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!
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.
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
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.
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