Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MOUNT TAMALPAIS, by ELLA STERLING MIGHELS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MOUNT TAMALPAIS, by                    
First Line: Home of the elements - where battling bands
Last Line: Behold the scar is not!
Alternate Author Name(s): Esmeralda, Aurora
Subject(s): Tamalpais, Mount (california)


Home of the elements—where battling bands
Of clouds and winds the rocks defy—
Mute yet great, old Tamalpais stands
Outlined against the rosy sky.
His darkened form uprising there commands
The country round, and every eye
From lesser hills he strangely seems to draw
With lifted glance that speaks of wonder and of awe.
It is the awe that makes us reverence show
To men of might who proudly tower
Above their fellow-men; the glance that we bestow
On one whose native force and power
Have lifted him above the race below—
The pigmy mortals of an hour.
We almost bend the knee and bow the head
To the mighty force that marks his kingly tread.

And yet from the City, from Rincon Hill,
There shines a scar upon his breast.
The storms have torn him: they have done him ill—
He bears a sorrow there upon his crest.
Then why desire to feel the fatal flame,
Remember still the scars, as well as joys of Fame!

The lamplight leaps from hill to hill,
A cold wind blows from out the North.
The careless heart rejoices still—
A brilliant star comes trembling forth.
Then why desire to feel the fatal flame,
Remember still the scars, as well as joys of Fame!

O Tamalpais, Mount of Eloquence,
Gazing upon us from afar,
What gift gives Fame as recompense
For the wearing of that deep-graved scar?

(Response fifty years later:)

What gift, you ask? The years reply!
They send the grass to over-spread the spot!
And all is now obliterate, beautified! WHY!
Behold the scar is not!





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