| |
| WITHIN the mind strong fancies work, | |
| A deep delight the bosom thrills, | |
| Oft as I pass along the fork | |
| Of these fraternal hills: | |
| Where, save the rugged road, we find | 5 |
| No appanage of human kind, | |
| Nor hint of man; if stone or rock | |
| Seem not his handiwork to mock | |
| By something cognizably shaped; | |
| Mockery,—or model roughly hewn, | 10 |
| And left as if by earthquake strewn, | |
| Or from the flood escaped: | |
| Altars for Druid service fit | |
| (But where no fire was ever lit, | |
| Unless the glowworm to the skies | 15 |
| Thence offer nightly sacrifice); | |
| Wrinkled Egyptian monument; | |
| Green, moss-grown tower; or hoary tent; | |
| Tents of a camp that never shall be raised,— | |
| On which four thousand years have gazed! | 20 |
| |
| Ye ploughshares sparkling on the slopes! | |
| Ye snow-white lambs that trip | |
| Imprisoned mid the formal props | |
| Of restless ownership? | |
| Ye trees, that may to-morrow fall | 25 |
| To feed the insatiate prodigal! | |
| Lawns, houses, chattels, groves, and fields, | |
| All that the fertile valley shields; | |
| Wages of folly, baits of crime, | |
| Of life’s uneasy game the stake, | 30 |
| Playthings that keep the eyes awake | |
| Of drowsy, dotard Time;— | |
| O care! O guilt! O vales and plains, | |
| Here, mid his own unvexed domains, | |
| A genius dwells, that can subdue | 35 |
| At once all memory of you,— | |
| Most potent when mists veil the sky, | |
| Mists that distort and magnify; | |
| While the coarse rushes, to the sweeping breeze, | |
| Sigh forth their ancient melodies! | 40 |
| |
| List to those shriller notes!—that march | |
| Perchance was on the blast, | |
| When through this height’s inverted arch | |
| Rome’s earliest legion passed! | |
| They saw, adventurously impelled, | 45 |
| And older eyes than theirs beheld. | |
| This block,—and yon, whose church-like frame | |
| Gives to this savage pass its name. | |
| Aspiring road! that lov’st to hide | |
| Thy daring in a vapory bourn, | 50 |
| Not seldom may the hour return | |
| When thou shalt be my guide; | |
| And I (as all men may find cause, | |
| When life is at a weary pause, | |
| And they have panted up the hill | 55 |
| Of duty with reluctant will) | |
| Be thankful, even though tired and faint, | |
| For the rich bounties of constraint; | |
| Whence oft invigorating transports flow | |
| That choice lacked courage to bestow! | 60 |
| |
| My soul was grateful for delight | |
| That wore a threatening brow; | |
| A veil is lifted,—can she slight | |
| The scene that opens now? | |
| Though habitation none appear, | 65 |
| The greenness tells man must be there; | |
| The shelter—that the pérspective | |
| Is of the clime in which we live; | |
| Where Toil pursues his daily round; | |
| Where Pity sheds sweet tears; and Love, | 70 |
| In woodbine bower or birchen grove, | |
| Inflicts his tender wound. | |
| Who comes not hither ne’er shall know | |
| How beautiful the world below; | |
| Nor can he guess how lightly leaps | 75 |
| The brook adown the rocky steeps. | |
| Farewell, thou desolate domain! | |
| Hope, pointing to the cultured plain, | |
| Carols like a shepherd-boy; | |
| And who is she?—can that be Joy! | 80 |
| Who, with a sunbeam for her guide, | |
| Smoothly skims the meadows wide; | |
| While Faith, from yonder opening cloud, | |
| To hill and vale proclaims aloud, | |
| “Whate’er the weak may dread, the wicked dare, | 85 |
| Thy lot, O man, is good, thy portion fair!” | |
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