Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Where a moor for miles extending
Tires the westward straining eye,
And the northern bens ascending
Darken and divide the sky,
Where the stormcloud, ever wheeling,
Flings on Earth a tortured shade—
Happy in a humble shieling
Lived the dark-eyed Mountain Maid.

Here, 'mid scenes of naked grandeur,
Day dawned on her infant view,
Here her childhood wont to wander,
Here to girlhood glad she grew.
Moving shadows, laughing water,
Wind and flowers,—with these she played;
And Omniscient Nature taught her,—
Taught the lonely Mountain Maid.

Close with Nature converse holding,
Wondering Fear at first she knew;

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Till from Fear to Faith unfolding
Wondering Love within her grew.
Then the tender gospel story
Revelation's roll display'd,
And an absent heir of glory
Was the lowly Mountain Maid.

Dwelling with her widowed father,
He a gloomy mountaineer,
Was not she an angel rather
Come his silent life to cheer?
—For, as Horeb, seared and roughened,
Moses' voice in floods obey'd,
So the dark man's heart was softened
By the gentle Mountain Maid.

This her simple mission ended,
Soon she sought her native skies;
Straight to Heaven her soul ascended,
Sinless as a seraph's eyes.
Six short months of holy sorrow
She was from his sight convey'd,
When the everlasting morrow
Gave him back his Mountain Maid.

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I have seen the roofless dwelling
On the lonely wind-swept moor,
I have heard the shepherd telling
Of her earthly lot obscure;
And her name and age surviving
On the graveyard stone survey'd,
And have thought it worth the striving
To be like the Mountain Maid.