He who, upon an Alpine peak,
Stands, when the sunrise lifts the East,
And gilds the crown and lights the cheek
Of largest monarch down to least,
Of all the summits cold and bleak,
Finds sadly that it brings no boon
For all his long and toilsome leagues,
And chill at once and weary soon,
Rests from his fevers and fatigues,
And waits the recompense of noon,
For then the valleys, near and far,
The hillsides, fretted by the vine,
The glacier-drift and torrent-scar
Whose restless waters shoot and shine,
And many a tarn, that like a star
Trembles and flames with stress of light,
And many a hamlet and chalet
That dots with brown, or paints with white,
The landscape quivering in the day,
With beauty all his toil requite.
Mountains, from mountain altitudes
Are only hills, as bleak and bare;
And he whose daring step intrudes
Upon their grandeur, and the rare
Cold light or gloom that o'er them broods,
Finds that with even brow to stand
Among the heights that bade him climb,
Is loss of all that made them grand,
While all of lovely and sublime
Looks up to him from lake and land.
Great men are few, and stand apart;
And seem divinest when remote.
From brain to brain, and heart to heart,
No thoughts of genial commerce float;
Each holds his own exclusive mart.
And when we meet them, face to face,
And hand to hand their greatness greet,
Our steps we willingly retrace,
And gather humbly at their feet,
With those who live upon their grace.
And man and woman—mount and vale—
Have charms, each from the other seen,—
The robe of rose, the coat of mail:
The springing turf, the black ravine:
The tossing pines, the waving swale:
Which please the sight with constant joy.
Thus living, each has power to call
The other's thoughts with sweet decoy,
And one can rise and one can fall
But to distemper or destroy.
The dewy meadow breeds the cloud
That rises on ethereal wings,
And wraps the mountain in a shroud
From which the living lightning springs
And torrents pour, that, lithe and loud,
Leap down in service to the plains,
Or feed the fountains at their source;
And only thus the mountain gains
The vital fulness of the force
That fills the meadow's myriad veins.
In fair, reciprocal exchange
Of good which each appropriates,
The meadow and the mountain-range
Nourish their beautiful estates;
And lofty wild and lowly grange
Thrive on the commerce thus ordained;
And not a reek ascends the rock,
And not a drift of dew is rained,
But eyrie-brood and tended flock
By the sweet gift is entertained.
A meadow may be fair and broad,
And hold a river in its rest;
Or small, arid with the silver gaud
Of a lone lakelet on its breast,
Or but a patch, that, overawed,
Clings humbly to the mountain's hem:
It matters not: it is the charm
That cheers his life, and holds the stem
Of every flower that tempts his arm,
Or greets his snowy diadem.
Dolts talk of largest and of least,
And worse than dolts are they who prate
Of Beauty captive to the Beast;
For man in woman finds his mate,
And thrones her equal at his feast.
She matches meekness with his might,
And patience with his power to act,—
His judgment with her quicker sight;
And wins by subtlety and tact
The battles he can only fight.
And she who strives to take the van
In conflict, or the common way,
Does outrage to the heavenly plan,
And outrage to the finer clay
That makes her beautiful to man.
All this, and more than this, she saw
Who reigned in Philip's house and heart.
Far off, he seemed without a flaw;
Close by, her tasteless counterpart,
And slave to Nature's common law.
To climb with fierce, familiar stride
His dizzy paths of life and thought,
Would but degrade him from her pride,
And bring the majesty to naught
Which love and distance magnified.
If she should grow like him, she knew
He would admire and love her less;
The eagle's image might be true,
But eagle of the wilderness
Would find no consort in the view.
A woman, in her woman's sphere,
A loyal wife and worshipper,
She only thirsted to appear
As fair to him as he to her,
And fairer still, from year to year.
And he who quickly learned to purge
His fancy of the tender whim
That she was floating at the verge
Of womanhood, half hid to him,
Saw her with gracious mien emerge,
And stand full-robed upon the shore,
With faculties and charms unguessed;
With wondrous eyes that looked before,
And hands that helped and words that blessed—
The mistress of an alien lore
Beyond the wisdom of the schools
And all his manly power to win;
With handicraft of tricks and tools
That conjured marvels with a pin,
And miracles with skeins and spools!
She seemed to mock his dusty dearth
With flowers that sprang beneath his eyes;
Till all he was, seemed little worth,
And she he deemed so little wise,
Became the wisest of the earth.
In all the struggles of his soul,
And all the strifes his soul abhorred,
She shone before him like a goal—
A shady power of fresh reward—
A shallop riding in the mole,
That waited with obedient helm
To bear him over sparkling seas,
Into a new and fragrant realm,
Before the vigor of a breeze
That drove, but would not overwhelm.
IX.
The river of their life was one;
The shores, down which they passed were two;
One mirrored mountains, huge and dun,
The other crimped the green and blue,
And sparkled in the kindly sun!
Twin barks, with answering flags, they moved
With even canvas down the stream,
In smooth or ruffled waters grooved,
And found such islands in their dream
As rest and loving speech behooved.
Ah fair the goodly gardens smiled
On Philip at his rougher strand!
And grandly loomed the summits, isled
In seas of cloud, to her who scanned
From her far shore the lofty wild.
Two lives, two loves—both self-forgot
In loving homage to their oath;
Two lives, two loves, but living not
By ministry that reached them both
In service of a common lot,
They sailed the stream, and every mile
Broadened with beauty as they passed;
And fruitful shore and trysting-isle,
And all love's intercourse were glassed
And blessed in Heaven's benignant smile.
X.
To symmetry the oak is grown
Which all winds visit on the lea,
While that which lists the monotone
Of the long blast that sweeps the sea,
And answers to its breath alone,
Turns with aversion from the breeze,
And stretches all its stunted limbs
Landward and heavenward, toward the trees
That listen to a thousand hymns,
And grow to grander destinies.
Man may not live on whitest loaves,
With all of coarser good dismissed;
He pines and starves who never roves
Beyond the holy eucharist,
To gather of the fields and groves.
And he who seeks to fill his heart
With solace of a single friend,
Will find refreshment but in part,
Or, sadder still, will find the end
Of all his reach of thought and art.
They who love best need friendship most;
Hearts only thrive on varied good;
And he who gathers from a host
Of friendly hearts his daily food,
Is the best friend that we can boast.
She left her husband with his friends;
She called them round him at her board;
And found their culture made amends
For all the time that, from her hoard,
She spared him for these nobler ends.
He was her lover; that sufficed:
His home was in the Holy Place
With that of the Beloved Christ;
And friendship had no subtle grace
By which his love could be enticed.
Of all his friends, she was but one:
She held with them a common field.
Exclusive right, with love begun,
Ended with love, and stood repealed,
Leaving his friendship free to run
Toward man or woman, all unmissed.
She knew she had no right to bind
His friendship to her single wrist,
So long as love was true and kind,
And made her its monopolist,
No time was grudged with jealous greed
Which either books or friendship claimed.
He was her friend, and she had need
Of all—unhindered and unblamed
That he could win, through word or deed.
Her friend waxed great as grew the man;
Her temple swelled as rose her priest—
With power to bless and right to ban—
And all who served him, most or least,—
From chorister and sacristan
To those whose frankincense and myrrh
Perfumed the sacred courts with alms,—
Were gracious ministers to her,
Who found the largess in her palms,
And him the friendly almoner.