Classic Poem

In this soft air perfumed with blooming May,
Stretched at thy feet on the green grass, Old Glen,
It is a joy unspeakable to me
To see again thy face and friendly crags.
My childhood friend, then height of heights to me,
I am come home to worship thee once more,
And feel that bliss in indolent repose
Of those long past delightful afternoons,
When first you smiled on me and gave to my
Imaginings such imagery, when I
Would lie down at thy base as I
Do now. My feet have wandered far since then,
And over heights with prouder heads than thine,
Such as would name thy majesty with hills.
But I, Old Glen, my early mountain friend,
Am come with loyalty and heart still true
As thy bald crags are to their kindred skies.
My own Olympus yet and pride thou art,
With thy Thessalian gates of clouds
Which hide the great Olympian Hall,
Where Hebe still sweet nectar pours
Out to the gods. And murmurs sweet and low
Of melting cadences Apollo from
His magic lyre sends gently wandering
In soft succeeding measures yet in air
Familiarly to me.


And yet, Old Glen,
A stranger at thy base I lie to-day
To all but thee, save this soft yielding grass,
And blooming waste, thy pageantry of flowers.
All these with yond bald eagle circling in
The upper air with keen descrying for
Some timorous skulking hare, are but old friends
Who laughed and played with me in childhood hours
Full many a summer day and told me tales
Of fairy lore. With such immortal friends
To welcome me again, what care I then
For yon rude plowman's stare and taking me
For some trespassing rake. This broad domain
Of circling hills and intervening vales
Is thine by ancient rights to shelter me,
And take me in thy lap when I have come
With love to worship thee. Before Rome was,
Or Greece had sprung with poetry and art,
Thy majesty with impartiality
Was here. The first soft tread of moccasin
On Indian feet, in ages none can tell,
That bent this yielding grass was thine to hear.
And all the sons of men who since have brought
Their pulsing hearts to thee with loves, with aches,
With tragedies, with childhood innocence,
Have had thy welcoming. To thee no race
May come with arrogance and claim first right
To thy magnificence, and mighty heart,
And thy ennobling grace that touches every
Soul who may commune with thee.


And so
It was Old Glen we came at first to love
In this soft scented air now long ago,
When first I brought my youthful heart to thee,
All pure with pulsing blood still hot
In its descent of years in tropic suns
And sands of Africa, to be caressed
By thee. And to your lofty heights you bore
Me up to see the boundless world beyond,
Which nothing then to my young innocence
Had aught of evil or deceptive paths.
With maddening haste I quit thy friendly side
To mix with men. And then as some young bison
Of the plain, which breathes the morning air
And restless snorts with mad excess of life,
And rushes heedless on in hot pursuit
Of what it does not know: So I, Old Glen,
As heedlessly went out from thee to meet
With buffeting, with hates and selfishness
And scorn. At first I stood abashed, disarmed
Of faith. Too soon I learned the ways of men,
Forgetting much I wish I had retained
Of once a better life. And in the fret
And fever of the endless strife for gain
I often sigh for thee, my native peaks,
And for that early life for me now past
Forevermore.


But for one day, my early friend,
I am come back to thee again, to feel
Thy gentle grace so indefinable,
So subtile is thy touch, yet to the heart
A never-failing gift to all who come
To thee. And so it is, Old Glen, that I am come,
But not with all-believing innocence
As in those unsuspecting days of yore.
And O Mount Glen! sin-stained my burning heart
With shame lifts up its face to thine, but with
A love as changeless as thy ancient crags
Does it still beat for thee. And I rejoice
To feel thy mighty heart here solace mine.
For when the day leads in the early dawn
With blushing rosy light and caroling
Of larks; and sleepy flowers half unclosed,
All wet with dew, unfold their buds and leaves,
There is enchantment in this lovely spot
Beyond, by far, all mortal utterances.
To come here then and lie down on thy side,
As I do now, and see the butterflies
Bobbing from flower to flower, and hear
The restless songs of birds as they in joy
Flit carelessly from bush and tree, is all
The bliss my heart could ask. Here I could lie
In such repose and let a lifetime pass.
And here, Old Glen, could I forget the fret
Of life and selfishness of men, and see
The face of him who is all beautiful.
And here in this perfume of May, and bloom
Luxuriant, and friendly rioting
Of green in all this blooming waste, is seen
A glimpse of that, which He, the Lord of all,
Intended there should be with things and men
In all this earth, a thing which yet will be,
A universal brotherhood.