Mountain idylls, and Other Poems | Page 9

in humanity's name,?Some uplifting effort, or self-immolation,?Our memories shall live in the temples of Fame.
A Reverie.
O, tomb of the past?Where buried hopes lie,?In my visions I see?Thy phantoms pass by!?A form, long departed,?Before me appears;?A sweet voice, long silent,?Again greets my ears.
Fond memory dwells?On the things that have been;?And my eyes calmly gaze?On a long vanished scene;?A scene such as memory?Stores deep in the breast,?Which only appears?In a season of rest.
Once more we wander,?Her fair hand in mine;?Once more her promise,?"I'll ever be thine";?Once more the parting,?The shroud, and the pall,?The sods' hollow thump?As they coffinward fall.
The reverie ends--?All the fancies have flown;?And my sad, lonely heart,?Now seems doubly alone;?As the Ivy, whose tendrils?Reach longingly out,?Yet finds not an oak?To entwine them about.
Love's Plea.
I love thee, my darling, both now and forever,?My heart feels the thralldom of love's mystic spell,?'Tis fettered with shackles which nothing can sever,?To the heart which responds to its passionate swell.
I love thee, my darling, with love that is stronger,?Than all the fond ties which the heart holds enshrined;?Adversity, sorrow or pain can no longer?Detract from this heart, if with thine intertwined.
I love thee, my darling, with sacred affection,?Which death, nor the cycles of time shall efface;?Nor from my heart's mirror, erase thy reflection,?Nor tear thy fond heart from its fervent embrace.
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust.
Is there a Death? The light of day?At eventide shall fade away;?From out the sod's eternal gloom?The flowers, in their season, bloom;?Bud, bloom and fade, and soon the spot?Whereon they flourished knows them not;?Blighted by chill, autumnal frost;?"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust!"
Is there a Death? Pale forms of men?To formless clay resolve again;?Sarcophagus of graven stone,?Nor solitary grave, unknown,?Mausoleum, or funeral urn,?No answer to our cries return;?Nor silent lips disclose their trust;?"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust!"
Is there a Death? All forms of clay?Successively shall pass away;?But, as the joyous days of spring?Witness the glad awakening?Of nature's forces, may not men,?In some due season, rise again??Then why this calm, inherent trust,?"If ashes to ashes, dust to dust?"
Despair.
Ill fares the heart, when hope has fled;?When vanishes each prospect fair,?When the last flickering ray has sped,?And naught remains but mute despair;?When inky blackness doth enshroud?The hopes the heart once held in store,?As some tall pine, by great winds bowed,?Doth snap, and when the tempest's o'er,?Its noble form, magnificent and proud,?Doth prostrate lie, nor ever riseth more;?Thus breaks the heart, which sees no hope before.
Ill fares the heart, when hope has fled;?That heart is as some ruin old,?With ancient arch and wall, o'erspread?With moss, and desolating mold;?Whose banquet halls, where once the sound?Of revelry rang unconfined,?Now, with the hoot of owls resound,?Or echo back the mournful wind;?In whose foul nooks the gruesome bat is found.?The heart a ruin is, when unresigned;?No hope before, and but regret behind.
[Illustration:?"Its noble form magnificent and proud,?Doth prostrate lie, nor ever riseth more."
IRONTON PARK, OURAY COUNTY, COLORADO.]
Ill fares the heart, when hope has fled;?That heart, to fate unreconciled,?Though throbbing, is as truly dead?As though by foul decay defiled;?That heart is as a grinning skull,?With smiling mockery, and stare?Of eyeless sockets, or the hull?Of shipwrecked vessel, bleached and bare,?Derelict, morbid, apathetic, dull,?As drowning men, who clutch the empty air,?The heart goes down, which feels but blind despair.
Hidden Sorrows.
For some the river of life would seem?Free from the shallow, the reef, or bar,?As they gently glide down the silvery stream?With scarcely a ripple, a lurch, or jar;?But under the surface, calm and fair,?Lurk the hidden snags, and the secret care;?The waters are deepest where still, and clear,?And the sternest anguish forbids a tear.
For others, the pathway of life is strewn?With many a thorn, for each rose or bud;?And their journey o'er mountain, o'er moor, and dune,?Can be plainly tracked by footprints of blood;?But deeper still lies the hidden smart?Of some secret sorrow, which gnaws the heart,?And rankles under a surface clear;?For the sternest anguish forbids a tear.
But, when the journey's end we see,?At the bar of the Judge of quick and dead,?The cross, which the one bore silently?May outweigh his of the bloodstained tread.?The cross unseen, and the cross of light,?May balance in that Judge's sight;?O'er the heart that is breaking a smile may appear,?For the sternest anguish forbids a tear.
O, a Beautiful Thing Is the Flower That Fadeth!
O, a beautiful thing is the flower that fadeth,?And perishing, smiles on the chill autumn wind;?A sweet desolation its ruin pervadeth,?A fragrant remembrance still lingers behind.
O, a beautiful thing is the glad consummation?Of a life that is upright, untarnished and pure;?That spirit, when freed from this earth's animation,?Shall live, as the heavens eternal endure!
Smiles.
There is the warm, congenial smile,?Benign, and honest, too,?Free from deception, fraud, and guile;?The smile of friendship true.
There is the smile most fair to see,?Which wreathes the modest glance?Of spotless maiden purity;?The smile of innocence.
There is the smile