To a Mountain

To thee, O father of the stately peaks,     Above me in the loftier light to thee,     Imperial brother of those awful hills     Whose feet are set in splendid spheres of flame,     Whose heads are where the gods are, and whose sides     Of strength are belted round with all the zones     Of all the world, I dedicate these songs.     And if, within the compass of this book,     There lives and glows one verse in which there beats     The pulse of wind and torrent if one line     Is here that like a running water sounds,     And seems an echo from the lands of leaf,     Be sure that line is thine. Here, in this home,     Away from men and books and all the schools,     I take thee for my Teacher. In thy voice     Of deathless majesty, I, kneeling, hear     Gods grand authentic Gospel! Year by year,     The great sublime cantata of thy storm     Strikes through my spirit fills it with a life     Of startling beauty! Thou my Bible art,     With holy leaves of rock, and flower, and tree,     And moss, and shining runnel. From each page     That helps to make thy awful volume, I     Have learned a noble lesson. In the psalm     Of thy grave winds, and in the liturgy     Of singing waters, lo! my soul has heard     The higher worship; and from thee, indeed,     The broad foundations of a finer hope     Were gathered in; and thou hast lifted up     The blind horizon for a larger faith!     Moreover, walking in exalted woods     Of naked glory, in the green and gold     Of forest sunshine, I have paused like one     With all the life transfigured; and a flood     Of light ineffable has made me feel     As felt the grand old prophets caught away     By flames of inspiration; but the words     Sufficient for the story of my Dream     Are far too splendid for poor human lips.     But thou, to whom I turn with reverent eyes     O stately Father, whose majestic face     Shines far above the zone of wind and cloud,     Where high dominion of the morning is     Thou hast the Song complete of which my songs     Are pallid adumbrations! Certain sounds     Of strong authentic sorrow in this book     May have the sob of upland torrents these,     And only these, may touch the great Worlds heart;     For, lo! they are the issues of that grief     Which makes a man more human, and his life     More like that frank, exalted life of thine.     But in these pages there are other tones     In which thy large, superior voice is not     Through which no beauty that resembles thine     Has ever shone. These are the broken words     Of blind occasions, when the World has come     Between me and my Dream. No song is here     Of mighty compass; for my singing robes     Ive worn in stolen moments. All my days     Have been the days of a laborious life,     And ever on my struggling soul has burned     The fierce heat of this hurried sphere. But thou,     To whose fair majesty I dedicate     My book of rhymes thou hast the perfect rest     Which makes the heaven of the highest gods!     To thee the noises of this violent time     Are far, faint whispers; and, from age to age,     Within the world and yet apart from it,     Thou standest! Round thy lordly capes the sea     Rolls on with a superb indifference     For ever; in thy deep, green, gracious glens     The silver fountains sing for ever. Far     Above dim ghosts of waters in the caves,     The royal robe of morning on thy head     Abides for ever. Evermore the wind     Is thy august companion; and thy peers     Are cloud, and thunder, and the face sublime     Of blue mid-heaven! On thy awful brow     Is Deity; and in that voice of thine     There is the great imperial utterance     Of God for ever; and thy feet are set     Where evermore, through all the days and years,     There rolls the grand hymn of the deathless wave.