THE MOUNTAIN GLORY
They seem to have been built for the human race, as at once their schools and cathedrals; full of treasures of illuminated manuscript for the scholar, kindly in simple lessons to the worker, quiet in pale cloisters for the thinker, glorious in holiness for the worshipper.
Modern Painters, Vol. iv.,
RUSKIN.
O rock and torrent, lake and hill,
Halls of a home austerely still,
Remote and solemn view!
O valley, where the wanderer sees
Beyond the towering arch of trees
Helvellyn and the blue!
Great Nature! on our love was shed
From thine abiding goodlihead
Majestic fostering;
We wondered, half afraid to own
In hardly-conscious hearts upgrown
So infinite a thing.
Within, without, whate'er hath been,
In cosmic deeps the immortal scene
Is mirrored, and shall last:—
Live the long looks, the woodland ways,
That twilight of enchanted days,—
The imperishable Past.
FREDERICK W. MYERS
