| |
| UPON our loftiest White Mountain peak, | |
| Filled with the freshness of untainted air, | |
| We sat, nor cared to listen or to speak | |
| To one another, for the silence there | |
| Was eloquent with God’s presence. Not a sound | 5 |
| Uttered the winds in their unhindered sweep | |
| Above us through the heavens. The gulf profound | |
| Below us seethed with mists, a sullen deep, | |
| From thawless ice-caves of a vast ravine | |
| Rolled sheeted clouds across the lands unseen. | 10 |
| |
| How far away seemed all that we had known | |
| In homely levels of the earth beneath, | |
| Where still our thoughts went wandering—“Turn thee!” Blown | |
| Apart before us, a dissolving wreath | |
| Of cloud framed in a picture on the air: | 15 |
| The fair long Saco Valley, whence we came; | |
| The hills and lakes of Ossipee; and there | |
| Glimmers the sea! Some pleasant, well-known name | |
| With every break to memory hastens back; | |
| Monadnock,—Winnipesaukee,—Merrimack. | 20 |
| |
| On widening vistas broader rifts unfold: | |
| Far off into the waters of Champlain | |
| Great sunset summits dip their flaming gold; | |
| There winds the dim Connecticut, a vein | |
| Of silver on aerial green; and here, | 25 |
| The upland street of rural Bethlehem; | |
| And there, the roofs of Bethel. Azure-clear | |
| Shimmers the Androscoggin; like a gem | |
| Umbagog glistens; and Katahdin gleams | |
| Uncertain as a mountain seen in dreams. | 30 |
| |
| Our own familiar world, not yet half known, | |
| Nor loved enough, in tints of Paradise | |
| Lies there before us, now so lovely grown, | |
| We wonder what strange film was on our eyes | |
| Ere we climbed hither. But again the cloud, | 35 |
| Descending, shuts the beauteous vision out; | |
| Between us the abysses spread their shroud: | |
| We are to earth, as earth to us, a doubt. | |
| Dear home folk, skyward seeking us, can see | |
| No crest or crag where pilgrim feet may be. | 40 |
| |
| Who whispered unto us of life and death | |
| As silence closed upon our hearts once more? | |
| On heights where angels sit, perhaps a breath | |
| May clear the separating gulfs; a door | |
| May open sometimes betwixt earth and heaven, | 45 |
| And life’s most haunting mystery be shown | |
| A fog-drift of the mind, scattered and driven | |
| Before the winds of God: no vague unknown | |
| Death’s dreaded path,—only a curtained stair; | |
| And heaven but earth raised into purer air. | 50 |
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