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Show a UL E dd LM Yj YY Yy, VY Yj Up r= . iD | Lae sity aOU.A qirys UA iver pee “¥ VU yl QO yoo “BA ‘ 4 6 , = Journal wt) Vig 7 AN of Current Literature, News, Art and Science for th e Western Mh Household, 3- a, Poe * WO ES INO, Salt 12, Lake City, Utah, December 29, $2.25 1888. Per Year. ~ E PRIZIk we TIMES’ BRS From the foothills ® SPENCER. rising slowly towards the north where Ensign crests, Upland slopes that girt the level where the peaceful city rests, I can see the vale beneath me slipping from the slack hill’s grasp— Glide along the circled distance in the Oquirrah’s tender clasp. See anear, the snow gilt mountains like a silver crescent bend r : Round the broad brows of the valley where the j eastern uplands wend; And the drooping clouds curl loosely dyed with sunset’s golden tinge, E O’er the peaks that hide their glitter in the fleecy folds of fringe. : See thecity’s myriad smoke-wreathes garlanding the clustering roofs, And oe in whiffs, like See Hear See mt the waters witiding, from the dark hill shadows freed, Where the city’s channelled currents through the oo By flying through . twilight’s purple woof. See the canyon i petals thirsty byways lead. the lissome millstream pebbles at my feet, slipping hands uprear the valleys; on the air the vapors rise CHANGES. BY JOSEPHINE ~< Titan POISM. Ld on the its hum,a tuneful dripping to the millwheel’s measured beat. | the meadows rolling westward where the Jordan’s slender chain Jingling in the sunlight, slowly threads the verdure of the plain; And the sere land stretching onward till the hues Shaken from the heaving waters through the ardent waste of skies And where once the curling billows, rolling wide from beach to beach, Swept the fathom buried sand beds, now the clay-girt valleys reach, Ever from the waters stretching backward vain and longing hands, With relentless face, unheeding, flee afar the ancient strands. \ Ocean tides in vain shall murmur missing answering inland swells, And the moon range idly over spots that owned her ancient spells, For the longing distance beckons till from Utah’s destined plain Sounds alone the fretful echo of the wave’s re- _- gretful strain. Shrinking westward through at last the waters sway the hollows, now Safe within the narrow valley where the Oquir- rah’s shadows stray. There the hills the farewell whispers of the ancient tide shall know And their echoes voice the story of the billows’ cadenced flow. Over the forsaken valley where the bitter waters “swept Long i theftraces aie: of their sojourn in the vale waskept Salt In sown hill and shining desert, clay-white stretch of slope and plain unbroken line betokened where the restless tide had lain. But the - barren ee years . -have wrought their marvels; hope her magic symbols traced O’er the spot and lo! a garden blossomed from the desert waste. Now in joy the summer sunshine verdures all the fertile soil, . Golden harvests in their seasons bless the earnest plea of toil. ; And as now the brighter picture cheers that vision stretching far, So the land’s great promise beckons, in the future, like a star. And its past shall narrow, lengthening far below the destined light of distance turn, Golden-tinted in the sun-glow, where the fading day-fires burn. See the pale line of the waters on the rich horizon. drawn, ; Like a beam that gilds the threshold at the portals of the dawn— And my fancy paints the picture that the nearer eye hath seen, When.the promise seaJed upon it answers to the Where the lake’s broad bosom brightens in the welcomed sight. . sunlight’s golden sheen, When the vale shall broaden, studded line on And the waters, westward swelling from the line with palace roofs, plain’s low border, rise And the clay-white desert darken with the harInland with the diamond ripples like the stars vest’s lavish proofs. of sapphire skies; Grain-heaped ridges, rill-fed furrows, all the Where the islands, floating darkly on the gilded western prairies pave, waters, throw Orchards spreading o’er the lake-shore, paint Purple shades that stem the current of the suntheir verdure on the wave, light’s rippled flow; And the hills that gird the valleys all their hoard _ And the waters, as the breeze stirs, proudly into of metals yield billows leap, To the wondrous forces toiling in the mountains’ Spreading pencilled lines of azure far along the buried field. shining deep. Splendid promise of the future! ripening to a Scenes that now the fancy summons painting on | glorious meed a vacant view— For the wisdom that shall garner fullness of the Heaving wave and glittering ripple, once the bursting seed! nearer landscape knew. Let no more the cheating distance rob the moOnce the fertile valley trembled to the water’s ment of its prize— Let the fruit of earnest effort grow beneath the sullen roar, favoring skies, Eastern hill aud upland shimmered from the For the New Year that shall meet us when the ocean’s sanded floor. lessening hours have flown, Once the waters westward rolling o’er the farther Glistens with a richer promise than the past has prairies spread, ever shown. And the broad Neveda desert saw the whelming And like ships that bear, unknowing, some current led, great soul whose future way Where the great Pacific rolling o’er unfettered Marks the fate of empires, moulding Time’s wastes of sand, great processes like clay, Beckoned inland through the passes of its nar So the years whose freighted moments seem but » vow line of strand, spoil of little worth Wide and far the waters scattered, league on Holdthe germ-like deeds that ripened make the league with tireless pace, destinies of earth. Narrowing with glens, and swelling to the valleys’ grander space, > Till the west was filled with billows from Sierra’s | [For the Western island chain To the Rockies glistening eastward on the border of the plain; And afar where tropic forests decked the mountain’s sloping side Southern moons with tender wooing stirred the pulses of its tide, Leaping where the mountain reaches woke the breakers’ angry roar, Lapsing on the sandy beaches shallowed from the lowland shore Age on age the waters answered to the hollow, sounding breeze, ( And the idle sunlight glittered on the dreary waste of seas; But the sun will run his orbit, and the moon her circle range, ‘Earth in slumberous stages circles through the destined round of change, And from time’s trance Nature ever wakes to weave her gorgeous dreams, Always, with divine endeavor, working up to Godlike themes Weekly.] i lesa White Butterfly. FROM THE SPANISH OF JOSE BY Ji. MeR, SELGAS, Bertha had just completed her seventeenth syear, that age when love begins to whisper to the heart of woman the profoundest secrets. But, mischievous love! for every confidence it imparts it axactsasigh. Yet look; Bertha has a mirror in her hand, and turns her eyes toward it again andagain. She looks at herself and then, sighing, begins to smile. And smile, for she the pleasing as has perfect mirror one can well whatever be the right reveals a imagine; unrest love to face as and may have awakened in her heart, the image presented in the mirror has charm sufiicient to dispel it. It is quite plain that Bertha is in love, for she is thrilled by a new, | strange and indefinable feeling, as if, indeed, she had become another being. And the truth is she has learned somewhere that men are consistent; and makes her sigh. ungracious aud in- the thought of But the mirror this does much to console her. It tells her that she is beautiful; more—that yes, her eyes are black and brilliant, her eye- person, and the change has come suddenly, all at once, even in the twinkling of an eye. are worthy of a king, and has no seriousress at all. from balcony, balcony to this A matter few a signs few side glances, and then, what? Nothing! To come her; she appears taller, more— one the same as to the other—out of more everything. Nothing further sight, out of mind.” “Do you say no?” asked the nurse. could be asked. Yet the house is now “T say no,” replied Bertha. silent. Those snatches of song, that “What? We will see! What! Whence mirthful clamor, all that jveyous commotion has disappeared; and the. good comes this assurance—” Bertha did not let her conclude. nurse would surely have been at the summit of blissfulness, enjoying the ut“Our vows,” she answered. most peace and quiet, did she not miss “Vows,” exclaim:d the nurse, crossing the boisterous glee that once filled the herself, “so, then, that is it! Vows,” she house; and for the life of her she could repeated with disdain; “dear me! Empty words.” scarcely tell which pleased her best. Some recollection of her own Well, the days passed on peaceful and And well, very well, does gravity be- Bertha, who was wont to rise so youth must have arisen in her memory quiet. early, did this no longer.. Doesshe sleep at that moment, for she sighed and more? That noone knows; but if she went on to say: “Will they be the first vows in the does not sleep more, it is easy to see that Today, she eats less. And not this alone; from world that have been broken? time to time. and seemingly without oc- well, there is nobody but the neighbor; | easion, sighs escape her that would _but tomorrow?” “Never,” teplied Bertha. almost break your heart. : “Worse and worse,” added the nurse, The nurse, who is most solicitous for her welfare, and who would do anything for then he will makea mantle of his for Bertha, observes all this in. silence. Spanish cloak and make you do what Silent she is, but her thoughts are far you do not wish todo. Now you are from silent. That is plain to see, for at sweet as honey, but presently you will mischievous. She ,would ransack the every sigh Bertha utters, she purses up see. What would you tell me? That house'from top to bottom, and would| her mouth, winks, at the same t:me say- he is young and good looking? Silly, even have been capable of ransacking ing to herself, “Hum! now we have _ it!”’ silly girl! Is he any the less a man on Do you wish to know To be sure, she was not long silent, that account? the world. She was fearless and irreverent; she played like a madcap and since there is no woman in the world what these men are?” Bertha approached the nurse, placed slept like a log. You see, Bertha’s who can easily hold her tongue for any Besides, Bertha’s ser- her hand on her mouth and answered: mother had died before she was old length of time. “No, no, I do not wish to know.” enough to remember; and although her iousness came to be an old story, and The nurse went out of Bertha’s room, picture stood at the head of the young further than this, she was fast becoming girl’s bed, that image, at the same time terrified, because, as she insisted, in muttering these words: “Mad, stark mad!” gentle and austere, was not sufficient to whichsoeyer way the twig is bent so will restrain the rash impetuosity of Bertha’s the tree be inclined; and Bertha, you see, youthful spirit. And besides, she was she still regarded asa twig. We already know that Bertha has a But if the nurse maintained silence father, and we shall now know: that her an only daughter, and her father, whom father, without being a very extrdordiwe shall hereafter have occasion to men- for some days, it was only because she nary man, is by no meang a nobody. To tion, saw in her only the reflection of hoped that Bertha would in the end open see him one would thitike that he was her mother. More than this, the nurse, her own mouth and let out the secret. past the age of sixty, but appearances who was also the housekeeper, was at But Bertha heeded not at all. She was cannot always be trusted, and Bertha’s once the accomplice and apologist of al! as a sealed box that the nurse was bent father really had not yet completed his forty-ninth year. In the city of his She birth there are persons still young who her pranks, because, in fact, she re- on opening, yet never succeeding. garded her as little short of perfection. tried this thing, and that thing, and were companions of his childhood; but It does not take much to make an an- everything; but the seal would nowhere he lost his wife early in life and the sad gel into a little mischief, and indeed, yield. The nurse, indeed, had lost the bereavement put an end forever to youth. From that very day he put his Bertha required even much less, because key, and there was none that fitted it in affairs in order, retired from business, ‘the bunch hanging at her belt. The only the natural vivacity of her nature was and, collecting what property ho had amassed, buried himself from all the inclined towards all sorts of pranks. Op- thing remaining was to force the lock. world. One day she left off temporizing and position chafed her even to the point of brows most beautifully arched and her cheeks fresh and rosy. And Bertha draws consolation from these observations; her heart is filled with hope, and it is for this reason she smiles. : 3 Bertha is in this state of mind when wefirst meet. her. Hitherto her life has been concerned with naught save’ the innocent follies of. childhood. Up to the time we speak of she has been a child, but a child, indeed, merry, restless and tears. And least expected, bedimmed what with. her tears! eyes, them, When even she vreak out into laughter; and cause her soul was full of joy, eous, yet would this bespontan- contagious joy, like unto the joy of birds at the dawn of day. But such joy cannot last forever. At all events, there will come a time when Bertha must settle down, for natural that she should bea her life. That time arrives at in a night time that noisy joy quiet down, to cloud over, like itis not romp all last; and begins to a tempest that passes away, or a sky that grows went to the room found engaged black, silken whom she binding upon her tresses bright. “T like that,” she seeing her; “that a said pink pink, : Bertha, to is scarlet so That is to say he devoted himself entirely to the care of his daughter, in whom he could see reflected the image of the woman he had lost. This image, too, he wished to see ever young, though on beautiful, and it seems like fire. But in thy flowerpots such pinks are not grown.” he had aged himself long before he had grown old. Bertha! Bertha! This name comprised his sole thought, a thought at the same time both sweet and bitter, for there isin the world of human happiBertha lowered her eyes. ness no cup of joy that does not contain “Then,” she continued, “you imagine its drop of bitterness. We now see this doting father walking Iam absent minded, when you know I catch at the least thing. Oh, yes, what back and forth from one end of his room can escape me! And let me see, you have sewed up your mouth?” Bertha grew red as a poppy. “Bah!” overcast. of Bertha, in exclaimed the nurse. to the other; trace “That we see him fix his his steps, bite his forehead, as if he thought were about to fall on earth were going to feet. him, open nails, rub his or that beneath the his the heavens The nurse is the first to perceive this change in Bertha, and although the girl’s pranks drove her almost to her wits’ end, yet to see Bertha silent, thoughtful, pink race the had meditative but three. The neighbor, eh? What partly opening the curtain that covered folly! There is truly neither rhyme nor it. He thrust out his head as if he were about to pronounce some word that reason in this.” ; Bertha now grew pale and looked fix- would not come from his lips, and remained rigid as if stricken dumb with edly at the nurse, as if she did not un- astonishment. derstand her words. ‘The cause of his surprise was the “T do not wish to say,” continned the inurse, who, not observing the movenurse, “that you should take the veil,nei- ment of the curtain, approached the door, at the same time gesticulating and serious, filled her with pure and unalloyed contentment. The child, indeed, had become a woman. What mystery so great! The giddiness of childhood was left behind her to teflect on the seriousness of womanhood. But alas! She does not know that a young woman is a thousand times more foolish than a child. But the fact still remains that Bertha seems like another has come flying from yonder terwhich fronts this balcony. I see flower-pot from here; yesterday it four pinks in it, and today it has at times eyes on the floor and then on the ceiling; we see him pause and turn round to re- ther do I wish to say that the neighbor. is a person of no consequence; but you Suddenly he struck blow on the forehead the door of the room himself a heavy and approachéd where in the most extravagant manner. he was, Some- thing extraordinary was on her mind. |