Poems (Dorr)/The Mountain Road
THE MOUNTAIN ROAD
Only a glimpse of mountain roadThat followed where a river flowed;Only a glimpse—then on we passedSkirting the forest dim and vast.
I closed my eyes. On rushed the trainInto the dark, then out again,Startling the song:birds as it flewThe wild ravines and gorges through.
But, heeding not the dangerous wayO'erhung by sheer cliffs, rough and gray,I only saw, as in a dream,The road beside the mountain stream.
No smoke curled upward in the air,No meadow-lands stretched broad and fair;But towering peaks rose far and high,Piercing the clear, untroubled sky.
Yet down the yellow, winding roadThat followed where the river flowed,I saw a long procession passAs shadows over bending grass.
The young, the old, the sad, the gay,Whose feet had worn that narrow way,Since first within the dusky gladeSome Indian lover wooed his maid;
Or silent crept from tree to tree—Spirit of stealthy vengeance, he!Or breathless crouched while through the brakeThe wild deer stole his thirst to slake.
The barefoot school-boys rushing out,An eager, crowding, roisterous rout;The sturdy lads; the lassies gayAs bobolinks in merry May;
The farmer whistling to his teamWhen first the dawn begins to gleam;The loaded wains that one by oneDrag slowly home at set of sun;
Young lovers straying hand in handWithin a fair, enchanted land;And many a bride with lingering feet;And many a matron calm and sweet;
And many an old man bent with pain;And many a solemn funeral train;And sometimes, red against the sky,An army's banners waving high!
All mysteries of life and deathTo which the spirit answereth,Are thine, O lonely mountain road,That followed where the river flowed!