In my dreams I returned to my hills; for the life that I left,
The life of my waking, was drear as the pipe of the winds through a cleft
Of the mountains of old held sacred, but long of their godhead bereft.

When pitiful sleep drew near, and laid cool hands on my brow,
And kind dreams led me away, where my hills, like a great ship's prow,
Stood forth to the northern wastes, my heart remembers how.

With the dreams I returned to my hills—and they were not the same!
Yet the winds went by as of old, and the red spruce murmured her name,
And down bleak alleys of pine the sunset quivered in flame.

Then I opened my heart and cried to the hills to know
A touch of their ancient kinship, their solace of long ago.
But the voice of the wind grew strange, and a hush fell over the snow.