Time out of mind, this forge of ores;
Quarry of spars in mountain pores;
80 Old cradle, hunting-ground, and bier
Of wolf and otter, bear and deer;
Well-built abode of many a race;
Tower of observance searching space;
Factory of river and of rain;

85 Link in the alps' globe-girding chain;
By million changes skilled to tell
What in the Eternal standeth well,
And what obedient Nature can;
Is this colossal talisman

90 Kindly to plant, and blood, and kind,
But speechless to the master's mind?
I thought to find the patriots

In whom the stock of freedom roots;
To myself I oft recount

95 Tales of many a famous mount,

Wales, Scotland, Uri, Hungary's dells;
Bards, Roys, Scanderbegs, and Tells.
Here Nature shall condense her powers,
Her music, and her meteors,

100 And lifting man to the blue deep
Where stars their perfect courses keep,
Like wise preceptor, lure his eye
To sound the science of the sky,
And carry learning to its height
105 Of untried power and sane delight:

The Indian cheer, the frosty skies,

Rear purer wits, inventive eyes,

-

96. The places of this line have their heroes in the next, bards in Wales, Rob Roy in Scotland, William Tell in Uri; Scanderbeg (Iskander-beg, i. e., Alexander the Great) is the name given by the Turks to the Robin Hood of Epirus, George Castriota,

1414-1467.

Eyes that frame cities where none be, And hands that stablish what these see; 110 And by the moral of his place

Hint summits of heroic grace;

Man in these crags a fastness find
To fight pollution of the mind;

In the wide thaw and ooze of wrong,
115 Adhere like this foundation strong,
The insanity of towns to stem
With simpleness for stratagem.
But if the brave old mould is broke,
And end in churls the mountain folk,
120 In tavern cheer and tavern joke,
Sink, O mountain, in the swamp!
Hide in thy skies, O sovereign lamp!
Perish like leaves, the highland breed ;
No sire survive, no son succeed!

125 Soft! let not the offended muse
Toil's hard hap with scorn accuse.
Many hamlets sought I then,
Many farms of mountain men.
Rallying round a parish steeple
130 Nestle warm the highland people,
Coarse and boisterous, yet mild,
Strong as giant, slow as child.
Sweat and season are their arts,

Their talismans are ploughs and carts; 135 And well the youngest can command Honey from the frozen land;

With clover heads the swamp adorn,
Change the running sand to corn;
For wolf and fox bring lowing herds,
140 And for cold mosses, cream and curds;

Weave wood to canisters and mats;
Drain sweet maple juice in vats.

No bird is safe that cuts the air From their rifle or their snare; 145 No fish, in river or in lake,

But their long hands it thence will take;
Whilst the country's flinty face,

Like wax, their fashioning skill betrays,
To fill the hollows, sink the hills,

150 Bridge gulfs, drain swamps, build dams and milis
And fit the bleak and howling waste
For homes of virtue, sense, and taste.
The World-soul knows his own affair,
Forelooking, when he would prepare
155 For the next ages, men of mould
Well embodied, well ensouled,
He cools the present's fiery glow,
Sets the life-pulse strong but slow:
Bitter winds and fasts austere
160 His quarantines and grottos, where
He slowly cures decrepit flesh,
And brings it infantile and fresh.
Toil and tempest are the toys

And games to breathe his stalwart boys: 65 They bide their time, and well can prove,

If need were, their line from Jove;
Of the same stuff, and so allayed,
As that whereof the sun is made,
And of the fibre, quick and strong,

170 Whose throbs are love, whose thrills are song.

Now in sordid weeds they sleep,
In dulness now their secret keep;
Yet, will you learn our ancient speech,
These the masters who can teach.

153. See Emerson's poem of the World-Soul.

175 Fourscore or a hundred words
All their vocal muse affords;

But they turn them in a fashion

Past clerks' or statesmen's art or passion.
I can spare the college bell,

180 And the learned lecture, well;

Spare the clergy and libraries,
Institutes and dictionaries,
For what hardy Saxon root

Thrives here, unvalued, underfoot.

185 Rude poets of the tavern hearth,

Squandering your unquoted mirth,
Which keeps the ground, and never soars,
While Jake retorts, and Reuben roars:
Scoff of yeoman strong and stark,

190 Goes like bullet to its mark;

While the solid curse and jeer

Never baulk the waiting ear.

On the summit as I stood,

O'er the floor of plain and flood

195 Seemed to me, the towering hill

Was not altogether still,

But a quiet sense conveyed;
If I err not, thus it said:-

175. "The vocabulary of a rich and long-cultivated language like the English may be roughly estimated at about one hundred thousand words (although this excludes a great deal which, if 'English' were understood in its widest sense, would have to be counted in); but thirty thousand is a very large estimate for the number ever used, in writing or speaking, by a well-educated man; three to five thousand, it has been carefully estimated, cover the ordinary need of cultivated intercourse; and the number acquired by persons of lowest training and narrowest information is considerably less than this." The Life and Growth of Language, by W. D. Whitney, p. 26.

"Many feet in summer seek, 200 Oft, my far-appearing peak; In the dreaded winter time,

None save dappling shadows climb,
Under clouds, my lonely head,

Old as the sun, old almost as the shade.

205 And comest thou

To see strange forest and new snow,
And tread uplifted land?

And leavest thou thy lowland race,
Here amid clouds to stand?

210 And wouldst be my companion,
Where I gaze, and still shall gaze,
Through hoarding nights and spending days,
When forests fall, and man is gone,
Over tribes and over times,

215 At the burning Lyre,
Nearing me,

With its stars of northern fire,
In many a thousand years?

"Ah! welcome, if thou bring

220 My secret in thy brain;

To mountain-top may Muse's wing
With good allowance strain.
Gentle pilgrim, if thou know
The gamut old of Pan,

225 And how the hills began,

The frank blessings of the hill
Fall on thee, as fall they will.

"Let him heed who can and will;
Enchantment fixed me here

230 To stand the hurts of time, until
In mightier chant I disappear.