Poems of Nature (Whittier)/A Summer Pilgrimage
POEMS OF NATURE.
A SUMMER PILGRIMAGE.
To kneel before some saintly shrine,To breathe the health of airs divine,Or bathe where sacred rivers flow,The cowled and turbaned pilgrims go.I too, a palmer, take, as theyWith staff and scallop-shell, my wayTo feel, from burdening cares and ills,The strong uplifting of the hills.
The years are many since, at first,For dreamed-of wonders all athirst,I saw on Winnipesaukee fallThe shadow of the mountain wall.Ah! where are they who sailed with meThe beautiful island-studded sea!And am I he whose keen surpriseFlashed out from such unclouded eyes?
Still, when the sun of summer burns,My longing for the hills returns; And northward, leaving at my backThe warm vale of the Merrimac,I go to meet the winds of morn,Blown down the hill-gaps, mountain-born,Breathe scent of pines, and satisfyThe hunger of a lowland eye.
Again I see the day declineAlong a ridged horizon line;Touching the hill-tops, as a nunHer beaded rosary, sinks the sun.One lake lies golden, which shall soonBe silver in the rising moon;And one, the crimson of the skiesAnd mountain purple multiplies.
With the untroubled quiet blendsThe distance-softened voice of friends;The girl's light laugh no discord bringsTo the low song the pine-tree sings;And, not unwelcome, comes the hailOf boyhood from his nearing sail.The human presence breaks no spell,And sunset still is miracle!
Calm as the hour, methinks I feelA sense of worship o'er me steal;Not that of satyr-charming Pan,No cult of Nature shaming man, Not Beauty's self, but that which livesAnd shines through all the veils it weaves,—Soul of the mountain, lake, and wood,Their witness to the Eternal Good!
And if, by fond illusion, hereThe earth to heaven seems drawing near,And yon outlying range invitesTo other and serener heights,Scarce hid behind its topmost swell,The shining Mounts Delectable!A dream may hint of truth no lessThan the sharp light of wakefulness.
As through her vale of incense smoke.Of old the spell-rapt priestess spoke,More than her heathen oracle,May not this trance of sunset tellThat Nature's forms of lovelinessTheir heavenly archetypes confess,Fashioned like Israel's ark aloneFrom patterns in the Mount made known?
A holier beauty overbroodsThese fair and faint similitudes;Yet not unblest is he who seesShadows of God's realities,And knows beyond this masqueradeOf shape and color, light and shade, And dawn and set, and wax and wane,Eternal verities remain.
O gems of sapphire, granite set!O hills that charmed horizons fret!I know how fair your morns can break,In rosy light on isle and lake;How over wooded slopes can runThe noonday play of cloud and sun,And evening droop her oriflammeOf gold and red in still Asquam.
The summer moons may round again,And careless feet these hills profane;These sunsets waste on vacant eyesThe lavish splendor of the skies;Fashion and folly, misplaced here,Sigh for their natural atmosphere,And travelled pride the outlook scornOf lesser heights than Matterhorn:
But let me dream that hill and skyOf unseen beauty prophesy;And in these tinted lakes beholdThe trailing of the raiment foldOf that which, still eluding gaze,Allures to upward-tending ways,Whose footprints make, wherever found,Our common earth a holy ground.