Mountain idylls, and Other Poems

Project Gutenberg's Mountain idylls, and Other Poems, by Alfred Castner King
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Title: Mountain idylls, and Other Poems
Author: Alfred Castner King
Release Date: October 20, 2004 [EBook #13809]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: Portrait of Author]
Mountain Idylls?and Other Poems
BY?ALFRED CASTNER KING
CHICAGO: NEW YORK: TORONTO?Fleming H. Revell Company?LONDON and EDINBURGH
1901?FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY?MAY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue?Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.?London: 21 Paternoster Square?Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street
TO THE MANY FRIENDS WHO HAVE SO?KINDLY ASSISTED IN THE ARRANGEMENT?OF THE MANUSCRIPTS FOR?PUBLICATION, AFTER THE SHADOWS?OF HOPELESS BLINDNESS DESCENDED?UPON ME FOREVER, THIS VOLUME?IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
Table of Contents.
Preface?Grandeur?Nature's Child?To the Pines?Reflections?Life's Mystery?The Fallen Tree?There is an Air of Majesty?Think Not That the Heart Is Devoid of Emotion?Humanity's Stream?Nature's Lullaby?The Spirit of Freedom Is Born of the Mountains?The Valley of the San Miguel?To Mother Huberta?Suggested by a Mountain Eagle?The Silvery San Juan?As the Shifting Sands of the Desert?Missed?If I Have Lived Before?The Darker Side?The Miner?Life's Undercurrent?They Cannot See the Wreaths We Place?Mother--Alpha and Omega?Empty Are the Mother's Arms?In Deo Fides?Shall Love, as the Bridal Wreath, Wither and Die?Shall Our Memories Live When the Sod Rolls Above Us?A Reverie?Love's Plea?Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust?Despair?Hidden Sorrows?Oh, a Beautiful Thing Is the Flower That Fadeth?Smiles?A Request?Battle Hymn?The Nation's Peril?Echoes From Galilee?Go, and Sin No More?Gently Lead Me, Star Divine?Dying Hymn?In Mortem Meditare?Deprive This Strange and Complex World?The Legend of St. Regimund?As the Indian?The Fragrant Perfume of the Flowers?An Answer?Fame?The First Storm?Thoughts?From a Saxon Legend?Christmas Chimes?The Unknowable?The Suicide?I Think When I Stand in the Presence of Death?Hope?Metabole
List of Illustrations.
Portrait of Author?"Grandeur"?Mount Wilson?Mountain View in San Juan?Scene in Ouray?Uncompahgre Ca?on?Mountain Scene in San Juan?Emerald Lake?Scene near Telluride?Bridal Veil Falls?Lizard Head?Trout Lake?Box Ca?on Looking Inward?Ouray, Colorado?Box Ca?on Looking Outward?Ironton Park?Bear Creek Falls
[Illustration: "A Wilderness of weird fantastic shapes."]
PREFACE
"Of making many books there is no end."--Eccles. 12:12.
When the above words were written by Solomon, King of Israel, about three thousand years ago, they were possibly inspired by the existence even at that early period of an extensive and probably overweighted literature.
The same literary conditions are as true to-day as when the above truism emanated from that most wonderful of all human intellects. Every age and generation, as well as every changing religious or political condition, has brought with it its own peculiar and essentially differing current literature, which, as a rule, continued a brief season, and then vanished, perishing with the age and conditions which called it into being; leaving, however, an occasional volume, masterpiece, or even quotation, to become classic, and in the form of standard literature survive for generations, and in many instances for ages.
Poetry has always occupied a unique position in literature; and though from a pecuniary stand-point usually unprofitable, it enjoys the decided advantage of longevity.
The mysterious ages of antiquity have bequeathed to all succeeding time several of earth's noblest epics, while the contemporaneous prose, if any existed, has long lain buried in the inscrutable archives of the remote past.
The two most notable of these, the Iliad and the Odyssey, are believed to have been transmitted from generation to generation, orally, by the minstrels and minnisingers, until the introduction or inception of the Greek alphabet, when they were reduced to parchment, and, surviving all the vicissitudes of time and sequent political and religious change, still occupy a prominent place in literature.
The Book of Job, generally accepted as the most ancient of writings, now extant, whether sacred or secular, was doubtless originally a primitive though sublime poetical effusion.
The prose works contemporaneous with Chaucer, Spencer, and even with that most wonderful of literary epochs, the Elizabethan age, are now practically obsolete, while the poetical efforts remain in some instances with increased prominence.
Someone, (although just who is difficult to determine,--though it savors of the Greek School of Philosophy,--)has delivered the following injunction: "Do right because it is right, not from fear of punishment or hope of reward." Waiving the question as to whether it is right or not to compose poetry, he who aspires in that direction can reasonably expect no material recompense, though the experience of Dante, Cervantes, Leigh Hunt, and others, proves conclusively that poets do not always escape punishment. In fact, about the only emolument to be expected is the gratification of an inherent and indefinable impulse, which impels one to the task with equal force, whether the ultimate result be affluence or a dungeon.
The author of this unpretentious volume has long questioned the advisability of adding a book to our already inflated and overloaded