Poems (Sharpless)/Profile Mountain

by Frances M. Sharpless

PROFILE MOUNTAIN

I left the thronged hotel, and went apart
 To a sequestered spot that I had known,
That strongly summoned my o'er burdened heart,—
 Thither I went alone.

There lay the dark lake at the mountain's base,
 While black against the flaming sunset sky
The profile of a stern, gigantic Face
 Met my expectant eye.

In vain the mountain foliage would roll
 Around the grimness its soft depth of gloom;
Aloft it towered, like an unpardoned soul
 Which waits the word of doom;

Too proud to show an unavailing pain,
 Too patient for rebellion;—the grave eyes
Seem to o'erlook the ages and to strain
 To future mysteries.

A visible embodiment of all
 That underlies our ever-varying mood;
The eternal question born of bier and pall,
 That cries "What good? what good?"

That asks in moments of the deepest bliss,
 "Is this the crown of the strange life we live?
"To souls that dream of God and Heaven, is this
 "The best that Time can give?"

Thus, like the solemn sphinx we seem to be
 Sitting with heads raised upward to the skies;
While on our feet when we would rise and flee
 The desert sand still lies.

In vain we watch, and strain like yon stern Face,
 Into the Land Beyond, the form we wear
Clasps us so tightly in its dull embrace,
 Even God we scarcely hear.

But when at last Death's solemn shades unroll,
 And this mean life of daily toil is o'er,
The riddle shall be solved, and the freed soul
 Question no more.