Altar whereon the lordly sacrifice
Of incense from the reverent vales below
Is offered at the dawn's first kindling glow
And when the day's last smouldering ember dies,
Around thee, too, the kindred sympathies
Of life-itself a vapor-breathe and flow,
And yearn beyond thy pinnacle of snow
To wing the trackless region of the skies.
Thy shadow broods above me, and mine own
Sleeps as a child beneath it. O'er my dreams
Thou dost, as an abiding presence, pour
Thy spirit in the melancholy moan
Of cavern winds and far-resounding streams,
As sings the ocean to the listening shore.