Poems (Kimball)/The Home among the Hills

by Harriet McEwen Kimball

THE HOME AMONG THE HILLS.

MIDWAY between these towering hills
 One lonely human dwelling;
The circling acres, culture swept,
 Its little history telling!

On either hand the meadow land
 Makes fair the mountain spaces
With golden reach of buttercups
 And silver drift of daisies.

Behind, the massive forest wall
 Before, the river running;
And close about the little cot
 The signs of human cunning:

The signs so homely and so sweet
 That draw us to each other,
And make the daily life of man
 Familiar to his brother.

We know the hand at early morn
 That cottage hearth-fire kindling;
We watched the dropping of this corn
 We wait its purple spindling!

A part have we in all the toils
 Of these our mountain neighbors;
A portion in the precious gain
 Heaven winnows from their labors.

We taste their trials, share their feasts,
 And with a passing wonder
We linger even while we go,
 Their choice, their lot to ponder.

Amid the grandeur and the gloom
 On every hand abiding,
A flower of human blossoming
 This little home is hiding.

What tender wind of Providence
 The small seed hither drifted
Where yet these shadows vast may fall
 On village spires uplifted?

Less awful seem those hills august,
 Less lone the valley's glooming,
Since in this wilderness the rose
 Of human life is blooming!