Let me lie where glinting rivers ramble down the slanted glade
Under bending alders garrulous and cool,
Where they gather in the shade
To the dazzling, sheer cascade,
Where they plunge and sleep within the pebbled pool.
All the wisdom, all the beauty, I have lived for unaware
Came upon me by the rote of highland rills;
I have seen God walking there
In the solemn soundless air
When the morning wakened wonder in the hills.
I am what the mountains made me of their green and gold and gray,
Of the dawnlight and the moonlight and the foam.
Mighty mothers far away,
Ye who washed my soul in spray,
I am coming, mother mountains, coming home.
When I draw my dreams about me, when I leave the darkling plain
Where my soul forgets to soar and learns to plod,
I shall go back home again
To the kingdoms of the rain,
To the blue purlieus of heaven, nearer God.
Where the rose of dawn blooms earlier across the miles of mist,
Between the tides of sundown and moonrise,
I shall keep a lover's tryst
With the gold and amethyst,
With the stars for my companions in the skies.
UNITY
Where the long valley slopes away
Five miles across the dreaming day
A maple sends a scarlet prayer
Into the still autumnal air,
Three golden-smouldering hickories
Are fanned to flame beneath the breeze
And one great crimson oak tree fires
The sky-line over the Concord spires.
In worship mystically sweet
The rimy asters at my feet
And spiring gentian bells that burn
Blue incense in an azure urn
Breathe softly from the aspiring sod:
"This is our utmost. Take it, God,—
This chant of green, this prayer of blue.
This is the best thy clay can do."
*****