🌄 The Mountains

 

" Lowland, your sports are low as is fc your seat; The Highland games and minds are high and great."  

-Taylor's Braes of Mar.

Philip Pendleton Cooke

I. 

The axle of the Lowland wain 

Goes groaning from the fields of grain: 

The Lowlands suit with craft, and gain. 

Good Ceres, with her plump brown hands, 

And wheaten sheaves that burst their bands, 

Is scornful of the mountain lands. 

But mountain lands, so bare of corn, 

Have that which puts, in turn, to scorn 

The Goddess of the brimming horn. 

Go mark them, when, with tramp and jar, 

Of furious steeds, and flashing car, 

The Thunderer sweeps them from afar. 

Go mark them when their beauty lies 

Drooping and veiled with violet dyes, 

Beneath the light of breathless skies. 

No lands of fat increase may vie 

With their brave wealth for heart and eye- 

Of loveliness and majesty. 

II. 

I stand upon an upland lawn; 

The river mists are quite withdrawn 

It is three hours beyond the dawn. 

Autumn works well! but yesterday 

The mountain hues were green and gray 

The elves have surely passed this way. 

With crimping hand, and frosty lip, 

That merry elfin fellowship, 

Robin and Puck and Numbernip, 

Through the clear night have swiftly plied 

Their tricksy arts of change, and dyed 

Of all bright hues, the mountain side. 

In an old tale Arabian, 

Sharp hammer-strokes, not dealt by man, 

Startle a slumbering caravan. 

At dawn, the wondering merchants see 

A city, built up gloriously, 

Of jasper, and gold, and porphyry. 

That night-built city of the sands 

Showed not as show our mountain lands, 

Changed in a night by elfin hands. 

We may not find, in all the scene, 

An unchanged bough or leaf, I ween, 

Save of the constant evergreen. 

The maple, on his slope so cool, 

Wears his new motley, like the fool 

Prankt out to lead the games of Yule. 

Or rather say, that tree of pride 

Stands, in his mantle many-dyed, 

Bold monarch of the mountain side. 

The ash a fiery chief is he, 

High in the highland heraldry: 

He wears his proud robes gallantly. 

Torchbearers are the grim black pines 

Their torches are the flaming vines 

Bright on the mountain s skyward lines. 

The blushing dogwood, thicketed, 

Marks everywhere the torrent s bed, 

With winding lines of perfect red. 

The oak, so haughty in his green, 

Looks craven in an altered mien, 

And whimples in the air so keen. 

The hickories, tough although they be, 

The chestnut, and the tulip-tree, 

These too have felt the witchery. 

The tree of life, and dusky pine, 

And hemlock, swart and saturnine 

Staunch like a demon by his mine 

These still retain a solemn dress, - 

But, sombre as they be, no less 

Make portion of the loveliness. 

III.

Just now no whisper of the air 

Awoke, or wandered, any where 

In all that scene so wild and fair. 

But hark I upborne by swift degrees, 

Come forth the mountain melodies 

The music of the wind-tost trees. 

And, startled by these utterings, 

The parted leaves, like living things, 

Skirl up, and flock on shining wings. 

And, rising from the rainbow rout, 

A hawk goes swooping round about 

And hark! a rifle-shot, and shout. 

The rifle of the mountaineer 

I know its tongue, so quick and clear 

Is out, to-day, against the deer. 

Right hardy are the men, I trow, 

Who build upon the mountain s brow, 

And love the gun, and scorn the plough. 

Not such soft pleasures pamper these 

As lull the subtil Bengalese, 

Or islanders of Indian seas. 

A rugged hand to cast their seed 

A rifle for the red deer s speed 

With these their swarming huts they feed. 

Such men are freedom s body guard ; 

On their high rocks, so cold and hard, 

They keep her surest watch and ward. 

Of such was William Tell, whose bow 

Hurtled its shafts so long ago, 

At red Morgarten s overthrow. 

Of such was Arnold Winkelreid, 

Who saved his fatherland at need, 

And won in death heroic meed. 

That deed will live a thousand years! 

Young Arnold, with his Switzer peers, 

Stood hemmed and hedged with Austrian spears. 

No mountain sword might pierce that hedge, 

But Arnold formed the Bernese wedge 

Himself, unarmed, its trusty edge. 

His naked arms he opened wide, 

" Make way for liberty," he cried, 

And clasped the hungry spears and died. 

He made a gap for Liberty, 

His comrades filled it desperately 

And Switzerland again was free. 

IV. 

But mark! on yonder summit clear, 

Stands the bold hunter of the deer, 

The rifle-bearing mountaineer. 

From this far hill, we may not now 

Mark the free courage of his brow, 

Or the clear eyes, which well avow 

The manly virtues of a heart, 

Untrained to any baser art, 

And bold to dare its lot and part. 

But a strong vision may define, 

His gaunt form's every giant line, 

Motionless in the broad sunshine. 

And his long gun we note and know 

That weapon dire of overthrow, 

More terrible than Tell s true bow. 

But mark again his step descends; 

And now his stately stature blends 

With the vague path whereon, he wends. 

Bare is the gray peak where he stood 

Again, the blue sky seems to brood 

Over a lovely solitude. 

V. 

Our life on earth is full of cares, 

And the worn spirit oft despairs 

Under the groaning load it bears. 

When such dark moods will force their way, 

When the soul cowers beneath their sway, 

Go forth as I have done to-day. 

Boon nature is a foe severe 

To pallid brow, and shadowy fear, 

And lifts the fallen to valiant cheer. 

Heed her good promptings muse and learn- 

And, haply, to thy toils return 

With a clear heart, and courage stern.