_Beautiful Colorado_

Colorado! Oh, what a glorious country! Colorado! Could Nature more beautious be? Colorado! See! Laughing sky is deep violet blue, And rolling prairie is emerald hue, While mountain leaps up from the foot-hill below, Great billow on billow of lily-white snow.

Oh, look away to the south! There yawns a canon’s great mouth,-- While out of the hazy distance beyond Behold Pike’s proud peak, so mighty and grand! Then lifting her snowy-white head high up in the West, Like a fond mother o’er offspring asleep on her breast, Madame Lincoln looks down on many a baby-peak’s crest. And joyous ever, rippling, murmuring near, With music most sweet to the ear, We catch the glad, sparkling beam Of our Platte River--muse-haunted stream.