[Illustration: 
“Inverted in fantastic form,
  Below the water line.”

Emerald lake, San Miguel county, Colorado.]

Reflections.

On the margin of a lakelet,
  In a rugged mountain clime,
Where precipice and pinnacle
  Of countenance sublime,
Cast their weird, austere reflections
  In the water’s glistening sheen,
I strolled in contemplative mood,
  Both pensive and serene.

As in a crystal mirror,
  In that lakelet’s placid face,
I saw the mountains upside down,
  With all their pristine grace;
I saw each cliff and point of rocks,
  I saw the stately pine,
Inverted in fantastic form
  Below the water line.

I paused in admiration;
  And with calm complacency
I marveled at this photograph
  From nature’s gallery;
And as my eyes surveyed the scene
  With solemn grandeur fraught,
This simile flashed through my mind
  As instantly as thought: 

As the stern, majestic mountains,
  Without error or mistake,
Were reflected in the bosom
  Of that cool, pellucid lake,
So our every thought and action,
  Be it deed of hate or love,
May be photographed in record
  In that gallery above.

Life’s Mystery

I live, I move, I know not how, nor why,
  Float as a transient bubble on the air,
As fades the eventide I, too, must die;
  I came, I know not whence; I journey, where?

The Fallen Tree.

I passed along a mountain road,
  Which led me through a wooded glen,
Remote from dwelling or abode
  And ordinary haunts of men;
    And wearied from the dust and heat. 
    Beneath a tree, I found a seat.

The tree, a tall majestic spruce,
  Which had, perhaps for centuries,
Withstood, without a moment’s truce,
  The wing-ed warfare of the breeze;
    A monarch of the solitude,
    Which well might grace the noblest wood.

Beneath its cool and welcome shade,
  Protected from the noontide rays,
The birds amid its branches played
  And caroled forth their twittering praise;
    A squirrel perched upon a limb
    And chattered with loquacious vim.

E’er yet that selfsame week had sped,
  On my return, I sought its shade;
But where it reared its form, instead;
  A fallen monarch I surveyed,
    Prostrate and broken on the ground,
    Nor longer cast its shade around.

Uprooted and disheveled, there
  The monarch of the forest lay;
As if in desolate despair
  Its last resistance fell away,
    And overwhelmed, in evil hour
    Went down before the tempest’s power.

Such are the final works of fate;
  The birds to other branches flew;
And man, whatever his estate,
  Must face that same mutation, too! 
    To-day, I stand erect and tall,
    The morrow—­may record my fall.