Alfred Castner King

The spirit of freedom is born of the mountains,
In gorge and in canon it hovers and dwells;
Pervading the torrents and crystalline fountains,
Which dash through the valleys and forest clad dells.
...

Ill fares the heart, when hope has fled;
When vanishes each prospect fair,
When the last flickering ray has sped,
...

For some the river of life would seem
Free from the shallow, the reef, or bar,
As they gently glide down the silvery stream
With scarcely a ripple, a lurch, or jar;
...

Hope is the shadowy essence of a wish,
A fond desire which floats before our eyes;
With lurid aberration, feverish,-
We clutch the shadow which elusive, flies;
Though at our grasp the mocking fancy flees,
Hope still pursues and soothes realities.
...

Is there a Death? The light of day
At eventide shall fade away;
From out the sod's eternal gloom
The flowers, in their season, bloom;
...

Mother! Mother!
The startled cry of childish fright
Rang through the silence of the night,
As but the mother's fond caress
Could soothe its infantile distress;
...

O! Sun, resplendent in the smiling morn,
As thou dost view the wastes of earth and sky,
Canst thou behold the realms of the Unborn,
Canst thou behold the realms of those who die?
...

Ye sad musicians of the wood,
Whose dirges fill the solitude,
Whose minor strains and melodies
Are wafted on the whispering breeze,
...

I love thee, my darling, both now and forever,
My heart feels the thralldom of love's mystic spell,
'Tis fettered with shackles which nothing can sever,
To the heart which responds to its passionate swell.
...

Ah, empty are the mother's arms
Which clasp a vanished form;
A darling spared from life's alarms,
And safe from earthly storm.
...

Almighty God! Supreme! Most High!
Before Thy throne, in reverence, we kneel;
We cannot realize Thine infinity;
Beholding not, we can Thy presence feel;
Though veiled impenetrably, Thou dost reveal
Such evidence as clouds cannot conceal!
...

Within the wind, my untaught ear
The voice of Deity can hear,
And in the fleeting cloud discern
His movements, vast and taciturn;
...

When the poor, erring woman sought
In tears the Master's feet,
Her breast, with deep contrition fraught,
Repentance, full, complete,
...

Wherever I wander, my spirit still dwells,
In the silvery San Juan with its streamlet and dells;
Whose mountainous summits, so rugged and high,
With their pinnacles pierce the ethereal sky;
...

St. Regimund, e'er he became a saint,
Was much imbued with vulgar earthly taint;
E'er he renounced the honors of a Knight
And doffed his coat of mail and helmet bright,
...

Within the precincts of a hospital,
I wandered in a sympathetic mood;
Where face to face with wormwood and with gall,
With wrecks of pain and stern vicissitude,
...

Shall love as the bridal wreath, wither and die?
Or remain ever constant and sure,
As the years of the future pass rapidly by,
And the waves of adversity's tempest roll high,
Ever changeless and fervent endure?
...

There is an air of majesty,
A bearing dignified and free,
About the mountain peaks;
Each crag of weather-beaten stone
Presents a grandeur of its own
...

I love to tread the solitudes,
The forests and the trackless woods,
Where nature, undisturbed by man,
Pursues her voluntary plan.
...

I dug a grave, one smiling April day,
A grave whose small proportions testified
To empty arms, and playthings put away,
To ears which heard, when only fancy cried;
I wondered, as I shaped that little mound,
If in my home such grief should e'er be found.
...