| |
| THROUGH Time’s dim atmosphere, behold | |
| Those ancient hills again, | |
| Rising to Fancy’s eager view | |
| In solitude, as when | |
| Beneath the summer firmament, | 5 |
| So silently of yore, | |
| The shadow of each passing cloud | |
| Their rugged bosoms bore! | |
| |
| They sloped in pathless grandeur then | |
| Down to the murmuring sea, | 10 |
| And rose upon the woodland plain | |
| In lonely majesty. | |
| The breeze, at noontide, whispered soft | |
| Their emerald knolls among, | |
| And midnight’s wind, amid their heights, | 15 |
| Its wildest dirges sung. | |
| |
| As on their brow the forest-king | |
| Paused in his weary way, | |
| From far below his quick ear caught | |
| The moaning of the bay; | 20 |
| The dry leaves, fanned by autumn’s breath, | |
| Along their ridges crept; | |
| And snow-wreaths, like storm-whitened waves, | |
| Around them rudely swept. | |
| |
| For ages, o’er their swelling sides, | 25 |
| Grew the wild flowers of spring, | |
| And stars smiled down, and dew-founts poured | |
| Their gentle offering. | |
| The moonbeams played upon their peaks, | |
| And at their feet the tide; | 30 |
| And thus, like altar-mounts, they stood, | |
| By nature sanctified. | |
| |
| Now, when to mark their beacon-forms | |
| The seaman turns his gaze, | |
| It quails, as roof and spire and dome | 35 |
| Flash in the sun’s bright rays. | |
| On those wild hills a thousand homes | |
| Are reared in proud array, | |
| And argosies float safely o’er | |
| That lone and isle-gemmed bay. | 40 |
| |
| Those shadowy mounds, so long untrod, | |
| By countless feet are pressed; | |
| And hosts of loved ones meekly sleep | |
| Below their teeming breast. | |
| A world’s unnumbered voices float | 45 |
| Within their narrow bound; | |
| Love’s gentle tone, and traffic’s hum, | |
| And music’s thrilling sound. | |
| |
| There Liberty first found a tongue | |
| Beneath New England’s sky, | 50 |
| And there her earliest martyrs stood, | |
| And nerved themselves to die. | |
| And long upon these ancient hills, | |
| By glory’s light enshrined, | |
| May rise the dwellings of the free, | 55 |
| The city of the mind. | |
| |
