Have ceased, and we can draw our breath once more
Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters
Make glad their nooning underneath the elms
With tale and riddle and old snatch of song,
I lay aside grave themes, and idly play
With fancies borrowed from remembered hills
That beckon to me from the cold blue North.
And yet not idly all. A farmer's son,
Proud of field lore and harvest-craft, and feeling
All their fine possibilities, while yet
Knowing too well the hard necessities
Of labor and privation, and the bare
And colorless realities of life
Without an atmosphere, I fain would see
The rugged outlines touched and glorified
With mellowing haze and golden-tinted mist.
Our yeoman should be equal to his home
Set in these fair green valleys, purple-walled,—
A man to match his mountains, not a drudge
Dull as the clod he turns. I fain would teach
In this light way the blind eyes to discern,
And the cold hearts to feel, in common things,
Beatitudes of beauty; and, meanwhile,
Pay somewhat of the mighty debt I owe
To Nature for her ministry of love
And life-long benediction. With the rocks
And woods and mountain valleys which have been
Solace in suffering, and exceeding joy
In life's best moments, I would leave some sign,
When I am but a name and memory,
That I have loved them. Haply, in the years
That wait to take the places of our own,
Whispered upon some breezy balcony
Fronting the hills, or where the lake in the moon
Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Ruth,
In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet
Of Boaz, even this little lay of mine
May lift some burden from a heavy heart,
Or make a light one lighter for its sake.
We held our sideling way above
The river's whitening shallows,
By homesteads old, with wide-flung barns
Swept through and through by swallows,—
By maple orchards, belts of pine
And larches climbing darkly
The mountain slopes, and, over all,
The great peaks rising starkly.
You should have seen that long hill-range
