Along the trail :: :: University of Virginia Library

Again among the hills!
The shaggy hills!
The clear arousing air comes like a call
Of bugle notes across the pines, and thrills
My heart as if a hero had just spoken.
Again among the hills!
The jubilant unbroken
Long dreaming of the hills!
Far off, Ascutney smiles as one at peace;
And over all
The golden sunlight pours and fills
The hollow of the earth, like a God's joy.
Again among the hills!
The tranquil hills
That took me as a boy
And filled my spirit with the silences!

O indolent, far-reaching hills, that lie
Secure in your own strength, and take your ease
Like careless giants 'neath the summer sky—
What is it to you, O hills,
That anxious men should take thought for the morrow?
What has your might to do with thought or sorrow
Or cark and cumber of conflicting wills?

Lone Pine, that thron'st thyself upon the height,
Aloof and kingly, overlooking all,
Yet uncompanioned, with the Day and Night
For pageant and the winds for festival!
I was thy minion once, and now renew
Mine ancient fealty—
To that which shaped me still remaining true,
And through allegiance only growing free.

So with no foreign nor oblivious heart,
Dartmouth, I seek once more thy granite seat;
Nor only of thy hills I feel me part,
But each encounter of the village street,
The ball-players on the campus, and their shouting,
The runners lithe and fleet,
The noisy groups of idlers, and the songs,
The laughter and the flouting—
Spectacled comic unrelated beings
With book in hand,
Who 'mid all stir of life, all whirl of rhythms,
All strivings, lovings, kissings, dreamings, seeings,
Still live apart in some strange land
Of aorists and ohms and logarithms—
All these are mine; I greet them with a shout.
Whether they will or no, they greet me too.
Grave teachers and the students' jocund rout,
Class-room and tennis court, alike they knew
My step once, and they cannot shut me out.

But dearer than the silence of the hills,
And greater than the wisdom of the years,
Is man to man, indifferent of ills,
Triumphant over fears,
To meet the world with loyal hearts that need
No witness of their friendship but the deed.
Such comrades they, the gallant Musketeers,
Wrought by the master-workman of Romance,
Who foiled the crafty Cardinal and saved
A Queen, for episode,—who braved
The utmost malice of mischance,
The utmost enmity of human foes,
But still rode on across the fields of France,
Reckless of knocks and blows,
Careless of sins or woes,
Incurious of each other's hearts, but sure
That each for each would vanquish or endure.

Praise be to you, O hills, that you can breathe
Into our souls the secret of your power!
He is no child of yours, he never knew
Your spirit—were he born beneath
Your highest crags—who bears not every hour
The might, the calm of you
About him, that sublime
Unconsciousness of all things great,—
Built on himself to stand the shocks of Time
And scarred not shaken by the bolts of Fate.

And praise to thee, my college, that the lore
Of ages may be pondered at thy feet!
That for thy sons each sage and seer of yore
His runes may still repeat!
Praise that thou givest to us understanding
To wring from the world's heart
New answers to new doubts—to make the landing
On shores that have no chart!
Praise for the glory of knowing,
And greater glory of the power to know!
Praise for the faith that doubts would overthrow,
And which through doubts to larger faith is growing!
The sons of science are a wrangling throng,
Yet through their labor what the sons of song
Have wrought in clay, at last
In the bronze is cast,
And wind and rain no more can work it wrong.

But more than strength and more than truth
Oh praise the love of man and man!
Praise it for pledge of our eternal youth!
Praise it for pulse of that great gush that ran
Through all the worlds, when He
Who made them clapped his hands for glee,
And laughed Love down the cycles of the stars.
Praise all that plants it in the hearts of men,
All that protects it from the hoof that mars,

The weed that stifles; praise the rain
That rains upon it and the sun that shines,
Till it stretch skyward with its laden vines!

Praise, then, for thee, Psi Upsilon!
And never shame if it be said
Thou carest little for the head,
All for the heart; for this is thy desire.
Not for the social grace thou mayst impart,
Not for the love of letters or of art,
Albeit thou lovest them, burns thy sacred fire.
Not to add one more whip to those that drive
Men onward in the struggle to survive,
Not to spur weary brain and tired eyes on
To toil for prizes, not, Psi Upsilon,
To be an annex to collegiate chairs
Or make their lapses good!
Make thou no claim of use
For poor excuse
Why thou shouldst climb thy holier stairs
Toward ends by plodders dimly understood.
No, for the love of comrades only, thou!
The college is the head and thou the heart.
Keep thou thy nobler part,
And wear the Bacchic ivy on thy brow.

Comrades, pour the wine to-night,
For the parting is with dawn.

Oh, the clink of cups together,
With the daylight coming on!
Greet the morn
With a double horn,
When strong men drink together!

Comrades, gird your swords to-night,
For the battle is with dawn.
Oh, the clash of shields together,
With the triumph coming on!
Greet the foe
And lay him low,
When strong men fight together.

Comrades, watch the tides to-night,
For the sailing is with dawn.
Oh, to face the spray together,
With the tempest coming on!
Greet the Sea
With a shout of glee,
When strong men roam together.

Comrades, give a cheer to-night,
For the dying is with dawn.
Oh, to meet the stars together,
With the silence coming on!
Greet the end
As a friend a friend,
When strong men die together.

—Hark, afar
The rising of the wind among the pines,
The runic wind, full of old legendries!
It talks to the ancient trees
Of sights and signs
And strange earth-creatures strong to make or mar,—
Such tales as when the firelight flickered out
In the old days men heard and had no doubt.
O wind, what is your spell?
Borne on your cry, the ages slip away,
And lo, I too am of that elder day;
I crouch by the logs and hear
With credent ear
And simple marvel the far tales men tell.

There came three women to a youth, and one
Was brown and old, and like the bark of trees
Her wrinkled skin was rough to look upon;
And one was tall and stately, and her brow
Broad with large thought and many masteries,
Yet bent a little as who saith “I trow;”
The third was like a breath of morning blown
Across the hills in May, so blithe, so fair,
With brave blue eyes, and on her yellow hair
A glory by the yellow sunlight thrown.

And the youth's heart flamed as a crackling fire,
For his eyes were full of his heart's desire.

And the old crone said to him, “Come,
For I will give thee Power.”
And the tall dame said to him, “Come,
I will give thee Wisdom and Craft.”
And the maid of the morning said to him, “Come
And I will give thee Love.”

And the youth was still as a burnt-out fire,
For he knew not which was his heart's desire.

Then spake the maid again;
“Oh, folly of men!
What thing is this whereat he starts and muses?
Not twice the Dames of Birth
Bring gifts for mirth.
Choose, if thou wilt; but he that chooses, loses.”

... Night on the hills!
And the ancient stars emerge.
The silence of their mighty distances
Compels the world to peace. Now sinks the surge
Of life to a soft stir of mountain rills,
And over the swarm and urge
Of eager men sleep falls and darkling ease.

Night on the hills!
Dark mother-Night, draw near;
Lay hands on us and whisper words of cheer
So softly, oh, so softly! Now may we

Be each as one that leaves his midnight task
And throws his casement open; and the air
Comes up across the lowlands from the Sea
And cools his temples, as a maid might ask
With shy caress what speech would never dare;
And he leans back to her demure desires,
And as a dream sees far below
The city with its lights aglow
And blesses in his heart his brothers there;
Then toward the eternal stars again aspires.

1893