Here, in the hills of ages
I met thee face to face;

O mother Earth, O lover Earth,
Look down on me with grace.
Give me thy passion burning,
And thy strong patience, turning
All wrath to power, all yearning
To truth, thy dwelling-place.

Julian Grenfell [18 -1915]

HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN

By orange grove and palm-tree, we walked the southern shore,

Each day more still and golden than was the day before. That calm and languid sunshine! How faint it made us grow

To look on Hemlock Mountain when the storm hangs low!

To see its rocky pastures, its sparse but hardy corn,
The mist roll off its forehead before a harvest morn;
To hear the pine-trees crashing across its gulfs of snow
Upon a roaring midnight when the whirlwinds blow.

Tell not of lost Atlantis, or fabled Avalon;
The olive, or the vineyard, no winter breathes upon;
Away from Hemlock Mountain we could not well forego,
For all the summer islands where the gulf tides flow.
Sarah N. Cleghorn (1876-

SUNRISE ON RYDAL WATER

COME down at dawn from windless hills

Into the valley of the lake,

Where yet a larger quiet fills

The hour, and mist and water make
With rocks and reeds and island boughs
One silence and one element,
Where wonder goes surely as once

It went

By Galilean prows.

Sunrise on Rydal Water

Moveless the water and the mist,

Moveless the secret air above, Hushed, as upon some happy tryst The poised expectancy of love; What spirit is it that adores

What mighty presence yet unseen? What consummation works apace Between

These rapt enchanted shores?

Never did virgin beauty wake
Devouter to the bridal feast
Than moves this hour upon the lake
In adoration to the east.

Here is the bride a god may know,
The primal will, the young consent,
Till surely upon the appointed mood
Intent

The god shall leap-and, lo,

Over the lake's end strikes the sun-
White, flameless fire; some purity
Thrilling the mist, a splendor won

Out of the world's heart. Let there be
Thoughts, and atonements, and desires;
Proud limbs, and undeliberate tongue;
Where now we move with mortal care
Among

Immortal dews and fires.

So the old mating goes apace,

1437

Wind with the sea, and blood with thought, Lover with lover; and the grace

Of understanding comes unsought When stars into the twilight steer,

Or thrushes build among the may, Or wonder moves between the hills, And day

Comes up on Rydal mere.

John Drinkwater (1882

THE DESERTED PASTURE

I LOVE the stony pasture

That no one else will have.

The old gray rocks so friendly seem,

So durable and brave.

In tranquil contemplation
It watches through the year,
Seeing the frosty stars arise,
The slender moons appear.

Its music is the rain-wind,

Its choristers the birds,

And there are secrets in its heart

Too wonderful for words.

It keeps the bright-eyed creatures
That play about its walls,
Though long ago its milking herds
Were banished from their stalls.

Only the children come there,
For buttercups in May,

Or nuts in autumn, where it lies
Dreaming the hours away.

Long since its strength was given

To making good increase,

And now its soul is turned again

To beauty and to peace.

There in the early springtime

The violets are blue,

And adder-tongues in coats of gola

Are garmented anew.

There bayberry and aster
Are crowded on its floors,

To Meadows

When marching summer halts to praise

The Lord of Out-of-doors.

And there October passes

In gorgeous livery,

In purple ash, and crimson oak,

And golden tulip tree.

And when the winds of winter

Their bugle blasts begin,

The snowy hosts of heaven arrive

To pitch their tents therein.

Bliss Carman [1861

1439

TO MEADOWS

YE have been fresh and green;
Ye have been filled with flowers;

And ye the walks have been

Where maids have spent their hours.

Ye have beheld how they

With wicker arks did come

To kiss and bear away

The richer cowslips home.

Ye've heard them sweetly sing,
And seen them in a round,
Each virgin, like a Spring,
With honeysuckles crowned.

But now we see none here

Whose silvery feet did tread,

And with dishevelled hair

Adorned this smoother mead.

Like unthrifts, having spent

Your stock, and needy grown,

Ye're left here to lament

Your poor estates, alone.

Robert Herrick [1591-1674]

THE CLOUD

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under;

And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers
Lightning my pilot sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits.

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the Genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,

Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

When the morning star shines dead,