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| LONG years ago I wandered here, | |
| In the midsummer of the year,— | |
| Life’s summer too; | |
| A score of horsemen here we rode, | |
| The mountain world its glories showed, | 5 |
| All fair to view. | |
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| These scenes in glowing colors drest, | |
| Mirrored the life within my breast, | |
| Its world of hopes; | |
| The whispering woods and fragrant breeze | 10 |
| That stirred the grass in verdant seas | |
| On billowy slopes, | |
| |
| And glistening crag in sunlit sky, | |
| Mid snowy clouds piled mountains high, | |
| Were joys to me; | 15 |
| My path was o’er the prairie wide, | |
| Or here on grander mountain-side, | |
| To choose, all free. | |
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| The rose that waved in morning air, | |
| And spread its dewy fragrance there | 20 |
| In careless bloom, | |
| Gave to my heart its ruddiest hue, | |
| O’er my glad life its color threw | |
| And sweet perfume. | |
| |
| Now changed the scene and changed the eyes, | 25 |
| That here once looked on glowing skies, | |
| Where summer smiled; | |
| These riven trees, this wind-swept plain, | |
| Now show the winter’s dread domain, | |
| Its fury wild. | 30 |
| |
| The rocks rise black from storm-packed snow, | |
| All checked the river’s pleasant flow, | |
| Vanished the bloom; | |
| These dreary wastes of frozen plain | |
| Reflect my bosom’s life again, | 35 |
| Now lonesome gloom. | |
| |
| The buoyant hopes and busy life | |
| Have ended all in hateful strife, | |
| And thwarted aim. | |
| The world’s rude contact killed the rose, | 40 |
| No more its radiant color shows | |
| False roads to fame. | |
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| Backward, amidst the twilight glow | |
| Some lingering spots yet brightly show | |
| On hard roads won, | 45 |
| Where still some grand peaks mark the way | |
| Touched by the light of parting day | |
| And memory’s sun. | |
| |
| But here thick clouds the mountains hide, | |
| The dim horizon bleak and wide | 50 |
| No pathway shows, | |
| And rising gusts, and darkening sky, | |
| Tell of the night that cometh, nigh, | |
| The brief day’s close. | |
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