Moods

by Frank Dempster Sherman

Upon a mountain-summit high,
A trysting-place of earth and sky,
Three friends once stood in silent awe,
Each contemplating what he saw.

One gazing on the landscape found
In changing features only sound:
To him it was a memory
Of some majestic symphony.

Another in the vastness caught
The essence of a poet's thought,
The measures of a noble rhyme
Enduring as eternal time.

The third -- a stranger to those arts
That moved and thrilled his comrades' hearts, --
Remembered with a nameless dread
The face of one whom he saw dead.