The summer sun with stately grace
Had risen till his radiant face
Hung o'er the western sky.
The sultry air was still;—no breeze
Crept up to rustle through the trees;
The landscape all in languid ease
Lay sleeping 'neath the eye.
All faint and weary with the heat,
I sought a quiet, cool retreat
Among the Crystal Hills;
Where, resting on the mossy ground.
By cool, green shadows hedged around,
I listened to the lulling sound
Of distant mountain rills.
The partridge-vine and pale twin-flower
Were carpet-woven through that bower.
With many a fern thereby;
A fallen tree before me lay,
And just beyond, a little way,
A craggy height rose, lichen gray.
Against the glimmering sky.
The quiet hour, the grateful shade.
The murmur by the waters made.
Conspired to charm the air;
Or did the elves and sprites that dwell
In hidden nooks of wooded dell
Around me weave their mystic spell
While idly dreaming there?
I saw above the rocky height
A queenly form appear in sight,
In shadowy raiment clad.
The regal face and calm, clear eye
Looked ever onward through the sky.
As if intent on purpose high,
But all the face was sad.
I heard a voice of deep, low tone.
Like oak leaves by the night-breeze blown
When all around is still.
These mellow accents seem to flow
In swaying cadence to and fro.
And every word, breathed e'er so low,
Would through the silence thrill.
"Greenly all my fields are growing, and my silvery streams are flowing
Down the daisy-dimpled meadows, through ray valleys to the sea.
All my woods are green and tender, glowing in the sun-light's splendor.
While the breeze-inviting shadows underlie each shrub and tree.
"To the northward, crowned in glory, stand ray mountains, grim and hoary,
Granite-ribbed and granite-crested, with their foreheads to the sky.
Where the forests dark are leaning o'er the valleys intervening,
Sylvan lakes, all silver-breasted, mirror-like in beauty lie.
"On my slopes to southward leading, fearlessly the flocks are feeding,
And beneath ray lowland willows quiet reigneth evermore,
While with never-ceasing motion the old mystery-loving ocean
Rolls his anthem-bearing billows on my echo-haunted shore.
"There are pleasant, sheltered places hidden 'mid my mountain mazes;
There are bold and craggy ledges, where the eagle rests her wing;
There are cascades loudly brawling and deep rivers hoarsely falling;
There are darkly-shaded hedges where the timid thrushes sing.
"Steamers on my lakes are sailing, with their cloud-vails backward trailing,
In and out between my islands, green as those of fairy tales;
While the rail-cars, onward steaming, find an echo to their screaming
In the hamlets on my highlands and the cities in my vales.
