Poems (Edwards)/The Peaks of Otter

by Matilda Caroline Smiley Edwards

THE PEAKS OF OTTER, SEEN AT A DISTANCE.

Approach! Has earth a fairer sight
 Than this bright hour displays,
Did e'er a scene of deeper power
 Fall on a mortal's gaze!
Behold those glorious lines of blue,
 Faint as a pencil'd cloud,
Soft as an angel's azure wing,
 Veiled in a heavenly shroud.

Peak beside peak, in awful pride,
 Together, there they rest,
With the last light of parting day,
 Reposing' on their breast;
Oh! they are beautiful, beyond
 Aught that my heart had dreamed;
Such scenes of loveliness before
 Ne'er on my soul had gleamed.

Thou glorious Peak! Could I but stand
 A moment on thy brow,
To see the proud sun sink to rest,
 As he is sinking now;
To see the clouds beneath my feet,
 Tinged with his golden blaze,
Oh! such an hour were joy enough
 For all life's coming days.

Thou hast been in my dreams by night,
 And through the busy day,
Thy far-off image o'er my heart,
 In beauty's light doth stray;
I've longed to stand upon thy brow,
 With wishes deep but vain,
And now my last, last hope is gone,
 'Twere wrong to hope again.

Stand there, thou glorious monument,
 Of God's eternal might;
Stand thou, unchanged by changing years,
 Unbroken by their flight;
Age after age around thy head,
 Their mantling robes have cast,
But thou hast mocked at every change,
 That o'er thy form has past—
And thou wilt stand unbroken there,
 Unaltered to the last.