Poems of Nature (Whittier)/Franconia from the Pemigewasset
MOUNTAIN PICTURES.
I.
FRANCONIA FROM THE PEMIGEWASSET.
Once more, O Mountains of the North, unveilYour brows, and lay your cloudy mantles by!And once more, ere the eyes that seek ye fail,Uplift against the blue walls of the skyYour mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weaveIts golden network in your belting woods,Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods,And on your kingly brows at morn and eveSet crowns of fire! So shall my soul receiveHaply the secret of your calm and strength,Your unforgotten beauty interfuseMy common life, your glorious shapes and huesAnd sun-dropped splendors at my bidding come,Loom vast through dreams, and stretch in billowy lengthFrom the sea-level of my lowland home!
They rise before me! Last night's thunder-gustRoared not in vain; for where its lightnings thrustTheir tongues of fire, the great peaks seem so near,Burned clean of mist, so starkly bold and clear,I almost pause the wind in the pines to hear, The loose rock's fall, the steps of browsing deer.The clouds that shattered on yon slide-worn walls,And splintered on the rocks their spears of rain,Have set in play a thousand waterfalls,Making the dusk and silence of the woodsGlad with the laughter of the chasing floods,And luminous with blown spray and silver gleams,While, in the vales below, the dry-lipped streamsSing to the freshened meadow-lands again.So, let me hope, the battle-storm that beatsThe land with hail and fire may pass awayWith its spent thunders at the break of day,Like last night's clouds, and leave, as it retreats,A greener earth and fairer sky behind,Blown crystal-clear by Freedom's Northern wind!