I know that graceful figure fair,
That cheek of languid hue;
I know that soft, enkerchiefed hair,
And those sweet eyes of blue.
Again I spring to make my choice;
Again in tones of ire
I hear a God’s tremendous voice,—
“Be counselled, and retire.”
Ye guiding Powers who join and part,
What would ye have with me?
Ah, warn some more ambitious heart,
And let the peaceful be!
II. PARTING.
Ye storm-winds of autumn!
Who rush by, who shake
The window, and ruffle
The gleam-lighted lake;
Who cross to the hillside
Thin-sprinkled with farms,
Where the high woods strip sadly
Their yellowing arms,—
Ye are bound for the mountains!
Ah! with you let me go
Where your cold, distant barrier,
The vast range of snow,
Through the loose clouds lifts dimly
Its white peaks in air.
How deep is their stillness!
Ah! would I were there!
But on the stairs what voice is this I hear,
Buoyant as morning, and as morning clear?
Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn
Lent it the music of its trees at dawn?
Or was it from some sun-flecked mountain brook
That the sweet voice its upland clearness took?
Ah! it comes nearer—
Sweet notes, this way!
Hark! fast by the window
The rushing winds go,
To the ice-cumbered gorges,
The vast seas of snow!
There the torrents drive upward
Their rock-strangled hum;
There the avalanche thunders
The hoarse torrent dumb.
—I come, O ye mountains!
Ye torrents, I come!
But who is this, by the half-opened door,
Whose figure casts a shadow on the floor?
The sweet blue eyes—the soft, ash-colored hair—
The cheeks that still their gentle paleness wear—
The lovely lips, with their arched smile that tells
The unconquered joy in which her spirit dwells—
Ah! they bend nearer—
Sweet lips, this way!
Hark! the wind rushes past us!
Ah! with that let me go
To the clear, waning hill-side,
Unspotted by snow,
There to watch, o’er the sunk vale,
The frore mountain wall,
Where the niched snow-bed sprays down
Its powdery fall.
There its dusky blue clusters
The aconite spreads;
There the pines slope, the cloud-strips
Hung soft in their heads.
No life but, at moments,
The mountain bee’s hum.
—I come, O ye mountains!
Ye pine-woods, I come!