Mountain idylls, and Other Poems Part 2

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 cla.s.ses and conditions, and surveyed, From a secluded niche or aperture, The various, ever-changing mult.i.tude Which pa.s.sed 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 appet.i.te; Some following vocations quite reverse From those which nature had endowed them for; Some pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+ning on so great a personage, A being more than ordinary clay, And much superior to the vulgar herd!

Some faces pa.s.sed which knew no kindly look, And felt no friendly pressure of the hand; And if the face depict the character, Some pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 wors.h.i.+ped at proud fas.h.i.+on'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 blus.h.i.+ng 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 l.u.s.t for gold; The bloated drunkard, sinking 'neath the weight Of wa.s.sail 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, Pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sumption 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 const.i.tute the vast and endless chain Of human life, and human destiny,-- The strange phantasmagoria of fate.

So we, in life's procession, pa.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce afar, a shooting star, With swift, uncertain course, In dazzling sparks its pa.s.sage 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 canon 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Where the mountains high, cleave the azure sky, With their turrets so bleak and gray."

LIZARD HEAD, SAN MIGUEL COUNTY, COLORADO.]

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