" Lowland, your sports are low as is fc your seat; The Highland games and minds are high and great."
-Taylor's Braes of Mar.
Philip Pendleton Cooke
I.
The axle of the Lowland wain
Goes groaning from the fields of grain:
The Lowlands suit with craft, and gain.
Good Ceres, with her plump brown hands,
And wheaten sheaves that burst their bands,
Is scornful of the mountain lands.
But mountain lands, so bare of corn,
Have that which puts, in turn, to scorn
The Goddess of the brimming horn.
Go mark them, when, with tramp and jar,
Of furious steeds, and flashing car,
The Thunderer sweeps them from afar.
Go mark them when their beauty lies
Drooping and veiled with violet dyes,
Beneath the light of breathless skies.
No lands of fat increase may vie
With their brave wealth for heart and eye-
Of loveliness and majesty.
II.
I stand upon an upland lawn;
The river mists are quite withdrawn
It is three hours beyond the dawn.
Autumn works well! but yesterday
The mountain hues were green and gray
The elves have surely passed this way.
With crimping hand, and frosty lip,
That merry elfin fellowship,
Robin and Puck and Numbernip,
Through the clear night have swiftly plied
Their tricksy arts of change, and dyed
Of all bright hues, the mountain side.
In an old tale Arabian,
Sharp hammer-strokes, not dealt by man,
Startle a slumbering caravan.
At dawn, the wondering merchants see
A city, built up gloriously,
Of jasper, and gold, and porphyry.
That night-built city of the sands
Showed not as show our mountain lands,
Changed in a night by elfin hands.
We may not find, in all the scene,
An unchanged bough or leaf, I ween,
Save of the constant evergreen.
The maple, on his slope so cool,
Wears his new motley, like the fool
Prankt out to lead the games of Yule.
Or rather say, that tree of pride
Stands, in his mantle many-dyed,
Bold monarch of the mountain side.
The ash a fiery chief is he,
High in the highland heraldry:
He wears his proud robes gallantly.
Torchbearers are the grim black pines
Their torches are the flaming vines
Bright on the mountain s skyward lines.
The blushing dogwood, thicketed,
Marks everywhere the torrent s bed,
With winding lines of perfect red.
The oak, so haughty in his green,
Looks craven in an altered mien,
And whimples in the air so keen.
The hickories, tough although they be,
The chestnut, and the tulip-tree,
These too have felt the witchery.
The tree of life, and dusky pine,
And hemlock, swart and saturnine
Staunch like a demon by his mine
These still retain a solemn dress, -
But, sombre as they be, no less
Make portion of the loveliness.
III.
Just now no whisper of the air
Awoke, or wandered, any where
In all that scene so wild and fair.
But hark I upborne by swift degrees,
Come forth the mountain melodies
The music of the wind-tost trees.
And, startled by these utterings,
The parted leaves, like living things,
Skirl up, and flock on shining wings.
And, rising from the rainbow rout,
A hawk goes swooping round about
And hark! a rifle-shot, and shout.
The rifle of the mountaineer
I know its tongue, so quick and clear
Is out, to-day, against the deer.
Right hardy are the men, I trow,
Who build upon the mountain s brow,
And love the gun, and scorn the plough.
Not such soft pleasures pamper these
As lull the subtil Bengalese,
Or islanders of Indian seas.
A rugged hand to cast their seed
A rifle for the red deer s speed
With these their swarming huts they feed.
Such men are freedom s body guard ;
On their high rocks, so cold and hard,
They keep her surest watch and ward.
Of such was William Tell, whose bow
Hurtled its shafts so long ago,
At red Morgarten s overthrow.
Of such was Arnold Winkelreid,
Who saved his fatherland at need,
And won in death heroic meed.
That deed will live a thousand years!
Young Arnold, with his Switzer peers,
Stood hemmed and hedged with Austrian spears.
No mountain sword might pierce that hedge,
But Arnold formed the Bernese wedge
Himself, unarmed, its trusty edge.
His naked arms he opened wide,
" Make way for liberty," he cried,
And clasped the hungry spears and died.
He made a gap for Liberty,
His comrades filled it desperately
And Switzerland again was free.
IV.
But mark! on yonder summit clear,
Stands the bold hunter of the deer,
The rifle-bearing mountaineer.
From this far hill, we may not now
Mark the free courage of his brow,
Or the clear eyes, which well avow
The manly virtues of a heart,
Untrained to any baser art,
And bold to dare its lot and part.
But a strong vision may define,
His gaunt form's every giant line,
Motionless in the broad sunshine.
And his long gun we note and know
That weapon dire of overthrow,
More terrible than Tell s true bow.
But mark again his step descends;
And now his stately stature blends
With the vague path whereon, he wends.
Bare is the gray peak where he stood
Again, the blue sky seems to brood
Over a lovely solitude.
V.
Our life on earth is full of cares,
And the worn spirit oft despairs
Under the groaning load it bears.
When such dark moods will force their way,
When the soul cowers beneath their sway,
Go forth as I have done to-day.
Boon nature is a foe severe
To pallid brow, and shadowy fear,
And lifts the fallen to valiant cheer.
Heed her good promptings muse and learn-
And, haply, to thy toils return
With a clear heart, and courage stern.
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