precious hours;
+    Oh, kindly still sit here with me and muse among the flowers.
+    Behold! deep in the spacious hollow of yon evening sky
+      Afar,--almost beyond the reach of mortal’s ken,--
+    How brightly there His clustering islands lie,
+      How sweet the hope, there, after death, to live again!
+
+    To thee--to me--what is the flight of time?
+      Count not as lost the fleeting hours we squander here in
+        contemplations thus.
+    In those star-worlds, whose light-beams bridge o’er space,
+      Read there God’s covenants sublime:
+    Eternity! eternity! was made for us!
+
+
+
+
+_AUTUMNAL SPORTS_
+
+
+    Oh, much I love the spring-time, when the nesting birds are here,
+    And much I love the summer days also, when brooks are bright and clear.
+    Greatly, too, I prize the winter season, with its fireside chat and
+      cheer,
+    But sweeter, fairer far to me, is Autumn’s bracing, splendid weather!
+    When the spicy, frost-bit, gold-hued forest leaves are falling,
+    When the fearless, dusky, brownish bob-white quail is calling,
+    Calling boldly from the stubble-field to his timid scattered coveys in
+      the thickets near,
+    So right off I get my “shooting-iron,” and my doggie I untether!
+    And away, away we blithely stroll together,
+    O’er the russet lawns, and on adown unto the fenlands, to our hearts so
+      dear.
+
+    And when arrived there soon,
+    Some rapid, random shots I take
+    At the frightened ducks that squawking leave the lake,
+    And my doggie on the run,
+    And the direful booming of my gun,
+    Sets my heart a-beating, beating,
+    For old Death himself might think that I were cheating, cheating
+    Him out of half the “sanguine kills” that he himself would joy to make.
+
+
+
+
+_POT-HUNTING BESIDE THE PLATTE_
+
+
+    Oh, what fun! Oh, what fun!
+    With my doggie and my gun
+    Tramping, tramping, strolling in the sun!
+
+    “_Quack! squack!_” Look there! Look!
+    Just above yon sluggish meadow-brook.
+    Six fat mallards up and off in flight.
+    Willie--Willie Greener! What delight!
+    Willie, watch me knock them left and right.
+    _Crack--crack_--sounds my good “repeater.”
+    _Crack--crack_--she may be an old shot-eater,
+    _Crack--crack_--did I miss the whole blamed bunch?
+    Oh, no; just “salted down six” for lunch.
+    Willie--Willie Greener! Talk about your handsome double gun!
+    But my beloved “pump,” why she just beats the band for fun.
+
+    Colorado laws protect (?) the quails!
+    But we make it warm for snipes and rails.
+    _“Quack! squack!”--crack--“squack”!_
+    Heavens! did I miss that “jack”?
+    Doggie--doggie--ain’t it funny
+    We so seldom now can find a bunny?
+    _“Honk--conk--honk”--pop-pop--pop-pop-pop--pop._
+    Great Scots! Watch those wild geese drop and flop.
+    My Muse! My Muse! By George, I think that we had better stop
+    Before George Shields, of “brittle brush sensation,”
+    Gets our photos (blushing photos!) painted for his Recreation.
+
+
+
+
+_THE ANTELOPE HUNT_
+
+
+    In the country of Bijou,
+    Just in sight of mountains capped with snow,
+    Stalking the “prong-horns” on the plain,
+    Once each year I go again.
+
+    The sun is up. His glorious smile
+    Illumes each ridge and dim defile.
+    The scent of sage and desert flowers
+    Makes dainty, sweet, these morning hours.
+    Forth leaps my steed; my pulses start.
+      By zephyrs cool my cheeks are fanned.
+    Away! Away! and with glad heart
+      I roam my own, my native prairie land!
+
+    Now, whilst broad grass-flats skimming o’er.
+    What thrilling dreams of days of yore,--
+    Of bison hunts that are no more;
+    Of Indians red that vanished, too,
+    Like much big game “ye old-time hunters” slew.
+    Save a few prong-horns, fleet and sly,
+    That still roam o’er these deserts dry,
+    Those beasts,--those nomads,--all are gone!
+    Like shifting sands, they hurried on,
+    As phantoms in a wizard’s glass,
+    Seen but a moment e’er they pass.
+    Such memories flash across my mind,
+    Then fading, leave regrets behind.
+
+    But hence, ye dreams! Away! Away!
+      Time is so brisk, so very fleeting;
+    High rolls the sun,--supreme his sway;--
+      Hot, red hot! on my poor head his beams are beating.
+    But no complaint,--I hunt to-day!
+      To-day I seek the noble quarry;
+    Just as of old I come to slay,
+      (I yearn to bag at least one prong-horn wary!)
+    But all in vain I scan the plain:
+      I scower, likewise, the ridges airy.
+    I halt, glance back, dash on again,
+      From right to left I keep a turning;
+      I plunge among the sand-hills burning,
+    Then in and out, around and over,
+    But I can find those sly beasts nowhere,--never!
+
+    Nay, neither hoof nor horn have I spied;
+    In all my mad Mazeppa ride;
+    Tempted by the mirage lake,
+    Mocking thirst it cannot slake,
+    Scanning landscapes dim and hazy,
+      Till my eyeballs nearly burst,
+    Till I seem a-going crazy
+      From pangs of heat and thirst,
+    Down, down to yonder sandy creek I will hie,
+    I must drink--and drink p-d-q--or surely I shall die.
+
+    Evening scents, and odors cool,
+    Flights of ducks above a pool;
+    Now, in the bunched sand-grass lying,
+    From a high hill-top I am spying;
+    In a neighboring deep ravine,
+    Stands my hobbled steed unseen;
+    All around, elsewhere, a cheerless waste,--
+    But see, there! At last! at last!
+    Trooping up yon sunny slope,
+    There! there! behold! My long-sought antelope!
+
+    Slowly, surely, toward me feeding,
+    A monarch buck his subjects leading;
+    Soon at my feet he will lie bleeding.
+    On,--on he comes! What a prize!
+    I can see his very eyes!
+    Now he stands _at gaze_,
+    In a half bewildered daze.
+    There,--not eighty yards away!
+    Turns his head the landscape to survey.
+    Horns a yard long (or perhaps a foot!)
+    Heavens! what a proud, exalted brute!
+    How,--how my pulses throb and thrill,
+    Oh, oh, _what a joy it is to kill_!
+    As I glance along the tube of death
+    I can scarcely draw my breath,
+    Suppressing the emotions that I feel,
+    Till my nerves grow firm as steel.
+    (Nay, nay; I tremble just a trifle.)
+    _Crack!_ sounds my little 30-30 rifle;
+    Down he goes,--like a rock!
+    Marcus Brutus! what a shock!
+    Just behind the left shoulder,
+    Struck him a thousand-pounds jolter.
+    Round me, now, prong-horns, snort and leap;
+      I could kill a dozen if I chose;
+    Drop them, almost, in a heap.
+      But I am not a butcher, God knows;
+    Yet, nathless I cut his throat,
+    And above him stand and gloat.
+
+    But when the deed is done, the excitement over,
+    I feel a sense of sorrow ever.
+    And when up to the gory scene
+    I lead my gentle, courser, Queen,
+    (She is a large gray, dapple mare,
+    With wavy tail and main, and glossy hair.)
+    Straight, straight up to my game she goes;
+    Oh, a thing or two she knows!
+    And I heave it on her back;
+    But it tumbles “overboard” ker-whack!
+    Does she snort, and pitch and bolt?
+    And “swat” me with her heels a jolt?
+    Oh, no,--just stretches forth her nose;
+    Just touches my victim with her nose;
+    Just fondles him with her soft, velvety nose,
+    Just caresses him as if he were a colt,
+    Just as if he were a little sleeping colt.
+    And she shames me with her eyes,
+    With her big, black, wondering eyes,
+    Full of reproach and surprise,
+    Till my heart within me cries,
+    Deploring these, my loved iniquities.
+    Till I vow to never kill again,
+    But, such oath, of course, will be forsworn!
+    And proud and happy homeward soon I hie;
+    I’ll be plotting other _coups de grace_ bye and bye.
+
+    In the country of Bijou!
+    Just in sight of mountains capped with snow,
+    Stalking the prong-horns on the plain
+    Will we go?--oh, will we go again?
+
+
+
+
+_AT MY LITTLE CABIN HOME_
+
+
+    At my little cabin home,
+      In the timber by the Platte;
+    Have I ever cared to roam?
+    Go away, quit, forsake my little, cozy, quaint, Colorado home?
+    No, no; I could not,--could not think of that.
+    Happy as a monarch I reside,
+    In the forest by my native river-side.
+
+    In the valley of the Platte
+      I am plucking flowers to-day,
+      Early wildings of the May.
+    See! I’ve nearly filled my hat!
+
+    Ridge-flowers red, sand-lilies white,
+      Tufts of snowy-crested plumes;
+      Currants crowned with golden blooms;
+    Hawthorne-buds, bursting into light.
+
+    Strolling in the grove,
+    Gathering flowers for my love,
+    Gathering sweet flowers of the May
+      Oh, my heart, my heart is glad to-day!
+
+    From my little cabin home
+      By the swiftly-flowing Platte,
+      Where the trout grow large and fat,
+    Have I ever cared to roam?
+    Go away, quit, forsake my little, cozy, quaint, Colorado home?
+      No, no; I could not,--could not think of that.
+    Happy as a monarch I reside
+    In the forest by my native river-side.
+
+
+
+
+_TO WALTER WHITMAN_
+
+
+    Walter Whitman! Walter Whitman!
+    Walter, won’t you never quit, man?
+      Say neighbor, say, throw those hyadons away!
+    Those small wigglers are not fit, man,
+      To make good canned sardines, I say.
+
+    Walter Whitman! Walter Whitman!
+      Walter, don’t you ever kind of wish
+    Just to drop down by the Platte and sit, man,
+      And laze, and laze, and yank out some big fish?
+
+    Walter Whitman! Walter, we have “whoppers” here!
+      What think you of twenty pounder trout?
+    Walt, Walt, bring along your spear,
+      You will call ’em “whales,” no doubt.
+
+    Walter Whitman! Walter Whitman!
+    Walter, ain’t you yet caught it, man?
+      Hey, neighbor! Hey there! I say.
+    Walt, Walt, just please step down to our house;
+    We have “natives,” “rainbows,” venison and grouse,
+      Come, Walter, come, dine with us to-day.
+
+
+
+
+_KING MAMMON_
+
+
+    Attended by his glittering train,
+      King Mammon drives his chariot by,
+    Prostrate and bleeding, on the plain,
+      His crushed, yet fawning, subjects lie.
+
+    A mighty monarch--oh, ho! ho! is he!
+      His hand shuts like a hasp.
+    He dictates to “the Powers that be”;
+      The nations tremble in his grasp.
+
+    For him “the lilies of the field”
+    Their sweetest, sacred incense yield.
+    He labors not--why should he toil?
+    (For him the servile millions moil!)
+
+    A tyrant old--ah, ha! ha! he is;
+    He rules the earth, he rules the seas,
+    The rolling planets he would chain;
+    He robs the farmers of their grain;
+    He cheats the worker of his wage;
+    He whelms the peasant in his rage;
+    The merchant’s ruin swells his gain;
+    Beneath his chariot wheels profane
+    Ten thousand wights each year are slain.
+
+    Kneel, then, ye hosts! Grovel on the plain!
+      King Mammon is driving by.
+    Behold! Thugs, cut-throats--in his train!
+      Hands up! Yield! Deliver! or ye shall die.
+
+
+
+
+“_LO QUE ES EL MUNDI_”
+
+
+    In the Old World, in the New,
+    Blameless mortals are but few;
+    Men are scheming--ever dreaming
+    Of the precious metals gleaming.
+    Ever bent on money getting,
+    They are fretting, they are sweating;
+    Some are sighing, almost crying,
+    Others cheating, others lying!
+    Some are fasting, some are pining,
+    Many over-drinking, over-dining;
+    Hundreds swearing, groaning, whining,
+    God forgetting! Joy declining!
+    Oh, the rabble, babble, scrabble, squabble,
+    Oh, the heart-ache, hate and strife and trouble,--
+    All for “filthy lucre,” that most greedy men would gladly gobble.
+
+    In the New World, in the Old,
+    Shameless wights are bought and sold;
+    Mammon tempts them with his gold;
+    Hungry “thralls” without positions,
+    Preachers, paupers, venal politicians,
+    Half-salaried clerks, quack physicians,
+    Useless drones with fat commissions;
+    Soulless sharks grab all below.
+    Syndicates and trusts, they “knead the dough!”
+    Honest labor, stands small show,
+    For Rothschilds & Company whole nations “hoe.”
+    Bursted banks make hard conditions,
+    Dampen, somewhat, our ambitions,
+    Aggravate our evil dispositions.
+
+    In the Old World, in the New,
+    Saintly “grafters” fleece the sinner crew.
+    Labor’s hard, they know, to shirk,
+    But the old “skin game,” can’t they work?
+    “Gospel guides” deign not to moil,
+    Nor earn their bread by honest toil.
+    Converted “lambs” they will despoil,
+    Yet oh, oh, their hands they hate to soil!
+    Collections large they love to see,
+    They e’en would pilfer charity!
+    How dare, how dare they levy tax on you and me!
+    _God’s word it should be free_,
+    So taught the Christ, they killed at Calvary!
+
+    Were, oh, were these “chosen few” but fewer!
+    Honest men then might profit more.
+    But long as selfish Self serves only Self,
+    So long as preachers preach for pelf,
+    The righteous will lag back and not lead,
+    “The heathen” will despise your creed,
+    And count “ye saints,” most scurvy knaves indeed.
+
+    Wolves! What wolves beset both church and state!
+    From prelate to chief magistrate,
+    God’s debater and ye legislator
+    Each alike to Heavy Purse will cater.
+    Oh old Money Bags, he knows
+    How to bribe “hobos”
+    To vote a “single tax”
+    That will break poor farmers’ backs
+    And poor bachelors’ backs--by Halifax!--as well.
+
+    Crush out small realty owners,
+    Exempt large money loaners,
+    Leave half the values unassessed,
+    Double the rates on the rest,
+    Limit the coinage, confiscate the lands,
+    Collect more revenues and rents
+    To pay--_to pay_ THE GOVERNMENT EXPENSE!
+
+    Oh, ye vile viper classes!
+    How ye prey upon the masses!
+    Burden your brethren, like so many stupid asses!
+    Tax-eaters and tax-beaters,
+    Cold voters, heelers, thugs and repeaters,
+    (Listen, ye doubting Thomases, ye Peters),
+    Czar Shylocks hath our millions got;
+    You and I have dearth of dimes, God wot?
+    Force and fraud, fakir and robber,
+    Shovel our dollars into their hopper,
+    For humanity, _such_ care not a copper.
+
+    Arise! Arise! Ye long down-trod,
+    Can Greed, can Wrong arrest the wrath of God?
+    Have ye no heart, no courage left?
+    Of reason, too, are you bereft?
+    Combine, combine ye hosts, with awful power,
+    _Organization will curb oppression in one brief hour_.
+
+    Beware! Beware! Ye sons of pride;
+      Watch well “the farmer with the hoe,”
+    Watch well the tradesman at his side,
+      They plot--they plan! a tyrant’s overthrow.
+
+    Up then! Unite! All honest men unite!
+    Amass your forces, drill, make ready for the fight.
+    Fall in line--fill up the ranks of Truth and Right.
+    March on! March on! In your native love of justice strong
+    Wage relentless, rebellious war on Greed and Wrong!
+
+    What, become anarchists? No, oh, no--thrice no.
+    Could Christian wish that blood should flow?
+    No, no; but brave like Him of Nazareth, the frail, the lowly,
+    Him who yet waged battles great and holy;
+    Such fearless warriors again shall clear the way.
+    Truths bravely told turn fraud away
+    By scorning, scathing cheats--by honest acts--by honest ballots--
+    Just men yet shall masters be who now are valets!
+
+
+
+
+_TO YE WORTHY SAILOR MAN_
+
+
+    Sailor-man! Sailor-man!
+    Sail on--and sing if you can:
+    “Sail on with a heart full of cheer,
+    With a confidence strong and sincere.
+    Fight out life’s daily battles without fretting or fear.
+    Tho’ your fond hopes may fail,
+    Never sit down with a tear to wail;
+    Just trim your sail to meet the ever-shifting gale
+    Of success and good-fortune; never despair.
+    Success and good-fortune, ever await those who persistently persevere.”
+
+    Sailor-man--tho’ it may seem hard to die,
+    To pass away and leave no trace behind,
+      No sign, no token of thy dark or bright career,
+    No glorious name to dower posterity,
+    Yet, oh, oh yet, he that doeth good, is honest and kind,
+      Or he who falls fighting bravely the righteous battle is just as
+        dear,
+    Is just as worthy and deserving in God’s eyes
+    As he who wins on earth immortal victories.
+
+    To serve thy great Creator faithfully
+      Should be thy constant solace and delight.
+    Truth and principle are worth more to thee
+      Than all the riches of earth’s treasury bright.
+    Better a life of worthy poverty and honorable defeat,
+    Than kingdoms won through oppression and deceit.
+
+    Sailor-man, sailor-man, the pure at heart alone are glad.
+      True happiness in bosom vile can never dwell.
+    The vain-glorious and the criminal both alike are sad.
+      Bid, then, to pride, vanity and malevolence farewell.
+
+    Sailor-man, sailor-man, in thy rectitude serene and strong,
+    Having done thy “lubber mates” no wrong,
+    So live on, sailor-man, that when thou shalt die,
+    To the mystic realms of Death thou shalt go trustingly;
+    With no guilt at thy heart, and no shame on thy face,
+    But being worthy, and confident still of His mercy and grace,
+    So thou shalt stand without fear in the grand, solemn courts Upon High,
+    Foreseeing that a kind, loving Wisdom beyond the dank grave
+    Will never let perish one single, pure, precious worthy life that He
+      gave.
+
+    Sailor-man, sailor-man
+    Sail on, it soon will be dawn.
+    Sail on, without fretting or fear.
+    The darkness is lifting--no breakers are near!
+    Sailor-man, sail on, with a heart full of cheer!
+
+
+
+
+_BE JOYOUS, BE GENTLE, WORTHY, KIND_
+
+
+    Be joyous! Yes, be joyous--be gentle, worthy, kind;
+    Fling rank, fling titles to the wind;
+    Put pride, put selfishness behind;
+    Throw caste, throw prejudice away!
+    Show mankind more humanity;
+    You may not live another day.
+
+    Why mortals frail? Why vain? Why proud?
+    Soon lowly ye shall lie, swathed in a shroud.
+    Alike, the rich, the great, the small,
+    The grave ere long engulfeth all.
+    Time’s scythe mows down all human kind;
+    Time spares no rank. Oh, Death and Time, are blind.
+
+    Then, mortals frail, be just, be good;
+    Treat not thy fellows mean and rude;
+    Ye who true happiness would know
+    Must kindness first to others show.
+    Learn, then, ye mortals who are sad,
+    Kind acts! Kind acts will make you glad.
+
+    Have honor, truth, and principle.
+    Thy word should be thy bond. Fulfill
+    Thy promises; nor lie for further favors still.
+    Cheat not That One who “credit” gives;
+    They who defraud are worst of thieves!
+    What chance have they in Heaven to dwell
+    Who swindle God and man on earth--pray tell?
+
+    Of worldly pelf, when thou hast need,
+    Go work, go work. ’Tis good to delve!
+    Hard labor counts. Be not afraid.
+    Great power lies within thy self.
+    Apply that force. Begin! Why wait?
+    Self-effort delays not that friends may aid.
+
+    Have courage! Yes, be brave.
+    Cowardice is a self-fettered slave!
+    Have lofty purposes, ambitious dreams!
+    He is a clod who never schemes.
+    Energy, economy, skill, thoroughness,
+    Par excellence, insures success!
+
+    Be useful. Yes, bear thy hard load!
+    Rebel not ’gainst the will of God.
+    Work! Work! All honest toil is blessed.
+    Work faithfully; soon thou shalt rest.
+    To further some great good intent He placed thee here;
+    Then murmur not--be of good cheer.
+
+    At one, at many failures be not dismayed.
+    Out of failures fortunes, master-works are made!
+    Thou cans’t be good, thou cans’t be great!
+    ’Tis not too late; tis not too late,--
+    Tho’ thy heart were black as night;--tho’
+    Thy hands were stained with blood,--yet
+    God’s grace (and penance yet) would make thee white as snow.
+
+    A purpose have--firmly fixed, unchangeable! Staid as are Hercules’
+      rocks.
+    Thus anchored fast unto Hope’s solid shore
+    Thou cans’t withstand griefs ruder schocks.
+    Let, oh let adversity’s mad ocean-billows roar
+    Round thee. Hate’s spume shall fall as sea-flakes tossed but in jest.
+    To pleasant dreams thou cans’t lie down, securely, sweetly rest
+    Disturbed by neither Slander’s viper-tongue nor Mar’s iron crest.
+
+    Build,--build thy abode on solid ground,
+    With massive walls and battlements around.
+    What tho’ misfortune’s myrmadons come thick and fast!
+    Abiding Confidence will rout the prowling foe at last.
+    Complacent be in darkness--complacent be in rain;
+    The never-quenched sun soon will shine again.
+
+    Lo! Is not earth a school? An outer court?
+    A place wherein rude Intelligence is taught?
+    Is not the soul immortal? Does not Death but tear away
+    Life’s soiled habilaments of clay?
+    If so--have, then, no fear of thy “good valet” Death.
+    He strips thee but to cleanse, and better clothe.
+
+    Have hope, have faith, have charity;
+    Strive to merit immortality.
+    At Pleasure’s fount dip deep.
+    In its pure ecstatic tide thy troubles steep.
+    Grave saint, if _righteous souls shall joyous live again_
+    Why should we sorrow here? Why vainly foster care and pain?
+    Nay, nay, most happy presence, acquainted best with Joy and Love
+    Are those best fitted, sir, for life,--for exalted consecrated life
+      above.
+
+    Then, mortals blest, why still? Why sad?
+    Cheer up, dear fellows, and be glad.
+    Live merrily--live while you may,
+    Gaily, gaily tripping along life’s way.
+      Waste not these few, these fleeting, precious hours;
+    After death, as after night, dawns the brighter, fairer day,
+      Be happy, then, be thankful, grateful as the flowers.
+
+
+
+
+_MY COLORADO_
+
+
+    Colorado! Oh, my own beloved Colorado!
+    Colorado, in the early days of spring;
+    Colorado, “when the birds are on the wing.”
+    Colorado, Colorado, ’tis of thee I dearly love to sing!
+
+    Colorado, when the brooks are flowing full and free;
+    Colorado, when “the herds come lowing o’er the lea”;
+      Colorado! Colorado! Oh, my own beloved Colorado!
+    Colorado is the place for you, friend, and for me.
+
+    Colorado, Colorado in the Autumn’s golden glow;
+    Colorado, when the hills are capped with snow;
+    Colorado, when the skies are soft and blue;
+    Colorado, Colorado,--how I do love you!
+    Colorado! Oh, my own beloved Colorado!
+
+
+
+
+_BEAUTIFUL COLORADO_
+
+
+    Colorado! Oh, what a glorious country!
+    Colorado! Could Nature more beautious be?
+      Colorado! See! Laughing sky is deep violet blue,
+    And rolling prairie is emerald hue,
+    While mountain leaps up from the foot-hill below,
+    Great billow on billow of lily-white snow.
+
+    Oh, look away to the south!
+    There yawns a canon’s great mouth,--
+    While out of the hazy distance beyond
+    Behold Pike’s proud peak, so mighty and grand!
+    Then lifting her snowy-white head high up in the West,
+    Like a fond mother o’er offspring asleep on her breast,
+    Madame Lincoln looks down on many a baby-peak’s crest.
+    And joyous ever, rippling, murmuring near,
+    With music most sweet to the ear,
+    We catch the glad, sparkling beam
+    Of our Platte River--muse-haunted stream.
+
+
+
+
+_AT LITTLETON “IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMER TIME”_
+
+
+    At Littleton! At fair, auspicious Littleton!
+    Upon a slope that tips it to the setting sun
+    The village stands. Its lanes are spacious, wide,
+    With purling brooks beside.
+    Its grounds are ample, and shade trees,
+    By the cool walks, arch greenly overhead.
+    The cottages by the thick leaves are almost hid.
+    On summer days, in wanton play, the breeze
+    Steals through the boughs, and down the beautious ways
+    The flowers scent the mellow airs,
+    And wavily beside the fount, where the clear water smiles,
+    Chaldea’s willow trails her silky hairs.
+
+    In pleasing contrast with yon damask rose,
+    How sweetly here the lily blows.
+    Here blissful poppies loll in calm repose,
+    And saucy sun-flowers coquette with the sun
+    At Littleton--at fair, auspicious Littleton!
+
+
+
+
+_AT ENGLEWOOD ON AN AFTERNOON IN MAY_
+
+
+    At Englewood--at cool, shady Englewood!
+    At Englewood to-day everything seems bright and good.
+    Here thrifty orchards blossoming lavishly around
+    Scatter their shell-like petals on the ground.
+    Here fragrance-exhaling lilacs scent the breeze,
+    And the wild-birds carol in the trees.
+    Here are fresh, green gardens,--and between, the flash of tiny rills;
+    And, beyond--behold--the everlasting hills!
+    Here crowds of happy people continuously we meet,
+    On the cars and in the street,
+    And a social spirit everywhere
+    Whispers,--“fellow traveler, abandon care”;
+    “Oh, for one afternoon, at least, be gay!”
+    “Enjoy sweet idleness, partner, while you may.”
+
+
+
+
+_SEEKING OUR TWO LITTLE BROWN BOYS_
+
+
+    Tell me, oh, my sweetest dove,
+    And ye watchful birdlings in the nest above,
+    Have you not seen our two little Brown boys?
+    Our two little _bad_ Brown boys?
+    They have both run away in quest of new toys
+    And now, now we are seeking--seeking in vain for our boys.
+
+    There’s the little boy Joy, and the little boy Love;
+    They have both toddled off, new pleasures to prove;
+    They are both much inclined for to rove,
+    And our rest and our peace of mind thus they destroy,
+    And now, now we can’t find neither bad boy.
+    Hah, there--ye rogues! through the thick bushes creeping,
+    At last, at last, me thinks I see them both peeping.
+    Come then--come ye dear babes--but whenever again we shall get you,
+    Run away, never, never more to-day, will we let you.
+
+
+
+
+_TEARS_
+
+  “Needless tears.”--Tennyson.
+
+
+    A-pleasure seeking all my days,
+      What use have I for churlish tears?
+    Or sorrow’s dirge? Or Melancholia’s lays?
+      Joy’s rosy foot-paths I would follow onward yet for years.
+    Blossoms gay, and butterflies;
+    Light and life--hope and high emprise!
+    Rainbow tints allure my eyes!
+    Spend not, spend not thy hours in weeping;
+    Soon, soon in the grave we shall be sleeping.
+
+    Pensive stranger, banish sadness;
+    Search the fields in quest of gladness;
+    Seek in sunshine, seek in shadow,--
+    Joy is waiting in the meadow.
+    Kindly faces, tempers sweet,
+    Loving friends on life’s journey we shall meet.
+
+    Tourist, then,--traveler,--grief is madness;
+    Tarry not with frenzy-chained Sadness.
+    Hark! hark! In budding forests near
+    Happy birds are singing clear;
+    Nature’s heart is full of cheer.
+    Spend not, spend not thy hours in weeping.
+    With hope, with joy thy heart, thy care-constrained heart, it should be
+      leaping.
+
+
+
+
+_TO OUR LITTLE JOY-PRINCE--CHERUB DELIGHT_
+
+
+    Come! thou little rosy urchin; come, I pray thee.
+    Sorrow’s hand no longer here shall delay thee.
+    Down among the tall, green grasses swaying,
+    Where the lambs and lambkins glad are playing,
+    In meadows warm, where the lassies fair, and the laddies, are a Maying,
+    In flower-decked fields we likewise should be straying.
+    By still waters bright,
+    Where the wild ducks curve in rapid flight,
+    Basking in the warm sunshine;
+    Drinking in a joy divine.
+    In cool gardens, full of flowers,
+    Sweeter than the famed Hercynian bowers;
+    Happy here, we should while away life’s fleeting hours.
+    On soft beds of fragrant ferns and roses,
+    Where the Love god oft reposes,
+    By the red-winged black-bird’s nest,
+    Where some tired mortals so long to lie down and rest,--
+    Blest companions of the birds and bees,--
+    Here, shall not we fall asleep beneath the trees?
+    Puck and Pan, they may come find us if they can.
+    Or Fairy Mab, with cunning spying,
+    Discover the lolling rushes, where we are lying.
+    But that fretful little hunch-back Ogress Woman,--She,
+    who ever prates of care and pain,--
+    She our hiding place shall seek in vain.
+    Come, then, thou little rosy regent Prince of Peace and Pleasure,
+    In fields and woods to-day, we shall squander many hours of joy and
+      leisure.
+
+
+
+
+_INTROVERSE RETROSPECTION_
+
+
+    ’Mongst life’s sunny highlands I have strayed,
+    Shunning Mammon’s vale of shade;
+    And while wandering I’ve been pondering,
+    And I feel,
+    As onward toward the tomb I steal,
+    That all our worldly toys, and troubles, are unreal.
+    Riches is a doubtful chattel,
+    Titles merely childish prattle;
+    Sorrow is illogical, demoniacal dreaming.
+    Joy and Hope alone are real--death is only but in seeming.
+    For gladness, then--for better life we ever should be scheming.
+    Fame holds forth for us a false, illusionary flower.
+    Build, Folly! Build thy tower!
+    Canst thou evade the inevitable hour?
+    Toil, Pharoah, toil! Thy doom
+    To build a pyramid--thy tomb!
+
+
+
+
+_SUNDRY SWEETS_
+
+
+    Oh, oh, how I love to plant the tender tree!
+    What tho’ it bear no fruits for me?
+    Its shady boughs, its leafy greenery,
+    Its balmy, budding youthful gladness
+    Will cheer me when in age and sadness.
+
+    “Hah, there!” A nice little girl just sauntered by;
+    I smiled at her, she smiled at me,
+    And now we both are smiling, don’t you see?
+
+    Whoopla--ha! ha! What a picnic!
+      A lady just kissed me at the train.
+          (But it wasn’t meant for me!)
+    “How strange!” you say, “how very queer?”
+    (Oh, she mistook me for her hubby dear,)
+      Who signaled her, and yelled in vain.
+      Observing tourists thought he’d gone insane.
+          Yes, I enjoyed it more than he,
+          That kiss that wasn’t meant for me.
+
+    Now that I’ve made my little fortune,
+    I have lots of fun,--
+      There’s not a thing I miss.
+    I am so glad, I am so gay;
+    If Psyche throw my love away,
+      If I “fall out” with Chloris
+    I will, I will be merry still.
+    A smile, a smile,--
+    Have I not won a smile,
+      A smile from charming little Doris?
+
+
+
+
+_FELICITOUS RETROFLECTIONS_
+
+
+    Tho’ this life may have its many thousand ills
+    And nameless woes--and the gait or the grind kills--
+    Yet with all this, “this life it is most jolly”;
+    What folly to consort, then, with Care and Melancholy!
+
+    Petty troubles should not grieve thee,
+    Of thy happy dreams bereave thee.
+    Faint of heart--cark was a “quitter” ever.
+      Undaunted cheer kept bravely on!
+    Stop not to brood o’er failures--never,--never!
+      Almost defeated “Trojans” have oft the battle won.
+
+    Sharpest thorns among red roses;
+    Bitter rind sweet fruit encloses,
+    And a pinching, pestering torment teaches this:--
+    Vanquished sorrow adds greater zest to bliss!
+
+
+
+
+_LITTLE LOVE A-FISHING WENT_
+
+
+    On a hot summer day--alack the day!
+      Little Love a-fishing went.
+    To the “river cool,” he took his way,
+      And there met Beauty gay,--by accident.
+
+    Of knotted twine, Love made a line,
+      For a hook a pin he bent;
+    And this “tackle,” he thought fine,
+      That never cost him a red cent.
+
+    Beside the Platte the gleeful stripling sat,
+      But when approaching Beauty he espied,
+    He rose to fly--she snatched his hat;
+      Then little Love fell down and cried.
+
+    Bold Beauty plucked him from the grass
+      And held him in her tender arms.
+    His pouting lips she tried to kiss;
+      This “added much” to his alarms.
+
+    Ah, would I were that fisher-lad!
+      Then Beauty gay, might have her way.
+    What tears of joy would not I shed,
+    Would she but snatch “my old white hat!”
+      Would she come kindly, sweetly, kiss my fears away.
+
+
+
+
+_AT MANITOU_
+
+
+    At Manitou--at delectable Manitou!
+    Oh, oh, if I only just had a million or two
+    I would build a cottage--a cottage at Manitou.
+
+    Now in the sunshine, now in the shade,
+    Smoothly the train slides down the grade.
+    Plunging into tunnels as black as night,
+    Out again into the clear sunlight!
+    Curving around grassy hillsides warm and bright;
+    High above, a torrent as white as snow,
+    Dashing and splashing in the gorge below;
+    Nearing now a ruined fortress old and brown,
+    A Titian fortress by the demi-gods pulled down.
+    Passing by gay companies at wayside places,
+    Maidens and men, and youths’ and children’s faces,--
+    And oh, oh, everything is bright, everything is new!
+    In the beautiful village we are swiftly passing through!
+    Castles and cottages crowning the cliffs;
+    Castles and cottages nestling away down in the boulder drifts;
+    Castles and cottages perched on crags and peeping from splintered
+      rifts.
+    Castles and cottages beneath and above,--
+    Cosy abodes,--bright as the bowers of love!
+    Oh, oh, if I only just had a million or two
+    I surely would build a cottage--a cottage at Manitou.
+
+
+
+
+_AT DENVER_
+
+
+    At Denver, at sunny Denver town;
+    At Denver, where the snowy hills look down;
+    At Denver, where the ladies never frown;
+    At Denver,--at classic Denver town.
+
+    At Denver, at jolly Denver town.
+    At Denver,--in the autumn of the year,--
+    At Denver, when the merry crowds assemble, and King Carnival draws
+      near.
+    At Denver,--at festive Denver town.
+
+    At Denver,---at social Denver town,--
+    At Denver, there “the portly parson” smiles and winks,
+    At Denver,--there the naughty boys take their drinks
+    And the lithesome lassies dance “high jinks,”
+    At Denver--at gay, athletic, youthful Denver town.
+
+    At Denver--if you ever go to Denver town
+    You will surely see the circus and the clown.
+    You will hear them sweetly rhyme
+    Of the pleasures of their clime
+    And they’ll, pretty tolerably nearly, “show you a jolly good time”
+    At Denver--if you only go to Denver town.
+
+
+
+
+_TO OUR LADY OF WOE_
+
+
+    Dolores, dear, cease, kindly cease thy moaning;
+      Thy cares, thy troubles, are thy own.
+    None, none, will heed thy hollow groaning--
+      “Weep, and you weep alone!”
+
+    “Laugh! and the world laughs with you!”
+      Sorrow none would choose to borrow;
+    These are maxims old and true,
+      “Clouds to-day--sunshine to-morrow.”
+
+    Unhappy priestess,--pray be good!
+      Why, why all these sighs and tears?
+    Come, learn of Joy and God’s plenitude!
+      To Bliss, not Grief, belongs thy blooming years.
+
+
+
+
+_REGRET_
+
+
+    I know that I must die;
+      This is my one regret.
+    I hope, of course, to gain immortality,
+      That is, in “the sweet bye and bye!”
+    But, oh, to leave this world of cheer and fret,
+    This is my regret--my great regret.
+
+    Truly I grieve, to pass from earth away,
+    To realms, perchance, of brighter day.
+    So glad I am that I have lived and been;
+    That I have joyed and chafed,--and strived to keep my conscience free
+      from sin.
+    Oh, if I could, gladly I would, live life’s wondrous dream of pain and
+      pleasure o’er--aye! many times o’er again.
+
+
+
+
+_OF PARADISE, ETC._
+
+
+    Of Paradise ’tis sweet to dream,
+    And life beside the Elysian stream!
+    In flowery vales ’mong scenes above,
+    Why loves the fancy so to rove?
+
+    Why does man so berate the earth?
+      Are there no shrines for reverence here?
+    The Mother World that gave him birth
+      Has always been man’s sport and sneer.
+
+    Is Nature, then, so harsh and cold?
+      Has she no warmth, no love, no light?
+    Does she her children cuff and scold?
+      Are mankind, then, her special spite?
+
+    No, no! Earth loves her human brood!
+    Earth is a mother kind and good.
+    ’Tis man alone--inglorious wretch!
+    Who would his parents’ name besmirch.
+
+    Love, then, the world! Is it not fair?
+      Could God design a brighter, cosier sphere.
+    Of clay, of water, wood and air?
+      Were man but just, what paradise were here!
+
+
+
+
+_ON IMMORTALITY_
+
+
+    For immortality, all mortals sigh,
+    Men are not dead, then, when they die?
+    Fond Hope dispels our mental fears,
+    Transports the thoughts to happier spheres.
+
+    And yet,--’tho we ceased here in rayless night,
+    Have we not had our share of light?
+    Of summer sunshine, cloud and showers,
+    Bright rainbow tints, bright birds and flowers?
+
+    O’er dearth of years is it not selfishness to grieve?
+      How much of unawakened clay,
+      Has yet not had its glimpse of day,
+    Has yet not felt the thrill of life?
+
+    Anon, anon, when his long race is run,
+      Will not man gladly rest in his cool tomb?
+      For other lives we should make room;
+    Sleep they not best, whose hard life’s work is done?
+
+
+
+
+_A FELICITOUS MEDICAL PRESCRIPTION_
+
+
+    For human woes, for human ills,
+    My learned Muse an anodyne distills,--
+    A priceless panacea for the sad.
+    Some balm she has, some extracts of herbs she gathers among the hills,
+    (Take one small teaspoonful if you’re really feeling bad)
+    Some tinctures rare she stores, of sweet, medicinal water-flowers,--
+    (Warranted to “kill pain” in two hours!)
+    Some infusions of lotus leaves, fresh plucked from pools in fancy’s
+      rills
+    (Oh, what a long-felt want, this “all-curative” fills!)
+    Just one minim will do you much good;--a gill will make you unusually
+      glad.
+    (Only known sure specific for poor human wights gone mad.)
+      Truly there’s nothing better in Earth’s pharmacies!
+    Try one “free-trial package” every fortnight if you choose.
+      A “prize gift box” will flush pale cheeks and brighten saddened eyes;
+    And enough of the wonderful “stuff” just knocks the socks off of the
+      blues.
+
+    Sad friend--have hope! have hope!
+    Don’t fret, don’t fuss, don’t mope;
+    Just take your dope! Just take your dope!
+    No good, no good to swear or pine,
+      (When, Great Scot’s! There’s heaps of virtue in our anti-trouble
+        pills!)
+    And zounds--look at the price! That surely should suit fine:--
+    “Doc” pays the bills! “Doc” pays the bills!
+
+
+
+
+_TO THOSE DARK EYES THAT HAUNT ME STILL_
+
+
+    We met--’twas while passing through the crowded street-car door.
+      We met--for one brief moment her dark eyes gazed into mine.
+    Oh, what wonderful, beautiful, bewildering brown, black eyes they were!
+      Large, languorous--“swimming in the stream!”
+      Seeming to melt to their own beam.
+    Great lustrous, magnetic orbs, o’erfilled with glints of passion and
+      with dreams divine!
+    We met--we gazed--her modest glances fell, then, to meet mine
+      nevermore.
+
+    We met--we parted--but, oh! those dark, resplendent, dream-eyes they
+      haunt me still.
+      Potent influences they hold for good or ill.
+    Star-lights, that could lead man’s wandering foot-steps safely up the
+      steeps to Paradise,
+    Or plunge him downward dazzled to the depths of hell!
+    Beatific lady! I wonder will for me those peerless lenses ever beam
+      again!
+    And, oh (in modesty) have they not beveiled their fires from mine
+      before?
+    Descendant of some enchantress, princes, peasant-girl, or queen.
+      Have not we known each other, long ere this, upon some foreign shore?
+    In aeons past,--by Time’s wide river drifted far apart,--
+      Did we not once dwell happy in a better land?
+    Reincarnated spirits, are not ours, spirits of lovers oft parted, tho’
+      ever loth to part?
+    Lady--lady--did not we as old-time sweethearts once walk fondly hand in
+      hand?
+
+
+
+
+_MY MOTOR-CYCLE GIRL AND I_
+
+
+    My motor-cycle girl and I are a sport-loving pair;
+    Too speedy for Sorrow, we race away from dull Care;
+    We startle Deacon Gossip, we shock Madame Trouble,
+    “Dear, oh, dear, how awful!” they say; “what a very swift couple!”
+
+    We are out late at night,--out again next day!
+    Do we enjoy life? Well, I should say!
+    “Are we fond of rapid riding?” Oh yes; indeed! But what is the harm,
+    Since we hurt nobody, and speed has its charm?
+    Sometimes, we rest in the park, ’neath the leafy shade;
+    Do we fret and jaw, and chew the straw, when there ain’t no sweet in
+      our lemonade?
+    Yes; well, yes, then to church we go with a right good will,
+    “Oh, oh, how can they sit there so serene and still?”
+    Says Trouble to Gossip, “and smile--and smile--and smile,--
+    And tremble not, when the minister mentions ----?” Well, well!
+    Our lives are chaste, and we have no dread,
+    Of sulphurous caldrons, or ovens red-hot.
+    We taste no “sour, old apples” that we should not!
+    In thrifty orchards by the cool wayside, trees are laden with purple
+      plums and crimson cherries.
+    Yet oh, oh, yet, for “forbidden fruit” we never do fret,
+    In our basket for lunch we have cake and sugar and cream and fried
+      chicken and rich ripe preserved strawberries.
+
+    In the flower-decked meadows, sometimes, we are tempted to stray
+    But a big notice reads, “Stay out--Keep off the Alfalfa.”
+    By the sweet green fields, therefore, we fairly fly,
+    Nay, nay, on the “sacred grass,” we never trespass;
+    And furthermore, we never get gay, nor sass Farmer Gray,
+    When we meet him in town, and he offers to sell us some hay!
+
+    And do my girl and I love? Well, now, come, come! Can’t you guess?
+    If we don’t, of course, of course I’m not to blame,
+    For she is such a fair, fresh young rosebud you know,
+    And I am--well, she just calls me--just plain “Uncle Sam,”
+    But I am--of _course I’m her beau_!
+    Of a buggy-ride this friend of mine and I are fond,
+    But the “metalsome steed” is our chief delight.
+    Adown the road we scurry at a lively rate,
+    And the slow-going crowd is left behind.
+    “Caloric individuals,” like we are, they say
+    “Are liable to get scorched some--some very fine day.”
+
+    But my blithe merry lass and I never hear--we are speeding away!
+    And little, how little, care we for what rude tattlers say?
+    With consciences clear as lilies are white.
+    We heed not the slur of Envy and Spite.
+    Let cripples and criplets stand aside in dismay;
+    We will be young when they are decrepit and gray.
+    Let Troubles and Gossip mistrust us and spy;
+    We will be angels ere such “saints” learn to fly.
+
+
+
+
+_DIFFERENCES OF OPINION_
+
+
+    Some men may differ from our creed,--
+        Give our good advice small heed.
+        Some men may not be our way of thinking.
+      But if they are honest they surely should be frank,
+    And not behind one’s back, go winking, blinking!
+      And say, “behold! a crank--there goes a crank!”
+    Or else hide in a crowd and yell:
+    “An infidel! An infidel!
+    A ski-shod pilgrim, coasting blindly down the road to hell.”
+
+    Fellow--churlish fellow, if thou never cans’t be joyous,
+    Why with constant fretting thus wilfully annoy us?
+    Does thy sorrow so need company
+    That thou wouldst meanly pester those who would gladly comfort thee?
+    How selfish, then--how unkindly such must be
+    As would wish to force unwilling ones to share with them their
+      self-imposed misery.
+
+
+
+
+_IN THE FOREST_
+
+
+    In the leafy fastness of the forest, there are sounds of mirth and
+      gladness,
+      Strange wild symphonies that tell of peace and rest,
+    Dulcet cadences, unlike, unakin unto the noises heard in marts of human
+      strife and madness,
+    Vile discords that make existence in life’s crowded hippodromes seem
+      displeasurable, irreligious and unblest.
+
+    Deep, deep in the shady sanctuaries of the wildwood
+      Druid lives of old were happily lived and beautiful I find;
+    What tho’ Nature’s children sometimes seem harsh and rude!
+      They never really are ungrateful or unkind.
+
+    Deep, deep in the peaceful quiet sylvans, rosebuds fall and fade.
+      Littering the green-sward o’er whereon I lie,
+    Yet dreaming still “beneath my bowers, blossom-woven shade”
+      Blissfully I linger, while the summer days go by.
+
+
+
+
+_MY SUMMER GIRL AND ME_
+
+
+    Under the green-wood tree
+    Joyfully,
+    Rest my summer girl and me.
+    Fonder, franker pair, hath never been
+    A-courting here upon the lawn.
+    Oh, my dear, you look so sweet,
+    All in lace and satin white,
+    With that rosebud in your hair,
+      And those lips that seem to say,
+      “You may, you may,--nay, nay,--nay, nay,”
+    “You may kiss me--don’t you dare!”
+
+    Under the green-wood tree
+    Life is full of witchery.
+    Listen, then, dissembling girl, to me:
+
+    Come, come, fair one; no more delay.
+    Come, come, sweetheart, and marry me?
+    What, what care we for worldly state?
+    For mansion proud, or titles great?
+    My humble cot, beside the Platte,
+    With thee its mistress, well might seem
+      Fairy May Queen’s bower, and life an Eden dream.
+    With hope, with health, enough to eat,
+    Our cup of joy were full indeed.
+    For having all that makes Earth dear,
+    How could, how could we wish for more?
+    Come, then, my love; no more delay;
+    Name, name, oh, name our wedding day!
+
+    Under the green-wood tree
+    Soon married we shall be,
+    My dainty summer girl and me.
+
+
+
+
+_A REQUIEM_
+
+
+    To-day--alas, to-day, there’s a tear in my eye,
+            And deep at my heart there’s a pain.
+          With a sob and a sigh the winds hurry by,
+      They are singing, singing a sad refrain.
+    “Nay, nay,” they seem to sing, they seem to say,
+      “Nay, nay, we shall never meet Mabel again.”
+
+    Nay, nay, we shall never meet Mabel again.
+      Too gentle and fair, for this rude world of jostle and care;
+    Too kind-hearted and good, for this hard life of trouble and pain,
+    So the angels, they have taken Mabel away,
+    But ’tis sweet, it still is sweet to think that some day,
+      In that “beautiful city Up There,”
+    Maybe we shall meet our dear little friend Mabel again.
+
+    Yet to-day,--oh, to-day, there’s a tear in each eye,
+      And deep at each heart there’s a pain;
+    Through the over-cast sky, dark trailing clouds hurry by,
+      And it looks like rain.
+    While the winds are singing,--still singing that sad refrain.
+      “Nay, nay,” they seem to sing, they seem to say:
+    “Nay, nay, we shall never meet Mabel again.”
+
+
+
+
+_FAREWELL!--I AM STILL CAMPING!_
+
+
+My dear tourist friend--farewell! Farewell perhaps forever. Farewell!
+I am still camping! In the cool shade of the cottonwoods beside the
+Platte, I am camping. I who erstwhile in careless youth’s hilarious
+days, a handsome book of verse and prose did write and print, a book
+that has neither brought me fame nor fortune as yet; nay, nay, and it
+never will.
+
+Ha, ha, ha! Yes, I am still camping. In delightful tranquility and in
+the generous shelter of the tall timber close down by the clear blue
+water’s side, my humble little abode is still standing. Its dingy
+white-washed walls may yet be seen peeping out pleasingly from among
+the thick green leaves of the patriarchal trees of the forest.
+
+Yes, yes; I am still camping. Pegasus, my “broncho plug” (my vaunted
+poet’s steed!), has long since been turned loose to browse on the
+luxurious sage-brush, and the crisp buffalo-grass of the Great Plains.
+Genevieve, my docile cow, too, has strayed away, or else she has been
+stolen, which I know not, neither do I care, as I am in the “stock
+business” no longer.
+
+To-day, to-day, just as of yore; seated still on the same old
+log,--silently--silently, still, I am angling in the Platte. Angling
+still for “suckers” in the eddying tide, but alas! alas! they do not
+bite. They seem to realize perfectly, clearly, that I have been along
+this way before. They seem, metaphorically, to say, “No, sir, no; we
+respectfully decline your book-worm-bait, and your cunningly contrived
+fly-productions.”
+
+Yea, yea; it is the same old story--“a fisherman’s luck! A fisherman’s
+luck!” Yet, nevertheless, I am ever hopeful and content to wait. God’s
+good will will be done, no doubt in his own good time. This is my
+consolation. “Nor cease I yet to wander where the Muses haunt--clear
+brook and shady rill.” Green bank and blue, unclouded sky. Quiet grove
+and breezy hill. Fresh flowers and the songs of birds. These all
+make musical and brighten still my dreams, and gladden likewise my
+long-expectant eye.
+
+But farewell, my dear tourist friend---farewell, perhaps forever! And
+when back again unto “orient realms” thou shalt soon have returned,--
+
+    “Just tell them that you saw me while out West,
+    Just mention that I’m camping,--they will surely know the rest!”
+
+
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY
+
+
+
+
+_NEW GLAD VOICES_
+
+
+    To-day--to-day--the birds again are singing and rejoicing,
+      Nature’s great heart, once more, with pleasure thrills;
+    Mortals--mortals--we to our gladness should be voicing.
+      Not brooding o’er life’s griefs and ills.
+
+    Has not the world had enough of sorrow?
+      Is not the world yet done with tears?
+    Joy _to-day_--if thou wouldst joy to-morrow,
+      Away with care--away with frets and fears.
+
+
+
+
+_MAY-DAY BESIDE THE PLATTE_
+
+
+To-day--to-day! It is sweet May-day again beside the Platte. The
+cottonwoods are putting forth their green. The wild, red-roses and
+the white plum-blossoms scent the air. The lark is in the fields;
+the robin’s cheery voice is heard. The golden flecker and the oriole
+make music in the woods. The dove’s low cooing woos the murmur of
+the streams, and the merry blackbirds chant amid the wild, sweet
+meadow-grass, and starry-eyed asclepia blooms.
+
+The vast, green prairie spreads around. Its boundless lawns are sweet
+with flowers. The “bonny-bells” and “yellow eyes” have decked the
+sunny slopes with gold. The round, green hills are gay with dandelions
+and daisies. The sweet blue-flags, the “yuccas” and the “artemisias”
+brighten everywhere.
+
+Northward, amid his banks of bloom and graceful curves, the “silver
+river” glides. Westward, a dozen miles beyond, the stream, and, looming
+over all in grand relief, appears the old, shining Rocky Mountains,
+the snowy range towering amid the storm-clouds, and the purple
+foot-hills, like the Titan forms of old among the shattered fortresses
+of vanquished gods!
+
+Dreamer, you are in Colorado--you stand upon the banks of the Platte.
+The great, wild prairie stretches all around us. Its smooth, green
+lawns are bright with silver brooks and crystal lakes. Hundreds of wild
+fowl disport upon the water’s blue, unrippled bosom. Long strings of
+cattle come forth to drink--others graze in droves among the low, round
+hills near by. How beautiful! how bright! how grassy wild! how fair and
+sweet!
+
+Dreamer, does not your heart grow glad? This is a land for rest and
+holiday! You hear the hum of golden bees. You feel the soft flow of the
+air. The sky is clear and blue and bright. The fields are green and
+dry and warm. The woods are beryl-hued and full of singing birds. High
+above you, snowy mountains tower--“Long” and “Lincoln” prop the sky.
+You behold Pike’s Peak further south--its blue sides terminating in a
+crown of snow.
+
+My name is Brown--Sam Brown. I was born under the shadow, as it were,
+of these grand old Rocky Mountains. Thirty years ago, when all this
+vast region of plains and mountains, extending from the Mississippi
+River on the east to the shores of the Pacific Ocean on the west, to
+the Mexican Gulf on the south, and to the British possessions on the
+north, was an almost unexplored wilderness, filled with wild beasts and
+hostile Indians, my father and mother crossed the plains in a “prairie
+schooner,” drawn by a yoke of oxen. They came west early in ’59, with
+the first rush of those hardy gold seekers whose motto was “Pike’s Peak
+or Bust!”
+
+Finding mining unprofitable they settled down to farming and
+stock-raising near the base of the mountains. Here to them four sons
+were born--of whom I am the eldest, having been born on March 21, 1860.
+I am a Colorado pioneer--yes, born of a pioneer ancestry--and it is
+with a sense of pride that I point out to you the fact. I also take a
+kind of grim pleasure in informing you that my earlier life was spent
+in the free and easy pursuits of a cowboy, and that my first childhood
+playmates were the red Indians of whose boundless liberty I used to
+feel very envious during my school days.
+
+Many incidents which occurred away back in the “sixties,” when we white
+settlers used to have to fortify ourselves at Denver, to avoid being
+scalped by the Arapahoes and Cheyennes, are still fresh in my memory.
+
+Denver, which is now a city of nearly 200,000 inhabitants, was in
+those days but a mere hamlet of several dozen shanties, standing
+almost entirely on the west bank of Cherry Creek. What a change has
+taken place about my home within the space of but a few brief years!
+On the little plateau where Fort Logan stands to-day, I shot my first
+“prong-horn,” and oftentimes I have played ball with Willie Bates and
+Jimmy Steck on the grounds now occupied by our State’s capitol and
+County’s court-house.
+
+All of those dry uplands, where I used to pasture my cows, are
+now covered in season with wavy fields of wheat, maize and
+alfalfa--meadows, orchards and blooming garden plats. Where the Indian
+wigwam smoked but a few brief summers gone by, lordly mansions and
+pleasant homes are standing to-day. But the humble structure in which
+I was born has not been torn down yet. It stands on the west bank of
+the Platte River, near Littleton, and in Denver’s beautiful suburb,
+Wynetka. My parents, who still live at the old homestead, but now in
+a large and comfortable farm-house, have preserved the little old log
+cabin as a relic of bygone days.--_Written Jan. 20, 1890._
+
+
+
+
+_MY NATIVE LAKES_
+
+
+Of those silent pools, far remote in that wild Western land--the land
+of my nativity--I am dreaming to-day.
+
+Away out there, where the old, shining Rocky Mountains seem to reach
+off to the ends of the world, where the great plains stretch away
+in boundless undulations of wavy greenery, as far as the eye can
+see--there Colorado’s lakes rest in eternal calm.
+
+In other times--bright boyhood days, now forever flown--mounted on
+a shaggy broncho, with gun in hand, and followed by a long-legged,
+one-eyed hound, I have often driven my cattle there to drink. Again,
+in light canoe, with double-bladed oar, I have glided for hours along
+the scarcely rippled tide, chasing the diver-ducks and the blue coots
+so tame, or trying random shots at the mallard-ducks and wary teal that
+flew nearly out of range, high up overhead. Now and then a lucky shot
+would bring me down a great white pelican or a blue crane. Yet more
+often I would kill a brant or a Canadian goose.
+
+Beyond the lake a tiny cascade could be seen, pouring down its silvery
+flood from the lofty, snow-capped heights above. At the mountain’s foot
+the foamy tide fell into a little pool, and there, after forming itself
+into a little brook, it ran off flashing in the sunlight, across green
+meadows, beside leafy groves, and along flowery banks, until at last
+it found its way down to the great, blue, laughing lake, where it lost
+itself in the silent tide.
+
+At the mouth of the stream, and just beside the wood, stood an Indian
+village--the white tepees of which could be plainly seen, peeping out
+from among the green glades and leaves of the trees. The red Indian,
+too, was often in sight, for he loved to loiter along those pleasant
+shores. Many times have I met him angling patiently along the banks of
+the small stream. At other times I have watched him for hours chasing
+the wild herds of the plain. The fallow-deer, the “prong-horn,” the
+bison and the elk he called his “cattle,” and he claimed them as his
+own.
+
+His was a happy, careless life--as aimless and as dreamy as my own.
+Nature supplied his every want. His orchards were the thickets of
+cherries and wild-plums. His harvests of golden grain were the fields
+of yellow sun-flowers. His gardens were the untilled fields, and there
+his vegetables grew. The roots and bulbs he knew supplied his pottage.
+Honey was stored for him by the wild bees, and the beasts of the field
+gave him their furry coats to keep him warm. His dusky mate was an easy
+love, and she always treated him with kindness. His life was one of
+sportive ease, and I have often envied him his happy lot.
+
+It was an indescribable joy to me in those old days to stroll along
+the white-pebbled beach of the lake and gather shells. I also loved to
+roam among the green, round hills near by and gaze out across the calm
+blue lake, or let my glances wander afar off up those shining straits,
+channeled out, as they are, like mighty gateways among the cliffs
+and crags of the ancient hills. Far away they would widen out again
+into broad lakes, or else they would wander off and lose themselves
+in narrow straits among the splintered crags and snow-capped peaks of
+the not distant mountains. Often, as I would sit gazing up into those
+mystic gulfs and weird canons, stretching far away among the hills, I
+would fancy in my childish innocence that I could catch glimpses of
+another world which lay dimly visible in the “far beyond.” I had hopes
+of being able, some day, to propel my little bull-hide boat into that
+wonderful realm of the “great unknown.” The long lines of “sand hill”
+cranes, the sharp phalanx of white geese, the flutter of swans’ wings,
+circling away across the distant marsh lands, appeared as the flash of
+angel wings. To me they seemed as the spirits of the blest, circling
+through celestial skies or hovering above the shores of Paradise.
+
+
+
+
+_THOSE ARE THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS_
+
+
+“Those are the Rocky Mountains”--yes, those long, blue lines of
+cordilleras just above you are the foot-hills, and those tall, white
+peaks standing afar off beyond, and appearing ethereal and ghost-like
+in the dim distance, are the ice-clad summits of the “snowy-range.”
+
+“Those are the Rocky Mountains”--yes, and _these_ are the great plains.
+Oh, what a beautiful, green, wild world this is! How can one live in
+such a land and not be glad! It is a day of God, and the wild herds
+of the plain are grazing all around us. They range in droves among
+the low, round hills near by, or lick “alike” in the deep, basin-like
+valleys below, where often we catch the shimmer of some fairy lake.
+
+“Those are the Rocky Mountains”--yes, and as we ride along, across
+the smooth, white plain, with the warm sunlight streaming down from a
+cloudless heaven upon us--streaming down through an atmosphere as clear
+as glass--as sparkling and as buoyant as any air upon the earth--as we
+ride along, gazing out across the great, green world and up at the blue
+sky, and then upon those stupendous peaks and everlasting snow-clad
+hills, my spirit thrills with a deep delight, and I feel a something,
+stranger, that you know not of.
+
+“Those are the Rocky Mountains”--yes, and oh! I was born, as it were,
+under the very shadow of their snow-covered heads. While yet a baby in
+my mother’s arms I first gazed out upon those everlasting hills.
+
+While yet a little child I used to draw mountains upon my slate. Rude
+sketches they were, no doubt, but how could I live and love, and
+yet not limn that which so much I loved? I knew not then of poet or
+painter’s art, nor ever dreamed that I myself should rhyme some day,
+and paint and write and limn with words, and tell men of my childhood’s
+dreams.
+
+In boyhood days how often have I lain upon the mossy river brim and
+gazed out, through the vistas of the leafy trees, up at those blue,
+bright, snow-capped peaks beyond! How often, among the warm, green
+meadow grass, gay with May-flowers, have I wallowed just below those
+rocky heights! How often, in those glad young days, have I longed to
+climb those dizzy cliffs and crags and towers, or to rove among those
+caves and rifts and dells and canons deep, to prospect there for gold
+and gems and fruits and blossoms rare! Oh, how I longed to cross over
+the range, as other boys and bearded men had done! It was there that
+the Indians located their “Happy Hunting Grounds,” or the “Regions of
+the Blest.” Over there they said it was that the good Indians went
+after death. I had also heard men tell of California--“a delightful,
+warm country,” they said, “where it is always summer, and where fruits
+and flowers are plentiful and can always be had just for the picking.”
+They said that a great, wide, blue sea, called the Pacific Ocean,
+rippled along the coast of that green, warm land, and that the beach
+of the sea was strewn with many-colored and richly-tinted shells. How
+I longed to visit that glorious sunset land, just over the range, but
+in my childish innocence I imagined it must be an almost life-long and
+herculean task to surmount those stupendous and lofty heights where
+the snows of centuries lay piled up in great banks and drifts hundreds
+of feet in depth. I also fancied that I could sometimes see the forms
+of giant warriors stalking about among those wild crags and cliffs.
+In my belief they were the guardian watchers of those “Happy Hunting
+Grounds” of the Indians. I regarded them as sentries stationed along
+the outposts of that blessed place, whose duty it was to turn back all
+adventurous travelers whom they might catch attempting to enter that
+terrestrial paradise of the great, wild West.
+
+One day, while my father, my mother, my brothers and myself were on
+a plumming and raspberrying excursion, my father made a remark that
+awoke a new superstition within my soul. My mother was driving our
+wagon, which was drawn by a yoke of gentle oxen, through the level of
+a beautiful vale, surrounded by lofty peaks, when my father, looking
+up, said to me in a mysterious kind of way, “My son, the Genus of the
+hills is looking down with wonder, for lo, behold, yonder is Madam
+Progress driving by in her ox-propeller car.” Ever after that I had a
+superstitious dread of this same Genus of the hills, and it was not
+until long years afterward, when the dry learning and colorless truths
+of youth had begun to dispel the flowery fancies, poetical fictions and
+glorious myths of my childhood, that I dared to explore or venture far
+into those same Genus-haunted hills.--_From May Day Dreams, published
+1890._
+
+
+FINIS.
+
+
+
+
+_The price of_ HAPPY DAYS _in cloth is $1, prepaid. Copies may be had
+by addressing The Reed Publishing Company, 1756 Champa Street, Denver,
+Colo. Remit by express or post-office money order, bank draft or
+registered letter._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s note
+
+
+Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Hyphenation
+has been standardized.
+
+Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following
+changes:
+
+  Page iv: “Premit, therefore, this”          “Permit, therefore, this”
+  Page ix: “felicitious, although”            “felicitous, although”
+  Page 48: “God’s debator and ye”             “God’s debater and ye”
+  Page 48: “Listern, ye doubting”             “Listen, ye doubting”
+  Page 69: “a cottag     Manitou”             “a cottage at Manitou”
+  Page 87: “patriarchial trees of the”        “patriarchal trees of the”
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76651 ***