Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
Tri-Mountain
By Henry Theodore Tuckerman (1813–1871)T
Those ancient hills again,
Rising to Fancy’s eager view
In solitude, as when
Beneath the summer firmament,
So silently of yore,
The shadow of each passing cloud
Their rugged bosoms bore!
Down to the murmuring sea,
And rose upon the woodland plain
In lonely majesty.
The breeze, at noontide, whispered soft
Their emerald knolls among,
And midnight’s wind, amid their heights,
Its wildest dirges sung.
Paused in his weary way,
From far below his quick ear caught
The moaning of the bay;
The dry leaves, fanned by autumn’s breath,
Along their ridges crept;
And snow-wreaths, like storm-whitened waves,
Around them rudely swept.
Grew the wild flowers of spring,
And stars smiled down, and dew-founts poured
Their gentle offering.
The moonbeams played upon their peaks,
And at their feet the tide;
And thus, like altar-mounts, they stood,
By nature sanctified.
The seaman turns his gaze,
It quails, as roof and spire and dome
Flash in the sun’s bright rays.
On those wild hills a thousand homes
Are reared in proud array,
And argosies float safely o’er
That lone and isle-gemmed bay.
By countless feet are pressed;
And hosts of loved ones meekly sleep
Below their teeming breast.
A world’s unnumbered voices float
Within their narrow bound;
Love’s gentle tone, and traffic’s hum,
And music’s thrilling sound.
Beneath New England’s sky,
And there her earliest martyrs stood,
And nerved themselves to die.
And long upon these ancient hills,
By glory’s light enshrined,
May rise the dwellings of the free,
The city of the mind.