While the long pine-plantations point us down,
And frame, between their dusky branches, bright
Vignettes and panel-pictures of the town. . . .
The town! so seen, beneath ascending skies
And deep in bloomy mist, how beautiful it lies!
O’er rock and tussock, up the steep and on!. . . .
The gardens go, the last red roof has gone;
Only the vault of Heaven, the hills’ bare brow,
And space, and silence now!
Far, far below, the whole spread city lies,
Breathing, enhalo’d; the vast plain spreads round
Its amplitude of vaguely-pattern’d ground,
And far across, into a world of skies,
Leaps the great, silver-white,
Angelic Presence bright
Of the long Alps. . . .till city alike and plain,
And marching mountain-chain
Sweep to yon wide way-out, of sapphire sea. . . .
Ah! here is liberty;
Here can the gaze go free!
And, gazing with it, here
May heart and mind see clear.
Far now below lie all Humanity’s
Close claims; and that which more than human is
In us, awakes! and deeply grows aware
Of that dear Other-One, with whom we share
This Earth-life—’neath her robes of green and blue
Our fellow-dust, our fellow-spirit too!. . . .
Nature, Man’s Sister! whose activities,
Though guided not, like his,
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