Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/351

 "IN THE HIGHTS"

who this valley passionately loved

No more these slopes shall climb, nor hear these streams

That, like the murmured melody of dreams,

His happy spirit moved.

He knew the sudden and mysterious thrill

That takes the heart of man on mountain hights,

These autumn days that flame from hill to hill,

These deep and starry nights.

O vanished spirit! tell us, if so may be,

Are our wild longings, stirred by scenes like this—

Our deep-breathed, shadowless felicity—

A mocking, empty bliss?

No answering word, save from the inmost soul

That cries: all things are real—beauty, youth;

All the heart feels; of sorrow and joy the whole;

That which but seems is truth.

This mortal frame, that harbors the immortal,

Mechanic tho' it be, in our life's fires

Turns spiritual; it becomes the portal

Wherethrough the soul aspires.

The soul's existence in its human sheath

Is life no more than is the spirit's life