The common folk can thus conceive alone,
And in conception no disturbance know,
Their wisdom ripen’d has long while ago:
A miracle it is, they Satan honour show.
My wanderer on faith’s crutches hobbles on
Towards the devil’s bridge and devil’s stone.[1]
The great American poet made his pilgrimage to the mountain so beautiful in the distance, thinking to find there the men of equal elevation. Did not Milton describe Freedom as ‘a mountain nymph?’
To myself I oft recount
The tale of many a famous mount,—
Wales, Scotland, Uri, Hungary’s dells;