Page:Poems Denver.djvu/94

A shadow is ever before our eyes,
Like a ghost of regretful memories,
That hideth the future from our sight,
And points us back to a starless night,
Where no theme breaks over that world of ours,
But the cheerless one of misspent hours.

Bend over me I bend with your tender skies,
O, land of sublimer sympathies!
Too much, too much have our spirits known,
The sunshine and shadow around them thrown!
Too long have we lived on the smiles of earth,
Too long have we wandered 'mid hollow mirth!
The hearts that should love us, too soon grow cold,
The feelings that nerve us too soon grow old!
And we learn to think that the world is fair,
Yet false as the falsest being there,
As April skies; and changeful skies,
Are not so dreary as changeful eyes!

I have thought, O! beautiful clime, of thee,
When the stars looked earthward in brilliancy!
When thy flowers appeared through their silver dew,
As if a heaven were shining through;—
And I wondered then, if thy shores could be,
As the star, so far from earth and me;
If thy skies were only fabled skies,
Removed for aye from our longing eyes;