Here, vast and awful, the Sierras rear
Their everlasting summits to the sky;
The mighty waters of the sunset lie
In all their changing opalescence; here
The brooding melancholy or the sere,
Dun autumn woods; the laughing leafery
Of budding boughs, blending each tender dye
With the lush green of the awakening year.
This is not painted canvas, -this is life,
Creation, earth, in all her varying moods!
These fields a-thrill with motion and with light,
These forest-ways, with dream and mystery rife!
Here nature’s heart throbs through the solitudes!
Here nature’s soul looks from the mystic height.
