Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.

New England: Mount Pleasant, Me.

Mount Pleasant

By Hannah E. M. Allen (Rose Sanborn) (b. 1831)

(Excerpt)

’T WAS a glorious scene,—the mountain height

Aflame with sunset’s colored light.

Even the black pines, grim and old,

Transfigured stood with crowns of gold.

There on a hoary crag we stood

When the tide of glory was at its flood.

Close by our feet, the mountain’s child,

The delicate harebell, sweetly smiled,

Lifting its cups of tender blue

From seam and rift where the mosses grew.

The everlasting’s mimic snow

Whitened the dry, crisp grass below;

While the yellow flames of golden-rod

Through clumps of starry asters glowed,

And the sumach’s ruddy fires burned through

Tangled hazels of tawny hue.

Below stretched wide the skirt of wood

Where the maple’s green was dashed with blood;

Where the beech had donned a golden brown,

And the ash was sad in a purple gown,

And the straight birch stems gleamed white between

The sombre spruces, darkly green.

Clasping the mountain’s very feet,

The small lake lay, a picture sheet,

Where the pomp of sunset cloud and shine

Glowed in a setting of dark old pine.

Far in the west blue peaks arose,—

One with a crest of glittering snows,—

With hill and valley and wood between,

And lakes transfused with the sunset sheen.

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