Page:Poems Denver.djvu/170

I see a glow of beauty
 Upon the lofty hills;
I hear the voice-like melodies
 Of a thousand mountain-rills;
The laughter and the joyous shout
 Are brightly floating by,
Like sunny clouds that drift about
 Upon a summer sky!

Tell me, my brother! tell me,
 Does the freshness of our youth
Still linger on the green hill-side,
 Immaculate as its truth?
Or where bright water gushes glad
 The frowning rocks between;
Or where the stately pine is clad
 In everlasting green?

Where is the early spirit
 That made our being fair?
We feel it not within our hearts,
 For they are chilled with care.
We see not on each other's brow
 The images it cast;
Dimly it haunts our memory now,
 That spectre of the past.

Around the scenes of childhood,
 Its holiest light is shed;
Forever will it linger there,
 Like love beside the dead;