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 | An idyl of work |  |
Then, after next day's noon-glare, they went up
For nearer greeting of the hills; and saw,
Through veils of rain, green summits come and go;
And saw a lucent rainbow, laid against
A mountain's purple slope, clear and intense
With unadulterate color; and at last
The landscape was all mountains. The whole range
Rose near and dark, its grand horizon-lines
Cut on the northern sky from east to west,
Like the long swell of an oncoming wave
Stiffened to granite ere it broke. Vast clouds
Moving to eastward in slow cavalcade
Now hid and now revealed one lofty peak
Whose white head, worn and haggard with the storms
Of æons, held its mighty symmetry
Amid surrounding chaos.
The two girls,
Who best knew mountains glimpsed among the leaves
Of the Old Testament, seemed to behold
The glooms of Sinai! Esther told her thought
To Eleanor, who whispered back, “The Lord
Is in His holy temple; let us keep
Silence before Him.” So they fared along
To a broad, well-tilled upland, whence the hills
More smiling looked, amid brown pasture-lands
And pleasant farm-enclosures, neighborly
As sentinels who keep no dangerous watch.
For nearer greeting of the hills; and saw,
Through veils of rain, green summits come and go;
And saw a lucent rainbow, laid against
A mountain's purple slope, clear and intense
With unadulterate color; and at last
The landscape was all mountains. The whole range
Rose near and dark, its grand horizon-lines
Cut on the northern sky from east to west,
Like the long swell of an oncoming wave
Stiffened to granite ere it broke. Vast clouds
Moving to eastward in slow cavalcade
Now hid and now revealed one lofty peak
Whose white head, worn and haggard with the storms
Of æons, held its mighty symmetry
Amid surrounding chaos.
The two girls,
Who best knew mountains glimpsed among the leaves
Of the Old Testament, seemed to behold
The glooms of Sinai! Esther told her thought
To Eleanor, who whispered back, “The Lord
102
Silence before Him.” So they fared along
To a broad, well-tilled upland, whence the hills
More smiling looked, amid brown pasture-lands
And pleasant farm-enclosures, neighborly
As sentinels who keep no dangerous watch.
| An idyl of work | |