University of Virginia Library

And when, at dawn, slow vapors climbed the hills
Before the pleasant hostelry, and left
Crags of dark green contrasted with pure blue,
These new-made friends beheld the mountains play
Like dolphins in their sun-bath, with the clouds
That clung to them, or slipped off unaware
Into a sea of azure, drenching them
With half-concealing sheen. And presently
The elder woman called, “Look! Eleanor, look!”
And where her finger pointed, where the mists
Had fallen again, and left the whole world gray
As if with coming rain, far, far beyond
The wave-like outline of the mountain-range,
A sun-touched summit glistened, a great pearl
Held in a cup-like hollow of near hills
Dark with contrasted glory.
“O, too fair!
Too delicate to gaze or breathe upon!
Is it not heaven itself?” And Eleanor's eyes
Grew luminous as she looked.
A veil came down
Upon the vision. Miriam Willoughby
Took Eleanor's hand, and said, “'T was but a hill
Like these around us, but a little higher,—
Although crowned monarch of New England peaks.
And may not heaven itself be common life
In uttermost perfection? Such a glimpse
Comes now and then to us from human souls,
Lit with divine ideas and purposes.
Is not man as the angels, only made
A little lower? And who knows what shall be
Revealed in him, shone on by other suns?”