THE MOUNTAINS OF THE PROPHET
In the purple of the morning,
Through the dreamy haze of day spring,
Did the mountain-tops ’round Salt Lake
Loom before us, as the desert
We were leaving far behind us.
“Lofty mountains of the prophet,”
Did I mutter without thinking,
Came the words, as if repeated
After some one who knew better,
After one whose inspiration
Was from truth and heavenly wisdom;
And instinctively I pondered
That the prophet’s eyes had often
Lifted been to these blue mountains,
Whence his help should come, and glory
Of the Lord appear to Zion,
And ’mongst which the trail was winding,
Bloody trail of weary pilgrims,
Seeking an abiding city,
Guarded by their rugged fastness,
And the wide expanse of Salt Lake.
Here, where seemed but barren desert,
Did the prophet’s eye see visions
Of a city and a temple,
Where the saints should dwell in saf’ty,
Where in peace they God might worship;
And this vision, now made real,
Lends a lustre to the mountains,
Gives a romance to their valleys;
And whate’er their names may be, I
Call them mountains of the prophet.
CHICAGO
O, wonder of our age!
Consummate wonder, not of state alone, but of our land,
Unique among the cities dost thou stand
Upon the page
Of history, in youth and might!
Thou didst spring forth as in a night,
From where the redman roved
Along the dreamy shores of Michigan,
Where four-score years ago
Thy life began;
Some fairy moved
Her wand upon thee,
For like a fabled urban didst thou grow.
Colossal mart,
Of commerce, like the heart
Thou sendest out through arteries and veins
Pulsating life into the world;
Napoleons of business-brains
Are marshalling their forces,
With colors high unfurled,
Not on war-harnessed horses,
To madly fight,
To kill and blight,
But to employ each pow’r
To make thee stronger, better every newborn hour.
Thy mighty citadels of stone,
So huge, so tall,
So many and immense,
That with their burden mother earth seems groan,
Throb with a life intense,
And from thy canyons, we call streets,
Great traffic’s constant roar us meets.
Great is thy wealth,
Great is thy woe,
Less great thy health,
But great is its foe;
Within thy pale the great extremes
Of good and evil dwell:
Felicities of heavenly dreams,
And hopelessness of hell:
Above thy scum of things
The voice of heaven sings.
July, 1915
THE ISLE OF DREAMS
The island of dreams lies not far away,
Encompassed by sunlight and sea,
I happened to reach it the other day,
While breezes were playing so languidly—
My boat scarcely moved on the bay.
And this is the island I happened to find,
The isle ’mid the glittering deep:
A bower with luxuriant foliage entwined,
’Mongst rocks that are mossy and steep,
Where shadows give rest to the mind.