Like the Indian-Pipe that grew
Pink and white in loamy cracks,
Flowers of a natural wax,
She had turned her fancy to.—
On that laureled precipice,
Where the chestnuts dropped their burrs,
Warm with balsam of the firs,
First we felt her mother-kiss
Full of heaven and the wind;
While the forests, wood on wood,
Murmured like a multitude
Giving praise where none hath sinned.—
Freedom met us there; we saw
Freedom giving audience;
In her face the eloquence,
Lightning-like, of love and law:
Round her, on majestic hips,
Lounged the giant mountains, where
Streaming cataracts tossed their hair,
God and thunder on their lips.—
Oft an eagle, or a hawk,
Or a scavenger, we knew
Winged above us through the blue
By its shadow on the rock.
Or a cloud of templed white
Moved, a lazy berg of pearl,
Through the sky’s pacific swirl,
Shot with cool, cerulean light.
So we dreamed an hour upon
That high rock the lichens mossed,
While around us, glimmering, tossed
Golden mintings of the sun:
Then arose; and a ravine,
Which a torrent once had worn,
Made our roadway to the corn
In the valley, deep and green;
And the farm-house with its bees,
Where old-fashioned flowers spun
Gay rag-carpets in the sun,
Gray among the apple-trees.