The Passing of the Storm, and Other Poems. Alfred Castner King
lingered behind them as a matter of record, for it was the prospector who christened the mountains, gulches and mining locations of the west. A cursory perusal of the maps of mineral surveys in any western mining district, will reveal in abundance such names as Hector, Ajax, Golden Fleece, Atlas, Pegasus, etc.; indicating that those who applied them were, if not college graduates, men not unfamiliar with the classics. The use of such names as Cleopatra, Crusader or Magna Charta, by a prospector unversed in history, would naturally be unexpected. One without knowledge of literature would hardly grace his location stakes with such names as Dante, Hamlet or Mephistopheles, while one entirely unlettered could not by chance hit upon such names as Pandora, Medusa or Sesostris.
Of the pioneer prospectors but few remain; many have fallen asleep, others tiring of the privation and uncertainty incident to a miner's life, are pursuing other vocations, while many have become prosperous ranch and cattle-men and may now be found in almost any western valley. A few, a very few in comparison with the less fortunate majority, acquiring a competence, removed to other localities, and in not a few instances, have become conspicuous figures in the world of business, politics and finance.
In the mountainous districts of the west, you may still occasionally see a veteran prospector of the old school, living the life of a hermit in his log cabin, situated in some picturesque park or gulch, near his, sometimes valuable but more frequently worthless, mining locations. There he lives winter and summer, his only companion a cat or dog; the ambitions of his youth still unrealized, but at three score and ten, hopeful and expectant. His bent form, white hair, and venerable bearing impress you strangely at first, but it is only when you overcome the reticence peculiar to those who have long dwelt in solitude, and engage him in conversation, that his mental status becomes apparent. To your surprise you discover that he can converse entertainingly on any subject, from the Mosaic dispensation, to the latest inventions in the world of mechanism. You may find him to be, not only a Shakspearean scholar, but a deep student of that volume which, whether considered from a sacred or secular point of view, stands preeminently forth as the Book of Books. You may find him able to translate Homer, or Virgil, and that the masterpieces of literature are as familiar to him as his own cabin walls. A glimpse at the interior of his cabin discloses an ample stock of newspapers and magazines, while books are not strangers. There is something pathetic about his loneliness; you leave him with the feeling that society has been the loser by his voluntary banishment, and are reminded of Gray's immortal lines:
"Full many a gem of purest ray serene.
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
You speculate upon the story of his life, for you feel that it has a secret, if not a tragedy, connected with it, into which you may not probe. You ask yourself the question, "Has not his life been wasted?" and if he alone is to be considered, there is none but an affirmative answer. But his life has not been barren of results. He has been a contributory factor in the upbuilding of an empire, for he is one of the class who laid the foundations of western prosperity.
These men came west for various reasons, some actuated by the spirit of adventure, some to acquire fortunes or to retrieve vanished ones, others possibly to outlive the stigma of youthful mistakes. In the lives of many of them are sealed chapters. It is with such that these pages have to do.
Alfred Castner King.
Ouray, Colo., 1907.
The Passing of the Storm
I. THE STORM
Reflecting, in their crystal snows,
The glittering jewels of the night,
The mountains lay in calm repose
Slumbering 'neath their robes of white.
The stars grew dim,—a film instead,
The twinkling heavens overspread,
Through which their eyes essayed to peer,
Each moment less distinct and clear,
Till, when the stellar beacons failed,
A darkness unrelieved, prevailed.
Out of the ambient depths of gloom,
Bereft of its accustomed bloom,
Came day-break, comfortless and gray.
Sped the nocturnal shades away,
Unveiling, with their winged retreat,
A twilight sad and incomplete.
Reluctantly, as dawn aspired,
The shadows lingered, then retired
As vanquished armies often yield
Upon a well-contested field,
And sullenly retrace their course
Before an overwhelming force.
Within the east no purple light
Proclaimed the passing of the night;
No crimson blush appeared to warn
The landscape of returning morn.
Discarding all the gorgeous dyes,
Wherewith the sunset tints the skies,
And mingling with the azure blue,
The warp and woof of sober hue;
The fairies of the air, I wist,
Had spun a silvery web of mist,
Whose texture, ominous and gray,
Obscured the glories of the day.
Such was the dreary winter's day,
Which dawned with dull and leaden sky;
No cheerful penetrating ray
Flashed from the sun's resplendent eye.
In vain, through rift and orifice,
He strove with radiant beam to kiss
Each mountain peak and dizzy height,
Apparelled in their garbs of white,
And crown each brow, so bleak and cold,
With burnished diadem of gold.
Ascending in aërial flight,
The wheel of fire did not appear,
To dissipate the fogs of night
And clarify the atmosphere.
Seeking with fervent ray and fierce,
The canopy of cloud to pierce,
The orb of day, stripped of his flame,
A circle, ill-defined, became,
As through the ever-thickening haze,
His feeble outline met the gaze.
This faded till his glowing face
Left no suggestive spot or trace,
No corollary on the pall
Which settled and pervaded all.
As stormy cowls their summits hid,
In turret, tower and pyramid,
Of stately and majestic mien,
Was