OFT have my footsteps in the past been turned,
Woodstock, to seek in solitude the life
That flows within thy brotherhood of streams;
In Moosilauke the slender, in the blue
Pemigewasset, and the silver East.
Now once again — and in what other scenes! —
Thy voices come to me, thy life, across
The silver indistinctness of a year;
And first, O Moosilauke, I turn to thee,
Born of the mighty mountain and its caves
Dark, and its forests and its long ravines.
A multitude of slender waters run
From off the sloping hills, from beds of moss
Beneath a hundred oaks, from little stones
Tumbled along before thy April strength,
Now lying quiet, making thee a bed;
From sandy sources in the tufted fields
Where cattle browse, and from a thousand springs
Where I was never led thy waters come,
Thy blue and silver slender stream. The sky
Bends over thee more closely, and there falls
A richer gift of azure through the trees
Upon thy waters, making thee a brook
Of blue and silver, Moosilauke; and thou,
Fulfilled of beauty in thyself and round
Encompassed all about with loveliness,
Art richer than thy brothers in the gift
Of quietness and tender solitude;
Friend of the green upon thy banks, thou 'rt loved
More dearly by the white and purple flowers,
More dearly loved if loving be the act
Of neighborhood and presence; and as I
Do love the neighborhood of green and blue,
The forest and the sky; the silver love
That glistens in the stream, and that low light
That passes from the faces of the flowers;
So by this promise and confession I
Do love thee, Moosilauke.
And thee I love,
Pure in thy beauty, perfect in thy strength,
Pemigewasset, lying in thy source
Beneath the brow of the great Profile! Far
Above thee is the stern, sad Mountain King,
Him with the mighty message that no man
Can wholly hear: the sternness and the sadness
Of nature conscious of herself, or man
Conscious of nature, ignorant of God.
This is the burden of that noble brow;
And thou to me didst give along thy way
Suggestions of this message till below,
Surrounded by the world, thou dost forget
Thy birth and I with thee forgot. One day
I wandered from thy course beside a run
Of darker waters; turning from the track
Of wheels and from the multitude of men
Along thy fertile way, to seek thy stream,
Thou dark-veined Bogan, tributary brook.
Thy waters run and bear a deeper song
Soft on the moss, and in my heart I love
The memory of that hour wherein I stayed
My life a little while with thee; my heart
Was opened to thee in a deep unrest,
And to the motion of thy currents all
My thoughts ran freely; 't was a joy to hear,
'T was rest and satisfaction to behold
Thy voice and colors and thy forms; I took
A comfort in thy presence, tuned to hear
A voice in thee repeated from my own
And yet not wholly mine; but more, to live
And run harmonious with my hand in thine,
And in the gentle beating of thy life
Find my own poise and balance; wrapt about
As in a mist of music and led on
To live and feel as prodigal as thou,
Careless of all degrees.

And now with strength and joy I turn to thee
Thundering in thy caverns, noble East,
Born of the midmost of the mountains, child
More truly than the Saco of the heart
And spirit of the hills. The powers prevail
Through all the mountains that shall give thee life;
Thy birth is now upon a thousand peaks
And has been and shall be; thou art a giant,
Impatient of the earth that holds thee, wild!
And thus thy voice is stranger to me, thus
It sounds a note I cannot always hear,
Not in all moods; but sometimes, low at first,
Above the unsensed tumult of the world
I hear the rushing of thy waters, catch
The silver flash of sunlight from thy rocks,
Then in my heart feel thy great spirit moving.
Thou art the friend, not of the earth — the rocks
Surround thee and control thy dreadful course —
But of the mountain winds; the winds pass o'er thee
And catch thy motion and thy eager voice;
Thus tempered they pass onward and below
They whisper to the listening ear of man.
Or in thy solitudes perchance he hears
A choral voice, thy music and the wind,
Joined always, breathing to the same intent,
A brother voice, an echo of his own.
There if he listen, down below the sound
He hears the voice articulate of life
Made manifest his own; he hears his voice
Dim-speaking to him through the gulf of change;
Another form, a myriad others, but
Ever his own beseeching to be heard
In sympathy. Wise in my purpose I,
Nor I alone give, noble East, to thee
My hand; for thou art brother to the wind,
And savage as thou art, child of the peaks,
Clad white in rocks and thine own silver form,
Thou dost not find thy rest upon the earth
But goest dissatisfied unto the sea
Where thou again art wild.