Mountain idylls, and Other Poems | Page 4

water line."
EMERALD LAKE, SAN MIGUEL COUNTY, COLORADO.]
Reflections.
On the margin of a lakelet,
In a rugged mountain clime,
Where
precipice and pinnacle
Of countenance sublime,
Cast their weird,
austere reflections
In the water's glistening sheen,
I strolled in
contemplative mood,
Both pensive and serene.
As in a crystal mirror,
In that lakelet's placid face,
I saw the
mountains upside down,
With all their pristine grace;
I saw each
cliff and point of rocks,
I saw the stately pine,
Inverted in fantastic
form
Below the water line.
I paused in admiration;
And with calm complacency
I marveled at
this photograph
From nature's gallery;
And as my eyes surveyed the
scene
With solemn grandeur fraught,
This simile flashed through
my mind
As instantly as thought:

As the stern, majestic mountains,
Without error or mistake,
Were
reflected in the bosom
Of that cool, pellucid lake,
So our every
thought and action,
Be it deed of hate or love,
May be
photographed in record
In that gallery above.
Life's Mystery
I live, I move, I know not how, nor why,
Float as a transient bubble
on the air,
As fades the eventide I, too, must die;
I came, I know not
whence; I journey, where?
The Fallen Tree.
I passed along a mountain road,
Which led me through a wooded glen,

Remote from dwelling or abode
And ordinary haunts of men;

And wearied from the dust and heat.
Beneath a tree, I found a seat.
The tree, a tall majestic spruce,
Which had, perhaps for centuries,

Withstood, without a moment's truce,
The wing-ed warfare of the
breeze;
A monarch of the solitude,
Which well might grace the
noblest wood.
Beneath its cool and welcome shade,
Protected from the noontide
rays,
The birds amid its branches played
And caroled forth their
twittering praise;
A squirrel perched upon a limb
And chattered
with loquacious vim.
E'er yet that selfsame week had sped,
On my return, I sought its shade;

But where it reared its form, instead;
A fallen monarch I surveyed,

Prostrate and broken on the ground,
Nor longer cast its shade
around.
Uprooted and disheveled, there
The monarch of the forest lay;
As if
in desolate despair
Its last resistance fell away,
And overwhelmed,
in evil hour
Went down before the tempest's power.

Such are the final works of fate;
The birds to other branches flew;

And man, whatever his estate,
Must face that same mutation, too!

To-day, I stand erect and tall,
The morrow--may record my fall.
There is an Air of Majesty.
There is an air of majesty,
A bearing dignified and free,
About the mountain peaks;
Each crag of weather-beaten stone

Presents a grandeur of its own
To him who seeks.
There is a proud, defiant mein,
Expressive, stern, and yet serene,
About the precipice;
Whose rugged form looks grimly down,
And
answers, with an austere frown
The sunlight's kiss.
The mountain, with the snow bank crowned;
The gorge, abysmal and
profound;
Impress with aspect grand:
With unfeigned reverence I see
In canon
and declivity
The All-Wise Hand.
Think Not that the Heart is Devoid of Emotion.
Think not that the heart is devoid of emotion,
Because of a
countenance rugged and stern,
The bosom may hide the most fervent
devotion,
As shadowy forests hide floweret and fern;
As the pearls
which are down in the depths of the ocean,
The heart may have
treasures which few can discern.
Think not the heart barren, because no reflection
Is flashed from the

depths of its secret embrace;
External appearance may baffle
detection,
And yet the heart beat with an ethical grace:
The breast
may be charged with the truest affection
And never betray it by action
or face.
[Illustration:
"Where nature's chemistry distills,
The fountain and
the laughing rills."
SCENE NEAR TELLURIDE, SAN MIGUEL COUNTY,
COLORADO.]
Humanity's Stream.
I stood upon a crowded thoroughfare,
Within a city's confines, where
were met
All classes and conditions, and surveyed,
From a secluded
niche or aperture,
The various, ever-changing multitude
Which
passed along in restless turbulence,
And, as a human river, ebbed and
flowed
Within its banks of brick and masonry.
Within this vast and heterogeneous throng,
One might discern all
stages and degrees,
From wealth and power to helpless indigence;

Extravagance to trenchant penury,
And all extremes of want and
misery.
Some blest by wealth, some cursed by poverty;
Some in
positions neutral to them both;
Some wore a gaunt and ill-conditioned
look
Which told its tale of lack of nourishment;
While others
showed that irritated air
Which speaks of gout and pampered appetite;

Some following vocations quite reverse
From those which nature
had endowed them for;
Some passed with face self-satisfied and calm,

As if the world bore nothing else but joy;
And some there were
who, from the cradle's mouth,
As they pursued their journey to the
grave,
Had felt no throb save that of misery;
The man of large
affairs passed by in haste,
With mind preoccupied, nor thought of else

Save undertakings which concerned himself;
The shallow son of
misplaced opulence
Came strutting by with self-important air,
With

head erect in a contemptuous poise,
As if the stars were subject to his
will,
And e'en the golden sun was something base,
Which had
offended with its wholesome light
In shining on so great a personage,

A being more than ordinary clay,
And much superior to the vulgar
herd!
Some faces passed which knew no kindly look,
And felt no
friendly pressure of the hand;
And if the face depict the character,

Some passed so steeped