Poems of Nature, part 2, Mountain Pictures etc

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Project Gutenberg EBook, Mountain Pictures and Others by Whittier Volume II., The Works of Whittier: Poems of Nature, Poems Subjective and Reminiscent, Religious Poems?#14 in our series by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Title: Mountain Pictures and Others, From Poems of Nature,
Poems Subjective and Reminiscent and Religious Poems Volume II., The Works of Whittier
Author: John Greenleaf Whittier
Release Date: Dec, 2005 [EBook #9569]?[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]?[This file was first posted on October 2, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
? START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, MOUNTAIN PICTURES, ETC. ***
This eBook was produced by David Widger [[email protected] ]
POEMS OF NATURE
POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT
RELIGIOUS POEMS
BY
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
CONTENTS:
MOUNTAIN PICTURES
I. FRANCONIA FROM THE PEMIGEWASSET?II. MONADNOCK FROM WACHUSET?THE VANISHERS?THE PAGEANT?THE PRESSED GENTIAN?A MYSTERY?A SEA DREAM?HAZEL BLOSSOMS?SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP?THE SEEKING OF THE WATERFALL?THE TRAILING ARBUTUS?ST. MARTINS SUMMER?STORM ON LAKE ASQUAM?A SUMMER PILGRIMAGE?SWEET FERN?THE WOOD GIANT?A DAY
MOUNTAIN PICTURES.
I. FRANCONIA FROM THE PEMIGEWASSET?Once more, O Mountains of the North, unveil?Your brows, and lay your cloudy mantles by?And once more, ere the eyes that seek ye fail,?Uplift against the blue walls of the sky?Your mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weave?Its golden net-work in your belting woods,?Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods,?And on your kingly brows at morn and eve?Set crowns of fire! So shall my soul receive?Haply the secret of your calm and strength,?Your unforgotten beauty interfuse?My common life, your glorious shapes and hues?And sun-dropped splendors at my bidding come,?Loom vast through dreams, and stretch in billowy length?From the sea-level of my lowland home!
They rise before me! Last night's thunder-gust?Roared not in vain: for where its lightnings thrust?Their tongues of fire, the great peaks seem so near,?Burned clean of mist, so starkly bold and clear,?I almost pause the wind in the pines to hear,?The loose rock's fall, the steps of browsing deer.?The clouds that shattered on yon slide-worn walls?And splintered on the rocks their spears of rain?Have set in play a thousand waterfalls,?Making the dusk and silence of the woods?Glad with the laughter of the chasing floods,?And luminous with blown spray and silver gleams,?While, in the vales below, the dry-lipped streams?Sing to the freshened meadow-lands again.?So, let me hope, the battle-storm that beats?The land with hail and fire may pass away?With its spent thunders at the break of day,?Like last night's clouds, and leave, as it retreats,?A greener earth and fairer sky behind,?Blown crystal-clear by Freedom's Northern wind!
II. MONADNOCK FROM WACHUSET.?I would I were a painter, for the sake?Of a sweet picture, and of her who led,?A fitting guide, with reverential tread,?Into that mountain mystery. First a lake?Tinted with sunset; next the wavy lines?Of far receding hills; and yet more far,?Monadnock lifting from his night of pines?His rosy forehead to the evening star.?Beside us, purple-zoned, Wachuset laid?His head against the West, whose warm light made?His aureole; and o'er him, sharp and clear,?Like a shaft of lightning in mid-launching stayed,?A single level cloud-line, shone upon?By the fierce glances of the sunken sun,?Menaced the darkness with its golden spear!
So twilight deepened round us. Still and black?The great woods climbed the mountain at our back;?And on their skirts, where yet the lingering day?On the shorn greenness of the clearing lay,?The brown old farm-house like a bird's-nest hung.?With home-life sounds the desert air was stirred?The bleat of sheep along the hill we heard,?The bucket plashing in the cool, sweet well,?The pasture-bars that clattered as they fell;?Dogs barked, fowls fluttered, cattle lowed; the gate?Of the barn-yard creaked beneath the merry weight?Of sun-brown children, listening, while they swung,?The welcome sound of supper-call to hear;?And down the shadowy lane, in tinklings clear,?The pastoral curfew of the cow-bell rung.?Thus soothed and pleased, our backward path we