Alfred Castner King

“ And the scene is wrapped in somnolence and rest.
From a solitary star, in the realms of space afar,
Faintly twinkling through the shadows of the night,
See the stellar force increased, till the scintillating east
Seems a galaxy of constellations bright. 127
With its glittering display, see the gorgeous Milky Way,
Which in twain the vaulted universe divides,
As the bridal veil serene of some fair celestial queen,
Who, in jewelled state, o'er astral space presides.
All the heavens seem in tune, and the vacillating moon
Bathes the landscape with her floods of silvery light ”

“ Mankind in all conditions and degrees
Of culture, affluence and penury,
Of multiform endowments and desires,
With differing talents and proclivities,
Yea, all varieties and types of men,
With pathways various and diversified,
Have found their paths converging at the grave.
Each, as the gathering shadows of the night,
In solemn chaos of unfathomed gloom,
Descend in sombre, melancholy pall,
And mark apace life's transitory eve,
Must quaff, alike, the bitter draught of death, 136
The one libation in which all who breathe
May in all equity participate. ”

“ Of the mountain cabin sinking in decay,
With its threshold overgrown with vegetation,
With its door unhinged and mouldering away.
There's a weird and most disconsolate expression
In the sashless windows with their vacant stare,
As in mute appeal, or taciturn confession
Of a wild and inconsolable despair.
With its ridgepole bent and broken in the centre,
From its roof of dirt and weight of winter snows;
Where the only voice to greet you as you enter
Is the wind which down the crumbling fireplace blows ”

“ A dream is a reflex view of life,
A blending of fancy with solemn truth,
A retrospection of mundane strife,
Old age re-living the scenes of youth.
Our dreams are but mirrors for our desires;
The proud ambition, the lofty aim
Achieved in our sleep, but the night expires
And the dull existence plods on the same.
A dream is a feeble ray of light,
A rift in the shadows through which we grope,
An evidence that eternal night
Can never extinguish the star of hope. ”

“ In life beyond the fleeting span
Which heaven has accorded man;
Elysian fields, where perfect peace
Succeeds life's transitory lease;
The inextinguishable fire
Of faith, the daughter of desire,
Glows brightest, when the faltering breath
Is conscious of approaching death;
Bent 'neath the weight of many years,
The form of hoary age appears,
E'en as the failing hourglass shows
That life is drawing to its close,
And when the final sands are spent,
The trembling limbs make their descent
Into the shadows, while the ray
Of faith illuminates the way. ”

“ Had known life's sorrows better than its joys.
A man whom you would notice in the street,
And know the second time if you should meet.
This man of mystery and intellect
Arose, and stood in manhood's poise erect. ”

“ Dazed and exhausted in the gulch below,
For storm-bewildered men will grope around
Describing circles in the blinding snow,
Until they sink, their vital forces spent,
And crystal snowflakes weave their cerement. ”

“ Our steps are ordered by an Unseen Hand.
Proud queens, subservient pawns, with varied rôle,
Are vain components of the wondrous whole;
Life's pantomime, in figures complicate;
Men are but puppets on the wires of fate. ”

“ Some have been apotheosized and worshipped, others have been the recipients of orders and decorations of honor at the hands of kings and potentates, while others have received the ovations of admiring multitudes. Some have anonymously contributed their mite toward the enrichment of literature, others have appeared, from whence we know not, and after placing their offerings upon the altars of poesy and art have departed unrewarded into the shadows of obscurity, leaving as footprints innumerable quotations which have become proverbial. ”

“ The rescued miners, much benumbed and chilled,
To show some signs of conscious life began;
So Dad McGuire, in therapeutics skilled
To cure the maladies of beast or man,
Pursuant of his self-appointed task,
From out some secret depths produced a flask,
Which to the rescued miners he applied
As guaranteed to warm them up inside.
By way of chance digression, should you ask
The nature of the liquid in the flask,
Which, evidently, the boys had used before,
We must admit, the empty bottle bore,
Like most of bottles used in mining camps,
The revenue collector's excise stamps. ”

“ The men who flocked to the early gold excitements, and who subsequently prospected the western mountain ranges for their hidden wealth, were the cream of American and European manhood; men possessed of more than ordinary endowments of intellect, education and physique, while their industry, bravery and hardihood have never been questioned. ”

“ Spring the toadstools, with their foul and fungous growth.
Void of symmetry and semblance of equation, 124
Through the chinkless cracks, the silvery moon and stars
And the sun, at each matutinal invasion,
Shine as through a dismal dungeon's grated bars.
But no predatory hand in wanton malice
Hath in vandal hour this dereliction wrought,
But the hand which crumbles pyramid and palace,
The hand of Time with rust and ruin fraught;
Thus the proud or unpretentious habitation
Shall succumb to age and melancholy mould ”

“ Against the shadows of the tomb;
Nor all the baleful arts of witchery,
Nor amulet withstand the charm of death. 134
Yea, man who rules the passive elements,
Enchaining them to service at his will,
Himself to death must yield obedience. ”

“ Books have, from time immemorial, been the conservators of human wisdom, the repositories of information, the mentors of youth and adolescence, the counsellors of manhood, the comfort and companionship of age.
The experience of an individual, school or era, when committed to book form, becomes the common property of all succeeding time, and the accumulated knowledge of the past, transmitted from generation to generation, through the medium of books, may with justice be regarded as the most valuable of human heritages. ”

“ 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 11 ranch and cattle-men and may now be found in almost any western valley. ”

“ It has long been customary for writers of western fiction to picture this character as a large-hearted but rough and untutored individual, expressing himself in a vernacular consisting of equal parts of slang, profanity and questionable grammar, possessing no ambitions above the card table or the strong waters which cause all men to err who drink them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I hear them struggle for release the while;
But fainter, ever fainter grow their cries,
Fainter, and fainter still, their groans arise;
Weaker and weaker are their throes, until
With one last quivering throb, they too, are still. ”

“ Proof of this exists in the names which have 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. ”

“ Some who have presumed to write in a manner displeasing to those who sat in high places have met with vilification, exile, imprisonment, decapitation, and have not been strangers to the pillory. Criticism and ridicule are the patent rewards of incipient authorship, while want, neglect and starvation have terminated the career of more than one name afterwards great in the world of letters. ”

“ Were through the gentle ministry of sleep
To normal strength unconsciously restored.
we grew as two twin pines might grow
"We grew as two twin pines might grow,
Upon the isolated edge,
Of some lone precipice or ledge." See page 57
'Tis human nature to review again
The stirring incidents of joy or pain;
So on the eve of the succeeding day,
When four-and-twenty hours had passed away,
The party grouped around the blazing light
Which from the fireplace streamed into the night,
And in its glow, so comfortable and warm,
Recounted the disasters of the storm. ”

“ Then wrapping mufflers 'round their ears and throats,
Put on their clumsy, canvas overcoats.
Thanks to the providence of Dad McGuire,
Who always kept a stock of baling wire
And odds and ends of everything around,
Their feet were quickly and securely bound
With canvas ore sacks or with gunny-sacks,
A thing the miner's wardrobe seldom lacks. ”

“ In some instances they have taught men to be content with servitude, in others have ignited the beacon fires of liberty. Though they are usually found enlisted under the banners of justice, yet no cause has ever been so unworthy, and no institution so unholy, that books have not been written in their defence. ”

“ I gave their orders, with a trembling hand,
And swift as horseflesh ever travelled, went
To seek the corps commander in his tent,
To crave this boon, or favor, at his hand,—
My father's house be still allowed to stand.
'Twas long before I gained an audience;
I felt, but cannot picture the suspense
Of that long hour's involuntary wait;
Too late, my heart would beat, too late, too late!
I took a seat and pulled my watch out once;
'Too late, too late,' the timepiece ticked response!
I paced the ground with quick, impatient tread ”

“ 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. ”

“ Books have been written on every conceivable subject, under all conditions, by all sorts of writers, and from an endless variety of motives. The recompense of those who have written them has been equally various. ”

“ Two mounted neighbors stopped in passing by,
And reining up their horses hurriedly
Told us the news, which like a cannon ball
Sped through the land, announcing Sumter's fall.
The animus with which their comments fell,
I heard months later in the rebel yell.
In civil war or fratricide is found
No place for such as seek a middle ground.
Though lines of demarcation intervene,
No peaceful neutral zone may lie between.
'Tis not an easy thing to breast the tide
Of public sentiment, and to decide 75
In opposition, though the cause be right,
When crossing public sentiment means fight. ”

“ They have precipitated wars, incited revolts and seditions in the cause of progress, yet have intensified prejudice, political, religious and racial. With silent eloquence, they have cried out against the wrongs of those who had none to plead their cause, while in other cases, their influence has tended to perpetuate existing abuses. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They have dissipated the shadows of ignorance and superstition, but in some instances have confused and obscured the searchlight of truth. In the economy of human affairs, books have been factors of no small importance. They have proved the most potent expositors of iniquitous systems, and when properly directed against crying evils have accomplished 8 speedy reforms. ”

“ To strew the desert's waste below,
With scattered drift-wood and debris."
See page 22
The course of uneventful life
Ran smoothly on, unmarred by strife, 52
Till childish fancy disappeared,
As manhood's sterner age was neared ”

“ 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.
13
CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
as stormy cowls their summits hid
As stormy cowls their summits hid. ”