Mountain idylls, and Other Poems | Page 3

rigid and compact;
In labyrinth
of branches interspread,
Impervious to the rain and midday sun;
In
form spontaneous, without regard
To law of uniformity, there stand

In silent awe, or whispering to the breeze,
The sombre fir and
melancholy pine.
And many a denuded avenue
Of varying and
considerable width,

Cut through the growth of balsam, spruce and
pine,
Which stands erect and proud on either hand,
Attests the swift

and desolating force
Of fearful, devastating avalanche.
[Illustration: "The trachyte wall beseamed and battle scarred."
SCENE IN OURAY COUNTY, COLORADO.]
The mountain rill its pleasant music makes,
As the descendant waters
roll along,
In rhythmic flow and dulcet cantabile,
In various
concord and harmonious pitch,
Pursuant of its journey to the sea;

The murmuring treble of the rivulet,
Uniting with the deep and
ponderous bass
Of torrent wild and foaming cataract;
The
thunderous, reverberating tones
And seething ebullition of the falls

Are blended in one grand euphonious chord.
Far in the hazy distance, as the eye
With vague perceptive vision
penetrates,
Lie the vast mesas of ethereal hue,
Stretched in a calm
and sleepy quietude,
Dreamy repose and blue tranquillity;
The eye
which rests upon the drowsy scene
Beholds a dim horizon, which
presents
No line of demarcation or of bounds;
A merging union,
blurred and indistinct;
Fuliginous confusion, that the eye
In viewing
gazes, but no more discerns
Which is the earth, and which the azure
sky.
But mark the change!
A cloud, which floated in the atmosphere,
An
inconsiderable and feathery speck
Of no proportions, now augmented,
wears
A threatening aspect, ominously dark;
Enveloping the
heaven's canopy
In lowering shadow and portentous gloom;
In pall
of ambient obscurity.
The fork-ed lightnings ramify and play
Upon
a background of sepulchral black;
The growling thunders rumble a
reply
Of detonation awful and profound,
To every corruscation's
vivid gleam;
In deep crescendo and fortissimo,
In quavering
tremolo and stately fugue
Echoes, reverberates and dies away!
But soon the sun, with smiling radiance,

Through orifice, through rift
and aperture,
Invades the storm, and dissipates the clouds,
Which

scatter, cowering and ephemeral,
Hugging the cliffs, and o'er the dire
abyss
Hover, in fleecy, ever changing form,
And in a transient
season disappear;
Vanish, as man must vanish, and are gone.
The moist precipitation of the storm
Revives, refreshes and
invigorates
The various vegetation, and bedews
Each blade of grass
and floweret with a tear;
As nature, weeping o'er the faults of man.
[Illustration:
"Would seem in more accord and harmony,
With such
surroundings than the puny form
Of insignificant, conceited man."
UNCOMPAHGRE CAÑON, NEAR OURAY, COLORADO.]
The day recedes, and twilight's neutral shade
Succeeds in turn, and
ushers in the night,
Whose wings, outstretched and shadowy, descend,

And in nocturnal mantle robes the scene.
A hush prevails! Oppressive and profound;
A silence, broken only by
the breeze;
A dormant quiet-essence and repose;
Pervading calm
and sweet oblivion,--
As nature wrapt in soft refreshing sleep.
Far in the east a solitary star
Peeps through the sombre curtain of the
night--
In hesitating dubitation burns;
In lonely splendor, flashes for
a time,
Till scattering celestial lights appear,--
The vanguard of an
astral multitude
Of constellations, jewelled and serene,
Which fill
the lofty dome of space, until
The heavens sparkle with the myriad

Of spectra, nebulae and satellite;
With stellar scintillation, and the
orbs
Of less refulgence, which, reflective shine;
With falling star
and trailing meteor;
In one grand culmination, glittering
To their
Creator's glory!
A burst of mellow lunar radiance
Inundates and illuminates the scene;

The waxing moon, in her meridian full,
Her beam vicarious
disseminates,
And shining, hides with her superior light,
The
twinkling beauty of the firmament!

At the stupendous and inspiring sight
Of cosmic grandeur of the
universe,
A sense of vague and overwhelming awe;
Of
inconceivable immensity,
The being's inmost recess permeates;

And man, the atom in comparison,
In spellbound admiration, mutely
stands;
With speculative meditation, dwells
On that most solemn of
impressive thoughts,
The goodness of the Deity to man![A]
[Illustration:
"Both solitary and in straggling groups;
In solid
phalanx, rigid and compact."
MOUNTAIN SCENE, SAN JUAN COUNTY, COLORADO.]
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Composed at St. Anthony's hospital, Denver, Colo., from whence
the author was led hopelessly blind.
Nature's Child.
I love to tread the solitudes,
The forests and the trackless woods,

Where nature, undisturbed by man,
Pursues her voluntary plan.
Where nature's chemistry distills
The fountains and the laughing rills,

I love to quaff her sparkling wine,
And breathe the fragrance of the
pine.
I love to dash the crystal dews
From floral shapes of varied hues,

And interweave the modest white
Of columbine in garlands bright.
I love to lie within the shade,
On grassy couch, by nature made,

And listen to the warbling notes
From her fair songsters' feathered
throats.
And freed from artificial wants,
I love to dwell in nature's haunts,

And by the mountain's crystal lake
A rustic habitation make.

I love to scale the mountain height
And watch the eagle in his flight,

Or gaze upon the azure sea
Of aerial immensity.
I love the busy marts of trade,
I love the things which men have made,

Though man has charms, none such as these,
In him the child of
nature sees.
To the Pines.
Ye sad musicians of the wood,
Whose dirges fill the solitude,

Whose minor strains and melodies
Are wafted on the whispering
breeze,
Whose plaintive chants and listless sighs,
Ascend as incense
to the skies;
Do solemn tones afford relief,
With you, as men, a vent
for grief?
[Illustration:
"Inverted in fantastic form,
Below the