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(Excerpt)
FOR weeks the clouds had raked the hills | |
| And vexed the vales with raining, | |
| And all the woods were sad with mist, | |
| And all the brooks complaining. | |
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| At last, a sudden night-storm tore | 5 |
| The mountain veils asunder, | |
| And swept the valley clean before | |
| The besom of the thunder. | |
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| Through Sandwich notch the west-wind sang | |
| Good morrow to the cotter; | 10 |
| And once again Chocorua’s horn | |
| Of shadow pierced the water. | |
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| Above his broad lake Ossipee, | |
| Once more the sunshine wearing, | |
| Stooped, tracing on that silver shield | 15 |
| His grim armorial bearing. | |
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| Clear drawn against the hard blue sky | |
| The peaks had winter’s keenness; | |
| And, close on autumn’s frost, the vales | |
| Had more than June’s fresh greenness | 20 |
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| Again the sodden forest floors | |
| With golden lights were checkered, | |
| Once more rejoicing leaves in wind | |
| And sunshine danced and flickered. | |
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| It was as if the summer’s late | 25 |
| Atoning for its sadness | |
| Had borrowed every season’s charm | |
| To end its days in gladness. | |
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| I call to mind those banded vales | |
| Of shadow and of shining, | 30 |
| Through which, my hostess at my side, | |
| I drove in day’s declining. | |
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| We held our sideling way above | |
| The river’s whitening shallows, | |
| By homesteads old, with wide-flung barns | 35 |
| Swept through and through by swallows,— | |
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| By maple orchards, belts of pine | |
| And larches climbing darkly | |
| The mountain slopes, and, over all, | |
| The great peaks rising starkly. | 40 |
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| You should have seen that long hill-range | |
| With gaps of brightness riven,— | |
| How through each pass and hollow streamed | |
| The purpling lights of heaven,— | |
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| Rivers of gold-mist flowing down | 45 |
| From far celestial fountains,— | |
| The great sun flaming through the rifts | |
| Beyond the wall of mountains! * * * * * | |
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