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 CHAPLES 
 
 EDWIN 
 •HEWES- 
 
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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSITS 
 
SONGS OF THE ROCKIES 
 
*'It is difficult to convey an^ just impression of 
 the mountains; one might, it is true, arrange the visible 
 heads in a list, stating their heights and distances, and 
 leaving the imagination to furnish them with peaks and 
 pinnacles, to build the precipices, polish the snoTV, 
 rend the glaciers, and cap the highest summits ivith 
 appropriate clouds.** 
 
 — John Tyndall. 
 
Songs of the Rockies 
 
 •By 
 
 CHARLES EDWIN HEWES 
 
 Decorations 
 
 BY 
 
 Dean Babcock 
 
 THE EGERTON -PALMER PRESS 
 
 Estes Park, - Colorado 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
Copyright 1914 
 By Charles Edwin Hewes 
 
 AUG 21 1914 
 
 CI.A379182 
 
There is but one 
 
 In all this world 
 Who hath my soul 
 
 Most tender stirred; 
 And these wild songs. 
 
 Writ the peaks among, 
 I, as flowers 
 
 Proff' ed by a lover. 
 Place at the feet 
 
 Of that One, my Mother; 
 And next to her. 
 
 My. dear beloved Brother. 
 
 C. E. H. 
 
 Elkanah Valley, 
 Estes Park, 
 April II. 1914. 
 
 VII 
 
THE Longs Peak oberlandt and the region close- 
 ly associated with it, includes both slopes of 
 the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, 
 from the Arapahoes on the south to Flat Top on the 
 north, including the connecting Mummy and Medicine 
 Bow ranges and the Continental Divide to the Rabbit 
 Ears. 
 
 Seen from Estes Park and the Great Plains on the 
 east, and from the floors and west rims of Middle and 
 North Parks, the great mountain appears as a huge 
 central mass supported by vast ranges on the north and 
 south. In reality, the peak is on a short spur range a 
 mile east of the Continental Divide, but this separat- 
 ing distance is so slight as to be imperceptible when 
 the range is viewed en masse. 
 
 Two of the four large interstate rivers rising in 
 Colorado, the Platte and the Colorado, find their 
 sources in this region; the former, not only receives 
 an immense flood from the tributary Boulder, St. 
 Vrain, Thompson and Poudre streams, but is also 
 greatly augmented by the splendid flow of the North 
 Platte, streaming northward into Wyoming. 
 
 The three great parks — Middle, North and Estes, 
 all head in the close vicinity of the lofty summit of the 
 American Matterhorn — Longs Peak. 
 
 VIII 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Estes Park — My Colorado Queen 1 
 
 The Mountain Brook 2 
 
 Worship 3 
 
 Song Of The Quaking Asp 5 
 
 The Heavenly Blush 5 
 
 You Looked Fairest In The Hills 7 
 
 Grand Lake 9 
 
 'Deed, It Seemed Nice To Have The Cabin 
 
 Chuck Full Of Tobacco Smoke Again H 
 
 Yon Solitary Blue Hollow | 3 
 
 Birds Of Passage 1 5 
 
 Estes Park In Winter 1 6 
 
 Longs Peak 1 9 
 
 Rosy East 21 
 
 Mt. Clarence King From Copeland Lake. ... 23 
 
 Maximum Gales 25 
 
 The Night Log 29 
 
 The Mummy 3j 
 
 Beautiful Isles Of Sky 32 
 
 The Dying Thrush 33 
 
 Val Elkanah 35 
 
 IX 
 
Page 
 
 Altitude 37 
 
 Wild Alp Wind Roaring Up Aloft 
 
 And Whirr Of Bluebird's Wing 39 
 
 The Mountain Night 41 
 
 Flat Top 43 
 
 Yon Peak 44 
 
 Mountain Berries 45 
 
 The Sun Shines Bright On Lily's Mount 47 
 
 Song Of The Trout 49 
 
 The Peak Bird 51 
 
 The Wild White Wilderness 52 
 
 I Know A Place 53 
 
 The Twin Sisters 55 
 
 The Winged Regiment 57 
 
 The Cabin 58 
 
 Up! Up— Into The Blue 59 
 
 The Fleeces 61 
 
 The Beaver 63 
 
 Under The Snows 67 
 
 Winter Flight Of Ptarmigan 69 
 
 Aspen Days Are Days Of Gold 70 
 
 Virgin Peaks 71 
 
 The Maid O' Cow-bell Hill 73 
 
 Purples 76 
 
 There Is No Border To The West 11 
 
 The Alpenglow 79 
 
 The Quaker's Bonny Bonnets 81 
 
 Some Holy Day 83 
 
 Wild Basin 85 
 
Page 
 
 The Mist Dragon 89 
 
 Spruces And Stars 9 1 
 
 Song Of The Glow-worm 95 
 
 Louis 97 
 
 Back To The Hearth Of My Hut 99 
 
 Lights Of The Vale 101 
 
 The Saw-whet Owl 1 03 
 
 The White Shepherd Of The Oberland 105 
 
 The Hermit-thrush 1 09 
 
 A Mountain Morning Gray And I To Work . . 110 
 
 City Lights Seen From The Wilderness 113 
 
 Ye Bright Foaming Waters Of Bounding St. 
 
 Vrain 114 
 
 The Guilt Of Bearing Proud Antlered Crest . . 117 
 Ye Green Pines And Tall Spruces Of Wind 
 River Trail 118 
 
 In The Valley Of Elkanah— There Is Love. . 119 
 
 Tis Moonlight On The Sisters 121 
 
 A Thunder-cloud Issuing From The Black 
 
 Canon 123 
 
 Mountain Maid 125 
 
 Love 127 
 
 Tis Evening In The Valley Of Elkanah 128 
 
 XI 
 
ESTES PARK— MY COLORADO QUEEN 
 
 FAIR one, thy snow lords are waking 
 *Neath the torches of crimson morn. 
 Fair one, thy gray crags are steaming 
 In the mists of the midnight storm. 
 Fair one, the eagles are screaming 
 A challenge to mountain hearts. 
 Fair one, thy woods are ringing 
 In the pipe of a thousand larks. 
 
 Oh! Estes Park! I do love you. 
 Queen of the mountains, with your skies so blue; 
 Your hills and vales, your murm'ring streams. 
 Your beauteous nights, when the silver moon beams. 
 
 Fair one, I'll seek thee in rainbows, 
 I'll search all thy valleys green. 
 I'll hunt thee in golden sunshine. 
 And chase thee in shining rain. 
 I'll woo thee in purple shadows; 
 And under thy white waterfalls, 
 I'll clasp thee fast in the torrent — 
 We'll wed where the lone ousel calls. 
 
 Fair one, our lives shall be merry. 
 Our hearts shall bound as the deer. 
 That swift o'er thy meadows scamper — 
 That quaff from thy fountains clear. 
 And when in the evening's shadow 
 My life speeds away in the gloom. 
 Lay me beneath a green aspen — 
 Let thy grassy slopes be my tomb. 
 
 Oh ! Estes Park ! I do love you. 
 Queen of the mountains, with your skies so blue; 
 Your hills and vales, your murm'ring streams. 
 Your beauteous nights, when the silver moon beams. 
 
A 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN BROOK 
 
 DAINTY daughter of the Snow am I. 
 My father, the gold Sun. 
 
 My Lord, the blue Sky. 
 
 I was born when a Sunbeam my mother's lips kissed. 
 
 I leaped from her bosom in a halo of mist. 
 
 I've dashed down the mountain in my garments of 
 
 foam. 
 Toward the great Ocean, my future home. 
 For the River's my husband, and together we 
 Shall wind thru the rushes toward the deep sea. 
 
 Oh, you that are thirsty, as I pass you by. 
 Oh, drink of my fountain, the dew of the sky; 
 Brewed on the far heights of sunlight and snow; 
 Distilled 'neath the blue sky and poured here below. 
 Oh, drink of my waters, each passing soul. 
 Quaff from my bosom, as I toward the sea roll. 
 
 A dainty daughter of the Snow am I. 
 My father, the gold Sun. 
 
 My Lord, the blue Sky. 
 
WORSHIP 
 
 LAST glint of gold upon the hills — 
 Last gleam of Day's sun glory. 
 How like the summits of my soul. 
 Aglow with skies so rosy, 
 Of Him whose heart is the flower of life. 
 
 Rare rose of loveliness; 
 Of Him whose love is the bosom of bliss. 
 Fragrant with holiness. 
 
 And I kneel me down in that holy light. 
 
 And press my lips to the sod. 
 And I know by faith of the inner sight 
 
 That I've kissed the hand of God. 
 Last glint of gold upon the hills — 
 
 Last gleam of Day's sun glory. 
 My soul pours forth its flood of praise — 
 
 The evening's offertory. 
 
The quaking asp or aspen, the principal decidu- 
 ous tree of the Northern Colorado Rockies, is equally 
 the favorite of the botanist and the woodsman. Long 
 after the grass and florvers appear in the early spring, 
 it refuses to hurst its buds, fearful of belated snows; 
 but once assured, puts forth its vivid green leaves rvith 
 great vigor. The tall slender trunks assume a beau- 
 tiful velvety creamy bloom in the spring, rvhich to- 
 gether with the dazzling leaf cover, presents a refresh- 
 ing aspect of verdured beauty. It is a saying among 
 the mountaineers that, '^wherever the aspens grow, 
 there is good soil;*' which, however, does not always 
 apply, if depth of soil is to be considered ; for this 
 flourishing sylvic, which finds root-hold even at timber- 
 line, often withers and dies in considerable companies, 
 when it reaches the food limit of shallow soil. Once 
 rooted in deep, or average, moist soil, however, and 
 protected from wind, it attains considerable girth and 
 height, growing side by side with spruce and pine for 
 many years. It is to the aspen that the woodsman 
 turns for binding sticks, in connection with his chains, 
 to bind his load of poles or logs; for there is just 
 enough spring in the withy green trunks, to ease the 
 strdin of the load on the rough roads over which in 
 part he is usually forced to travel; also to the same 
 tree he turns for his brake-blocks, on account of the 
 elastic fibre of its growth and its very slight wear on 
 the Wagon tires. Aspen, when dried, is highly prized 
 for stove wood, and if a stove is clogged from the 
 use of pine, it will consume and destroy the soot and 
 pitch, and thus clean the stove. In autumn, the hills, 
 from the lofty heights near timber-line, down to the 
 great leafy groves of the valley floors, are one bright 
 blaze of gold and crimson from the frost turned leaves 
 of the aspen, in vivid contrast with the dark green 
 masses of the conifers. It is the aspen that furnishes 
 the beaver his principal supply of dam and house ma- 
 terial, and its bark i^ his main food provision. 
 
SONG OF THE QUAKING ASP 
 
 THE aspens are calling the little dun deer. 
 Come! Up from the valley and be with us 
 here. 
 Here, where the grasses are spreading their green; 
 Here, where the rushes are breasting the stream. 
 Come! Oh, ye bounding ones of mountain and 
 
 heath. 
 Come! Rest safe beneath me, the soft quaking leaf. 
 
 The aspens are calling the little dun deer. 
 
 Oh! Know ye not, loved ones, the summer is here? 
 Here, where the thrushes are piping their lay; 
 Here, where the roses perfume the long day. 
 
 Come! Oh, ye coy ones, ere the autumn's in sheaf. 
 
 Come! Sweet recline ye, 'neath the soft quaking 
 leaf. 
 
 The aspens are calling the little dun deer. 
 
 Come! Tarry ye net, the sweet lupine is here. 
 Here, where the west wind soft ripples the lake; 
 Here, where the moonbeams pierce the dark brake. 
 
 Come! Oh, ye wild ones, up from manor and fief. 
 
 Come! Hide in the shade of the soft quaking leaf. 
 
THE HEAVENLY BLUSH 
 
 THE Heavenly Blush is pressing 
 Its cheeks 'gainst the mountains soft; 
 Last kiss of the fading sunset. 
 Pressed fond on the peaks aloft. 
 Oh, lingering One, thou wringest 
 
 A sigh from my earth-bound heart. 
 For one who dwells beyond ye — 
 By my ribbed flesh thus kept apart. 
 
 Oh, Heavenly Blush, my message bear. 
 
 As ye fade from yonder sky; 
 Caressing Eve's dusky deep-murked spaces. 
 
 As ye lambent westward ply. 
 Tell her, my immortal soul is pressing 
 
 Its red lips upon her brow: 
 That our troth, divinely shining, 
 
 But waits Death to break Life's mortal vow. 
 
YOU LOOKED FAIREST IN THE HILLS 
 
 L 
 
 OOKING back, dear Heart, it seems to me 
 You looked fairest in the hills. 
 Back in that rarest summer spent 
 Beside the alpine rills. 
 
 *Twas June — You well remember. Love, 
 Those effulgent nights of Moon, 
 
 That bathed the Vale in glory-light. 
 And set the world atune. 
 
 We wandered — Ah, Love, you blush to tell; 
 
 How far those flowering glades. 
 We lingered — Ah, 'till Morn's first 
 
 Dew-kist hour we sweetly strayed. 
 
 Nymph, you were — a naiad blushing rare. 
 
 And I, gath'ring roses fair. 
 Keen envied their soft leaves nestling 
 
 In the clusters of your hair. 
 
 Let's go back, dear Heart, this summer day. 
 
 To those same beloved hills. 
 I'll woo your cheeks to roses back 
 
 Beside the alpine rills. 
 
Grand Lak^, in Middle Park* the source of the 
 Colorado River, is the largest natural body of water 
 in the State of Colorado, being about two miles in 
 length and one wide; it is also probably the deepest, 
 soundings of over 700 feet having been obtained. It 
 lies at an altitude of about 8,000 feet, in the lap of 
 comparatively low, densely wooded mountains, with 
 the towering Continental Divide seen dimly thru the 
 deep gorges of the North and East Inlets, and the 
 beautiful Rabbit Ear range to the northwest, visible 
 from mid-lake and the south shore. Row, sail, and 
 motor boating, fishing and bathing, are the sports of 
 the numerous summer guests of the village hotels. 
 
GRAND LAKE 
 
 RAND Lake! 
 
 Beauteous Mother of the River 
 That in CaHfornia land 
 Pours its flood of crystal water 
 From the Valley of the Grand. 
 Rio Colorado — 
 
 Born of Rocky Mountain snows. 
 Rio G)lorado — 
 To the far Pacific flows. 
 
 Spruce-rimmed Basin ! 
 
 The meeting place of gorges. 
 
 Vast, stupendous — 
 Between mountains dim and 
 
 Misty high beyond — 
 With wide extended beaver flats. 
 
 Canals and hutted pond. 
 
 Abysmal Cistern! 
 
 Walled with dizzy fathoms 
 
 Of moss-grown granite. 
 Rising ghostly from 
 
 Subterranean steeps; 
 As columned cities seen dimly 
 
 In Ocean's vasty deeps. 
 
 Blue-recessed Grot! 
 
 Of snows — which, falling 
 
 From the blue empyrean 
 In whitest fleece, and 
 
 Melted by the Sun, 
 Again take on the color 
 
 Of the sky in thy bosom. 
 
Flashing Inlets! 
 
 North and East — ^pouring. 
 
 Eternal, their crystal flood 
 Into the waters of 
 
 This shining pool; 
 Drawn from the melting ices of 
 
 The Alp-land's glaciers cool. 
 
 Ambrosial Teat! 
 
 The Outlet— of this 
 
 Mothering breast, which 
 Bears and feeds the 
 
 Mighty Colorado River, 
 Rushing seaward thru the 
 
 Arizona land, its water. 
 
 Grauid Lake! 
 
 Beauteous Mother of the River 
 That in California land 
 Pours its flood of crystal water 
 From the Valley of the Grand. 
 
 Rio Colorado — 
 
 Born of Rocky Mountain snows. 
 
 Rio Colorado — 
 
 To the far Pacific flows. 
 
 10 
 
'DEED, IT SEEMED NICE TO HAVE THE 
 CABIN CHUCK FULL OF TOBAC- 
 CO SMOKE AGAIN 
 
 THE four came, to my hermitage retreat. 
 Out of the deep snows and the bleak wind's 
 beat; 
 Full into the glare of the big fireplace. 
 Casting in red bronze each deep weathered face. 
 Men of the howling wilderness were they. 
 In the Nation's wide forests holding sway. 
 Forest rangers, tho filled with Nature's ken. 
 Yet keen to enjoy the good cheer of men. 
 To the supper I called them. They fell to. 
 With zest that only wolves and woodsmen know. 
 When thru, with story and joke, and puff and pull. 
 
 Their four pipes went at it then. 
 'Deed, it seemed nice to have the cabin chuck full 
 
 Of tobacco smoke again. 
 
 11 
 
Isabella L. Bird-Bishop, the celebrated English 
 traveler, who visited Estes Park JTom September to 
 December in 1873; and who so graphically de- 
 scribes her experiences there, in her book, A Lady*s 
 Life in the Rocky Mountains, refers to Estes Park 
 as ''that solitary blue hollow.'* 
 
 12 
 
YON SOLITARY BLUE HOLLOW 
 
 FROM yon solitary blue hollow. 
 Rimmed by ice-breathed, snow-beaked bergs 
 And misty — douched with shining rain. 
 Emerges — nude, dripping, exultant 
 
 And gold-tressed — diaphanous Summer. 
 
 In yon solitary blue hollow. 
 
 Rumbling in deep sky-ward surge. 
 From wall to wall — and then again. 
 Echoes far — loud, crashing, hail-glinting 
 
 And cloud-massed — hoarse mutt'ring Thunder. 
 
 On yon solitary blue hollow, 
 
 Slashed in cloistered aisles by vale and gorge. 
 Deep nessed with mist wet cliffs, 
 Glittering — bursts, flaming, gold-limbed Sun; 
 
 And Rainbow, its guled arch uplifts. 
 
 From yon solitary blue hollow. 
 
 Sunk in the cooled, dew-laved lap of Night, 
 And songed with soughing pines. 
 Rises full — the 'fulgent, mellow Moon; 
 
 Which, gorgeous — in lunar glory shines. 
 
 In yon solitary blue hollow. 
 
 Flower perfumed, purple Pool of Sky, 
 Swims crimson Dawn and Day; 
 And Evening, swift veiling western hills. 
 
 Her rubied gems sets in array. 
 
 In yon sohtary blue hollow 
 
 Broods the Great Spirit of the Crag Land, 
 In its vol'tile Burg of Air; 
 Which, towering to infinite heights. 
 
 Falls shattered — yet ever doth repair. 
 
 13 
 
The mountaineer on the east slope of the Rockies 
 observes the flight of man^ strange and beautiful 
 feathered folk — often to him wholly unknown and 
 unidentified — at the various stages of spring; flying 
 northivard along the Range, with that mad-pulsing, 
 swift, migratory flight, described so inimitably by 
 Audubon. Even in the dead of night he hears their 
 strange wild cries, as they wing close over his cabin 
 roof; also he sees them at times flit across the full 
 moon; and occasionally, when fierce blizzards prevail 
 at night, they hurl themselves against the windows, 
 attracted and blinded by the light. Sometimes they 
 stop and hastily feed, and the alp dweller finds his 
 habitation suddenly surrounded by hundreds of north 
 bound birds, eagerly snatching at those bits of food 
 and seeds, which the fierce winds of winter have bur- 
 ied in the deep drifts, and which the sun now merci- 
 fully releases for their benefit. 
 
 14 
 
BIRDS OF PASSAGE 
 
 O'ER the wintry mountains they fly — they fly. 
 Birds of passage, 'cross the sky. 
 And they sing to me as I sigh — I sigh. 
 Of the flowers a-coming bye and bye. 
 
 They fly 'cross the March moon, so white — so white. 
 
 Birds of passage, thru the night. 
 Whirring their eager wings so hght — so light. 
 
 Spreading the gladness of Summer's dehght. 
 
 They're breasting the azure, so pure — so pure. 
 
 Birds of passage, swift and sure. 
 A-singing to drear lands, "Endure — endure! 
 
 We're the gay songsters of Spring's overture." 
 
 They're seeking the northland, afar — afar. 
 
 Birds of passage, toward polar star. 
 Bidding the drifted snows, ''Beware — beware! 
 
 For the spring Sun's mounting his golden car." 
 
 Fly on, ye blessed ones, so sweet — so sweet. 
 
 Birds of passage, fair to meet. 
 The dwellers of far lands. Oh, greet — Oh, greet. 
 
 With that joy thou hast given me complete. 
 
 15 
 
ESTES PARK IN WINTER 
 
 IN winter, by the wondrous brush craft 
 Of Nature fair fashioning the view, 
 The matchless amphitheatre is pasteled 
 
 White and blue — the Delften hue. 
 Its floor, which in summer's spangled gay with flowers. 
 
 Is sanded now with virgin snows. 
 And those thousand flying buttresses. 
 
 Pine verdured, ascending in rock sculptured rows. 
 From park floor, to those snow crowned heights 
 
 That firm support the vaulted dome of heaven. 
 Are changed from their fresh green to blue. 
 
 And soft merge with the deep empyrean. 
 In this vast auditorium, clouds, fine mists. 
 
 And vapors, stage vistas present — rare! 
 Shifting day and night scenes for Pein's finest dramas. 
 
 Played to light responsive air. 
 
 Jay and chickadee lend animate hfe. 
 
 With cottontail and snow-shoe fleet. 
 And the beaver, hutted in his willow and asp fringed 
 pool. 
 
 Fast icebound, sleeps. 
 Oft-times, stag and doe bound 'cross open glades. 
 
 And disappear in cedar hedges. 
 Magpies aeroplane in careening flight. 
 
 And bighorn browse 'mong sun-warmed ledges. 
 Winds, bleak and chill, in high carnival 
 
 'Mong the upper passes, roar and welter; 
 And at times, in Park itself, fierce biting. 
 
 Drive both man and beast to shelter. 
 Clear and cold moonlit nights 
 
 A fairy land of magic frost enchantment bring; 
 And bright days, e'en in deep midwinter. 
 
 Promise sweet the coming charms of spring. 
 
 16 
 
The unseen river yet preserves its meand'ring form 
 
 In snow-crusted ice. 
 And the elephantine Continentals 
 
 Dark lower 'neath their vizored eyes; 
 Or on sunny days, glittering transcendent 
 
 From fair, storm forgotten skies. 
 As mailed knights, in full regalia for battle. 
 
 Or rite to solemnize. 
 Stand rank on rank, with the assembled host 
 
 Of the gleaming Medicine Bow, 
 Whose wild leagues of wintry rampart. 
 
 Vigilant guard, their shining arms bestow. 
 While towering Longs, 'neath his boss of eternal snow. 
 
 Helmed in glory stands; 
 The Sov' reign Lord and Chief 
 
 Of all the white plumed legion of the Oberland. 
 
 17 
 
Longs Peak, altitude 14,255 feet, the cloud mon- 
 arch of the Northern Colorado Rockies, is one of the 
 most celebrated mountains of the world; and is par- 
 ticularly) noted for its attraction to both foreign and 
 native professional mountain climbers, as affording a 
 genuine test of their prowess, being wholly inaccessible 
 to other than pedestrians. It is kf^own to foreigners 
 as the '^American Matterhorn,'' from the fact that like 
 its famous namesake, the Matterhorn of the Pennine 
 Alps, altitude 14,703, its summit is an obelisk, altho 
 more cubed and not sharply pointed. From the east 
 this feature is hardly noticeable, but from the west, 
 north, and south, it is verp striking; in fact, from 
 Flat Top and south on the Continental Divide on the 
 Grand Lake trail, its aspect is truly formidable, and 
 Would seem to utterly defy the most intrepid moun- 
 taineer. By a curious coincidence, the first record of 
 its attempted ascent, made by W. N. Byers in J 864, 
 Was almost identical with similar efforts made on the 
 Matterhorn in Switzerland: the latter, however, was 
 finally conquered in J 865 by Whympers party, cost- 
 ing the lives of four of its members; while Longs was 
 successfully and safely assaulted by the persistent 
 Byers and his friends in 1 868. 
 
 Ml Meeker, an immediate neighbor of Longs and 
 second only to it in altitude (13,900) as the loftiest 
 peak of Northern Colorado, also bears a striking re- 
 semblance to the famous Swiss peak, ihe Weisshorn, 
 altitude 14,803, said by many to be the noblest peak 
 of the Alps, and a close neighbor of the Matterhorn; 
 and whose first ascent in 1861, is so graphically de- 
 "^ scribed by John Tyndall. Both the Weisshorn and 
 Meeker are pyramids, each having three faces, and 
 in this respect bear great resemblance. The sharp 
 apex of Meeker scarcely more than allows the occu- 
 pancy of but one person, while Longs, altho very 
 roughly surfaced, has an area of several acres. 
 
 18 
 
LONGS PEAK 
 
 THOU! 
 With thy snowy robes 
 And Head of Glory! 
 
 Mighty Matterhorn ! 
 Emerge in thy supernal beauty 
 
 From the cave of Night, 
 As Day pours the scarlet blood of Dawn 
 
 O'er thine altars white. 
 Thus, with the sacrificial rite of Morn, 
 
 The great Oberland is wakened; 
 TTie Starry Hosts their torches snuff. 
 
 And swift the Loft of Heaven do ascend. 
 Comes now the Sun, who crowns thy lofty brow 
 
 With gHtt'ring gold; 
 And names thee Sov' reign Lord 
 
 O'er legioned peaks and ranges bold. 
 
 Thou! 
 
 With thy snowy robes 
 
 And Head of Glory ! 
 
 Inarticulate One! 
 On which a thousand tempest driving ages 
 
 Fade as a breath. 
 And ne'er in a million stone-gnawing years 
 
 Will suffer death. 
 Thine is the awful sovereignty 
 
 Of Silence dumb — 
 Creation's birth-cries congealed 
 
 Stone and granite become. 
 To which the plunging avalanches. 
 
 Thundering down thy riven slopes. 
 Are but the sweat-drip of constricting muteness, 
 
 Throttling Expression's hopes. 
 
 19 
 
Thou! 
 
 With thy snow^ rob^s 
 
 And Head of Glory ! 
 
 God-hewn Obehsk! 
 Reign on. Serenity, above the canopied clouds, 
 
 To thine appointed end; 
 And thru the abysmal eons of Time, 
 
 With storm, earthquake, and frost still contend. 
 Vcist, Promethean-bound pile. 
 
 Yet clank the unyielding chains of Gravity. 
 And when at last, for the fashioning of other worlds. 
 
 Loosed from captivity. 
 Explode, each unpopped granule of thy huge disin- 
 tegrating mass. 
 
 To finest dust — 
 Screaming the pent-up agony of the urmumbered years. 
 
 And scatt'ring nebulous. 
 
 20 
 
ROSY EAST 
 
 ACROSS the dim streaked sky she comes; 
 Queen of my heart — the Glory Maid. 
 Her Titianed tresses bright she combs. 
 And soft the winds her robes invade. 
 I love you — love you ! 
 Maid of Dawn, 
 Rosy East. 
 
 The dewy morn smells sweet of rose. 
 The sky-lark flies to greet my Love. 
 The mountains flush their gleaming snows. 
 And low coos now the wakened dove. 
 I love you — love you ! 
 Blushing One, 
 
 Rosy East. ^ 
 
 Blushed to thy lips, ye beauteous One, 
 Thy kisses woo and wake the world ; 
 And for the wreck of storms atone, 
 TTiat thru the night wild winds have hurled. 
 I love you — love you ! 
 Kiss me sweet. 
 Rosy East. 
 
 Embrace me. Love, before the Sun's stern eye 
 Doth rim the mountain dark and mount the sky. 
 Embrace me. Love. Press close thy rosy form 
 About me myrrhed — And then, farewell — She's gone. 
 I love you — love you ! 
 Speed return. 
 Rosy East. 
 
 21 
 
At the entrance of Wild Basin, as the great up- 
 per gorge of the North St. Vrain is familiarly t"on>n, 
 and at a point where the State road crosses the above 
 named stream, lies Copeland Lake, one of the beauty 
 spots of the Front Range of the Rockies. It is a 
 small but beautiful bod}) of water surrounded b^ a 
 forest of fellow pine, and is famous for its perfect 
 reflection of the great central peak of the Basin — Mt, 
 Clarence King, named b^ William Skinner Cooper 
 when he made the first authentic map of the Basin in 
 1908; in honor of the first director of the United 
 States Geological Survey, who ran the 40th parallel 
 of latitude a few miles to the south of this Peak. 
 
 22 
 
MT. CLARENCE KING FROM COPELAND 
 LAKE 
 
 BEETLING Order! 
 Vast bulked and reared — 
 
 Above thy shaggy taurian haunches — 
 Against the Continental range. 
 Snow headed Bull of Wild Basin's 
 Horned alp herd — wild, chill winds 
 Bellow thine eternal challenge. 
 
 Brooding Ortler! 
 
 Deep sunk in the dusky starred distances 
 
 Of the all embosoming Night — 
 Soft repose thine alpine beauty till the 
 
 Morn beams its golden glory light ; 
 Then, lifting high thy snowy head above 
 
 The mist streaming pastures of the skies. 
 Peer, with glist'ning horn, into this mirroring 
 
 Pool, thy flushed dawn-awakened eyes. 
 
 23 
 
The predominate force in winter in the Longs 
 Peak oberland is Boreas. Ordinary) gales, of from 
 twenty to sixt^ miles per hour, sometimes hloTi> for 
 days at a time and are little thought of. However, 
 perhaps from four to six times a year, and from Oc- 
 tober till May, occur — what are termed by the moun- 
 taineers — maximum gales, meaning winds that attain 
 extreme maximum velocities, and which reach a force 
 of sixty miles an hour and upwards. 
 
 The greatest wind velocity on record in Colorado, 
 filed in the office of the U. S. Weather Bureau in 
 Denver, is that made in J 893 on the summit of Pikes 
 Peak — /^2 miles per hour; and from the fact that 
 records as high as 79 miles per hour have been made 
 at the Agricultural College in Fort Collins on the 
 Great Plains, it is quite probable that in the moun- 
 tains, depending upon the altitude and exposure, these 
 maximum gales attain at times, the frightful velocity 
 of WO miles per hour. 
 
 The greatest wind velocities on record in the 
 United States, are those recorded in the files of the 
 U. S. Weather Bureau in Washington, D. C, and 
 are as follows: 
 
 Cape Hatteras, N. C .... 105 miles per hour. 
 
 Pikes Peak, Colo 112 " '* *' 
 
 Point Reyes Light, Cal. . 120 " 
 
 Mt. Washington, N. H..J86 " " " 
 
 The latter record, made on the summit of Mt. 
 Washington, N. H. (altitude 6,290 feet), January 
 J I, 1878, was not obtained from a self-recording 
 apparatus, but from an anemometer exposed tempor- 
 arily, and the velocity determined from the dial read- 
 ings, and is considered approximately correct. Upon 
 another occasion, January 3, 1883, and at the same 
 station, a velocity of 180 miles Was clearly recorded. 
 
 24 
 
MAXIMUM GALES 
 
 HIGH on the polared rim of western peaks 
 The flying of Hght snow — 
 As off the house eaves it in winter sifts 
 Driv' by the bhzzard's blow — 
 Gives warning to the shepherd's anxious eye, 
 
 Of gale quick to expect — 
 Fiercest venom of war-mad Boreas 
 Mustering his elect. 
 
 Soon the upper nfiked slopes are welt* ring 
 
 In vast swirls of the icy dust ; 
 And first faint tremors of timber-line trees 
 
 Give witness of descending gust. 
 Wild now — steep-sloped, and sharp, tooth-snagged 
 
 Meeker"^ writhes in the fury of the gale ; 
 And the white shoulders of quiv'ring Battle"^ 
 
 Shudder, as 'fore the blast they quail. 
 
 Come now, the first keen shrieks of agony 
 
 From the far woodland's upper ranks. 
 As the dread monster, scourging pack and steed. 
 
 Bursts foamed upon the deep wood's flanks. 
 And as the blood-curdling note of dire conflict 
 
 Sounds weird from the gnarled vet'rans of timber- 
 line. 
 The whole defiant, strong-limbed forest yells 
 
 In battle fury, and its ranks combine. -^ 
 
 When all his maliced fuming regiments. 
 
 Full accoutered and fierce, are thus engaged, 
 The bellowing Wind Lord — as one hurls bowls — 
 
 From topmost heights, darts whirls, in his mad rage. 
 That ever gaining speed, rend serried ranks 
 
 Of combatants, as cannon-shot mow men; 
 And which, gathering in their cycloned flight 
 
 Fine snow, fling it in clouds as they descend. 
 
 * Prominent peaks oi the Longs Peak reKion. 
 
 25 
 
When these mnds coincide with n>et or frost 
 seeping ground, the trees, having less secure root- 
 hold in the soft soil, are uprooted in whole rows and 
 ranks. 
 
 Also the settler, being forced to maintain heav]) 
 fires to counteract the cold being driven with terrific 
 suction thru every chink and crevice of his habitation, 
 is more or less terrorized b\) the danger of fire; which, 
 when once started, his efforts of slight avail against the 
 fury of the wind, destroys his cabin with frightful 
 ravage, forcing him to flee for his life into the howl- 
 ing elements outside. 
 
 26 
 
TTiree fearful surging wave crests, like Ocean, 
 
 Surfing madly on reef and stagg'ring shore, 
 Descend in constant pounding succession. 
 
 And break upon the wood with deaf'ning roar. 
 Vast, strangling vacuums scream and serpent hiss. 
 
 As they, in wild writhing spirals eddy. 
 Like whirling Dervishes ; swerving off in 
 
 Weird fantastic tangent, and unsteady. 
 As eerie phantoms, swoon in blinding snow. 
 
 Tearing and stripping tree boughs as they go. 
 Aerial wind bombs, explode and burst. 
 
 As tho rending the atmosphere in fragments; 
 And frightful pauses hover, as tho a foe 
 
 Pushed back, poises for resistless augment. 
 Wind whiffs, as gut-tasseled whips that flay, crack — 
 
 Pistol-like, at the instant touch of impact. 
 
 Death embraced now, the frenzied warriors 
 
 Weave to and fro on every snow whirled slope. 
 The Vale, from highest wind-lashed crag to low. 
 
 Mews and sickens as the heaved armies cope. 
 Limbs, trunks, and vitals smoking, strew the ground. 
 
 Where Boreas' spleened legions fiercest melled; 
 And low drooped, the wailing forest conquered 
 
 Bends sullen 'neath the spoiler's storm-wrecked 
 spell. 
 
 The devoted Hut, the one lone fortress 
 
 TTiat still defies the air careening crew, 
 Tho shaking vibrant in the awful mell. 
 
 Yet pours its smoke defiant thru its flue. 
 Inside — the forest here claims victory. 
 
 By its pitched logs flaming in deepest roar; 
 And its red fires, leaping forth exultant. 
 
 Seize beard of Boreas and bum him sore. 
 
 27 
 
Deep in sand and gravel he digs his claws. 
 
 And it in fury flings upon the glass. 
 At eave and pane in vain he gasping tugs. 
 
 To ope' and scatter hut in broken mass. 
 But stout it w^restles sturdy, and at last 
 
 He from it headlong, daunted, doth him cast, 
 And turns, envenomed, once more on landscape 
 
 TTie enraged mouthings of his cruel blast. 
 
 Hours, sometimes days, of this nerve-racked weather. 
 
 Doth the far dweller in the mountains live. 
 Cramming his hottest fires with stoutest logs, 
 
 To subdue the cold arctic breaths that drive 
 E'en thru smallest cracks in deep weathered slab, 
 
 That close, double-lapped, hold the windward 
 walls. 
 When thru — the dread conflicting el'ments still — 
 
 He on his cot oft quite exhausted falls. 
 
 Maximum Gales! Oh, how modest the tale 
 
 To soft ears, that ne'er kenned the fearful blast. 
 Swirled — ^world-high tides, one hundred miles an 
 hour — 
 
 The dread winds of winter on cabin cast; 
 Tuned to all noises diabolical. 
 
 That tooth-grinding crazed Boreas can gnash; 
 And embittered Winter, fury consumed 
 
 By thoughts of Spring's nighsome 'proach, can 
 compass. 
 
 Sweet tho, the ineffable stillness 
 
 That steals somnolent o'er the battered land; 
 When once the blasting fury of the winds 
 
 Hath sunk to the soft zephyr, kissing hand. . 
 And true it is, that they who've dared, and climbed. 
 
 And nested, pure, among these lofty heights, 
 Tho bearing in their souls the wounds of battle. 
 
 Yet live knowing — Oh, sweetest thought — God 
 requites ! 
 
 28 
 
THE NIGHT LOG 
 
 THE night log is on and aflame. 
 The one lone fire of many a mountain mile. 
 Star of the wilderness — Men to reconcile. 
 And I, musing, breathe many a sacred name. 
 
 The night log is on and aflame. 
 
 One red fire, sparking the hours of the passing night. 
 
 Sign to other worlds of a universalite. 
 And I, musing, breathe many a sacred name. 
 
 The night log is on and aflame. 
 
 The lone wolf at midnight sounds his hungry howl. 
 
 Weird from the gloomy wood hoots the hunting 
 owl. 
 And I, musing, breathe many a sacred name. 
 
 The night log is on and aflame. 
 
 Morn's angels, star crowned, have set their glitter- 
 ing watch. 
 Fast the wide wheeling constellations westward 
 march. 
 And I, musing, breathe many a sacred name. 
 
 The night log is on and aflame. 
 
 And I, musing, breathe many a sacred name 
 
 Of them who battled dauntless with the World's dis- 
 dain. 
 
 And mingle now their glory bright with Heaven's 
 train. 
 
 29 
 
One of the most interesting nature sculpturings in 
 Estes Park i^ k^^orvn as the Mummy. The face is 
 visible from almost every view point in the Park, a"^ 
 Tvhen once fairly distinguished, the eye reverts to it 
 with ever increasing fascination. It occupies a promi- 
 nent space in the sky-line on the northwest rim of the 
 Park, <^nd forms a portion of Hagues Peak- A con- 
 stant change of expression is to be noticed in the weird 
 countenance as the snows begin to melt in the spring, 
 and clouds, mists, moonshine, sunlight, and shadow, 
 continually affect it. 
 
 30 
 
THE MUMMY 
 
 BEHOLD! 
 The Mummy ! 
 
 Inscrutable countenance ! 
 Forever staring askance 
 Of relentless sky. 
 
 Calm eyed. 
 Benign Face! 
 
 We deem you beautiful. 
 
 Gazing, brave — steadfastful. 
 On eternity. 
 
 Star jew'lled. 
 Queenly Head! 
 
 Bridal veiled 'mong fleecy mist. 
 
 Sleeping — dream of lips you've kissed. 
 Dead — let them also die. 
 
 3] 
 
BEAUTIFUL ISLES OF SKY 
 
 I AM sitting alone 
 By my wild mountain home, 
 And my heart ever yields a sigh; 
 As I gaze on those clouds, 
 High above the world crowds. 
 Beautiful Isles of Sky. 
 
 They are drifting today 
 
 On that far azure way; 
 
 And my dreams ever rise on high ; 
 
 To those mansions so bright 
 
 In the regions of light. 
 
 Beautiful Isles of Sky. 
 
 Deep the low setting sun 
 
 Turns them gold and crimson ; 
 
 My thoughts turn to hopes as they ply. 
 Oh, fair ships of the air. 
 
 My fond fancies ye bear. 
 Beautiful Isles of Sky. 
 
 Some sweet day I will speed 
 On some air-winging steed; 
 
 To this world I will say goodbye; 
 And float over the seas 
 
 In my Palace of Ease. 
 Beautiful Isles of Sky. 
 
 They are drifting today 
 
 On that far azure way; 
 
 And my dreams ever rise on high; 
 
 To those mansions so bright 
 
 In the regions of light. 
 
 Beautiful Isles of Sky. 
 
 32 
 
THE DYING THRUSH 
 
 NEVER more thy song will gladden 
 Verdured dales of stream and wood. 
 Never more thy pipe will waken 
 Summer's lang'rous flow' ring mood. 
 Bird of Joy ! My heart is breaking. 
 
 And my tears flow fast in flood. 
 Oh, ye drooping dying songster. 
 
 Know by these sob«, thou wert loved. 
 
 Cruel Hawk, that swooped so ruthless 
 
 From the bright and sunny sky; 
 Could ye've known whose throat ye throttled- 
 
 Known what lovely warbler lies. 
 Bleeding now, among the grasses. 
 
 On the green and mossy sward; 
 Ye'd have stayed thy steely talons — 
 
 Listened sweet, with rev' rent bard. 
 
 How like. Oh God, Thy fair children. 
 
 In this quick and mortal world. 
 Innocent, in laughing gladness. 
 
 In the arms of Death are hurled ! 
 Dying TTirush, thy bosom softly 
 
 'Gainst my aching heart I press; 
 Token that there's one who loves thee — 
 
 Who thy torn form doth caress. 
 
 33 
 
The Vale of Elkanah lies on the State road mid- 
 wa}) between Aliens Park ^"^ Estes Park- It is sur- 
 rounded h^ lofty mountains and has an elevation of 
 about 9,000 feet and thru it winds the historic trail 
 to the summit of Longs Peak- It abounds with bird 
 and animal life, and is celebrated for its beautiful 
 flowers and also for its magnificent cloud and atmos- 
 pheric effects. It was originally settled by the Rev. 
 E. J. Lamb and family in 1874, who established the 
 first hotel there; and was named in honor of Mr. 
 Lamb, bearing his first name ''Elkanah'' meaning 
 **possessed or loved of Cod.'' 
 
 34 
 
m 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 — 1»- 
 
 «wi«-« 
 
 
 I?* 
 
 BS 
 
 
 
 
 -^— c 
 
 
 «^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 "" 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 ^^^H 
 
 tH 
 
 ■fll 
 
 ■V 
 
 VAL ELKANAH 
 
 WEST and solitary reigns the cloud king — Longs, 
 As a crowned lord on high. 
 And east, low at his feet, the two Sisters 
 Bare their chaste bosoms to the sky. 
 Between them lies the God loved Vale, 
 
 Green, rose-scented, fair-smiling as the morn — 
 Filled with blooming nymphs and naiads fair. 
 Dancing to Pan's pipe and elfin horn. 
 
 On northern rim the virgin peak — 
 
 Lily's clustering crags — 
 Rise nut-brown above her mirrored lake 
 
 Fringed with waving flags. 
 The Cone, majestic — savanMike, 
 
 Most perfect of mountain piles. 
 Doth also rim upon the north 
 
 The Vale's fair emblossomed smiles. 
 
 Between the Cone and Longs' dread brow 
 
 Lie Battle's corse strewn slopes; 
 Of tree, and bush, and grasses slain — 
 
 Storm-crushed of Life's fair hopes. 
 Still south, our Lady Washington 
 
 Sits white amid her snows ; 
 And Meeker, 'cross the vast East Gorge, 
 
 His wild and bleak wind blows. 
 
 35 
 
Of lesser heights, Horsetooth, on Meeker's side, 
 
 Rears a mighty rock. 
 And The Lookout, farther on. 
 
 Beholds Wild Basin's shagg'd alp flock. 
 Pine Ridge, a grand green slope. 
 
 Lies next to fire-scarred Mills Moraine. 
 And Deer Ridge, to the far southeast. 
 
 Bounds on the North St. Vrain. 
 
 The water-gate to this beauteous realm 
 
 Southerly far swings, 
 Past Big Owl's mystic, pine-clad hill, 
 
 And to the deep gorge clings. 
 Of St. Vrain's foamed and bounding flood 
 
 Of many glacier rills — 
 Gorged to the choke and lashed to the froth, 
 
 'Mong the plainward hills. 
 
 Thus Val Elkanah, enthroned and crowned 
 
 Among her snowy lords, 
 Lists forever to the Hymn of Nature 
 
 Sung in purest chords. 
 An Eden of the Rockies, 
 
 She woos man's subtlest nature sense. 
 And decked with all her flow'ring robes, 
 
 Yields Flora's sweetest incense. 
 
 36 
 
ALTITUDE 
 
 He, As when, from the heights. 
 
 Mid wastes of rock and snow. 
 
 One views among the mists 
 
 The distant Vale below; 
 
 All lovely, green, and smiling. 
 
 In the tender alpenglow: 
 
 So I view Thee, 
 
 From my solitude of years; 
 
 And yearning — reach for Thee, 
 
 In the sob of sighs and tears. 
 
 She. As when, from the depths, 
 A noble Peak I view. 
 Cloud-kissed, snow-crowned. 
 And bathed in a golden hue; 
 Fulfilling all those fair ideals 
 I've centered. Love, in You: 
 So I view Thee, 
 
 Lifting mine arms toward Thine; 
 And wond'ring — how long, dear Heart, 
 Till they with Thine entwine. 
 
 Poei. Altho 'tis not with beautiful valleys, 
 As it is with beautiful souls; 
 A-sighing and yearning for heights above 
 
 them. 
 The heights longing for depths below; 
 Yet sometimes I think, in anguish of heart, 
 'Tis the same with us, as the peaks we have 
 
 viewed : 
 The mystery of lives oft kept apart. 
 Is merely a difference of altitude. 
 
 37 
 
The wild, joyous, skv-^ounting twitter, and musi- 
 cal whirr-whirr of dazzling blue wing, with which the 
 Rockv Mountain bluebird ushers in the mountain 
 spring, is gloriously welcome to the alp dweller. 
 Often, so rapid is its flight, that while its motion eludes 
 the eye, yet it is distinguished by the sound of its ^een 
 whirring wings. From copse to copse, tree to tree, 
 crag to crag, this beautiful songster flies, long before 
 the great winter drifts are melted; and his zest of pos- 
 session seems to be wholly unsatiated, until he encom- 
 passes with his twittering presence, every loved ledge, 
 nook ^^d spot in the lower and middle oberland. After 
 the nesting and brooding season is passed, and the 
 young brood is strong of wing, whole families of them 
 flock together in joyous autumn flight, often accom- 
 panying the pedestrian or other road traveler for long 
 distances, as tho delighting in his company; and they 
 linger long, until finally driven out by the k^en blasts 
 of winter. 
 
 38 
 
WILD ALP WIND ROARING UP ALOFT 
 AND WHIRR OF BLUEBIRD'S WING 
 
 THE wind with wild exultant gusts and shrieks 
 Leaps into the Vale from among the peaks. 
 And eager now he is, to slay the snow. 
 As he in winter was, it wide to blow. 
 With shredding tooth and tusk into the drifts 
 He bites his way ; and each sunbeam shifts. 
 As a blow-pipe of golden ray to smelt. 
 The frozen fleece to aqua's melt ; 
 Which everywhere in tiny rills seeks 
 To find its way and run into the creeks. 
 
 Exultant then. 
 
 Wild alp wind roaring up aloft 
 And whirr of bluebird's wing 
 Proclaim the passing of the snow, 
 And the coming reign of Spring. 
 
 The greens of grass now appear and merge 
 
 Their bright blades with the shining waters surge. 
 
 And the tender shoots of wind-stirring pine 
 
 Into the balmy air and sun incline. 
 
 The buttercup and bee sweet alyssum 
 
 First peep — then the silken pasque flower comes. 
 
 The catkins of the canaried willow. 
 
 Fluff and tassel, as they fat plumpy grow. 
 
 The sparkling blue of beaver ponds 'fleet sky; 
 
 Their dams are fringed with white violets shy. 
 
 Exultant then. 
 
 Wild alp wind roaring up aloft 
 And whirr of bluebird's wing 
 Proclaim the passing of the snow. 
 And the coming reign of Spring. 
 
The peaks no longer blanch in drifting snow. 
 
 But iced, transcendent ghtter and bestow 
 
 Their sun-glint glances on the vales below. 
 
 And bid the alpine herbs take root and grow. 
 
 When the first warm slants of sun-steaming rain 
 
 Douche the brown, seed-sown mountain lands again, 
 
 A myriad of elfin things appear, 
 
 TTiat later, as the mounting sun draws near. 
 
 Will bud and burst in flower blossoms rare. 
 
 And all the summer deck the meadows fair. 
 
 Exultant then. 
 
 Wild alp wind roaring up aloft 
 And whirr of bluebird's wing 
 Proclaim the passing of the snow. 
 And the coming reign of Spring. 
 
 40 
 
THE MOUNTAIN NIGHT 
 
 DEEP! 
 In the vast canopy of Night 
 Fade the peaks. 
 Perched! 
 
 As birds of Titan might 
 With breast hid beaks. 
 
 Mighty Mother! 
 
 All embracing One 
 
 Of Sleep's delight; 
 
 With tender eyes soft glowing — 
 
 Embered coals of Hght: 
 Let me sink too 
 In slumber sweet 
 On thy gentle breast; 
 And silent droop as these far heights. 
 
 In dreamless rest. 
 
 41 
 
Mr. Chapin, in 1887, speaks of the great flat- 
 topped mountain, across which leads the trail between 
 Estes and Middle Parks, as Table Mountain; hut it 
 has, in more recent y^ears, been familiarly k^oTvn b}) 
 the verp appropriate cognomen of Flat Top, altitude 
 (estimated) 12,400. There is probably^, and aside 
 from its great importance as an absolutely) command- 
 ing mountain pass, no more interesting alp in the Rock- 
 ies than this peerless mountain; which resembles noth- 
 ing so much as a gigantic, flat roofed, architectural 
 pile, buttressed with enormous connecting bastions and 
 wings of solid masonry. The tundra verdured, rock 
 strewn, and comparatively level summit of this alpine 
 leviathan, is many miles in area; and one can actually 
 spend days in the examination of its various connec- 
 tions with the four great ranges mentioned in the 
 poem, to say nothing of noting that myriad animate 
 life which swarms its dizzy walls and canons. Such 
 localities as the charming lake region of Fern and 
 Odessa; Andrews and Tyndall glaciers; Bierstadt and 
 Bear Lakes; and the Big Meadow, and North Inlet 
 regions on the Western Slope, are all mere details in 
 the vast ramifications of Flat Top. On the West 
 slope, one enters timber-line immediately among some 
 of the largest and finest spruces in the Rockies; while 
 on the East slope, are miles of the most dwarfed, 
 gnarled, and storm battered timber-line growth im- 
 aginable; affording a contrast most striking and sug- 
 gestive. 
 
 The marvel of such alpine wilds as Flap Top, is 
 greatly accentuated, when one realizes, from a botani- 
 cal standpoint, that the zone of vegetation — which is 
 affected by altitude as well as latitude — six to four- 
 teen degrees of latitude corresponding to two thousand 
 feet of altitude — which one traverses in crossing its 
 summit, is the sub-arctic; corresponding with thai of 
 northern Labrador, Iceland, and the arctic circle. The 
 zone of vegetation on our highest peaks, such as Longs, 
 Meeker, and Hagues, is the arctic, corresponding with 
 that of Cape Parry in Greenland, Baffin Bay, and the 
 isles of the Polar Sea north of Alaska. 
 
 42 
 
FLAT TOP 
 
 FLAT TOP! 
 High plateau of rendezvous 
 For mighty peaks and ranges sheer: 
 The massive Continentals, 
 And jagged, snow-tipped Rabbit Ear; 
 The curving Medicine Bow, 
 And mystic Mummy, vague and weird; 
 All, on this wide spreading alp 
 Converge, and high assemble here. 
 
 Great Pass! 
 
 No alp in all the Snow Range 
 
 Enjoys such royal sov'reignty. ^ 
 
 Thou art an Emperor great. 
 
 To whom snow-crowned kings yield fealty. 
 
 Demanding toll of each foot 
 
 That would safe cross from peak to peak. 
 
 Or would pass from Park to Park, 
 
 Across the Great Divide's swart beak. 
 
 Vast Burg! 
 
 Tundra-roofed, torrent-guttered. 
 
 And broad eaved with eternal snow; 
 
 Which melting, feeds deep cisterns. 
 
 Rock-scooped in dizzy depths below. 
 
 Porticoed on the West Slope, 
 
 With pillared spruce in columns deep. 
 
 And on the East, with filigree 
 
 Of dwarfed pinelings on wind swept steep. 
 
 43 
 
I 
 
 YON PEAK 
 
 T is only a glimpse 
 
 Hiat I ask of yon Peak, 
 As I look from my ain cottage door; 
 To know that from it 
 
 The dear Father doth speak — 
 The glorious God I adore. 
 
 r behold Him so fair 
 
 In the rose blush of morn. 
 As I look from my ain cottage door; 
 
 Of His joy beaming day 
 On the mountain just born, 
 
 And bound for that far Western shore. 
 
 I behold Him so pure 
 
 In the depths of the sky. 
 As I look from my ain cottage door; 
 
 As it azures the world 
 
 And the heavens so high — 
 
 Oh, Holy is He evermore! 
 
 I behold Him so vast 
 
 In His shadow of night. 
 As I look from my ain cottage door; 
 
 As it darkens the brow 
 
 Of the mountain so white. 
 
 And mantles the valley high o'er. 
 
 I behold Him so bright 
 
 In the beam of the stars. 
 As I look from my ain cottage door; 
 
 As they glitter and wheel 
 
 Their swift night-coursing cars. 
 
 And His grace I humbly implore. 
 
 So remove me not hence 
 
 From the sight of yon Peak, 
 That I see from my ain cottage door; 
 
 For when Life's sands are low run 
 To it I shall speak. 
 
 And toward it my spirit shall soar. 
 
 44 
 
MOUNTAIN BERRIES 
 
 ON the steep and dusty road. 
 As I drove up to the Peak, 
 
 I met a red-cheeked maiden, in whose 
 hands were 
 Mountain berries, rare and sweet. 
 As she raised her eyes to mine. 
 
 With a glance that seemed divine. 
 She coy proffered me the fruit, 
 TTio her scarlet lips kept mute. 
 
 Proffered me, even me, the lone stage driver. 
 As I drove up to the Peak; 
 Proffered berries, mountain berries, rare and 
 sweet. 
 
 How they lingered in my mouth. 
 As her smile did in my soul ; 
 
 Each berry rare, that had nestled in her hand 
 And enjoyed its velvet fold. 
 And she won my heart that day. 
 Won it quite from me away; 
 Won it surely and complete. 
 That it almost ceased to beat. 
 
 E'en for me, even me, the lone stage driver. 
 As I drove up to the Peak ; 
 Won with berries, mountain berries, rare and 
 sweet. 
 
 And they said her name was Ruth — 
 Ruth, the faithful, lovely Ruth, 
 
 Named for the sweetest woman of the Bible — 
 Ruth, the gleaner, tender Ruth. 
 And how now it thrills my soul. 
 
 As when past that spot I roll. 
 To know that she, even she. 
 
 Had there gleaned the fields for me. 
 
 E'en for me, even me, the lone stage driver. 
 As I drove up to the Peak; 
 Gleaned red berries, mountain berries, rare and 
 sweet. 
 
 45 
 
'An evening effect to be observed in the Vale of 
 Elkanah, is the shining of the sun on Lil^ Mountain 
 long after it has set in the Vale itself. 
 
 46 
 
THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT ON LILY'S 
 MOUNT 
 
 T 
 
 HE sun shines bright on Lily's mount 
 Where soft my fancy dwells. 
 I vow I'll climb her gentle slopes 
 Among the wild bluebells. 
 
 Her feet are hid in forest green 
 Where springs the columbine. 
 
 Her robes are made of shining mists 
 Which soft her form entwine. 
 
 She kneels before a mirrored pool 
 
 And combs her golden hair; 
 While all her rosy breast is filled 
 
 With clust'ring lilies fair. 
 
 Ah me ! Sweet wood nymph, how I sigh. 
 
 To nestle in thine arms. 
 I'd lay me down to sleep among 
 
 Thy soft sequestered charms. 
 
 I'd fold about me as a robe 
 
 Thy golden tresses fair. 
 I'd woo thine every dimpling blush 
 
 And 'joy thy charms most rare. 
 
 The sun shines bright on Lily's mount 
 Where soft my fancy dwells. 
 
 I vow I'll climb her gentle slopes 
 Among the wild bluebells. 
 
 47 
 
Three beautiful species of trout, rainbow, eastern 
 brook, and native, the two former being importations, 
 the first a native of Alaskan, Calif ornian, and Pacific 
 rvaters, and the second from New England, inhabit 
 and thrive in the mountain waters of Northern Col- 
 orado. The rainbow haunt the lower canons, the na- 
 tives the uppermost and coldest waters issuing from 
 the glaciers, and the zone between is occupied b^ the 
 eastern brook. 
 
 48 
 
SONG OF THE TROUT 
 
 MY song to the world is motion — 
 The sheen of my body light; 
 Its exquisite colors flashing. 
 Thru clear waters sparkling bright. 
 In the sun's effulgent glory 
 I take my watery flight. 
 O'er the shining sands of mountains 
 
 Set in pebbles crystallite. 
 I leap and bound ecstatic 
 
 In the sluicing torrent's foam ; 
 I glide and lurk prismatic 
 
 In my turquoised lakelet home. 
 
 I flash in glint impulsion 
 
 My flexed form of rosy pearl. 
 I gleam the Hymn of Ocean 
 
 In the rifi^les' fleecy whirl. 
 Beneath the willow catkins. 
 
 And the dogwood's honeyed bud, 
 I dart the waving shadows. 
 
 And swift fleet the shallows' scud. 
 I chant a sacred paean 
 
 Of holiest devotion; 
 With dolphined form and beauty. 
 
 Voiced in seraphic motion. 
 
 49 
 
A phenomenon peculiar to the Vale of Elkanah 
 has been named h^ the inhabitants^ the Peak Bird; a 
 remarkable cloud formation, which ivith head pointed 
 towards Longs Peak <^^d body poised over the Vale 
 itself, and with wide spreading pinions covering miles 
 of sk}^ north and south and beautifully) feathered with 
 cumulo -stratus, resembles nothing so much as a gigan- 
 tic fowl At times it is headless and the body is 
 merged into its wings, but often the complete birdlike 
 formation is easily distinguished. Another feature of 
 this interesting phenomenon is its marvelous coloring, 
 being gorgeously hued at times with rose, lavender, 
 and orange, the sun often forming a portion of the 
 head, and when close to the rim of the cloud, radiat- 
 ing the prismatic colors thru its delicate tissues. 
 
 50 
 
THE PEAK BIRD 
 
 MYSTIC fowl! Gigantic — ^vast and weird 
 shape! 
 Yet airy formed of light and floating cloud. 
 Hovering, as the fabled Roc of old, 
 
 Billowing leagues of mountain to o'ershroud. 
 
 In early dawn, thy mighty mistlike wings 
 Rise dim and vasty from the vapored night. 
 
 And lofty soaring the star lamped world vault. 
 Greet, morn-bedewed, the Sun-god's golden light. 
 
 All day thy eidered bosom rides the sky. 
 
 Tranquil swimming turquoise seas of ether. 
 Below, the Continental ranges high 
 
 Lie veiled beneath thy luminous shadow. 
 
 You're brooding there, this afternoon, great Auk, 
 
 Of Nature's creation, what mystery? 
 To descend with the setting sun and hatch. 
 
 By night, what wondrous egg of alchemy? 
 
 51 
 
THE WILD WHITE WILDERNESS 
 
 WHITE, funereal, spreads the winter night. 
 Under the pale moon's beam. 
 The pines, ghostly hooded with snows so white. 
 Nod in the silent bream. 
 Dark, unearthly — weird shadows shroud the sight; 
 
 And stars do coldly gleam 
 Their diamond sparks on frost-helmed, ice-mailed 
 heights 
 Stern wardering the scene. 
 
 'Twould seem that a soul born of holiness. 
 
 On wing to Paradise, 
 Were soft crossing the wild white wilderness. 
 
 To mount the silent skies. 
 
 52 
 
I 
 
 I KNOW A PLACE 
 
 KNOW a place where fairies throng, 
 
 In a sylvan, verdured grove; 
 Where thrushes pipe their vesper song. 
 And elves and wood nymphs rove. 
 
 I know a place where orchids grow. 
 And ferns most delicate and rare; 
 
 Where the wildest winds that ever blow 
 Ne'er reach this bosky dell so fair. 
 
 I know a place where a little fawn 
 
 Is hid by its mother deer; 
 And too, where speckled beauties spawn, 
 
 In a lakelet bright and clear. 
 
 I know a place where a boulder rests. 
 That conceals an ousel's nest; 
 
 And where a spruce so boughed and tall. 
 One there a home could neat install. 
 
 Yet of all the spots that I love best — 
 Of purest thoughts and sweetest rest. 
 
 It is my own unworthy soul, 
 
 Where Christ shines in His aureole. 
 
 53 
 
Feiv peaks of Northern Colorado are more inspiring 
 than those of the Twin Sisters, which form the eastern 
 rim of Elkanah Valley, and occupy a prominent cen^ 
 tral position immediately to the west of Longmont, 
 Berthoud, and Loveland. 
 
 54 
 
THE TWIN SISTERS 
 
 FROM Longmont's green alfalfa plains 
 To Loveland's fields of rye, 
 A noble mountain rears its crest. 
 And fills the western sky. 
 Twin peaks of brown their heads upraise 
 
 Into a sky serene. 
 Between — a handsome saddle rests 
 On heights of shining green. 
 
 A plowman named these noble peaks. 
 
 As from the valley's depths 
 He stayed his steaming steeds anon. 
 
 And gazed up to the heights. 
 "Oh sweet repose," he sighed as oft 
 
 As from his toil he rested; 
 And gazed upon those summits grand. 
 
 Which seemed heav'nly invested. 
 
 And ever and afar it spread. 
 
 This plowman's inspiration. 
 "Oh sweet repose," the valleys cried — 
 
 Whole cities sang the anthem. 
 "Oh sweet repose," the maidens sing, 
 
 As up this mount they clamber; 
 Toward that gold and gleaming West 
 
 In which their fancy wanders. 
 
 "Oh sweet repose," the mother sighs. 
 
 And soft her babe caresses; 
 As into the rest and into the West, 
 
 The Twin Sisters sink their tresses. 
 "Oh sweet repose," cries all the soul. 
 
 As full weary of its labors, 
 It passes life — all, and letting it fall. 
 
 Sinks soft in the tender shadows. 
 
 55 
 
The wild goose of North America, in its spring 
 and fall migrations, often feeds enroute, in the scores 
 of reservoirs and lakes in the Great Plains region im- 
 mediately adjacent to the foothills of the Rockies and 
 eastivard. Occasionally^, hoivever, a flock of these 
 magnificent voyagers can be seen b}) the mountaineer, 
 flying directly parallel with the Main Range at alti- 
 tudes of from 10,000 to 12,000 feet 
 
 56 
 
THE WINGED REGIMENT 
 
 DIM discerned. 
 Thru the March eve's vap'rous dusk 
 FHes the winged regiment forward. 
 Led by the great gander in plumed busk. 
 The troop in glory rushes northward. 
 
 Devoted flock — 
 
 Swift winging thus, thy Maker glorify. 
 
 Piercing, arrow-like. 
 
 In living point, the northern sky. 
 
 Fly ye on. 
 
 Exultant honking brood, to arctic tides! 
 
 And we below — 
 
 Viewing awesomely thy pinioned might — 
 
 Are first inspired 
 
 By the grandeur of the glorious sight, 
 
 TTien sunk in deepest prayer 
 
 To Him who guides thy flight. 
 
 57 
 
Q 
 
 THE CABIN 
 
 TOUT little roof and hearth of stone, 
 J^ Resisting firm the winter storm; 
 
 Built of good logs from spruce-clad hills, 
 Floored with tough plank from brookside mills 
 
 Stout little roof and hearth of stone. 
 
 Example true of sweetest home; 
 E'en tho it be but nest of mouse. 
 
 More freedom f af than royal house. 
 
 Stout little roof and hearth of stone. 
 
 Many a strange guest here hath roamed — 
 
 Ye've sheltered snug and comfort warmed. 
 And sped away with pleasure charmed. 
 
 Stout little roof and hearth of stone, 
 
 I love ye best when we're alone. 
 Save for the angels who visit us. 
 
 Praising our Lord — His holiness. 
 
 Stout little roof and hearth of stone — 
 
 Not that we're selfish here alone. 
 But when so, the whole world is here — 
 
 Spirits, past — present, with their cheer. 
 
 Stout little roof and hearth of stone. 
 
 Stand long here after I am gone. 
 Stand for the truths we have confessed; 
 
 Stand for our God and Gospel blessed. 
 
 58 
 
UP! UP— INTO THE BLUE 
 
 TT^ELOW the clouds we stand, my Love and I, 
 Aj High on the mountain's side, yet far to go; 
 
 To still attain the Great Peak's summit high, 
 That stands to us as Life's uncertain goal. 
 
 Up! Up — into the blue. 
 
 Dear Heart, with You. 
 Courage now, and forward true; 
 
 And towards the sno\vy peak, and God — 
 
 Our quest pursue. 
 
 Among the clouds we grope, my Love and I, 
 Lost — 'mong the mists that thick our way bestrew. 
 No light, save our deathless trust, dear Lord, in You. 
 Blind, we foot the steep way and onward hew. 
 
 Up! Up — into the blue. 
 
 Dear Heart, with You. 
 Falter not, nor fear the view. 
 
 And towards the snowy peak, and God — 
 
 Our quest pursue. 
 
 Above the clouds we stand, my Love and I, 
 On the Great Peak's perilous summit we; 
 Prone — full spent with toil on the weary way. 
 Yet illumed — absolved, we kneel, adoring Thee. 
 
 Up! Up — into the blue, 
 
 Dear Lord, to You. 
 Forsake us not, and renew 
 
 Ever our faith in Thee, our God — 
 
 We humbly sue. 
 
 59 
 
In summer and earl^ autumn, there are man^ 
 afternoons in the Vale of Elkanah, in rvhich glorious 
 masses of cumuli drift in constant succession — like 
 ships on the sea — from the Snow^ Range, across the 
 Vale to the Twin Sisters, and on to the Great Plains. 
 At sunset, the revel of color playing upon them is 
 magnificent. 
 
 60 
 
T 
 
 THE FLEECES 
 
 HE fleeces are crossing the Vale today. 
 Passing the range in white array. 
 Beautiful ships of sky are they. 
 Breasting the blue in serenity. 
 
 And I fancy the same of you, dear friend. 
 Who, like these beautiful ships of sky. 
 
 Have been wafted into my vale of life. 
 And your loveliness fair I glorify. 
 
 Warm red of your heart you have given me; 
 
 Snowy white of your soul you have brought. 
 And sweet reigns the spell of your purity. 
 
 In fragrant memory, action, and thought. 
 
 And whenever the fleeces are crossing. 
 As they will when you're far away, 
 
 ril waft my love in their bosom. 
 
 Friend, to you, on that beautiful day. 
 
 61 
 
Perhaps the most active builder in the middle 
 oberland is the American beaver. Castor canadensis, 
 Tvho has long enjoyed the protection of the State. In 
 Horseshoe, Moraine, and Bartholf Parks, Meeker 
 Basin, Grand Lake, and other points, considerable 
 colonies have long been established; and their n}ork- 
 ings, ancient and present, are ver\; much in evidence 
 on most of the snow brooks issuing from the glaciers. 
 The usual aspect of a settlement is a series of ponds, 
 formed by dams made of brush, small sticks, and the 
 logs of aspen — felled by the sharp incisors of the 
 beaver themselves — rvhich these interesting workers 
 erect at chosen points, successfully retarding the swift 
 course of the stream to a sluggish flow sufficient to per- 
 mit manipulation at the will of the worker. The ponds 
 thus dammed and formed, are usually connected by 
 the Workers with a system of canals and waterways, 
 allowing free water passage to all points, often pene- 
 trating to a considerable degree the bottom of a de- 
 clivity or gully, which are used for the floating and 
 rafting of those logs, which the animals have cut on 
 the near hillside either for dam or food purposes, the 
 latter consisting mostly of the bark of the aspen and 
 willow. At the strategic point in their ponds, they 
 erect log and mud houses with subaqueous entrances, 
 which by reason of their being surrounded by water 
 in the summer time and incased in ice in winter, pro- 
 tect them from predatory beasts. Both Miss Bird and 
 Mr. Chapin, in their respective books, make consid- 
 erable mention of beaver; and ''Mountain Jim'' Nu- 
 gent trapped them in considerable numbers. Tradi- 
 tion indicates the presence of ancient trappers attracted 
 to these parts by the beaver, and long before the times 
 of the miners, when fur was the coveted spoil of the 
 Western wilderness. 
 
 62 
 
THE BEAVER 
 
 IN Winter's thrall, the ice-bound 
 And ponded beaver. 
 
 In hut of mud and sticks 
 
 Framed by his deft weaver. 
 Sleeps, seal-like, upon his shelf 
 
 Smoothly worn and low; 
 Or hungered, flops in his 
 
 'Neath hut pool of water. 
 And entering canal of 
 
 Outer pond, seeks fodder: 
 Bark — stript from his stores 
 
 Of aspen poles and willow. 
 And if green soft succulence 
 
 He craves, and fresher. 
 He scours bottom of the pond 
 
 For roots and osier. 
 While, blue-arched, above his 
 
 Little world of water. 
 Vaults gleamed crystal span 
 
 Of ice — most noble harbor; 
 Which, in the outer world. 
 
 Forms white floor of winter; 
 Tread by howling coyote, wolf. 
 
 And ravened cougar; 
 Whose blood lust eyes, fierce 
 
 On devoted hut doth hunger; 
 Raging at the thought, that few 
 
 Feet or so, just under. 
 Their coveted prey, safe from cruel 
 
 Slaughter, soft slumbers. 
 
 By the bright sun, thru the 
 
 Icy roof impelling 
 Rays of purest gold; 
 
 By swift waters swelling. 
 
 63 
 
The wise water-worker, 
 
 Castored beaver, peeping. 
 Knows that Winter's reign is past. 
 
 And Spring is bringing 
 Wealth of flashing waters bright. 
 
 And flood impending; 
 Which means toi him labors fast 
 
 Of hut and dam mending. 
 With shiv'ring crash, the pond ice 
 
 Roof falls, and floating, 
 Sinks beneath the sun. 
 
 To sparkling aqua melting. 
 Released, the Castors, alert 
 
 For foe close lurking. 
 By night and day labor; 
 
 And the swift stream wending. 
 Is safe harnessed sure. 
 
 To the mere point of tending. 
 And presently the mother 
 
 Beaver, glad bearing. 
 Shows to her mate sleek pups; 
 
 Who, keen water sporting. 
 Splash and tumble tiny pond 
 
 In wavelets flashing; 
 And sedged canals and waterways. 
 
 With gay dashing. 
 
 Deep with greens of pregnant June 
 
 Hie dams are verdured. 
 The shining rippling ponds. 
 
 Of pure snow-melts filtered. 
 Brim, sapphire-sparkling, their 
 
 Grassy rims, flower lipped; 
 As bright nectar flowing 
 
 Cups of Oceanus, 
 Proff*ed to his uncle. 
 
 Purple arching Uranus. 
 
 64 
 
Tall spruce and slender pines 
 
 TTieir reflections incline 
 Into these green edged mirrors. 
 
 Set in gold sunshine; 
 And summer moons, shimmering 
 
 In molten silver. 
 Flood the breezed soft-lapping 
 
 Pools in nocturne quiver. 
 While the star-coals. 
 
 Glowing in the ashes of Night, 
 Gleam — fire eyed, into these 
 
 Cisterns, with ruddy light. 
 And sweet — thru the 'luptuous 
 
 Season — germ, birth, grov^h — 
 The shy Castor's isled 
 
 Castle and flooded moat 
 Resound with glad songs 
 
 Of nesting and brooding bird; 
 And oft the brimming ponds 
 
 With flashing fins are stirred. 
 
 Red mapling autumn at last 
 
 Appears, to quicken 
 Sun-langored Castor, to cut his 
 
 Crop of aspen; 
 And mid the blood-tingling 
 
 Frosts of night, he hastens. 
 Steel-keened incisors 
 
 And levered jaw to fasten, 
 'Gainst trembling trunk and stem, 
 
 In squat muscling action; 
 And quick felled to earth they are. 
 
 In toppling fashion. 
 Bough trimmed next — then severed 
 
 In short lengths for rafting. 
 
 65 
 
Then, with every outlying 
 
 Guard in quick suspense. 
 Food hoarding Castor, with 
 
 True water-level sense. 
 Drags his timber to the nigh 
 
 Canal or main stream. 
 And rafts, water hid himself. 
 
 By bright moon-beam. 
 To yon isled castle in 
 
 The waters of his pool; 
 There to pile his storehouse 
 
 With bark of aspen full. 
 Now come the first faint quaverings 
 
 Of Winter's fleecy snow; 
 TTie ice forms, and wise Castor 
 
 Gloats within his hut below. 
 
 66 
 
UNDER THE SNOWS 
 
 UNDER the snows Val Elkanah soft lies — 
 Under the arch of the silent skies. 
 
 White is her bosom — closed are her eyes. 
 She sleeps on her couch as a northern queen, 
 Breathing the balse of the spruces green. 
 
 Oh, soften thy murmur, ye ice fringed stream. 
 Ye birds of the forest, intrude not her dream. 
 Oh, winds of the winter, blow softly and low. 
 For fair Val Elkanah sleeps under the snow. 
 
 From above peer the mountains blear and bleak. 
 Thru the deep passes from peak to peak: 
 Sentinels stern, that move not nor speak; 
 
 Guarding the loved One in slumber below. 
 Kissed by the lips of the alpenglow. 
 
 Ye rude bold tempest, be still on the height. 
 
 Ye far world, enter not in her sight. 
 For fair Val Elkanah, clad in white — 
 Under the high stars and suns of the night — 
 
 Sleeps beneath the dim beams of their light. 
 
 How can ye ask me, to leave one so fair — 
 
 She in her beauty sleeping there. 
 
 Apart from the world — its pain and care! 
 Ne'er will I leave her, so pure and sweet. 
 
 Together, we'll the bright springtime greet. 
 
 Oh, soften thy murmur, ye ice fringed stream. 
 Ye birds of the forest, intrude not her dream. 
 Oh, winds of the winter, blow softly and low. 
 For fair Val Elkanah sleeps under the snow. 
 
 67 
 
The white-tailed ptarmigan, like the botany of the 
 upper heights of the Front Range of the Rockies, sug- 
 gests the far north of arctic Tvilds. It is the southern- 
 most representative of a bird family whose members 
 furnished sport for Lord Dufferins yacht crew on the 
 Isle of Spitzbergen, and whose proud cock ^^ distant 
 Labrador inspired Audubon to one of his finest bird 
 paintings. Their plumage changes with the seasons 
 and in winter is pure white. Protected by law, they 
 inhabit the rock slopes above timber-line in consider- 
 able numbers, feeding upon the buds of the alpine 
 willows and birches. In winters of unusual snow-fall, 
 which completely cover their usual feeding grounds, 
 they are forced to the lower valleys to feed in the 
 willow, birch, and alder copses. 
 
 68 
 
WINTER FLIGHT OF PTARMIGAN 
 
 WILDEST — most exquisite sight. 
 Seen in these alpine lands, 
 Is the flight of ptarmigan 
 
 O'er Winter's snow-grained sands. 
 Startled — they rise in spectral flight 
 
 From the valley floor; 
 And with wild cries wing ghostly 
 
 The icy meadows o'er. 
 Wheeling, curving pinions spotless. 
 
 In descending night — 
 Dim seen in the pall of blinding 
 
 Snows, they speed their flight. 
 Toward the gashed, gorge-rent, gale-swept 
 
 Summits of pallored peaks. 
 Which yet the winter sun enfeebled. 
 
 Mantles with pale rose streaks. 
 
 Oh, wondrous, snow plumed fowl 
 
 Of far, drear alpine height; 
 Thy flight suggests the winging 
 
 Of holy angels bright. 
 Seeming a brood so unearthly. 
 
 Alabaster white; 
 As if pure seraphic spirits. 
 
 Speeding infinite 
 O'er arctic ice-gleaming wastes 
 
 'Tween earth and heaven laid. 
 Had, from the gold paved, spiraled 
 
 Holy Way, swift flight made. 
 To meet One, who, divinely favored, 
 
 Had brought his dead — 
 Changed from cold clay into living 
 
 Dove-like form instead — 
 And from the utmost seas, in 
 
 His bosom soft carried 
 Hie exquisite shape; and amid this 
 
 Desolation dread. 
 Had met like winged shapes of 
 
 Innocence from Edened calms. 
 And loosed his dead, to fly 
 
 With them to heavenly realms. 
 
 69 
 
ASPEN DAYS ARE DAYS OF GOLD 
 
 A 
 
 SPEN days are days of gold, 
 Whisp'ring to lovers — "Sweet enfold;' 
 As all the brown crags. 
 
 And all the green groves. 
 And all the far hills 
 
 Their shining bright tresses gild. 
 And the heart beats blissful. 
 
 As tho its love 
 Embraced it close. 
 
 And all its tender longing filled. 
 
 Aspen days are autumn days 
 
 Of cobwebbed skies. 
 And sun-warmed, balsam 
 
 Scented, nooks and glades; 
 The heart, in Indian summer 
 
 Warmth, revives; 
 And love embraces love. 
 
 In gold leafed shades. 
 
 As if approving Summer's 
 
 Last fond love. 
 The birch in reddest scarlet 
 
 Crowns the heights above; 
 And sighing, love-panting. 
 
 Soft, odorous breeze of South 
 Imparts to everything of kiss 
 
 Its rosy mouth. 
 
 Aspen days are days of gold, 
 Whisp'ring to lovers — "Sweet enfold;" 
 As all the brown crags. 
 
 And all the green groves. 
 And all the far hills 
 
 Their shining bright tresses gild. 
 And the heart beats blissful. 
 
 As tho its love 
 Embraced it close, * 
 
 And all its tender longing filled. 
 
 70 
 
VIRGIN PEAKS 
 
 YE'. 
 Milk-white breasts of Virgin Peaks, 
 
 Pink teated — swelling — 
 
 With fragrant, warm, intoxicant 
 
 Purple hollows 'tween dwelling! 
 
 Ye! 
 
 Vast Alpine Maids ! Molten sired 
 By the red fires of love clutched elements; 
 Lying, ripened, lily bulbed — recumbent — 
 In chastity sweet florulent! 
 
 Who? 
 
 'Mong the starred youth of the orb isled 
 
 Streams of Night dispersed. 
 
 Shall lead ye, mist veiled. 
 
 To the marriage bed of Universe? 
 
 71 
 
CoTD'bell Hill, at the foot of which nestles the lit- 
 tle hamlet of Allenspark, is one of the most romantic 
 spots in the Rockies of Northern Colorado, and from 
 its summit is to he observed one of the most glorious 
 panoramas of the region. The SnolP^ Range, Wild 
 Basin, Meeker Basin, the Vale of Elkanah, and the 
 upper gorges of the North St Vrain and its various 
 tributaries, are here seen in magnificent ensemble. 
 
 72 
 
THE MAID O' COW-BELL HILL 
 
 THERE is a spot near Aliens Park, 
 A rugged, wind-swept hill : 
 I ne'er can pass its grassy slopes 
 
 Without a poignant thrill. 
 A pine wood, once most beautiful, 
 
 Swept from its base to top; 
 But fierce and wind-fanned forest fires 
 
 Felled charred its virgin crop. 
 Since then a native grass has claimed 
 
 Its wide and open green; 
 And cattle from the village there 
 
 Feed daily on the scene. 
 And because of distant cow-bells 
 
 In evening clear and still. 
 Softly tinkling from the hillside. 
 
 People call it Cow-bell Hill. 
 
 And the stars they twinkle-twinkle. 
 
 O'er the mountains, glen, and stream. 
 And the bells they tinkle-tinkle. 
 As the cows graze on the green. 
 And as the notes waft to me. 
 In the evening clear and still, 
 I'm dreaming of the maiden 
 That I met on Cow-bell Hill. 
 
 One day to glance the landscape o'er — 
 
 Its view is famous far — 
 From lights of fair Elkanah's Vale 
 
 To Green Mountain's fire scar — 
 I sat me down upon a ledge 
 
 Beneath a cloudless sky. 
 And drank Wild Basin's beauty in 
 
 And Meeker's vastness high. 
 A west wind, soft as woman's touch. 
 
 Pressed light my sweatened brow. 
 And perfume of the heather sweet 
 
 Swept upward to me now. 
 
 73 
 
And — did I dream? It seemed not that; 
 
 It was so true and real : 
 A vision of a maiden fair 
 
 Did sudden now reveal. 
 
 I had oft wished for woman's love. 
 
 The perfect of my dream, 
 But years of 'quiteless longing had 
 
 Subdued my youthful theme. 
 So courteous only I arose 
 
 And gave a friendly bow. 
 And asked her if the view also 
 
 Had led her to the high hill's brow. 
 She answered not a word to me, 
 
 But stood with downcast eyes : 
 A being most transcendent like. 
 
 Not heeding my surprise. 
 Amazed, my thoughts in wonder flashed. 
 
 Be she mortal maid or saint ! 
 And as I stood there wondering. 
 
 She ceased thus her restraint. 
 
 *'In that fair land of spirit ken 
 
 And known as Paradise, 
 I too, have dreamed of love, as you. 
 
 And thus traversed the skies. 
 You've heard, I deem, the truth of life, 
 
 That heav'nly love is this: 
 Bright angels are not one — but flpo. 
 
 Joined thus in perfect bliss. 
 No one in all this world for me. 
 
 But you, whom I adore. 
 So give not up your thoughts of love, 
 
 But seek me more and more. 
 I'm waiting 'mong that winged throng 
 
 For you, and you alone. 
 So falter not nor cease your thoughts 
 
 Of me in that sweet home." 
 
 74 
 
I reeled ! My thoughts came thick and fast 
 
 My heart beat as a boy. 
 I strived to know this wondrous thing 
 
 That made me mad with joy. 
 I could not speak nor voice a word; 
 
 My senses left me quite. 
 I feared to make a sound or note 
 
 Lest she should rise in flight. 
 At last I felt the speech of thought. 
 
 And gazed into her eyes, 
 The clutch of that lost love of mine 
 
 The years had held in ties. 
 With outstretched arms I staggered forth, 
 
 Thus heaven 'lowed me clasp — 
 And for one moment's perfect joy 
 
 I held her in my grasp. 
 
 Oh, wondrous are the mysteries 
 
 Of solitary lives. 
 We see them come and go withal. 
 
 But do not know their skies. 
 A silent love burns brightly, and 
 
 We may not see its flame; 
 But oft within the hidden heart 
 
 It's burning just the same. 
 Tho mortal faith is weak and frail — 
 
 A vision's light as air — 
 Yet the call of that fair maiden 
 
 I ne'er but will declare. 
 She loves me, and she's waiting there — 
 
 Beyond the starry skies. 
 And when my spirit flies from hence 
 
 We'll meet in Paradise. 
 
 And the stars they twinkle-twinkle. 
 O'er the mountains, glen, and stream. 
 And the bells they tinkle- tinkle. 
 As the cows graze on the green. 
 And as the notes waft to me. 
 
 In the evening clear and still, « 
 I'm dreaming of the maiden 
 That I met on Cow-bell Hill. 
 
 75 
 
PURPLES 
 
 EMERGING from the forest dark. 
 With night-log of resinous pine, 
 I beheld a marvel — 
 Beautiful — divine. 
 
 'Twas deep evening, and by the 
 
 Alpenglow I had cut the pine, 
 As the West glowed golden 
 
 In the Sun's decline. 
 
 The winter snows lay deep, and all 
 
 The Vale in marble chastity 
 Was draped by Nature's 
 
 Frost-cryst'ling alchemy. 
 
 I looked — and on the crusted snow 
 Cast my log with sharp wonder cry, 
 
 Gazing worshipful 
 
 Upon the eastern sky. 
 
 The great east Mountain of our God-loved Vale 
 
 Smoked in shim' ring purples. 
 The nuptial bed drape 
 
 Of empassioned couples. 
 
 Not more glorious was pearl-eyed 
 Venus, panting in the throes of love. 
 
 Than this tow' ring Mountain, 
 Quivering above. 
 
 I saw the Groom — transcendent Star, 
 
 Pressing on the Mountain's heaving breast 
 
 His orbed kiss, flaming 
 In glances rubiest. 
 
 Like search-light beams, the Groom, mid the 
 Canopied purples, flashed fire eyes; 
 
 Then rose at last — in flame — 
 From the Mountain's sighs. 
 
 They embraced there — the Mountain and 
 The Star, in Hymen's sweetest swoon; 
 
 Then deep hid from view. 
 
 By veil of 'proaching Moon. 
 
 I waited till the Queen of Night 
 
 Had cleared the east rim of the Vale, 
 
 And by her light, shouldered log. 
 And sought the trail. 
 
 76 
 
THERE IS NO BORDER TO THE WEST 
 
 THERE is no border to the West. 
 That's why I love it best. 
 It travels with the setting sun, 
 On Freedom's high wave crest. 
 
 It has no pampered royalty 
 To check the flow of liberty ; 
 But warmest hospitality. 
 To purge the soul of tyranny. 
 
 All kings will fade. Republics rule 
 The coming years of Hist'ry's school. 
 Like the air of our golden West, 
 All men in liberty breathe best. 
 
 There is no border to the West. 
 That's why I love it best. 
 It travels with the setting sun. 
 On Freedom's high wave crest. 
 
 77 
 
The Vale of Elkanah is famous for its man}) rvon- 
 derful cloud and atmospheric effects, but none are more 
 remarkable than the beautiful alpenglorvs of autumn 
 and earl^ Tvinter. For man}) moments, in some in- 
 stances, after the sun has gone don>n, orange and rose 
 radiances so gloTP from the western sk}), as to tinge and 
 communicate their colors to the first snoTvs of winter. 
 
 78 
 
THE ALPENGLOW 
 
 THE alpenglow is the parting glance 
 Of a perfect, cloudless day. 
 Cast as a dying maiden's gaze 
 Falls on her lover unearthly bright. 
 As her soul takes wing on the heavenly way. 
 And leaves him alone in the deepening night. 
 To murmur her name and pray — and pray. 
 
 Suffusing the burnished peaks of glacier 
 
 And boss of gleaming snow — 
 Submerging the topmost crags and heights. 
 
 It holds the mountains in its fold ; 
 Sifting and rippling its pink blushing tender glow. 
 Thru the deep wind-hollowed passes drear and old. 
 
 And down to the Vale below — below. 
 
 And it lights my soul as it shines from the skies. 
 
 And mantling the peaks. 
 Pours into the Vale its deathless glance. 
 
 Filling my sight with vistas fair ; 
 Pressing its rose blush to my uplifted cheeks, 
 And lifting mine eyes to those sweet visions rare. 
 
 That my thought ever seeks — ever seeks. 
 
 79 
 
In the vernacular of the Rockies, the quaking asps 
 or aspens, are known as Quakers. 
 
 80 
 
THE QUAKER'S BONNY BONNETS 
 
 THE drear sight I saw this morning, dear, 
 'Deed, it sorter made me sad. 
 Altho I s'pose the winter time 
 
 Has right much to make us glad. 
 Yet the frost is keen and biting 
 
 To the greens of summer, dear; 
 And to me there's something mournful 
 
 In the autumn of the year. 
 Now these Quakers, you remember. 
 
 In the springtime's rosy cheer; 
 How they leaved so green, divinely. 
 
 On the sunny hill right here. 
 How in glee they shook in summer 
 
 And soft rustled in the breeze. 
 And now it nearly breaks my heart 
 
 That I must part with these. 
 
 Oh, the Quaker's bonny bonnets 
 Are a-turning on the hill. 
 Their leaves are silent falling 
 In the ripples of the rill. 
 The frost has nipped their dainty heads. 
 They're silent now and still. 
 Oh, can't ye cuddle closer, love. 
 To drive away the chill! 
 
 But there's hope, I guess, in falling leaves. 
 
 As in other things that die. 
 Just as there is resurrection 
 
 In the things we crucify. 
 So we'll watch the dead leaves falling 
 
 As the winter wind blows cold. 
 We will see their yellow tresses 
 
 Sink to Mother Earth and mould. 
 We will see the trees stript naked 
 
 Of their bright green summer dress. 
 And watch the drifting snow enfold 
 
 Their poor shivering distress. 
 
 81 
 
But bright we'll keep the winter fires 
 Till the springtime comes again; 
 
 And then we'll see the Quakers, love, 
 Leaf in the warm spring rain. 
 
 Oh, the Quaker's bonny bonnets 
 Are a-tuming on the hill. 
 
 Their leaves are silent falling 
 In the ripples of the rill. 
 The frost has nipped their dainty heads. 
 They're silent now and still. 
 Oh, can't ye cuddle closer, love. 
 To drive away the chill! 
 
 82 
 
SOME HOLY DAY 
 
 THE slender crescent of the maiden Moon 
 Gleams soft o'er our sacred Peak; 
 And lustrous Venus Aphrodite, bright 
 Conjunctive glows, at her shining feet. 
 Close west-horizoned, shines a rosy alpenglow. 
 
 Which with cupid clouds is wreathed; 
 And I — adoring, stand expectant, suppliant — 
 Bright angels fair to meet. 
 
 I feel, I know, I shall — some Holy Day, 
 
 As these peerless planets repeat. 
 With God-like grace, this glorious scene. 
 
 Fade — and with them sink, in azure sweet. 
 
 83 
 
All that peerless Tvilderness of snolPp alp and 
 shaggy Wood on the headwaters of the North St. Vrain 
 west of Copeland Lake, on the State road between 
 Aliens and Estes Parks, has long been known as Wild 
 Basin. It is a magnificently watered and wooded 
 country, slightl}) touched, man^ years ago, fc\j fire on 
 the north rim. The Continental Divide forms a solid 
 rampart on the west; the Longs Peak spur range rims 
 the north, and the Mt. Caroline ridge, extending south- 
 easterly from Mt. Cooper on the Front Range, rims it 
 on the south. Altho visited and explored more or less 
 b\} numerous parties in recent years, and often pros- 
 pected by miners, it was never accurately mapped not 
 its minor peaks named, until Messrs. Cooper and Bab- 
 cock accomplished the task ^" 1908-09 ; and its upper 
 heights still offer unexplored fastnesses to the daring. 
 
 84 
 
w 
 
 WILD BASIN 
 
 ILD BASIN! 
 
 Torrent roaring gorge of June! 
 The gathered snows of winter 
 Melt — froth descending — 
 In seaward swoon. 
 
 High the river, swelling. 
 
 With the loosed mad snows impelling. 
 
 Rears its crest, flood fills 
 
 Its banks, and sets the land atune. 
 
 Wild Basin! 
 
 Snow frescoed corridor! 
 
 The orb studded dome of Night 
 Its snow bastioned heights 
 High arching o'er: 
 
 Reflecting her red lamps 
 In its emerald ripjiling tarns ; 
 And sifting soft moon-beams 
 O'er its green, moss-cushioned floor. 
 
 Wild Basin! 
 
 Deep — squirrel haunted woo(i ! 
 
 Spruce columned — and balsamed sweet; 
 Green aspen edged, pined. 
 And brown willowed. 
 
 Dogwood twined — fruited red. 
 
 With rasp and strawberry's ripe heads; 
 
 Clematised — junipered ; 
 
 And, nigh snow, dwarfed pines soft brood. 
 
 Wild Basin! 
 
 Bird flitting realm of song! 
 
 Joy chorused, myriad winged ; 
 Full throated, piping, 
 Melodious throng. 
 
 Ousel — songed water-fowl ; 
 Humming-birds, with swift whirring wings; 
 Solitaires, and other 
 Songsters, sing the woods among. 
 
 85 
 
Wild Basin! 
 
 Sweet scented land of green ! 
 
 Alpine gardened, next the snow. 
 With marsh marigold. 
 And next the stream, 
 
 With primroses red, blue 
 Mertensia, and adder's tongue; 
 And banked with laurel pink. 
 And rare orchids, oft unseen. 
 
 Wild Basin! 
 
 Land of trout teeming pools ! 
 A full thousand white cascades. 
 Coursing forest glades 
 In leafy cools ; 
 
 Shining with specked beauties. 
 
 Which — finning foamed, bud-kissed riffles — 
 
 Tempting lurk 'neath deep banks, 
 
 Slow snuffling sun-gleamed globules. 
 
 Wild Basin! 
 
 Cragged abyss of azure! 
 
 Cloud fleeced, with rainbows arching 
 Sunlit waterfalls 
 And fountains pure. 
 
 Distant storms, echoing 
 
 Their thunders, and lightnings flashing. 
 
 Hail, rain — tempests lashing; 
 
 Then sun-glints from skies unobscured. 
 
 Wild Basin! 
 Protean Enchantress! 
 
 Dissolved to tears — flushed — angered; 
 Then gay smiling bright 
 In tenderness. 
 
 Piqued — ^withdrawing her smiles. 
 Yet ever beautiful ; 
 Then revealing, ne'er shamed. 
 All her charms in wantonness. 
 
 86 
 
Wild Basin! 
 
 Bowed in autumnal hush! 
 
 Streams low murmuring and shrunk 
 To gold sanded rills ; 
 And founts cease gush. 
 
 Winds low wailing. Deep woods 
 Whisp'ring — sore dreading coming snows. 
 Crimsoned sunsets flicker, 
 And ling'ring birds swift southward rush. 
 
 Wild Basin! 
 
 Gleamed in desolate snows ! 
 
 From ice stilled streams to peak tips ; 
 And forest, snow-drooped 
 In silent rows. 
 
 Moons, ghostly and mist-veiled. 
 Peer monthly at the deep'ning drifts. 
 Suns, feeble, rise and set; 
 And the wild wind ever blows. 
 
 87 
 
The Mist Dragon is a vast fleece-like mist that is 
 often observed in the Vale of Elkanah, issuing in 
 stealthy, undulating, serpentine movement, from the 
 lower gorges of the North St. Vrain and creeping 
 along the base of the Twin Sisters and up into Lamb's 
 Notch, the hydrographic divide between the waters of 
 the Big Thompson and the St. Vrain; where it is usu- 
 ally) dispersed and dissipated by conflicting air currents 
 from Estes Park. This cloud formation is gleaming 
 white and is often miles in length; and by reason of 
 its insidious, reptile motion and uniform python-like 
 body, suggests a dragon. Occasionally it retreats and 
 withdraws itself to the gorges whence it came, with the 
 same motion of its advance. 
 
THE MIST DRAGON 
 
 OUT from the deep gorge 
 The mist-stoled reptile sweeps. 
 Gripping each confronting peak* 
 It stealthy thiefs, 
 As a worm extends itself 
 
 And slowly creeps, 
 Bridging, arch-like. 
 
 The op'ed space from leaf to leaf. 
 
 Valeward, from the river's course. 
 
 It twists its huge constricting shape; 
 And floats — a dirigible vast — 
 
 Its snow-white sinuous tape 
 The mid heights of the Sisters past. 
 
 And on to the pine clad Notch ; 
 Where unseen warders of the air — 
 
 Who its silent course have watched — 
 Attack, with desp'rate fury. 
 
 The intruding aerialite. 
 Now deadly and mid-air conflict 
 
 Rages on that sky -ward height; 
 Until, dismayed, the beast 
 
 Retires to its cave in shattered plight; 
 Or dissolves invisible, 
 
 And unseen of man, maintains the fight. 
 
 Thus, the aerial, 
 
 Vap'rous world of cloud — 
 As doth the sphered. 
 
 Sunward rolling globe of man — 
 Teems with commingling life. 
 
 Monster-like and mad. 
 In perfect 'lotment 
 
 With God's unfathomed plan. 
 
Thunder Lake, where the follorving poem was 
 written, lies at the upper end of Wild Basin under the 
 magnificent thousand foot precipices of Mt. Kirkwood. 
 From the east shore of the lake, two beautiful water- 
 falls can be seen, pitching in whitest foam over gorge 
 rims 500 feet above the lake level. Directly to the 
 west, above a wilderness of flashing snow fields, is the 
 low col of the Continental Divide between Mts. Alice 
 and Kirkwood — the Boulder-Grand Pass. The lake 
 was named by Harry Cole, an early settler, on account 
 of the deep reverberations of thunder which roll 
 grandly from Kirkwood's mighty slopes, and boom 
 tempestuously across the lake. 
 
 90 
 
SPRUCES AND STARS 
 
 THE white-crowned sparrow's 
 Song is hushed — 
 
 The pipit's voice is still. 
 The sound of stream that day-bright rushed 
 
 Has sunk to tinkling rill. 
 The last bright ray of 
 Setting sun 
 
 Cross the tarn its fire has flung. 
 Merging with leaping flame crimson. 
 
 Of campfire, pot o'erhung. 
 The meal is done. 
 
 And Night's deep gloom 
 Enfolds the mountain land. 
 The charred red coals of campfire bloom 
 
 Are dying on the sand. 
 Then stars descend 
 
 'Mong dark spruce boughs. 
 And dance to sleepy eyes ; 
 Till their spell induces deep sleep drowse. 
 And alp wind breathes in sighs. 
 
 Spruces and stars 
 
 Are the campfire cars, 
 
 Wheeling souls to pleasant dreams ; 
 
 As on my back. 
 
 In the blanket pack, 
 
 I gaze on the bright orb gleams; 
 
 Shining, mellow soft. 
 
 From skies aloft. 
 
 Thru the spruce boughs' latticed seams. 
 
 The midnight chill 
 Of the alpine night 
 
 Awakens me with start, 
 I shiver — brushing hoar frost white, 
 
 From where the blankets part. 
 Then gath'ring full 
 The whole bed pack, 
 I snuggle deep inside; 
 
 91 
 
And peer soft thru the spruce roof crack. 
 
 At the planets circHng wide. 
 Endless train 
 
 Of chariots bright, 
 
 Tracking the Milky Way — 
 I cannot sleep till starry Night 
 
 Dim passengers the Day. 
 Hie balsamed boughs 
 
 That arbor roof, 
 
 The cov' rings of my pack. 
 Bend soft in mothering sweet droop. 
 
 As swift the planets track. 
 
 Spruces and stars 
 
 Are the camplire cars, 
 
 Wheeling souls to pleasant dreams ; 
 
 As on my back. 
 
 In the blanket pack, 
 
 I gaze on the bright orb gleams; 
 
 Shining, mellow soft. 
 
 From skies aloft, 
 
 Thru the spruce boughs' latticed seams. 
 
 The dark trees 
 
 With their cuddlings mute, 
 Again deep sleep instill; 
 In spite of thought in dream dispute, 
 
 I'd sleep not till Morn's thrill. 
 Oh! What soft light 
 
 Is that I see. 
 
 That dims these starry eyes? 
 It is — It is the mystery 
 
 Of Morning's glad sunrise. 
 I lie now 
 
 Till the lovely eyes 
 
 Of soft and tender Night 
 Grow dim and pale in ghostly guise. 
 
 And spruces stand in light. 
 
 92 
 
Oh, Night. 
 
 Sweet dusky mother deep — 
 Farewell, till Day once more 
 Sinks in Thine arms in tired sleep. 
 
 And I with Thee drowsed o'er. 
 
 Spruces and stars 
 
 Are the campfire cars. 
 
 Wheeling souls to pleasant dreams; 
 
 As on my back. 
 
 In the blanket pack, 
 
 I gaze on the bright orb gleams; 
 
 Shining, mellow soft. 
 
 From skies aloft, 
 
 Thru the spruce boughs' latticed seams. 
 
 93 
 
The gloTi>'Worm is found on the summit of Old 
 Man and Lily Mountains and other points in the mid- 
 dle oberland, in June and early summer. It is about 
 an inch long, appearing somewhat like a caterpillar^ 
 and emitting a shining green light; which glows stead- 
 ily, not at intervals, as the fire-fly s does. It is only the 
 female which is thus phosphorescent, the male resem- 
 bling an ordinary flying beetle; which, flying about in 
 the night, is attracted to the female by her light. 
 
 94 
 
SONG OF THE GLOW-WORM 
 
 w 
 
 HERE art thou, my pretty mate. 
 
 Ling' ring in the warm glade late? 
 My form is fair illuminate. 
 And I, my love, impatient wait. 
 
 On the rock — 'neath the moon — 
 I soft incandescent bloom. 
 Gleaming bright to captivate 
 My own — my pretty downy mate. 
 
 Soft he comes, my pretty down. 
 Ambling o'er the lichens brown ; 
 
 Attracted by my shining form. 
 
 Which he'll embrace till dewy morn. 
 
 On the rock — 'neath the moon — 
 I soft incandescent bloom. 
 Gleaming bright to captivate 
 My own — my pretty downy mate. 
 
 95 
 
Ml Ypsilon, a prominent peak of the Mummy 
 Range northwest of Horseshoe Park, received its name 
 from Mrs. Frederick H. Chapin, who in company with 
 her husband, visited Estes Park i" 1887 ; and the fol- 
 lowing, quoted from Mr. Chapin s hook. Mountaineer- 
 ing In Colorado, will explain: 
 
 "One great peak ^iih a steep wall facing east, and 
 a long reclining ridge leading toward the southwest, 
 especially interested us. A large snow-field lay on the 
 eastern face; two glittering hands of ice extended sky- 
 ward to the ridge of the mountain, forming a perfect 
 Y. My wife said to me, 'Its name shall he Ypsilon 
 (the Creek name for the letter Y) Peak'' ^o it went 
 forth, and the name was accepted by the dwellers in 
 the valley, and by the visitors at the ranches.'* 
 
 In the summer of 1905, Mr. Louis Raymond 
 Levings, younger son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lev- 
 ings of Chicago, in attempting to cross the east face 
 of the mountain, suddenly fell to depths below and was 
 instantly ^i7/eJ. His body was entombed in concrete 
 near the point where it lodged. 
 
 96 
 
LOUIS 
 
 ON the slopes of Ypsilon, 
 Where the flying eagle soars — 
 Where the snows of winter linger. 
 And the gleaming granite lures — 
 There a Sleeper lies a-dreaming 
 
 In the hollow of the steep, 
 Where the winds of tempests bellow. 
 And the storm mists wreathe and creep. 
 
 Across the glist'ning snow-fields 
 
 There comes the rosy flush of Morn 
 Hie heights in golden sunshine glitter — 
 
 The beaming Day is born. 
 Then Evening with its shadows — 
 
 Let thru the Twilight's bars — 
 And dusky Night in glory 
 
 Spreads her beauteous robe of stars. 
 
 Yet the Sleeper lies a-dreaming. 
 And the suns they cycle on. 
 Hie seasons their set courses run, 
 And the years pass swift anon. 
 We loved Him! 
 Ah ! Need say we more ! 
 Our loved One — slumber on; 
 As the Ages chant their measures 
 On the slopes of Ypsilon. 
 
 The Spring with alpine daisies fair 
 
 Decks bright the Sleeper's cot ; 
 The Summer with its primroses. 
 
 And sweet for-get-me-not ; 
 The Autumn with its lusty winds. 
 
 And gorgeous alpenglows; 
 TTie Winter with its winding sheet 
 
 Of chaste and purest snows. 
 
 97 
 
The silent Mountain glistens 
 
 In the heat of summer noon. 
 Its snowy wings gleam brightly 
 
 'Neath the winter's midnight moon. 
 Its crest is stud with star gems — 
 
 Its pure fountains sparkle clear ; 
 And all its alpine beauty 
 
 Is revealed each passing year. 
 
 Yet the Sleeper lies a-dreaming. 
 And the suns they cycle on. 
 The seasons their set courses run. 
 And the years pass swift anon. 
 We loved Him! 
 Ah! Need say we more! 
 Our loved One — slumber on; 
 As the Ages chant their measures 
 On the slopes of Ypsilon. 
 
 98 
 
BACK TO THE HEARTH OF MY HUT 
 
 o 
 
 NCE more I've met the monster face to face — 
 Spoil-mad World and the batthng Race. 
 Stript of my goods, sore wounded, scarce ahve, 
 I gain my hut — a fugitive. 
 
 Fled from the world and its misery — 
 Safe from the arms of the enemy — 
 Back to the hearth of my hut. Oh God, with Thee ! 
 
 Quick, then, put the big back log in its space. 
 And pitch-needled boughs of pine put in place. 
 
 A handful of shavings — blaze of the match — 
 Ah, now the bright fires of my hearth do catch. 
 
 The pot soon is singing its roundelay. 
 
 My dog is curled up on his wisp of hay. 
 The Muses have come for the evening's tale. 
 
 And now surges strong the fierce winter gale. 
 
 Red, now, the flames of my hearth render cheer. 
 
 My friends gather round me, lovely and dear. 
 Both angels and men here need have no fear. 
 
 We're safe in our hut from the outside drear. 
 
 Fled from the world and its misery — 
 Safe from the arms of the enemy — 
 Back to the hearth of my hut. Oh God, with Thee ! 
 
Helen H^de, that inimitable skeicher of Japanese 
 child and folk lif^> being impressed with the piciur- 
 esqueness in Japan of the flitting of the innumerable 
 lighted paper lanterns on the hill and mountain sides 
 which the natives carr^ as the^ visit each other or 
 gather at social functions at night, introduced the same 
 charming custom in Elkanah Valley, fc\j presenting 
 to each of her friends a handsome Japanese lantern in- 
 scribed with the monogram of the local club, and 
 which are invariably) used as above — the lighted lan- 
 tern being symbolized as signify)ing the warmest fel- 
 lowship and hospitality. 
 
 100 
 
LIGHTS OF THE VALE 
 
 LIGHTS of the Vale 
 Are flitting the trails, 
 
 To lighten each one to the hall; 
 Where maidens most fair 
 
 And gallants of air 
 Will linger long in the spell of the ball. 
 
 Oh! Beautiful hghts! 
 Oh! Lanterns so bright! 
 
 Glowing far in the evergreen dale: 
 What brightness is thine 
 
 Of sweet friendship divine — 
 Soft, shining lights of the Vale I 
 
 Lights of the Vale 
 
 Are flitting the trails. 
 
 To lighten each one to his home ; 
 And each lantern bright 
 
 Gleams soft in the night, 
 As beaming stars in the heaven orbed dome. 
 
 Oh! Beautiful lights! 
 Oh! Lanterns so bright! 
 
 Glowing far in the evergreen dale: 
 What tales could ye tell 
 
 As love treads yonder dell — 
 Soft, shining lights of the Vale ! 
 
 101 
 
The sarv-rvhet owl is so named from its raspM^e 
 note, resembling the filing of a saw. It is the pigmy 
 of the owl family in this region; is only about eight 
 inches long, of reddish-brown, white, and gray plum- 
 age, and is here all the year round. 
 
 102 
 
THE SAW-WHET OWL 
 
 THERE is a little saw-whet owl 
 Who visits me at night; 
 But he's so small and active like 
 It's rare that he's in sight. 
 
 He starts to file his little saw 
 'Bout the time I'm snug in bed. 
 
 He keeps it up so long at times 
 I oft think he'll split my head. 
 
 Now they say an owl's ill-omened. 
 But of him I have no fear: 
 
 I hope he'll whet his little saw 
 For many a happy year. 
 
 103 
 
The Continental Divide is, in effect, a huge wall; 
 and on the east slope, that which descends towards 
 the Great Plains and forms their uppermost watershed, 
 it is indented with innumerable gorges, gulches, basins, 
 and other cavities, forming natural reservoirs, cisterns^ 
 and deep receptacles, for the depositing and conserv- 
 ing of snow, and so contrived as to be hidden for a 
 large portion of the year from the rays of the sun. 
 When the falls of snow come, they usually appear 
 from the southeast, borne by a steady drift and at a 
 temperature of about 22 degrees above zero, and ex- 
 tending over the whole Front Range and usually at- 
 taining a depth of from two to sixteen inches; and it 
 can readily be understood, that if they lay as they fell, 
 they would quickly evaporate upon the appearance of 
 the sun. To avoid this, and maintain an inexhaustible 
 and steady streamflow. Nature provides in this region 
 a winter prevailing wind, the northwest, which, after 
 almost every fall of snow, strips hundreds of miles of 
 the high country along the Continental Divide of its 
 frozen flawed wealth; and blows, sifts, and deposits it 
 in enormous drifts and fields in the above described 
 repositories; later, as the sun swings northward, and at 
 a time when moisture is often sorely needed on the 
 Great Plains for irrigating crops, to be melted and 
 flow to them in the form of purest aqua. The forest, 
 of course, is a great secondary factor in snow conser- 
 vation in this region, but most of the great neves and 
 glaciers of the Front Range lie high above timberline. 
 
 104 
 
THE WHITE SHEPHERD OF THE 
 OBERLAND 
 
 AFOOT of snow has fallen 
 On the Continental Range; 
 A smother of gray some storm clouds 
 Spilled light the frozen rain. 
 On hill, in vale, and valley deep. 
 
 The fluffy fleeces lie. 
 Waiting for the faithful Shepherd 
 To drive them cross the sky. 
 
 Afar on the western ranges 
 
 Sounds his boreal horn. 
 Clear o'er the glistening alps 
 
 The echoing notes are borne. 
 And the great pines hearing, 
 
 Rustle their green boughs and whisper, 
 "He's coming. He's coming! 
 
 Ye sleeping flocks, bestir! Bestir!" 
 
 Clad in his airy raiment — 
 
 Wielding his soughing staff. 
 
 The White Shepherd of the mountains 
 
 Seeks swift the fleecy band. 
 
 And o'er the wintry ledges — 
 
 Across the dizzy crags, 
 
 He drives them safe to the sheepfolds. 
 
 In the heart of the Oberland. 
 
 Roused from their slumber, joy wakened. 
 
 Quick springing, and bleating. 
 The flocks of the peak world 
 
 Their loved Shepherd give greeting. 
 '*Up — up! And be off," says he; 
 
 "To the sheepfolds be fleeting. 
 Ere the dread wolf of the Sun 
 
 Thy snowy fluffs be seeking." 
 
 Thus thru the long night. 
 
 With swift scamper and scurrying rush. 
 O'er the cabin roof and eaves 
 
 They rustle, jostle, and brush ; 
 With ever the weird song 
 
 Of their Shepherd, and softest sough 
 Of his wonderful staff 
 
 Directing stragglers straight and true. 
 
 105 
 
Another marvel to be noted in connection with 
 the above conserving process is that in the lower val- 
 leys and ranges, the forest here becoming the main re- 
 ceptacle factor in snow conservation, the same wind 
 sweeps the snow from the unwooded pastures, slopes, 
 and fields, into the forests; thus not onl}) affording open 
 grazing for the stock, but at the same time conserving a 
 large quantit}) of snow in these lower altitudes, which 
 melts and descends to the Great Plains early in the 
 spring, in time to irrigate the newly planted crops in the 
 event of the failure of rain at the critical period of ger- 
 mination. Thus the Northwest Wind — cursed 
 roundly at times by both plainsman and mountaineer 
 for its persistent bitter blast — is probably our greatest 
 conservationist; and whenever the Great Hills are 
 white with flying snow, it is certain it is busy storing 
 and conserving a wealth of moisture. 
 
 The snows of the upper oberland do not melt to 
 any appreciable degree until June, the flood month. 
 The normal snowfall of the Front Range valleys is 
 from eight to ten feet. Glaciers are formed by masses 
 of snow concentrating in one place, generally a steep 
 gorge where the wind has conveyed the snow, and there 
 passing thru a granular process, which gradually con- 
 verts them into ice. A neve or firn, is a field of snow 
 undergoing the granular process. 
 
 106 
 
Now safe in the gorges, the gulches. 
 
 And shehered north slopes, 
 The flocks have been driven 
 
 Ere the Sun his golden eye opes. 
 And if thru the day, the Shepherd 
 
 Yet drives fleeces that stray. 
 He still with his song and staff 
 
 Keeps the dread wolf away. 
 
 Now list ye, honest worker 
 
 Of farm, of orchard, and crop: 
 When loud sounds the wind-horn of Shepherd 
 
 From high mountain top. 
 Do not curse that wild note. 
 
 But cheerily bend to its blast. 
 And bless all the bright waters 
 
 The pure snow fleeces send past. 
 
 Clad in his airy raiment — 
 
 Wielding his soughing staff. 
 
 The White Shepherd of the mountains 
 
 Seeks swift the fleecy band. 
 
 And o'er the wantry ledges — 
 
 Across the dizzy crags. 
 
 He drives them safe^to the sheep folds. 
 
 In the heart of the Oberland. 
 
 107 
 
The hermit-thrush is one of the true thrushes of 
 North America. It is one of the late spring arrivals 
 in the Rockies, nests on the ground, and lays four or 
 five pale-bluish eggs. Nearly every swamp or marsh 
 in the upper valleys of the oberland is inhabited by a 
 pair of these beautiful songsters in the nesting and 
 brooding season, Tvho almost invariably perch on a fa- 
 vorite dead snag or stump when in the throes of ecstatic 
 melody. Settlers and other home makers in our alpine 
 valleys, are quite prone to cut and remove sucji un- 
 sightly objects as an old dead snag or tree standing full 
 or part length among its green boughed fellows or in a 
 meadow. These, however, are the real bird trees, bal- 
 conies, and perches of the wild songsters; and to those 
 who have learned and k^ow, are as precious for this 
 reason, as the finest spruce in the glade. 
 
 108 
 
THE HERMIT-THRUSH 
 
 THERE dwells a little hermit dear 
 In the deep and tangled wood. 
 You ne'er can see him come or go, 
 For company or food. 
 His little coat is modest quite. 
 
 And every summer day 
 He sits amid the forest deep. 
 And sings his little heart away. 
 
 He does not like to sit upon 
 
 A green and leafy tree; 
 But rather on an old dead snag 
 
 He lifts his melody. 
 He sounds his peep in early morn — 
 
 In dim and breaking day; 
 But evening is the solemn hour 
 
 That hears his sweetest roundelay. 
 
 It would not do for me to tell 
 
 How matchless is his song. 
 It pipes of all the beauteous things 
 
 That Nature lives among. 
 It sings of rain, and dew, and sky ; 
 
 Of sun, and flower nod. 
 It lifts the soul to mansions high. 
 
 And breathes the sacred name of God. 
 
 109 
 
A MOUNTAIN MORNING GRAY AND I 
 TO WORK 
 
 THE early dawn — gray, ghostly in the east; 
 An old moon, dying, low hung in the west; 
 The cabin clutched in the mell of wild wind- 
 hound. 
 Seeking a deep sunk vacuum never found; 
 Impelling blasts of sand on window-pane. 
 
 And sifting thru fine snow, the hurricane. 
 From dirt-grimed, graveled drifts athwart the Vale — 
 Wind bleached skeletons of deep watered gale. 
 
 The sun, low down, deep burdened, weary strains ; 
 
 Staggering unwieldy o'er distant plains. 
 Peers once with blood-shot eye into the Vale, 
 
 And viewing wild the surge of howling gale. 
 Refuge finds in a gray and leaden sky. 
 
 And lets the vacuum-seeking hounds go by. 
 And they, afoam, despairing of their prey, 
 
 Yell madly on the Continental way. 
 
 Amid the rout of wind and weather drear 
 
 The breakfast lends a momentary cheer. 
 Rich buttermilk pancakes — a slice of ham — 
 
 A little fruit — fill full the inner man. 
 A tight buttoned coat, warm cap, mittened hand. 
 
 And eyes set 'gainst the glint of snow and sand — 
 We're off, the dog and I, with axe and saw. 
 
 Up the steep slope full in the wild wind's maw. 
 
 We cross the glassy roof of iced stream's course. 
 
 Low, deep gurgling thru the airholes hoarse. 
 The meadow grass — mauled, frayed to brassy 
 brown — 
 
 Seems scarce to keep root hold in the ground. 
 The smaller trees about us bend and groan; 
 
 The large ones stiff receive the shock, and moan. 
 No life to bid the dog's attention gay : 
 
 Bird, squirrel, rabbit — all have fled the day. 
 
 110 
 
The mountain crests sharp in defiance stand. 
 
 Tossing off the mad wind-hounds that glut the land. 
 From horns whose keen thrusts loud the beasts make 
 howl, 
 
 And drive them sore on lesser heights to prowl. 
 Now to the deep protecting forest we. 
 
 In whose thick pungent depths from mad gales free, 
 We cut and gather fallen spruce and pine. 
 
 For cottage fires and deepest winter time. 
 
 Ill 
 
From the Vale of Elkanah, distant about fori^- 
 ftve miles as the crow flies, and from an altitude of 
 9,000 feet, can be seen the lights of Denver, as the^ 
 are reflected from the low clouds that frequently hover 
 over the city at night. The upper slopes of the Vale 
 itself, at altitudes of 10,000 feet and upward, are 
 plainly visible with the naked eye from the view points 
 and parks in the above named city. 
 
 112 
 
CITY LIGHTS SEEN FROM THE 
 WILDERNESS 
 
 OFT, as from my hut at night 
 I scan the low hung southeastern sky, 
 I can, reflected on the clouds. 
 The lights of a great city spy. 
 In fancy, I see its thronged streets 
 Of pleasure rife and worldly hfe. 
 As tho I myself were there. 
 Submerged, my soul, in its carnal strife. 
 
 Yet tell me, thou thence-from speeding wind. 
 Who of all that motley throng. 
 Illumed by the glory of his God, 
 As I, on this lone hill, Hfts song 
 Of that love divine, which in Earth 
 And Heaven, sweet fills thirsting soul. 
 And alone, shorn of goods and gold. 
 Wafts Life's voyager to his sure goal. 
 
 Yet I doubt not, and loud rejoice. 
 
 That thousands of those city souls . 
 
 Are pure and fair as angels'; 
 
 Tho deep submerged they are, in close folds 
 
 Of that fevered life and endless care. 
 
 As I would be if I were there. 
 
 Submerged ! 
 
 Aye — and by themselves, and why? 
 Part of the Perfect Plan — is this. 
 For e'en the stars, the nebulae. 
 Swarm as bees in Night's abyss. 
 
 Shine on! 
 
 Beacons of yon city bright. 
 
 And flare your clust'ring candles skyward! 
 
 While I, 'neath these sparkling stars of night. 
 
 Pray earnest upward. 
 
 That yon myriad swarming souls 
 
 Wing ever truest Godward. 
 
 113 
 
YE BRIGHT FOAMING WATERS OF 
 BOUNDING ST. VRAIN 
 
 A SWIFT rushing river 
 Breaks 'cross a pebb'ed strand. 
 'Tis one of the waters 
 Of lofty sky-land. 
 Which gathers the fountains 
 
 Of pure melting snow, 
 And carries them swiftly 
 To depths far below. 
 'Tis a mad rushing flood. 
 
 That none can restrain — 
 TTie bright foaming waters 
 Of bounding St. Vrain. 
 
 Ye were ever thus mad. 
 
 Oh, leaping St. Vrain. 
 In thine eternal rush 
 
 I've called ye in vain. 
 Your sparkling blue lakelets 
 
 And pools without name 
 All seaward are streaming 
 
 With sluicings and drain — 
 To form your wild water. 
 
 Oh, bounding St. Vrain. 
 
 Yet there's one lovely spot. 
 
 Ye know of, St. Vrain; 
 When I called ye, ye stopped, 
 
 And strove not in vain. 
 'Twas high on the mountains 
 
 Where snow glaciers reign; 
 Your trickling blue fountain 
 
 I quaffed in its vein. 
 As fast as it melted. 
 
 Oh, bounding St. Vrain. 
 
 By that happy instance. 
 
 Oh, laughing St. Vrain — 
 Like lover who's tasted — 
 
 114 
 
Tho not vile profane; 
 I stroll oft beside ye. 
 
 As seaward ye train. 
 In refreshing fond love. 
 
 Oh, bounding St. Vrain. 
 
 Roll on then, bright water. 
 
 And verdure the plain. 
 Roll on to the ocean. 
 
 With wild mountain strain. 
 Ye've plunged from the prec'pice — 
 
 Ye've sprung from the cloud; 
 Ye've leaped from the gorge rim. 
 
 Which gray mists enshroud. 
 So roar ye, wild water. 
 
 And splash your white mane — 
 I love you — I love you. 
 
 Oh, bounding St. Vrain. 
 
 115 
 
For several ^ears, it was the manifestly unjust and 
 fatally discriminatory law in Colorado, that only deer 
 with horns could be slain in the legal game season 
 beginning October 1st; which soon resulted — from 
 danger of total extinction — of a law wholly closing 
 for a period of years, the slaughter of deer of any 
 kind. 
 
 116 
 
THE GUILT OF BEARING PROUD 
 ANTLERED CREST 
 
 THERE is a law that dooms 
 In autumn of each year 
 To hunter's ruthless gun. 
 The proudest of the deer. 
 
 The stag is he, whose lordly horns 
 
 Proclaim the lawful prey; 
 And I fancy, as Death speeds the ball. 
 
 His mournful lay: 
 
 *'Fly on, my loved doe, and live. 
 Our beauteous offspring to thrive. 
 
 While I, guilty of bearing proud 
 Antlered crest, must bleeding die.** 
 
 117 
 
YE GREEN PINES AND TALL SPRUCES 
 OF WIND RIVER TRAIL 
 
 OFT in sorrow I've wandered 
 In grief from our Vale, 
 Footing wilds dim remote 
 'Neath the moon's misty veil; 
 To wake in sweet transport 
 
 At the stream's limpid tale. 
 As I walked the green windings 
 Of Wind River Trail. 
 
 Oh, green pines and tall spruces 
 
 Of Wind River Trail! 
 How soft is thy murmur 
 
 As I tread your loved dale. 
 Mating birds sing their songs — 
 
 Flowers fragrance exhale. 
 As I walk your leafed pathways. 
 
 Oh, Wind River Trail. 
 
 There's no grief that Nature 
 
 Cannot sweetly assuage. 
 There's no sorrow so deep 
 
 But a song will avail. 
 And I feel and I know. 
 
 As I there pilgrimage, 
 I'll find joy and sweet peace 
 
 On the Wind River Trail. 
 
 Oh, green pines and tall spruces 
 
 Of Wind River Trail! 
 How soft is thy murmur 
 
 As I tread your loved dale. 
 Mating birds sing their songs — 
 
 Flowers fragrance exhale. 
 As I walk your leafed pathways. 
 
 Oh. Wind River Trail. 
 
 118 
 
IN THE VALLEY OF ELKANAH— 
 THERE IS LOVE 
 
 THERE lies a lovely valley 
 In the mountains far away. 
 Where people often wander 
 And rapt lovers softly stray. 
 And oft they sweetly wonder 
 
 Why this valley green and fair 
 Seems fairer than their fondest dreams- 
 
 So free from sin and care. 
 As thus they gently marvel 
 
 And the meadows fresh they rove. 
 They hear the thrushes singing 
 
 In the deep and verdured grove. 
 And the song they always sing. 
 As they make the woodlands ring. 
 Is — In the Valley of Elkanah — 
 There is Love. 
 
 In the Valley of Elkanah — 
 
 There is Love. 
 Oh! Hear the thrushes 
 
 Singing in the grove; 
 Of the grace that God has sent 
 To this vale of sweet content; 
 
 In the Valley of Elkanah — 
 TTiere is Love. 
 
 In this flower smiling valley 
 
 'Neath the mountain's lofty brow. 
 The dews of sunmier sparkle 
 
 And the night wind whispers low. 
 The green and tasseled spruces 
 
 Murmur wood songs from the hills: 
 And the alpine cascades falling. 
 
 Babble wild notes in their rills. 
 Yet sweeter melody is wafted 
 
 By the thrushes in the grove. 
 As tho Heaven's fairest angels 
 
 Joined in chorus from Above. 
 
 119 
 
And the song they always sing. 
 As they make the woodlands ring. 
 Is — In the Valley of Elkanah — 
 There is Love. 
 
 In the Valley of Elkanah — 
 
 There is Love. 
 Oh! Hear the thrushes 
 
 Singing in the grove; 
 Of the grace that God has sent 
 To this vale of sweet content; 
 
 In the Valley of Elkanah — 
 TTiere is Love. 
 
 120 
 
TIS MOONLIGHT ON THE SISTERS 
 
 T 
 
 IS moonlight on the Sisters! 
 
 The Queen of Night in glory rims 
 The mount in lunar splendors. 
 And full the Vale with silver brims. 
 
 'Tis moonlight on the Sisters! 
 
 The alp world in beauty shines. 
 The voice of Nature whispers 
 
 To the green and glossy pines. 
 
 'Tis moonlight on the Sisters! 
 
 The wild stag beside his mate 
 Scents keen with nostril quivers 
 
 The soft breeze that stirs the lake. 
 
 'Tis moonlight on the Sisters ! 
 
 And all living things are moved 
 To fond caress their lovers. 
 
 In the shadow of the wood. 
 
 'Tis moonlight on the Sisters! 
 
 Come forth, my love, to me. 
 We'll sweet appease Love's hunger 
 
 'Neath the quaking aspen tree. 
 
 121 
 
As seen from Park Hill, and man}) other vietv 
 points in the vast amphitheatre of Estes Park, the ebon 
 n>ooded depths of the Black Canon, with its beauti- 
 ful forested ru flings and verdure fluted rimmings, 
 forms one of the most magnificent canon slashings to 
 be observed in the region. 
 
 DoTvn this deep and gloomy corridor and far 
 across the Park ^^d on toward the Great Plains, 
 Hagues stupendous storm-hatching mass sends tempest 
 after tempest in summer; and in winter, fills its spruce- 
 clad depths with booming blizzards. Hagues is the 
 restless plotting Macbeth of the oberland; and the 
 Black Canon, its witch's cauldron. 
 
 A beautiful trail leads up the canon to Lawn 
 Lake and the Hallett Glacier, past the ranch of 
 Donald MacGregor, the pioneer of those parts. The 
 limpid stream that issues from the cool pungent deeps 
 of this glorious forest aisle supplies Estes village with 
 water; and close to the intake, precipitates itself in a 
 handsome fall. 
 
 122 
 
A THUNDER-CLOUD ISSUING FROM THE 
 BLACK CANON 
 
 THE Thunder Cloud 
 In vap'rous grandeur — aerial battleship. 
 Loosed from its alp cliffed moorings 
 Among the gorges high, 
 Manoeuvers for the caiioned channel 
 Deep, mid the dark dusked headlands 
 Of the gloomed forest aisle; 
 And at each promontory — belches 
 Its forked flashing petard bolt 
 As on it stately plies. 
 
 Blinding — the flash, and thund'ring — the roar, 
 And loud the boomings 'verberate 
 The spruced gulches o'er and o'er. 
 
 Swift gliding now with white bone in teeth 
 
 The monster heaves its beaked prow 
 
 Of slanting pelting hail. 
 
 And all splashed, the shaggy hills and steeps 
 
 Are cool rain submerged, and laved 
 
 In its mist-flecked swashed trail. 
 
 Straight aimed for the wide op'ed sea of Park 
 
 The stormy galleon sweeps 
 
 With battle smokes dim veiled; 
 
 And vapor fleeced and gray canopied. 
 
 Its lofty tops and turrets 
 
 Lead sombered are — and hid. 
 
 At full speed from the shagg^'d umbered strait 
 
 It bursts in fury on the 
 
 Park, with smothering rain; 
 
 And dripping, the drenched caiion emerges 
 
 From the mists; and bright the sun 
 
 Gleams on the peaks again. 
 
 Mid way o'er the sunny sea of Park 
 
 The Cloudship spies Olympus, 
 
 High upreared o'er the plain; 
 
 And with cruiser flight and dead ahead 
 
 The Rainer with foamed wake bears 
 
 That peak upon, most dread. 
 
 123 
 
Shot after shot, the great guns roaring. 
 
 Hurl full on the crag massed fort; 
 
 And leaping — crimson fall 
 
 Adown the Mountain's grassy glades. 
 
 And sweep its wide wooded slopes 
 
 With fire's red cardinal. 
 
 Torpedo lightnings now, vivid — ^with 
 
 Sharp hiss of whirring motor. 
 
 Flash bright horizontal. 
 
 Fearful too, with strained utmost speed 
 
 And engines clanking slaughter. 
 
 The Craft to ram proceeds. 
 
 With terrific shock it projectiles. 
 
 And tho firm the Mountain stands. 
 
 Yet trees and stones are hurled 
 
 From their foundations; and rattling loud 
 
 Chaotic the storm swept heights. 
 
 Boughs down the steeps are whirled. 
 
 Deep murked — mist streaming, Olympus stands, 
 
 As the Battler's beak is plunged. 
 
 Storm steeled and whirlwind curled. 
 
 Full at the Mountain's rock armored ribs; 
 
 And then the swart Peak's head, dim, 
 
 Thru the shred Storm Cloud nibs. 
 
 Rent and shattered now, the Thunderer 
 
 Past the Mountain speeds; and flees 
 
 Onward with tempest spleen; 
 
 And cool the parched valley floor is drenched 
 
 By flood of rain jet-spurting 
 
 From streaming wounds unseen. 
 
 Triumphant now, 'mong the mist wreckage 
 
 And the sun's gold glory beam. 
 
 The Mountain Hfts its head; 
 
 And 'cross the douched reaches of the Park 
 
 A bright bow is shining flung — 
 
 Glad symbol of the Ark. 
 
 124 
 
MOUNTAIN MAID 
 
 OH, wild is the wind 
 On the mountain's brow; 
 
 And wild is the heart of the wood. 
 Wild and white is 
 The glacier's snow; 
 
 And wild the torrent's flood. 
 Yet wilder still — ^vast virginal — 
 With maiden depths unwooed. 
 Is the witching glance 
 Of the Mountain Maid. 
 In vestal flow'ring mood. 
 
 No pool dim hid 'neath leafy bower — 
 No deep tarn so rippling bright. 
 Or sun enamoured sky; 
 No bud of heath or satined flower 
 
 Can match Thy soul-windowed light — 
 Thy soft empassioned eye. 
 No mountain head, o'er its breast of snow. 
 Can more chaste or nobler rise. 
 Than head of Thine and brow, 
 Uplifted o'er a bosom pure 
 As fleece in azure skies. 
 
 What swift stream arun down mossy glade. 
 With lipped banks of flower rows. 
 Can match the freshness dewed 
 Of Thy cheeks in flaming beauty 'rayed — 
 Fair, out-blushing alpine rose 
 In deepest color hued! 
 The quivering depths of dusky Night, 
 With star-smould'ring passion fires. 
 Are cold beside the flames, 
 Which Thy casual, clear, askant. 
 Yet melting, glance inspires. 
 
 Thy hair is like silken glossy rye. 
 That radiant 'neath the sun 
 Shines rich as rippling gold. 
 
 125 
 
Thy breath is like blossom laden sky, 
 That herds deep breathe in June, 
 And bees with sweets enfold. 
 Thy leap is like the far-bounding doe. 
 Who swift flies beside the stag; 
 And drinks in grateful quaff 
 Of pulsing joy, 'mid mountain wilds 
 And high ascending crag. 
 
 Oh, Mountain Maid! Thy wild beauty reigns 
 Supreme, in many a heart 
 That yearns but never tells 
 Its love to Thee in fear of rude pains — 
 And which Thy pure guileless art 
 To sweetest silence quells. 
 Reign on, then. Thou fair Diana soul, 
 *Mong Thy native sylvan haunts; 
 Till suitor bolder vaunts 
 His taut bow in sure control — 
 Piercing Thee with Cupid's dart. 
 
 Oh, wild is the wind 
 
 On the mountain's brow; 
 
 And wild is the heart of the wood. 
 Wild and white is 
 The glacier's snow; 
 
 And wild the torrent's flood. 
 Yet wilder still — vast virginal — 
 
 With maiden depths unwooed. 
 
 Is the witching glance 
 
 Of the Mountain Maid, 
 
 In vestal flow' ring mood. 
 
 126 
 
LOVE 
 
 OH, Heart! Oh, Heart! 
 I bury me, in the pit 
 Of Thy purple core; 
 And find in mine arms 
 The fragrant flesh 
 Of the love-mate I adore. 
 
 Oh, Soul! Oh, Soul! 
 We ruby Thee, with the 
 Red blood-drip of desire; 
 And find in our breasts 
 The altar flames 
 Of divine celestial fire. 
 
 Oh, Joy! Oh, Joy! 
 
 What sweet ecstacy 
 
 Is the glory of this love; 
 
 Sent — man and woman. 
 
 To the Earth — 
 
 And sacred conjugate by them. 
 
 Pure generates 
 
 Beatitudes of holiness 
 
 On nuptial stem; 
 
 Which, to Heaven rises 
 
 'Brosial, to lave 
 
 The heart of Him above. 
 
 Oh, God! Oh, God! 
 We, mated, kneel to Thee, 
 Naked as ancient sires. 
 In innocence we dwell. 
 And *joy the pure desires. 
 In spirit and truth 
 We worship Thee — 
 Accept our holy prayers; 
 For none can rise 
 But the affinity 
 Of Thy accepted pairs. 
 
 127 
 
'TIS EVENING IN THE VALLEY OF 
 ELKANAH 
 
 ONE cloud aloft in bright glory hung. 
 Ablush in the arms of the setting sun. 
 One star agleam in the misty West, 
 A jewel aflame on the twiHght's breast. 
 One moon afull on the mountain's crest, 
 GHttering in splendor — in silver drest. 
 'Tis evening in the Valley of Elkanah. 
 
 One song of brook and its murm'ring rill. 
 From the deep brooding forest on the hill. 
 
 One cry of bird as it seeks its nest, 
 
 To cuddle the brood thru the long night's rest. 
 
 One stir of vs^ind in the aspen boughs, 
 
 As the shadows fall of the still eve's drowse. 
 'Tis evening in the Valley of Elkanah. 
 
 One sigh of joy for a sweet day passed 
 
 In honest toil and labor's sweatened cast. 
 
 One throb of heart for the supper's cheer. 
 And a greeting of those I love so dear. 
 
 One love in soul for the sons of men; 
 
 A prayer to God, and a chastened Amen! 
 'Tis evening in the Valley of Elkanah. 
 
 128 
 
'T/ie influence of fine scenery, 
 the presence of mountains, ap- 
 peases our irritations and el- 
 evates our friendships.'' 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 
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