The Upper Slopes

by Margaret Sherwood

THE UPPER SLOPES

By Margaret Sherwood

Fern-lit the upper slopes with pale-green fire;
The paths shine in the sun;
I will go up to voice my youth's desire,
Though day is almost done.
Too long, alas! too long
In the low valley have I groped my way,
Forlorn of song,
A dalesman old and gray.
Now mist has fallen from my eyes, and I,—
Blind to the summits and the wind-swept flights
Of leaf and eagle,—see
Against the sky, the far-compelling heights
That beckon me.

They mock along my pathway, crying out
"You are too old to sing!
The chimney corner and the threshold stone
Are for the aged. Let young voices ring
Across their elders' silence, till their shout
Makes youth's great triumph known."
Ah, but the young sing not! Their pointed shoes,
Their curling locks, the broidered clothes they wear,
Make up their care.
The sun-flecked streams serve but a mirror's use.
Late, at a cottage door, at eventide,
When starlight came,
Carolled an aged dame
Of life and love and death,
Of life outlasting breath,
Of great things that abide.
Counting their beads just purchased at the fair,
The young folk there
Smiled at the quavering voice and gave no heed.
Eyes that grow dim
Win to the vision that is sight indeed.
When walls of flesh grow thin
All life may enter in.
'Tis for the old whose eyes are spirit-clear
As Light draws near
That larger life to hymn.

Nay, I will go: ye shall not hold me back!
Ye who have kept me out
With faithless words of doubt
From my old heritage of faith and prayer.
And a diviner air.
Toiling in field or cot,
Ye, with bent backs, forgot
More is the life within than walls of lasting stone.
Your words that lack
All wisdom will I shut from out my ears.
Afar, my spirit hears
The mighty music of the still, small voice
That bids us all rejoice
In everlasting life. As choking dust
Have been the sayings ye have made me hear;
As mist across the eyes
Your long companionship. I will arise,
Toiling aloft to sing upon the peaks.
'Tis he who seeks
That findeth. Far-off heights draw near;
I climb them as I must.

Now, by the passion of all hearts that pray;
By all the longings, all the hopes that are
As pleading, folded hands,
Lifted on high to One both near and far,
To One who understands;
By all the power that hath been the stay
Of tempted souls; by hours of comfort deep
For those who weep;
By old tried faiths and prayers that may not die,
Aloud I cry
They are but blind
Who say no spirit lives beyond the veil
Of things that faint and fail
Where in unceasing change our swift lives come and go.
Through me as in a tide
Old prayers now flow,
Old passions that abide,
And I, who know.
Cry: They are blind!

I, from these garden-plots with flowers sweet,
From out these meadows with their singing streams,
On halting, aged feet
Follow my dreams
Up the steep mountain path, where I may see
Before I die, the truth long granted me
In days of youth, and long forgot. I climb
Past green-flecked wall of stone, and bleating sheep,
Past beech-trunks gray with time,
My tryst to keep
With God and my own soul. I go to pray:
Grant to the young a hope to bind the hours,
A faith to build upon, nor let them stay
Forgetful, by the warm, sweet harvest flowers,
To lift their eyes on high,
Where sun-swept pastures meet the sky.