A Mystery

The river hemmed with leaning trees     Wound through its meadows green;     A low, blue line of mountains showed     The open pines between.     One sharp, tall peak above them all     Clear into sunlight sprang     I saw the river of my dreams,     The mountains that I sang!     No clue of memory led me on,     But well the ways I knew;     A feeling of familiar things     With every footstep grew.     Not otherwise above its crag     Could lean the blasted pine;     Not otherwise the maple hold     Aloft its red ensign.     So up the long and shorn foot-hills     The mountain road should creep;     So, green and low, the meadow fold     Its red-haired kine asleep.     The river wound as it should wind;     Their place the mountains took;     The white torn fringes of their clouds     Wore no unwonted look.     Yet neer before that rivers rim     Was pressed by feet of mine,     Never before mine eyes had crossed     That broken mountain line.     A presence, strange at once and known,     Walked with me as my guide;     The skirts of some forgotten life     Trailed noiseless at my side.     Was it a dim-remembered dream?     Or glimpse through ions old?     The secret which the mountains kept     The river never told.     But from the vision ere it passed     A tender hope I drew,     And, pleasant as a dawn of spring,     The thought within me grew,     That love would temper every change,     And soften all surprise,     And, misty with the dreams of earth,     The hills of Heaven arise.