Poems of Nature (Whittier)/A Mystery
A MYSTERY.
The river hemmed with leaning treesWound through its meadows green;A low, blue line of mountains showedThe open pines between.
One sharp, tall peak above them allClear into sunlight sprang:I saw the river of my dreams,The mountains that I sang!
No clew of memory led me on,But well the ways I knew;A feeling of familiar thingsWith every footstep grew.
Not otherwise above its cragCould lean the blasted pine;Not otherwise the maple holdAloft its red ensign.
So up the long and shorn foot-hillsThe mountain road should creep;So, green and low, the meadow foldIts red-haired kine asleep.
The river wound as it should wind;Their place the mountains took;The white torn fringes of their cloudsWore no unwonted look.
Yet ne'er before that river's rimWas pressed by feet of mine,Never before mine eyes had crossedThat broken mountain line.
A presence, strange at once and known,Walked with me as my guide;The skirts of some forgotten lifeTrailed noiseless at my side.
Was it a dim-remembered dream?Or glimpse through æons old?The secret which the mountains keptThe river never told.
But from the vision ere it passedA tender hope I drew,And, pleasant as a dawn of spring,The thought within me grew,
That love would temper every change,And soften all surprise,And, misty with the dreams of earth,The hills of Heaven arise.