The Witch-Maid, and Other Verses/High Places

by Dorothea Mackellar

HIGH PLACES

My heart turns to the mountains
That I so long have missed,
The blue hills on the sky-line,
Bird-haunted, sunshine-kissed;
For in my soul I see them,
The gullies golden-green
Where from the hop-vine tangle
The bellbird chimes unseen.

And higher yet and higher
I want to climb, until
The trees give place to bushes
Wind-shorn and struggling still
For foothold on the corries
Steep-sloping to the sky,
I want to reach the summit
And watch the clouds race by;—

The clouds that go so quickly
The whole hill seems to lean;—
I want to breathe in deeply
The cool air, thin and keen.
My heart turns to high places
All men have long adored—
The proud and lonely mountains,
The Altars of the Lord.

Australia.