CLI.MOUNTAIN TARNS.
I
O askest thou of me
What store of thoughtful glee
By mountain tarns is lying,
That I to such grim nooks
From my dull-hearted books
Should evermore be flying?
II
Go thou, and spend an hour
In autumn fog and shower
Amid the thundering rills,
Or hear the breezy sigh
Of summer quiet die
Among the noonday hills.
III
The eagle's royal soul
Is nurtured in the roll
And echo of the thunder,
And feeds for evermore
Amid the summits hoar
On sights and sounds of wonder.
IV
The murmur of the stone
With hoarse and hollow moan
Self-loosened from the height,—
The waterfall's white showers
In midnight's deepest hours
Creating sound and light,—
V
The pauses in the blowing
Of winds, when oxen lowing
Are heard from vales beneath,
The under-world of care
Scarce burdening the air
With its poor plaintive breath,—
VI
The fragrance of the noon,
The nearness of the moon,
The swampy mosses tingling,
The strife of peace and noise,
Like the sorrows and the joys
In earthly lots commingling,—
VII
To all such sight and sound
Is the eagle's being bound,
A destiny of bliss;
These spells his spirit wake,
These influences make
The eagle what he is.
VIII
So I of lowly birth,
A workman on the earth,
Would cast myself apart,
That I a little time
From dreariness sublime
Might win a royal heart.
IX
The golden-crownèd kings
Are often abject things;
I would not be as they:
But mountain winds and waves
Teach no men to be slaves,
But with high minds obey.
X
Great emperors forget,
In jewelled places set,
The human heart below,
And with no fellows near
They often cease to hear
Its holy ebb and flow.
XI
But I from mountain throne
Would oftentimes come down,
And leave unto the breeze
And cataract to fill
With echoes at their will
My dreary royalties.
XII
I would in mountain haunt
But quicken the sweet want
Of love and blisses mild;
And I would alternate
My pomp of regal state
With the humors of a child.
XIII
There is a power to bless
In hill-side loneliness,
In tarns and dreary places,
A virtue in the brook,
A freshness in the look
Of mountain's joyless faces.
XIV
And I would have my heart
From littleness apart,
A love-anointed thing,
Be set above my kind,
In my unfettered mind
A veritable king.
XV
And so when life is dull,
Or when my heart is full
Because coy dreams have frowned,
I wander up the rills
To stones and tarns and hills,—
I go there to be crowned.
