: The Call of the Mountains and Other Poems by Pickering James E - Poetry

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The Call of the Mountains The Old Manor House The Science Master Through the Centuries Winter Pain and Death Switzerland Burial at Sea The Master of the Marionettes Love's Counterfeit The Most Precious Thing Autumn To L Duty

Sonnets

Glastonbury Galileo Stratford-on-Avon To a Daffodil The Appian Way From the Fields V?nus de Milo Fire

The Call of the Mountains

Under the shade of the Kursaal veranda Idly I follow the flight of the seagulls, Gleaming like snow when their wings catch the sunshine, While from the palm-house adjacent is wafted Music half drowned in a babel of voices, Fitting the mode of this temple of follies.

Far though the mountains, their influence, ever Changeful in temper, from sombre to smiling, Constant in wileful and mystic allurement, Rouses unrest and a strange fascination.

Limpid and blue are the waters of Leman Clear in the deepness, translucent and shining, Blue as the ether's ineffable azure, Bright in the glow of the midsummer sunshine. Cleaving the air with their palpitant pinions, Wheeling and drifting, the beautiful seagulls Fly with the grace of unconscious perfection, Crying exultant and wild in a chorus.

Are you not fit for the realm of immortals, To float on the winds of the gardens Elysian? Or must you hover a little while longer-- Wandering souls in a state of probation-- Half-way uplifted beyond our defilement, Half-way removed from the land of the blessed?

Far in the distance beyond the blue water, Rises the hoary old father of mountains, Rugged and scarred with antiquity's furrows, Crowned with the snows of a million winters. Low in the shade of his ponderous presence, Dappling the slopes, are the homesteads of peasants, Each with its cloud of blue vapour ascending: And sweetly the bells across the green pastures Answer each other with voices persistent, Telling the herdsman the tale of his charges. Grim is the smile of the white-headed mountain For toilers below in the slumbering valley, Grim is the glance with a touch of derision, Seeming to say to his towering brothers-- Catogne and the broad-shouldered heights of the Midi, "Iguanodon,--Mastodon,--Man,--in their passing Serve but as signs on the path of the ages." Softly the plash of the waters of Leman Sounds from the rough-tumbled stones at its margin: Gently the zephyrs play over its surface, Making it glitter with myriads of sparklets. Swiftly the barques trim their sails in the sunshine-- Sails high and slender that swell to the breezes, White as the snow on the breast of the Jungfrau-- Mirrored in whiteness upon the blue water.

As I sat watching the lake and the mountains, Slowly a haze like a curtain of muslin, Flimsy and fine like a texture of cobweb, Drifted and rose till it shut out the bases And bulk of the mountains across the still water, Whilst high above it the crests and sierras Stood out as castles and walls of enchantment, Raised in the air like king Solomon's city, Held up aloft by invisible genii. Then in the faintly drawn lines of escarpment, Battlements, pinnacles, turrets and bastions Sprang into being, and fancy, untrammelled, Pictured a palace with walls, and a fortress Beleaguered and stormed by a shadowy army, Massed under pennons seen dim through the vapour.

Over the drawbridge a desperate sortie Made by the knights of the castle invested Brings the foes quickly in conflict together. Plumes white and restless like foam on the breakers Drift to and fro with the tide of the battle; Falchions and maces and curtaxes gleaming A moment aloft, strike sparks in descending On corslet and casque and dinted escutcheon, Whilst out of the contest, with stumbling footsteps The wounded are led sore stricken and helpless. Ladies in sarcenet, arabesque broidered With blossoms that climb fantastic in colour,-- Stiff flowers of blazonry's formal convention That rise from the hem to the throat in profusion, Where carcanets flash on bosoms unquiet,-- Look from their casements with eyes full of wonder, Down on the conflict that rages below them, Fierce in the shock and the heat of encounter, Hearing the war-cries and clashing of weapons, Winding of horns, and the groans of the dying. Till all was lost in the thickening curtain, Veiled by the mist were my golden romances.

Wafted by breezes, my white-sailed felucca Slipped through the blueness to where the grim stronghold Of Chillon keeps ever in grateful remembrance The patriot Bonivard, champion of freedom. The pillar of pain where, writhing in torment, The captives were scourged at cruelty's bidding, Is still to be seen, an eloquent witness. Tenantless now is the cavernous dungeon Where wretches awaited through darkness unending The dawn of their last and dreaded to-morrow. Stripped of its horrors, the chamber of torture Echoes no more to the shrieks of its victims, And death's grim abode where agony ended Is free from the crimes that redden its records. There by the column of stone in the dungeon Where Bonivard lay to pine through the seasons Of six weary years, I mused on his story. Undaunted by death's ever-threatening shadow, Unconquered though insolent tyranny triumphed, Chilled in the summer and frozen in winter, Famished, neglected and loaded with fetters, Yet borne up within by courage unflinching, Supported by Faith when Hope had departed, Scorning to murmur, he waited with patience. Morning's faint light through the narrow embrasure, The wandering cry of a sea-mew in freedom Heightened the gloom of his roughly hewn prison, Making a summons to death a deliverance. Night fell about him in Stygian darkness, While the faint lap of the waters of Leman, Beating the ramparts with madding persistence, Whispered despair in the still isolation. What were his thoughts when the vault of his prison Rang with glad cries in the glare of the torches? Breaking the silence, dispelling the shadows That darkened his life and threatened his reason, What were his thoughts at the moment of freedom? When round him a tempest of passion was raging, An unloosened storm of passionate feeling, When men incoherent and hoarse from the conflict Fought for the honour of breaking his fetters, Leaving him breathless with hearty embraces, Weak and unmanned in the sudden revulsion, Carried away by the flood of emotion, With something unknown that stifled expression, That silenced his voice and heaved in his bosom.

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