Excerpt
MOUNTAIN PICTURES.
I. FRANCONIA FROM THE PEMIGEWASSETOnce more, O Mountains of the North, unveilYour brows, and lay your cloudy mantles byAnd once more, ere the eyes that seek ye fail,Uplift against the blue walls of the skyYour mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weaveIts golden net-work in your belting woods,Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods,And on your kingly brows at morn and eveSet crowns of fire! So shall my soul receiveHaply the secret of your calm and strength,Your unforgotten beauty interfuseMy common life, your glorious shapes and huesAnd sun-dropped splendors at my bidding come,Loom vast through dreams, and stretch in billowy lengthFrom the sea-level of my lowland home!
They rise before me! Last night's thunder-gustRoared not in vain: for where its lightnings thrustTheir 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 yon slide-worn wallsAnd splintered on the rocks their spears of rainHave set in play a thousand waterfalls,Making the dusk and silence of the woodsGlad with the laughter of the chasing floods,And luminous with blown spray and silver gleams,While, in the vales below, the dry-lipped streamsSing to the freshened meadow-lands again.So, let me hope, the battle-storm that beatsThe land with hail and fire may pass awayWith 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. MONADNOCK FROM WACHUSET.I would I were a painter, for the sakeOf a sweet picture, and of her who led,A fitting guide, with reverential tread,Into that mountain mystery. First a lakeTinted with sunset; next the wavy linesOf far receding hills; and yet more far,Monadnock lifting from his night of pinesHis rosy forehead to the evening star.Beside us, purple-zoned, Wachuset laidHis head against the West, whose warm light madeHis aureole; and o'er him, sharp and clear,Like a shaft of lightning in mid-launching stayed,A single level cloud-line, shone uponBy the fierce glances of the sunken sun,Menaced the darkness with its golden spear!
So twilight deepened round us. Still and blackThe great woods climbed the mountain at our back;And on their skirts, where yet the lingering dayOn the shorn greenness of the clearing lay,The brown old farm-house like a bird's-nest hung.With home-life sounds the desert air was stirredThe 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 gateOf the barn-yard creaked beneath the merry weightOf sun-brown children, listening, while they swung,The welcome sound of supper-call to hear;And down the shadowy lane, in tinklings clear,The pastoral curfew of the cow-bell rung....