Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/345

HOLYOKE VALLEY The Bull, while in a mystic row

The jewels of his girdle glow;

Or, haply, I may ponder long

On that remoter, sparkling throng,

The orient sisterhood, around

Whose chief our Galaxy is wound;

Thus, half enwrapt in classic dreams,

And brooding over Learning's gleams,

I leave to gloom the under-land,

And from my watch-tower, close at hand,

Like him who led the favored race,

I look on glory face to face!

So, on the mountain-top, alone,

I dwell, as one who holds a throne;

Or prince, or peasant, him I count

My peer, who stands upon a mount,

Sees further than the tribes below,

And knows the joys they cannot know;

And, though beyond the sound of speech

They reign, my soul goes out to preach,

Far on their noble heights elsewhere,

My brother-monarchs of the air.

HOLYOKE VALLEY

many years have made their flights,

Northampton, over thee and me,

Since last I scaled those purple heights

That guard the pathway to the sea;

Or climbed, as now, the topmost crown

Of western ridges, whence again 315