The Mountain that was God | Page 5

valleys fair-- Their Shrine of Peace where no avenger came To vex Tacoma, lord of earth and air.
Ah! when at morn above the mists I tower And see my cities gleam by slope and strand, What joy have I in this transcendent dower-- The strength and beauty of my sea-girt land That holds the future royally in fee! And lest some danger, undescried, should lower, From my far height I watch o'er wave and lea.
And cloudless eves when calm in heaven I rest, All rose-bloom with a glow of paradise, And through my firs the balm-wind of the west, Blown over ocean islands, softly sighs, While placid lakes my radiant image frame-- And know my worshippers, in loving quest, Will mark my brow and fond lips breathe my name:
Enraptured from my valleys to my snows, I charm my glow to crimson--soothe to gray; And when the encircling shadow deeper grows, Poise, a lone cloud, beside the starry way. Then, while my realm is hushed from steep to shore, I yield my grandeur to divine repose, And know Tacoma reigns forevermore!
South Framingham, Mass. March, 1911. Edna Dean Proctor
[Illustration {p.016}: Copyright, 1906, By Romans Photographic Co. The most kingly of American mountains, seen from beautiful Lake Washington, Seattle, distance sixty miles.]
{p.017} [Illustration: A party of climbers on Winthrop Glacier.]

THE MOUNTAIN THAT WAS "GOD."
I.
MOUNT "BIG SNOW" AND INDIAN TRADITION.
Long hours we toiled up through the solemn wood, Beneath moss-banners stretched from tree to tree; At last upon a barren hill we stood, And, lo, above loomed Majesty.
--Herbert Bashford: "Mount Rainier."
The great Mountain fascinates us by its diversity. It is an inspiration and yet a riddle to all who are drawn to the mysterious or who love the sublime. Every view which the breaking clouds vouchsafe to us is a surprise. It never becomes commonplace, save to the commonplace.
[Illustration: Ice Terraces on South Tahoma Glacier. These vast steps are often seen where a glacier moves down a steep and irregular slope.]
Old Virgil's gibe at mankind's better half--"varium et mutabile semper femina"--might have been written of this fickle shape of rock and ice and vapor. One tries vainly, year after year, to define it in his own mind. The daily, hourly change of distance, size and aspect, tricks which the Indian's mountain {p.018} god plays with the puny creatures swarming more and more about his foot; his days of frank neighborliness, his swift transformations from smiles to anger, his fits of sullenness and withdrawal, all baffle study. Even though we live at its base, it is impossible to say we know the Mountain, so various are the spells the sun casts over this huge dome which it is slowly chiseling away with its tools of ice, and which, in coming centuries, it will level with the plain.
[Illustration: Mineral Lake and the Mountain. Distance, eighteen miles.]
We are lovers of the water as well as the hills, out here in this northwestern corner of the Republic. We spend many days--and should spend more--in cruising among the hidden bays and park-like islands which make Puget Sound the most interesting body of water in America. We grow a bit boastful about the lakes that cluster around our cities. Nowhere better than from sea level, or from the lakes raised but little above it, does one realize the bulk, the dominance, and yet the grace, of this noble peak. Its impressiveness, indeed, arises in part from the fact that it is one of the few great volcanic mountains whose entire height may be seen from tide level. Many of us can recall views of it from Lake Washington at Seattle, or from American or Spanaway Lake at Tacoma, or from the Sound, which will always haunt the memory.
[Illustration: Storm King Peak and Mineral Lake, viewed from near Mineral Lake Inn.]
Early one evening, last summer, I went with a friend to Point Defiance, Tacoma's fine park at the {p.021} end of the promontory on which the city is built. We drank in refreshment from the picture there unrolled of broad channels and evergreen shores. As sunset approached, we watched the western clouds building range upon range of golden mountains above the black, Alp-like crags of the Olympics. Then, entering a small boat, we rowed far out northward into the Sound. Overhead, and about us, the scenes of the great panorama were swiftly shifted. The western sky became a conflagration. Twilight settled upon the bay. The lights of the distant town came out, one by one, and those of the big smelter, near by, grew brilliant. No Turner ever dreamed so glorious a composition of sunlight and shade. But we were held by one vision.
[Illustration {p.019}: View from Electron, showing west side of the mountain, with a vast intervening country of forested ranges and deep canyons.]
{p.021} [Illustration: Nisqually Canyon.
... "Where the mountain