C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Mountain Boy

Anonymous Translation in Longfellow’s ‘Poets and Poetry of Europe’

THE SHEPHERD of the Alps am I;

The castles far beneath me lie;

Here first the ruddy sunlight gleams,

Here linger last the parting beams.

The mountain boy am I!

Here is the river’s fountain-head,—

I drink it from its stony bed;

As forth it leaps with joyous shout,

I seize it ere it gushes out.

The mountain boy am I!

The mountain is my own domain:

It calls its storms from sea and plain;

From north to south they howl afar;

My voice is heard amid their war.

The mountain boy am I!

The lightnings far beneath me lie;

High stand I here in clear blue sky;

I know them, and to them I call,

“In quiet leave my father’s hall.”

The mountain boy am I!

And when the tocsin sounds alarms,

And mountain bale-fires call to arms,

Then I descend,—I join my king,

My sword I wave, my lay I sing.’

The mountain boy am I!