Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
Lines Written on the Rocky Mountains
By Albert Pike (1809–1891)T
Of many thousand glittering lights,—
Unnumbered stars that calmly rule
The dark dominions of the night.
The mild, bright moon has upward risen,
Out of the gray and boundless plain,
And all around the white snows glisten,
Where frost and ice and silence reign,—
While ages roll away, and they unchanged remain.
With their eternal cones of ice;
The torrents dashing from on high,
O’er rock and crag and precipice;
Change not, but still remain as ever,
Unwasting, deathless, and sublime,
And will remain while lightnings quiver,
Or stars the hoary summits climb,
Or rolls the thunder-chariot of eternal Time.
And waste as with a living death,
Like one that hath become a strange,
Unwelcome guest, and lingereth
Among the memories of the past,
Where he is a forgotten name;
For Time hath greater power to blast
The hopes, the feelings, and the fame,
To make the passions fierce, or their first strength to tame.
Pouring its coolness on my brow;
Such was I once,—as proudly free,
And yet, alas! how altered now!
Yet, while I gaze upon yon plain,
These mountains, this eternal sky,
The scenes of boyhood come again,
And pass before the vacant eye,
Still wearing something of their ancient brilliancy.
False friends, cold-heartedness, deceit,
And life already made too long,
To one who walks with bleeding feet
Over its paths?—it will but make
Death sweeter when it comes at last,—
And though the trampled heart may ache,
Its agony of pain is past,
And calmness gathers there, while life is ebbing fast.
Like the sad echo of a dream,
There may be some one found to say
A word that might like sorrow seem.
That I would have,—one saddened tear,
One kindly and regretting thought,—
Grant me but that!—and even here,
Here, in this lone, unpeopled spot,
To breathe away this life of pain, I murmur not.