Mountain idylls, and Other Poems | Page 6

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.
[Illustration:
"Where the mountains high, cleave the azure sky,

With their turrets so bleak and gray."
LIZARD HEAD, SAN MIGUEL COUNTY, COLORADO.]
FOOTNOTES:
[B] San Miguel, pronounced "Magill," the Spanish form of St. Michael.
To Mother Huberta.
_As repeated in chorus on the anniversary of her Names-day by the
Sisters of St. Hubert at St. Anthony's Hospital, Denver, Col., Oct. 29,
1900._
Mother, our greetings be to thee,
On the glad anniversary
Of this,
thy festive day;
Thy daughters, daughters not of earth,
But bound
by cords of Heavenly birth,
Their love and greetings pay.
We thank thee, Mother, for thy care,
Thy watchfulness, and fervent
prayer;
And if 'tis Heaven's will,
May many a returning year
And
namesday find our Mother here,
Constant and watchful still.
Blest be that autumn brown and sere!
Bless-ed the day and blest the
year,
Of his[C] nativity!
Blest be the hospitals, which rise,

Resultant of thy enterprise,
Thy zeal and fervency.
Blest be that hunter[D] saint of thine!
Bless-ed the deer, and blest the
sign
Between its antlers broad!
To us, thy daughters, is it given

To bless thee, in the name of Heaven,
And blessing thee, bless God.
FOOTNOTES:
[C] St. Hubert.

[D] St. Hubert, the apostle of Ardennes, a saint of the Roman Catholic
Church, the patron of huntsmen. He was of a noble family of
Acquitaine. While hunting in the forests of Ardennes he had a vision of
a stag with a shining crucifix between its antlers, and heard a warning
voice. He was converted, entered the church, and eventually became
Bishop of Maestricht and Liege. He worked many miracles, and is said
to have died in 727 or 729. Spofford's Cyclopædia, Vol. 4, page 470.
Suggested by a Mountain Eagle.
I gazed at the azure-hued mantle of heaven,
The measureless depths
of ethereal space;
I gazed at the clouds, so invisibly driven,
And an
eagle, which wheeled with symmetrical grace.
I gazed at that eagle, majestically wheeling,
With dignity, born of the
free mountain air;
I envied that bird, with an envious feeling
Which
springs from a heart that is shackled with care.
I envied that eagle, which bowed to no master,
But soared at his will,
through the ambient skies,
Defiant of danger, and scorning disaster,

He screamed at the cliffs, which re-echoed his cries.
I envied that bird, on that fair summer morning,
When nature lay
decked with spontaneous art,
As he circled, with aspect defiant and
scorning,
And perched on a pinnacle's loftiest part.
[Illustration:
"And by the mountain crystal lake
A rustic habitation make."
TROUT LAKE, SAN MIGUEL COUNTY, COLORADO.]
And scanning the scene with a stern indecision,
He spread his dark
wings, with intuitive cries,
And sped, till acute and inquisitive vision

Discerned but a movable speck in the skies.

When the shades of the evening, so listless and dreary,
Descend on
the valley, his wing never flags,
As through the dark shadows he
soars to his eyerie,
Which nestles among the impregnable crags.
Ah! fain would I rise on thy feathery pinions,
Above the material
cares of the day,
And float over earth's most enchanting dominions,

As clouds, by the zephyrs, are wafted away!
The Silvery San Juan.
Wherever I wander, my spirit still dwells,
In the silvery San Juan[E]
with its streamlet and dells;
Whose mountainous summits, so rugged
and high,
With their pinnacles pierce the ethereal sky;
Where the
daisy, the rose, and the sweet columbine
Blend their colors with those
of the sober hued pine;
Where the ceaseless erosions of measureless
time,
Have chiseled the grotto and canon sublime;
Have sculptured
the cliff, and the stern mountain wall;
Have formed the bold turret,
impressive and tall;
Have cut the deep gorge with its wonderful caves,

Sepulchral and gloomy; whose vast architraves
Support the
stalactites, both pendant and white,
Which with the stalagmites
beneath them unite;
Where nestles a valley, sequestered and grand,

Worn out of the rock by the same tireless hand,
Surrounded by
mountains, majestic and gray,
Which smile from their heights on the
Town of Ouray.
[Illustration:
"Where the ceaseless erosions of measureless time,

Have chiseled the grotto and canon sublime."
BOX CAÑON, LOOKING INWARD, OURAY, COLORADO.]

Wherever I wander, my ears hear the sound
Of thy waters, which
plunge