Excerpt from Passages From Modern English Poets

For what hath the child of the desert to dread, Waiting up his own mountains that far - beaming head Or borne like a whirlwind down on the vale 2 Hail I king of the wild and the beautiful, hail I Hail, idol divine I whom Nature hath borne O'er a hundred hill-tops since the mists of the mom Whom the pilgrim, lone wandering on mountain and moor, AS the vision glides by him may blameless adore For the joy of the happy, the strength Of the free, Are spread in a garment of glory o'er thee. Up I up to yon cliff, like a king to his throne, O'er the black silent forest piled lofty and lone A throne which the eagle is glad to resign Unto footsteps so fleet and so fearless as thine. There the bright heather springs up in love of thy breast, the clouds in the depth of the sky are at rest, And the race of the wild winds is o'er on the hill I In the hush Of the mountains ye antlers lie still I Though your branches now toss In the storm of delight, Like the arms of the pine on yon shelterless height, One moment, thou bright apparition, delay, Then melt o'er the crags like the sun from the day.

Aloft on the weather-gleam, scorning the earth, The wild Spirit hung in majestical mirth In dalliance with danger be bounded in bliss, O'er the fathomless gloom of each moaning abyss O'er the grim rocks careering with prosperous motion, Like a ship by herself in full sail o'er the ocean Thence proudly he turned ere he sank to the dell, And shook from his forehead a haughty farewell 5 While his horns in a crescent of radiance shone, Like a flag burning bright when the vessel is gone. The ship of the desert has passed on the wind, And left the dark ocean of mountains behind But my spirit will travel wherever she flee, And behold her in pomp o'er the rim of the sea.

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