Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/173

 Mountains were always singularly attractive to Thoreau (see page xxiv), as indeed they are to poets generally. The verses originally printed in The Dial on Mountains were begun in August, 1841, and then entitled To the Mountains. These unprinted lines seem to have been intended as a closing to the poem, although they appear in the original on a separate sheet (see facsimile of original MS.), under the following heading:—

TO THE MOUNTAINS

And when the sun puts out his lamp We'll sleep serene within the camp, Trusting to His invet'rate skill Who leads the stars o'er yonder hill; Whose discipline doth never cease To watch the slumberings of peace, And from the virtuous hold afar The melancholy din of war; For ye, our sentries still outlie,— The earth your pallet, and your screen the sky.

From steadfastness I will not swerve, Remembering my sweet reserve.

With all your kindness shown from year to year Ye do but civil demons still appear; Still, to my mind, Ye are inhuman and unkind, [123]