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Show THE WILDERNESS KINGS (By L. Roy Smith) They have not changed, those yonder purple hills now covered with gray dust old caravans had stirred from trails long lost, since ox hoofs trampled sage. Still in this desolate solitude of seeming boundless plains, a phantom train of Mormons moves slowly on -Bonneted women -strong as their Jegioned men of faith, subdue their tears, and with burning eyes, ever hopefully, turn weather beaten faces toward the setting sun. The weary shades of pioneers, veiled in hues of crimson gold -mysterously moving forms encircled by covered wagons forming a crude fortress. Lowing of oxen at close of day grazing near their chafing yokes. Black curling smoke from camp fires fed with grease wood and sage. Strong, silent men of the wilderness, wilder-ness, brave women, born to endure such quietude -naively clearing away the last vestige of their evening meal. Brief silence. Darkness came with its silvern solitude. Moonlight, weird and wan, flooding the vastness of the plains panorama -luridly stretching like a magic carpet car-pet to distant horizons, where fierce saw-toothed mountains, mount-ains, rise like forbidding sentinels of the West. .Kneeling beneath God's open temple of space, they prayed, as mortals had never prayed before - mot in silence, not in fear - they asked for strength to carry on, with everlasting faith in the ultimate crowning glory of their creed. The lone winds from future frontiers blow through the night; tattered canvas on creaking wagons, snaps and crinkles. Before a camip fire glowing wanly, wan-ly, a mother's swaying form soothes her infant with crooning lulljabys - and the moaning winds caressing her hair, mingled with her chanting notes -soul songs spirited away on wings of night to faint echoing symphonies of life and death. To the East - A new dawn marking the threshold thres-hold of another day. Sad women gathered Jiear a grief 'stricken mother kneeling for the last time beside a little mound of glistening sand. Condolence, blessed symphy of communion -Black g-rief hallowed by miraculous faith. Forward! Necessity commanding - Onward, ever onward they move tortureous1 y toward their goal; death haulting brief!y their pro- gress, sad hearts reluctantly leaving loved ones buried beneath lone skies where vultures wing, ever seeking the desert spoils. Amid this mute revelry of parched vastitudes where nature pauses . in her response to melancholy litanies of the -wild -veils of shimmering heat weaves rise like liguefied gases, as if from some smoldering inferno in-ferno that had long since consumed the Pantheon of lost ages. Across this scene the phantom train moves on, pausing amid choking dust clouds rising beneath the salt streaked flanks of weary oxen, to be carried away by hot winds to distant dunes of sand and sage. Before them now the montain looms, and ominous challenge to their fortitude - rising to lofty heights where saber toofhed ledges pierce the clouds in their whirl of fleecy roit. But such a barrier could not stay their course. Through un-charted-cayons they blazed a Mormon trail. This was their gate way to a far flung land of dreams far from their Nauvoo homes and fields from which they had been driven in tortured masses' before the iron Hand of morbid persecutors devoid of all attributes of tolerance. Days, weeks, months passed o'er desert lands and mountain girdled plains; they carried on until at last they reached a mountain's crest, and there spell bound they gazed upon a fertile opalescent valley below them. Praise God! They had reached their promised land of Zion. "THIS IS THE PLACE" - Green lands stretching dotted with silver lakes, great forests, mountain streams rushing turbulently down from white capped peaks blanketed with perpetual snow. A potential common wealth to be wrested from nature's wildest whims of creativeness. Great forces un-leashed dissipating their resources in natural channels of erosion - the black magic of the ages. The purple shadows of the rockies as the sun set low in the west, chased across the valley like the shadow of some winged monster flying toward its lair. A mysterious frontier of their ' dreams, beautiful in its hidden solitude, romantic, in its spell of inviting adventure, dangerous, in its vast protective elusiveness, growling silently like a wilderness giant at their trespassing upon his sacred soil -yet, half begging them to share his treasured world. From the chaos of the wilderness seething in its central gloom, they battered the elements with their fortitude to shape and use. With chariness they layed their plans, and with tireless hands . moulded their husbandry. Following the exhortations of chosen leaders was exigent to their material needs, intelligent instructions faithfully accepted and used became the common spirit invading their exiled common wealth, until the valley blossomed like a rose, and the springtime evenings lazily hummed with the staccato chirping of the cicada. The wilderness Kings had come to conquer i and the wilds became their kinkdom. Fields of ripening grain now waver where once the spiny thistle ,had shed its down. On the shores of the Great Salt Lake there rose a town, a village at first with rough little houses built of logs hewn from the pines and cedars of I near by forests. Soon they layed the !.. foundation for the Temple, ! slowly through the years that followed they laboriously built their House Of God -And when at last it stood complete ! glistening in all its pristine glory they blessed the sanctuary of their creed and shook the depths of a valley with their hyms of praise. What spiritual guidance was behind The Temple's architectural plan when unskilled artisans could build a structure that is still the cynosure of the world. Close 'by rose the dome of a Tabernacle, a magnificant artifice built without a nail - i pegs, and sinues of buckin j welding its structure and perfecting its accoustics. j There was a reason ! behind each timely plan - : a strong silent ardor I permeating ther spiritual I and material works. Necessity demanded, ; and their resourcefulness paved the way. Outcropping of mineralized zones were soon discovered in their new world, and from these were developed mines yielding such metals as could be easily smelted and fashoned into use. Crudely but surely each resource of the country was employed in their battle to survive. Canals were made - irrigation of their crops followed iucessfufty. In time news of their progress reached the ears of distant people - more soules of their religious beleif, and coverts from many lands, came to share their little world - and thus an empire grew and flourished where once the Piutes chased wild buffalo. L'EXVOI. Kings of the wilderness, Your lands abandoned; Leaving your homes to mobs that oppressed, Living your dreams of a vast land of freedom -Seeking seclusion in frontiers of of the West. You in whose hearts a strong faith was kindled, . Fireing your souls with an ardor of right; Willing to die for a cause in the scheme of things- Dreadless in danger, and ready to fight. Monarchs of the West, all nature your subject, Building an Empire on waste lands and plain -What of your suffering, what of the pain of it? Surely your hardships have not been in vain. Kings of the wilderness, A fierce country lured you; Whispered its tales of dangers it held, Threatened your progeny, austerely warned you - Tried to disguise the things you beheld. Kings of the wilderness, scornful of dangers, Placing your lives in the faith that was yours, Reaping your grains from a wilderness wild-erness frowning -Building your towns on silver lake shores. -Undaunted Pioneers seeking your fredom, To believe that which others deemed deem-ed not your right Forever we'll praise you, and follow your teachings, Kings of the wilderness, we honor your might. |