Page:Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier.djvu/370

324 Till God's own time to plant of Freedom's seed,

In this selected soil;

Denied forever unto blood and greed,

But blest to honest toil.

There sinks the sun; Gay cavalier no more!

His banners trail the sea,

And all his legions shining on the shore

Fade into mystery.

The swelling tide laps on the shingly beach,

Like any starving thing;

And hungry breakers, white with wrath, upreach,

In a vain clamoring.

The shadows fall; just level with mine eye

Sweet Hesper stands and shines,

And shines beneath an arc of golden sky,

Pinked round with pointed pines.

A noble scene! all breadth, deep tone, and power,

Suggesting glorious themes;

Shaming the idler who would fill the hour

With unsubstantial dreams.

Be mine the dreams prophetic, shadowing forth

The things that yet shall be,

When through this gate the treasures of the North

Flow outward to the sea.