The Royal Diploma

— — — THE ROYAL DIPLOMA:— A TALE OF A PIONEER. (For the Improvement Era.) I. This is the place: not sixty years ago its only occupants Were the lawless aborigines, and warring elements, An uninhabitable spot it was, of all incentive shorn, Save the thousand dollars offered for the first ripe ear of corn. As we view the situation, in the sun's fast fading gleam, E'er the world is given o'er to night, to darkness and to dream, While we take the benediction of these salt sea atmospheres. To imagination give your minds, and lend to me your ears: II. There's a narrative which tells, that somewhere down the flight of years, From the eastern range of mountains, came a band of pioneers; Here they found immunity from their unmerited distress, In the tacit invitation of the barren wilderness. There, where dips the horizon, and where those rival mountains break, With a restless tributary plunging to the sunset lake; That stoic band ('twere but a handful) issued from the mountain trails; But to paint it true to nature e'en the pen of genius fails. From the annals of all history, parallel it if you can; Every mile a sore affliction, every soul a faithful man. Poor wherein the world is richest: glory, pomp, and gold and fame; But rich wherein the world is poorest: faith, works and exalted aim, Nothing could have quelled their anguish, short of an eternal hope, As they viewed the situation from the sandy mountain slope: Burning villages behind them, and ahead the burning sand,

—— — THE ROYAL DIPLOMA. 673 Everywhere the proposition of an unproductive land. But a miracle has come among us, since those days of yore, And a garden sweeps the valley, that was wilderness before, Save where yonder peaks write their antiquity against the skies, Everywhere the land looks up through half a century's disguise; Ostracized for conscience' sake, that zealous, patriotic band, Gave this blossoming oasis to this western sea of sand. III. One of those congenial spirits 'twere my privilege to know, ,A celebrated pioneer of more than fifty years ago; After many a weary season of privation and of toil, After many a long, victorious wrestle with the stubborn soil, Yonder, to a southern village, in a crescent of the hills, Shaded by a grove of maples, watered by a dozen rills, He retired, and with his large experience in a world of strife, He was qualified to live and magnify "The Simple Life." In his critical survey of self, (and he was often tried) Many a virtue disappeared, his weaknesses were magnified. Like a monument he stood down to the infancy of age, And the little town grew famous for its wisdom and its sage. At the sunset hour of life, I saw him quietly go down, As I now behold Orion, dropping to the horizon. Oft on summer evening, by the aromatic breezes fanned, As we watched the crawling shadow roll across the fading land, Sometimes rambling along the undulating valley scope, Through alternate sun and shadow stealing down the mountain slope, I have listened to his story with an undivided ear To the versatile experience of his earlier career. His great soul was a mirror, and in it many a scene was cast, As it turned toward the morning and reflected all the past; There I saw the image of a rapidly maturing youth, Full of noble aspirations, warping to the living truth. Oft I saw him but to glorious defeat compelled to yield, In the long unequal struggle on the human battlefield. There the future was reflected, like a mighty prophecy, And I saw the battle finished with a final victory. First and chief est of the resolutions of his early prime, As he looked upon the growing possibilities of time, Was in all collegiate honors one day to participate To bend his human destiny, and be master of his fate.

— Then he was a restless dreamer, one of April's saplings, Bursting in the bud of youth, and flowering to the truth of things. His resolution, like the sudden changing of a water way, Turned his early pilgrimage into another destiny. In this dream of fame he lingered, harrowed with a strange unrest, With the wild flame of a great ambition burning in his breast; Dreaming of a gilded future, as a youthful dreamer can, And his name forever written in the chronicles of man. With the dream there came another, for his conscience was a rod, That his name might first be written in the chronicles of God. O'er the restless sea of life, and blazing in the early dawn, Came the waves of opposition rolling from the horizon; On„the sunny shore of youth, he dreamed of man7 a battle won, Out upon the pathless flood, toward the golden, setting sun; And he launched amid the breakers, wrestling in an endess strife, Hurled by many an adverse current, far upon the sea of life. Long he battled with old ocean, with heroic heart and arm, Cleaving through the foaming waters, driving through the thunderstorm. Still the wave of opposition, plunging like a cataract, Rising with each resolution, never ceased to beat him back. So his effort was a failure (men were critics of his day), And his bent age found him still a plodder of the common way; Lost to opportunity, across the prairie land he came, But the old desire within him, burned his bosom like a flame. One summer's evening, as he sat in the shadow of the barn, Lulled by the music of the rill that rippled through the yellow corn, And leaning on his rusty hoe — companion of his destiny There came a dream, it was a key, unlocking life's great mystery. In panorama he reviewed his versatile experience, To him a picture rude indeed, so void of human excellence: Down through the years his journey lay, inglorious and destitute; Ahead, the very fates themselves stood, mountain-like and resolute. And then a change came o'er his dream: his path adown the fading years Shone bright with gems of noble deeds, through magnifying atmospheres, As when the sun, at yonder peak, his cloak of golden glory furls, Still leaves his long deserted path to glitter like a string of pearls. He dreamed his oft-repeated prayer —a strain, beyond Apollo's art, Rose echoing against the skies, and lo! he saw them roll apart,

— —— THE ROYAL DIPLOMA. »;?.-, Revealing to his startled vision heaven; and he thought he stood, In the midst of a most brilliant and celestial multitude. His humble cot a mansion rose, with many a stately dome and tower; The landscape rolled away, amid alternate mirror, lawn and bower; The mimic hills threw back the voice of a celestial jubilee; The spacious halls re-echoed with the anthems of eternity. Then, with all that learning gives of classic beauty to the face, All that wisdom adds to dignity, that culture adds to grace, Amid that bright assemblage, devoid of pomp, and without peers In the mighty field of knowledge, and the mellowing of years, Arose one of the multitude, at the mere sounding of whose name, The great gulf of the universe seemed to re-echo with his fame. In the eulogy he spoke, this humble man was magnified To the eyes of many, "e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side." On that summer's eve they gave to him a parchment, and it shone Whiter than the driven snow, and radiant as the morning son; And the old man gazed upon it, "wondrous art," he cried, "designed By an Angelo! 'Tis a diploma of the royal kind!" From that gilded page he read these lines, appropriate and terse A just, a jealously arranged, synopsis of his human course: IV. "Judgment bar of God. Department: college of the human race. "Issued to the souls of men, through merit and eternal grace. "This certifies that he returns victorious from the mortal sphere, "And, by inherent strength of soul, has won the titles added here: "Master of adversity. Stoic of the common rod. "Liver of all human law. Doer of the word of God." The old man went away that night, a journey whence he ne'er returned. Into the eternal world, among the noble and the learned. Comrades, come, and leave the region to the elements resigned! To the arms of solitude, and to the moaning of the wind! Theo. E. Curtis. Salt Lake City. Utah.