Mountain idylls, and Other Poems | Page 7

with a turbulent bound
O'er the precipice, seething and laden
with foam;
My ears hear their music wherever I roam;
Where the

cataract's rhapsody, joyous and light,
Enchants in the morning and
soothes in the night;
Where blend the loud thunders, sonorous and
deep,
With the sobs of the rain as the black heavens weep;
Where
the whispering zephyr, and murmuring breeze,
Unite with the soft,
listless sigh of the trees;
And where to the fancy, the voices of air

Wail in tones of distress, or in shrieks of despair;
Where mourneth
the night wind, with desolate breath,
In accents suggestive of sorrow
and death;
As falls from the heavens, so fleecy and light,
The
winter's immaculate mantle of white;
Wherever I wander, these
sounds greet my ears,
And the silvery San Juan to my fancy appears.
FOOTNOTES:
[E] Pronounced San Wan. Spanish form of St. John.
As the Shifting Sands of the Desert.
As the shifting sands of the desert
Are born by the simoon's wrath,

And in wanton and fleet confusion,
Are strewn on its trackless path;

So our lives with resistless fury,
Insensibly and unknown,
With a
restless vacillation
By the winds of fate are blown;
But an All-Wise Hand
May have changed the sand,
For a purpose
of His own.
As the troubled and turbulent waters,
As the waves of the angry main,

Respond with their undulations
To the breath of the hurricane;
So
our lives on Time's boundless ocean
Unwittingly toss and roll,
And
unconsciously drift with the current
Which evades our assumed
control;
But a Hand of love,
From the skies above,
May have guided us past
a shoal.
Ephemeral, mobile, and fleeting,
Our delible paths we tread;
And

fade as the crimson sunset,
When the heavens are tinged with red;

As the gorgeously tinted rainbow
Retains not its varied dyes,
We
change, with the constant mutation,
Of desert, of sea, and skies;
But the Hand which made,
Knows each transient shade,
Which
passes before the eyes.
[Illustration: "Which smile from their heights on the town of Ouray."
OURAY, COLORADO.]
Missed.
Pity the child who never feels
A mother's fond caress;
That childish
smile a void conceals
Of aching loneliness.
Pity the heart which loves in vain,
What balm or mystic spell
Can
soothe that bosom's secret pain,
The pain it may not tell?
Pity those missed by Cupid's darts,
For 'twas ordained for such,

Who love at random, but whose hearts
Feel no responsive touch.
If I Have Lived Before.
If I have lived before, some evidence
Should that existence to the
present bind;
Some innate inkling of experience
Should still imbue
and permeate the mind,
If we, progressing, pass from state to state,

Or retrograde, as turns the wheel of fate.
If I have lived before, and could my eyes
But view the scenes
wherein that life was spent,
Or even for an instant recognize
The
climes, conditions and environment
Beloved by them in that pre-natal
span,
Though past and future both be sealed to man;
Or, if perchance, kind memory should ope'
Her floodgates, with fond
recollection fraught,
'Twould then renew the dormant fires of hope,


Now smothered out by speculative thought;
'Twould then rekindle
faith within a breast,
Where doubt is now the sole remaining guest.
The Darker Side.
They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
And the birds the most
happy of all,
But the sparrow, pursued by the sparrowhawk,
Savors
more of the wormwood and gall.
They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
But the groan may
dissemble the laugh;
E'en now from the meadow is wafted the sound

Of a bovine bewailing her calf.
They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
But the moss often covers
the rock;
Every animal form is beset by a foe,
For the wolf always
follows the flock.
For the animal holds all inferior flesh
As its just and legitimate prey;

Every scream of the eagle a panic creates
As the weaker things
scamper away.
They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
But the smiles are all
needed to sweeten
The struggle we see so incessantly waged
To eat,
and avoid being eaten.
And men, with their genial competitive ways
Present no decided
improvements,
For their personal gain they will sacrifice all
Who
may stand in the way of their movements.
The Miner.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
The song of the hammer and drill!
At the
sound of the whistle so shrill and clear,
He must leave the wife and
the children dear,
In his cabin upon the hill.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
But the arms that deliver the sturdy stroke,
Ere

the shift is done, may be crushed or broke,
Or the life may succumb
to the gas and smoke,
Which the underground caverns fill.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
The song of the hammer and drill!
As he toils
in the shaft, in the stope or raise,
'Mid dangers which lurk, but elude
the gaze,
His nerves with no terrors thrill.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
For the heart of the miner is strong and brave;

Though the rocks may fall, and the shaft may cave
And become his
dungeon, if not his grave,
He braves every thought of ill.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
The song of the hammer and drill!
But the
heart which is beating in unison
With the steady stroke, e'er the shift
is done,
May be cold and forever still.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
He