Part 1
[Illustration: _Samuel R Brown_]
Happy Days
[Illustration:
Carolings of Colorado, Etc.
By
Sam Brown
Author of “May-Day Dreams,” etc. ]
DENVER, COLORADO THE REED PUBLISHING COMPANY Nineteen Hundred and Four
Copyright, 1904 By SAMUEL R. BROWN
PRESS OF The Reed Publishing Company DENVER
Dedicated
WITH KINDEST REGARDS, TO OUR GENTLE, SAD-FACED TOURIST SUMMER-GUEST
_PUBLISHERS’ ANNOUNCEMENT_
_As in subsequent pages of this little work its author has had so much to say regarding himself and the land of his nativity, we deem it but proper that he and the reader should be made more fully acquainted here at the outset. Permit, therefore, this brief biographical sketch. Born in the sunny valley of the South Platte, near the present site of the Queen City of the Plains (Denver), the author is of course a native of the Centennial State (Colorado)._
_In the days of his boyhood the wooly bison and the prong-horned antelope still ranged in countless droves upon the Great Plains, and the antlered elk and the mule deer, among the airy table-lands and in the more-sequestered, grassy forest-glades of the Rocky Mountains, were most plentiful indeed. The little red Indian papooses were his earliest childhood playmates, and the “big braves,” Cheyenne Charley, the Arapahoe chief, Black Kettle, and the fat old Ute, Colorow, are still well remembered by him. The long lines of freight and emigrant wagons; the “Overland stage coaches,” the ox and mule teams, the various motley crowds of old-time denizens of those then “first days” of stir and change, of sanguine strife and hardy enterprise, were all familiar objects of his youthful vision._
_Being reared thus, amidst wild and savage life, and born a native of a then savage wild-land, his poetic efforts of these later happier days will no doubt prove of especial interest to the people of the middle Great West and the Rocky Mountain region generally._
THE PUBLISHERS.
Contents
Portrait and Autograph of the Author Frontispiece
Publishers’ Announcement 4
Prefatory 9
_POEMS_
A Happy Loiterer 27
Angling in the Platte 28
Autumnal Sports 33
At My Little Cabin Home 42
At Littleton--“In the Good Old Summer Time” 58
At Englewood on an Afternoon in May 59
At Manitou 69
At Denver 70
A Felicitous Medical Prescription 75
A Requiem 86
Be Joyous, Be Gentle, Worthy, Kind 52
Beautiful Colorado 57
Colorado Skies 15
Down Among the Grasses 18
Differences of Opinion 82
Felicitous Retroflections 67
Greetings to Gladness 13
In the Wild Wild-Woods To-day 20
I’ll Sing Some Songs for Fame To-night 21
Introverse Retrospection 64
In the Forest 83
King Mammon 45
Live Merrily 14
“Lo Que Es El Mundi” 46
Little Love A-Fishing Went 68
Maid of Denver, Are You Camping? 22
Maid of Denver, Take My Arm 23
My Colorado 56
My Motor-Cycle Girl and I 79
My Summer Girl and Me 84
New Glad Voices 91
Of Paradise, Etc. 73
On Immortality 74
Poet, May I Pail Your Cow? 24
Pot-Hunting Beside the Platte 35
Recuperating in Nature’s Sanitarium 31
Regret 72
Seeking Our Two Little Brown Boys 60
Sundry Sweets 65
Supplementary 89
To Ye Cheerless Hermit 30
The Antelope Hunt 37
To Walter Whitman 44
To Ye Worthy Sailor Man 50
Tears 61
To Our Little Joy-Prince--Cherub Delight 62
To Our Lady of Woe 71
To Those Dark Eyes that Haunt Me Still 77
Wild-Woodland Ramblings 17
Was Man Made to Mourn? 25
_PROSE SKETCHES_
Farewell!--I Am Still Camping 87
May-Day Beside the Platte 92
My Native Lakes 95
Those Are the Rocky Mountains 98
_PREFATORY_
My dear unexacting, much-forgiving reader--lover of rural-songs and of rural singers: Now, since having spent many happy days in the health-gaining pursuit after the fleet-winged goddess Pleasure, and in camping on the trail of the scarcely less inconstant muse, among Colorado’s grassy, grove-filled valleys, arid plains, and lofty, snow-capped mountains, with the sad-faced “tourist friend” sometimes, and sometimes with some others, for the writer’s camp-fire side companions, and having found life good and Nature joyous, and as “There is more or less poetry about the souls of all men”--(and some women also, perhaps!) it is not strange, therefore, (is it?) that the author of this unpretentious little book has fallen, half-unconsciously, as it were, into hymning joy-notes to Nature and to disconsolate humanity (presumably!) likewise.
Now, trusting, therefore, that a more lengthy retrospection will not be necessary to sufficiently apologize for our unpremeditated literary transgressions, our impromptu sentimental love-ditties, etc., we therefore, with best wishes to all and with malice to none, and with the reader’s kind permission, will accordingly without further delay or comment, proceed to the final rehearsal of our felicitous, although evidently artless, minstrelsy.
THE AUTHOR.
HAPPY DAYS
CAROLINGS OF COLORADO ETC.
_GREETINGS TO GLADNESS_
Come, Bliss. Who likes a fretting child? It is the mirthful spright we love. On Joy, propitious gods have smiled. No worthier cherub dwells above.
In laughing eyes we lingering gaze; There’s beauty in a happy face! If Gladness lacked in classic mould Were not his charms yet manifold?
Come, Spirit, then--come, social Cheer. We crave diversion and delight. With thy sweet smiles dry Sorrow’s tear; Bright angels’ visits make our lives more bright.
_LIVE MERRILY_
Why pensive, mortals? Why still? Why sad? Cheer up, dear fellows, and be glad. Live merrily--live while you may, Gaily, gaily tripping along life’s way, Waste not--dejectedly brooding--waste not these few brief, fleeting hours, After death, as after night, dawns the brighter, fairer day. Be happy, then, be thankful, grateful as the conscious, smiling flowers.
Have hope, have faith, have charity; Trust to inherit immortality. At Pleasure’s fount dip deep; In its pure, ecstatic tide thy troubles steep. Grave saint--if righteous souls shall joyous live again Why should we sorrow here? Why vainly foster care and pain? Nay, nay, most happy presence, acquainted best with joy and love Are those best fitted, sir, for life--for sacred, hallowed life above.
_COLORADO SKIES_
Colorado skies! Colorado skies! Oh, what a depth of color in them lies! How bright to-day--how azure are Colorado skies!
Colorado skies! Colorado’s lustrous skies! In those clear wells above, Where the unimpaired optic never tires to rove, Behold! two sable eagles--their wheeling flights pursue, The only fleeting shadows in those arching vaults of blue.
Colorado skies! Colorado’s peerless skies! Oh, what sweet dreams, what joyous hopes arise, To all who cast their destinies beneath Colorado’s wondrous skies.
Colorado skies! Colorado’s splendid skies! At dawn, when swift the curling mists arise; When crimson-colored flame, the orient horizon o’erspreads, And shy day-nymphs awake from slumber on their golden beds,
’Tis then that smiling Fortune, lavishly rewards the bold emprise Of those who wisely early rise beneath Colorado’s matchless skies. Colorado skies! Colorado’s glorious skies! No lowering clouds--no lingering mists arise. How bright to-day--how propitious are Colorado’s skies.
_WILD-WOODLAND RAMBLINGS_
Down--adown among the green, wild-woodland alleys, And across the sweet valleys, Through forests of spruce trees and pine; With the birds, and the beasts, and the flowers for my allies I rove--oh I rove, with “The Spirit Divine.”
Down, deep down in the wild rocky canons; Up, high up on the cool sterile plateau’s above, Joy, Joy and Hope are still my companions, For, oh, for, oh, I am charmed and elated wherever I rove.
Down, then--down through the green leafy alleys, And across the sweet valleys Deeper, deeper still into forests of aspens and pine; Thus, thus ’mongst tall, shady groves I am daily making new sallies, For, oh, for oh, the much-roving spirits of gladness and of song-singing madness are mine.
_DOWN AMONG THE GRASSES_
Down--adown among the tall green grasses By the spring-fed pool, Where the flowers nod and beckon in the wind that passes-- Nod and beckon like sweet little lassies Like fair little Hellenic lassies, (glancing with their bright eyes) Like fair little Hellenic lassies, just turned loose from their classical classes Like glad little Grecian children just a-coming home from school.
And the dragon-flies in their bright cuirasses And the crickets that chirrup by rule, And the clouds floating by in great, white, cumulous masses, And the small, glad voices, and the flowers and the grasses, And the sky and the clouds mirrored way down in the pool, Makes one dream of the old song-sacred Parnassus, And of the nymph-haunted Hippocrene cool.
And we sigh for the poet’s winged-steed Pegasus Just to soar away up high! Just to scale those wild aerial passes, Just to rise above those great, white, cumulous, cloud masses, And to plunge and tumble down the blue vaults of the sky.
Away up above us--in those splendid cloud-cities! With their portals of gold and their turrets so fair, We seem to hear angels a-piping their wonderful ditties, And we long to be there--oh, we long to be there.
White Wings! White Wings! Come bear us away, Come bear us away, o’er river, o’er mountain and plain. Oh, bear us away to that land of tall palms and green sassafrasses, And then--oh, then, bear us back here to this wild, sweet, pretty valley again.
_IN THE WILD WILD-WOODS TO-DAY_
Away--far away--in the wild wild-woods to-day! Underneath the spreading, cool, green boughs sitting, Nesting birds above us flitting, Seem to sing--seem to say: “Mortals sad, be good, be good--be glad--be gay!”
Little hearts full of glee, Happy as happy can be; In the wavy bushes seen, In the tall, tufted tree-tops between, Singing, singing merrily, Singing, singing--seem to say: “Mortals sad, be good, be good--be glad to-day!”
_I’LL SING SOME SONGS FOR FAME TO-NIGHT_
Respected fellow traveler, ’tho I can carol like a bird Dame Fame my voice has never heard. Hear, then, congenial tourist, comrade with delight-- I’ll sing some songs for Fame to-night.
Fame oft has heard the wail of Sadness; Fame knows the lay of Trouble well, Then I will sing for her the songs of gladness, For her, for her, the tale of Joy I’ll tell.
_MAID OF DENVER, ARE YOU CAMPING?_
_He_: “Maid of Denver, are you camping? In my field your mules are tramping. Please, Miss, do not think me rude; ’Tis not my intention to intrude. Just this morn I saw your fire-- Thought I’d step down and inquire.”
_She_: “Yes, sir; yes, sir; we are camping; That’s our tent, there, in the willows. Pa and Ma are fishing, I suppose: Too bad, too bad, our team is tramping In your meadow green and wide. But, sir, oh, if you will kindly help me chase them out, sir, My folks, henceforth, no doubt, sir, Will be good enough to keep them tied.”
_He_: “Maid of Denver, let them stay--let them stray; They won’t hurt my clover--never, nay. Happy creatures! Watch them race and leap! Romp and roll, wallow in my herd’s grass--lush and deep! Off! ye saucy rogues! Away, away! go frisk and play; (They won’t harm my _trifolium incarnatum_, no, never--never, nay!)”
_MAID OF DENVER, TAKE MY ARM_
Maid of Denver, take my arm; Stroll with me, about my farm. Trustier guide you’ll never know. No, no, Maid of Denver, don’t say no!
Come, merry lass, come skip with me across the green; Climb up steep heights where foot hath never been. Just back of Frank Mann’s, on the rocks, Watch Massey’s shepherds tend their flocks.
Or would you rather rove cool hills between? Exploring, mayhap, many a sylvan scene? Or nay--no--you wisely choose beneath tall trees, To just sit here, and sweetly take your ease.
Then, Maid of Denver, here’s my hand! Share, oh kindly share with me my land. Fonder “hubby” you will never know, No, no, my pretty maid, my city maid, I love, I love you so.
_“POET, MAY I PAIL YOUR COW?”_
_She_: “Poet--pastoral poet-- Poet, don’t you know it? Poet, please, sir, may I now? Poet, I would dearly love to pail your cow!”
_He_: “Maid of Denver, then you may; I will bait her with some hay. So, boss--so, there, now! So,--so--you blamed old cow!
“Just watch her kick-up, like a steer; Race away in mad career; But I can catch her; oh, yes, dear-- Snare her with my lariat Snub her, stretch her out, Tie her horns and tie her feet, She may bellow, she may fret. We shall pail her. Conquer her? Oh dear, yes, you bet!
“Maid of Denver, try her now; She is humbled--s’drat that cow! Did she cavort like a steer? Bellow loudly in your ear? She did; yes, she did. But shall we pail her?”
_She_: “Well, no, nay--not just now, poet, dear.”
_WAS MAN MADE TO MOURN?_
“Man was made to mourn.”
--Robert Burns.
From Eden barred, abased, forlorn Man, some mortals say, was made to mourn. (Some even think his wicked soul should burn!) Of “sin original,” inoculated at the first, His “scapegoat” race they hold accursed.
For Adam’s fault they’d make his offspring’s sweat, For Eve’s one error do hateful penance yet. Such silly cant--such canters--I could spurn! Nay, nay, man was not made to mourn.
Joy, joy, presided at our birth; Heaven sent great gladness upon earth. Nature triumphed on our natal morn. Creation thrilled when man was born!
Nay, nay; man was not made to mourn! Discard that old familiar saw. It is a rusty relic, dull and worn, A heathen tool with many a flaw.
Nay, nay, it is a duty to be good; It is religious to be glad! O’er wrongs, o’er losses, wherefore brood? ’Tis wicked--sinful--to be sad!
Nay, nay; man was not made to mourn; From Grief (that vile old sorceress) let us turn, At Pleasure’s shrine, far holier, happier lessons, we shall learn.
_A HAPPY LOITERER_
Beneath our blue Colorado skies, Where tall mountains gladden eyes, Here I seek the care-free muse Till life’s burdens all I lose.
Far away from Sorrow’s brood, How I love serene, sweet Solitude! What to me is worldling’s strife, While I lead this placid, unobtrusive life?
Men or crosses, men of rules, Teach me not in Trouble’s schools. Wilful truant, I would lie Listening to the wild-bird’s melody.
In my forest by the stream Let me worship, let me dream, Loving Nature and her ways, I would court her all my days.
_ANGLING IN THE PLATTE_
On a log beside the Platte, With my tackle and my basket, Sitting where I long have sat, I am fishing! Should you ask it?
Idling,--dreaming time away! Thinking many happy thoughts to-day. Fleeting moments never heeding, While the hungry fishes feeding, Still I watch and still I wait; Let the minnows steal my bait! Mine--mine is the pleasure and repose-- That the never-fretting, catch-forgetting, gladness netting angler only knows.
Tired worker--up! away! Leave thy labors for a day. At the river life is sweet; At the river we shall meet. Rest and play! Rejoice and be gay! Recreation has its season. Put thy cark and care away, (Death from over-work to-day is clearly out of reason!)
Comrade,--cheerless comrade, break thy bondage and be free; Nature’s self will welcome thee; Countless blessings she can give, Come with nature, then, and live.
Nodding, nodding, napping by the brook, With no bait upon my hook; Dreaming dreams of summer sweet. While the ripples kiss my feet. While the wind blows through my hair, Know I not an earthly care. Oh, the restful, rapturous repose That the care-dispelling, mirth-compelling, sometimes story-telling, always joyful angler only knows.
On a log beside the Platte, With my tackle and my basket, Sitting where I long have sat;-- Am I fishing?--can you--really can you ask it?
_TO YE CHEERLESS HERMIT_
Arise! thou melancholy recluse--arise! Leave thy cell! Turn not thy days to night. Vile beasts and bats in darkness dwell; For us, God made the light.
For us, the sunshine and the flowers; For us, the birds, the bees, The leafy trees, the odorous bowers; And all our wants, God planned to please.
Come, then, come out into the day! Look up! Choke down thy silly grief; Fling all thy cark and care away; Rejoice! Help Nature sing her psalm of life.
Gloomy scholar, drop that skull! Ghoulish research there is vain; Studies such are void and null; From Pleasure learn the cure of pain!
Be glad! _Thy joy may cheer another!_ Weep not. (_Grief wounds not self alone!_) Heap not thy sorrows on thy brother; Old Misery’s sighs would e’en make angels groan!
Apostle of Woe, thy faith’s a fable; Try schemes of sorrow ill. Joy and Hope are props more stable; Merry, men may be, and righteous, too, who will.
_RECUPERATING IN NATURE’S SANITARIUM_
Disconsolate friend, if truly sore-distressed thou art by care and pain, Plunge, then, with me into the deep, continuous woods. Health there, and hope, to thee will come again; Untroubled there we both may well indulge our favorite, loftier moods.
Remote,--afar from dust and din of crowded cities,-- By waters cool, how sweet! how delectable! to spend one’s leisure time! To listening hills, I there will croon my artless ditties And shout, aye, loudly shout “heroics!” in Nature’s halls sublime.
Near by yon crystal mountain lake, Hemmed in by cliff and sylvan wide, My hunter’s home I there would gladly make; There happy, as the famed “Tuck friar,” in the forest glade reside.
In other days,--with saddle horse and pack! (Permit me, please, to trace my earlier rambles back!) When “whipping for trout” the rippled mountain streams, Or “prospecting,” perchance, for that yellow dross that gleams Ever brightly in man’s waking dreams. Again, with Hope, I scale the lofty, snow-capped peak, Again, with Joy, I cross vast plateaus wild and bleak, Once more a thirst for water on hot desert plains, Or else, half-drowned, I camp out in the rains!
’Mongst pleasing memories thus, learn, oh, learn to live thy summers o’er and o’er; Again to stand exulting on the storm-lashed shore. Dear heart! thy Great Creator’s joy is largely thine; No want he made but gave food to supply. This is a universal law divine; The very wish thou hast to gain immortality, Is strongest proof that “thou shalt not surely die.”
Thus idling, grudge not, yet, to spend some precious hours; Oh, kindly still sit here with me and muse among the flowers. Behold! deep in the spacious hollow of yon evening sky Afar,--almost beyond the reach of mortal’s ken,-- How brightly there His clustering islands lie, How sweet the hope, there, after death, to live again!
To thee--to me--what is the flight of time? Count not as lost the fleeting hours we squander here in contemplations thus. In those star-worlds, whose light-beams bridge o’er space, Read there God’s covenants sublime: Eternity! eternity! was made for us!
_AUTUMNAL SPORTS_
Oh, much I love the spring-time, when the nesting birds are here, And much I love the summer days also, when brooks are bright and clear. Greatly, too, I prize the winter season, with its fireside chat and cheer, But sweeter, fairer far to me, is Autumn’s bracing, splendid weather! When the spicy, frost-bit, gold-hued forest leaves are falling, When the fearless, dusky, brownish bob-white quail is calling, Calling boldly from the stubble-field to his timid scattered coveys in the thickets near, So right off I get my “shooting-iron,” and my doggie I untether! And away, away we blithely stroll together, O’er the russet lawns, and on adown unto the fenlands, to our hearts so dear.
And when arrived there soon, Some rapid, random shots I take At the frightened ducks that squawking leave the lake, And my doggie on the run, And the direful booming of my gun, Sets my heart a-beating, beating, For old Death himself might think that I were cheating, cheating Him out of half the “sanguine kills” that he himself would joy to make.
_POT-HUNTING BESIDE THE PLATTE_
Oh, what fun! Oh, what fun! With my doggie and my gun Tramping, tramping, strolling in the sun!
“_Quack! squack!_” Look there! Look! Just above yon sluggish meadow-brook. Six fat mallards up and off in flight. Willie--Willie Greener! What delight! Willie, watch me knock them left and right. _Crack--crack_--sounds my good “repeater.” _Crack--crack_--she may be an old shot-eater, _Crack--crack_--did I miss the whole blamed bunch? Oh, no; just “salted down six” for lunch. Willie--Willie Greener! Talk about your handsome double gun! But my beloved “pump,” why she just beats the band for fun.
Colorado laws protect (?) the quails! But we make it warm for snipes and rails. _“Quack! squack!”--crack--“squack”!_ Heavens! did I miss that “jack”? Doggie--doggie--ain’t it funny We so seldom now can find a bunny? _“Honk--conk--honk”--pop-pop--pop-pop-pop--pop._ Great Scots! Watch those wild geese drop and flop. My Muse! My Muse! By George, I think that we had better stop Before George Shields, of “brittle brush sensation,” Gets our photos (blushing photos!) painted for his Recreation.
_THE ANTELOPE HUNT_
In the country of Bijou, Just in sight of mountains capped with snow, Stalking the “prong-horns” on the plain, Once each year I go again.
The sun is up. His glorious smile Illumes each ridge and dim defile. The scent of sage and desert flowers Makes dainty, sweet, these morning hours. Forth leaps my steed; my pulses start. By zephyrs cool my cheeks are fanned. Away! Away! and with glad heart I roam my own, my native prairie land!
Now, whilst broad grass-flats skimming o’er. What thrilling dreams of days of yore,-- Of bison hunts that are no more; Of Indians red that vanished, too, Like much big game “ye old-time hunters” slew. Save a few prong-horns, fleet and sly, That still roam o’er these deserts dry, Those beasts,--those nomads,--all are gone! Like shifting sands, they hurried on, As phantoms in a wizard’s glass, Seen but a moment e’er they pass. Such memories flash across my mind, Then fading, leave regrets behind.
But hence, ye dreams! Away! Away! Time is so brisk, so very fleeting; High rolls the sun,--supreme his sway;-- Hot, red hot! on my poor head his beams are beating. But no complaint,--I hunt to-day! To-day I seek the noble quarry; Just as of old I come to slay, (I yearn to bag at least one prong-horn wary!) But all in vain I scan the plain: I scower, likewise, the ridges airy. I halt, glance back, dash on again, From right to left I keep a turning; I plunge among the sand-hills burning, Then in and out, around and over, But I can find those sly beasts nowhere,--never!
Nay, neither hoof nor horn have I spied; In all my mad Mazeppa ride; Tempted by the mirage lake, Mocking thirst it cannot slake, Scanning landscapes dim and hazy, Till my eyeballs nearly burst, Till I seem a-going crazy From pangs of heat and thirst, Down, down to yonder sandy creek I will hie, I must drink--and drink p-d-q--or surely I shall die.
Evening scents, and odors cool, Flights of ducks above a pool; Now, in the bunched sand-grass lying, From a high hill-top I am spying; In a neighboring deep ravine, Stands my hobbled steed unseen; All around, elsewhere, a cheerless waste,-- But see, there! At last! at last! Trooping up yon sunny slope, There! there! behold! My long-sought antelope!