Los Angeles daily herald., 1890-01-05

LII. W p. IN. 10 recolpt loT uuoS'
For THE HERALD.
An incident.
| In deep San FELIX'S mountain dell
| Tnls Pheasant chance time befell:
| A cloudless day
- In early May,
me numbering car had borne away
from clty's din and atmosphere,
10 breathe awhile the mountain air,
A hundred merry imps and elves;
BY twos and fours, by tens and twelves,
6ney ranged the mountains sloping SIDE,
Or from the shadows, cool and wide,
Of giant live oaks, hoafy limbed,
Gazed ON the blue and white of peaks
That rose six thousand feet with streaks
OF mist inzoned, that coiled and climbed,
Like phalanxed armies. up their sleeps.
Lol where his watch CahueDga keeps
Above San FELIX'S fadeless leaves,
A giant rock its brow upheaves
| Against the steadfast sky-the home
Of wild bees where the nectared comb
| Has lain while fifty harvest moons
| Have filled and waned. The swallows tunes
Ia rills of music, tinkle down
The rocky shalt and owlets moan
And eyry In its crannied sides.
A thousand feet above where glides
The Angeles. its shattered crest
sweeps to the mountains lOftier breast
Clothed in witch-hazel el cOpses green;
And so it stands, midway between
The upper peaks and Valleys sod,
statue carved by natures God;
A grim and mighty shape to grace
This doorway to his secret place,
His dim and awful seat amid
The pale SierrNs, tempest hid.
A challenge broke the rev'rent hush
That fell. what time we looked above
And felt a thrill OF gladness rush
Like memory through our soals and prove
Our finer sense to nature shaped. &C.,
" Let's scale the cliff" one cried and lesped
Like chamois to the shingly cliff;
And, as the bounding herds that sniff
The air and mark their leaders course,
We paused moment and, perforce
OF one desire, the challenge caught.
Then up the hazel slopes we wrought,
Till all the valley stretched below,
dream illumeo with vernal glow;
Their echoes, as from fairy land,
OF pipes and laughter from the band
OF revelers that stayed behind,
Pursued us on the Grant wind
That rose and fell with soft unrest:
But higher seemed the rock to rise
With every step. until the skies
were pillared on its hOary crest.
Faint grew the stronger limbed, and need
Must yield the O'erventurous deed.
Stretch'd under hazel boughs that lent
A fragrant shade, a trio spent
The yernal noon-the task forgone-
When 10! we lifted eyes, and on
The rocky dome exultant stood
The youngest of our troOp-a lad
f tender years-in solitude;
Leaving ur steps, ascended had
That stairway to the pale of clouds,
AS one whose dauutless spirit plods
The sleepy path that leads to fame.
He stood and proudly carved his name
Across the giants flinty brow,
Casting vict0r's glance below.
A painters canvas then became
My willing brain, and prophets flame
it's breath and shap'd the while
My speechs musing undertone;
Lo mantled in the valleys smile,
made the Past to lie alone;
The vernal hush was memorys own,
And that our hazel trysting place
The Presents sweet suffcienJ grace;
But up the misty mountain rolld
The viewless tide of years untold;
And SO / read life's passing dream,
A pleasing task as we'll may SEEM
We pass from memorys vale apace
And. happy, through our destined days
We toll and climb, but faint at last
Midway the Future and the Past;
And where we yield our vital breath,
And sink to silent sleep beneath
rhe fragrant haZeps sombre grace,
Will younger faith take up the race,
And, still on higher purpose bent,
? oursue amain life's steep ascent,
Until it stands with shining feet
Where heaven and earth cOmmingling meet?
H. N. DU BOSE.