| |
| ACROSS my road a mountain rose of rock,— | |
| Fierce, naked rock. Its shadow, black and chill, | |
| Shut out the sun. Gray clouds, which seemed to mock | |
| With cruel challenges my helpless will, | |
| Sprang up and scaled the steepest crags. The shrill | 5 |
| Winds, two and two, went breathless out and in, | |
| Filling the darkened air with evil din. | |
| |
| I turned away my weary steps and said: | |
| “This must be confine of some fearful place; | |
| Here is no path for mortal man to tread. | 10 |
| Who enters here will tremble, face to face | |
| With powers of darkness, whose unearthly race | |
| In cloud and wind and storm delights to dwell, | |
| Ruling them all by an uncanny spell.” | |
| |
| The guide but smiled, and, holding feet my hand, | 15 |
| Compelled me up a path I had not seen. | |
| It wound round ledges where I scarce could stand; | |
| It plunged to sudden sunless depths between | |
| Immeasurable cliffs, which seemed to lean | |
| Together, closing as we passed, like door | 20 |
| Of dungeon which would open nevermore. | |
| |
| I said again: “I will not go. This way | |
| Is not for mortal feet.” Again the guide | |
| But smiled, and I again could but obey. | |
| The path grew narrow; thundering by its side, | 25 |
| As loud as ocean at its highest tide, | |
| A river rushed, all black and green and white, | |
| A boiling stream of molten malachite. | |
| |
| Sudden I heard a joyous cry, “Behold, behold!” | |
| And, smiling still on me, the good guide turned, | 30 |
| And pointed where broad, sunny fields unrolled | |
| And spread like banners; green, so green it burned, | |
| And lit the air like red; and blue which yearned | |
| From all the lofty dome of sky, and bent | |
| And folded low and circling like a tent; | 35 |
| |
| And forests ranged like armies, round and round, | |
| At feet of mountains of eternal snow; | |
| And valleys all alive with happy sound; | |
| The song of birds; swift brooks’ delicious flow; | |
| The mystic hum of million things that grow; | 40 |
| The stir of men; mid gladdening every way, | |
| Voices of little children at their play; | |
| |
| And shining banks of flowers which words refuse | |
| To paint; such colors as in summer light | |
| The rarest, fleetest summer rainbows use, | 45 |
| But set in gold of sun, and silver white | |
| Of dew, as thick as gems which blind the sight | |
| On altar fronts, inlaid with priceless things, | |
| The jewelled gifts of centuries of kings. | |
| |
| Then, sitting half in dream, and half in fear | 50 |
| Of how such wondrous miracle were wrought, | |
| Thy name, dear friend, I sudden seemed to hear | |
Through all the charméd air.
My loving thought | |
| Through patient years had vainly groped and sought, | |
| And found no hidden thing so rare, so good, | 55 |
| That it might furnish thy similitude. | |
| |
| O noble soul, whose strengths like mountains stand, | |
| Whose purposes, like adamantine stone, | |
| Bar roads to feeble feet, and wrap the land | |
| In seeming shadow, thou, too, hast thine own | 60 |
| Sweet valleys full of flowers, for me alone, | |
| Unseen, unknown, undreamed of by the mass, | |
| Who do not know the secret of the Pass. | |
| |
