“WHENCE COMETH MY HELP”

Let me sleep among the shadows of the mountains when I die,

In the murmur of the pines and sliding streams,

Where the long day loiters by

Like a cloud across the sky

And the moon-drenched night is musical with dreams.

Lay me down within a canyon of the mountains, far away,

In a valley filled with dim and rosy light,

Where the flashing rivers play

Out across the golden day

And a noise of many waters brims the night.

Let me lie where glinting rivers ramble down the slanted glade

Under bending alders garrulous and cool,

Where they gather in the shade

To the dazzling, sheer cascade,

Where they plunge and sleep within the pebbled pool.

All the wisdom, all the beauty, I have lived for unaware

Came upon me by the rote of highland rills;

I have seen God walking there

In the solemn soundless air

When the morning wakened wonder in the hills.

I am what the mountains made me of their green and gold and gray,

Of the dawnlight and the moonlight and the foam.

Mighty mothers far away,

Ye who washed my soul in spray,

I am coming, mother mountains, coming home.

When I draw my dreams about me, when I leave the darkling plain

Where my soul forgets to soar and learns to plod,

I shall go back home again

To the kingdoms of the rain,

To the blue purlieus of heaven, nearer God.

Where the rose of dawn blooms earlier across the miles of mist,

Between the tides of sundown and moonrise,

I shall keep a lover's tryst

With the gold and amethyst,

With the stars for my companions in the skies.