WHERE is he, Mountain-Spirit? | |
| Dread Mountain-Spirit, say! | |
| That honored Son of Science | |
| Who dared thy shrouded way? | |
| O giant Firs! whose branches | 5 |
| In gloomy grandeur meet, | |
| Did ye his steps imprison | |
| Within your dark retreat? | |
| |
| Ye Mists, and muffled Thunders | |
| That robe yourselves in black, | 10 |
| Have you his steps deluded | |
| To wander from the track? | |
| Make answer!—Have ye seen him? | |
| For hearts with fear are bowed, | |
| And torches like the wandering stars | 15 |
| Gleam out above the cloud. | |
| |
| Sound, hunter’s horn!—Haste, Mountaineers! | |
| Lo, on the yielding fern, | |
| Are these his footprints o’er the ledge? | |
| Will he no more return? | 20 |
| He cometh!—How?—Like marble, | |
| Forth from its quarried bed,— | |
| With dripping looks, and rigid brow, | |
| The sculpture of the dead. | |
| |
| O’er that deep, watery mirror, | 25 |
| With sweetly pensive grace | |
| The graceful Rhododendron leaned | |
| To look upon his face, | |
| While, mid the slippery gorges | |
| Those blushing laurels stand, | 30 |
| Which, faithless, like the broken reed, | |
| Betrayed his grasping hand. | |
| |
| No crystal in its hermit-bed, | |
| No strata of the dales, | |
| No stranger-plant, or noteless vine, | 35 |
| In Carolinian vales, | |
| No shell upon her shore, | |
| No ivy on her wall, | |
| No wingéd bird, or reptile form, | |
| But he could name them all. | 40 |
| |
| So Nature hath rewarded him | |
| Who loved her sacred lore, | |
| With such a pillow of repose | |
| As man ne’er had before, | |
| A monument that biddeth | 45 |
| Old Egypt’s glory hide, | |
| With all her kingly pyramids, | |
| In all their mole-hill pride. | |
| |
| Up!—up!—courageous mountaineers,— | |
| Each nerve and sinew strain,— | 50 |
| For what ye do from love this day | |
| Ye ne’er shall do again; | |
| From beetling crag to summit, | |
| So ominous and steep, | |
| They force their venturous way, where scarce | 55 |
| The chamois dares to leap. | |
| |
| There, many thousand feet above | |
| Atlantic’s surging height, | |
| Prelate and priest, with lifted hands | |
| Invoked the God of Might, | 60 |
| And then that cloud-encircled cliff | |
| Unlocked its granite breast, | |
| And with a strong and close embrace | |
| The manly form comprest: | |
| |
| So, in thy sepulchre of rock, | 65 |
| Follower of Jesus, rest, | |
| Serene, approachless, and sublime,— | |
| Until the mountain crest | |
| Shall redden with the fires of doom, | |
| And Earth restore her dead! | 70 |
| Then joyful leave thy Pisgah tomb, | |
| The promised land to tread. | |
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