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 THE MOUNTAINS.
 
 The Mountains, 
 
 ^ Collection of }3ocm3. 
 
 ' Let the huge mountains throw their ruRged arms 
 Around thee, while their virtue goeth out 
 Into thy heart with hidden sacraments ! " 
 
 F. W. Faber. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 1S76.
 
 Copyright, 
 
 By Roberts Brothers. 
 
 1876. 
 
 Cambridge : 
 Press of John Wilson &= Son.
 
 MORy, when before the sun his orb unshrouds^ 
 Swift as a beacon torch the ii^ht has sped, 
 
 Kindling the dusky summits of the clouds 
 Each to a fiery red; 
 
 The slanted coiunins of the noon-day li^^ht 
 Let down into the bosom of the hills j 
 
 Or sunset^ that with golden vapor bright 
 The purple mountains fills^ — 
 
 These fnade him say : If God has so arrayed 
 A fading world that quickly passes by, 
 
 Such rich provision of delight has ?nade 
 For every human eye, — 
 
 What shall the eyes that wait for Him survey^ 
 Where His own presetice gloriously appears. 
 
 In worlds that were not founded for a day. 
 But for eternal years f 
 
 R. C. Trench.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 A Hymn J. G. Whittier . 
 
 Among the Mountains W. R. Alger . . 
 
 Sonnets : — 
 
 1. The Distant Mountain-range . . . Lucy Larcom 
 
 2. The Presence „ ,, 
 
 3. The Farewell „ „ 
 
 The Mountain Herdsman IV. IVordsworth 
 
 A May Carol . A . de Vere . . 
 
 "The Hills of the Lord" W. C Gannett . 
 
 Pastor ^ternus A. de Vere . . 
 
 Mountain Scenery y. Keble . . . 
 
 Hymn of a Hermit 7 Sterling . . 
 
 The Mountains B. Taylor . . . 
 
 Mountain Chorus H- IV. Longfellow 
 
 Our Mountain ^V. /Mlinghim . 
 
 Coir-nan-Uriskin Sir IV. ,Scott 
 
 Lines written in a Highland Glen . . . . J. Wilson . 
 
 A Morning in Oregon y. Miller . 
 
 Bugle Song A. Tennyson 
 
 On the Heights R- Buchanan 
 
 Nearing the Snow-line O IV. Holmes 
 
 HymnbeforeSunrisein the ValeofChamounix ^- T Coleridge . 
 
 Night in the Alps Lord Byron . . 
 
 Sunrise IV. Shakspeare , 
 
 Sunrise on the Hills H. IV. Longfellow 
 
 The Passing of the Wind F. fV. Faber . . 
 
 A Summer Storm in the Mountains ... 7 Thomson . . 
 
 TheTfOsachs //'. IVordsworth 
 
 Sunset in the Mountains after a Stonn . . W. IVordsworth
 
 Vlll 
 
 COXTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Tired Alice Cavtpbell . . 51 
 
 God is Beautiful R- Buc/uifian ... 52 
 
 Summer by the Lakeside : — 
 
 1. Noon y. G. Whittier . . 53 
 
 2. Evening ,, ,, • • • 55 
 
 Snowdon, in tlie Pass of Llanberis . . . . I^. IF. Faber ... 57 
 
 At Wiiinipesaukee Liicy Larco^n . . 57 
 
 Lines written at the Village of Passignano, on 
 
 the Lake of Thrasymene . • . . J?. C. Trench ... 60 
 
 Spring on the Peak R. Browning ... 61 
 
 Vesuvius R. C. Trench ... 62 
 
 Como B. Taylor .... 63 
 
 Radicofani W. IV. Story . . 64 
 
 In the Euganean Hills, North Italy . . . P. B Shelley ... 65 
 
 Sunset Lord Byron ... 68 
 
 Mon.idnoc R. IV. Emerson . . bq 
 
 Monadnoc's Welcome R. ^V- Ejnersott . . 70 
 
 St. Mary's Lake Sir VV. Scott ... 72 
 
 Cadwallon's Hut R. Southey ... 74 
 
 In the Trosachs Sir IV. Scott ... 75 
 
 The Fiery Birth of the Hills R. Bucha/ian ... 78 
 
 Glengarriff Sir A . de Vere . . 79 
 
 The Rising of the Hills P. G. Hamerton . 79 
 
 The Alps trom Milan A. Tetinysoti ... So 
 
 Mists on Ben Lomond P. G. Hatnerton . So 
 
 Mount of Olives //■ Vmig-han . . .81 
 
 An Italian Sunset P. B. Slielley ... 82 
 
 The Rainbow . . * T. Biirbidge ... 83 
 
 A Still Day in Autumn S. H. Whitman . . 85 
 
 Dying Summer M. BetJia7n-E dwards 86 
 
 Evening in Ireland Rev- Dr. Murray . 87 
 
 Prose and Song y. Sterling ... 87 
 
 Extract from "The Lost Bower" . . . . E. B Browning . 8S 
 
 Shasta yoagitin Miller , . 89 
 
 Among the Fir-trees Eraser's Magazine 90 
 
 The Brook and the Wave H. IV. Longfellow . 92 
 
 The Mountain Heart' s-ease Bret Harte ... 93 
 
 Harebells L. D. Pychowska . 94 
 
 Up in the Wild A. D. T. Whitney 95 
 
 A Flower from the Catskills E. W. C 96 
 
 A Mountain Cataract S. T. Coleridge . 98 
 
 The Rivers Lament R. M. 99
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Pine 
 
 Larch Trees .... 
 To the River Arve 
 The Alpine Flowers . 
 Compensation . . . 
 Lessons from the Gorse 
 To a Pine-tree . . . 
 The Lark .... 
 Mountain Pictures : — 
 
 1. Franconia from the Pemigewasset 
 
 2. Monadnock from Wachusett 
 
 Above 
 
 Sanct Margen 
 
 A German " Bad " . . . 
 
 Consecrated 
 
 The Great St. Bernard . . 
 The Alpine Maiden . . . 
 The Under-world .... 
 The Home of " II Curato" 
 The Centaur's Cave . . . 
 
 Coronach 
 
 A Vision of Helicon . . . 
 The Fairies: A Child's Song 
 
 Cathair Fhargus 
 
 The Trumpets of Doolkarnein 
 
 From the Passage of Hannibal over 
 
 The Burial of Moses .... 
 
 A Legend of Bregenz . . . 
 
 The Cavern of the three Tells 
 
 The Lover among the Hills . 
 
 Two on the Mountain 
 
 In the Pass .... 
 
 Thoralf and Synnov . 
 
 The Braes o' Gleniffer 
 
 My ain Mountain Land 
 
 Above and Below . . 
 
 The Two Homes . . 
 
 The Golden Island : Arran 
 
 To the Peaks of Otter 
 
 Life and Death . . 
 
 The Other Side . . 
 
 Entrance to the Purgatory of St. Patr 
 
 from 
 
 Ay: 
 
 the 
 
 ck 
 
 . //'. ;r. Story 
 
 . F. ir. Faber 
 
 . W. C. Bryant 
 
 . L. //. Sigoiir>tey 
 
 . j^fetastiisio 
 
 . E. B. Browning 
 
 . 7. R. Lowell 
 
 . 7. Hogg . 
 
 . 7. G. Whittier 
 
 Cainoens 
 G. Eliot 
 
 Good ll'ords . 
 The Month . 
 S. Rogers • . 
 A. C. Brackett 
 S. Rogers 
 IV. VV. Story 
 Onomacrittis 
 Sir IV. Scott 
 M.Arnold . 
 IV. AllingJiam . 
 D. M. M. Craik 
 Leigh Hunt . 
 Alps Silius Italic us 
 
 C. F. Alexander 
 A. A. Procter 
 F. H emails . 
 Petrarch . . 
 R. Browning 
 
 H. H. 
 
 H . H- Boyescn 
 R . Ta n na h ill 
 T. Elliott . . 
 7- R- Lowell 
 B. Taylor 
 
 D. M. M. Craik 
 7. T. IVorthington 
 
 E. Sjogren . . 
 7. IV. Uuidwick 
 Calderon . . .
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Beyond R' Terry Cooke . 173 
 
 The Storm is Past F. IV. Faber . . 173 
 
 Moiintain-top C. G. A mes . . • 174 
 
 Mountain Tarns F. W. Faber . . 175 
 
 Sonnet /?. C. Trenck . . 178 
 
 The B.>rder of the Wilderness L. D Pychawska . 179 
 
 Nirvana y. IF. Chadzvick . 180 
 
 Over the Mountain A. A. Procter . . 183 
 
 Sunset F. R. Haver gal . 184 
 
 Sunset on the Bearcamp y. G. IVkiitier . . 1S6 
 
 Quiet Waters R. Buchanan . . 189 
 
 Sunset Thoughts E. IF. C 190 
 
 Benediction A. de Vere ... 191
 
 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 A HYMN. 
 
 'T^HE harp at Nature's advent strung 
 
 -*- Has never ceased to play ; 
 The song the stars of morninfj suns: 
 Has never died away. 
 
 And prayer is made, and praise is given. 
 
 By all things near and far ; 
 The ocean looketh up to heaven, 
 
 And mirrors every star. 
 
 Its waves are kneeling on the strand 
 
 As kneels the human knee, 
 Their white locks bowing to the sand, — 
 
 The priesthood of the sea ! 
 
 They pour their glittering treasures forth, 
 Their gifts of pearl they bring ; 
 
 And all the listening hills of earth 
 Take up the song they sing. 
 
 The green earth sends her incense up 
 From many a mountain shrine ; 
 
 From folded leaf and dewy cup 
 She pours her sacred wine.
 
 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 The mists above the morning rills 
 
 Rise white as wings of prayer ; 
 The altar-curtains of the hills 
 
 Are sunsefs purple air. 
 
 The winds with hymns of praise are loud, 
 
 Or low with sobs of pain, — ■ 
 The thunder-organ of the cloud, 
 
 The dropping tears of rain. 
 
 With drooping head and branches crossed, 
 
 The twilight forest grieves, 
 Or speaks with tongues of Pentecost 
 
 From all its sunlit leaves. 
 
 The blue sky is the temple's arch, 
 
 Its transept earth and air, 
 The music of its starry march 
 
 The chorus of a prayer. 
 
 So Nature keeps the reverent frame 
 
 With which her years began, 
 And all her signs and voices shame 
 
 The prayerless heart of man. 
 
 J. G. Whittier. 
 
 AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 "IV/f Y way in opening dawn I took 
 
 -^ Between the hills, beside a brook ; 
 The peaks one sun was climbing o'er, 
 The dew-drops showed ten millions more.
 
 T 
 
 SOXXETS. 13 
 
 The mountain valley is a vase 
 
 Which God has trimmed with rarest grace ; 
 
 And, kneeling in the taintless air, 
 
 I drink celestial blessings there. 
 
 Behold that guiltless bird ! What brings 
 Him here ? He comes to wash his wings. 
 Let me too wash my wings with prayer, 
 And cleanse them from foul dust and care. 
 
 To one long time in city pent 
 The lesson seems from heaven sent. 
 For pinions clean yon bird takes care : 
 Of soul defiled do thou beware ! 
 
 VV. R. Alger. 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Distant Mountain-range. 
 
 HEY beckon from their sunset domes afar. 
 Light's royal priesthood, the eternal hills : 
 
 Though born of earth, robed of the sky they are ; 
 
 And the anointing radiance heaven distils 
 
 On their high brows, the air with glory fills. 
 The portals of the West are opened wide ; 
 
 And lifted up, absolved from earthly ills 
 All thoughts, a reverent throng to worship glide. 
 
 The hills interpret heavenly mysteries. 
 The mysteries of Light, — an open book 
 
 Of Revelation : see, its leaves unfold 
 
 With crimson borderings, and lines of gold ! 
 Where the rapt reader, though soul-deep his look. 
 
 Dreams of a glory deeper than he sees.
 
 14 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Presenxe. 
 
 The mountain statelier lifts his blue-veiled head, 
 While, drawing near, we meet him face to face. 
 
 Here, as on holy ground, we softly tread ; 
 Yet, with a tender and paternal grace. 
 He gives the wild-flowers in his lap a place : 
 
 They climb his sides, as fondled infants might, 
 And wind about him in a hght embrace 
 
 Their summer-drapery, pink and clinging white. 
 Great hearts have largest room to bless the small ; 
 
 Strong natures give the weaker home and rest : 
 
 So Christ took little children to his breast, 
 And, with a reverence more profound, we fall 
 
 In the majestic presence that can give 
 
 Truth's simplest message : " 'Tis by love ye live." 
 
 in. 
 
 The Farewell. 
 
 Now ends the hour's communion, near and high : 
 We have heard whispers from the mountain's heart, 
 
 And hfe henceforth is nobler. With a sigh 
 Of grateful sadness, let us now depart 
 And seek our lower levels. Rills that start 
 
 From this Hill's bosom, there reflect the sky ; 
 And his deep shadows greener grace impart 
 
 To the sweet vale which doth below, him lie.
 
 THE MOUNTAIN HERDSMAN. 15 
 
 One farewell glance from far. The hills are fled ! 
 Hid in the folds of yon funereal cloud. 
 A moment leans the Loftiest from his shroud : — 
 
 " Our thunders cleanse the valley," lo, he saith : 
 " 'Tis not alone by smiles that life is fed : 
 
 Awe fills the sanctuary of deep faith." 
 
 Lucy Larcom. 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN HERDSMAN. 
 
 "pARLY had he learned 
 
 -^^ To reverence the volume that displays 
 
 The mystery, the life which cannot die ; 
 
 But in the mountains did \\t.feel his faith. 
 
 All things, responsive to the writing, there 
 
 Breathed immortality, revolving life, 
 
 And greatness still revolving; infinite ; 
 
 There littleness was not ; the least of things 
 
 Seemed infinite ; and there his spirit shaped 
 
 Her prospects, nor did he believe, — he saw. 
 
 What wonder if his being thus became 
 
 Sublime and comprehensive ! Low desires, 
 
 Low thouglits had there no place : yet was his heart 
 
 Lowly ; for he was meek in gratitude. 
 
 Oft as he called those ecstasies to mind. 
 
 And whence they flowed ; and from them he acquired 
 
 Wisdom, which works thro' patience ; thence he 
 
 learned 
 In oft recurring hours of sober thought 
 To look on Nature with a humble heart, 
 Self-questioned where it did not understand, 
 And with a superstitious eye of love. 
 
 W. Wordsworth.
 
 1 6 THE MOUXTAINS. 
 
 A MAY CAROL. 
 
 TS thi.s, indeed, our ancient earth ? 
 -^ Or have we died in sleep and risen? 
 Has Earth, like man, her second birth ? 
 Rises the palace from the prison ? 
 
 Hills beyond hills ascend the skies ; 
 
 In winding valleys, heaven suspended, 
 Huije forests, rich as sunset's dyes, 
 
 With rainbow-braided clouds are blended. 
 
 From melting snows through coverts dank 
 White torrents rush to yon blue mere, 
 
 Flooding its glazed and grassy bank. 
 The mirror of the milk-white steer. 
 
 What means it ? Glory, sweetness, might ? 
 
 Not these, but something holier far — 
 Shadows of Him, that Light of light, 
 
 Whose priestly vestment all things are. 
 
 The veil of sense transparent grows ; 
 
 God's face shines out that veil behind, 
 Like yonder sea-reflected snows : 
 
 Here man must worship, or be blind. 
 
 Aubrey de Veke. 
 
 "THE HILLS OF THE LORD." 
 
 /^~^0D ploughed one day with an earthquake, 
 ^^ And drove His furrows deep ! 
 
 The huddling plains upstarted, 
 The hills were all aleap !
 
 "77//: IlffJ.S OF THE LOROr 17 
 
 But that is the mountains' secret 
 
 Age-hidden in their breast : 
 " God's peace is everlasting " 
 
 Are the dream- wortls of their rest. 
 
 He hath made them the haunt of beauty, 
 
 The home elect of His grace ; 
 He spreadeth His mornings on them ; 
 
 His sunsets light their face. 
 
 His thunders tread in music 
 
 Of footfalls echoing hmg, 
 And carry majestic greeting 
 
 Around the silent throng. 
 
 His winds bring messages to them, — 
 
 Wild storm- news from the main ; 
 They sing it down to the valleys 
 
 In the love-song of the rain. 
 
 Green tribes from far come trooping. 
 
 And over the uplands flock ; 
 He has woven the zones together 
 
 As a robe for His risen rock. 
 
 They are nurseries for young rivers, 
 
 Nests for His flying cloud. 
 Homesteads for new born races, 
 
 Masterful, free, and proud. 
 
 The people of tired cities 
 
 Come up to their shrines and pray ; 
 God freshens again within them. 
 
 As He passes by all day.
 
 1 8 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 And, lo I I have caught their secret — 
 
 The beauty deeper than all ! 
 This faith — that Life's hard moments, 
 
 When the jarring sorrows befall, 
 
 Are but God ploughing His mountains ; 
 
 And those mountains 3'et shall be 
 The source of His grace and freshness, 
 
 And His peace everlasting to me. 
 
 William C. Gannett. 
 
 PASTOR ^TERNUS. 
 
 T SCALED the hills; no murky blot, 
 •*• No mist, obscured the diamond air : 
 One time, O God ! those hills were not ; 
 
 Thou spak'st, — at Thy command they were ! 
 
 • O'er ebon lakes the ledges hung ; 
 
 More high were summits white WMth snow : 
 Some peak unseen along them flung 
 A crowned shadow, creeping slow. 
 
 For hours I watched it ; vague and vast, 
 From ridge to ridge, the mountains o'er, 
 
 The king-like semblance forward passed : 
 A shepherd's crook for staff it bore. 
 
 O Thou that leadest like a sheep 
 Thine Israel ! all the earth is Thine ! 
 
 The mystic manhood still must sweep 
 The worlds with healing shade divine. 
 
 The airy pageant dies with day : 
 
 The hills, the worlds themselves, must die ; 
 But Thou remainest such alway : 
 
 Thy love is from eternity. Aubrey de Verk.
 
 MOUNTAIN SCENERY. 19 
 
 MOUNTAIN SCENERY. 
 
 "TT 7'HERE is thy favor'd haunt, eternal Voice, 
 
 The region of thy choice, 
 Where, undisturb'd by sin and earth, the soul 
 
 Owns thine entire control ? — 
 'Tis on the mountain's summit dark and high, 
 
 When storms are hurrying by : 
 'Tis 'mid the strong foundations of the earth. 
 
 Where torrents have their birth. 
 
 No sounds of worldly toil ascending there 
 
 Mar the full burst of prayer ; 
 Lone Nature feels that she may freely breathe, 
 
 And round us and beneath 
 Are heard her sacred tones : the fitful sweep 
 
 Of winds across the steep. 
 Through wnther'd bents — romantic note and clear, 
 
 Meet for a hermit's ear, — 
 
 The wheeling kite's wild solitary cry, 
 
 And, scarcely heard so high. 
 The dashing waters when the air is still, 
 
 From many a torrent rill 
 That winds unseen beneath the shaggy fell, 
 
 Track'd by the blue mist well : 
 Such sounds as make deep silence in the heart. 
 
 For thought to do her part. 
 
 'Tis then \ve hear the voice of God within 
 
 Pleading with care and sin : 
 " Child of my love ! how have I wearied thee ? 
 
 Why wilt thou err from me ?
 
 1 THE MOUNTAIXS. 
 
 Have I not brought ihee from the house of slaves, 
 
 Parted the drowning waves, 
 And set my saints before thee in the way. 
 
 Lest thou should'st faint or stray ? 
 
 ''What ! was the promise made to thee alone ? 
 
 Art thou th' excepted one ? 
 An heir of glory without grief or pain ? 
 
 O vision false and vain ! 
 There lies thy cross ; beneath it meekly bow ; 
 
 It fits thy stature now : 
 Who scornful pass it with averted eye, 
 
 'Twill crush them by and by. 
 
 " Raise thy repining eyes, and take true measure 
 
 Of thine eternal treasure ; 
 The Father of thy Lord can grudge thee nought, 
 
 The world for thee was bought, 
 And as this landscape broad — earth, sea, and sky — 
 
 All centres in thine eye, 
 So all God does, if rightly understood, 
 
 Shall work thy final good." 
 
 J. Keble. 
 
 HYMN OF A HERMIT. 
 
 'T^HOU Lord, who rear'st the mountains' height, 
 -*- And mak'st the cHff with sunshine bright, 
 Oh grant that I may own Thy hand, 
 No less in every grain of sand ! 
 
 With forests huge of dateless time 
 Thy will has hung each peak sublime ; 
 But withered leaves beneath a tree 
 Have tongues that tell as loud of Thee.
 
 THE MOUXTAIXS. 21 
 
 While clouds to clouds through ages call, 
 Thou pour'st the thundering waterfall ; 
 But every silent drop of dew 
 Reflects Thy ordered world to view. 
 
 In all the immense, the strange, the old, 
 Thy presence careless men behold ; 
 In all the little, weak, and mean, 
 By faith be Tliou as clearly seen. 
 
 Teach, Thou ! that not a leaf can grow 
 Till life from Thee within it flow ; 
 That not a speck of dust can be, 
 O Fount of Being ! sav-e by Thee. 
 
 J. Sterling. 
 
 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 (From "The Masque of the Gods.") 
 
 T TOWE'ER the wheels of Time go round, 
 
 -*• -*- We cannot wholly be discrowned. 
 
 We bind, in form, and hue, and height, 
 
 The Finite to the Infinite, 
 
 And, lifted on our shoulders bare, 
 
 The races breathe an ampler air. 
 
 The arms that clasped, the lips that kissed, 
 
 Have vanished from the morning mist ; 
 
 The dainty shapes that flashed and passed 
 
 In spray the plunging torrent cast. 
 
 Or danced through woven gleam and shade, 
 
 The vapors and the sunbeams braid. 
 
 Grow thin and pale: each holy haunt 
 
 Of gods or spirits ministrant
 
 THE MOUXTAIXS. 
 
 Hath something lost of ancient awe ; 
 Yet from the stooping heavens we draw 
 A beauty, mystery, and might, 
 Time cannot change nor worship slight. 
 The gold of dawn and sunset sheds 
 Unearthly glory on our heads ; 
 The secret of the skies we keep ; 
 And whispers, round each lonely steep, 
 Allure and promise, yet withhold, 
 What bard and prophet never told. 
 While man's slow ages come and go, 
 Our dateless chronicles of snow 
 Their changeless, old inscription show, 
 And men therein forever see 
 The unread speech of Deity. 
 
 Bayard Taylor. 
 
 MOUNTAIN CHORUS. 
 
 (From "The Masque of Pandora.") 
 
 Chorus of Oreades. 
 
 /'"^ENTURIES old are the mountains ; 
 ^^ Their foreheads wrinkled and rifted 
 Helios crowns by day, 
 Pallid Selene by night ; 
 From their bosoms uptossed 
 The snows are driven and drifted, 
 Like Tithonus' beard 
 Streaming dishevelled and white.
 
 MOUNTAIN CHORUS. 23 
 
 Thunder and tempest of wind 
 Their trumijcts blow in the vastncss ; 
 Phantoms of mist and rain, 
 Cloud and the shadow of cloud, 
 Pass and repass by the gates 
 Of their inaccessible fastness ; 
 Ever unmoved they stand, 
 Solemn, eternal, and proud. 
 
 VoiCF.s OF THI-: Waters. 
 
 Flooded by rain and snow 
 In their inexhaustible sources. 
 Swollen by affluent streams 
 Hurrying onward and hurled 
 Headlong over the crags. 
 The impetuous water-courses 
 Rush, and roar, and plunge 
 Down to the nethermost world. 
 
 Say, have the solid rocks 
 Into streams of silver been melted, 
 Flowing over the plains, 
 Spreading to lakes in the fields ? 
 Or have the mountains, the giants. 
 The ice-helmed, the forest-belted. 
 Scattered their arms abroad ; 
 Flung in the meadow their shields ? 
 
 \'OICES OF THE WlXDS. 
 
 High on their turreted cliffs 
 That bolts of thunder have shattered, 
 Storm-winds muster and blow 
 Trumpets of terrible breath ;
 
 24 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Then from their gateways rush, 
 And before them routed and scattered 
 Sullen the cloud-rack flies, 
 Pale with the pallor of death. 
 
 Onward the hurricane rides, 
 And flee for shelter the shepherds ; 
 White are the frightened leaves, 
 Harvests with terror are white ; 
 Panic seizes the herds, 
 And even the lions and leopards, 
 Prowling no longer for prey, 
 Crouch in their caverns with fright. 
 
 Voices of the Forest. 
 
 Guarding the mountains around 
 Majestic the forests are standing, 
 Bright are their crested helms. 
 Dark is their armor of leaves ; 
 Filled with the breath of freedom 
 Each bosom subsiding, expanding. 
 Now like the ocean sinks. 
 Now like the ocean upheaves. 
 
 Planted firm on the rock, 
 With foreheads stern and defiant 
 Loud they shout to the winds, 
 Loud to the tempest they call ; 
 Naught but Olympian thunders, 
 That blasted Titan and Giant, 
 Them can uproot and overthrow, 
 Shakins: the earth with their fall.
 
 OUR MOL'XTALV. 25 
 
 Chorus of Okeadms, 
 
 These are the \'oice.s Three 
 
 Of winds and forests and fountains ; 
 
 A'oices of earth and air, 
 
 Murmur and rushing of streams, 
 
 Making together one sound, — 
 
 The mysterious voice of the mountains : 
 
 Waking the shiggard that sleeps, 
 
 Waking the dreamer of dreams. 
 
 These are tlic Voices Three 
 That speak of endless endeavor, 
 Speak of endHrance and strength, 
 Trium]:)h and fulness of fame ; 
 Sounding about the world 
 An inspiration for ever, 
 Stirring the hearts of men, 
 Shaping their end and their aim. 
 
 H. W. Longfellow. 
 
 OUR MOUNTAIN. 
 
 A LL hail to our mountain ! form well known, 
 ■^ ^ His skirts of heath, and his scalp of stone 
 Guardian of streams in their headlong youth, 
 That rise in spate or dwindle in drouth, — 
 Who sets o'er the clouds an Olympian seat 
 Where thunder is roll'd beneath our feet, 
 Where storm and lightning 
 And sunshine I Tightening 
 Solemnly girdle our steep retreat !
 
 26 THE MO UiV TAINS. 
 
 A day on the hills ! — true king am I, 
 In my solitude public to earth and sky, 
 Fret inhales not this atmosphere, 
 Wing'd thoughts only can follow here ; 
 Folly and falsehood and babble stay 
 In the ground-smoke somewhere, far away. 
 
 Let them greet and cheat 
 
 In the narrow street, — 
 Who cares what all the newspapers say ! 
 
 Oh ! the tyrant eagle's palace to share, 
 
 To possess the haunts of the shy brown hare, 
 
 And a thousand fields with their lakes a-shine, 
 
 And hamlets, and towns, and the ocean line. 
 
 And beechen valley, and bilberry dell. 
 
 And glen where the echoes and fairies dwell; 
 
 With heaps and bosses 
 
 Of plume-fern and mosses, 
 Scarlet rowan and slight blue-bell. 
 
 Plume-ferns grow by the waterfall, 
 Wide in the shimmering spray and tall, 
 W^here the ash-twigs tremble, one and all, 
 And cool air murmurs, and wild birds call. 
 And the glowing crag lifts a dizzy wall 
 To the blue, through green leaves' coronal. 
 
 And foam-bells twinkle 
 
 Where sunlights sprinkle 
 The deep dark pool of the waterfall. 
 
 I sit with the Shepherd Boy an hour. 
 By a gray cliff's foot, on the heather-flow'r, 
 Simple of life as his nibbling sheep 
 Dotted far down on the verdant steep ;
 
 OUR MOUNTAIN. 27 
 
 I climb the path which sometimes fails 
 A peasant bound to more distant vales, 
 
 When nii^ht, descending, 
 
 The world is blending. 
 Or fog, or the rushing blast assails. 
 
 My feast on a marble l}lock is spread, 
 I dip my cup in a cold well-head ; 
 The poet's page is strong and fine, 
 I read a new volume in one old line, 
 Le.ip up for joy, and kiss the book ; 
 Then gaze far forth from my lofty nook, 
 
 With fresh surprise, 
 
 And yearning eyes 
 To drink the whole beauty in one deep look. 
 
 From these towers the first gray dawn is spied, 
 They watch the last glimmer of eventide, 
 Wear shadows at noon, or vapory shrouds. 
 And meet in council with mighty clouds : 
 And at dusk the ascending stars appear 
 On their pinnacle crags, or the chill moon-sphere 
 
 Whitening only 
 
 Summits lonely. 
 Circled with gulfs of blackest fear. 
 
 When ripe and dry is the heathery husk, 
 Some eve, like a judgment flame through the dusk, 
 It burns the dim line of a huger dome 
 Than is clad in the paschal blaze of Rome ; 
 And to valley, river, and larch-grove spires,
 
 28 THE MOUXTAIXS. 
 
 Signals with creeping scarlet fires. 
 
 Keen overpowering 
 
 Embers cowering 
 Low where the western flush retires. 
 
 But the stern dark days with mutter and moan 
 Gather like foes round a hated throne ; 
 Terror is peal'd in the trumpet gale, 
 Crashxl on the cymbals of the hail ; 
 Vapors move in a turbulent host, 
 Cave and rift hold daggers of frost. 
 
 And silently white 
 
 In some morning's light 
 Stands the conquer'd mountain, a wintry ghost. 
 
 Till pack'd in the hollows the round clouds lie, 
 And the wild-geese flow charging down the sky 
 To the salt sea-fringe ; there milder rains 
 Course like young blood through the wither'd veins 
 That sweeping March left wasted and weak ; 
 And the gray old Presence, dim and bleak, 
 
 With sudden rally 
 
 By mound and valley 
 Laughs with green light to his baldest peak ! 
 
 Thy soft blue greeting through distant air 
 Is home's first smile to the traveller, — 
 Mountain, from thee home's last farewell ! 
 In alien lands there are tales to tell 
 Of thy haunted lough, and elvish ring. 
 And cairn of the old Milesian king, 
 
 And the crumbling turrets 
 
 Where miser spirits 
 Batlike in vaults of treasure cling.
 
 COIR-y.i X-URISKLY. 2 9 
 
 Giant ! of mystical, friendly brow ; 
 Protector of childhood's landscape, thou ; 
 Long golden seasons with thee abide, 
 And the joy of song, and history's pride. 
 Of all eiirth's hills I love thee best, 
 Reckon from thee mine east and west ; 
 
 Fondly praying, 
 
 Wherever straying, 
 To leave in thy shadow my bones at rest. 
 
 William Allingham. 
 
 COIR-NAN-URISKIN. 
 
 (From the " Lady of the Lake.") 
 
 BY many a bard in Celtic tongue 
 Has Coir-nan-Uriskin been sung ; 
 A softer name the Saxons gave, 
 And called the grot the Goblin Cave. 
 
 It was a wild and strange retreat 
 As e'er was trod by outlaw's feet. 
 The dell, upon the mountain's crest, 
 Yawned like a gash on warrior's breast ; 
 Its trench had stayed full many a rock 
 Hurled by primeval earthquake shock 
 From Benvenue's gray summit wild, 
 And here, in random ruin piled. 
 They frowned incumbent o'er the spot, 
 And formed the rugged sylvan grot. 
 The oak and birch, with mingled shade, 
 At noontide there a twilight made.
 
 30 THE MOUXTATXS. 
 
 Unless when short and sudden shone 
 Some stragghng beam on diff or stone, 
 With such a ghmpse as prophet's eye 
 Gains on thy depth. Futurity. 
 No murmur waked the solemn still, 
 Save tinkling of a fountain rill ; 
 But when the wind chafed with the lake, 
 A sullen sound would upward break 
 With dashing hollow voice, that spoke 
 The incessant war of wave and rock. 
 Suspended cliffs, with hideous sway, 
 Seemed nodding o'er the cavern gray. 
 
 From such a den the wolf had sprung. 
 In such the wild-cat leaves her young; 
 Yet Douglas and his daughter fair 
 Sought for a space their safety there. 
 Gray Superstition's whisper dread 
 Debarred the spot to vulgar tread ; 
 For there, she said, did fays resort. 
 And satyrs hold their sylvan court, 
 By moonhght tread their mystic maze, 
 And blast the rash beholder's gaze. 
 
 Sir W. Scott. 
 
 LINES WRITTEN IN A HIGHLAND GLEN. 
 
 'T^O whom belongs this valley fair, 
 •*■ That sleeps beneath the filmy air, 
 
 Even like a living thing ? 
 Silent as infant at the breast, 
 Save a still sound that speaks of rest, 
 
 That streamlet's murmurins: !
 
 IN A HIGIILAiXD GLEN. 31 
 
 The heavens appear to love this vale ; 
 Here clouds with scarce-seen motion sail, 
 
 Or mid the silence lie ! 
 By the blue arch, this beauteous earth, 
 'Mid evening's hour of dewy mirth, 
 
 Seems bound unto the sky. 
 
 Oh that this lovely vale were mine ! 
 Then, from glad youth to calm decline. 
 
 My years would gently gHde ; 
 Hope would rejoice in endless dreams. 
 And memory's oft-returning gleams 
 
 By peace be sanctified. 
 
 There would unto my soul be given, 
 From presence of that gracious heaven, 
 
 A piety sublime ! 
 And thoughts would come of mystic mood. 
 To make in this deep solitude 
 
 Eternity of Time ! 
 
 And did I ask to whom belong'd 
 This vale .-^ I feel that I have wrong'd 
 
 Nature's most gracious soul ! 
 She spreads her glories o'er the earth. 
 And all her children, from their birth. 
 
 Are joint heirs of the whole ! 
 
 Yea, long as Nature's humblest child 
 
 Has kept her temple undefiled 
 
 By sinful sacrifice. 
 
 Earth's fairest scenes are all his own ; 
 
 He is a monarch, and his throne 
 
 Is built amid the skies ! 
 
 John Wilson.
 
 32 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 A MORNING IN OREGON. 
 
 A MORN in Oregon ! the kindled camp 
 ^^^ Upon the mountain brow, that broke beloAV 
 In steep and grassy stairway to the damp 
 And dewy valley, snapp'd and flamed aglow 
 With knots of pine. Above, the peaks of snow, 
 With under-belts of sable forests, rose 
 And flash'd in sudden sunhght. To and fro 
 And far below, in lines and winding rows. 
 The herders drove their bands, and broke the deep 
 repose. 
 
 I heard their shouts like sounding hunter s horn, 
 The lowing herds made echoes far away : 
 When lo ! the clouds came driving in with morn 
 Toward the sea, as fleeing from the day. 
 The valleys fill'd with curly clouds. They lay 
 Below, a levelFd sea that reached and roll'd 
 And broke like breakers of a stormy bay 
 Against the grassy shingle, fold on fold, 
 So Hke a splendid ocean, snowy white and cold. 
 
 The peopled valley lay a hidden world, 
 The shouts were shouts of drowning men that died, 
 The broken clouds along the border curl'd. 
 And bent the grass with weighty freight of tide. 
 A savage stood in silence at my side. 
 Then sudden threw aback his beaded strouds 
 And stretched his hand above the scene, and cried. 
 As all the land lay dead in snowy shrouds : 
 " Behold ! the sun upon a silver sea of clouds."
 
 BUGLE SONG. ZZ 
 
 Here lifts the land of clouds ! The imntled forms, 
 Made white with everlasting snow, look down 
 Through mists of many canons, and the storms 
 That stretch from Autumn time until they drown 
 The yellow hem of Spring. The cedars frown, 
 Dark-brow'd, through banner'd clouds that stretch 
 
 and stream 
 Above the sea from snowy mountain crown. 
 The heavens roll, and all things drift, or seem 
 To drift, about and drive like some majestic dream. 
 
 JoAcjuiN Miller. 
 
 T' 
 
 BUGLE SONG. 
 
 'HE splendor falls on castle walls 
 And snowy summits old in story ; 
 The long light shakes across the lakes, 
 And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
 Blow, bugle, blow ! set the wild echoes flying ; 
 Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes — dying, dying, dying ! 
 
 Oh hark, oh hear ! how thin and clear, 
 And thinner, clearer, further going! 
 Oh sweet and far, from cliff and scar, 
 The horns of elfland faintly blowing ! 
 Blow ! let us hear the purple glens replying ; 
 Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes — dying, dying, dying ! 
 
 O love, they die in yon rich sky ; 
 
 They faint on hill or field or river ; 
 Our echoes roll from soul to soul. 
 And grow for ever and for ever ! 
 Blow, bugle, blow ! set the wild echoes flying, 
 And answer, echoes, answer — dying, dying, dying! 
 
 Alfred Tennyson.
 
 34 THE MOUXTAIXS. 
 
 ON THE HEIGHTS. 
 
 TTIGHER ! yet higher! Tho' the path is steep, 
 -■- -*■ And all around the withering bracken rusts. 
 Up yonder on the crag a mossy spring, 
 Frosted with silver, glistens, and around 
 Grasses as green as hedgerows in the May 
 Cushion the lichen d stones. 
 
 Here let us pause : 
 Here, where the grass gleams emerald, and the spring 
 Up bubbling faintly seemeth as a sound, 
 A drowsy hum, heard in the mind itself : 
 Here, in this stillness, let us pause and mark 
 The many-color'd picture. Far beneath 
 Sleepeth the glassy Ocean like a sheet 
 Of liquid mother-o'-pearl, and on its rim 
 A ship sleeps, and the shadow of the ship ; 
 Astern the reef juts darkly, edged with foam, 
 Thro' the smooth brine : oh, hark ! how loudly sings 
 A wild, weird ditty to a watery tune. 
 The fisher among his nets upon the shore ; 
 And yonder, far away, his shouting bairns 
 Are running, dwarf'd by distance small as mice. 
 Along the yellow sands. Behind us, see 
 The immeasurable mountains rising silent 
 Against the fields of dreamy blue, wherein 
 The rayless crescent of the mid-day moon 
 Lies like a reaper's sickle ; and before us 
 The immeasurable mountains, rising silent
 
 NEARIXG THE S.VOIV-L/XE. 35 
 
 From bourne to bourne, from knolls of thyme and 
 
 heather, 
 To leafless slopes of granite, from the slopes 
 Of granite to the dim and ashen heights 
 Where, with a silver glimmer, silently 
 I'ausing, the white cloud sheds miraculous snow 
 On the heights untravell'd — whither we are bound. 
 
 RuuEKT Buchanan. 
 
 NEARING THE SNOW-LINE. 
 
 O LOW toiling upward from the misty vale, 
 *^ I leave the bright enamelled zones below ; 
 
 No more for me their beauteous bloom shall glow, 
 Their lingering sweetness load the morning gale; 
 Few are the slender flowerets, scentless, pale, 
 
 That on their ice-clad stems all trembling blow 
 
 Along the margin of unmelting snow. 
 Yet with unsaddened voice thy verge I hail. 
 
 White realm of peace above the flowering line ; 
 Welcome thy frozen domes, thy rocky spires ! 
 
 O'er thee undimmed the moon-girt planets shine, 
 On thy majestic altars fade the fires 
 That filled the air with smoke of vain desires, 
 
 And all the unclouded blue of heaven is thine ! 
 
 O. W. HOLMP.S.
 
 36 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 HYMN, 
 Before Sunrise, in the Vale of Chamounix. 
 
 TTAST thou a charm to stay the morning-star 
 
 ■*■ -^ In his steep course ? So long he seems to 
 
 pause 
 On thy bald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc ! 
 The Arve and Arveiron at thy base 
 Rave ceaselessly; but thou most awful form 
 Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines. 
 How silently ! Around thee and above 
 Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, — 
 An ebon mass. Methinks thou piercest it 
 As with a wedge ! But when I look again, 
 It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, 
 Thy habitation from eternity ! 
 
 dread and silent Mount ! I gazed upon thee. 
 Till thou, still present to the bodily sense. 
 
 Didst vanish from my thought. Entranced in prayer 
 
 1 worshipped the Invisible alone. 
 
 Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody. 
 So sweet we know not we are listening to it, 
 Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought — 
 Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy — 
 Till the dilating soul, enwrapt, transfused, 
 Into the mighty vision passing, — there. 
 As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven ! 
 
 Awake, my soul ! not only passive praise 
 Thou owest ! not alone these swelling tears,
 
 7/y.v.v. 37 
 
 Mute thanks and secret ecstasy ! Awake, 
 Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake ! 
 Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn ! 
 
 Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale ! 
 Oh, struggling with the darkness all the night, 
 And visited all night by troops of stars, 
 Or when they climb the sky or when they sink — 
 Companion of the morning-star at dawn 
 Co-herald — wake, oh wake, and utter praise ! 
 Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth ? 
 Who filled thy countenance with rosy light ? 
 Who made thee parent of perpetual streams ? 
 
 And you, ye five wild torrents fiercelv glad ! 
 Wlio called you forth from night and utter death, 
 From dark and icy caverns called you forth, 
 Down these precipitous, black, jagged rocks, 
 For ever shattered and the same for ever ? 
 Who gave you your invulnerable life. 
 Your strength, your speed, your fury, and 3'our joy, 
 Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ? 
 And who commanded (and the silence came) : 
 Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest ? 
 
 Ye ice-falls ! ye that from the mountain's brow 
 Adown enormous ravines slope amain, — 
 Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice. 
 And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge ! 
 Motionless torrents ! silent cataracts ! 
 Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven 
 Beneath the keen full moon ? who bade the sun 
 Clothe you \\\\\\ rainbows ? who, with living flowers
 
 38 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet 2 
 God ! — let the torrents, like a shout of nations, 
 Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God! 
 God ! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice ! 
 Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds ! 
 And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, 
 And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God I 
 
 Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost I 
 Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest ! 
 Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm I 
 Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! 
 Ye signs and wonders of the elements ! -^ 
 Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise I 
 
 Thou too, hoar Mount ! with thy sky-pointing peaks, 
 Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, 
 Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene, 
 Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast, — 
 Thou too again, stupendous Mountain ! thou 
 That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low 
 In adoration, upward from thy base 
 Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, 
 Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, 
 To rise before me : Rise, oh ever rise ! 
 Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth ! 
 Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills. 
 Thou dread ambassador from earth to Heaven, 
 Great Hierarch ! tell thou the silent sky. 
 And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, 
 Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
 
 NIGHT IN THE ALPS. 39 
 
 NIGHT IN THE ALPS. 
 
 (From " Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.") 
 
 /''^LEAR, placid Leman ! thy contrasted lake, 
 ^-^ With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing 
 Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake 
 Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. 
 This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing 
 To waft me from distraction ; once I loved 
 Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring 
 Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved, 
 That I with stern delights should e'er have been so 
 moved. 
 
 It is the hush of night, and all between 
 Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, 
 Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen, 
 Save darken'd Jura, whose capp'd heights appear 
 Precipitously steep; and, drawing near, 
 There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, 
 Of flowers yet fresh with childhood : on the ear 
 Drops the light drip of the suspended oar. 
 Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more. 
 
 He is an evening reveller, w^ho makes 
 His life an infancy, and sings his fill ; 
 At intervals, some bird from out the brakes 
 Starts into voice a moment, then is still. 
 There seems a floating whisper on the hill.
 
 40 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 But that is fancy, for the starlight dews 
 All silently their tears of love instil, 
 Weeping themselves away, till they infuse 
 Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues. 
 
 Ye stars ! which are the poetry of Heaven ! 
 If in your bright leaves we would read the fate 
 Of men and empires, — 'tis to be forgiven, 
 That, in our aspirations to be great, 
 Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, 
 And claim a kindred with you ; for ye are 
 A beauty and a mystery, and create 
 In us such love and reverence from afar, 
 That fortune, fame, power, life, have named them- 
 selves a star. 
 
 All heaven and earth are still — though not in sleep. 
 But breathless, as we grow when feeling most ; 
 And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep : — 
 All heaven and earth are still : from the high host 
 Of stars to the lull'd lake and mountain coast 
 All is concentred in a life intense. 
 Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, 
 But hath a part of being, and a sense, 
 Of that which is of all Creator and Defence. 
 
 Then stirs the feehng infinite, so felt 
 
 In solitude, where we are least alone ; 
 
 A truth, which through our being then doth melt, 
 
 And purifies from self : it is a tone, 
 
 The soul and source of music, which makes known
 
 NIGHT IN THE ALPS. ^l 
 
 Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm, 
 Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, 
 Binding; all things with beauty ; — 'twould disarm 
 The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm. 
 
 Not vainly did the early Persian make 
 His altar the high places and the peak 
 Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take 
 A fit and unwalled temple, there to seek 
 The Spirit, in whose honor shrines are weak, 
 Upreared of human hands. Come, and compare 
 Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek, 
 With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air, 
 Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy pray'r ! 
 
 The sky is changed ! — and such a change ! oh night, 
 And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong. 
 Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light 
 Of a dark eye in woman ! Far along. 
 From peak to peak the rattling crags among 
 Leaps the live thunder ! Not from one lone cloud, 
 But every mountain now hath found a tongue. 
 And Jura answers, through her misty shroud. 
 Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ! 
 
 And this is in the night : — Most glorious night ! 
 Thou wert not sent for slumber ! let me be 
 A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, — 
 A portion of the tempest and of thee ! 
 How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea. 
 And the big rain comes dancing to the earth ! 
 And now again 'tis black, — and now, the glee 
 Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth. 
 As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth.
 
 42 THE MOUXTAINS. 
 
 Now, where the swift Rhone clears his way between 
 Heights which appear as lovers who have parted 
 In hate, whose mining depths so intervene, 
 That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted : 
 Though in their souls, which thus each other 
 
 thwarted. 
 Love was the very root of the fond rage 
 Which blighted their life's bloom, and then de- 
 parted : — 
 Itself expired, but leaving them an age 
 Of years all winters, — war within themselves to wage. 
 
 Now where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way, 
 The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand ; 
 For here, not one but many make their play, 
 And fling their thunderbolts from hand to hand. 
 Flashing and cast around : of all the band. 
 The brightest through these parted hills hath fork'd 
 His lightnings, — as if he did understand, 
 That in such gaps as desolation work'd. 
 There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein 
 lurk'd. 
 
 Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings ! ye 
 With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul 
 To make these felt and feeling, well may be 
 Things that have made me watchful ; the far roll 
 Of your departing voices is the knoll 
 Of what in me is sleepless, — if I rest. 
 But where of ye, O tempests ! is the goal ? 
 Are ye like those within the human breast ? 
 Or do ve find at length, like eagles, some high nest ?
 
 SUNRISE. 43 
 
 Could I embody and unbosom now 
 That which is most within me, — could I wreak 
 My thoufjhts upon expression, and thus throw 
 Soul, heart, mind, passions feelings, strong or weak, 
 All that 1 would have sought, and all I seek, 
 Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe, — into one word. 
 And that one word were Lightning, I would speak ; 
 But as it is, I live and die unheard. 
 With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. 
 
 The morn is up again, the dewy morn. 
 With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, 
 Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, 
 And living as if earth contained no tomb, — 
 And glowing into day ; we may resume 
 The march of our existence : and thus I, 
 Still on thy shores, fair Leman ! may find room 
 And food for meditation, nor pass by 
 Much that may give us pause, if pondered fittingly. 
 
 Lord Byron. 
 
 SUNRISE. 
 
 T O ! liere the gentle lark, weary of rest, 
 ■*-^ From his moist cabinet mounts up on high. 
 And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast 
 The sun ariseth in his majesty ; 
 
 Who doth the world so gloriously behold, 
 The cedar-tops and hills seem burnished gold. 
 
 W. Shakspeake.
 
 44 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 SUNRISE ON THE HILLS. 
 
 T STOOD upon the hills, when heaven's wide arch 
 
 -'- Was glorious with the sun's returning march, 
 
 And woods were brightened, and soft gales 
 
 Went forth to kiss the sun-clad vales. 
 
 The clouds were far beneath me ; — bathed in light, 
 
 They gathered mid-way round the wooded height, 
 
 And, in their fading-glory, shone 
 
 Like hosts in battle overthrown, 
 
 As many a pinnacle, with shifting glance, 
 
 Through the gray mist thrust up its shattered lance, 
 
 And rocking on the cliff was left 
 
 The dark pine blasted, bare, and cleft. 
 
 The veil of cloud was lifted, and below 
 
 Glowed the rich valley, and the rivers flow 
 
 Was darkened by the forest's shade, 
 
 Or glistened in the white cascade ; 
 
 Where upward, in the mellow blush of day, 
 
 The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way. 
 
 I heard the distant waters dash, 
 I saw the current whirl and flash, — 
 And richly, by the blue lake's silver beach, 
 The woods were bending with a silent reach. 
 Then o'er the vale, with gentle swell, 
 The music of the village bell 
 Came sweetly to the echo-giving hills ; 
 And the wild horn, whose voice the woodland fills,
 
 TIIR PASSIXG OF THE IV/XD. 45 
 
 Was ringing to the merry shout 
 
 That faint and far the glen sent out, 
 
 Where, answering to the sudden shot, thin smoke, 
 
 Through thick-leaved branches, from the dingle broke. 
 
 If tliou art worn and hard beset 
 With sorrows that thou would'st forget. 
 If thou would'st read a lesson that will keep 
 Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep, 
 Go to the woods and hills ! — No tears 
 Dim the sweet look that Nature wears. 
 
 H. \V. Longfellow. 
 
 THE PASSING OF THE WIND. 
 
 TTAST thou ever sat on a mountain-brow 
 
 -*- -*• When the sun was bright and the wind was low, 
 
 And gazed on the groups of silent wood 
 
 That hung by the brink of a crystal flood, 
 
 When the wind starts up from his hidden lair, 
 
 Like a thing refreshed by sleep. 
 On the scene so summer-like and fair 
 
 And the quietness so deep ? 
 The far-off pass and the broken fell 
 With a hoarse and hollow murmur swell 
 
 As the giant rides along : 
 He comes with sceptre bare to break 
 The pageant mirrored in the lake ; 
 And the whole forest depths to shake 
 
 With fury loud and strong. 
 He hath bent the poplar as he passed, 
 As the tempest bends the tall ship-mast ;
 
 46 THE MOUXTAIXS. 
 
 He hath twisted the boughs of the lofty ash, 
 And the old oak moaned beneath his lash. 
 And yet to thee like some strange dream 
 The wild wind's savage sport doth seem, 
 For thou art still on thy mountain brow, 
 With the sun all bright and the wind all low ! 
 
 F. W. Faber. 
 
 A SU.ALMER STORM IN THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 (From "The Seasons.") 
 
 BEHOLD, slow-settling o'er the lurid grove 
 Unusual darkness broods, and growing gains 
 The full possession of the sky, surcharged 
 With wrathful vapor, from the secret beds 
 Where sleep the mineral generations, drawn. 
 Thence nitre, sulphur, and the fiery spume 
 Of fat bitumen, steaming on the day. 
 With various tinctured trains of latent flame. 
 Pollute the sky, and in yon baleful cloud, 
 A reddening gloom, a magazine of fate. 
 Ferment ; till, by the touch ethereal roused, 
 The dash of clouds, or irritating war 
 Of fighting winds, while all is calm below, 
 They furious spring, A boding silence reigns, 
 Dread through the dun expanse ; save the dull sound 
 That from the mountain, previous to the "storm, 
 Rolls o'er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood. 
 And shakes the forest-leaf without a breath. 
 Prone, to the lowest vale, the aerial tribes
 
 MOUNTAIN SUMMER STORM. 47 
 
 Descend ; the tempest-loving raven scarce 
 Dares wing the dubious dusk. In rueful ^-xlq. 
 The cattle stand, and on the scowlini^ heavens 
 Cast a deploring eye, by man forsook, 
 Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast, 
 Or seeks the shelter of the downward cave. 
 'Tis listening fear, and dumb am izement all : 
 When to the startled eye the sudden glance 
 Appears far south, eruptive through the cloud ; 
 And following slower, in explosion vast. 
 The thunder raises his tremendous voice. 
 At first, heard solemn o'er the verge of heaven, 
 The tempest growls ; but as it nearer comes. 
 And rolls its awful burden on the wind, 
 The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more 
 The noise astounds : till overhead a sheet 
 Of livid flame discloses wide ; then shuts, 
 And opens wider ; shuts and opens still 
 Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze. 
 Follows the loosened aggravated roar, 
 Enlarging, deepening, mingling ; peal on peal 
 Crash'd horrible, convulsing heaven and earth. 
 
 Down comes a deluge of sonorous hail. 
 Or prone-descending rain. Wide-rent, the clouds 
 Pour a whole flood ; and yet, its flame unquench'd, 
 The unconquerable lightning struggles through, 
 Ragged and fierce, or in red whirling balls. 
 And fires the mountain with redoubled rage- 
 Black from the stroke, above, the smouldering pine 
 Stands a sad shatter'd trunk ; and, stretch'd below, 
 A lifeless group the blasted cattle lie : 
 Here the soft flocks, with that same harmless look
 
 43 THE MOUX TAINS. 
 
 They wore alive, and ruminating still 
 In fancy's eye ; and there the frowning bull, 
 And ox half-raised. Struck on the castled cliff, 
 The venerable tower and spiry fane 
 Resign their aged pride. The gloomy woods 
 Start at the flash, and from their deep recess. 
 Wide-flaming out, their trembling inmates shake. 
 Amid Carnarvon's mountains rages loud 
 The repercussive roar : with mighty crush, 
 Into the flashing deep, from the rude rocks 
 Of Penmanmaur heap'd hideous to the sky, 
 Tumble the smitten cliffs ; and Snowdon's peak, 
 Dissolving, instant yields his wintry load. 
 P^ar seen, the heights of heathy Cheviot blaze, 
 The Thule bellows through her utmost isles. 
 
 J. Thomson. 
 
 TPIE TROSACHS. 
 
 nr^HERE'S not a nook within this solemn Pass, 
 
 -*- But were an apt confessional for one 
 Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone, 
 That Life is but a tale of morning grass 
 Withered at eve. From scenes of art that chase 
 That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes 
 Feed it 'mid Nature's old felicities, — 
 Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass 
 Untouched, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy guest. 
 If from a golden perch of aspen spray 
 (October's workmanship to rival May) 
 The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast 
 This moral sweeten by a Heaven-taught lay, 
 Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest. 
 
 \V. Wordsworth.
 
 AFTER-STORM MOUNTAIN SUNSET. 49 
 
 SUNSET IN THE MOUNTAINS AFTER 
 A STORM. 
 
 (From the "Excursion.") 
 
 A STEP, 
 "^ ^ A single step, that freed me from the skirts 
 Of the bhnd vapor, opened to my view 
 Glory beyond all glory ever seen 
 By waking sense or by the dreaming soul ! 
 The appearance, instantaneously disclosed, 
 Was of a mighty city — boldly say 
 A wilderness of building, sinking far 
 And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth, 
 P'ar sinking into splendor — without end ! 
 Faloric it seemed of diamond or of gold, 
 With alabaster domes, and silver spires. 
 And blazing terrace upon terrace, high 
 Uplifted ; here, serene pavilions bright. 
 In avenues disposed ; there towers begirt 
 With battlements that on their resdess fronts 
 liore stars — illumination of all gems ! 
 By earthly nature had the effect been wrought 
 Upon the dark materials of the storm 
 Now pacified ; on them, and 'on the coves 
 And mountain-steeps and summits, whereunto 
 The vapors had receded, taking there 
 Their station under a cerulean sky. 
 Oh, 'twas an unimaginable sight ! 
 
 Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks and emerald turf. 
 Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky, 
 4
 
 so THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed, 
 
 Molten together, and composing thus, 
 
 Each lost in each, that marvellous array 
 
 Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge 
 
 Fantastic pomp of structure without name, 
 
 In fleecy folds voluminous, enwrapped. 
 
 Right in the midst where interspace appeared 
 
 Qf open court, an object like a throne 
 
 Beneath a shining canopy of state 
 
 Stood fixed : and fixed resemblances were seen 
 
 To implements of ordinary use, 
 
 But vast in size, in substance glorified ; 
 
 Such as by Hebrew Prophets were beheld 
 
 In vision — forms uncouth of mightiest power 
 
 For admiration and mysterious awe. 
 
 Below me was the earth ; this little vale 
 
 Lay low beneath my feet ; 'twas visible — • 
 
 I saw not, but I felt that it was there. 
 
 That which I saw was the revealed abode 
 
 Of spirits in beatitude : my heart 
 
 Swelled in my breast. — " I have been dead," I cried, 
 
 " And now I live ! Oh ! wherefore do I live ? " 
 
 And with that pang I prayed to be no more ! 
 
 W. Wordsworth.
 
 TIRED. 51 
 
 TIRED. 
 
 OH for win2:s, that I might soar 
 A little way above the floor — 
 A little way beyond the roar — 
 
 A little nearer to the sky ! 
 To the blue hills, lifted high, 
 Out of all our misery. 
 
 Where alone is heard the lark 
 Warbling in the infinite arc, 
 From the dawning to the dark. 
 
 Where the callow eaglets wink 
 On the bare and breezy brink, 
 And slow pinions rise and sink. 
 
 Where the dim white breakers beat 
 Under cloud-drifts at our feet. 
 Singing, singing, low and sweet. 
 
 Where we see the glimmering bay 
 Grayly melting far away, 
 On the confines of the day. 
 
 Where the green larch-fringes sweep 
 Rocky defiles, still and steep, 
 Where the tender lichens creep. 
 
 Where the gentian blossoms blow, 
 Set in crystal stars of snow ; 
 Where the downward torrents flow
 
 52 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 To the plains and yellow leas, 
 Glancing, twinkling, through the trees, 
 Pure as from celestial seas. 
 
 Where the face of Heaven has smiled, 
 Aye on freedom, sweet and wild. 
 Aye on beauty, undefiled. 
 
 Where no sound of human speech 
 And no human passions reach ; 
 Where the angels sit and teach. 
 
 Where no troublous foot has trod ; 
 Where is impressed on the sod 
 Only Hand and Heart of God ! 
 
 Alice Campbell. 
 
 GOD IS BEAUTIFUL. 
 
 /^H, Thou art beautiful ! and Thou dost bestow 
 ^-^ Thy beauty on this stillness : still as sheep 
 
 The hills he under Thee ; the waters deep 
 Murmur for joy of Thee ; the voids below 
 Mirror Thy strange fair vapors as they flow ; 
 
 And now, afar upon the ashen height. 
 
 Thou sendest down a radiant look of light, 
 So that the still peaks glisten, and a glow 
 Rose-color'd tints the little snowy cloud 
 
 That poises on the highest peak of all. 
 Oh, Thou art beautiful ! — the hills are bowed 
 
 Beneath Thee ; on Thy name the soft winds call, — 
 The monstrous ocean trumpets it aloud. 
 
 The rains and -snows intone it as they fall. 
 
 Robert Buchanan.
 
 SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE. 53 
 
 SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE. 
 
 I. Noox. 
 
 \X7HITE clouds, whose shadows haunt the deep, 
 
 Light mists, whose soft embraces keep 
 The sunshine on the hills asleep ! 
 
 O isles of calm I — O dark, still wood ! 
 And stiller skies that overbrood 
 Your rest with deeper quietude ! 
 
 shapes and hues ! dim beckoning through 
 Yon mountain gaps my longing view 
 Beyond the purple and the blue, 
 
 To stiller sea and greener land. 
 
 And softer lights and airs more bland. 
 
 And skies, — the hollow of God's hand ! 
 
 Transfused through you, O mountain friends ! 
 With mine your solemn spirit blends. 
 And life no more hath separate ends. 
 
 1 read each misty mountain sign, 
 
 I know the voice of wave and pine. 
 And I am yours, and ye are mine. 
 
 Life's burdens fall, its discords cease, 
 
 I lapse into the glad release 
 
 Of Nature's own exceeding peace. 
 
 Oh, welcome calm of heart and mind ! 
 As falls yon fir-tree's loosened rind 
 To leave a tenderer grrowth behind,
 
 54 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 So fall the wear)' years away ; 
 A child again, my head I lay 
 Upon the lap of this sweet day. 
 
 This western wind hath Lethean powers, 
 Yon noonday cloud nepenthe showers, 
 The lake is white with lotus flowers ! 
 
 Even Duty's voice is faint and low, 
 
 And slumberous Conscience, waking slow, 
 
 Forgets her blotted scroll to show. 
 
 The shadow which pursues us all, 
 Whose ever-nearing steps appall. 
 Whose voice we hear behind us call, ^— 
 
 That shadow blends with mountain gray, 
 It speaks but what the light waves say, — 
 Death walks apart from fear to-day ! 
 
 Rocked on her breast, these pines and I 
 Alike on Nature's love rely ; 
 And equal seems to live or die. 
 
 Assured that He whose presence fills 
 With light the spaces of these hills 
 No evil to his creatures wills. 
 
 The simple faith remains, that He 
 Will do, whatever that may be. 
 The best alike for man and tree. 
 
 What mosses over one shall grow. 
 What light and life the other know, 
 Unanxious, leavins: Him to show.
 
 SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE. 55 
 
 II. Evening. 
 
 Yon mountain's side is black with night, 
 
 While, broad-orbed, o'er its gleaming crown 
 
 The moon, slow-rounding into sight, 
 On the hushed inland sea looks down. 
 
 How start to light the clustering isles. 
 
 Each silver-hemmed ! How sharply show 
 
 The shadows of their rocky piles, 
 And tree-tops in the wave below ! 
 
 How far and strange the mountains seem, 
 Dim-looming through the pale, still light ! 
 
 The vague, vast grouping of a dream, 
 They stretch into the solemn night. 
 
 Beneath, lake, wood, and peopled vale, 
 Hushed by that presence grand and grave, 
 
 Are silent, save the cricket's wail. 
 And low response of leaf and wave. 
 
 Fair scenes ! whereto the day and night 
 Make rival love, I leave ye soon, 
 
 "What time before the eastern light 
 The pale ghost of the setting moon 
 
 Shall hide behind yon rocky spines. 
 
 And the young archer, morn, shall break 
 
 His arrows on the mountain pines, 
 And, golden-sandalled, walk the lake ! 
 
 Farewell ! around this smiling bay 
 Gay-hearted health and life in bloom, 
 
 "With lighter steps than mine, may stray 
 In radiant summers yet to come.
 
 56 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 But none shall more regretful leave 
 These waters and these hills than I : 
 
 Or, distant, fonder dream how eve 
 Or dawn is painting wave and sky ; 
 
 How rising moons shine sad and mild 
 On wooded isle and silvering bay ; 
 
 Or setting suns beyond the piled 
 
 And purple mountains lead the day ; 
 
 Nor laughing girl, nor bearding boy, 
 
 Nor full-pulsed manhood, lingering here, 
 . Shall add, to Hfe's abounding joy, 
 
 The charmed repose to suffering dear. 
 
 Still waits kind Nature to impart 
 Her choicest gifts to such as gain 
 
 An entrance to her loving heart 
 
 Through the sharp discipline of pain. 
 
 For ever from the hand that takes 
 One blessing from us others fall : 
 
 And, soon or late, our Father makes 
 His perfect recompense to all ! 
 
 O, watched by silence and the night, 
 And folded- in the strong embrace 
 
 Of the great mountains, with the light 
 Of the sweet heavens upon thy face, 
 
 Lake of the Northland ! keep thy dower 
 Of beauty still, and while above 
 
 Thy solemn mountains speak of power, 
 Be thou the mirror of God's love. 
 
 J. G. Whittier.
 
 AT WINNIPESAUKEE. 57 
 
 SNOWDON, 
 
 In tiik Pass of Llaxberis. 
 
 TTOLDING by this rude crag I stay to listen, 
 
 -'- -*- Where the white noonday moon looks o'er the 
 
 steep, 
 And sheets of mountain-water hang and glisten, 
 Catching the sun far up in their long leap. 
 Snowdon's whole range is rocking in the wind, 
 Ridges and splintered caves and lifeless vales, 
 Calling forth mighty sounds, while they unbind 
 The echoing chords of this vast harp of Wales, 
 Forget not whom the winds forth-shadow ! Hark, 
 How the huge hills take up in hollows dark 
 The clang from these distracted caverns tossed. 
 Till the brave eagles in their holds have trembled. 
 Crouching and screaming to the choir assembled, 
 I^ound this dread Altar of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 F. W. Faber. 
 
 AT WIxNNIPESAUKEE. 
 
 r\ SILENT hills across the lake, 
 
 ^^ Asleep in moonlight, or awake 
 
 To catch the color of the sky. 
 
 That sifts through every cloud swept by, — ' 
 
 How beautiful ye are, in change 
 
 Of sultry haze and storm-light strange ! 
 
 How dream-like rest ye on the bar 
 
 That parts the billows from the star ! 
 
 How blend your mists with waters clear, 
 
 Till earth floats off, and heaven seems near !
 
 58 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Ye faint and fade, a pearly zone, 
 The coast-line of a land unknown. 
 Yet that is sun-burnt Ossipee, 
 Plunged knee-deep in the limpid sea : 
 Somewhere among these grouping isles 
 Old White-Face from his cloud-cap smiles, 
 And gray Chocorua bends his crown, 
 To look on happy hamlets down ; 
 And every pass and mountain slope 
 Leads out and on some human hope. 
 
 Here, the great hollows of the hills 
 The glamour of the June day fills. 
 Along the climbing path, the brier, 
 In rose-bloom beauty beckoning higher, 
 Breathes sweetly the warm uplands over ; 
 And, gay with buttercups and clever, 
 The slopes of meadowy freshness make 
 A green foil to the sparkling lake. 
 
 So is it with yon hills that swim 
 Upon the horizon, blue and dim : 
 For all the summer is not ours ; 
 On other shores familiar flowers 
 Find blossoming as fresh as these, 
 In shade and shine and eddying breeze ; 
 And scented slopes as cool and green 
 To kiss of lisping ripples lean. 
 
 So is it with the land beyond 
 This earth we press with steps so fond. 
 Upon those faintly-outlined hills 
 God's sunshine sleeps, his dew distils :
 
 AT IVINNIPESAUKEE. 59 
 
 The clear beatitudes of home 
 Within the heavenly boundaries come : 
 The hearts that made life's fraj^rance here 
 To Eden haunts brinfj added cheer ; 
 And all the beauty, all the good, 
 Lost to our lower altitude, 
 Transfigured, yet the same, are given 
 Upon the mountain-heights of heaven. 
 
 O cloud-swathed hills the flood across, 
 Ye hide the mystery of our loss, 
 Yet hide it but a little while : 
 Past sunlit shore and shadowy isle, 
 Out to the still lake's farther brim. 
 Ere long our bark the wave shall skim. 
 And what the vigor and the glow 
 Our earthly-torpid souls shall know, 
 When, grounding on the silver sands, 
 We feel the clasp of loving hands, 
 And see the walls of sapphire gleam, 
 Nor tongue can tell, nor heart can dream. 
 
 But in your rifts of wondrous light 
 Wherewith these lower fields are bright, 
 In every strengthening breeze that brings 
 The mountain-health upon its wings. 
 We own the gift of Pentecost, 
 And not one hint of heaven is lost. 
 
 Lucy LARCONf.
 
 6o- THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 LINES 
 
 Written at the village of Passignano, on the Lake 
 OF Thrasymene. 
 
 nr^HE mountains stand about the quiet lake, 
 -^ That not a breath its azure calm may break ; 
 No leaf of these sere olive-trees is stirred, 
 In the near silence far-off sounds are heard ; 
 The tiny bat is flitting overhead, 
 The hawthorn doth its richest odors shed 
 Into the dewy air ; and over all, 
 Veil after veil, the evening shadows fall, 
 Withdrawing one by one each glimmering height. 
 The far, and then the nearer, from our sight — 
 No sign surviving in this tranquil scene, 
 That strife and savage tumult here have been. 
 
 But if the pilgrim to the latest plain 
 Of carnage, where the blood hke summer rain 
 Fell but the other day, — if in his mind 
 He marvels much and oftentimes to find 
 With what success has Nature each sad trace 
 Of man's red footmarks labored to efface, — 
 What wonder, if this spot we tread appears 
 Guiltless of strife, when now two thousand years 
 Of daily reparation have gone by, 
 Since it resumed its own tranquillity. 
 This calm has nothing strange ; yet not the less 
 This holy evening's solemn quietness,
 
 SPR/.VG ON THE PEAK. 6 1 
 
 The perfect beauty of this windless lake, 
 This stillness which no louder murmurs break 
 Than the frogs croaking from the distant sedge, 
 These vineyards dressed unto the water's edge, 
 This hind that homeward driving the slow steer 
 Tells how man's daily work goes forward here, 
 Have each a power upon me, while I drink 
 The influence of the placid time, and think 
 How gladly the sweet mother once again 
 Resumes her sceptre and benignant reign. 
 But for a few short instants scared away 
 By the mad game, the cruel impious fray 
 Of her distempered cliildren — how comes back, 
 And leads them in the customary track 
 Of blessing once again ; to order brings 
 Anew the dislocated frame of things, 
 And covers up, and out of sight conceals 
 What they have wrought of ill, or gently heals. 
 
 R. C. Trench. 
 
 SPRING ON THE PEAK. 
 
 T T AVE ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons 
 
 ■■- -^ goes right to the aim, 
 
 And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that 
 
 held (he alone 
 While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a 
 
 broad bust of stone 
 A year's snow bound about for a breast-plate, — leaves 
 
 grasp of the sheet ? 
 Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down 
 
 to his feet,
 
 62 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet : your 
 mountain of old, 
 
 With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages 
 untold, — 
 
 Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each fur- 
 row and scar 
 
 Of his head thrust twixt you and the tempest, — all 
 hail, there they are ! 
 
 Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the 
 nest 
 
 Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green 
 on its crest 
 
 For their food in the ardors of summer ! 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 VESUVIUS. 
 
 A S when unto a mother, having chid 
 -^^^ Her child in anger, there have straight ensued 
 Repentings for her quick and angry mood, 
 Till she would fain see all its traces hid 
 Quite out of sight, — even so has Nature bid 
 Fair flowers, that on the scarred earth she has strewed, 
 To blossom, and called up the taller wood 
 To cover what she ruined and undid. 
 Oh ! and her mood of anger did not last 
 More than an instant ; but her work of peace, 
 Restoring and repairing, comforting 
 The earth, her stricken child, will never cease ; 
 For that was her strange work, and quickly passed, 
 To this her genial toil no end the years shall bring. 
 
 R. C. Trench.
 
 COMO. 63 
 
 COMO. 
 
 ' ' By lonely roads, where over Garda's lake 
 Their brows the cloven-hearted mountains bent, 
 To lands divine, where Como's waters make 
 Twin arms, to clasp them for their beauty's sake ! 
 
 The shapely hills, whose summits towered remote 
 
 In rosy air, might smile in soft disdain 
 
 Of palaces that strung a jewelled chain 
 
 About tlieir feet, and far off seemed to float 
 
 On violet-misted waters ; yet they wore 
 
 Their groves and gardens like a festal train, 
 
 And in the mirror of the crystal plain 
 
 Steep vied with steep, shore emulated shore ! 
 
 The halcyon world 
 Of sleeping wave, and velvet-folded hill, 
 And stainless air and sunshine lay so still ! 
 No mote of vapor on the mountains curled ; 
 But lucid, gem-like, blissful, as if sin 
 Or more than gentlest grief had never been. 
 Each lovely thing of tint that shone impearled, 
 As dwelt some dim beatitude therein. 
 
 Bavard Taylor.
 
 64 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 RADICOFANI. 
 
 (Extract.) 
 
 npHIS is a barren, desolate scene, 
 
 -■- Grim and gray, with scarce a tree, 
 Gashed with many a wild ravine 
 Far away as the eye can see ; 
 Ne'er a home for miles to be found 
 Save where huddled on some grim peak 
 A village chnging in fear looks round 
 Over the country vast and bleak, 
 As if it had fled from the lower ground, 
 Refuge from horrors there to seek. 
 
 Over the spare and furzy soil 
 
 With never a waving grain-field sowed, 
 
 Ruggedly wind with weary toil 
 
 The shining bands of dusty road, — 
 
 Down through the river's rocky bed, 
 
 That is white and dry with summer's drought, 
 
 Or climbing some sandy hillock's head, 
 
 Over and under, in and out. 
 
 Like a struggling thing by madness led, 
 
 That wanders along in fear and doubt. 
 
 What are those green spots on yon sandy slope 
 Where the green is frayed and tattered with gray i 
 Are they only rocks — or sheep that crop 
 The meagre pasture ? one scarce can say. 
 This seems not a place for flowers — but behold ! 
 • How the lupine spreads its pink around,
 
 THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 65 
 
 And the clustered ginestra squanders its gold 
 
 As if it loved this barren ground ; 
 
 And surely that -bird is over-bold 
 
 That dares to sing o'er that grave-like mound. 
 
 It is dead and still in the middle noon, 
 
 The sand-beds shine with a blinding light, 
 
 The cicali dizzen the air with their tune, 
 
 And the sunshine seems like a curse to smite ; 
 
 The mountains around their shoulders bare 
 
 Gather a thin and shadowy veil, 
 
 And shrink from the fierce and scorching glare — 
 
 And close to the grass so withered and pale 
 
 Hovering quivers the glassy air, 
 
 And the lizards pant in their emerald mail. 
 
 W. VV. Story. 
 
 IN THE EUGANEAN HILLS, NORTH 
 ITALY. 
 
 ' A/TID the mountains Euganean 
 -'-'-*- I stood listening to the pasan 
 With which the legioned rooks did hail 
 The sun's uprise majestical ; 
 Gathering round with wings all hoar, 
 Through the dewy mist they soar 
 Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven 
 Bursts, and then, as clouds of even, 
 Flecked with fire and azure, lie 
 In the unfathomable sky. 
 So their plumes of purple grain, 
 Starred with drops of golden rain, 
 5
 
 66 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Gleam above the sunlight woods, 
 As in silent multitudes 
 On the morning's fitful gale 
 Through the broken mist they sail ; 
 And the vapors cloven and gleaming 
 Follow down the dark steep streaming, 
 Till all is bright, and clear, and still, 
 Round the solitary hill. 
 
 Beneath is spread like a green sea 
 The waveless plain of Lombardy, 
 Bounded by the vaporous air, 
 Islanded by cities fair ; 
 Underneath day's azure eyes 
 Ocean's nursling, Venice, lies, — 
 A peopled labyrinth of walls, 
 Amphitrite's destined halls, 
 Which her hoary sire now paves 
 With his blue and beaming waves. 
 Lo ! the sun upsprings behind. 
 Broad, red, radiant, half-rechned 
 On the level quivering line 
 Of the waters crystalline ; 
 And before that chasm of light. 
 As within a furnace bright, 
 Column, tower, and dome, and spire 
 Shine like obelisks of fire. 
 Pointing with inconstant motion 
 From the altar of dark ocean 
 To the sapphire-tinted skies ; 
 As the flames of sacrifice 
 From the marble shrines did rise
 
 THE EUGAXEAN HILLS. C7 
 
 As to pierce the dome of gold 
 Where Apollo spoke of old. 
 
 Noon descends around me now : 
 'Tis the noon of autumn's .s:lo\v, 
 When a soft and purple mist 
 Like a vaporous amethyst, 
 Or an air-dissolv6d star 
 Mingling light and fragrance, far 
 From the curved horizon's bound 
 To the point of heaven's pnjfound, 
 P'ills the overflowing sky ; 
 And the plains that silent lie 
 Underneath ; the leaves unsoddcn 
 Where the infant frost has trodden 
 With his morning-winged feet, 
 Whose bright print is gleaming yet ; 
 And the red and golden vines 
 Piercing with their trellised lines 
 The rough, dark-skirted wilderness ; 
 The dun and bladed grass no less, 
 Pointing from this hoary tower 
 In the windless air; the flower 
 Glimmering at my feet ; tlie line 
 Of the olive-sandalled Apennine 
 In the south dimly-islanded ; 
 And the Alps, whose snows are spread 
 High between the clouds and sun ; 
 And of living things each one ; 
 And my spirit, which so long 
 Darkened this swift stream of song.
 
 68 THE MOUXTAIXS. 
 
 Interpenetrated lie 
 
 By the glory of the sky ; 
 
 Be it love, light, harmony, 
 
 Odor, or the soul of all 
 
 Which from heaven like dew doth fall, 
 
 Or the mind which feeds this verse 
 
 Peopling the lone universe. 
 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley. 
 
 SUNSET. 
 
 (From " Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.") 
 
 'T^HE moon is up and yet it is not night — 
 -■- Sunset divides the sky with her — a sea 
 Of glory streams along the Alpine height 
 Of blue FriuH's mountains ; Heaven is free 
 From clouds, but of all colors seems to be 
 Melted to one vast Iris of the West, 
 Where the Day joins the past Eternity ; 
 While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest 
 Floats through the azure air — an island of the blest ! 
 
 A single star is at her side, and reigns 
 With her o'er half the lovely heaven ; but still 
 Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains 
 Roird o'er the peak of the fair Rhoetian hill, 
 As day and night contending were, until 
 Nature reclaim'd her order : — gently flows 
 The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil 
 The odorous purple of a new-born rose. 
 Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it 
 glows.
 
 MOXAD.VOC. 69 
 
 Fiird with tlie face of heaven, whicli from afar 
 Comes clown upon the waters ; all its hues, 
 From the rich sunset to the rising star, 
 Their magical variety diffuse : 
 And now they change ; a paler shadow strews 
 Its mantle o'er the mountains ; parting day 
 Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues 
 With a new color as it gasps away, 
 The last still loveliest, till — 'tis gone — and all is gray. 
 
 Lord Byron. 
 
 MONADNOC. 
 
 TN his own loom's garment dressed, 
 ^ By his own bounty blessed. 
 Fast abides this constant giver. 
 Pouring many a cheerful river ; 
 To far eyes, an aerial isle 
 Unploughed, which finer spirits pile. 
 Which morn and crimson evening paint 
 For bard, for lover, and for saint ; 
 The country's core, 
 Inspirer, prophet evermore ; 
 Pillar which God aloft had set 
 So that men might it not forget ; 
 It should be their life's ornament. 
 And mix itself with each event ; 
 Their calendar and dial, 
 Barometer and chemic phial. 
 Garden of berries, perch of birds, 
 Pasture of pool-haunting herds. 
 Graced by each change of sum untold, 
 Earth-baking heat, stone-cleaving cold.
 
 70 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 The Titan heeds his own affairs, 
 Wide rents and high alliance shares ; 
 Mysteries of color daily laid 
 By the great sun in light and shade ; 
 And sweet varieties of chance 
 And the mystic seasons' dance ; 
 And thief-like step of liberal hours 
 Thawing snow-drift into flowers. 
 Oh, wondrous craft of plant and stone 
 By eldest science done and shown ! 
 
 R. W. Emerson. 
 
 MONADNOC'S WELCOME. 
 
 A H ! welcome, if thou bring 
 •*- ^ My secret in thy brain ; 
 
 If thou trowest 
 How the chemic eddies play, 
 Pole to pole, and what they say ; 
 And that these gray crags 
 Not on crags are hung. 
 But beads are of a rosary 
 On prayer and music strung ; 
 And, credulous, through the granite seeming, 
 Seest the smile of Reason beaming ; — 
 Can thy style-discerning eye 
 The hidden-working Builder spy. 
 Who builds, yet makes no chips, no din, 
 With hammer soft as snow-flake's flight ; — 
 Knowest thou this 1
 
 MOXADXOC'S JVELCOME. 71 
 
 pilo^rim, wandering; not amiss ! 
 Already my rocks lie light, 
 And soon my cone will sj)in. 
 
 For the world was built in order, 
 And the atoms march in tune ; 
 Rhyme the pipe, and Time the warder, 
 Cannot forget the sun, the moon, 
 Orb and atom forth they prance, 
 When they hear from far the rune ; 
 None so backward in the troop, 
 When the music and the dance 
 Reach his place and circumstance, 
 But knows the sun-creating sound, 
 And, though a pyramid, will bound. 
 
 Monadnoc is a mountain strong, 
 
 Tall and good my kind among ; 
 
 But, well I know, no mountain can 
 
 Measure with a perfect man. 
 
 For it is on zodiacs writ, 
 
 Adamant is soft to wit : 
 
 And when the greater comes again ^ 
 
 With my secret in his brain, 
 
 1 shall pass, as glides my shadow 
 Daily over hill and meadow. 
 
 Through all time, in light and gloom, 
 Well I hear the approaching feet 
 On the flinty pathway beat 
 Of him that cometh, and shall come ; 
 Of him who shall as lightly bear 
 My daily load of woods and streams,
 
 72 THE MOUNTAIXS. 
 
 As doth this round sky-cleaving boat 
 Which never strains its rocky beams ; 
 Whose timbers, as they silent float, 
 Alps and Caucasus uprear, 
 And the long Alleghanies here, 
 And all town-sprinkled lands that be. 
 Sailing through stars with all their history. 
 
 Every morn I lift my head, 
 
 Gaze o'er New England underspread, 
 
 South from Saint Lawrence to the Sound, 
 
 From Katskill east to the sea-bound. 
 
 Anchored fast for many an age, 
 
 I await the bard and sage, 
 
 Who, in large thoughts, like fair pearl-seed, 
 
 Shall string Monadnoc like a bead. 
 
 R. W. Emerson. 
 
 ST. MARY'S LAKE. 
 
 ]^rOR fen, nor sedge, 
 •^^ Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge ; 
 Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink 
 At once upon the level brink ; 
 And just a trace of silver sand 
 Marks where the water meets the land. 
 Far in the mirror, bright and blue. 
 Each hill's huge outline you may view ; 
 Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare, 
 Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake is there, 
 Save where, of land, yon slender line 
 Bears 'thwart the lake the scattered pine.
 
 ST. MARY'S LAKE. 73 
 
 Yet even this nakedness has power, 
 
 And aids the feehng of the hour : 
 
 Nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy. 
 
 Where living thing concealed might lie ; 
 
 Nor point, retiring, hides a dell. 
 
 Where swain, or woodman lone, might dwell ; 
 
 There's nothing left to fancy's guess. 
 
 You see that all is loneliness ; 
 
 And silence aids, — though the steep hills 
 
 Send to the lake a thousand rills ; 
 
 In summer tide, so soft they weep, 
 
 The sound but lulls the ear asleep ; 
 
 Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude, 
 
 So stilly is the solitude. 
 
 Naught living meets the eye or ear, 
 But well I ween the dead are near ; 
 For though, in feudal strife, a foe 
 Has lain Our Lady's chapel low, 
 Yet still, beneath the hallowed soil, 
 The peasant rests him from his toil. 
 And, dying, bids his bones be laid. 
 Where erst his simple fathers prayed. 
 
 Sir \V. Scott.
 
 74 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 CADWALLON'S HUT. 
 
 'T^HAT lonely dwelling stood among the hills, 
 By a gray mountain-stream ; just elevate 
 Above the winter torrents did it stand, 
 Upon a craggy bank ; an orchard slope 
 Arose behind, and joyous was the scene 
 In early summer, when those antic trees 
 Shone with their blushing blossoms, and the flax 
 Twinkled beneath the breeze its liveliest green. 
 But save the flax-field and that orchard slope, 
 All else was desolate ; and now it wore 
 One sober hue : the narrow vale, which wound 
 Among the hills, was gray with rocks, that peer'd 
 Above its shallow soil ; the mountain side 
 Was loose with stones bestrown, which oftentimes 
 Clattered adown the steep, beneath the foot 
 Of straggling goat dislodged : or tower'd with crags, 
 One day when winter's work hath loosened them. 
 To thunder down. All things assorted well 
 With that gray mountain hue ; the low stone lines. 
 Which scarcely seemed to be the work of man. 
 The dwelling rudely rear'd with stones unhewn. 
 The stubble flax, the crooked apple-trees. 
 Gray with their fleecy moss and mistletoe, 
 The white-barked birch, now leafless, and the ash, 
 Whose knotted roots were like the rifted rock 
 Through which they forced their way. Adown the 
 
 vale. 
 Broken by stones, and o'er a stony bed^ 
 Roll'd the loud mountain-stream. 
 
 R. SOUTHEY.
 
 IN THE TROSACHS. 75 
 
 IN THE TROSACHS. 
 
 (From the "Lady of tlie Lake.") 
 
 'nr^HE western waves of ebbinc^ clay 
 
 -*■ Rolled o'er the glen their level way ; 
 Each purple peak, each flinty spire, 
 Was bathed in floods of livins: fire. 
 But not a setting beim could glow 
 Within the dark ravines below, 
 Where twined the path in shadow hid, 
 Round many a rocky pyramid, 
 Shooting abruptly from the dell 
 Its thunder-splintered pinnacle ; 
 Round many an insulated mass. 
 The native bulwarks of the pass, 
 Huge as the tower which builders vain 
 Presumptuous piled on Shinar's plain. 
 The rocky summits, split and rent, 
 Formed turret, dome, or battlement, 
 Or seemed fantastically set 
 With cupola or minaret. 
 Wild crests as pagod ever decked, 
 Or mosque of eastern architect. 
 Nor were these earth-born castles bare, 
 Nor lacked they many a banner fair ; 
 For, from their shivered brows displayed. 
 Far o'er the unfathomable glade. 
 All twinkling wMth the dew-drops' sheen. 
 The brier-rose fell in streamers green, 
 And creeping shrubs, of thousand dyes. 
 Waved in the west-wind's summer's sighs.
 
 76 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Boon Nature scattered, free and wild. 
 Each plant or flower, the mountain's child. 
 Here eglantine embalmed the air, 
 Hawthorn and hazel mingled there ; 
 The primrose pale and violet flower 
 Found in each cliff a narrow bower ; 
 Foxglove and nightshade, side by side, 
 Emblems of punishment and pride. 
 Grouped their dark hues with every stain 
 The weather-beaten crags retain. 
 With boughs that quaked at every breath, 
 Gray birch and aspen wept beneath ; 
 Aloft, the ash and w^arrior oak 
 Cast anchor in the rifted rock ; 
 And, higher yet, the pine-tree hung 
 His shattered trunk, and frequent flung. 
 Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high. 
 His boughs athwart the narrowed sky. 
 Highest of all, wdiere white peaks glanced, 
 Wliere glist'ning streamers waved and danced, 
 The wanderer's e3'e could barely view 
 The summer heaven's delicious blue ; 
 So wondrous wild, the whole might seem 
 The scenery of a fairy dream. 
 
 Onward, amid the copse 'gan peep 
 A narrow^ inlet, still and deep. 
 Affording scarce such breadth of brim 
 As served the wild duck's brood to swim. 
 Lost for a space, through thickets veering, 
 But broader when again appearing, 
 Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face 
 Could on the dark-blue mirror trace ;
 
 IN THE TROSACIIS. 'J'J 
 
 And farther as the hunter strayed, 
 Still broader sweep its channels made. 
 The shaggy mounds no longer stood, 
 Emerging from entangled wood, 
 But, wave-encircled, seemed to float. 
 Like castle girdled with its moat ; 
 Yet broader floods extending still 
 Divide them from their parent hill, 
 Till each, retiring, claims to be 
 An islet in an inland sea. 
 
 And now, to issue from the glen. 
 
 No pathway meets the wanderer's ken, 
 
 Unless he climb, with footing nice, 
 
 A far-projecting precipice. 
 
 The broom's tough root his ladder made, 
 
 The hazel saplings lent their aid ; 
 
 And thus an airy point he won, 
 
 Where, gleaming with the setting sun. 
 
 One burnished sheet of living gold. 
 
 Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled ; 
 
 In all her length far winding lay, 
 
 With promontory, creek, and bay. 
 
 And islands that, empurpled bright. 
 
 Floated amid the livelier light. 
 
 And mountains, that like giants stand, 
 
 To sentinel enchanted land. 
 
 High on the south, huge Ben-venue 
 
 Down on the lake in masses threw 
 
 Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled, 
 
 The frairinents of an earlier world :
 
 7 8 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 A wildering forest feathered o'er 
 His ruined sides and summit hoar, 
 While on the north, through middle air, 
 Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare. 
 
 Sir W. Scott. 
 
 THE FIERY BIRTH OF THE HILLS. 
 
 O 
 
 HOARY Hills ! tho' ye look aged, ye 
 
 Are but the children of a latter time : 
 
 Methinks I see ye in that hour sublime, 
 When from the hissing cauldron of the sea 
 Ye were upheaven, while so terribly 
 
 The Clouds boiled, and the Lightning scorched ye 
 bare. 
 Wild, new-born, blind Titans in agony, 
 
 Ye glared at heaven through folds of fiery hair ! 
 Then, in an instant, while ye trembled thus, 
 A hand from heaven, white and luminous, 
 
 Pass'd o'er your brows, and husht your fiery breath 
 Lo I one by one the still Stars gathered round. 
 The great Deep glass'd itself, and with no sound 
 
 A cold Snow glimmering fell, and all was still as 
 death. 
 
 Robert Buchanan.
 
 R/SnVG OF 77/ E HILLS. 79 
 
 GLENGARRIFF. 
 
 A SUN-BURST on the Hay ! Turn and behold ! 
 ^ The restless waves, resplendent in their i^Iory, 
 
 Sweep flittering past yon purpled promontory, 
 I'right as Apollo's breastplate. Bathed in gold, 
 Yon l)astioned islet gleams. Thin mists are rolled, 
 Translucent, through each glen. A mantle hoary 
 Veils those peaked hills, shapely as e'er in story, 
 Delphic, or Alpine, or Vesuvian old. 
 Minstrels have sung. From rock and headland proud 
 The wild wood spreads its arms around the bay. 
 The manifold mountain cones, now dark, now bright, 
 Now seen, now lost, alternate from rich light 
 To spectral shade : and each dissolving cloud 
 Reveals new mountains while it floats away. 
 
 Sir Aubrey de Vere. 
 
 THE RISING OF THE HILLS. 
 
 O INKING, sinking, all the country slowly sank be- 
 
 *^ neath the waves ; 
 
 And the ocean swept the forests, reptiles, dragons, to 
 
 their graves ; 
 Afterwards with shells old Ocean all the conquered 
 
 country paves. 
 
 Singing, " It is mine for ever ! " — not for ever, not for 
 long. 
 
 For the subterranean forces laughed at Ocean's boast- 
 ful song. 
 
 Lifting uj) the sunken country, for their backs were 
 broatl antl stronjr.
 
 8o THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Till the sea-shells were uplifted even to the mountain 
 
 peak. 
 Far below the waves are moaning, but with voices 
 
 faint and weak. 
 Sorrowing for their lost dominion and the toys they 
 
 vainly seek. 
 
 Philip Gilbert Hamerton. 
 
 THE ALPS FROM MILAN. 
 
 T CLIMBED the roofs at break of day ; 
 -*■ Sun-smitten Alps before me lay. 
 I stood among the silent statues, 
 And statued pinnacles, mute as they. 
 
 How faintly flushed, how phantom-fair, 
 Was Monte Rosa, hanging there 
 
 A thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleys 
 And snowy dells in a golden air. 
 
 Alfred Tennyson- 
 
 MISTS ON BEN LOMOND. 
 
 T OOK down that dark ravine, 
 
 -*— ' And watch the white and swiftly-climbing mist 
 
 Rolling in silence up the narrow fissure 
 
 Between those rugged, black, forbidding rocks, 
 
 Like troops of angels cHmbing fearlessly 
 
 Into a dark, and rough, and hardened soul, 
 
 Storming its blackened citadel with love ! 
 
 p. G. Hamerton.
 
 MOUNT OF OLIVES. 8 1 
 
 MOUNT OF OLIVES. 
 
 SWEETE sacred hill ! on whose fair bro\ 
 My Saviour sate, shall I allow 
 Lanu^uage to love 
 And Idolize some shade or grove, 
 Neglecting thee ? such ill-plac'd wit, 
 Conceit, or call it what you please, 
 Is the braine's fit, 
 And meere disease. 
 
 Cotswold, and Cooper s both have met 
 With learned swaines, and Eccho yet 
 
 Their pipes, and wit ; 
 But thou sleep'st in a deepe neglect, 
 Untouch'd by any ; And what need 
 The sheep bleat thee a silly Lay, 
 
 That heard'st both reed 
 
 And sheepward play ? 
 
 Yet if Poets mind thee well. 
 They shall find thou art their hill. 
 
 And fountaine too. 
 Their Lord with thee had most to doe. 
 He wept once, waked whole nights on thee 
 And from thence (his sufferings ended) 
 
 Unto glorie 
 
 Was attended. 
 
 Being there, this spacious ball 
 Is but his narrow footstoole all ; 
 
 And what we thinke 
 Unsearchable, now with one winke 
 6
 
 82 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 He doth comprise. But in this aire 
 When he did stay to beare our 111 
 
 And sinne, this Hill 
 
 Was then his chaire. 
 
 Henry Vaughan. 
 
 AN ITALIAN SUNSET. 
 
 TT 7E stood 
 
 ^ * Looking upon the evening, and the flood 
 Which lay between the city and the shore, 
 Paved with the image of the sky. The hoar 
 And aery Alps, towards the north, appeared 
 Through mist — an heaven-sustaining bulwark reared 
 Between the east and west ; and half the sky 
 Was roofed wnth clouds of rich emblazonry, 
 Dark purple at the zenith, which still grew 
 Down the steep w^est into a wondrous hue 
 Brighter than burning gold, even to the rent 
 Where the swift sun yet paused in his descent 
 Among the many-folded hills. They were 
 Those famous Euganean hills, which bear. 
 As seen from Lido through the harbor piles, 
 The likeness of a clump of peaked isles. 
 And then, as if the earth and sea had been 
 Dissolved into one lake of fire, were seen 
 Those mountains towering, as from waves of flame, 
 Around the vaporous sun ; from which there came 
 The inmost purple spirit of light, and made 
 Their very peaks transparent. 
 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley.
 
 THE RAINBOW. %l 
 
 THE RAINBOW. 
 
 Mv heart leaps up when I beliold 
 A Kainbow in the sky. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 TT was a day of shower and sun, 
 •*■ By summer breezes softly fanned, 
 Amongst the vales and mountains dun, 
 
 And sprinkled Lakes of Cumberland : 
 Such day as best that land may choose, 
 
 Where Nature's choicest gifts have striven, 
 And Earth puts forth her freshest hues 
 
 To sparkle in the light of heaven. 
 
 I passed along the mountain side, 
 
 And watched the falling drops that broke 
 The crystal Lake's transparent tide, 
 
 While hills beyond in sunshine woke : 
 And marked the gleams that passing o'er 
 
 Brought out in clear distinctive view 
 The hcathered outlines that before 
 
 Were melted into shapeless blue. 
 
 But soon a sight of new surprise 
 
 Called off my thoughts from even flow : 
 I saw a rainbow arch arise 
 
 And span half-way the vale below. 
 In bold relief it stood displayed 
 
 Against the further mountain's side ; 
 And bolder still in darkest shade 
 
 Towered up that mountain's loftier pride.
 
 84 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Most beautiful it was to trace 
 
 That blended arch of sparkling rain 
 Rise gently upward from the base, 
 
 And fall as gently down again. 
 That faultless outline's perfect mould, 
 
 Those blended hues in fair degree ; 
 Bat yet, though beauteous to behold, 
 
 It was no sight of joy to me. 
 
 For I in southern lands had dwelt, 
 
 Where hills are low and clouds are high ; 
 And, taught unconsciously, had felt 
 
 That bow an inmate of the sky. 
 And fondly deemed that arch's span. 
 
 That soaring pile that sprang to birth, 
 A breadth beyond the reach of man, 
 
 A height above the touch of earth. 
 
 It was a shape of joy and praise, 
 
 The welcome " rainbow in the sky ; " 
 Linked with young childhood's hohest gaze 
 
 And poets' sweetest minstrelsy ; 
 And sight it was of saddening pain 
 
 To find the covenant bow shrunk down, 
 A humble inmate of the plain, 
 
 A mountain's tributary crown. 
 
 T. BlRBIDGE.
 
 A STILL DAY IN ACTUMX. 85 
 
 A STILL DAY IN AUTUMN. 
 
 T LOVE to wander tlirough tlie woodlands hoary, 
 ■*■ In the soft Hght of an autumnal day, 
 When Summer gathers up her robes of glory, 
 And like a dream of beauty glides away. 
 
 How through each loved, familiar path she lingers, 
 Serenely smiling through the golden mist. 
 
 Tinting the wild grape with her dewy fingers, 
 Till the cool emerald turns to amethyst. 
 
 Kindling the faint stars of the hazel, shining 
 
 To light the gloom of Autumn's mouldering halls, 
 
 With hoary plumes the clematis entwining, 
 
 Where o'er the rock her withered garland falls. 
 
 Warm lights are on the sleepy uplands waning 
 Beneath dark clouds along the horizon rolled, 
 
 Till the slant sunbeams through their fringes raining, 
 Bathe all the hills in melancholy gold. 
 
 The moist winds breathe of crisped leaves and flowers 
 In the damp hollows of the woodland sown. 
 
 Mingling the freshness of autumnal showers 
 With spicy airs from cedarn alleys blown. 
 
 Beside the brook and on the umbered meadow, 
 Where yellow fern-tufts fleck the fided ground, 
 
 With folded lids beneath their palmy shadow 
 The gentian aods, in dewy slumbers bound. 
 
 Upon those soft, fringed lids the bee sits brooding 
 Like a fond lover, loth to say farewell ; 
 
 Or, with shut wings, through silken folds intruding, 
 Creeps hear her heart his drowsy tale to tell.
 
 S6 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 The little birds upon the hillside lonely- 
 Flit noiselessly along from spray to spray, 
 
 Silent as a sweet, wandering thought that only 
 Shows its bright wings, and softly glides away. 
 
 The scentless flowers, in the warm sunlight dreaming, 
 Forget to breathe their fulness of delight, 
 
 And through the tranced woods soft airs are streaming, 
 Still as the dew-fall of the summer night. 
 
 So, in my heart a sweet, unwonted feehng 
 Stirs, like the wind in ocean's hollow shell. 
 
 Through all its secret chambers sadly stealing, 
 Yet finds no word its mystic charm to tell. 
 
 Sarah Helen Whitman, 
 
 DYING SUMMER. 
 
 /^N tawny hills in faded splendor drest, 
 
 ^^ Of rusty purple and of tarnished gold. 
 Now like some eastern monarch sad and old 
 
 The discrowned Summer lieth down to rest ! 
 
 A mournful mist hangs o'er the mellow plain, 
 
 O'er watery meads that slide down pine-clad heights. 
 And wine-red woods where song no more delights ; 
 
 But only wounded birds cry out in pain. 
 
 A pallid glory lingers in the sky. 
 
 Faint scents of wilding flowers float in the air, 
 All Nature's voices murmur in despdir : 
 
 "Was Summer crowned so late — so soon to "die ? " 
 
 But with a royal smile, she whispers, " Cease ! 
 
 In life is joy and triumph, death is peace ! " 
 
 M. Betham-Edwards.
 
 I'KOSE AND SONG. 87 
 
 EVENING IN IRELAND. 
 
 TI?AIR was that eve, as if from earth away 
 -^ All trace of sin and sorrow 
 Passed, in the li^^ht of the eternal day 
 
 That knows nor night nor morrow. 
 
 The pale and shadowy mountains in the dim 
 
 And glowing distance piled ! 
 A sea of light along the horizon's rim, 
 
 Unljroken, undefiled ! 
 
 Blue sky, and cloud, and grove, and hill, and glen, 
 
 The form and face of man, 
 Beamed with unwonted beauty, as if then 
 
 New earth and heaven began. 
 
 Rev. Dr Murray. 
 
 PROSE AND SONG. 
 
 ILOOK'D upon a plain of green. 
 That some one call'd the land of prose, 
 Where many living things were seen 
 In movement or repose. 
 
 I look'd upon a stately hill 
 
 That well was named the mount of song. 
 Where colden shadows dwelt at will 
 
 But most this fact my wonder bred, 
 
 Though known by all the nobly wise, — 
 
 It was the mountain streams that fed 
 
 The fair green plain's amenities. 
 
 John Stirling.
 
 88 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM "THE LOST BOWER." 
 
 f~^ REEN the land is where my daily 
 ^-^ Steps in jocund childhood played, — 
 Dimpled close with hill and valley, 
 Dappled very close with shade ; 
 Summer snow of apple-blossoms running up from 
 glade to glade. 
 
 There is one hill I see nearer, 
 In my vision of the rest ; 
 And a little wood seems clearer. 
 As it climbeth from the west, 
 Side way from the tree -locked valley to the airy upland 
 crest. 
 
 Small the wood is, green with hazels. 
 And, completing the ascent, 
 Where the wind blows and sun dazzles. 
 Thrills in leafy tremblement ; 
 Like a heart that, after climbing, beateth quickly 
 through content. 
 
 Not a step the wood advances 
 O'er the open hill-top's bound ; 
 There, in green arrest, the branches 
 See their image on the ground : 
 You may walk beneath them smihng, glad with sight 
 and glad with sound. 
 
 For you hearken on your right hand. 
 
 How the birds do leap and call 
 
 In the green wood, out of sight and
 
 SHASTA. 89 
 
 Out of reach and fear of all ; 
 And the squirrels crack the filberts, through their 
 cheerful madrigal. 
 
 On your left, the sheep are cropping 
 The slant grass and daisies pale ; 
 And five apple-trees stand dropping 
 Separate shadows toward the vale, 
 Over which, in choral silence, the hills look you their 
 "All hail!" 
 
 Far out, kindled by each other, 
 Shining hills on hills arise; 
 Close as brother leans to brother, 
 When they press beneath the eyes 
 Of some father praying blessings from the gifts of 
 Paradise. 
 
 While beyond, above them mounted, 
 And above their woods also, 
 Malvern hills, for mountains counted 
 Not unduly, loom a-row, — 
 Keepers of Piers Plowman's visions, through the sun- 
 shine and the snow. 
 
 E. B. Browning. 
 
 SHASTA. 
 
 A ROUND whose hoar and mighty head 
 "^^^ Still rolled a sunset sea of red. 
 While troops of clouds a space below 
 Were drifting wearily and slow, 
 As seeking shelter for the night, 
 Like weary sea-birds in their flight. 
 
 JOAQUTN MiLI.F.R.
 
 90 THE MOUNTAIiYS. 
 
 AMONG THE FIR-TREES. 
 
 /^N the bare hill-top, by the pinewood's edge, how 
 
 ^-^ joyously rang the noise 
 
 Of the mountain wind in the topmost boughs ! a spell 
 
 there was in its voice. 
 It drew me to leave the goodly sight of the plain 
 
 sweeping far away, 
 And enter the solemnly shaded depths to hear what 
 
 the trees would say. 
 
 But no sooner I trod the russet floor than hushed were 
 
 the magic tones : 
 No stir biit the flight of a startled bird, no sound but 
 
 my foot on the cones. 
 All silently rose the stately shafts, kirtled with lichens 
 
 gi'ay, 
 And the sunlight-flakes on their reddening tops were 
 
 as still and unmoved as they. 
 
 Was it joy or dread that pressed my heart? I felt as 
 
 one who must hear 
 Some long-kept secret, and knows not as yet if it 
 
 bring him hope or fear : 
 I stood as still as the solemn firs, and hearkened with 
 
 waiting mind ; 
 Then I heard far away in the topmost boughs the 
 
 eternal sough of the wind. 
 
 And the thrill of that mystic murmur so entered my 
 
 listening heart. 
 That the very soul of the forest trees became with my 
 
 soul a part ;
 
 AMONG THE FIR-TREES. 91 
 
 I seemed to be raised and borne aloft in that ever- 
 ascending strain, 
 
 With a throb too solemn and deep for joy, too perfect 
 and pure for pain. 
 
 Many voices there are in Nature's choir, and none but 
 
 were good to hear 
 Had we mastered the laws of their music well, and 
 
 could read their meaninc^ clear ; 
 But we who can feel at Nature's touch cannot think as 
 
 yet with her thought. 
 And I only know that the sough of the firs with a spell 
 
 of its own is fraught. 
 
 For the wind when it howls in the chimneys at night 
 
 hath a heavy and dreary sound 
 Of the dull everlasting treadmill of life, which goes so 
 
 wearily round ; 
 And the choirs of waves on the long-drawn sands, too 
 
 well I hear in their strain 
 The throb of our human anguish deep, where triumph 
 
 wrestles with pain. 
 
 But neither passion nor sorrow I hear in this rhythmic 
 steady course. 
 
 Only the movement resistless and strong of some all- 
 pervading Force : 
 
 The one universal Life which moves the whole of the 
 outward plan. 
 
 Which throbs in winds, and waters, and flowers, in 
 insect, and bird, and man. 
 
 Oh, would that the unknown finer touch which makes 
 us other than those
 
 92 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Did not hold us so far asunder in soul from their har- 
 mony and repose ! 
 
 The self-same fountain doth life and growth to us and 
 to them impart. 
 
 But only at moments we taste and know the peace 
 which is Nature's heart. 
 
 And yet it may be that long, long hence, when icons 
 
 of effort have pass'd, 
 We shall come — not blindly impelled, but free — to 
 
 the orbit of order at last, 
 And a finer peace shall be wrought out of pain than 
 
 the stars in their courses know I — 
 Ah me ! but my soul is in sorrow till then, and the feet 
 
 of the years are slow ! 
 
 Fraser's Magazine. 
 
 THE BROOK AND THE WAVE. 
 
 npHE brooklet came from the mountain, 
 -*- As sang the bard of old, 
 Running with feet of silver 
 Over the sands of gold ! 
 
 Far away in the briny ocean 
 
 There rolled a turbulent wave, 
 Now singing along the sea-beach, 
 
 Now howling along the cave. 
 
 And the brooklet has found the billow, 
 Though they flowed so far apart. 
 
 And has filled with its freshness and sweetness 
 That turbulent, bitter heart ! 
 
 H. W. Longfellow.
 
 MOUXTAIN HEART' S-EASE. 93 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN HEART'S-EASE. 
 
 "O Y scattered rocks and turbid waters shifting, 
 ^^ By furrowed glade and dell, 
 To feverish men thy calm, sweet face uplifting, 
 Thou stayest them to tell 
 
 The delicate thought that cannot find expression, 
 
 For ruder speech too fair, 
 That, like thy petals, trembles in possession. 
 
 And scatters on the air. 
 
 The miner pauses in his rugged labor, 
 
 And, leaning on his spade, 
 Laughingly calls unto his comrade-neighbor 
 
 To see thy charms displayed; 
 
 But in his eyes a mist unwonted rises. 
 
 And for a moment clear, 
 Some sw^eet home face his foolish thought surprises 
 
 And passes i:i a tear, — 
 
 Some boyish vision of his Eastern village. 
 
 Of uneventful toil, 
 Where golden harvests followed quiet tillage 
 
 Above a peaceful soil : 
 
 One moment only, for the pick, uplifting, 
 
 Through root and fibre cleaves, 
 And on the muddy current slowly drifting 
 
 Are swept thy bruised leaves.
 
 94 THE MOUXTALYS. 
 
 And yet, O poet, in thy homely fashion, 
 
 Thy work thou dost fulfil, 
 For on the turbid current of his passion 
 
 Thy face is shining still ! 
 
 Bret Harte. 
 
 HAREBELLS. 
 
 TTIGH in the clefts of the rock, 'mid the cedars, 
 -*- -*- Hangeth the harebell the waterfall nigh. 
 Blue are its petals, deep blue tinged with purple, 
 Mystical tintings that mirror the sky. 
 
 Amber the waters that, foaming and dashing, 
 Whirl the wild spray far aloft in the air ; 
 Jagged the rocks that piled stratum on stratum 
 Earth's primal secrets and life-throes liy bare. 
 
 Sturdy green cedars and graceful blue harebell, 
 Wild amber waters and opaline spray, 
 Wondrous brown rocks with strange tales of past ages, 
 All over-archeth the clear summer day. 
 
 Ring out, O harebell, thy loveliest measures, 
 Chime with the falling of waters below ; 
 Earth's brightest glories, her purest of treasures. 
 Spring from, some agony, some needful woe. 
 
 Signed with the cross is the form of dear Nature, 
 Heart's blood still ransoms each gift from the soul, 
 High over all bend the arms of the Maker, 
 Tenderly folding and blending the whole. 
 
 L. D. PVCHOWSKA.
 
 UP IN THE WILD. 95 
 
 UP IiN THE WILD. 
 
 T TP in a wild where no one comes to look 
 ^^ There lives and sings a little lonely brook : 
 Liveth and singeth in the dreary pines, 
 Yet creepeth on to where the daylight shines. 
 
 Pure from their heaven, in mountain chalice caught, 
 It drinks the rains, as drinks the soul her thought ; 
 And down dim hollows where it winds along, 
 Pours its life-burden of unlistened song. 
 
 I catch the murmur of its undertone, 
 That sigheth ceaselessly. Alone ! alone ! 
 And hear afar the Rivers gloriously 
 Shout on their paths towards the shining sea ! 
 
 The voiceful Rivers, chanting to the sun. 
 And wearing names of honor, every one : 
 Outreaching wide, and joining hand with hand 
 To pour great gifts along the asking land. 
 
 Ah ! lonely brook ! creep onward through the pines ; 
 Press through the gloom to where the dayhght shines ! 
 Sing on among the stones, and secretly 
 Feel how the'fioods are all akin to tliee ! 
 
 Drink the sweet rain the gentle heaven sendeth ; 
 Hold thine own path, however-ward it tendeth ; 
 For somewhere, underneath the eternal sky. 
 Thou, too, shalt find the Rivers, by-and-by ! 
 
 Adeline D. T. Whitney.
 
 96 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 A FLOWER FROxM THE CATSKILLS. 
 
 'T^HE orchards that climb the hillsides, 
 
 That lie in the valley below, 
 Are white in the soft May sunshine, 
 
 And fragrant with May-day snow. 
 The violets wakened by April 
 
 Their watch in the meadow yet keep, 
 The golden spurs of the columbine 
 
 Are hung where the lichens creep. 
 
 Still gleams by the sluggish waters 
 
 Some loitering marigold, 
 Where ferns, late greeting the sunshine, 
 
 Their downy green plumes unfold. 
 And just by the wooded waysides 
 
 Faint glows the azalea's blush, — 
 The dawn of the coming summer, 
 
 The morning's awakening flush ! 
 
 But there where the wind-rent rain-clouds 
 
 O'ershadow the Catskills' crest, 
 There blossoms one flower more precious, 
 
 Far sweeter than all the rest. 
 Where scarcely a leaf has opened 
 
 The promise of summer to give, 
 Where the lingering winds of winter 
 
 For the sleet and the snow-drift grieve, 
 
 Where the trees grow scant and stunted. 
 And scarcely a shadow is cast, 
 
 There nestles the Trailing Arbutus 
 Close, close to the hills' cold breast.
 
 J' LOWER FROM T//E CATSKIIJ.S. 97 
 
 The storm winds give to it courage, 
 
 The skies give its power to bless, 
 And it giveth to all its loving 
 
 In its happy thankfulness. 
 
 Now pink as the lip of the sea-shell, 
 
 Now white as the breakers' foam, 
 It spreadeth its stainless treasure 
 
 To brighten its rugged home. 
 Low trailing amid the mosses 
 
 Its delicate blossoms lie, — 
 Giving the earth its beauty, 
 
 Its worship giving the sky. 
 
 Though bleak be the home that reared it, 
 
 And rough be its lullaby. 
 Gathering strength from the tempest, 
 
 And grace from the fair blue sky ; 
 It waiteth with patient longing 
 
 In the snow's embrace held fast, 
 Still trusting, with faith unbroken. 
 
 The sun to welcome at last : 
 
 To welcome with loving greeting 
 
 The soft falling step of Spring, 
 Scarce felt on the northern hill-slopes 
 
 Where the lingering snow-drifts cling. 
 And faint on the winds upsweeping 
 
 Is wafted its perfume rare. 
 Like the incense of worship ascending, — 
 
 The mountains' low, unspoken prayer ! 
 
 O brave little blossom ! still teach us 
 Through love to be patient and strong.
 
 THE MOUNTAIXS. 
 
 Though the Spring be laggard in coming, 
 
 And the days be dark and long ; 
 Like thy bloom by the rude ways scattered, 
 
 Each day some life may we bless, 
 Till our souls, like thy fragrance ascending, 
 
 Reach heavenly perfectness. 
 
 E. w. c. 
 
 A MOUNTAIN CATARACT. 
 
 T TNPERISHING youth ! 
 ^^ Thou leapest from forth 
 The cell of thy hidden nativity ; 
 Never mortal saw 
 The cradle of the strong one ; 
 Never mortal heard 
 The gathering of his voices ; 
 
 The deep-murmured charm of the son of the rock, 
 That is lisped evermore at his slumberless fountain. 
 There's a cloud at the portal, a spray-woven veil 
 At the shrine of his ceaseless renewing : 
 It embosoms the roses of dawn, 
 It entangles the shafts of the noon, 
 And into the bed of its stillness 
 The moonshine sinks down as in slumber, 
 That the son of the rock, that the nursling of heaven, 
 May be born in a holy twilight. 
 
 S. T. Coleridge.
 
 rilE RIVEirS LAMEXT. 99 
 
 THE RIVER'S LAMENT. 
 
 T CAME down rushing from the mountain, 
 -*- Jubilant with pride and glee, 
 Leaping through the winds and shouting 
 That I had an errand to the sea. 
 
 The rocks stood against me, and we wrestled, 
 But I burst from the holding of their hands, 
 
 Broke from their holding, and went slipping 
 And sliding into lower lands. 
 
 I carolled as I went, and the woodlands 
 
 Smiled as my sound murmured by; 
 And the birds on the wing heard me singing. 
 
 And dropped me a blessing from the sky. 
 
 The flowers on the bank heard me singing, 
 And the buds, that had been red and sweet, 
 
 Grew redder and sweeter as they listened, 
 And their golden hearts began to beat. 
 
 The cities through their din heard me passing, 
 They came out and crowned me with their towers ; 
 
 And the trees hung up their garlands above me. 
 And coaxed me to rest among their bowers. 
 
 But I laughed, as I left them in the sunshine ; 
 
 There was never aught of rest for me. 
 Till I mingled my waters with the ocean. 
 
 Till I sang in the chorus of the sea.
 
 CO THE MOUNTAIXS. 
 
 Ah me ! for my pride upon the mountain, 
 
 Ah me ! for my beauty in the plains, 
 When my crest floated glorious in the sunshine, 
 
 And the clouds showered strength into my veins ! 
 
 Alas ! for the blushing little blossoms. 
 
 And the grasses, with their long golden drifts, 
 
 For the shadow of the forest in the noontide, 
 And full-handed cities with their gifts ! 
 
 I have mingled my waters with the ocean, 
 I have sung in the chorus of the sea ; 
 
 And my soul, from the tumult of the billows. 
 Will never more be jubilant and free. 
 
 I sing, but the echo of my mourning 
 
 Returns to me shrieking back again, 
 One wild weak note amongst the myriads 
 
 That are sobbing 'neath the thunders of the main. 
 
 Oh well, for the dew-drops on the gowan ! 
 
 Oh well, for the pool upon the height, 
 Where the birds gather thirsty in the noontide. 
 
 And stars watch all through the summer night 1 
 
 There is no home-returning for the waters 
 
 To the mountain whence they came, glad and free ; 
 
 There is no happy ditty for the river 
 That has sung in the chorus of the sea. 
 
 R. M.
 
 THE FIXE. loi 
 
 THE PINE. 
 
 A LONE, without a friend or foe, 
 -^^- Upon the rugged chff I stanil, 
 And see the valley far below 
 
 Its social world of trees expand ; 
 A hermit pine I muse above, 
 And dream and wait for her I love, 
 For her, the fanciful and tree, 
 That brings my purest joy to me. 
 
 Oft dancing from the laughing sea 
 
 When morning blazes on my crest. 
 All wild with life and gayety 
 
 She springs to me with panting breast. 
 Her sun-spun ringlets loosely blown, 
 And eyes that seem the dawn to own. 
 She greets me with impetuous air. 
 And shakes the dew-drops from my hair. 
 
 At midnight as I stand asleep, 
 
 While constellations stream above, 
 I hear her up the mountain creep 
 
 With sighs and whispers full of love : 
 There in my arms she gently lies. 
 And breathes mysterious melodies, 
 And with her childlike winning ways 
 Among my leaves and branches plays. 
 
 Heaped in the winter's snowy shroud, 
 With icy fingers to each limb. 
 
 Or drenched by summer's thunder-cloud. 
 Of her, and her alone, I dream ;
 
 102 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 And where the trees are bending low, 
 And the broad lake with crisped flow 
 Darkens its face despite the sun, 
 I watch her through the valley run. 
 
 Sometimes, when parched in summer noon, 
 
 She brings me odors from the east, 
 And draws a cloud before the sun 
 And fans me into peaceful rest. 
 In my siesta while I drowse 
 She rustling slips amid my boughs, 
 And teases me, the while that I 
 In dreamy whispers make reply. 
 
 Sometimes as if in fierce despair. 
 The tears of passion on her face. 
 
 With tempest locks and angry air 
 
 She round me flings her wild embrace. 
 
 And sobs, and moans, and madly storms, 
 
 And struggles in my aching arms 
 
 Until, the wild convulsion past, 
 
 She falls away to sleep at last. 
 
 And if my fate at length ordain 
 This fallen trunk of mine to bear 
 
 Some stately vessel o'er the main, 
 I know she'll not forget me there. 
 
 And oft the sailor 'mid the gale 
 
 Above my corse shall hear her wail 
 
 And sob with tears of agony. 
 
 Far out on the Atlantic sea. 
 
 W. W. Story.
 
 TO THE RIVER ARTE. 103 
 
 LARCH TREES. 
 
 A LL men speak ill of thee, unlucky Tree ! 
 
 Spoilintj; with graceless line the mountain edge, 
 Clotliing with awkward sameness rifted ledge, 
 Or uplands swelling brokenly and free : 
 Yet thou shalt win some few good words of me. 
 Thy boughs it is that teach the wind to mourn, 
 Haunting deep inland spots and groves forlorn 
 With the true murmurs of the plaintive sea. 
 When tuft and shoot on vernal woodlands shine, 
 Who hath a green unwinterlike as thine ? 
 And when thou leanest o'er some beetling brow, 
 With pale thin twigs the eye can wander through, 
 There is no other tree on earth but thou 
 Which brings the sky so near, or makes it seem so blue. 
 
 F. W. Faber. 
 
 TO THE RIVER ARVE. 
 
 Supposed to be written at a Hamlet near the 
 "Foot of Mont Blanc. 
 
 IVrOT from the sands or cloven rocks, 
 -^^ Thou rapid Arve ! thy waters flow ; 
 Nor earth, within her bosom, locks 
 
 Thy dark unfathomed wells below. 
 Thy springs are in the cloud, thy stream 
 
 Begins to move and murmur first 
 Where ice-peaks feel the noonday beam. 
 
 Or rain-storms on the glacier burst.
 
 104 THE MOUXTAIXS. 
 
 Born where the thunder and the blast 
 
 And morning's earhest light are born, 
 Thou rushest swoln, and loud, and fast, 
 
 By these low homes as if in scorn : 
 Yet humbler springs yield purer waves : 
 
 And brighter, glassier s- reams than thine, 
 Sent up from earth's unHghted caves. 
 
 With heaven's own beam and image shine. 
 
 Yet stay ; for here are flowers and trees ; 
 
 Warm rays on cottage-roofs are here ; 
 And laugh of girls, and hum of bees, — 
 
 Here linger till thy waves are clear. 
 Thou heedest not — thou hastest on ; 
 
 From steep to steep thy torrent falls. 
 Till, minghng with the mighty Rhone, 
 
 It rests beneath Geneva's walls. 
 
 Rush on — but were there one with me 
 
 That loved me, I would light my hearth 
 Here, where with God's own majesty 
 
 Are touched the features of the earth. 
 By these old peaks, white, high, and vast, 
 
 Still rising as the tempests beat, 
 Here would I dwell and sleep, at last, 
 
 Among the blossoms at their feet. 
 
 William C. Bryant. 
 
 THE ALPINE FLOWERS. 
 
 ly yf EEK dwellers 'mid yon terror-stricken chffs ! 
 ^^^ With brows so pure, and incense-breathing lips. 
 Whence are ye ? Did some white-winged messenger 
 On Mercy's missions trust your timid germ 
 To the cold cradle of eternal snows ?
 
 COM PENS A T/OiV. i o 5 
 
 Or, breathing on the callous icicles, 
 Bid them with tear drops nurse ye ? — 
 
 Tree nor shrub 
 Dare that drear atmosphere ; no polar pine 
 Uprears a veteran front ; yet there ye stand, 
 Leaning your cheeks against the thick-ribbed ice, 
 And looking up with brilliant eyes to Him 
 Who bids you bloom unblanched amid the waste 
 Of desolation. Man, who panting toils 
 O'er slippery steeps, or trembling treads the verge 
 Of yawning gulfs o'er which the headlong plunge 
 Is to eternity, looks shuddering up, 
 And marks ye in your placid loveliness — 
 Fearless, yet frail — and, clasping his chill hands, 
 Blesses your pencilled beauty. 'Mid the pomp 
 Of mountain summits rushing on the sky, 
 And chaining the rapt soul in breathless awe, 
 He bows to bind you drooping to his breast. 
 Inhales your spirit from the frost-winged gale, 
 And freer dreams of heaven. 
 
 Lydia H. Sigourney. 
 
 COMPENSATION. 
 
 'T^HE torrent-wave, that breaks with force 
 -■- Impetuous down the Alpine height, 
 Complains and struggles in its course. 
 But sparkles, as the diamond bright. 
 
 The stream in shadowy valley deep 
 
 May slumber in its narrow bed ; 
 But silent, in unbroken sleep, 
 
 Its lustre and its life are fled. 
 
 Metastasio (Mrs. Hemans's Translation).
 
 io6 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 LESSONS FROM THE GORSE. 
 
 "To win the secret of a weed's plain heart." 
 
 Lowell. 
 
 M' 
 
 OUNTAIN gorses, ever golden ! 
 Cankered not the whole year long ! 
 Do you teach us to be strong, 
 Howsoever pricked and holden 
 Like your thorny blooms, and so 
 Trodden on by rain and snow 
 Up the hillside of this life, as bleak as where ye grow ? 
 
 Mountain blossoms, shining blossoms! 
 Do ye teach us to be glad 
 When no summer can be had 
 Blooming in our inward bosoms ? 
 K^, whom God preserveth still, 
 Set as lights upon a hill, 
 Tokens to the wintry earth that Beauty liveth still! 
 
 Mountain gorses, do ye teach us 
 From that academic chair 
 Canopied with azure air, 
 That the wisest word Man reaches 
 Is the humblest he can speak? 
 Ye, who live on mountain peak, 
 Yet live low along the ground, beside the grasses meek ! 
 
 Mountain gorses ! since Linnaeus 
 Knelt beside you on the sod. 
 For your beauty thanking God, — 
 For your teaching, ye should see us
 
 TO A PINE-TREE. 107 
 
 Bowing in prostration new. 
 Whence arisen — if one or two 
 Drops be on our cheeks — O World ! they are not 
 tears, but dew. 
 
 E. B. r.KOWNlNCi. 
 
 TO A PINE-TREE. 
 
 ■ j^AR up on Katalidin thou towerest, 
 -^ Purple-ljhie with the distance and vast; 
 Like a cloud o'er the lowlands thou lowerest, 
 That hangs poised on a lull in the blast, 
 To its fall leaning awful. 
 
 In the storm, like a prophet o'ermaddened, 
 Thou singest and tossest thy branches ; 
 
 Thy heart with the terror is gladdened. 
 Thou forebodest the dread avalanches, 
 When whole mountains swoop vale ward. 
 
 In the calm thou o'erstretchest the valleys 
 With thine arms, as if blessings imploring, 
 
 Like an old king led forth from his palace, 
 When his people to battle are pouring 
 From the city beneath him. 
 
 To the slumberer asleep 'neath thy glooming 
 Thou dost sing of wild billows in motion. 
 
 Till he longs to be swung 'mid their booming 
 In the tents of the Arabs of ocean, 
 Whose finned isles are their cattle.
 
 lo8 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 For the gale snatches thee for his lyre, 
 With mad hand crashing melody frantic, 
 
 While he pours forth his mighty desire 
 To leap down on the eager Atlantic, 
 Whose arms stretch to his playmate. 
 
 The wild storm makes his lair in thy branches, 
 Preying thence on the continent under ; 
 
 Like a lion, crouched close on his haunches, 
 There awaiteth his leap the fierce thunder, 
 Growling low with impatience. 
 
 Spite of winter, thou keep'st thy green glory, 
 Lusty father of Titans past number ! 
 
 The snow-flakes alone make thee hoary. 
 Nestling close to thy branches in slumber, 
 And thee mantling with silence. 
 
 Thou alone know'st the splendor of winter, 
 'iMid thy snow-silvered, hushed precipices, 
 
 Hearing crags of green ice groan and splinter, 
 And then plunge down the muffled abysses 
 In the quiet of midnight. 
 
 Thou alone know'st the glory of Summer, 
 Gazing down on thy broid seas of forest, 
 On thy subjects that send a proud murmur 
 Up to thee, to their sachem, who towerest 
 From thy bleak throne to heaven. 
 
 J. R. Lowell,
 
 B' 
 
 THE LARK. 109 
 
 THE LARK. 
 
 IRD of the wilderness, 
 
 Blithesome and cumberless, 
 Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! 
 
 Emblem of happiness, 
 
 Blest is thy dwelling-place, — 
 Oh to abide in the desert with thee ! 
 
 Wild is thy lay, and loud, 
 
 Far in the downy cloud ; 
 Love gives it energy, love gave it birth ! 
 
 Where, on thy dewy wing, 
 
 Where art thou journeying ? 
 Thy lay is in heaven — thy love is on earth. 
 
 O'er fell and fountain sheen, 
 
 O'er moor and mountain green. 
 O'er the red streamer that heralds the day; 
 
 Over the cloudlet dim. 
 
 Over the rainbow's rim, 
 Musical cherub, soar, singing, away! 
 
 Then when the gloaming comes. 
 
 Low in the heather blooms. 
 Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be ! 
 
 Emblem of happiness. 
 
 Blest is thy dwelling-place, — 
 Oh to abide in the desert with thee ! 
 
 James Hogg.
 
 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 MOUNTAIN PICTURES. 
 
 I. 
 
 Fraxcoxia from the Pemigewasset, 
 
 ONCE more, O Mountains of the North, unveil 
 Your brows, and lay your cloudy mantles by ! 
 
 And once more, ere the eyes that setk ye fail, 
 Uplift against the blue walls of the sky 
 
 Your mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weave 
 Its golden net- work in your belting woods, 
 Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods, 
 
 And on your kingly brows at morn and eve 
 Set crowns of fire ! So shall my soul receive 
 
 Haply the secret of your calm and strength, 
 Your unforgotten beauty interfuse 
 My common life, your glorious shapes and hues 
 And sun-dropped splendors at my bidding come, 
 Loom vast through dreams, and stretch in billowy 
 length 
 
 From the sea-level of my lowland home ! 
 
 They rise before me ! Last night's thunder-gust 
 Roared not in vain : for where its lightnings thrust 
 Their tongues of fire, the great peaks seem so near. 
 Burned clean of mist, so starkly bold and clear, 
 I almost pause the wind in the pines to hear, 
 The loose rock's fall, the steps of browsing deer. 
 The clouds that shattered on your slide- worn walls 
 And spHntered on the rocks their spears of rain 
 Have set in play a thousand waterfalls. 
 Making the dusk and silence of the woods 
 Glad with the laus^hter of the chasing floods,
 
 MONAD XOCK FROM IVACirUSET. i i 
 
 And luminous with blown spray and silver ;^leams, 
 
 While, in the vales below, the dry-lipped streams 
 Sin": to the freshened meadow-lands aijain. 
 
 So, let me hope, the battle- storm that beats 
 The land with hail and fire may pass away 
 With its spent thunders at the break of day, 
 
 Like last night's clouds, and leave, as it retreats, 
 A greener earth and fairer sky behind, 
 Blown crystal clear by Freedom's northern wind ! 
 
 II. 
 
 MOXADNOCK FROM WACIirSKT. 
 
 I WOULD I were a painter, for the sake 
 Of a sweet picture, and of her who led, 
 A fitting guide, with reverenti il tread, 
 Into that mountain mystery. First a lake 
 Tinted with sunset ; next the wavy lines 
 
 Of far-receding hills ; and yet more far, 
 Monadnock lifting from his night of pines 
 His rosy forehead to the evening star. 
 Beside us, purple-zoned, Wachuset laid 
 His head against the West, whose warm light made 
 
 His aureole ; and o'er him, sharp and clear, 
 Like a shaft of lightning in mid-launching stayed, 
 A single level cloud-line, shone upon 
 By the fierce glances of the sunken sun, 
 
 Menaced the darkness with its golden spear ! 
 
 So twilight deepened round us. Still and black 
 The great woods climbed the mountain at our back ; 
 And on their skirts, where yet the lingering day 
 On the shorn greenness of the clearing lay,
 
 112 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 The brown old farm-house Hke a bircrs-nest hung. 
 With home-life sounds the desert air was stirred : 
 The bleat of sheep along the hill we heard, 
 The bucket plashing in the cool, sweet well. 
 The pasture-bars that clattered as they fell ; 
 Dogs barked, fowls fluttered, cattle lowed ; the gate 
 Of the barn-yard creaked beneath the merry Aveight 
 
 Of sun-brown children, listening, while they swung, 
 The welcome sound of supper-call to hear ; 
 And down the shadowy lane, in tinkhngs clear, 
 
 The pastoral curfew^ of the cow-bell rung. 
 Thus soothed and pleased., our backward path we took, 
 
 Praising the farmer's home. He only spake. 
 
 Looking into the sunset o'er the lake, 
 
 Like one to whom the far-off is most near ; 
 " Yes, most folks think it has a pleasant look : 
 
 I love it for my good old mother's sake, 
 
 Who lived and died here in the peace of God ! " 
 
 The lesson of his words we pondered o'er, 
 As silently we turned the eastern flank 
 Of the mountain, where its shadow deepest sank, 
 Doubling the night along our rugged road : 
 We felt that man was more than his abode, — 
 
 The inward life than Nature's raiment more ; 
 And the warm sky, the sun-down tinted hill, 
 
 The forest and the lake, seemed dwarfed and dim 
 Before the saintly soul whose human will 
 
 Meekly in the Eternal foot-steps trod. 
 Making her homely toil and household ways 
 An earthly echo of the song of praise 
 
 Swelling from angel lips and harps of seraphim. 
 
 J. G. Whittier.
 
 SA AT T MA R GEN. 1 1 3 
 
 ABOVE. 
 
 O ACRED to Cyl^ele, tlie wliisperinj^ pine 
 
 ^ Loves the wild grottos where the white cliffs 
 
 shine. 
 Here towers the cypress, preacher to the wise ; 
 Lessening from earth her spiral honours rise, 
 Till, as a spear-point reared, the topmost spray 
 Points to the Eden of eternal day. 
 
 Camoens (Mickle's Transbtion). 
 
 SANCT MARGEN. 
 
 /^OME with me to the mountain, not where rocks 
 ^■^ Soar harsh above the troops of hurrying pines, 
 But where the earth spreads soft and rounded breasts 
 To feed her children ; where the generous hills 
 Lift a green isle betwixt the sky and plain 
 To keep some Old World things aloof from change. 
 Here too 'tis hill and hollow : new-born streams 
 With sweet enforcement, joyously compelled 
 Xike laughing children, hurry down the steeps. 
 And make a dimpled chase athwart the stones ; 
 Pine-woods are black upon the heights, the slopes 
 Are green with pasture, and the bearded corn 
 Fringes the blue above the sudden ridge : 
 A little world whose round horizon cuts 
 This isle of hills with heaven for a sea, 
 Save in clear moments when south-westward gleams 
 France by the Rhine, melting anon to haze. 
 The monks of old chose here their still retreat, 
 8
 
 114 THE MOUXTAINS. 
 
 And called it by the Blessed Virgin's name, 
 Sancta Maria ; which the peasant's tongue, 
 Speaking from out the parent's heart that turns 
 All loved things into little things, has made 
 Sanct Margen, — Holy little Mary, dear 
 As all the sweet home things she smiles upon. 
 
 The monks are gone their shadows fall no more 
 
 Tall-frocked and cowled athwart the evening fields 
 
 At milking-time ; their silent corridors 
 
 Are turned to homes of bare-armed, aproned men, 
 
 Who toil for wife and children. But the bells, 
 
 Pealing on high from two quaint convent towers, 
 
 Still ring the Catholic signals, summoning 
 
 To grave remembrance of the larger life 
 
 That bears our own, like perishable fruit 
 
 Upon its heaven-wide branches. At their sound 
 
 The shepherd-boy far off upon the hill, 
 
 The workers with the saw and at the forge, 
 
 The triple generation round the hearth, — 
 
 Grandames and mothers and the flute-voiced girls. - 
 
 Fall on their knees, and send forth prayerful cries 
 
 To the kind Mother with the little Boy, 
 
 Who pleads for helpless men against the storm, 
 
 Lightning and plagues and all terrific shapes 
 
 Of power supreme. 
 
 And on the farthest height 
 A little tower looks out above the pines, 
 Where mounting you will find a sanctuary 
 Open and still ; without, the silent crowd 
 Of heaven-planted, incense mingling flowers ;
 
 SA NC T MA R GEX. 1 1 5 
 
 Within, the altar where the Mother sits 
 
 'Mid votive tablets hung from far-off years 
 
 By peasants succored in the peril of fire, 
 
 Fever, or flood, who thought that Mary's love, 
 
 Willing but not omnipotent, had stood 
 
 Between their lives and that dread power wliich slew 
 
 Their neighbor at their side. The chapel bell 
 
 Will melt to gentlest music ere it reach 
 
 That cottage on the slope, whose garden-gate 
 
 Has caught the rose-tree boughs, and stands ajar; 
 
 So does the door, to let the sunbeams in ; 
 
 For on the slanting sunbeams angels come 
 
 And visit Agatha who dwells within,. — 
 
 Old Agatha, whose cousins Kate and Nell 
 
 Are housed by her in Love and Duty's name, 
 
 They being feeble, with small withered wits, 
 
 And she believing that the higher gift 
 
 Was given to be shared. 
 
 She kept the company of kings and queens 
 
 And mitred saints who sat below the feet 
 
 Of Francis with the ragged frock and wounds ; 
 
 And Rank for her meant Duty, various, 
 
 Yet equal in its worth, done worthily. 
 
 Command was service ; humblest service done 
 
 By willing and discerning souls was glory. 
 
 Geokge Eliot.
 
 Ii6 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 A GERMAN "BAD." 
 
 TPvEEP within a narrow valley lies a busy little town, 
 •^-"^ While set as for its coronet each mountain bears 
 a chapel crown. 
 
 Every tongue on earth that's spoken in that Babel 
 
 mingled go. 
 Those whose characters are broken, those whose lives 
 
 are white as snow. 
 
 Some for pleasure, some for play, ever marching to 
 
 and fro, — 
 Sick and well and grave and ga}-, — up and down the 
 
 crowd doth flow. 
 
 Through the valley runs a river, bright and rocky, cool 
 
 and swift. 
 Where the wave with many a quiver plays around the 
 
 pine-tree's drift. 
 
 But within the town the streamlet forms a clear and 
 
 shallow pool, 
 Each detail reflected clearly down amidst its shadows 
 
 cool : 
 
 All the men, and all the houses, — all the hanging 
 flower-pots, 
 
 Booths and bonnets, beards and blouses, and the Bar- 
 oness de Kotz ; 
 
 And the gray cliffs overhanging, and the grim and 
 
 solemn pines. 
 Whose forests with their mighty shadows close us in 
 
 with dark green lines :
 
 A GERMAX ''Bad:' 117 
 
 All, — except the cross which towers high aloft into 
 
 the sky, 
 Alone upon that mountain summit, as its Master here 
 
 did die. 
 
 For the mirror was too narrow, and could not the 
 
 whole contain, 
 So it took the lower portion, left out what o"er all 
 
 should reign. 
 
 And methought our living mirrors, in that busy little 
 
 town. 
 Gave back all that eager bustle, to and fro, and up and 
 
 down. 
 
 Faithfully we there reflected all the chatter, all the 
 
 noise. 
 All the talk of one another, — all the flowers, all the 
 
 toys. 
 
 Only we left out the presence, and forgot the thought 
 
 of Him 
 Whose calm and holy memory in our hearts should 
 
 ne'er grow dim. 
 
 Like an old Italian picture, — where the men and 
 
 women sit, 
 Unconscious of the glorious vision, which above their 
 
 heads doth flit, — 
 
 So the upper, better portion of our picture heeding 
 
 not, 
 Broken, selfish, narrow, trivial — life becomes in that 
 
 sweet spot. 
 
 " Good Words.''
 
 Ii8 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 CONSECRATED. 
 
 A MONG the far gray mountains 
 -^^ There lies a lonely grave ; 
 In rain and sunshine ever 
 
 Unkept the grasses wave. 
 
 'Twas there the shepherds buried 
 
 The little shepherd lad, 
 With rude hands fond and tender, 
 
 With voices hush'd and sad. 
 
 No sound was heard of organ, 
 
 No note of funeral psalm, 
 But only sobs of brother hearts 
 
 To bless the mountain calm. 
 
 No priestly voice has hallowed 
 
 The shepherd's place of rest ; 
 No priestly hands have blessed it. 
 
 And yet ^- it has been blessed. 
 
 For there the little shepherd's flock 
 
 Bleats thankfully to God ; 
 A4id grateful songs the sweet birds sing 
 
 Above the grassy sod. 
 
 " The Month.
 
 THE GREAT ST. BERNARD. 119 
 
 THE GREAT ST. BERNARD. 
 
 ■^JIGMT was again descending, when mv mule. 
 
 -^^ That all day long had climbed among the clouds 
 
 Higher and higher still, as by a stair 
 
 Let down from Heaven itself, transporting me, 
 
 Stopped to the joy of both, at that low door ; 
 
 That door which ever, as self-opened, moves 
 
 To them that knock, and nightly sends abroad 
 
 Ministering Spirits. Lying on the watch, 
 
 Two dogs of grave demeanor welcomed me, 
 
 All meekness, gentleness, tho' large of limb ; 
 
 And a lay-brother of the Hospital, 
 
 Who, as we toiled below, had heard by fits 
 
 The distant echoes gaining on his ear. 
 
 Came and held fast my stirrup in his hand, 
 
 While I alighted. Long could I have stood 
 
 With a religious awe contemplating 
 
 That House, the highest in the Ancient World, 
 
 And destined to perform from age to age 
 
 The noblest service, welcoming as guests 
 
 All of all nations and of every faith ; 
 
 A Temple, sacred to Humanity ! 
 
 On the same rock beside it stood the church. 
 Reft of its cross, not of its sanctity; 
 The vesper-bell, for 'twas the vesper-hour. 
 Duly proclaiming through the wilderness : 
 " All ye who hear, whatever be your work. 
 Stop for an instant — move your lips in prayer ! " 
 And, just beneath it, in that dreary dale,
 
 I20 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 If dale it might be called, so near to Heaven, 
 
 A little lake, where never fish leaped up, 
 
 Lay like a spot of ink amid the snow ; 
 
 A star, the only one in that small sky, 
 
 On its dead surface glimmering. 'Twas a place 
 
 Resembling nothing I had left behind. 
 
 As if all worldly ties were now dissolved ; — 
 
 And, to incline the mind still more to thought, 
 
 To thought and sadness, on the eastern shore 
 
 Under a beetling cliff stood half in gloom 
 
 A lonely chapel destined for the dead, 
 
 For such as, having wandered from their way, 
 
 Had perished miserably. Side by side 
 
 Within they lie, a mournful company, 
 
 All in their shrouds, no earth to cover them ; 
 
 Their features full of hfe yet motionless 
 
 In the broad day, nor soon to suffer change, 
 
 Tho' the barred windows, barred against the wolf, 
 
 Are always open ! 
 
 Samuel Rogers. 
 
 THE ALPINE MAIDEN. 
 
 T~\OWN the steep path we wound with careful tread, 
 -*-^ Stones slipping, rolling, bounding far below. 
 And where a vista opened wide ahead 
 We paused in sunset glow. 
 
 Before us, the white Jungfrau, far away, 
 Towered up into the blue and silent sky ; 
 All rosy with the light of dying day, 
 The Silberhorn flamed high.
 
 THE ALPINE MAIDEN. 121 
 
 Down swept the glacier's rough and tortuous hnes, 
 Till lost to sight below ; while silvery clear 
 The laughter of lost streams and stir of pines 
 Made music far and near. 
 
 Sudden the path curved round a wall of stone 
 With Alpine roses corniced, fair and sweet, 
 And there within its hollow, all alone, 
 She stood with sun-browned feet, — 
 
 An Alpine maiden, with her simple store 
 Of berries, waiting on the rocky shelf 
 For travellers who should pass her open door, 
 And singing to herself 
 
 Some quaint old Switzer song born of the sound 
 Of mountain brooks from cloud-lost summits leaping, 
 And mournful-cadenced as the wind that round 
 Their sturm-worn peaks comes sweeping. 
 
 Then, as we paused to taste the dainty food, 
 
 " Where is your school .'' " we asked the mountain 
 
 queen, 
 Wondering at foreign words she understood, 
 And at her gracious mien. 
 
 She raised her brown eyes to the mountains grand, 
 Beyond the pine-tops and the valley near, 
 And with a graceful gesture of her hand, 
 She answered simply, '' Here." 
 
 Oh short, wise answer, striking deep to truth 
 The shallow question did not dream to reach. 
 Such wisdom as, in everlasting youth, 
 The schools can never teach !
 
 12 2 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 A]l came to her, who never strayed to seek ; 
 Her teachers came of every land and race, 
 And taught her all their foreign tongues to speak. 
 But learned from out her face 
 
 The strength of all the hills, their patience high, 
 The beauty and the grace about their feet, 
 That left clear impress on the brow and eye. 
 And made the soul complete ; 
 
 And bore with them afar upon the sea, 
 
 To distant lands, where'er their footsteps strayed, 
 
 — Perpetual blessing in their memory — 
 
 That simple mountain maid. 
 
 Anna C. Brackett. 
 
 THE UNDER-WORLD. 
 
 TORASSE was in his three-and-twentieth year; 
 ^ Graceful and active as a stag just roused; 
 Gentle withal, and pleasant in his speech, 
 Yet seldom seen to smile. He had grown up 
 Among the Hunters of the Higher Alps ; 
 Had caught their starts and fits of thoughtfulness. 
 Their haggard looks, and strange soliloquies, 
 Arising (so say they that dwell below) 
 From frequent dealings with the Mountain Spirits. 
 
 Once, nor long before. 
 Alone at day-break on the Mettenberg, 
 He slipped, he fell ; and, thro' a fearful cleft 
 GHding from ledge to ledge, from deep to deeper. 
 Went to the Under-world ! Long-while he lay 
 Upon his rugged bed — then waked like one
 
 THE UNDER-WORLD. 123 
 
 Wishins: to sleep again and sleep for ever ! 
 For, looking round, he saw or thought he saw 
 Innumerable branches of a Cave 
 Winding beneath that solid Crust of Ice : 
 With here and there a rent that showed the stars ! 
 What then, alas, was left him but to die ? 
 What else in those immeasurable chambers, 
 Strewn with the bones of miserable men 
 Lost like himself? Yet must he wander on, 
 Till cold and hunger set his spirit free ! 
 And, rising, he began his dreary round ; 
 When hark ! the noise as of some mighty Flood 
 Working its way to light ! Back he withdrew, 
 But soon returned, and fearless from despair 
 Dashed down the dismal Channel ; and all day, 
 If day could be where utter darkness was. 
 Travelled incessantly, the craggy roof 
 Just overhead, and the impetuous waves. 
 Nor broad nor deep, yet with a giant's strength 
 Lashing him on. At last as in a pool 
 The water slept ; a pool sullen, profound. 
 Where, if a billow chanced to heave and swell, 
 It broke not; and the roof, descending, lay 
 Flat on the surface. Statue-like he stood. 
 His journey ended ; when a ray divine 
 Shot thro' his soul. Breathing a prayer to Her 
 Whose ears are never shut, the Blessed \'irgin. 
 He plunged, he swam, — and in an instant rose. 
 The barrier passed, in sunshine ! Thro' a vale, 
 Such as in Arcady, where many a thatch 
 Gleamed thro' the trees, half-seen and half-embow- 
 ered,
 
 124 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Glittering the river ran ; and on the bank 
 The young were dancing ('twas a festival-day) 
 All in their best attire. There first he saw 
 His Madelaine. In the crowd she stood to hear, 
 When all drew round, inquiring ; and her face. 
 Seen behind all, and varying, as he spoke. 
 With hope, and fear, and generous sympathy, 
 Subdued him. From that very hour he loved. 
 
 Samuel Rogers. 
 
 THE HOME OF "IL CURATO." 
 
 "DUT what need have I of pictures on my walls ? 
 -"■^ Out of my window every day I see 
 
 Pictures that God has painted, better far 
 Than Raffaelle or Razzi — these great slopes 
 Crowned with golden grain and waving vines 
 And rows of olives ; and then far away 
 Dim purple mountains where cloud-shadows drift 
 Darkening across them ; and, beyond, the sky, 
 Where morning dawns and twilight lingering dies. 
 And then, again, above my humble roof 
 The vast night is as deep with all its stars 
 As o'er the proudest palace of the king. 
 
 W. W. Story. 
 
 THE CENTAUR'S CAVE. 
 
 'T^HEN, from the shore, the rocks and windy sum- 
 
 ■*- mits high 
 Of wood-topt Pelion rear'd their bencon midst the sky. 
 We entered straight a grot of gloomy twilight shade ;
 
 THE CEXTAUR'S CAl'E. 125 
 
 There on a lowly couch the Centiur hui^^e was laid. 
 At lenu;th unmeasured stretched, his rapid legs were 
 
 thrown ; 
 And, shod with horny hoofs, reclin'd upon the stone. 
 But when the Centaur saw the noble kings appear, 
 He rose with courteous act, and kiss'd and brought 
 
 them dainty cheer. 
 The wine in beakers served, the branchy couches spread 
 With scattered leaves, and placed each guest upon his 
 
 bed. 
 In dishes rude the flesh of boars and stags bestowed ; 
 While draughts of luscious wine in equal measure 
 
 flow'd. 
 But now, when food and drink had satisfied the heart, 
 With loud, applauding hands, they urged my minstrel's 
 
 art : 
 That I, in contest match'd against the Centaur sire. 
 Should, to some wide-famed strain, attune the rinmne 
 
 lyre. 
 Through winding cavities that scoop'd the rocky cell, 
 With tone sonorous, thrill'd my sweetly vocal shell. 
 High Pelion's mountain-heads and woody valleys 
 
 round. 
 And all his lofty oaks remurmur'd to the sound. 
 His oaks uprooted rush, and all tumultuous wave 
 Around the darkened mouth of Chiron's hollow cave. 
 The rocks re-echo shrill ; the beasts of forest wild 
 Stand at the cavern's mouth, in listening trance be- 
 
 guiPd : 
 The birds surround the den ; and, as in weary rest, 
 They drop their fluttering wings, forgetful of the nest. 
 Amazed the Centaur saw : his clapping hands he beat
 
 126 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 And stamp'd in ecstasy the rock with hoof'd and horny 
 feet; 
 
 When Typhys threads the cave, and bids the Minyan 
 train 
 
 To hurry swift on board; and thus I ceased my strain. 
 
 The Argonauts leap'd up in haste, and snatch'd their 
 arms again ; 
 
 Forth from the den we sprang, down from the moun- 
 tain high : 
 
 The aged Centaur spread his raised hands towards the 
 sky, 
 
 And call'd on all the gods a safe return to give, 
 
 That, famed in ages yet unborn, the youthful kings 
 might live. 
 
 Descending to the shore, we climb'd the bark again ; 
 
 Each press'd his former "bench and lash'd with oar the 
 main ; 
 
 Huge Pelion's mountain swift receded from our view, 
 
 And o'er vast ocean's green expanse the foam white- 
 chafing flew. 
 
 Onomacritus (Sir C. Elton's Translation). 
 
 CORONACH. 
 
 T TE is gone on the mountain, 
 -*- ^ He is lost to the forest. 
 Like a summer-dried fountain, 
 
 When our need was the sorest. 
 The font, reappearing. 
 
 From the rain-drops shall borrow, 
 But to us comes no cheering, 
 
 To Duncan no morrow !
 
 A VIS /ON' OF HELICON. 127 
 
 The hand of the reaper 
 
 Takes the ears that are hoary, 
 But the voice of the weeper 
 
 Wails manhood in glory ; 
 The autumn winds rushing 
 
 Waft the leaves that are searest, 
 But our flower was in flushing 
 
 When blighting was nearest. 
 
 Fleet foot on the correi, 
 
 Sage counsel in cumber, 
 Red hand in the foray, 
 
 How sound is thy slumber ! 
 Like the dew on the mountain, 
 
 Like the foam on the river, 
 Like the bubble on the fountain, 
 
 Thou art gone, and for ever ! 
 
 Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 A VISION OF HELICON. 
 
 THROUGH the black, rushing smoke-bursts 
 Thick breaks the red flame ; 
 All Etna heaves fiercely 
 Her forest-clothed frame. 
 
 Not here, O Apollo ! 
 Are haunts meet for thee. 
 But, where Helicon breaks down 
 In cliff to the sea. 
 
 Where the moon-silver'd inlets 
 Send up their light voice 
 Up the still vale of Thisbe, 
 Oh speed, and rejoice !
 
 123 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 On the sward at the cliff-top 
 Lie strewn the white flocks ; 
 On the cliff-side the pigeons 
 Roost deep in the rocks. 
 
 In the moonlight the shepherds, 
 Soft lull'd by the rills, 
 Lie wrapt in their blankets. 
 Asleep on the hills. 
 
 — What forms are tliese coming 
 So white through the gloom ? 
 What garments out-glistening 
 The gold-flower'd broom ? 
 
 What sweet-breathing presence 
 Out-perfumes the thyme ? 
 What voices enrapture 
 The night's balmy prime ? — 
 
 'Tis Apollo comes leading 
 His choir, the Nine. 
 
 — The leader is fairest, 
 But all are divine. 
 
 They are lost in the hollows ! 
 They stream up again ! 
 What seeks on this mountain 
 The glorified train ? — 
 
 They bathe on this mountain. 
 In the spring by their road ; 
 Then on to Olympus, 
 Their endless abode ! 
 
 Matthew Arnold.
 
 rilK FAIRIES. 129 
 
 THE FAIRIES. 
 A Child's Song. 
 
 T TP tlie airy mountain, 
 ^^ Down the rushy i^Ien, 
 We daren't go a-huntin<^ 
 
 For fear of little men ; 
 Wee folk, good folk, 
 
 Trooping all together ; 
 Green jacket, red cap. 
 
 And white owl's feather ! 
 
 Down along the rocky shore 
 
 Some make their home. 
 They live on crispy pan-cakes 
 
 Of yellow tide-foam ; 
 Some in the reeds 
 
 Of the black mountain lake, 
 With frogs for their watch-dogs, 
 
 All night awake. 
 
 High on the hilJ-top 
 
 The old King sits ; 
 He is now so old and gray 
 
 He's nigh lost his wits. 
 With a bridge of white mist 
 
 Columbkill he crosses, 
 On his stately journeys 
 
 From Slievelt-ague to Rosses ; 
 Or going up with music 
 
 On cold starry nights. 
 To sup with the Queen 
 
 Of the gav Northern Lights. 
 9
 
 130 THE MOUXTAINS. 
 
 They stole little Bridget 
 
 For seven years long ; 
 When she came down again 
 
 Her friends were all gone. 
 They took her lightly back, 
 
 Between the night and morrow. 
 They thought that she was fast asleep. 
 
 But she was dead with sorrow. 
 They have kept her ever since 
 
 Deep within the lakes 
 On a bed of flag-leaves, 
 
 Watching till she wakes. 
 
 By the craggy hill-side. 
 
 Through the mosses bare, 
 They have planted thorn-trees 
 
 For pleasure here and there. 
 Is any man so daring 
 
 As dig one up in spite, 
 He shall find the thornies set 
 
 In his bed at night. 
 
 Up the airy mountain, 
 
 Down the rushy glen, 
 We daren't go a-hunting 
 
 For fear of. little men ; 
 Wee folk, good folk. 
 
 Trooping all together ; 
 Green jacket, red cap. 
 
 And white owFs feather ! 
 
 William Allingham.
 
 CATIIAIR FH ARGUS. 13 1 
 
 CATHAIR FH ARGUS. 
 {Fergus's Seat.) 
 
 (A mountain in the Island of Arran, the summit of which resembles a 
 gigantic human profile.) 
 
 TT 7ITH face turned upward to the changeful sky, 
 
 ' '^ I, Fergus, lie, — supine in frozen rest ; 
 The maiden morning clouds slip rosily 
 
 Unclasped, unclasping, down my granite breast ; 
 The lightning strikes my brow and passes by. 
 
 There's nothing new beneath the sun, I wot : 
 I, " Fergus " called, — the great pre-Adamite, 
 
 Who for my mortal body blindly sought 
 Rash immortality, and on this height 
 
 Stone-bound, for ever am and yet am not, — 
 
 There's nothing new beneath the sun, I say. 
 
 Ye pygmies of a later race, who come 
 And play out your brief generation's play 
 
 Below me, know, I too spent my life's sum. 
 And revelled through my short tumultuous day. 
 
 Oh. wliat is man that he should mouth so grand 
 Through his poor thousand as his seventy years .? 
 
 Whether as king I ruled a trembling land. 
 
 Or swayed by tongue or pen my meaner peers, 
 
 Or earth's whole learning once did understand, —
 
 132 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 What matter? The star-angels know it all. 
 
 They who came sweeping through the silent night 
 And stood before me, yet did not appal : 
 
 Till, fighting 'gainst me in their courses bright,* 
 Celestial smote terrestrial. — Hence, my fall. 
 
 Hence Heaven cursed me with a granted prayer ; 
 
 Made my hill-seat eternal : bade me keep 
 My pageant of majestic lone despair, 
 
 While one by one into the infinite deep 
 Sank kindred, realm, throne, world : yet I lay there. 
 
 There still I lie. Where are my glories fled ? 
 
 My wisdom that I boasted as divine ? 
 My grand primeval women fair, who shed 
 
 Their whole life's joy to crown one hour of mine, 
 And hved to curse the love they coveted ? 
 
 Gone — gone Uncounted eeons have rolled by, 
 And still my ghost sits by its corpse of stone, 
 
 And still the blue smile of the new-formed sky 
 
 Finds me unchanged. Slow centuries crawling on 
 
 Bring myriads happy death : — I cannot die. 
 
 My stone-shape mocks the dead man's peaceful face, 
 And straighten-ed arm that will not labor more ; 
 
 And yet I yearn for a mean six-foot space 
 To moulder in, with daisies growing o'er, 
 
 Rather than this unearthly resting-place ; — 
 
 Where pinnacled, my silent efiigy 
 
 Against the sunset rising clear and cold 
 
 Startles the musing stranger saihng by, 
 
 And calls up thoughts that never can be told. 
 
 Of life, and death, and immortality. 
 
 * " The stars in their courses fought against Sisera."
 
 CATIIAIR Fir ARC US. 133 
 
 While I ? — I watch this after-world that creeps 
 
 Nearer and nearer to the feet of God : 
 Ay, though it labors, struggles, sins, and weeps, 
 
 Yet, love-drawn, follows ever Him who trod 
 Through dim Gethsemane to Calvary's steeps. 
 
 O glorious shame ! O royal servitude ! 
 
 High lowliness, and ignorance all-wise ! 
 Pure life with death, and death with life imbued; — 
 
 My centuried splendors crumble 'neath Thine eyes, 
 Thou Holy One who died upon the Rood ! 
 
 Therefore, face upward to the Christian heaven, 
 I, Fergus, lie. — expectant, humble, calm; 
 
 Dumb emblem of the faith to me not given ; 
 
 The clouds drop chrism, the stars their midnight 
 psalm 
 
 Chant over one, who passed away unshriven. 
 
 " I am the Resurrection and the Life." 
 
 So from yon mountain graveyard cries the dust 
 
 Of child to parent, husband unto wife. 
 Consoling, and believing in the Just : — 
 
 Christ lives, though all the universe died in strife. 
 
 Therefore my granite lips for ever pray: 
 
 " O rains, wash out my sin of self abhorred ! 
 
 O sun, melt thou my heart of stone away I 
 
 Out of Thy plenteous mercy save me, Lord ! " 
 
 And thus I wait till Resurrection Day. 
 
 D. M. MiLOCK Craik.
 
 134 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 THE TRUMPETS OF DOOLKARNEIN. 
 
 WITH awful walls, far glooming, that possess'd 
 The passes 'twixt the snow-fed Caspian foun- 
 tains, 
 Doolkarnein, the dread lord of East and West, 
 
 Shut up the northern nations in their mountains ; 
 And upon platforms where the oak-trees grew, 
 
 Trumpets he set, huge beyond dreams of wonder, 
 Craftily purpos'd, when his arms withdrew. 
 
 To make him thought still housed there, like the 
 thunder : 
 And so it fell ; for when the winds blew right, 
 They woke the trumpets to their calls of might. 
 
 Unseen, but heard, their calls the trumpets blew, 
 
 Ringing the granite rocks, their only bearers, 
 Till the long fear into religion grew. 
 
 And never more those heights had human darers. 
 Dreadful Doolkarnein was an earthly god, 
 
 His walls but shadowed forth his mightier frowning ; 
 Armies of giants at his bidding trod 
 
 From realm to realm, king after king discrowning. 
 When thunder spoke, or when the earthquake stirr'd, 
 Then, muttering in accord, his host was heard. 
 
 But when the winters marr'd the mountain shelves 
 And softer changes came with vernal mornings, 
 
 Something had touch'd the trumpets' lofty selves, 
 And less and less rang forth their sovereign warn-
 
 TRUMPETS OF DOOLh'ARXEIX. 135 
 
 Fewer and feebler ; as when silence spreads 
 
 In plague-struck tents, where haughty chiefs, left 
 dying, 
 
 Fail by degrees upon their angry beds, 
 
 Till, one by one, ceases the last stern sighing. 
 
 One by one, thus, their breaths the trumi)ets drew, 
 
 Till now no more the imperious music blew. 
 
 Is he then dead ? Can great Doolkarnein die, 
 
 Or can his endless hosts elsewhere be needed ? 
 Were the great breaths that blew his minstrelsy 
 
 Phantoms, that faded as himself receded ? 
 Or is he anger'd ? Surely he still comes; 
 
 This silence ushers the dread visitation ; 
 Sudden will burst the torrent of his drums, 
 
 And then will follow bloody desolation. 
 So did Fear dream ; though now, with not a sound 
 To scare good Hope, summer had twice crept round. 
 
 Then gathered in a band, with lifted eyes, 
 
 The neighbors ; and those silent heights ascended. 
 Giant, nor aught blasting their bold emprize 
 
 They met, though twice they halted, breath sus- 
 pended, — 
 Once, at a coming like a god's in rage 
 
 With thunderous leaps ; but 'twas the pil'd snow 
 falling ; 
 And once, when in the woods an oak, for age. 
 
 Fell dead, the silence with its groan appalling. 
 At last they came where still, in dread array, 
 As though they still might speak, the trumpets lay. 
 
 Aslant they lay, like caverns above ground, 
 
 The rifted rocks, for hands, about them clinging,
 
 136 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Their tubes as straight, their mighty mouths as round 
 And firm, as when the rocks were first set rino-ing. 
 
 Fresh from their unimaginable mould 
 
 They might have seemed, save that the storms had 
 stain'd them 
 
 With a rich rust, that now, with gloomy gold 
 
 In the bright sunshine, beauteously engrain'd them. 
 
 Breathless the gazers look'd, nigh faint for awe, 
 
 Then leaped and laugh'd. What was it now they saw ? 
 
 Myriads of birds. Myriads of birds that fill'd 
 
 The trumpets all with nests and nestling voices ! 
 The great, huge, stormy music had been still'd 
 
 By the soft needs that nurs'd those small, sweet 
 noises ! 
 O thou Doolkarnein, where is now thy wall? 
 
 Where now thy voice divine and all thy forces ? 
 Great was thy cunning, but its wit was small 
 
 Compar'd with Nature's least and gentlest courses. 
 Fears and false creeds may fright the realms awhile ; 
 But Heaven and Earth abide their time and smile. 
 
 Leigh Hunt. 
 
 FROM THE PASSAGE OF HANNIBAL OVER 
 THE ALPS. 
 
 'THURBID with stones and trunks of trees, descends 
 -^ The Alpine stream : the ashen forests rends ; 
 Rolls mountain fragments, crumbling to the shock, 
 And beats with raving surge the channell'd rock. 
 Of nameless depth, its ever-changing bed 
 Betrays the fording warriors' faithless tread ;
 
 ALPINE PASSAGE OF IfAXXlBAL. 137 
 
 The broad and flat pontoon is launched in vain, 
 
 Hijn^h swells the flood with delu<^es of rain ; 
 
 Snatch'd with his arms, the stagt^erini^ soldier slides, 
 
 And man<;led bodies toss in gulfy tides. 
 
 But now, the o'er-hangino^ Alps, in prospect near, 
 
 Efface remember'd toils in future fear. 
 
 While with eternal frost, with hailstones piled. 
 
 The ice of aijes grasps those summits wild. 
 
 Stiffening with snow, the mountain soars in air. 
 
 And fronts the rising sun, unmelted by the glare. 
 
 As the Tartarean gulf, beneath the ground, 
 
 Yawns to the gloomy lake in hell's profound, 
 
 So high earth's heaving mass the air invades. 
 
 And shrouds the heaven with intercepting shades. 
 
 No spring, no summer, strews its glories here. 
 
 Lone winter dwells upon these summits drear, 
 
 And guards his mansion round the endless year. 
 
 Mustering from far, around his grisly form, 
 
 Black rains, and hail-storm showers, and clouds of 
 
 storm. 
 Here in their wrathful kingdom wliirlwinds roam, 
 And the blasts struggle in their Alpine home. 
 The upward sight a swimming darkness shrouds, 
 And the high crags recede into the clouds. 
 First Hercules those untried heights explored, 
 And midst the aerial hills adventurous soar'd ; 
 The gods beheld him cleave through many a cloud. 
 While sinking rocks beneath his footsteps bow'd. 
 And, striving, leave the vanquished steeps below, 
 Where never foot had touched the eternal snow. 
 Did Taurus, piled on Athos, pierce the skies, 
 And Mimas, heav'd on Rhodope, arise,
 
 138 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Haemus its steepy mass on Othr3'-s roll, 
 And Pelion, rear'd on Ossa, shade the pole, 
 Mountain on mountain would in vain be hurl'd, 
 And lessening shrink beside the Alpine world. 
 
 SiLifs Italicus (Translation of Sir C. A. Elton). 
 
 THE BURIAL OF MOSES. 
 
 " And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against 
 Beth-peor ; but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." 
 
 Deut. XXXVI. 6. 
 
 I Y Nebo's lonely mountain, 
 On this side Jordan's wave, 
 In a vale in the land of Moab 
 
 There lies a lonely grave ; 
 And no man dug that sepulchre, 
 
 And no man saw it e'er ; 
 For the angels of God upturned the sod. 
 And laid the dead man there. 
 
 B 
 
 That was the grandest funeral 
 
 That ever passed on earth ; 
 But no man heard the trampling, 
 
 Or saw the train go forth. 
 Noiselessly as the daylight 
 
 Comes when the night is done, 
 And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek 
 
 Grows into the great sun ; 
 
 Noiselessly as the spring-time 
 Her crown of verdure weaves. 
 
 And all the trees on all the hills 
 Open their thousand leaves :
 
 BURIAL OF MOSES. 139 
 
 So, without sound of music 
 
 Or voice of tiiem that wept, 
 Silently down from the mountain's crown 
 
 The great procession swept. 
 
 Perchance the bald old eagle, 
 
 On gray Beth-peor's height, 
 Out of his rocky eyrie 
 
 Looked on the wondrous sight ; 
 Perchance the lion stalking 
 
 Still shuns the hallowed spot : 
 For beast and bird have seen and heard 
 
 That which man knoweth not. 
 
 But when the warrior dieth, 
 
 His comrades in the war, 
 With arms reversed and muffled drum, 
 
 Follow the funeral car ; 
 They show the banners taken. 
 
 They tell the battles won, 
 And after him lead the masterless steed, 
 
 While peals the minute-gun. 
 
 Amid the noblest of the land 
 
 Men lay the sage to rest. 
 And give the bard an honored place. 
 
 With costly marble dressed. 
 In the great minster-transept, 
 
 Where lights like glories fall: 
 And the sweet choir sings, and the organ rings 
 
 Along the emblazoned wall. 
 
 This was the bravest warrior 
 That ever buckled sword,
 
 I40 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 This the most gifted poet 
 
 That ever breathed a word ; 
 And never earth's philosopher 
 
 Traced with his golden pen 
 On the deathless page truths half so sage 
 
 As he wrote down for men. 
 
 And had he not high honor? — 
 
 The hillside for his pall ; 
 To lie in state while angels wait, 
 
 With stars for tapers tall ; 
 And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes 
 
 Over his bier to wave, 
 And God's own hand, in that lonely land. 
 
 To lay him in his grave. 
 
 In that deep grave without a name, 
 
 Whence his uncofRned clay 
 Shall break again — most wondrous thought ! — 
 
 Before the judgment-day, 
 And stand, with glory wrapped around, 
 
 On the hills he never trod. 
 And speak of the strife that won our life 
 
 With the incarnate Son of God. 
 
 O lonely tomb in Moab's land ! 
 
 O dark Beth-peor's hill ! 
 Speak to these curious hearts of ours. 
 
 And teach them to be still ; 
 God hath His mysteries of grace, 
 
 Ways that we cannot tell ; 
 He hides them deep, like the secret sleep 
 
 Of him He loved so well. 
 
 C. F. Alexander.
 
 A LEGEND OE BREGENZ. i.]i 
 
 A LEGEND OF BREGENZ. 
 
 /^^IRT round witli rugged mountains 
 ^-^ The fair Lake Constance lies ; 
 In her blue heart reflected 
 
 Shine back the starry skies ; 
 And, watching each white cloudlet 
 
 Float silently and slow, 
 You think a piece of Heaven 
 
 Lies on our earth below ! 
 
 Midnight is there : and Silence, 
 
 Enthroned in Heaven, looks down 
 Upon her own calm mirror, 
 
 Upon a sleeping town : 
 For Bregenz, that quaint city 
 
 Upon the Tyrol shore. 
 Has stood above Lake Constance 
 
 A thousand years and more. 
 
 Her battlements and towers, 
 
 From off their rocky steep. 
 Have cast their trembling shadow 
 
 For ages on the deep : 
 Mountain, and lake, and valley, 
 
 A sacred legend know, 
 Of how the town was saved, one night, 
 
 Three hundred years ago. 
 
 Far from her hcune and kindred 
 
 A Tyrol maid had fled, 
 To serve in the Swiss valleys, 
 
 And toil for daily bread ;
 
 142 THE MOUNTAIN'S. 
 
 And every year, that fleeted 
 
 So silently and fast, 
 Seemed to bear farther from her 
 
 The memory of the Past. 
 
 She served kind, gentle masters. 
 
 Nor asked for rest or change ; 
 Her friends seemed no more new ones, 
 
 Their speech seemed no more strange ; 
 And when she led her cattle 
 
 To pasture every day, 
 She ceased to look and wonder 
 
 On which side Bregenz lay. 
 
 She spoke no more of Bregenz, 
 
 With longing and with tears ; 
 Her Tyrol home seemed faded 
 
 In a deep mist of years ; 
 She heeded not the rumors 
 
 Of Austrian war and strife ; 
 Each day she rose contented 
 
 To the calm toils of life. 
 
 Yet, when her master's children 
 
 Would clustering round her stand, 
 She sang them ancient ballads 
 
 Of her own native land ; 
 And when at morn and evening 
 
 She knelt before God's throne, 
 The accents of her childhood 
 
 Rose to her hps alone. 
 
 And so she dwelt : the valley 
 More peaceful year by year ;
 
 A LEGEXD OF DREGENZ. 143 
 
 When suddenly strange portents 
 
 Of some <ireat deed seemed near. 
 
 The golden corn was bending 
 Upon its fragile stalk, 
 
 While farmers, heedless of their fields, 
 Paced up and down in talk. 
 
 The men seemed stern and altered, 
 
 With looks cast on the ground ; 
 With anxious faces, one by one. 
 
 The women gathered round ; 
 All talk of flax or spinning 
 
 Or work was put away ; 
 The very children seemed afraid 
 
 To go alone to play. 
 
 One day, out in the meadow 
 
 With strangers from the town, 
 Some secret plan discussing. 
 
 The men w^alked up and down. 
 Yet now and then seemed watching 
 
 A strange uncertain gleam, 
 That looked like lances 'mid the trees 
 
 That stood below the stream. 
 
 At eve they all assembled. 
 
 Then care and doubt were fled ; 
 With jovial laugh they feasted, 
 
 The board was nobly spread. 
 The elder of the village 
 
 Rose up, his glass in hand, 
 And cried, "We drink the downfall 
 
 Of an accursed land !
 
 144 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 "The nio;ht is growing darker, 
 
 Ere one more day is flown, 
 Bregenz, our foeman's stronghold, 
 
 Bregenz shall be our own ! " 
 The women shrank in terror 
 
 (Yet Pride, too, had her part), 
 But one poor Tyrol maiden 
 
 Felt death within her heart. 
 
 Before her stood fair Bregenz ; 
 
 Once more her towers arose ; 
 What were the friends beside her ? 
 
 Only her country's foes ! 
 The faces of her kinsfolk. 
 
 The days of childhood flown. 
 The echoes of her mountains. 
 
 Reclaimed her as their own ! 
 
 Nothing she heard around her 
 
 (Though shouts rang forth again), 
 Gone were the green Swiss valleys. 
 
 The pasture, and the plain ; 
 Before her eyes one vision, 
 
 And in her heart one cry, 
 That said, " Go forth, save Bregenz, 
 
 And then, if need be, die ! " 
 
 With trembling haste and breathless, 
 With noiseless step, she sped ; 
 
 Horses and weary cattle 
 
 Were standing in the shed ; 
 
 She loosed the strong, white charger 
 That fed from out her hand,
 
 A LEG EX D OF BREGENZ. i-}5 
 
 She mounted, and she turned his head 
 Towards her native land. 
 
 Out — out into the darkness — 
 
 Faster, and still more fast ; 
 The smooth grass flies behind her, 
 
 The chestnut wood is past ; 
 She looks up : clouds are heavy ; 
 
 Why is her steed so slow ? — 
 Scarcely the wind beside them 
 
 Can pass them as they go. 
 
 " Faster ! " she cries, " Oh faster ! " 
 
 Eleven the church-bells chime : 
 " O God," she cries, " help Bregenz, 
 
 And bring me there in time ! " 
 But louder than bells' ringing, 
 
 Or lowing of the kine. 
 Grows nearer in the midnight 
 
 The rushing of the Rhine. 
 
 Shall not the roaring waters 
 
 Their headlong gallop check ? 
 The steed draws back in terror, 
 
 She leans upon his neck 
 To watch the flowing darkness ; 
 
 The bank is high and steep ; 
 One pause — he staggers forward, 
 
 And plunges in the deep. 
 
 She strives to pierce the blackness, 
 
 And looser throws the rein ; 
 Her steed must breast the waters 
 
 That dash above his mane. 
 
 10
 
 146 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 How galkintly, bow nobly, 
 
 He struggles through the foam, 
 
 And see — in the far distance 
 
 Shine out the lights of home ! 
 
 Up the steep banks he bears her, 
 
 And now they rush again 
 Towards the heights of Bregenz, 
 
 That tower above the plain. 
 They reach the gate of Bregenz, 
 
 Just as the midnight rings, 
 And out come serf and soldier 
 
 To meet the news she brings. 
 
 Bregenz is saved ! Ere daylight 
 
 Her battlements are manned ; 
 Defiance greets the army 
 
 That marches on the land. 
 And if to deeds heroic 
 
 Should endless fame be paid, 
 Bregenz does well to honor 
 
 The noble Tyrol maid. 
 
 Three hundred years are vanished, 
 
 And yet upon the hill 
 An old stone gateway rises 
 
 To do her honor still. 
 And there, when Bregenz women 
 
 Sit spinning in the shade, 
 They see in quaint old carving 
 
 The Charger and the Maid. 
 
 And when, to guard old Bregenz, 
 By gateway, street, and tower,
 
 CAVERN OF rilE THREE TELLS. 147 
 
 The warder paces all ni;^ht loni^ 
 
 And calls each passing hour ; 
 " Nine," "ten," "eleven," he cries aloud, 
 
 And then (O crown of Fame!) 
 When midnight pauses in the skies, 
 
 He calls the maiden's name ! 
 
 Adelaide A. Procter. 
 
 THE CAVERN OF THE THREE TELLS. 
 
 /^H ! enter not yon shadowy cave, 
 ^-^ Seek not the bright spars there. 
 Though the whispering pines that o'er it wave. 
 With freshness fill the air ; 
 
 For here the Patriot Three, 
 
 In the garb of old arrayed. 
 By their native Forest-sea 
 On a rocky couch are laid. 
 
 The Patriot Three that met of yore, 
 
 Beneath the midnight sky, 
 And leagued their hearts on the Griitli shore, 
 In the name of Liberty ! 
 Now silently they sleep 
 
 Amidst the hills they freed ; 
 But their rest is only deep. 
 
 Till their country's hour of need. 
 
 They start not at the hunter's call. 
 
 Nor the Lammer geyer's cry, 
 Nor the rush of a sudden torrent's fall, 
 
 Nor the Lauwine thundering by !
 
 148 THE MOUNTAIXS. 
 
 And the Alpine herdsman's lay, 
 To a Switzer's heart so dear, 
 
 On the wild wind floats away, 
 No more for them to hear. 
 
 But when the battle-horn is blown 
 
 Till the Schreckhorn's peaks reply, 
 When the Jungfrau's cliffs send back the tone 
 Through their eagles' lonely sky : 
 
 When spear-heads hght the lakes. 
 When trumpets loose the snows. 
 When the rushing war-steed shakes 
 The glacier's mute repose ; 
 
 When Uri's beechen woods wave red 
 In the burning hamlet's light, — 
 Then from the cavern of the dead 
 Shall the sleepers wake in might ! 
 
 With a leap, like TelFs proud leap, 
 
 When away the helm he flung, 
 And boldly up the steep 
 
 From the flashing billow sprung ! 
 
 They shall wake beside their Forest-sea, 
 
 In the ancient garb they wore 
 When they linked the bands that made us free. 
 On the Griitli's moonlight shore : 
 
 And their voices shall be heard 
 
 And be answered with a shout, 
 Till the echoing Alps are stirred. 
 And the signal-fires blaze out. 
 
 And the lands shall see such deeds again 
 As those of that proud day.
 
 THE /.olJ-.h' .-tMuM, JJII: Ihl IS. 1)9 
 
 When Winkilried, on Sempach's plain, 
 Through the serrieil spears made way ; 
 And when the rocks came down 
 
 On tlie dark Morgarten dell, 
 And the crown6d casques, o'erlhrown, 
 Before our fathers fell ! 
 
 For the Kiihreihen's notes must never sound 
 
 In a land that wears the chain. 
 And the vines on freetlom's holy ground 
 Untrampled must remain ! 
 
 And the yellow harvests wave 
 
 F'or no stranger's hand to reap, 
 While within their silent cave 
 The men of Griitli sleep ! 
 
 I-EI.ICIA HeMANS. 
 
 THE LOVER AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 TI?ROM hill to hill I roam, from thought to thought, 
 -■- With Love my guide ; the beaten path I tiy, 
 For there in vain the tranquil life is sought : 
 If 'mid the waste well forth a lonely rill, 
 Or deep embosom'd a low valley lie. 
 In its calm shade my trembling heart is still ; 
 And there, if Love so will, 
 I smile, or weep, or fondly hope, or fear. 
 While on my varying brow, that speaks the soul, 
 The wild emotions roll. 
 
 Now dark, now bright, as shifting skies appear; 
 That whosoe'er has proved the lover's state 
 Would say, He feels the flame, nor knows his future 
 fate.
 
 150 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 On mountains high, in forests drear and wide, 
 
 I find repose, and from the throng'd resort 
 
 Of man turn fearfully my eyes aside ; 
 
 At each lone step thoughts ever new arise 
 
 Of her I love, who oft with cruel sport 
 
 Will mock the pangs I bear, the tears, the sighs ; 
 
 Yet e'en those ills I prize. 
 
 Though bitter, sweet, nor would they were removed : 
 
 For my heart whispers me. Love yet has power 
 
 To grant a happier hour ; 
 
 Perchance, though self-despised, thou yet art loved : 
 
 E'en then my breast a passing sigh will heave, 
 
 Ah I when, or how, may I a hope so wild believe ? 
 
 Where shadows of high rocking pines dark wave 
 
 I stay my footsteps, and on some rude stone 
 
 With thought intense her beauteous face engrave; 
 
 Roused from the trance, my bosom bathed I find 
 
 With tears, and cry. Ah ! whither thus alone 
 
 Hast thou far wander'd, and whom left behind ? 
 
 But as with fixed mind 
 
 On this fair image I impassion'd rest. 
 
 And, viewing her, forget awhile my ills, 
 
 Love my rapt fancy fills : 
 
 In its own error sweet the soul is blest. 
 
 While all around so bright the visions glide ; 
 
 Oh ! might the cheat endure ! I ask not aught beside. 
 
 Her form portray'd within the lucid stream 
 Will oft appear, or on the verdant lawn. 
 Or glossy beech, or fleecy cloud, will gleam 
 So lovely fair, that Leda's self might say 
 Her Helen sinks eclipsed, as at the dawn
 
 THE LOVER AMOXG THE HILLS. 151 
 
 A star when covered by the solar ray : 
 
 And. as o'er wilds I stray 
 
 Where the eye nou<jht but savage Nature meets, 
 
 There F'ancy most her brightest tints employs ; 
 
 But when rude truth destroys 
 
 The loved illusion of those dreamed sweets, 
 
 I sit me down on the cold, rugged stone, 
 
 Less cold, less dead than I, and think, and weep alone. 
 
 Where the huge mountain rears his brow sublime, 
 
 On which no neighboring height its shadow flings, 
 
 Led by desire intense the steep I climb; 
 
 And. tracing in the boundless space each woe 
 
 Whose sad remembrance my torn bosom wrings. 
 
 Tears, that bespeak the heart oerfraught, will flow : 
 
 While, viewing all below. 
 
 From me, I cry, what worlds of air divide 
 
 The beauteous form, still absent and still near ! 
 
 Then, chiding soft the tear, 
 
 I whisper low. Haply she too has sigh'd 
 
 That thou art far away : — a thought so sweet 
 
 Awhile my laboring soul will of its burthen cheat. 
 
 Go thou, my song, beyond that Alpine bound. 
 Where the pure smiling heavens are most serene, 
 There by a murmuring stream may I be found, 
 Whose gentle airs around 
 Waft grateful odors from the laurel green ; 
 Nought but my empty form roams here unblest. 
 There dwells my heart with her who steals it from my 
 breast. 
 
 Petkakch (Dacre's Trans'.atidii).
 
 152 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 TWO ON THE MOUNTAIN. 
 
 \ TURN, and we stand in the heart of things : 
 -^ ^ The woods are round us, heaped and dim ; 
 From slab to slab how it slips and springs, — 
 
 The thread of water single and slim, 
 Through the ravage some torrent brings ! 
 
 Does it feed the httle lake below ? 
 
 That speck of white just on its marge 
 Is Pella ; see, in the evening-glow, 
 
 How sharp the silver spear-heads charge 
 When Alp meets Heaven in snow. 
 
 On our other side is the straight-up rock ; 
 
 And a path is kept 'twnxt the gorge and it 
 By boulder-stones, where lichens mock 
 
 The marks on a moth, and small ferns fit 
 Their teeth to the polished block. 
 
 And yonder, at foot of the fronting ridge 
 That takes the turn to a range beyond, 
 
 Is the chapel reached by the one-arched bridge 
 Where the water is stopped in a stagnant pond 
 
 Danced over by the midge. 
 
 Poor little place, where its one priest comes 
 
 On a festa-day, if he comes at all, 
 To the dozen folk from their scattered homes 
 
 Gathered within that precinct small, 
 By the dozen ways one roams, —
 
 TIVO ON THE MOUXTAIX. 153 
 
 To drop from the charcoal-burners' huts, 
 Or climb from the hemp-dressers' low shed, 
 
 Leave the grange where the woodman stores his nuts, 
 Or the wattled cote where the fowlers spread 
 
 Their gear on the rock's bare juts. 
 
 And all day long a bird sings there, 
 
 And a stray sheep drinks at the pond at times : 
 The place is silent and aware ; 
 
 It has had its scenes, its joys and crimes, 
 But that is its own affair. 
 
 Silent the crumbling bridge we cross, 
 
 And pity and praise the chapel sweet, 
 And care about the fresco's loss. 
 
 And wish for our souls a like retreat, 
 And wonder at the moss. 
 
 We stoop and look in through the grate. 
 
 See the little porch and rustic door, 
 Read duly the dead builder's date. 
 
 Then cross the bridge we crossed before, 
 Take the path again — but wait ! 
 
 Oh moment, one and infinite ! 
 
 The water slips o'er stock and stone ; 
 The west is tender, hardly bright ; 
 
 How gray at once is the evening grown, — 
 One star, the chrysolite ! 
 
 We two stood there with never a third. 
 
 But each by each, as each knew well : 
 The sights we saw and the sounds we heard. 
 
 The lights and the shades, made up a spell 
 Till the trouble grew and stirred.
 
 154 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Oh, the little more, and how much it is ! 
 
 And the little less, and what worlds away ! 
 How a sound shall quicken content to bliss, 
 
 Or a breath suspend the blood's best play, 
 And life be a proof of this ! 
 
 A moment after, and hands unseen 
 
 Were hanging the night around us fast ; 
 
 But we knew that a bar was broken between 
 Life and life : we were mixed at last 
 
 In spite of the mortal screen. 
 
 The forests had done it ; there they stood ; 
 
 We caught for a second the powers at play ; 
 They had mingled us so, for once and for good, 
 
 Their work was done — we might go or stay, 
 They relapsed to their ancient mood. 
 
 I am named and known by that hour's feat ; 
 
 There took my station and degree : 
 So grew my own small life complete 
 
 As Nature obtained her best of me — 
 One boon to love you, Sweet ! 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 IN THE PASS. 
 
 A CROSS my road a mountain rose of rock, — 
 -*- ■*- Fierce, naked rock. Its shadow, black and chill. 
 Shut out the sun. Gray clouds, which seemed to 
 
 mock 
 With cruel challenges my helpless will, 
 Sprang up and scaled the steepest crags. The shrill
 
 //\' TIIR PASS. 155 
 
 Winds, two and two, went breathless out and in, 
 Filling the darkened air with evil din. 
 
 I turned away my weary steps and said : 
 "This must be confine of some fearful place ; 
 Here is no path for mortal man to tread. 
 Who enters here will tremble, face to face 
 With powers of darkness, whose unearthly race 
 In cloud and wind and storm deliglus to dwell, 
 Ruling them all by an uncanny spell." 
 
 The guide but smiled, and, holding fast my hand. 
 
 Compelled me up a path I had not seen. 
 
 It wound round ledges where I scarce could stand ; 
 
 It plunged to sudden sunless depths between 
 
 Immeasurable clifTs, which seemed to lean 
 
 Together, closing as we passed, like door 
 
 Of dungeon which would open nevermore. 
 
 I said again : '' I will not go. This way 
 
 Is not for mortal feet." Again the guide 
 
 But smiled, and I again could but obey. 
 
 The path grew narrow : thundering by its side, 
 
 As loud as ocean at its highest tide, 
 
 A river rushed, all black, and green, and white, 
 
 A boiling stream of molten malachite. 
 
 Sudden I heard a joyous cry, '' BehoM, 1 ehold ! " 
 And, smiling still on me, the good guide turned. 
 And pointed where broad, sunny fields unrolled 
 And spread like banners ; green, so green it burned, 
 And lit the air like red ; and blue which yearned 
 From all the lofty dome of sky, and bent 
 And folded low and circling: like a tent ;
 
 156 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 And forests ranged like armies, round and round, 
 At feet of mountains of eternal snow ; 
 And valleys all alive with happy sound, — 
 The song of birds ; swift brooks' delicious flow ; 
 The mystic hum of million things that grow ; 
 The stir of men ; and gladdening every way. 
 Voices of little children at their play ; 
 
 And shining banks of flowers which words refuse 
 
 To paint : such colors as in summer-light 
 
 The rarest, fleetest summer rainbows use ; 
 
 But set in gold of sun and silver white 
 
 Of dew, as thick as gems which blind the sight 
 
 On altar fronts, inlaid with precious things, 
 
 The jewelled gifts of centuries of kings. 
 
 Then, sitting half in dream, and half in fear 
 Of how such wondrous miracle were wrought, 
 Thy name, dear friend, I sudden seemed to hear 
 Through all the charmed air. 
 
 My loving thought 
 Through patient years had vainly groped and sought, 
 And found no hidden thing so rare, so good, 
 That it might furnish thy similitude. 
 
 O noble soul ! whose thoughts like mountains stand, 
 
 Whose purposes, like adamantine stone, 
 
 Bar roads to feeble feet, and wrap the land 
 
 In seeming shadow ! — thou, too, hast thine own 
 
 Sweet valleys full of flowers, for me alone ; 
 
 Unseen, unknown, undreamed of by the mass. 
 
 Who do not know the secret of the Pass. 
 
 H. H. 
 
 Cortina d' Ampezzo, Ampezzo Pass, June 22, iS6g.
 
 TIIORALF AA'D SYXXdy. 157 
 
 THORALF AND SYNNOV. 
 A Norse Idyl. 
 
 (~\^ have you been in Gudbrancrs-Dale, where Laa- 
 
 ^-^ gen's mighty flood 
 
 Chants evermore its stirring strain unto the hstcning 
 
 wood ? 
 And have you seen the evening sun on those bright 
 
 glaciers glow, 
 When valley-ward it shoots and darts like shafts from 
 
 elfin bow ? 
 
 Have you beheld the maidens, when the saeter* path 
 they tread, 
 
 With the ribbons in their sunny hair and the milk- 
 pails on their head ? 
 
 And have you heard the fiddles, when they strike the 
 lusty dance ? 
 
 Then you have heard of Synnov Houg, and of myself 
 perchance. 
 
 For Synnov Houg is lissome as the limber willow 
 
 spray, 
 And when you think you hold her fast, and she is 
 
 yours for aye. 
 Then like an airy blow-ball that dances o'er the lea 
 She gently through your fingers slips, and lightly 
 
 floateth frej. 
 
 *The saeter is the region in the highlands where the N'i'rwriri.ui pt-.is- 
 ants ^end the greater part of the summer pasturing their cattle.
 
 158 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Then it was last St. John's Eve, — I remember it so 
 
 well, — 
 And we had lit a bonfire in a grass-grown little dell ; 
 And all the lads and maidens were seated in a ring, 
 And some were telling stories, while the rest were 
 
 listening. 
 
 Till up sprang little Synnov, and she sang a stave as 
 
 clear 
 As the skylark's earliest greeting in the morning of 
 
 the year ; 
 And I, — I hardly knew myself, but up they saw me 
 
 dart, 
 For every note of Synnov's stave went straight unto 
 
 my heart. 
 
 And like the rushing currents that from the glaciers 
 
 flow. 
 And down into the sunny bays their icy waters throw, 
 So streamed my heav}'- bass-notes through the forests 
 
 far and wide, 
 And Synnov's treble rocked like a feather on the tide. 
 
 "And little Synnov," sang I, " thou art good and very 
 fair ; " " • 
 
 "And little Thoralf," sang she, "of what you say, be- 
 ware ! " 
 
 " My fairest Synnov," quoth I, " my heart was ever 
 thine, 
 
 My homestead and my goodly farm, my herds of low- 
 ing kine." 
 
 " O Thoralf, dearest Thoralf, if that vour meaning 
 be,-
 
 TIIORALF AND SYXNOV. 159 
 
 If your big heart can hold such a little thing as me, 
 Then — I shall truly tell you if e'er I want a man ; 
 And — you are free to catch me, handsome Thoralf, — 
 if you can." 
 
 And down the hillside ran she, where the tangkd 
 
 thicket weaves 
 A closely latticed bower with its intertwining leaves ; 
 And through the coppice skipped she, light-footed as 
 
 a hare, 
 And with her merry laughter rang the forests far and 
 
 near. 
 
 And whenever I beheld little Synnov all that year. 
 She fled from my sight as from hunter's shaft the deer. 
 I lay awake full half the nights, and knew not what to 
 
 do, 
 For I loved little Synnov so tenderly and true. 
 
 Then 'twas a summer even up in the birchen glen 
 
 I sat listening to the cuckoo and the twitter of the 
 
 wren ; 
 And suddenly above me rang out a silver voice — 
 It rose above the twittering birds and o'er the river's 
 
 There sat my Httle love, where the rocks had made a 
 
 seat, 
 And the crimson-tipped flowerets grew all around her 
 
 feet, 
 And on her yellow locks clung a tiny roguish hood, — 
 The edge was made of swan's down, but the cloth 
 
 was red as blood.
 
 i6o THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 And noiselessly behind her I had stolen through the 
 
 copse ; 
 I cursed the restless birch-trees when they waved their 
 
 rustling tops. 
 Full merrily my heart beat ; then forth I leapt in haste, 
 And flung a slender birch-bouo-h around the maiden's 
 
 waist. 
 
 She blushed and she fluttered, then turned away to 
 
 run ; 
 But straight into my sturdy arms I caught the little 
 
 one. 
 I put her gently down in the heather at my side, 
 Where the crimson-tipped flowerets the rocky ledges 
 
 hide. 
 
 And as the prisoned birdling, when he knows his cage 
 
 full well 
 Pours forth his silver-toned voice, and nought his 
 
 mirth can quell, 
 So little Synnov, striving in vain my hold to flee, 
 Turned quick on me her roguish eyes and laughed full 
 
 heartily. 
 
 " My little Synnov," said I, '' if I remember right, 
 'Twas something that you promised me a year ago 
 
 to-night." 
 Then straight she stayed her laughter, and full serious 
 
 she grew, 
 And whispered, " Little Thoralf, you promised some- 
 
 HjALMAR HjORTH BoYESEX.
 
 THE BRAES a GLENIEEER. i6i 
 
 THE BRAES O' GLENIFFER. 
 
 T^EEN blaws the win' o'er the braes o' Glcniffer, 
 ■*-^ The auld castle turrets are covered wi' snaw ; 
 How changed frae the time when I met wi' my lover 
 
 Amang the broom bushes by Stanley-green shaw. 
 The wildflowers o' summer were spread a' sae bonnie, 
 
 The mavis sang sweet frae the green birken tree ; 
 But far to the camp they ha'e marched my dear 
 Johnnie, 
 
 And now it is winter wi' Nature and me. 
 
 Then ilk thing around us was blithesome and cheerie, 
 
 Then ilk thing around us was bonnie and braw ; 
 Now naething is heard but the wind whistling drearie, 
 
 And naething is seen but the wide-spreading snaw. 
 The trees are a' bare, and the birds mute and dowie ; 
 
 They shake the cauld drift frae their wings as they 
 flee, 
 And chirp out their plaints, seeming w^ae for my 
 Johnnie ; 
 
 'Tis winter wi' them, and 'tis winter wi' me. 
 
 Yon cauld sleety cloud skiffs alang the bleak mountain, 
 
 And shakes the dark firs on the steep rocky brae. 
 While down the deep glen bawls the snaw-flooded 
 fountain 
 That murmur'd sae sweet to my laddie and me. 
 It's no' its loud roar on the wintry wind swellin', 
 
 It's no' the cauld blast brings the tear i' my e'e ; 
 For oh ! gin I saw but my bonnie Scot's callan, 
 The dark days o' winter were summer to me. 
 
 Robert Tannahill. 
 II
 
 1 62 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 MY AIN MOUNTAIN LAND. 
 
 /^H ! wae's me on gowd, ys\' its glamour and fame, 
 ^-^ It tint me my love, and it wiled me frae hame, 
 Syne dwindled awa' like a neivefu' o' sand, 
 And left me to mourn for my ain mountain land. 
 
 I lang for the glens, and the brown heather fells. 
 The green birken shades, where the wild lintie dwells, 
 The dash o' the deep, on the gray rocky strand 
 That girds the blue hills of my ain mountain land. 
 
 I dream o' the dells where the clear burnies flow, 
 The bonnie green knowes where the green gowans 
 
 grow ; 
 But I wake frae my sleep like a being that's bann'd, 
 And shed a saut tear for my ain mountain land. 
 
 I ken there's a lass that looks out on the sea, 
 Wi' tears in the e'en that are watchin' for me ; 
 Lang, lang she may wait for the clasp o' my hand, 
 Or the fa' o' my foot in my ain mountain land. 
 
 Thomas Elliott. 
 
 ABOVE AND BELOW. 
 L 
 
 r\ DWELLERS in the valley-land, 
 ^^-^ Who in deep twilight grope and cower, 
 Till the slow mountain's dial-hand 
 Shortens to noon's triumphal hour, —
 
 ABOVE AXD nrj.oiv. 163 
 
 While ye sit idle, do ye think 
 
 The Lord's great work sits idle too? 
 
 That light dare not o'erleap the brink 
 Of morn, because 'tis dark with you ? 
 
 Though yet your valleys skulk in night, 
 
 In (}od\s ripe fields the day is cried, 
 And reapers, with their sickles bright. 
 
 Troop, singing, down the mountain-side : 
 Come up, and feel what health there is 
 
 In the frank Dawn's delighted eyes, 
 As, bending with a pitying kiss. 
 
 The night-shed tears of Earth she dries ! 
 
 The Lord wants reapers : Oh, mount uj). 
 
 Before night comes, and says, — " Too late I " 
 Stay not for taking scrip or cup, 
 
 The Master hungers while ye wait ; 
 'Tis from these heights alone your eyes 
 
 The advancing spears of day can see, 
 Which o'er the eastern hill-tops rise, 
 
 To break your long captivity. 
 
 II. 
 
 Lone watcher on the mountain-height ! 
 
 It is right precious to behold 
 The first long surf of climbing light 
 
 Flood all the thirsty east with gold ; 
 But we, who in the shadow sit. 
 
 Know also when the day is nigh, 
 Seeing thy shining forehead lit 
 
 With his inspiring prophecy.
 
 1 64 THE MOUXTAIXS. 
 
 Thou hast thine office ; we have ours ; 
 
 God lacks not early service here, 
 But what are thine eleventh hours 
 
 He counts with us for mornino; cheer ; 
 Our day, for Him, is long enough, 
 
 And, when He giveth work to do, 
 The bruised reed is amply tough 
 
 To pierce the shield of error through. 
 
 But not the less do thou aspire 
 
 Light's earlier messages to preach ; 
 Keep back no syllable of fire, — 
 
 Plunge deep the rowels of thy speech. 
 Yet God deems not thine aeried sight 
 
 More worthy than our twilight dim, — 
 For meek Obedience, too, is Light, 
 
 And following that is finding Him. 
 
 J. R. Lowell. 
 
 THE TWO HOMES. 
 
 TV TY home was seated high and fair 
 
 ^^ Upon a mountain's side : 
 
 The day was longest, brightest there ; 
 
 Beneath, the world was wide. 
 Across its blue, embracing zone 
 The rivers gleamed, the cities shone, 
 And over the edge of the fading rim 
 I saw the storms in the distance dim. 
 
 And the flash of the soundless thunder. 
 
 But weary grew the sharp, cold wine 
 Of winds that never kissed,
 
 THE TWO HOMES. 165 
 
 The chano:eless green of fir and pine, 
 
 The gray and clinging mist. 
 Above the granite sprang no bowers ; 
 The soil gave low and scentless flowers ; 
 And the drone and din of the waterfall 
 Became a challenge, a taunting call : 
 
 " 'Tis fair, 'tis fair in the valley ! " 
 
 Of all the homesteads deep and far 
 
 My fancy clung to one, 
 Whose gable burned, a mellow star, 
 
 Touched by the sinking sun. 
 Unseen around, but not ungucssed, 
 The orchards made a leafy nest ; 
 The turf before it was thick, I knew, 
 And bees were busy the garden through, 
 
 And the windows were dark with roses. 
 
 " 'Tis happier there, below," I sighed : 
 
 " The world is warm and near, 
 And closer love and comfort hide, 
 
 That cannot reach me here. 
 Who there abides must be so blest 
 He'll share with me his sheltered nest, 
 If down to the valley I should go. 
 Leaving the granite, the pines and snow. 
 
 And the winds that are keen as lances." 
 
 I wandered down, by ridge and dell ; 
 
 The way w\as rough and long : 
 Though earlier shadows round me fell, 
 
 I cheered them with my song. 
 The world's great circle narrower grew. 
 Till hedge and thicket hid the blue ;
 
 :66 THE MOUNTAIXS. 
 
 But over the orchards, near at hand, 
 The gable shone on the quiet land, 
 And far away was the mountain ! 
 
 Then came the master : mournful-eyed 
 
 And stern of brow was he. 
 " Oh, planted in such peace ! " I cried, 
 
 " Spare but the least to me ! " 
 " Who seeks," he said, '"this brooding haze. 
 The tameness of these weary days ? 
 The highway's dust, the glimmer and heat. 
 The woods that fetter the young wind's feet, 
 
 And hide the world and its beauty ? " 
 
 He stretched out his hand ; he looked afar 
 
 With eyes of old desire : 
 I saw my home, a mellow star 
 
 That held the sunset's fire. 
 ** But yonder home," he cried, " how fair ! 
 Its chambers burn like gilded air ; 
 I know that the gardens are wild as dreams, 
 With the sweep of winds, the dash of streams. 
 
 And the pines that sound as an anthem ! 
 
 " So quiet, so serenely high 
 
 It sits, when clouds are furled, 
 And knows the beauty of the sky, 
 
 The glory of the world ! 
 Who there abides must be so blest 
 He'll share with me that lofty crest, 
 If up to the mountain I should go, 
 Leaving the dust and the glare below. 
 
 And the weary life of the valley ! " 
 
 Bayard Taylor.
 
 THE GOLDEN' ISLAXD. iG-j 
 
 THE GOLDEN ISLAND: AKRAN FROM 
 AYR. 
 
 DVAW set in distant seas it lies ; 
 The morning vapors float and f.dl, 
 The noonday clouds above it rise, 
 Then drop as white as virgin's pall. 
 
 And sometimes, when tliat shroud uplifts, 
 The far green fields show strange and fair ; 
 
 Mute waterfalls in silver rifts 
 Sparkle adown the hillsitie bare. 
 
 But ah ! mists gather, more and more ; 
 
 And though the blue sky has no tears, 
 And the sea laughs with light all o'er, — 
 
 The lovely Island disappears. 
 
 O vanished Island of the blest ! 
 
 O dream of all things pure and high ! 
 Hid in deep seas, as faithful breast 
 
 Hides loves that have but seemed to die, — 
 
 Whether on seas dividing tossed. 
 
 Or led through fertile lands the while, 
 
 Better lose all things than have lost 
 The memory of the morning Isle ! 
 
 For lo ! when gloaming shadows glide, 
 And all is calm in earth and air, 
 
 Above the heaving of the tide 
 The lonely Island rises fair;
 
 1 68 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Its purple peaks shine, outlined grand 
 And clear, as noble lives nigh done ; 
 
 While stretches bright from land to land 
 The broad sea-pathway to the sun. 
 
 He wraps it in his glory's blaze, 
 
 He stoops to kiss its forehead cold ; 
 
 And, all transfigured by his rays, 
 It gleams — an Isle of molten gold. 
 
 The sun may set, the shades descend, 
 
 Earth sleep — and yet while sleeping smile ; 
 
 But it will live unto life's end — 
 That vision of the Golden Isle. 
 
 D. I\I. MuLOCK Craik. 
 
 TO THE PEAKS OF OTTER. 
 
 "r?AIR are thy sunset hues, thy dark brow blessing, 
 -^ O mountain ! with their gift of golden rays ; 
 And the few floating clouds, thy crest caressing, 
 
 Seem guardian angels to my raptured gaze : 
 I have looked on tliee through the saddest tears 
 
 That ever human sorrow taught to flow, 
 And thou wilt come, in life's recalling years, 
 
 Linked with the memory of my deepest woe. 
 
 Yet well I love thee, in thy silent mvstery. 
 Thy purple shadows and thy glowing light ; 
 
 Thou art to me a most poetic history 
 
 Of stillest beauty and of stormiest might : 
 
 I owe thee, O sublime and solemn mountain, 
 For many hours of vision and of thought,
 
 TO THE PEAK'S OF OTTER. \(^<) 
 
 For pleasant draughts from Fancy's ;^shln<^ fountain, 
 For bright illusions by thy prcsenct; brou;^ht. 
 
 And more I thank thee, for tiie deeper learning 
 
 That soothes my spirit as I look on tiiee, 
 For thou hast laid upon my soul's wild yearning 
 
 The holy spell of thy tranquillity: 
 I shall recall thee with a long regretting. 
 
 And often pine to see thy brow in vain ; 
 While Thought, returning, fond and unforgetting. 
 
 Will trace thy form in glory-tints again. 
 
 And thou, in thine experience, all material, 
 
 Wilt never know how worshipped thou hast been; 
 No glimpses of that life that is ethereal 
 
 Shadow thy face, eternally serene ! 
 Thou hast not felt the impulse of resistance, — 
 
 Thy lot has linked thee with the earth alone : 
 Thou art no traveller to a new existence, 
 
 Thou hast no future to be lost or won. 
 
 The past contains for thee no bitter fountain, — 
 
 Thou hast no onward mission to fulfil : 
 And I would learn from thee, O silent mountain, 
 
 All things enduring, to be tranquil still! 
 And now, with that fond reverence of feeling 
 
 We owe whatever wakes our loftiest thought, 
 I can but offer thee, in faint revealing, 
 
 These idle thanks for all that thou hast brought. 
 
 Jane T. Wokthingtum.
 
 l7o THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 LIFE AND DEATH. 
 
 AT mornino; I stood on the mountain's brow, 
 In its May-wreath crowned, and there 
 Saw day-rise in gold and in purple glow, 
 And I cried, — " O Life, how fair ! " 
 
 As the birds in their bowers their lay began. 
 
 When the dawning time was nigh. 
 So wakened for song in the breast of man 
 
 A passion heroic and high. 
 
 My spirit then felt a longing to soar 
 
 From home afar in its flight. 
 To roam, like the sun, still from shore to shore, 
 
 A creator of flowers and light. 
 
 At even I stood on the mountain's brow, 
 
 And, rapt in devotion and prayer. 
 Saw night-rise in silver and purple glow, 
 
 Andl cried, — " O Death, how fair!" 
 
 And when the soft evening wind, so meek, 
 
 With its balmy breathing came, 
 It seemed as though Nature then kissed my cheek 
 
 And tenderly sighed my name ! 
 
 I saw the vast Heaven encompassing all, 
 Like children the stars to her came ; 
 
 The exploits of man then seemed to me small, — 
 Nought great save the Infinite's name.
 
 THE OTHER SIDE. 171 
 
 Ah ! how unlieeded, all charms which invest 
 The joys and the hopes that men prize, 
 
 While the eternal tliouglits in the poet's breast, 
 Like stars in the heavens, arise ! 
 
 K. SjOORKN. 
 
 THE OTHER SIDE. 
 
 /^~^LI AIDING the mountain's shaggy crest, 
 ^-^ I wondered much what sight would greet 
 
 My eager gaze, whene'er my feet 
 Upon the topmost height should rest. 
 
 The other side was all unknown ; 
 
 But as I slowly toiled along. 
 
 Sweeter to me than any song 
 My dream of visions to be shown. 
 
 Meanwhile the mountain shrubs distilled 
 Their sweetness all along my way, 
 And the delicious summer day 
 
 My heart with rapture overfilled. 
 
 At length the topmost height was gained, 
 The other side was full in view ; 
 My dreams — not one of them was true, 
 
 But better far had I attained. 
 
 For far and wide on either hand 
 
 There stretched a valley broad and fair, 
 With greenness flashing everywhere, — 
 
 A pleasant, smiling, home-like land. 
 
 Who knows, I thought, but so 'twill prove 
 Upon that mountain-top of death, 
 Where we shall draw diviner breath, 
 
 And see the long-lost friends we love.
 
 172 THE MOUXTAIXS. 
 
 It may not be as we have dreamed, — 
 Not half so awful, strange, and grand ; 
 A quiet, peaceful, home-like land, 
 
 Better than e'er in vision gleamed. 
 
 Meanwhile, along our upward Avay, 
 
 What beauties lurk, what visions glow ! 
 Whatever shall be, this we know 
 
 Is better than our hps can say. 
 
 John \V. Chadwick. 
 
 ENTRANCE TO THE PURGATORY OF 
 ST. PATRICK. 
 
 O EE ye not here this rock some power seeureth, 
 *^ That grasf)s with awful toil the hill-side brown, 
 And with the very anguish it endureth 
 Age after age seems slowly coming down ? 
 Suspended there with effort, it obscureth 
 A mighty cave beneath, which it doth crown ; — 
 An open mouth the horrid cavern shapes. 
 Wherewith the melancholy mountain gapes. 
 
 This, then, by mournful cypress trees surrounded, 
 Between the lips of rocks at either side, 
 Reveals a monstrous neck of length unbounded, 
 Whose tangled hair is scantily supplied 
 By the wild herbs that there the wind hath grounded, 
 A gloom whose depths no sun has ever tried, 
 A space, a void, the gladsome day's affright, 
 The fatal refuge of the frozen night. 
 
 Calderon (Translation of D. F. McCarthy).
 
 THE STORM IS PAST. 173 
 
 BEYOND. 
 
 npiIII stran2:er wandL-rinL; in the Swit/cr's hiiul, 
 
 Before its awful mountain-tops afraid. — 
 Who yet, with patient toil, hath l( lined his st uul 
 On the hare suniinit where all life is stayed. 
 
 Sees far, far down, beneath his blood-dimmed eyes, 
 Another country, golden to the shore, 
 
 Where a new passion and new hopes arise, 
 Where Southern blooms unfold for evermore. 
 
 And I, lone sitting by the twilight blaze. 
 Think of another wanderer in the snows, 
 
 And on more perilous mountain-tops I gaze 
 Than ever frowned above the vine and rose. 
 
 Yet courage, soul ! nor hold thy strength in vain. 
 In hope o'ercome the steeps God set for thee ; 
 
 For past the Alpine summits of great pain, 
 Lieth thine Italy. 
 
 Rose Tlkky Cooke. 
 
 THE STORM IS PAST. 
 
 'T^HE storm is past : the green hill-side 
 -*- Is streaked with evening gleams 
 Let out through rents in yon dark cloud, 
 Day's last and 'oveliest beams. 
 
 Still clings the tempest's fleecy skirt 
 Round Fairfield's hollow crest, 
 
 Where glorious mists in many a fold 
 Of wavy silver rest.
 
 174- THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Deep imaged in the lake serene 
 
 The shadowy mountains lie : 
 Deeper than heaven itself the blue 
 
 Of that unreal sky. 
 
 Oh ! soft falls evening on the heart 
 
 With gnawing cares deprest, 
 Feeding on all her quiet things, — 
 
 A sacrament of rest ! 
 
 Sin-blighted though we are — yet still 
 
 Upon our weary souls, 
 Through hills and woods, through lakes and 
 streams, 
 
 A tide of glory rolls : 
 
 A brimming tide from heaven that flows 
 
 Of freshness and of power, 
 
 And holy strength to nerve the heart 
 
 For duty's sterner hour. 
 
 F. W. Faber. 
 
 MOUx\TAIN-TOP. 
 
 T STAND on high, 
 
 -*■ Close to the sky. 
 Kissed by unsullied lips of light ; 
 
 Fanned by soft airs 
 
 That seem like prayers 
 Floating to God through ether bright. 
 
 The emerald lands, 
 With love-clasped hands. 
 In smiling peace below outspread ;
 
 MOUNTAIN TARNS. 175 
 
 Around me rise 
 The amber skies, 
 A dome of glory o'er my head. 
 
 Wind-swept and bare 
 
 The fields of air 
 Give the weaned eagles room for play : 
 
 On miLjhtier \\\\\% 
 
 My soul doth spring 
 To unseen summits far away. 
 
 Charlks G. Ame?;. 
 Gorham to Jefferson, Aug. 1862. 
 
 MOUNTAIN TARNS. 
 
 OH asketh thou of me 
 What store of thoughtful glee 
 By mountain tarns is lying, 
 That I to such grim nooks 
 From my dull-hearted books 
 Should evermore be flying ? 
 
 Go thou, and spend an hour 
 In autumn fog and shower 
 Amid the thundering rills, 
 Or hear the breezy sigh 
 Of summer quiet die 
 Among the noon-day hills. 
 
 The eagle's royal soul 
 
 Is nurtured in the roll 
 
 And echo of the thunder, 
 
 And feeds for evermore 
 
 Amid the summits ho;ir 
 
 On siiihts and sounds of wonder.
 
 176 THE MOUXTAIXS. 
 
 The murmur of the stone 
 With hoarse and hollow moan 
 Self-loosened from the height, - 
 The water-fairs white showers 
 In midnight's deepest hours 
 Creating sound and light, — 
 
 The pauses in the blowing 
 Of winds, when oxen lowing 
 Are heard from vales beneath, 
 The underworld of care 
 Scarce burdening the air 
 With its poor plaintive breath, ■ 
 
 The fragrance of the noon, 
 The nearness of the moon, 
 The swampy mosses tingling, 
 The strife of peace and noise, 
 Like the sorrows and the joys 
 In earthly lots comminghng, — 
 
 To all such sight and sound 
 Is the eagle's being bound, 
 A destiny of bliss ; 
 These spells his spirit wake, 
 These influences make 
 The eagle what he is. 
 
 So I of lowly birth, 
 A workman on the earth, 
 Would cast myself apart. 
 That I a little time 
 From dreariness sublime 
 Might win a royal heart.
 
 MOUXlWrX TA/xWS. 177 
 
 The s:olden cro\vn6cl kin^^s 
 Are often al)ject tliiriijs ; 
 I would not be as tliey : 
 But mountain winds and waves 
 Teach no men to be sl.ives, 
 But with high minds obey. 
 
 Great emperors fors^et, 
 In jewelled places set, 
 The human heart below ; 
 And with no fellows near 
 They often cease to hear 
 Its holy ebb and flow. 
 
 But I from mountain throne 
 Would oftentime come down, 
 And leave unto the breeze 
 And cataract to fill 
 With echoes at their will 
 My dreary royalties. 
 
 I would in mountain haunt 
 But quicken the sweet want 
 Of love and blisses mild ; 
 And I would alternate 
 My pomp of regal state 
 With the humors of a child. 
 
 There is a power to bless 
 In hill-side loneliness, 
 In tarns and dreary places ; 
 A virtue in the brook, 
 A freshness in the look 
 Of mountains' joyless faces. 
 12
 
 178 . THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 And I would have my heart 
 From httleness apart, 
 A love-anointed thing ; 
 Be set above my kind, 
 In my unfettered mind 
 A veritable king. 
 
 And so when life is dull, 
 
 Or when my heart is full 
 
 Because my dreams have frowned, 
 
 I wander up the rills 
 
 To stones and tarns and hills, — 
 
 I go there to be crowned. 
 
 F. W. Faeer. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 T STOOD beside a pool, from whence ascended, 
 -■- Mounting the cloudy platforms of the wind, 
 A stately heron ; its soaring I attended. 
 Till it grew dim, and I with watching blind — 
 When lo ! a shaft of arrowy light descended 
 Upon its darkness and its dim attire : 
 It straightway kindled then, and was afire, 
 And with the unconsuming radiance blended. 
 And bird, a cloud, flecking the sunny air, 
 It had its golden dwelling 'mid the lightning 
 Of those empyreal domes ; and it might thtre 
 Have dwelt for ever, glorified and bright'ning. 
 But that its wings were weak — so it became 
 A dusky speck again, that was a winged flame. 
 
 R. C. Trench.
 
 BORDER OF THE WILDERXESS. 179 
 
 THE BORDER OF THE WH.DERXESS. 
 
 ^OWERE\G heights of Ingall's River 
 -*■ Fir-fringed crests'of Mount Success, 
 Pine and birch and maple forests, 
 Border of the wilderness, — 
 
 Darkening in the evening glory. 
 Hiding in each wild ravine 
 Depths of life, of mystic beauty, 
 Never yet by mortal seen ; — 
 
 Still ye beckon, beckon ever, 
 Saying: " Come, our sister, come ! 
 Quit the weary, glaring highways, 
 Seek within our shades a home. 
 
 *' Firmly stands each rocky buttress, 
 Bears aloft scant growth of trees, 
 Deep beneath, sweet waters pouring 
 Mingle music with the breeze. 
 
 " Come, O sister, come and rest thee. 
 Thou and we are thoughts of God ; 
 Friends alone thou'lt find among us, 
 Friends that wield no critic's rod. 
 
 " If thy locks have lost their shinin 
 Tresses gr^'iy our limbs adorn ; 
 If thy brow be sadly furrowed, 
 Wrinkled we, ere thou wast born. 
 
 &»
 
 i8o THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 " If the young have ceased to love thee, 
 Shun they too our awesome ways ; 
 If thy steps have lost their fleetness, 
 Here we stand these myriad days. 
 
 All unsuited to thy years ? 
 Every fallen trunk, each ruin, 
 Greenest, freshest growth uprears. 
 
 " Falls thy shadow darkening eastward ? 
 We against the twilight show, 
 But we know the dawn return eth ; — 
 Wait with us that blessed glow ! " 
 
 L. D. Pychowska. 
 
 NIRVANA. 
 
 A LONG the scholar's glowing page 
 '^^*- I read the Orient thinker's dream 
 
 Of things that are not what they seem, — 
 Of mystic chant and Soma's rage. 
 
 The sunlight flooding all the room 
 To me again was Indra's smile, 
 And on the hearth the blazing pile 
 
 For Agni's sake did fret and fume. 
 
 Yet most I read of who aspire 
 
 To win Nirvana's deep repose. 
 
 Of that long way the Spirit goes 
 To reach the absence of desire.
 
 NIRVAXA. 18 1 
 
 But through the music of my book 
 Another music smote my ear — 
 A tinkle silver-sweet and clear — 
 
 The babble of the mountain-brook. 
 
 "Oh ! leave," it said, "your ancient seers ; 
 
 Come out into the woods with me ; 
 
 Behold an older mystery 
 Than Buddhist's hope or Brahman's fears ! " 
 
 The voice so sweet I could but hear ; • 
 
 I sallied forth, with staff in hand. 
 While, mile on mile, the mountain-land 
 
 Was radiant with the dying year. 
 
 I heard the startled partridge whirr, 
 And crinkling through the tender grass 
 I saw the striped adder pass. 
 
 Where dropped the chestnut's prickly burr. 
 
 I saw the miracle of life 
 
 From death upspringing evermore ; 
 
 The fallen tree a forest bore 
 Of tiny forms with beauty rife. 
 
 I gathered mosses rare and sweet, 
 T-he acorn in its carven cup : 
 'Mid heaps of leaves, wind-gathered up, 
 
 I trod with half-remorseful feet. 
 
 The maple's blush I made my own, 
 The sumac's crimson splendor bold, 
 The poplar's hue of paly gold. 
 
 The faded chestnut, crisp and brown.
 
 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 I climbed the mountain's shaggy crest, 
 Where masses huge of molten rock, 
 After long years of pain and shock, 
 
 Fern-covered, from their wanderings rest. 
 
 Far, far below the valley spread 
 Its rich, roof-dotted, wide expanse ; 
 And further still the sunlight's dance 
 
 The amorous river gayly led. 
 
 But still, with all I heard or saw 
 
 There mingled thoughts of that old time. 
 And that enchanted eastern clime 
 
 Where Buddha gave his mystic law, — 
 
 Till, wearied with the lengthy way, 
 I found a spot where all was still, 
 Just as the sun behind the hill 
 
 Was making bright the parting day. 
 
 On either side the mountains stood, 
 
 Masses of color rich and warm ; 
 
 And over them in giant form 
 The rosy moon serenely glowed. 
 
 My heart was full as it could hold ; 
 
 The Buddha's paradise was mine ; 
 
 My mountain-nook its inmost shrine, 
 The fretted sky its roof of gold. 
 
 Nirvana's peace my soul had found — 
 Absence complete of all desire — 
 While the great moon was mounting higher, 
 
 And deeper quiet breathed around. 
 
 John W. Chadwick.
 
 OVER THE MOUXTALV. 183 
 
 OVER THE MOUNTAIN. 
 
 T IKE dreary prison walls 
 
 -*-^ The stern, gray mountains rise, 
 
 Until their top-most crags 
 
 Touch the far gloomy skies ; 
 One steep and narrow path 
 
 Winds up the mountain's crest, 
 And from our valley leads 
 
 Out to the golden West. 
 
 I dwell here in content. 
 
 Thankful for tranquil days ; 
 And yet my eyes grow dim, 
 
 As still I gaze and gaze 
 Upon that mountain pass 
 
 That leads — or so it seems — 
 To some far happy land 
 
 Known in a world of dreams. 
 
 And as I watch that path 
 
 Over the distant hill, 
 A foolish longing comes 
 
 My heart and soul to fill ; 
 A painful, strange desire 
 
 To break some weary bond ; 
 A vague unuttered wish 
 
 For what might lie beyond ! 
 
 In that far world unknown, 
 
 Over that distant hill, 
 May dwell the loved and lost, — 
 
 Lost, yet beloved still ;
 
 184 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 I have a yearning hope. 
 
 Half longing, and half pain, 
 That by that mountain pass 
 
 They may return again. 
 
 Space may keep friends apart, 
 
 Death has a mighty thrall ; 
 There is another gulf 
 
 Harder to cross than all ; 
 Yet watching that far road, 
 
 My heart beats full and fast : 
 If they should come once more, 
 
 If they should come at last ! 
 
 See, down the mountain side 
 
 The silver vapors creep ; 
 They hide the rocky cliffs. 
 
 They hide the craggy steep, 
 They hide the narrow path 
 
 That comes across the hill : — 
 O foolish longing, cease, 
 
 O beating Heart, be still ! 
 
 Adelaide A. Procter. 
 
 SUNSET. 
 
 TT is coming, it is coming, 
 
 -■- That marvellous up-summing 
 Of the loveliest and grandest all in one : 
 
 The great transfiguration 
 
 And the royal coronation 
 Of the Monarch of the mountains by the priestly Sun.
 
 SLA'SET. 185 
 
 Watch breathlessly and hearken, 
 
 While the forest throne-steps darken, 
 His investiture in crimson and in fire ; 
 
 Not a herald-trumpet ringeth. 
 
 Not a paean echo flingeth. 
 There is music of a silence that is mightier far, and 
 higher. 
 
 Then in radiant obedience 
 
 A flush of bright allegiance 
 Lights up the vassal-summits and the proud peaks all 
 • around ; 
 
 And a thrill of mystic glory 
 
 Quivers on the glaciers hoary, 
 As the ecstasy is full, and the mighty brow is crowned : 
 
 Crowned with ruby of resplendence, 
 
 In unspeakable transcendence, 
 'Neath a canopy of purple and of gold outsj^read, 
 
 With rock-sceptres upward pointing. 
 
 While the glorious anointing 
 Of the consecrating sunlight is poured upon his head. 
 
 Then a swift and still transition 
 
 Falls upon the gorgeous vision, 
 And the ruby and the fire pass noiselessly away ; 
 
 But the paling of the splendor 
 
 Leaves a rose-light clear and tender, 
 And lovelier than the loveliest dream that melts Before 
 the day. 
 
 Oh to keep it, oh to hold it, 
 While the tremulous rays enfold it ! 
 Oh to drink in all the beauty, and never thirst again !
 
 i86 THE MOUXTAINS. 
 
 Yet less lovely if less fleeting ! 
 For the mingling and the meeting 
 Of the wonder and the rapture can but overflow in pain. 
 
 It is passing, it is passing ! 
 
 While the softening glow is glassing 
 In the crystal of the heavens all the fairest of its rose ; 
 
 Ever faintly and more faintly, 
 
 Ever saintly and more saintly, 
 Gleam the snowy heights around us in hohest repose. 
 
 O pure and perfect whiteness ! 
 
 O mystery of brightness 
 Upon those still majestic brows shed solemnly abroad ! 
 
 Like the calm and blessed sleeping 
 
 Of saints in Christ's own keeping, 
 When the smile of holy peace is left, last witness for 
 their God. 
 
 Frances Ridley Havergal. 
 
 SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP. 
 
 A GOLD fringe on the purpling hem 
 -^^ Of hills the river runs, 
 As down its long green valley falls 
 
 The last of summer's suns. 
 Along its tawny gravel-bed 
 
 Broad-flowing, swift, and still, 
 As if its meadow levels felt 
 
 The hurry of the hill, 
 Noiseless between its banks of green 
 
 From curve to curve it slips ; 
 The drowsy maple-shadows rest 
 Like fingers on its lips.
 
 SCrXSET ox TI/E HEARCAMP. 1S7 
 
 A waif from Carroll's wildest hills, 
 
 Unstoricd and unknown: 
 The ursine le<;cnd of its name 
 
 Prowls on its hanks alone. 
 Vet flowers as f.iir its slopes adorn 
 
 As ever Yarrow knew, 
 Or, under rainy Irish skies, 
 
 By Spenser's Mullaj]^rew; 
 And through the gaps of leaning trees 
 
 Its mountain cradle shows ; 
 The gold against the amethyst, 
 
 The green against the rose. 
 
 Touched by a light that hath no name, 
 
 A glory never sung. 
 Aloft on sky and mountain wall 
 
 Are God's great pictures hung. 
 How changed the summits vast and old ! 
 
 No longer granite-browed, 
 They melt in rosy mist ; the rock 
 
 Is softer than the cloud : 
 The valley holds its breath ; no leaf 
 
 Of all its elms is twirled : 
 The silence of eternity 
 
 Seems falling on the world. 
 
 The pause before the breaking seals 
 
 Of mystery is this ; 
 Yon miracle-play of night and day 
 
 Makes dumb its witnesses. 
 What unseen altar crowns the hills 
 
 That reach up stair on stair ? 
 What eyes look through, what white wings fan 
 
 These purple veils of air ?
 
 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 What Presence from the heavenly heights 
 To those of earth stoops down ? 
 
 Not vainly Hellas dreamed of gods 
 On Ida's snowy crown ! 
 
 Slow fades the vision of the sky, 
 
 The golden water pales, 
 And over all the valley-land 
 
 A gray-winged vapor sails. 
 I go the common way of all ; 
 
 The sunset fires will burn, 
 The flowers will blow, the river flow, 
 
 When I no more return. 
 No whisper from the mountain pine 
 
 Nor lapsing stream shall tell 
 The stranger, treading where I tread, 
 
 Of him who loved them well. 
 
 But beauty seen is never lost, 
 
 God's colors all are fast ; 
 The glory of this sunset heaven 
 
 Into my soul has passed, — 
 A sense of gladness unconfined 
 
 To mortal date or clime ; 
 As the soul liveth, it shall live 
 
 Beyond the years of time. 
 Beside the mystic asphodels 
 
 Shall bloom the home-born flowers. 
 And new horizons flush and glow 
 
 With sunset hues of ours. 
 
 Farewell ! these smiling hills must wear 
 Too soon their wintry frown,
 
 QUIET WATERS. 1S9 
 
 And snow-cold winds from off them shake 
 
 The maple's red leaves down. 
 But I shall see a summer sun 
 
 Still setting broad and low ; 
 The mountain slopes shall Mush and bloom, 
 
 The golden water flow. 
 A lover's claim is mine on all 
 
 I see to have and hold, — 
 The rose-light of perpetual hills, 
 
 And sunsets never cold ! 
 
 J. G. W'llITTlHR. 
 
 QUIET WATERS. 
 
 r\ RAINBOW, Rainbow, on the livid height, 
 ^-^ Softening its ashen outlines into dream, 
 Dewy yet brilliant, delicately bright 
 
 As pink wild-roses' leaves, — why dost thou gleam 
 So beckoningly ? Whom dost thou invite 
 
 Still higher upward on the bitter quest .'' 
 What dost thou promise to the we.iry sight 
 
 In that strange region whence thou issuest ? 
 Speakest thou of pensive runlets by whose side 
 Our dear ones wander sweet and gentle-eyed, 
 
 In the soft dawn of a diviner Day .'* 
 Art thou a promise ? Come those hues and dyes 
 Froni heavenly Meads, near which thou dost arise, 
 
 Iris'd from (2uiet Waters, far away ? 
 
 Robert Bi'Chwa.v.
 
 190 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 SUNSET THOUGHTS. 
 
 (~\ SUNLIT hills ! that in your rocky deeps 
 
 ^-^ Hold secrets from our science hid away, 
 Lifting your voiceless ridges 'gainst the day 
 
 Slow dying in the west, — calm day that sleeps 
 
 In your dark hollows, crowns your stony brows 
 With light so living that its touch must wake 
 Your rocks to speech, your mighty silence break, — 
 
 From your long centuries of rest, arouse ! 
 
 Speak words of strength ! for have ye not been given 
 
 Justice for all the peoples, and God's Peace ? 
 
 Our souls are weary, and we crave release 
 From the drear, endless war of good and ill. 
 Rest from ourselves ; one living breath of heaven. 
 
 That shall our silent hearts with peace and loving fill. 
 
 Arouse, great hills ! The day is dying fast. 
 
 Cold grow your shadows, and the heavens' light, 
 Deepening in death along each basking height. 
 
 Soon from your silent fastness will have passed. 
 
 When stern, and cold, and dumb, your forms shall rise 
 As in your hearts of stone ye held no faith ; 
 As if for us who long for purer breath 
 
 Ye held no loving message from the skies. 
 
 O soul ! my soul ! God's light shines down on thee, 
 
 Thy morn and eve begin in shade to blend. 
 
 Thy day so softly shadowed nears its end : 
 
 Speak ! ere the light be gone, of love and peace, 
 Thy message give, nor cold and silent be, — 
 
 One word may give one soul from weary thoughts 
 release.
 
 BENE Die T/OX. 1 9 1 
 
 Arouse, my soul ! now, while the li^'ht is thine ; 
 The day is passing, and last comes the night 
 When only shadows on thy utmost height 
 
 Shall fall, where lingereth now God's sweet sunshine. 
 
 Speak! with the living breath that thee is lent 
 Not for thyself alone. Some soul may wait. 
 Craving the message that thou giv'st so late, — 
 
 Thou and the mountains in one silence blent! 
 
 While over both glow warm the illumined skies — 
 
 The mountains' peace and thine beyond, above — 
 
 Bathed in illimitable depths of Love ! 
 
 Only that Peace the yearning heart can fill, 
 Only that Love for heaven-born soul suffice. — 
 
 O gracious skies, bend down ! O hills, O soul, be still ! 
 
 E. w. c 
 
 BENEDICTION. 
 
 /'"^AZE on those skies at once o'er all the earth 
 ^-^ Dissolving in a bath of purple dews, 
 And spread thy soul abroad as widely forth 
 
 Till Love thy soul, as Heaven the snows, suffuse. 
 Gaze, gaze on Heaven ; and mark, his clouds among, 
 
 The Sun, emerging in his luminous might : 
 Gaze on the Earth ; and mark, o'er all, Mont Blanc 
 
 Answering that sinking orb with light for light: 
 He sinks — is set — but upwards without end 
 
 Two mighty beams, diverging. 
 Like hands in benediction raised, extend ; 
 From the great deep a crimson mist is surging ; 
 
 The peaks all round are funeral pyres 
 
 On which the flaming day expires ;
 
 192 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Strange gleams, each moment ten times bright, 
 
 Shoot round, transfiguring as they smite 
 
 All spaces of the empyreal height — 
 Deep gleams, high words which God to man doth 
 speak ; 
 
 From peak to solemn peak in order driven 
 They speed. — A loftier vision dost thou seek? 
 
 Rise then — to Heaven ! 
 
 Aubrey de Verb.
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 Alexander, C. F., 138. 
 Alger, William RounsevIUe, 12. 
 Allingham, William, 25, 129. 
 Ames, Charles Gordon, 174. 
 Arnold, Matthew, 127. 
 
 Betham-Edvvards, M., 86. 
 Boyesen, Hjalmar Hjorth, 157. 
 Brackett, Anna C, 120. 
 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 88, 
 
 106. 
 Browning, Robert, 61, 152. 
 Bryant, William C, 103. 
 Buchanan, Robert, 34, 52, 78, 189. 
 Burbidge, Thomas, S3. 
 Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 39, 
 
 68. 
 
 Calderon (D. F. McCarthy, 
 
 Translator), 172. 
 Camoens, Luis de(i\Iickle, Trans- 
 lator), 113. 
 Campbell, Alice, 51. 
 Chadwick, John White, 171, iSo. 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 36, 98. 
 Cooke, Rose Terry, 173. 
 Craik, Dinah Maria Mulock, 131, 
 
 167. 
 E. W. C, 96, 190. 
 
 Eliot, George, 113. 
 Elliott, Thomas, 162. 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 69, 70. 
 
 Faber, Frederick William, 45, 57, 
 
 '03, 17.^. '75- 
 Eraser's Magazine, 90. 
 
 Gannett, William Channing, 16. 
 " Good Words," 116. 
 
 Hamerton, Philip Gilbert, 79, 80. 
 
 Harte, Bret, 93. 
 
 Havergal, Frances Ridley, 184. 
 
 Hemans, Felicia, 147. 
 
 H. H., 154. 
 
 Hogg, James, 109. 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 35- 
 
 Hunt, Leigh, 134. 
 
 Italicus, Silius (Sir C. Elton, 
 Translator), 136. 
 
 Keble, John, 19. 
 
 Larcom, Lucy, 13, 57. 
 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 
 
 22, 44, 92. 
 Lowell, James Russell, 107, 162. 
 
 Metastasio (F. Hemans, Trans- 
 lator), 105. 
 Miller, Joaquin, 32, 89. 
 Murray, Rev. Dr., 87. 
 R. M.,' 99- 
 
 Onomacritus (Sir C. Elton, 
 Translator), 124. 
 
 Petrarch (Dacre, Translator), 149. 
 Procter, Adelaide Anne, 141, 183.
 
 194 
 
 IiYDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 Pychowska, Lucia Duncan, 94, 
 179. 
 
 Rogers, Samuel, 119, 122. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 29, 72, 75, 126. 
 Shakspeare, William, 43. 
 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 6s, 82. 
 Sigourney, Lydia Huntley, 104. 
 Sjogren, E., 170. 
 Sterling, John, 20, 87. 
 Stoiy, William W., 64, loi, 124. 
 Southey, Robert, 74. 
 
 Tannahill, Robert, 161. 
 Taylor, Bayard, 21, 63, 164. 
 Tennyson, Alfred, 33, 80, 
 
 "The Month," iiS. 
 Thomson, J., 46. 
 Trench, Richard Chenevix, 60, 62, 
 178. 
 
 Vaughan, Henry, 81. 
 
 Vera, Aubrey de, 16, 18, 191. 
 
 Vere, Sir Aubrey de, 79. 
 
 Whitman, Sarah Helen, 85. 
 Whitney, Adeline D. T., 95. 
 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 11, 53, 
 
 no, 186. 
 Wilson, John, 30. 
 Wordsworth, William, 15, 48, 49. 
 Worthington, Jane T, 168.
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 PACE 
 
 Across my road a mountain rose of rock ii;^ 
 
 A gold fringe on the purpling hem iS6 
 
 Ah ! welcome if thou bring ^o 
 
 All hail to our mountain I form well known 25 
 
 All men speak ill of thee, unlucky tree 103 
 
 Alone, without a friend or foe 101 
 
 Along the scholar's glowing page iSo 
 
 Among the far gray mountains 118 
 
 A morn in Oregon ! the kindled camp 32 
 
 Around whose hoar and mighty head 89 
 
 A step 49 
 
 A sun-burst on the Bay ! Turn and behold 79 
 
 As when unto a mother, having chid 62 
 
 At morning I stood on the mountain's brow 170 
 
 A turn, and we stand in the heart of things 152 
 
 Behold, slow-settling o'er the lurid grove 46 
 
 Bird of the wilderness loj 
 
 But what need have I of pictures on my walls 124 
 
 By many a bard in Celtic tongue 29 
 
 By Nebo's lonely mountain 13S 
 
 By scattered rocks and turbid waters shifting 93 
 
 Centuries old are the mountains 22 
 
 Clear, placid Leman ! thy contrasted lake 39 
 
 Climbing the mountain's shagg>' crest 171 
 
 Come with me to the mountain, not where rocks 113 
 
 Deep set in distant seas it lies 1^7 
 
 Deep within a narrow valley lies a busy little town 116 
 
 Down the steep path we wound with careful tread 120 
 
 Early had he learned 15
 
 196 
 
 INDEX OF FIRST IINES. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Fair are thy sunset hues, thy dark brow blessing 168 
 
 Fair was that eve, as if from earth away 87 
 
 Far up on Katahdin thou towerest 107 
 
 From hill to hill I roam, from thought to thought 149 
 
 Gaze on those skies at once o'er all the earth 191 
 
 Girt round wuth rugged mountains 141 
 
 God ploughed one day with an earthquake 16 
 
 Green the land is where my daily 88 
 
 Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star 36 
 
 Hast thou ever sat on a mountain-brow 45 
 
 Have ye seen when spring's arrowy summons goes right to the aim 61 
 
 He is gone on the mountain 126 
 
 Higher ! yet higher ! Tho' the path is steep 34 
 
 High in the clefts of the rock, 'mid the cedars 94 
 
 Holding by this rude crag I stay to listen 57 
 
 Howe' er the wheels of Time go round 21 
 
 I came down rushing from the mountain 99 
 
 I climbed the roofs at break of day 80 
 
 I look'd upon a plain of green 87 
 
 I love to wander through the woodlands hoarj' 85 
 
 In his own loom's garment dressed 69 
 
 I scaled the hills ; no murky blot 18 
 
 I stand on high 174 
 
 Is this indeed our ancient earth 1'^ 
 
 I stood beside a pool, from whence ascended 178 
 
 I stood upon the hills when heaven's wide arch 44 
 
 It is coming, it is coming 1S4 
 
 It was a day of shower and sun 83 
 
 I would I were a painter, for the sake in 
 
 Jorasse was in his three-and-twentieth year 122 
 
 Keen blaws the win' o'er the braes o' Gleniffer 161 
 
 Like dreary prison walls 1 S3 
 
 Lo ! here the gentle lark, wearj' of rest 43 
 
 Look down that dark ravine 80 
 
 Meek dwellers 'mid yon terror-stricken cliffs 104 
 
 'Mid the mountains Euganean 65 
 
 Mountain gorses, ever golden 106 
 
 My home was seated high and fair 164 
 
 My way in opening dawn I took 12 
 
 Night was again descending, when my mule 119 
 
 Nor fen, nor sedge 72
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 197 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Not from the sands or cloven rocks 103 
 
 Now ends the hour's comiminion, near and liigh 14 
 
 O dwellers in the valley-land i<^i 
 
 Oh asketh thou of me 175 
 
 Oh for wings, that I might soar 51 
 
 Oh! enter not yon shadowy cave 147 
 
 Oh ! have you been in Gudbrand's Dale, when Laagen's miglity flood 157 
 
 O hoary Hills! though ye look aged, ye 7S 
 
 Oh Thou art beautiful ! and Thou dost bestow 52 
 
 Oh! wae's me on gowd, wi' its glamour and fame 162 
 
 Once more, O Mountains of the North, unveil 1 10 
 
 On tawny hills in faded splendor drest 86 
 
 On the bare hill-top by the pine-wood's edge, how joyously rang tlie 
 
 noise 90 
 
 O Rainbow, Rainbow, on the livid height . 189 
 
 O silent Hills across the lake 57 
 
 O sunlit Hills ! that in your rocky deeps 190 
 
 Sacred to Cybele the whispering pine 113 
 
 See ye not here this rock some power secureth 172 
 
 Slow toiling upward from the misty vale 35 
 
 Sinking, sinking, all the country slowly sank beneath the waves . . 79 
 
 Sweete, sacred Hill ! on whose fair brow 81 
 
 That lonely dwelling stood among the hills 74 
 
 The brooklet came from the mountain 92 
 
 The harp at Nature's advent strung 11 
 
 The moon is up, and yet it is not night 6S 
 
 The mountains stand about the quiet lake 60 
 
 The mountain statelier lifts his blue-veiled head 14 
 
 Then, from the shore, the rocks and windy summits high .... 124 
 
 The orchards that climb the hillsides 96 
 
 There's not a nook within this solemn Pass ' 48 
 
 The splendor falls on castle walls 33 
 
 The storm is past : the green hillside i73 
 
 The stranger wandering in the Switzer's land 173 
 
 1'he torrent-wave, that breaks with force 105 
 
 The western waves of ebbing day 75 
 
 They beckon from their sunset domes afar 13 
 
 This is a barren, desolate scene 64 
 
 Thou, Lord, who rear'st the mountains' height 20 
 
 Through the black, rushing smoke-crests 127 
 
 Towering heights of Ingall's River '79
 
 198 INDEX OF FIRST FINES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 To whom belongs this valley fair 30 
 
 Turbid with stones and trunks of trees, descends 136 
 
 Unperishing youth 98 
 
 Up in a wild where no one comes to look 95 
 
 Up the airy mountain 129 
 
 We stood 82 
 
 We went 63 
 
 Where is thy favor' d haunt, eternal Voice 19 
 
 White clouds whose shadows haunt the deep 53 
 
 With a\\-ful walls, far glooming, that possess'd 134 
 
 With face turned upward to the changeful sky 131 
 
 Yon mountain's side is black with night 55 
 
 Cambridge : Press of John Wilson & Son.
 
 HANDY VOLUME SERIES. 
 
 HAPPY THOUGHTS. By F. C. Burnand. Price, in Cloth, 
 ^ i.oo; in Illuminated Paper Covers, 75 cents. 
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 HAPPY THOUGHT HALL. 
 
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 Author. One volume. Square octavo. Cloth, neat. Price $2.00. 
 
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 '' Happy Thought Hall." 
 
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