Ephemeral, mobile, and fleeting,
  Our delible paths we tread;
And fade as the crimson sunset,
  When the heavens are tinged with red;
As the gorgeously tinted rainbow
  Retains not its varied dyes,
  We change, with the constant mutation,
  Of desert, of sea, and skies;
      But the Hand which made,
      Knows each transient shade,
  Which passes before the eyes.

[Illustration:  “Which smile from their heights on the town of Ouray.”

Ouray, Colorado.]

Missed.

Pity the child who never feels
  A mother’s fond caress;
That childish smile a void conceals
  Of aching loneliness.

Pity the heart which loves in vain,
  What balm or mystic spell
Can soothe that bosom’s secret pain,
  The pain it may not tell?

Pity those missed by Cupid’s darts,
  For ’twas ordained for such,
Who love at random, but whose hearts
  Feel no responsive touch.

If I Have Lived Before.

If I have lived before, some evidence
  Should that existence to the present bind;
Some innate inkling of experience
  Should still imbue and permeate the mind,
If we, progressing, pass from state to state,
Or retrograde, as turns the wheel of fate.

If I have lived before, and could my eyes
  But view the scenes wherein that life was spent,
Or even for an instant recognize
  The climes, conditions and environment
Beloved by them in that pre-natal span,
Though past and future both be sealed to man;

Or, if perchance, kind memory should ope’
  Her floodgates, with fond recollection fraught,
’Twould then renew the dormant fires of hope,
  Now smothered out by speculative thought;
’Twould then rekindle faith within a breast,
Where doubt is now the sole remaining guest.

The Darker Side.

They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
  And the birds the most happy of all,
But the sparrow, pursued by the sparrowhawk,
  Savors more of the wormwood and gall.

They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
  But the groan may dissemble the laugh;
E’en now from the meadow is wafted the sound
  Of a bovine bewailing her calf.

They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
  But the moss often covers the rock;
Every animal form is beset by a foe,
  For the wolf always follows the flock.

For the animal holds all inferior flesh
  As its just and legitimate prey;
Every scream of the eagle a panic creates
  As the weaker things scamper away.

They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
  But the smiles are all needed to sweeten
The struggle we see so incessantly waged
  To eat, and avoid being eaten.

And men, with their genial competitive ways
  Present no decided improvements,
For their personal gain they will sacrifice all
  Who may stand in the way of their movements.