Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
On Recrossing the Rocky Mountains in Winter after Many Years
By John Charles Frémont (1813–1890)L
In the midsummer of the year,—
Life’s summer too;
A score of horsemen here we rode,
The mountain world its glories showed,
All fair to view.
Mirrored the life within my breast,
Its world of hopes;
The whispering woods and fragrant breeze
That stirred the grass in verdant seas
On billowy slopes,
’Mid snowy clouds piled mountains high,
Were joys to me;
My path was o’er the prairie wide,
Or here on grander mountain side,
To choose, all free.
And spread its dewy fragrance there,
In careless bloom,
Gave to my heart its ruddiest hue,
O’er my glad life its color threw
And sweet perfume.
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.
All checked the river’s pleasant flow,
Vanished the bloom:
These dreary wastes of frozen plain
Reflect my bosom’s life again,
Now lonesome gloom.
Have ended all in hateful strife,
And thwarted aim.
The world’s rude contact killed the rose;
No more its radiant color shows
False roads to fame.
Some lingering spots yet brightly show
On hard roads won,
Where still some grand peaks mark the way
Touched by the light of parting day
And memory’s sun.
The dim horizon, bleak and wide,
No pathway shows,
And rising gusts, and darkening sky,
Tell of the night that cometh nigh,
The brief day’s close.