[Dr. Gladden has embodied his college reminiscences more fully in his recent volume Recollections, wherein is told also the story of "The Mountains." (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909.)]
Literary Monthly, 1893.
[Footnote 1: October, 1893.]
[Footnote 2: Demolished in 1908.]
TO THE MOUNTAINS OF WILLIAMSTOWN
ON THE INTRODUCTION OF THE NEW RAILROAD
ANON.
Ye guardian mountains of the western world,
Enthroned like monarchs of primeval days!
Ye that hold lofty converse with the stars,
And bind your shaggy brows with clustering clouds
As if with wreaths of laurel! ye that count
Your years by thousands, and your bosoms robe
With all the pageantry of Autumn's gold,
And lull your sleep of ages with the wild
And murmurous drone of woodland waterfalls,
And multitudinous song of windy groves!
What spell hath bound ye now? what lethargy
O'ercomes your ancient power? that undisturbed
Ye slumber on, as if ye heeded not
The piercing shriek from yonder fuming car,
Which saith that even here presumptuous man
Has dared intrude upon the green domain,
Which ye inherited when Time was born.
Awake! arise! are ye forever dumb?
Let Greylock, most majestic of your band,
Stand up and shout aloud to Audubon,
Until from peak to peak the sound rolls round,
Until yon mountain that o'erlooks the west
Takes up the cry, of vengeance upon him
Whose strange devices break your long repose.
In vain! ye are indeed forever dumb,
Obedient to the will of Destiny,
Who sits enthroned among the stars of heaven,
And unto man's inquiring vision points
Toward the westering sun forevermore.
Such is the law that rules the universe;—
Planets and systems, e'en the sun himself,
Around one common point progressive move.
And thus a few millenniums more shall man
Proclaim the march of mind, and when ye pass
Into oblivion with your weight of years,
When galaxies and suns are quenched in gloom,
Th' unshackled soul of man, itself a star
Lit by the smile of God, shall wing through space,
The destined heir to immortality.