FORGET MY WORDS.

TO THE MEMORY OF FRED HAYWOOD, EDITOR OF THE DENVER REPUBLICAN, WHO DIED MARCH, 1888, FITZ-MAC BEING THEN EDITOR OF THE DENVER DAILY WORLD.

What boots the tear untimely falling,

What boots the sorrow born too late,

When Death our selfishness appalling,
Rebukes the paltry words of hate.

Rebukes the gibe too swiftly spoken

That pierced a struggling brother's heart;
The unfeeling word that gave no token
It knew that brother's harder part.

Though half the truth all worth denied him,
Too late were now the remainder said,
What boots to tell restraints that tied him?
What boots our praises to the dead?

Poor folded hands all undefying,

Your meek surrender stabs me through.

Too late for praising or denying,

But, brother, be it well with you.

Forgive, forgive; though unavailing,

These tears shall plead a long regret;
That pulseless heart is past assailing,
Forget my bitter words, forget.

Surville J. DeLan.

TIMBER-LINE.

I stood on the crest in the sunlight,
When the summer was growing old;
Yet the ages' trace on the mountain's face
Was frozen, and white, and cold.

I gazed at the distant meadow,

Green with its verdure spread,

Framing the brook, as it pathway took, Through the vale, like a silver thread.

As upward my vision I gathered,
Over forests wide of pine,

I saw them sway to the zephyr's play,
Till they reached the timber-line.

Where in grandeur and sadness were lying, The broken, the dying, the dead,

Like the havoc made by the cannon's raid, On the ranks at the battle's head.

Naked and gaunt and frowning,
Like a giant stripped for fray.
The mountain stood above the wood,
In the glare of the summer's day.

I thought as again I gathered,
The scene in my vision's ken,
That nature's strife resembles our life,
The lives of mortal men.

Some like the valley are peaceful,

Some thrive like the evergreen pine, Whilst others must stand a hapless band,

To die at the timber-line.

FRIENDSHIP.

What is friendship? ask the drowning,
When he sees his life to save,

Struggling through the waters frowning,
Come his rescuer, strong and brave.

Ask the tender vinelet clinging

To the oak's majestic form,

When its rustling leaves are singing, "I am sheltered from the storm."

And the weary wanderer sinking,
Faint from ills that hunger breeds-
Ask him what his soul is thinking
Of the hand that gently feeds.

'Tis thy neighbor, said the Master,
When suffering silent thou are mute,
Sees thy wants and grants them faster
Than if thou hadst urged thy suit.