Poems (Proctor)/The Mountain Maid
THE MOUNTAIN MAID.
O the Mountain Maid, New Hampshire! Her steps are light and freeWhether she treads the lofty heights Or follows the brooks to the sea!Her eyes are clear as the skies that hang Over her hills of snow,And her hair is dark as the densest shade That falls where the fir-trees grow—The fir-trees slender and sombre That climb from the vales below.
Sweet is her voice as the robin's In a lull of the wind of MarchWooing the shy arbutus At the roots of the budding larch;And rich as the ravishing echoes On still Franconia's lakeWhen the boatman winds his magic horn And the tongues of the wood awake,While the huge Stone-Face forgets to frown And the hare peeps out of the brake.
The blasts of stormy December But brighten the bloom on her cheek,And the snows build her statelier temples Than to goddess were reared by the Greek. She welcomes the fervid summer, And flies to the sounding shoreWhere bleak Boar's Head looks seaward, Set in the billows' roar,And dreams of her sailors and fishers Till cool days come once more.
Then how fair is the maiden, Crowned with the scarlet leaves,And wrapped in the tender, misty veil The Indian summer weaves!—While the aster blue, and the goldenrod, And immortelles, clustering sweet,From Canada down to the sea have spread A carpet for her feet;And the faint witch-hazel buds unfold, Her latest smile to greet.
She loves the song of the reaper; The ring of the woodman's steel;The whir of the glancing shuttle; The rush of the tireless wheel.But if war befalls, her sons she calls From mill and forge and lea,And bids them uphold her banner Till the land from strife is free;And she hews her oaks into mighty ships That sweep the foe from the sea.
O the Mountain Maid, New Hampshire! For beauty and wit and willI'll pledge her, in draughts from her crystal springs, As rarest on plain or hill!New York is a princess in purple By the gems of her cities crowned;Illinois with the garland of Ceres Her tresses of gold has bound,Queen of the limitless prairies Whose great sheaves heap the ground;
And out by the broad Pacific Their gay young sisters say,"Ours are the mines of the Indies, And the treasures of far Cathay;"And the dames of the South walk proudly Where the fig and the orange fall,And hid in the high magnolias The mocking thrushes call;But the Mountain Maid, New Hampshire, Is the rarest of them all!