Thy cares, thy troubles, are thy own.
None, none, will heed thy hollow groaning--
“Weep, and you weep alone!”
“Laugh! and the world laughs with you!”
Sorrow none would choose to borrow;
These are maxims old and true,
“Clouds to-day--sunshine to-morrow.”
Unhappy priestess,--pray be good!
Why, why all these sighs and tears?
Come, learn of Joy and God’s plenitude!
To Bliss, not Grief, belongs thy blooming years.
_REGRET_
I know that I must die;
This is my one regret.
I hope, of course, to gain immortality,
That is, in “the sweet bye and bye!”
But, oh, to leave this world of cheer and fret,
This is my regret--my great regret.
Truly I grieve, to pass from earth away,
To realms, perchance, of brighter day.
So glad I am that I have lived and been;
That I have joyed and chafed,--and strived to keep my conscience free
from sin.
Oh, if I could, gladly I would, live life’s wondrous dream of pain and
pleasure o’er--aye! many times o’er again.
_OF PARADISE, ETC._
Of Paradise ’tis sweet to dream,
And life beside the Elysian stream!
In flowery vales ’mong scenes above,
Why loves the fancy so to rove?
Why does man so berate the earth?
Are there no shrines for reverence here?
The Mother World that gave him birth
Has always been man’s sport and sneer.
Is Nature, then, so harsh and cold?
Has she no warmth, no love, no light?
Does she her children cuff and scold?
Are mankind, then, her special spite?
No, no! Earth loves her human brood!
Earth is a mother kind and good.
’Tis man alone--inglorious wretch!
Who would his parents’ name besmirch.
Love, then, the world! Is it not fair?
Could God design a brighter, cosier sphere.
Of clay, of water, wood and air?
Were man but just, what paradise were here!
_ON IMMORTALITY_
For immortality, all mortals sigh,
Men are not dead, then, when they die?
Fond Hope dispels our mental fears,
Transports the thoughts to happier spheres.
And yet,--’tho we ceased here in rayless night,
Have we not had our share of light?
Of summer sunshine, cloud and showers,
Bright rainbow tints, bright birds and flowers?
O’er dearth of years is it not selfishness to grieve?
How much of unawakened clay,
Has yet not had its glimpse of day,
Has yet not felt the thrill of life?
Anon, anon, when his long race is run,
Will not man gladly rest in his cool tomb?
For other lives we should make room;
Sleep they not best, whose hard life’s work is done?
_A FELICITOUS MEDICAL PRESCRIPTION_
For human woes, for human ills,
My learned Muse an anodyne distills,--
A priceless panacea for the sad.
Some balm she has, some extracts of herbs she gathers among the hills,
(Take one small teaspoonful if you’re really feeling bad)
Some tinctures rare she stores, of sweet, medicinal water-flowers,--
(Warranted to “kill pain” in two hours!)
Some infusions of lotus leaves, fresh plucked from pools in fancy’s
rills
(Oh, what a long-felt want, this “all-curative” fills!)
Just one minim will do you much good;--a gill will make you unusually
glad.
(Only known sure specific for poor human wights gone mad.)
Truly there’s nothing better in Earth’s pharmacies!
Try one “free-trial package” every fortnight if you choose.
A “prize gift box” will flush pale cheeks and brighten saddened eyes;
And enough of the wonderful “stuff” just knocks the socks off of the
blues.
Sad friend--have hope! have hope!
Don’t fret, don’t fuss, don’t mope;
Just take your dope! Just take your dope!
No good, no good to swear or pine,
(When, Great Scot’s! There’s heaps of virtue in our anti-trouble
pills!)
And zounds--look at the price! That surely should suit fine:--
“Doc” pays the bills! “Doc” pays the bills!
_TO THOSE DARK EYES THAT HAUNT ME STILL_
We met--’twas while passing through the crowded street-car door.
We met--for one brief moment her dark eyes gazed into mine.
Oh, what wonderful, beautiful, bewildering brown, black eyes they were!
Large, languorous--“swimming in the stream!”
Seeming to melt to their own beam.
Great lustrous, magnetic orbs, o’erfilled with glints of passion and
with dreams divine!
We met--we gazed--her modest glances fell, then, to meet mine
nevermore.
We met--we parted--but, oh! those dark, resplendent, dream-eyes they
haunt me still.
Potent influences they hold for good or ill.
Star-lights, that could lead man’s wandering foot-steps safely up the
steeps to Paradise,
Or plunge him downward dazzled to the depths of hell!
Beatific lady! I wonder will for me those peerless lenses ever beam
again!
And, oh (in modesty) have they not beveiled their fires from mine
before?
Descendant of some enchantress, princes, peasant-girl, or queen.
Have not we known each other, long ere this, upon some foreign shore?
In aeons past,--by Time’s wide river drifted far apart,--
Did we not once dwell happy in a better land?
Reincarnated spirits, are not ours, spirits of lovers oft parted, tho’
ever loth to part?
Lady--lady--did not we as old-time sweethearts once walk fondly hand in
hand?
_MY MOTOR-CYCLE GIRL AND I_
My motor-cycle girl and I are a sport-loving pair;
Too speedy for Sorrow, we race away from dull Care;
We startle Deacon Gossip, we shock Madame Trouble,
“Dear, oh, dear, how awful!” they say; “what a very swift couple!”
We are out late at night,--out again next day!
Do we enjoy life? Well, I should say!
“Are we fond of rapid riding?” Oh yes; indeed! But what is the harm,
Since we hurt nobody, and speed has its charm?
Sometimes, we rest in the park, ’neath the leafy shade;
Do we fret and jaw, and chew the straw, when there ain’t no sweet in
our lemonade?
Yes; well, yes, then to church we go with a right good will,
“Oh, oh, how can they sit there so serene and still?”
Says Trouble to Gossip, “and smile--and smile--and smile,--
And tremble not, when the minister mentions ----?” Well, well!
Our lives are chaste, and we have no dread,
Of sulphurous caldrons, or ovens red-hot.
We taste no “sour, old apples” that we should not!
In thrifty orchards by the cool wayside, trees are laden with purple
plums and crimson cherries.
Yet oh, oh, yet, for “forbidden fruit” we never do fret,
In our basket for lunch we have cake and sugar and cream and fried
chicken and rich ripe preserved strawberries.
In the flower-decked meadows, sometimes, we are tempted to stray
But a big notice reads, “Stay out--Keep off the Alfalfa.”
By the sweet green fields, therefore, we fairly fly,
Nay, nay, on the “sacred grass,” we never trespass;
And furthermore, we never get gay, nor sass Farmer Gray,
When we meet him in town, and he offers to sell us some hay!
And do my girl and I love? Well, now, come, come! Can’t you guess?
If we don’t, of course, of course I’m not to blame,
For she is such a fair, fresh young rosebud you know,
And I am--well, she just calls me--just plain “Uncle Sam,”
But I am--of _course I’m her beau_!
Of a buggy-ride this friend of mine and I are fond,
But the “metalsome steed” is our chief delight.
Adown the road we scurry at a lively rate,
And the slow-going crowd is left behind.
“Caloric individuals,” like we are, they say
“Are liable to get scorched some--some very fine day.”
But my blithe merry lass and I never hear--we are speeding away!
And little, how little, care we for what rude tattlers say?
With consciences clear as lilies are white.
We heed not the slur of Envy and Spite.
Let cripples and criplets stand aside in dismay;
We will be young when they are decrepit and gray.
Let Troubles and Gossip mistrust us and spy;
We will be angels ere such “saints” learn to fly.
_DIFFERENCES OF OPINION_
Some men may differ from our creed,--
Give our good advice small heed.
Some men may not be our way of thinking.
But if they are honest they surely should be frank,
And not behind one’s back, go winking, blinking!
And say, “behold! a crank--there goes a crank!”
Or else hide in a crowd and yell:
“An infidel! An infidel!
A ski-shod pilgrim, coasting blindly down the road to hell.”
Fellow--churlish fellow, if thou never cans’t be joyous,
Why with constant fretting thus wilfully annoy us?
Does thy sorrow so need company
That thou wouldst meanly pester those who would gladly comfort thee?
How selfish, then--how unkindly such must be
As would wish to force unwilling ones to share with them their
self-imposed misery.
_IN THE FOREST_
In the leafy fastness of the forest, there are sounds of mirth and
gladness,
Strange wild symphonies that tell of peace and rest,
Dulcet cadences, unlike, unakin unto the noises heard in marts of human
strife and madness,
Vile discords that make existence in life’s crowded hippodromes seem
displeasurable, irreligious and unblest.
Deep, deep in the shady sanctuaries of the wildwood
Druid lives of old were happily lived and beautiful I find;
What tho’ Nature’s children sometimes seem harsh and rude!
They never really are ungrateful or unkind.
Deep, deep in the peaceful quiet sylvans, rosebuds fall and fade.
Littering the green-sward o’er whereon I lie,
Yet dreaming still “beneath my bowers, blossom-woven shade”
Blissfully I linger, while the summer days go by.
_MY SUMMER GIRL AND ME_
Under the green-wood tree
Joyfully,
Rest my summer girl and me.
Fonder, franker pair, hath never been
A-courting here upon the lawn.
Oh, my dear, you look so sweet,
All in lace and satin white,
With that rosebud in your hair,
And those lips that seem to say,
“You may, you may,--nay, nay,--nay, nay,”
“You may kiss me--don’t you dare!”
Under the green-wood tree
Life is full of witchery.
Listen, then, dissembling girl, to me:
Come, come, fair one; no more delay.
Come, come, sweetheart, and marry me?
What, what care we for worldly state?
For mansion proud, or titles great?
My humble cot, beside the Platte,
With thee its mistress, well might seem
Fairy May Queen’s bower, and life an Eden dream.
With hope, with health, enough to eat,
Our cup of joy were full indeed.
For having all that makes Earth dear,
How could, how could we wish for more?
Come, then, my love; no more delay;
Name, name, oh, name our wedding day!
Under the green-wood tree
Soon married we shall be,
My dainty summer girl and me.
_A REQUIEM_
To-day--alas, to-day, there’s a tear in my eye,
And deep at my heart there’s a pain.
With a sob and a sigh the winds hurry by,
They are singing, singing a sad refrain.
“Nay, nay,” they seem to sing, they seem to say,
“Nay, nay, we shall never meet Mabel again.”
Nay, nay, we shall never meet Mabel again.
Too gentle and fair, for this rude world of jostle and care;
Too kind-hearted and good, for this hard life of trouble and pain,
So the angels, they have taken Mabel away,
But ’tis sweet, it still is sweet to think that some day,
In that “beautiful city Up There,”
Maybe we shall meet our dear little friend Mabel again.
Yet to-day,--oh, to-day, there’s a tear in each eye,
And deep at each heart there’s a pain;
Through the over-cast sky, dark trailing clouds hurry by,
And it looks like rain.
While the winds are singing,--still singing that sad refrain.
“Nay, nay,” they seem to sing, they seem to say:
“Nay, nay, we shall never meet Mabel again.”
_FAREWELL!--I AM STILL CAMPING!_
My dear tourist friend--farewell! Farewell perhaps forever. Farewell!
I am still camping! In the cool shade of the cottonwoods beside the
Platte, I am camping. I who erstwhile in careless youth’s hilarious
days, a handsome book of verse and prose did write and print, a book
that has neither brought me fame nor fortune as yet; nay, nay, and it
never will.
Ha, ha, ha! Yes, I am still camping. In delightful tranquility and in
the generous shelter of the tall timber close down by the clear blue
water’s side, my humble little abode is still standing. Its dingy
white-washed walls may yet be seen peeping out pleasingly from among
the thick green leaves of the patriarchal trees of the forest.
Yes, yes; I am still camping. Pegasus, my “broncho plug” (my vaunted
poet’s steed!), has long since been turned loose to browse on the
luxurious sage-brush, and the crisp buffalo-grass of the Great Plains.
Genevieve, my docile cow, too, has strayed away, or else she has been
stolen, which I know not, neither do I care, as I am in the “stock
business” no longer.
To-day, to-day, just as of yore; seated still on the same old
log,--silently--silently, still, I am angling in the Platte. Angling
still for “suckers” in the eddying tide, but alas! alas! they do not
bite. They seem to realize perfectly, clearly, that I have been along
this way before. They seem, metaphorically, to say, “No, sir, no; we
respectfully decline your book-worm-bait, and your cunningly contrived
fly-productions.”
Yea, yea; it is the same old story--“a fisherman’s luck! A fisherman’s
luck!” Yet, nevertheless, I am ever hopeful and content to wait. God’s
good will will be done, no doubt in his own good time. This is my
consolation. “Nor cease I yet to wander where the Muses haunt--clear
brook and shady rill.” Green bank and blue, unclouded sky. Quiet grove
and breezy hill. Fresh flowers and the songs of birds. These all
make musical and brighten still my dreams, and gladden likewise my
long-expectant eye.
But farewell, my dear tourist friend---farewell, perhaps forever! And
when back again unto “orient realms” thou shalt soon have returned,--
“Just tell them that you saw me while out West,
Just mention that I’m camping,--they will surely know the rest!”
SUPPLEMENTARY
_NEW GLAD VOICES_
To-day--to-day--the birds again are singing and rejoicing,
Nature’s great heart, once more, with pleasure thrills;
Mortals--mortals--we to our gladness should be voicing.
Not brooding o’er life’s griefs and ills.
Has not the world had enough of sorrow?
Is not the world yet done with tears?
Joy _to-day_--if thou wouldst joy to-morrow,
Away with care--away with frets and fears.
_MAY-DAY BESIDE THE PLATTE_
To-day--to-day! It is sweet May-day again beside the Platte. The
cottonwoods are putting forth their green. The wild, red-roses and
the white plum-blossoms scent the air. The lark is in the fields;
the robin’s cheery voice is heard. The golden flecker and the oriole
make music in the woods. The dove’s low cooing woos the murmur of
the streams, and the merry blackbirds chant amid the wild, sweet
meadow-grass, and starry-eyed asclepia blooms.
The vast, green prairie spreads around. Its boundless lawns are sweet
with flowers. The “bonny-bells” and “yellow eyes” have decked the
sunny slopes with gold. The round, green hills are gay with dandelions
and daisies. The sweet blue-flags, the “yuccas” and the “artemisias”
brighten everywhere.
Northward, amid his banks of bloom and graceful curves, the “silver
river” glides. Westward, a dozen miles beyond, the stream, and, looming
over all in grand relief, appears the old, shining Rocky Mountains,
the snowy range towering amid the storm-clouds, and the purple
foot-hills, like the Titan forms of old among the shattered fortresses
of vanquished gods!
Dreamer, you are in Colorado--you stand upon the banks of the Platte.
The great, wild prairie stretches all around us. Its smooth, green
lawns are bright with silver brooks and crystal lakes. Hundreds of wild
fowl disport upon the water’s blue, unrippled bosom. Long strings of
cattle come forth to drink--others graze in droves among the low, round
hills near by. How beautiful! how bright! how grassy wild! how fair and
sweet!
Dreamer, does not your heart grow glad? This is a land for rest and
holiday! You hear the hum of golden bees. You feel the soft flow of the
air. The sky is clear and blue and bright. The fields are green and
dry and warm. The woods are beryl-hued and full of singing birds. High
above you, snowy mountains tower--“Long” and “Lincoln” prop the sky.
You behold Pike’s Peak further south--its blue sides terminating in a
crown of snow.
My name is Brown--Sam Brown. I was born under the shadow, as it were,
of these grand old Rocky Mountains. Thirty years ago, when all this
vast region of plains and mountains, extending from the Mississippi
River on the east to the shores of the Pacific Ocean on the west, to
the Mexican Gulf on the south, and to the British possessions on the
north, was an almost unexplored wilderness, filled with wild beasts and
hostile Indians, my father and mother crossed the plains in a “prairie
schooner,” drawn by a yoke of oxen. They came west early in ’59, with
the first rush of those hardy gold seekers whose motto was “Pike’s Peak
or Bust!”
Finding mining unprofitable they settled down to farming and
stock-raising near the base of the mountains. Here to them four sons
were born--of whom I am the eldest, having been born on March 21, 1860.
I am a Colorado pioneer--yes, born of a pioneer ancestry--and it is
with a sense of pride that I point out to you the fact. I also take a
kind of grim pleasure in informing you that my earlier life was spent
in the free and easy pursuits of a cowboy, and that my first childhood
playmates were the red Indians of whose boundless liberty I used to
feel very envious during my school days.
Many incidents which occurred away back in the “sixties,” when we white
settlers used to have to fortify ourselves at Denver, to avoid being
scalped by the Arapahoes and Cheyennes, are still fresh in my memory.
Denver, which is now a city of nearly 200,000 inhabitants, was in
those days but a mere hamlet of several dozen shanties, standing
almost entirely on the west bank of Cherry Creek. What a change has
taken place about my home within the space of but a few brief years!
On the little plateau where Fort Logan stands to-day, I shot my first
“prong-horn,” and oftentimes I have played ball with Willie Bates and
Jimmy Steck on the grounds now occupied by our State’s capitol and
County’s court-house.
All of those dry uplands, where I used to pasture my cows, are
now covered in season with wavy fields of wheat, maize and
alfalfa--meadows, orchards and blooming garden plats. Where the Indian
wigwam smoked but a few brief summers gone by, lordly mansions and
pleasant homes are standing to-day. But the humble structure in which
I was born has not been torn down yet. It stands on the west bank of
the Platte River, near Littleton, and in Denver’s beautiful suburb,
Wynetka. My parents, who still live at the old homestead, but now in
a large and comfortable farm-house, have preserved the little old log
cabin as a relic of bygone days.--_Written Jan. 20, 1890._
_MY NATIVE LAKES_
Of those silent pools, far remote in that wild Western land--the land
of my nativity--I am dreaming to-day.
Away out there, where the old, shining Rocky Mountains seem to reach
off to the ends of the world, where the great plains stretch away
in boundless undulations of wavy greenery, as far as the eye can
see--there Colorado’s lakes rest in eternal calm.
In other times--bright boyhood days, now forever flown--mounted on
a shaggy broncho, with gun in hand, and followed by a long-legged,
one-eyed hound, I have often driven my cattle there to drink. Again,
in light canoe, with double-bladed oar, I have glided for hours along
the scarcely rippled tide, chasing the diver-ducks and the blue coots
so tame, or trying random shots at the mallard-ducks and wary teal that
flew nearly out of range, high up overhead. Now and then a lucky shot
would bring me down a great white pelican or a blue crane. Yet more
often I would kill a brant or a Canadian goose.
Beyond the lake a tiny cascade could be seen, pouring down its silvery
flood from the lofty, snow-capped heights above. At the mountain’s foot
the foamy tide fell into a little pool, and there, after forming itself
into a little brook, it ran off flashing in the sunlight, across green
meadows, beside leafy groves, and along flowery banks, until at last
it found its way down to the great, blue, laughing lake, where it lost
itself in the silent tide.
At the mouth of the stream, and just beside the wood, stood an Indian
village--the white tepees of which could be plainly seen, peeping out
from among the green glades and leaves of the trees. The red Indian,
too, was often in sight, for he loved to loiter along those pleasant
shores. Many times have I met him angling patiently along the banks of
the small stream. At other times I have watched him for hours chasing
the wild herds of the plain. The fallow-deer, the “prong-horn,” the
bison and the elk he called his “cattle,” and he claimed them as his
own.
His was a happy, careless life--as aimless and as dreamy as my own.
Nature supplied his every want. His orchards were the thickets of
cherries and wild-plums. His harvests of golden grain were the fields
of yellow sun-flowers. His gardens were the untilled fields, and there
his vegetables grew. The roots and bulbs he knew supplied his pottage.
Honey was stored for him by the wild bees, and the beasts of the field
gave him their furry coats to keep him warm. His dusky mate was an easy
love, and she always treated him with kindness. His life was one of
sportive ease, and I have often envied him his happy lot.
It was an indescribable joy to me in those old days to stroll along
the white-pebbled beach of the lake and gather shells. I also loved to
roam among the green, round hills near by and gaze out across the calm
blue lake, or let my glances wander afar off up those shining straits,
channeled out, as they are, like mighty gateways among the cliffs
and crags of the ancient hills. Far away they would widen out again
into broad lakes, or else they would wander off and lose themselves
in narrow straits among the splintered crags and snow-capped peaks of
the not distant mountains. Often, as I would sit gazing up into those
mystic gulfs and weird canons, stretching far away among the hills, I
would fancy in my childish innocence that I could catch glimpses of
another world which lay dimly visible in the “far beyond.” I had hopes
of being able, some day, to propel my little bull-hide boat into that
wonderful realm of the “great unknown.” The long lines of “sand hill”
cranes, the sharp phalanx of white geese, the flutter of swans’ wings,
circling away across the distant marsh lands, appeared as the flash of
angel wings. To me they seemed as the spirits of the blest, circling
through celestial skies or hovering above the shores of Paradise.
_THOSE ARE THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS_
“Those are the Rocky Mountains”--yes, those long, blue lines of
cordilleras just above you are the foot-hills, and those tall, white
peaks standing afar off beyond, and appearing ethereal and ghost-like
in the dim distance, are the ice-clad summits of the “snowy-range.”
“Those are the Rocky Mountains”--yes, and _these_ are the great plains.
Oh, what a beautiful, green, wild world this is! How can one live in
such a land and not be glad! It is a day of God, and the wild herds
of the plain are grazing all around us. They range in droves among
the low, round hills near by, or lick “alike” in the deep, basin-like
valleys below, where often we catch the shimmer of some fairy lake.
“Those are the Rocky Mountains”--yes, and as we ride along, across
the smooth, white plain, with the warm sunlight streaming down from a
cloudless heaven upon us--streaming down through an atmosphere as clear
as glass--as sparkling and as buoyant as any air upon the earth--as we
ride along, gazing out across the great, green world and up at the blue
sky, and then upon those stupendous peaks and everlasting snow-clad
hills, my spirit thrills with a deep delight, and I feel a something,
stranger, that you know not of.
“Those are the Rocky Mountains”--yes, and oh! I was born, as it were,
under the very shadow of their snow-covered heads. While yet a baby in
my mother’s arms I first gazed out upon those everlasting hills.
While yet a little child I used to draw mountains upon my slate. Rude
sketches they were, no doubt, but how could I live and love, and
yet not limn that which so much I loved? I knew not then of poet or
painter’s art, nor ever dreamed that I myself should rhyme some day,
and paint and write and limn with words, and tell men of my childhood’s
dreams.