Page:The Gold-Gated West.djvu/99

Are thronging in the fitful sheen—
The day is done and all is well.

So pass the days, so fall the nights,
A banquet of renewed delights—
The old horizons lift and pass
In magic changes like a dream,
And in heaven's azure glass
To-morrow's jasper arches gleam
With many a vale and mountain mass
And many a singing, shining stream.
The past is dead and daisied now—
Its shadow fades from heart and brow—
The air is incense, and the breeze
Is sweet with siren melodies,
And all the castled hills before
In blooming vistas sweep and soar.
Like silver lace the clouds are strewn
Along the distant, dreamy zone;
It is a happy, happy time
As wayward as a poet's rhyme,
And ever as the sun goes down
The West is shut with rosy bars,
When Night puts on her ebon crown
And lights the watch fires of the stars.

***

A hundred nights, a hundred days;
Nor folded cloud nor silken haze
Mellow the sun's midsummer blaze.
Along the brown and barren plain
In silence drags the wasted train;