Helen Cowles Le Cron

I AM young, O shaggy mountains; I am young and you are old;

You are mighty, brooding pines, and I am small;

And your great, gaunt shadows crush me with a horror still and cold,

And your sullen silence holds me like a pall.

Just today I went for water to a little silver spring

Where the air was sweet and scarlet berries grew;

And my dreams came flocking homeward and my haunting fears took wing

Till the night crawled forth to meet me. Then I knew.

I am stranger to your silence; I am alien to your might;

I am longing for a little, laughing world

Where the days went dancing past me, for my heart was very light,—

And from many friendly hearths the smoke upcurled.

Yet he loves you, lonely mountains, and he says he loves me too,

And his cabin nestles trusting at your feet;

But my heart is torn with longing for the gentle land I knew—

And the careless hours when life was very sweet.

Will you always frown upon me through the weary, weary years

Till my dream-home fades to silence and to night?

I was gay, O brooding mountains, till you taught me pain and tears.

I am alien to your solitude and might.