Colorado 1901

I.

O, colored land! Beneath a turquoise sky,
Sun kissed from dazzling peaks to opal plains,
What pulses throb within thy silver veins,
What forces strove in thee for mastery?
The manitou here dwelt in days gone by,
For crystal springs to cleanse all mortal stains,
here the swart Spaniard strove for golden gains,
Lone hunters saw thy virgin purity.

Now plenty's garners gild the quiet fields,
And marts [?] are swayed by olive-sculptured peace,
To mighty multitudes her wealth she yields,
As shifting seasons pass, and years increase,
For fair Columbia, bending toward the west,
Now wears this crimson rose upon her breast.

Colorado

The Year 2000

II.

A glorious bloom, the hundred petalled rose;
And not one leaf, until its work be done,
Shall leave the glad earth spaces, and the sun,
To rest within the dark that no man knows;
Each shedding fragrance on the way it goes;
These rosy years of triumphs to be won;
These lives of fuller purpose now begun;
That round the century's blossom to its close.
The leaves must fall; immortal is the flower;
The present widens to the future's scope,
And Canaan smiles from this garden [?], where we stand.
O, coming age! Accept from us as dowes [?],
The boundless stretches of the sunset hope,
The gracious largess of the western land!

Virginia Donaghe McClurg

Regent of the Colorado Cliff Dwelling Association, Official del'Institution Publique [?], Daughter of the American Revolution, Descendant of [illegible]