Read Ebook: Mountain Idylls and Other Poems by King Alfred Castner

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Ebook has 390 lines and 21431 words, and 8 pages

And freed from artificial wants, I love to dwell in nature's haunts, And by the mountain's crystal lake A rustic habitation make.

I love to scale the mountain height And watch the eagle in his flight, Or gaze upon the azure sea Of aerial immensity.

I love the busy marts of trade, I love the things which men have made, Though man has charms, none such as these, In him the child of nature sees.

To the Pines.

Ye sad musicians of the wood, Whose dirges fill the solitude, Whose minor strains and melodies Are wafted on the whispering breeze, Whose plaintive chants and listless sighs, Ascend as incense to the skies; Do solemn tones afford relief, With you, as men, a vent for grief?

Reflections.

On the margin of a lakelet, In a rugged mountain clime, Where precipice and pinnacle Of countenance sublime, Cast their weird, austere reflections In the water's glistening sheen, I strolled in contemplative mood, Both pensive and serene.

As in a crystal mirror, In that lakelet's placid face, I saw the mountains upside down, With all their pristine grace; I saw each cliff and point of rocks, I saw the stately pine, Inverted in fantastic form Below the water line.

I paused in admiration; And with calm complacency I marveled at this photograph From nature's gallery; And as my eyes surveyed the scene With solemn grandeur fraught, This simile flashed through my mind As instantly as thought:

As the stern, majestic mountains, Without error or mistake, Were reflected in the bosom Of that cool, pellucid lake, So our every thought and action, Be it deed of hate or love, May be photographed in record In that gallery above.

Life's Mystery

I live, I move, I know not how, nor why, Float as a transient bubble on the air, As fades the eventide I, too, must die; I came, I know not whence; I journey, where?

The Fallen Tree.

I passed along a mountain road, Which led me through a wooded glen, Remote from dwelling or abode And ordinary haunts of men; And wearied from the dust and heat. Beneath a tree, I found a seat.

The tree, a tall majestic spruce, Which had, perhaps for centuries, Withstood, without a moment's truce, The wing-ed warfare of the breeze; A monarch of the solitude, Which well might grace the noblest wood.

Beneath its cool and welcome shade, Protected from the noontide rays, The birds amid its branches played And caroled forth their twittering praise; A squirrel perched upon a limb And chattered with loquacious vim.

E'er yet that selfsame week had sped, On my return, I sought its shade; But where it reared its form, instead; A fallen monarch I surveyed, Prostrate and broken on the ground, Nor longer cast its shade around.

Uprooted and disheveled, there The monarch of the forest lay; As if in desolate despair Its last resistance fell away, And overwhelmed, in evil hour Went down before the tempest's power.

Such are the final works of fate; The birds to other branches flew; And man, whatever his estate, Must face that same mutation, too! To-day, I stand erect and tall, The morrow--may record my fall.

There is an Air of Majesty.

There is an air of majesty, A bearing dignified and free, About the mountain peaks; Each crag of weather-beaten stone Presents a grandeur of its own To him who seeks.

There is a proud, defiant mein, Expressive, stern, and yet serene, About the precipice; Whose rugged form looks grimly down, And answers, with an austere frown The sunlight's kiss.

The mountain, with the snow bank crowned; The gorge, abysmal and profound; Impress with aspect grand: With unfeigned reverence I see In canon and declivity The All-Wise Hand.

Think Not that the Heart is Devoid of Emotion.

Think not that the heart is devoid of emotion, Because of a countenance rugged and stern, The bosom may hide the most fervent devotion, As shadowy forests hide floweret and fern; As the pearls which are down in the depths of the ocean, The heart may have treasures which few can discern.

Think not the heart barren, because no reflection Is flashed from the depths of its secret embrace; External appearance may baffle detection, And yet the heart beat with an ethical grace: The breast may be charged with the truest affection And never betray it by action or face.

Humanity's Stream.

I stood upon a crowded thoroughfare, Within a city's confines, where were met All classes and conditions, and surveyed, From a secluded niche or aperture, The various, ever-changing multitude Which passed along in restless turbulence, And, as a human river, ebbed and flowed Within its banks of brick and masonry.

Within this vast and heterogeneous throng, One might discern all stages and degrees, From wealth and power to helpless indigence; Extravagance to trenchant penury, And all extremes of want and misery. Some blest by wealth, some cursed by poverty; Some in positions neutral to them both; Some wore a gaunt and ill-conditioned look Which told its tale of lack of nourishment; While others showed that irritated air Which speaks of gout and pampered appetite; Some following vocations quite reverse From those which nature had endowed them for; Some passed with face self-satisfied and calm, As if the world bore nothing else but joy; And some there were who, from the cradle's mouth, As they pursued their journey to the grave, Had felt no throb save that of misery; The man of large affairs passed by in haste, With mind preoccupied, nor thought of else Save undertakings which concerned himself; The shallow son of misplaced opulence Came strutting by with self-important air, With head erect in a contemptuous poise, As if the stars were subject to his will, And e'en the golden sun was something base, Which had offended with its wholesome light In shining on so great a personage, A being more than ordinary clay, And much superior to the vulgar herd! Some faces passed which knew no kindly look, And felt no friendly pressure of the hand; And if the face depict the character, Some passed so steeped in crime and villainy That Judas' vile, ill-favored countenance Would seem in contrast quite respectable; Some features glowed with unfeigned honesty, Some grimaced in dissimulating craft, Some smiled benignantly and passed along; Some faces meek, some stern and resolute; Some the embodiment of gentleness; Some whose specific aspects plainly told Their fondest dreams were not of earth, but heaven; A newly wedded couple passed that way, In the sweet zenith of their honeymoon, But little dreaming what the future held. The light and trivial fool, the brainless fop; The staid and sober priest and minister; And she who worshiped at proud fashion's shrine; The mental giant, serious and sad; The thoughtful student and philosopher; And some of intellect diminutive; The man of letters, with abstracted mien, And he whose every thought was on the toil Which made his bare existence possible; The blushing maiden, pure and innocent; The stately grandam, dignified and gray; The matron, with the babe upon her breast; The silly superannuated flirt, Who nursed her waning beauty day by day, And still essayed to act the role of youth; The gay coquette and belle of other days, Who in life's morning, with disdainful laugh, Had quaffed the cup of pleasure to its dregs, And now, grown old, must pay the penalty In wrinkles and uncourted loneliness; The widow, who, but newly desolate, Would grasp a hand, then start to find it gone; The spendthrift and the sordid usurer, Who knew no sentiment save lust for gold; The bloated drunkard, sinking 'neath the weight Of wassail inclination dissolute; The youth, who, following his baleful steps, Reeled for the first time from intemperance; And she who had forgot her covenant, In brazen infamy and unwept shame;-- The good, the bad, the impious and unjust, The energetic and the indolent, The adolescent and the venerable, Passed by, pursuant of their various ways.

How complex is existence! What a maze Of complication and entanglement! Each thread combining with the other threads Fulfills its office in the labyrinth; Each link concatenates the other links Which constitute the vast and endless chain Of human life, and human destiny,-- The strange phantasmagoria of fate.

So we, in life's procession, pass along To the accompaniment of secret dirge, Or laughter interspersed with tear and groan; Nor pause a moment, nor retrace a step, But march in Fate's spectacular review In pageant to our common goal-- The Grave.

Nature's Lullaby.

A MOUNTAIN NOCTURNE

In forest shade my couch is made. And there I calmly lie, With thought confined in pensive mind, And contemplate the sky; I wonder if the frowning cliff, The valley and the wood, Or rugged freaks of mountain peaks, Enjoy their solitude.

The heavens hold a sphere of gold, A full and placid moon, Suspended high, in cloudless sky, With constellations strewn; Its mellow beam, on rill and stream, In silvery sheen I see; Before its light, the shades of night As evil spirits, flee.

In space afar, a shooting star, With swift, uncertain course, In dazzling sparks its passage marks, As it expends its force; The mountains bare reflect its glare Of weird, unearthly light, And e'en the skies, in glad surprise, Behold its gorgeous flight.

The spruce and pine, at timber-line, In straggling patches strewn, Surcharge the breeze with melodies, The forests' plaintive tune; As they descend, the waters blend In babbling harmony, And soothe to rest my tranquil breast, With Nature's lullaby.

The Spirit of freedom is Born of the Mountains.

The spirit of freedom is born of the mountains, In gorge and in ca?on it hovers and dwells; Pervading the torrents and crystalline fountains, Which dash through the valleys and forest clad dells.

The spirit of freedom, so firm and impliant, Is borne on the breeze, whose invisible waves Descend from the mountain peaks, stern and defiant-- Created for freemen, but never for slaves.

The Valley of the San Miguel.

In the golden West, by fond Nature blest, Lies a vale which my heart holds dear; Where the zephyr blows from eternal snows And tempers the atmosphere; Where the torrent falls o'er the mountain walls, As its thunderous echoes thrill, Where the sparkling mist, by the rainbow kissed, Decks the Valley of San Miguel.

Where the birds of spring, in their season sing, Their spontaneous melodies; Where the columbine and the stately pine Stand quivering in the breeze; Where the aspen tall hugs the trachyte wall, And the wild rose bedecks the hill; Where the willows weep, and their vigils keep, On the banks of the San Miguel.

Where the mountains high, cleave the azure sky, With their turrets so bleak and gray; Where the morning light crowns the dizzy height, At the break of the summer's day; Where the crags look down with an austere frown, O'er the valley so calm and still; Where the mesas blue, blend their dreamy hue With the skies of the San Miguel.

Where the mountains hold a vast wealth of gold, In the quartz ledge and placer bar; Where the hills resound with the constant sound Of the stamp mill's battering jar; Where the waters dash with the rhythmic splash Of the cascade and mountain rill, As they laugh and flow to the lands below, Through the turbulent San Miguel.

Where the shadows glide, in the eventide, As the sun, to nocturnal rest, With the dazzling rays of a world ablaze, Sinks into the distant west; When the yellow leaf of existence brief, Brings the hour when the pulse is still, May my ashes rest in the golden West, On the banks of the San Miguel.

FOOTNOTES:

San Miguel, pronounced "Magill," the Spanish form of St. Michael.

To Mother Huberta.

Mother, our greetings be to thee, On the glad anniversary Of this, thy festive day; Thy daughters, daughters not of earth, But bound by cords of Heavenly birth, Their love and greetings pay.

We thank thee, Mother, for thy care, Thy watchfulness, and fervent prayer; And if 'tis Heaven's will, May many a returning year And namesday find our Mother here, Constant and watchful still.

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