Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/341

THE MOUNTAIN Unto their kindred beings draw our own,

Till more than haunts of men,

Than place and pelf, more welcome these appear,

And better worth sheer life than we had known.

Thither, ay, thither flee, O dearest friend,

From walls wherein we grow so wan and old!

The liberal Earth will still her lovers lend

Water of life and storied sands of gold.

Though of her perfect form thou hast secured

Thy will, some charm shall aye thine hold defy,

And day by day thy passion yet shall grow,

Even as a bridegroom, lured

By the unravished secret of her eye,

Reads the bride's soul, yet never all can know.

And when from her embrace again thou 'rt torn,

(Though well for her the world were thrown away!)

At thine old tasks thou 'lt not be quite forlorn,

Remembering where is peace; and thou shalt say,

Where, though I age, all round me is so young

That in its youth my soul's youth mirrored seems."

Yes, in their rippling verse,

For all our toil, they have not falsely sung

Who said there still was rest beyond our dreams.

THE MOUNTAIN

thousand feet in air it stands

Betwixt the bright and shaded lands,

Above the regions it divides

And borders with its furrowed sides,

The seaward valley laughs with light

Till the round sun o'erhangs this height;

But then the shadow of the crest 311