Left alone in the snow-mantled forests of the Sierra, what were this man's emotions? In the California Star of 1847, a bound volume of which is in the State Library in Sacramento, appears the following poem. The second relief party found it written on the leaf of a memorandum book by the side of Denton's lifeless body. The pencil with which it was written lay also by the side of the unfortunate man. Ere the lethargy of death stole away his senses, John Denton's thoughts had been of his boyhood's beautiful home in merry England. These thoughts were woven into verse. Are they not strangely pathetic and beautiful? Judge Thornton, in 1849, published them with the following prefatory words: "When the circumstances are considered in connection with the calamities in which the unhappy Denton was involved, the whole compass of American and English poetry may be challenged to furnish a more exquisitely beautiful, a more touching and pathetic piece. Simple and intimate to the last degree, yet coming from the heart, it goes to the heart. Its lines are the last plaintive notes which wintry winds have wakened from an Lolian harp, the strings of which rude hands have sundered. Bring before your mind the picture of an amiable young man who has wandered far from the paternal roof, is stricken by famine, and left by his almost equally unhappy companions to perish among the terrible snows of the great Sierra Nevada. He knows that his last, most solemn hour is near. Reason still maintains her empire, and memory, faithful to the last, performs her functions. On every side extends a boundless waste of trackless snow. He reclines against a bank of it, to rise no more, and busy memory brings before him a thousand images of past beauty and pleasure, and of scenes he will never revisit. A mother's image presents itself to his mind, tender recollections crowd upon his heart, and the scenes of his boyhood and youth pass in review before him with an unwonted vividness. The hymns of praise and thanksgiving that in harmony swelled from the domestic circle around the family altar are remembered, and soothe the sorrows of the dying man, and finally, just before he expires, he writes:" "Oh! after many roving years, How sweet it is to come Back to the dwelling-place of youth, Our first and dearest home; To turn away our wearied eyes From proud ambition's towers, And wander in those summer fields, The scenes of boyhood's hours." "But I am changed since last I gazed Upon that tranquil scene, And sat beneath the old witch elm That shades the village green; And watched my boat upon the brook It was a regal galley And sighed not for a joy on earth, Beyond the happy valley."