Mountain idylls, and Other Poems.

by Alfred Castner King.

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 cla.s.sic, 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 n.o.blest 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 literature, unless it should contain something in the nature of a deviation from beaten literary paths.

Whether the reading public will regard this as such or not is a question for the future to determine, as every book is a creature of circ.u.mstance, and at the date of its publication an algebraic unknown quant.i.ty.

It was not the original intention of the author to publish any of his effusions in collective form until more mature years and riper judgment should better qualify him for the task of composition, and should enable him to still further pursue the important studies of etymology, rhetoric, Latin and Greek, and complete the education which youthful environment denied.

On the 17th of March, A.D. 1900, occurred an accident in the form of a premature mining explosion which banished the light of the Colorado sun from his eyes forever, adding the almost insurmountable barrier of total and hopeless blindness to those of limited means and insufficient education. At first further effort seemed useless, but as time meliorates in some degree even the most deplorable and distressing physical conditions, ambition slowly rallied, and while lying for several months a patient in various hospitals in an ineffectual attempt to regain even partial sight, the following ideas and efforts of past years were gradually recalled from the recesses of memory, and reduced to their present form, in which, with no small hesitation and misgiving, they are presented to the consideration of the reading public, which in the humble opinion of the author has frequently failed to receive and appreciate productions of vastly superior merit.

_Ouray, Colorado, March 15, 1901._

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I stood at sunrise on the topmost part, Of lofty mountain, ma.s.sively sublime."

MOUNT WILSON, SAN MIGUEL COUNTY, COLORADO.]

Mountain Idylls and Other Poems

Grandeur.

Dedicated to the mountains of the San Juan district, Colorado, as seen from the summit of Mt. Wilson.

I stood at sunrise, on the topmost part Of lofty mountain, ma.s.sively sublime; A pinnacle of trachyte, seamed and scarred By countless generations' ceaseless war And struggle with the restless elements; A rugged point, which shot into the air, As by ambition or desire impelled To pierce the eternal precincts of the sky.

Below, outspread, A scene of such terrific grandeur lay That reeled the brain at what the eyes beheld; The hands would clench involuntarily And clutch from intuition for support; The eyes by instinct closed, nor dared to gaze On such an awful and inspiring sight.

The sun arose with bright transcendent ray, Up from behind a bleak and barren reef; His face resplendent with beat.i.tude, Solar effulgence and combustive gleam; Bathing the scene in such a wealth of light That none could marvel that primeval man, Rude and untaught, whene'er the sun appeared, Fell down and worshiped.

A wilderness of weird, fantastic shapes, Of precipice and stern declivity; Of dizzy heights, and towering minarets; Colossal columns and basaltic spires Which pointing heavenward, appeared to wave In benediction o'er the depths beneath.

Uneven crags and cliffs of various form; Abysmal depths, and dire profundities; Chasms so deep and awful that the eye Of soaring eagle dare not gaze below, Lest, dizzied, he should lose his aerial poise, And headlong falling, reach the gulf beneath.

Majestic turrets, and the stately dome Which, ovaled by the slow but tireless hand Of eons of disintegrating time, Still with impressive aspect rears its brow Defiant of mutation and decay.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Majestic turrets and the stately dome."

MOUNTAIN VIEW, SAN JUAN, COLORADO.]

The crevice deep and inaccessible; Fissure and rent, where the intrusive dike's Creative and destructive agency Leaves many an enduring monument Of metamorphic and eruptive power; Of molten deluge, and volcanic flood; Fracture and break, the silent stories tell Of dire convulsion in the ages past; Of subterranean catastrophe, And cataclysm of internal force.

The trachyte wall, beseamed and battle scarred; The porphyritic tower and citadel; The granite ramparts and embattlements Of nature's fort, impregnable and wild, Stand as a symbol of eternal strength, And hurl a challenge to the elements!

Canons of startling and appalling depths, With caverns, vast and gloomy, which would seem Meet for the haunt of centaur or of gnome; The gorgon and the labyrinthodon; The clumsy mammoth and the dinosaur; Or all gigantic and unwieldy shapes Which earth has seen in the mysterious past, Would seem in more accord and harmony With such surroundings than the puny form Of insignificant, conceited man.

And interspersed amid these solemn peaks Lie many a pleasant vale and gra.s.sy slope, Besprinkled with the drooping columbine, And fragrant growths of all harmonious tints, Whose variegated colors punctuate Grandeur with beauty, and fearless, bloom In the forbidding shadow of the cliffs, And to the margin of the snowy combs Which still resist the sun's persuasive ray.

A lakelet, cool, pellucid and serene, Fed by the drippings from eternal snows, Lies like a mirror 'neath a frowning cliff, Or as a gem, majestically ensconced In diadem of crag and pinnacle.

Down towards the distant valley's sultry clime, Both solitary, and in straggling groups; In solid phalanx, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 ba.s.s 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 gra.s.s and floweret with a tear; As nature, weeping o'er the faults of man.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Would seem in more accord and harmony, With such surroundings than the puny form Of insignificant, conceited man."

UNCOMPAHGRE CAnON, NEAR OURAY, COLORADO.]