Edward Rowland Sill (Эдвард Роулэнд Силл)
On a Picture of Mt. Shasta by Kieth
TWO craggy slopes, sheer down on either hand, Fall to a cleft, dark and confused with pines. Out of their sombre shade—one gleam of light— Escaping toward us like a hurrying child, Half laughing, half afraid, a white brook runs. The fancy tracks it back thro' the thick gloom Of crowded trees, immense, mysterious As monoliths of some colossal temple, Dusky with incense, chill with endless time: Thro' their dim arches chants the distant wind, Hollow and vast, and ancient oracles Whisper, and wait to be interpreted. Far up the gorge denser and darker grows The forest; columns lie with writhen roots in air, And across open glades the sunbeams slant To touch the vanishing wing-tips of shy birds; Till from a mist-rolled valley soar the slopes, Blue-hazy, dense with pines to the verge of snow, Up into cloud. Suddenly parts the cloud, And lo! in heaven—as pure as very snow, Uplifted like a solitary world— A star, grown all at once distinct and clear— The white earth-spirit, Shasta! Calm, alone, Silent it stands, cold in the crystal air, White-bosomed sister of the stainless dawn, With whom the cloud holds converse, and the storm Rests there, and stills its tempest into snow. Once—you remember?—we beheld that vision, But busy days recalled us, and the whole Fades now among my memories like a dream. The distant thing is all incredible, And the dim past as if it had not been. Our world flees from us; only the one point, The unsubstantial moment, is our own. We are but as the dead, save that swift mote Of conscious life. Then the great artist comes, Commands the chariot wheels of Time to stay, Summons the distant, as by some austere Grand gesture of a mighty sorcerer's wand, And our whole world again becomes our own. So we escape the petty tyranny Of the incessant hour; pure thought evades Its customary bondage, and the mind Is lifted up, watching the moon-like globe. How should a man be eager or perturbed Within this calm? How should he greatly care For reparation, or redress of wrong,— To scotch the liar, or spurn the fawning knave, Or heed the babble of the ignoble crew? Seest thou yon blur far up the icy slope, Like a man's footprint? Half thy little town Might hide there, or be buried in what seems From yonder cliff a curl of feathery snow. Still the far peak would keep its frozen calm, Still at the evening on its pinnacle Would the one tender touch of sunset dwell, And o'er it nightlong wheel the silent stars. So the great globe rounds on,—mountains, and vales, Forests, waste stretches of gaunt rock and sand, Shore, and the swaying ocean,—league on league; And blossoms open, and are sealed in frost; And babes are born, and men are laid to rest. What is this breathing atom, that his brain Should build or purpose aught or aught desire, But stand a moment in amaze and awe, Rapt on the wonderfulness of the world?
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