Classic Poem

DARK Kinder! standing on thy whin clad side,
Where Storm, and Solitude, and Silence dwell,
And stern Sublimity hath set his throne,—
I look upon a region wild and wide,
A realm of mountain, forest haunt, and fell,
And fertile valleys, beautifully lone,
Where fresh and far romantic waters roam,
Singing a song of peace by many a cottage home.

I leave the sickly haunts of sordid men,—
The toil that fetters and the care that kills
The purest feelings of the human breast,—
To gaze on Nature's lineaments again,—
To find, amid these congregated hills,
Some fleeting hours of quiet thought and rest;—
Tread with elastic step the fragrant sod,
Drink the inspiring breeze, and feel myself with God!

Like Heaven-invading Titans, girt with gloom,
The mountains crowd around me, while the skies
Stoop to enfold them in their azure sheen;
The air is rich with music and perfume,
And beauty, like a varying mantle, lies
On barren steep, bright wave, and pasture green,—
On ancient hamlets nestling far below,
And many a wild-wood walk, where childhood's footsteps go.

It is the Sabbath morn,—a blessed hour
To those who have to struggle with a lot
Which clouds the mind, and chains the languid limb:
From yon low temple, bosomed in the bower,
Which prayer and praise have made a hallowed spot,
Soars in the air the peasant's earliest hymn;
And as the sounds come sweetly to my ear,
They say, or seem to say, that happy hearts are near.

Pray Heaven they are so! for this restless earth
Holds much of human misery and crime,—
Much to awake our sympathies indeed;
And though eternal blessings spring to birth
Beneath the footsteps of advancing time,
Myriads of mortal hearts in silence bleed:
Vain is the hungry mourner's suppliant cry:
Oh, Justice! how is this? Let Pride and Power reply!

Away, away with these reflections now!
The natural colours of a pensive mind
Yearning for liberty, and truth, and love!
For, standing upon Kinder's awful brow,
Breathing the healthy spirit of the wind,
Green lands below, and glorious skies above,—
I deem that God, whose hand is ever sure,
Will break the rankling chain that binds the suffering poor.

I look before me,—lo! how wild a change
Hath come upon the scene! yon mountain wall
Wears a vast diadem of fiery gloom;
A lurid darkness, terrible and strange,
Spreads o'er the face of heaven its sultry pall,
As though earth trembled on the verge of doom;
A fearful calm foretells a coming fight,
For Tempest is prepared to revel in its might!

It comes at length, for the awakening breeze
Whirls with a sudden gust each fragile thing
That lay this moment in unwonted rest;
The storm's first drops fall tinkling on the trees,
Heavy, but few, as though 'twere hard to wring
Such painful tears from out its burning breast;
And now a deep, reverberated groan
Is heard amid the span of Heaven's unbounded zone.

The lightning leapeth from the riven cloud,
Vivid and broad upon the startled eye,
Wrapping the mountains in a robe of fire;
The voice of thunder follows, long and loud,—
Hot rain is shaken from the troubled sky,—
The winds rush past me with redoubled ire;
And yon proud pine which stood the wintry shock,
Bows its majestic head, and quits its native rock!

Flash hurries after flash with widening sweep,
And peal meets peal, resounding near and far,
As though some veil of mystery were rent;
The headlong torrent boundeth from the steep
Where I enjoy the elemental jar,
Nor fear its rage, nor wish its passions spent.
But now God curbs the lightning—stills the roar,
And earth smiles through her tears more lovely than before.

How sternly fair! how beautifully wild,
To the sad spirit, is the war of storms,
When thought and feeling mingle with the strife!
Nature, I loved thee when a very child,
In all thy moods, in all thy hues and forms,
Because I found thee with enchantment rife;
And even yet, in spite of every ill,
I feel within my soul that thou art glorious still!

I leave the hoary mountains for the vale,
Which wears the milder features of a scene
Too-rarely brought before my longing sight;
And where the streamlet tells its summer tale
To bright flowers bending on its margin green,
I walk with softened and subdued delight,
Breathing the words of some remembered lay,
Or talking with the things that smile around my way.

Oh! is it not religion, to admire,
O God! what thou hast made in field and bower,
And solitudes from man and strife apart!—
To feel within the soul the wakening fire
Of pure and chastened pleasure, and the power
Of natural beauty on the tranquil heart,—
And then to think that our terrestrial home
Is but a shadow still of that which is to come!

This is the fitting temple of high thought
And glorious emotion,—the true place
Of adoration, silent and sincere;
For all that the Eternal Hand hath wrought,
Having the form of grandeur and of grace,
Reminds us of a happier, holier sphere,—
Fills us with wonder, strengthens hope and love,
While the rapt soul aspires to brighter things above.

Farewell each Alpine haunt, each quiet glen,
Farewell each fragrant offspring of the wild,
Each twilight forest and secluded vale!
I go to mingle with my fellow-men,
Bearing within me, pure and undefiled,
A store of beauty which can never fail:
In Memory's keeping ye shall linger long,
And wake my lowly harp to many a future song!