Sun-light recedes on the mountains, in long gold shafts,
Like the falling pillars of a temple.
Then singing silence almost too nimble for ears:
The mountain-tenors fling their broad voices
Into the blue hall of the sky,
And through a rigid column of these voices
Night dumbly walks.
Night, crushing sound between his fingers
Until it forms a lightly frozen couch
On which he dreams.
August sauntered down the mountain-side,
Dropping mottled, turbid wraiths of decay.
The air was like an old priest
Disrobing without embarrassment
Before the dark and candid gaze of night.
But these things brought no pause
To the saucily determined squirrel.
His eyes were hungrily upturned
To where the stars hung--icily clustered nuts
Dotting trees of solitude.
He saw the stars just over the horizon,
And they seemed to grow
On trees that he could reach.
So he scampered on, from branch to branch,
Wondering why the fairy nut-trees
Ran away from him.
I thought to die that night in the solitude where they would never find me...
But there was time...
And I lay quietly on the drawn knees of the mountain,
staring into the abyss...
I do not know how long...
I could not count the hours, they ran so fast
Like little bare-foot urchins--shaking my hands away...
But I remember
Somewhere water trickled like a thin severed vein...
And a wind came out of the grass,
Touching me gently, tentatively, like a paw.
As the night grew
The gray cloud that had covered the sky like sackcloth
Fell in ashen folds about the hills,
Like hooded virgins, pulling their cloaks about them...
There must have been a spent moon,
A sheepdog barks on the mountain,
The night is fallen cold;
The shepherd blinks at his fire,
The sheep are in the fold.
The moon comes white and quiet
Into the winter sky;
And nothing walks the valley
To-night but you and I.
My fidil is singing
Into the air;
The wind is stirring,
The moon is fair.
A shadow wanders
Along the road;
It stops to listen,
And drops its load.
Dreams for a space
Upon the moon,
Then passes, humming
My mountain tune.
Wanderer of the mountain,
Winger of the blue,
From this stormy rock
I send my love to you.
Take me for your lover,
Dark and fierce and true--
Wanderer of the mountain,
Winger of the blue!
A line's a speech;
So here's a line
To say this pedlar's pack
Of mine
Is not a book--
But a journey thro'
Mountainy places,
Ever in view
Of the sea and the fields,
With the rough wind
Blowing over the leagues
Behind!
The sheep beat a track over the mountain,
And men, sheep-like, follow them.
Who is there with heart enough
To beat a track for himself?
Not the strongest.
Not the wisest.
Not the most proud.
The holy mountains,
The gay streams,
Heavy shadows,
And tall, trembling trees;
The light that sleeps
Between the heavy shadows,
Wind that creeps
Faintly, from far-off seas----
The mountains' light,
Waters' noise,
Trees' shadows,
Clear, slow, calm air,
Are dreams, dreams,
And far, far-fallen echoes
Of secret worlds
And inconceivable dark seas.
The angry wind
That cursed at me
Was nothing but an evil sprite
Vexed with any man's delight.
And strange it seemed
That a dark wind
Should run down from a mountain steep
And shout as though the world were asleep.
But when he ceased
And silence was--
Who could but fear what evil sprite
Crept through the tunnels of the night?
Still south I went and west and south again,
Through Wicklow from the morning till the night,
And far from cities, and the sights of men,
Lived with the sunshine, and the moon’s delight.
I knew the stars, the flowers, and the birds,
The grey and wintry sides of many glens,
And did but half remember human words,
In converse with the mountains, moors, and fens.
LURED by the golden glamor of the West,
He crossed the pathless plains and scaled the bold
Titanic forms that, rising fold on fold,
Touch heaven's blue; and, toiling, strove to wrest
From Nature's rugged and reluctant breast
The treasure she had hidden there of old —
The treasure of her hoarded yellow gold —
Seductive hope of many a hapless quest!
For this he left all other hopes behind,
And gave his manhood's prime and powers away,
Content to be forgotten of his kind —
Yet all the while within himself there lay
The unregarded treasure of the mind,
Deep-buried, priceless, wasting day by day.