These are the monarch-mountains of the land,
The purple-wearers, almost infinite!
Secure upon their rocky thrones they sit
With empires, measureless, on either hand.
Their reign the vanished centuries hath spanned,
Since God's own hand the starry torches lit;
Or since the earth, in pains convulsing it,
Reared them on high in some upheaval grand.
With diadems of everlasting snow,
They lean their heads against a turquoise sky,
Touch heights supreme none but the brave have trod-
Slow toiling upward from the plains below-
And type, unto the spirit's inner eye,
The might of the illimitable God.

More verses by Andrew Jackson Downing