Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
Lake of the Clouds, Mt. Washington
By Henry Clay HendersonQ
Thou reignest all alone,
In solitude which few intrude
To bow at thy high throne.
Their giant shoulders lift
To bear thee up like God’s sweet cup,
Brimmed with his precious gift!
That wreathe thy rocky rim,
Like clustered vines the graver twines
About the beaker’s brim,
Of thee I came to seek,
At peace and rest beneath the crest
Of Monroe’s splintered peak;
Save the lone eagle’s cry,
Whose lordly flight eludes the sight,
Lost in the deepening sky;
Of thy unruffled sleep,
But bolts that flash and roar and crash
And leap from steep to steep.
Who said, and it was done;
And huge and vast these hills stood fast,
Eternal as the sun!
Thy waters clear and cold,
As the last ray that shuts the day
Flushed thy fair face with gold.
In softened beauty shone,
While o’er me rose in grand repose
The dome of Washington.
With wary feet and slow,
Crept in and out and all about
The shattered rocks below;
Peered out with sparkling eyes,
As in the wild some unkempt child
Looks up in shy surprise.
The powers of earth and air,
That desolate all else, create
For thee a garden fair,
Seems let down from above
To give us cheer where all is drear,
Like God’s abounding love.
And think of thee afar,
As of one gone whose love beams on
Like light from some lost star.
O hills and lakes and streams,
How dear thou art to all my heart,
How near in all my dreams.