MOUNTAIN PICTURES.

I.

FRANCONIA FROM THE PEMIGEWASSET.

ONCE more, O Mountains of the North, unveil
Your brows, and lay your cloudy mantles by!
And once more, ere the eyes that seek ye fail,
Uplift against the blue walls of the sky
Your mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weave
Its golden net-work in your belting woods,
Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods,
And on your kingly brows at morn and eve
Set crowns of fire! So shall my soul receive
Haply the secret of your calm and strength,
Your unforgotten beauty interfuse

My common life, your glorious shapes and hues
And sun-dropped splendors at my bidding come,
Loom vast through dreams, and stretch in bil-
lowy length

From the sea-level of my lowland home!

They rise before me! Last night's thunder-gust
Roared not in vain: for where its lightnings thrust
Their 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 walls
And splintered on the rocks their spears of rain
Have set in play a thousand waterfalls,
Making the dusk and silence of the woods
Glad with the laughter of the chasing floods,
And luminous with blown spray and silver gleams,
While, in the vales below, the dry-lipped streams
Sing to the freshened meadow-lands again.

So, let me hope, the battle-storm that beats
The land with hail and fire may pass away
With 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 sake
Of a sweet picture, and of her who led,
A fitting guide, with reverential tread,
Into that mountain mystery. First a lake
Tinted with sunset; next the wavy lines

Of far receding hills; and yet more far,
Monadnock lifting from his night of pines
His rosy forehead to the evening star.
Beside us, purple-zoned, Wachuset laid

His head against the West, whose warm light made His aureole; and o'er him, sharp and clear, Like a shaft of lightning in mid-launching stayed, A single level cloud-line, shone upon

By the fierce glances of the sunken sun,

Menaced the darkness with its golden spear

So twilight deepened round us.

Still and black

!

The great woods climbed the mountain at our back; And on their skirts, where yet the lingering day On 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 stirred: The 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 gate

Of the barn-yard creaked beneath the merry weight Of 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.
Thus soothed and pleased, our backward path we
took,

Praising the farmer's home. He only spake,
Looking into the sunset o'er the lake,

Like one to whom the far-off is most near:
"Yes, most folks think it has a pleasant look;
I love it for my good old mother's sake,

Who lived and died here in the peace of
God!"

The lesson of his words we pondered o'er,
As silently we turned the eastern flank

Of the mountain, where its shadow deepest sank,
Doubling the night along our rugged road:
We felt that man was more than his abode,-
The inward life than Nature's raiment more;
And the warm sky, the sundown-tinted hill,
The forest and the lake, seemed dwarfed and dim
Before the saintly soul, whose human will

Meekly in the Eternal footsteps trod,
Making her homely toil and household ways
An earthly echo of the song of praise
Swelling from angel lips and harps of seraphim

ONCE more on yonder laurelled height
The summer flowers have budded;
Once more with summer's golden light

The vales of home are flooded;
And once more, by the grace of Him
Of every good the Giver,
We sing upon its wooded rim
The praises of our river:

Its pines above, its waves below,
The west wind down it blowing,
As fair as when the young Brissot
Beheld it seaward flowing,-
And bore its memory o'er the deep,
To soothe a martyr's sadness,
And fresco, in his troubled sleep,
His prison-walls with gladness.

We know the world is rich with streams
Renowned in song and story,
Whose music murmurs through our dreams
Of human love and glory:

We know that Arno's banks are fair,
And Rhine has castled shadows,
And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr
Go singing down their meadows.

But while, unpictured and unsung
By painter or by poet,
Our river waits the tuneful tongue
And cunning hand to show it,-
We only know the fond skies lean
Above it, warm with blessing,
And the sweet soul of our Undine
Awakes to our caressing.

No fickle Sun-God holds the flocks
That graze its shores in keeping;
No icy kiss of Dian mocks

The youth beside it sleeping:
Our Christian river loveth most
The beautiful and human;

The heathen streams of Naiads boast,
But ours of man and woman.

The miner in his cabin hears
The ripple we are hearing;
It whispers soft to homesick ears
Around the settler's clearing:
In Sacramento's vales of corn,
Or Santee's bloom of cotton,
Our river by its valley-born
Was never yet forgotten.

The drum rolls loud,-the bugle fills
The summer air with clangor;
The war-storm shakes the solid hills
Beneath its tread of anger :

Young eyes that last year smiled in ours

Now point the rifle's barrel,

And hands then stained with fruits and flowers

Bear redder stains of quarrel.

But blue skies smile, and flowers bloom on,
And rivers still keep flowing,-

The dear God still his rain and sun

On good and ill bestowing.

His pine-trees whisper, "Trust and wait!"

His flowers are prophesying

That all we dread of change or fate
His love is underlying.

And thou, O Mountain-born !—no more

We ask the wise Allotter

Than for the firmness of thy shore,
The calmness of thy water,
The cheerful lights that overlay
Thy rugged slopes with beauty,
To match our spirits to our day
And make a joy of duty.