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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
MUIR OF THE MOUNTAINS, by BAILEY MILLARD
First Line: A lean, wild-haired, wild-bearded, craggy man
Last Line: To find it there beyond the great divide!
Subject(s): Muir, John (1838-1914)
First Line: A lean, wild-haired, wild-bearded, craggy man
Last Line: To find it there beyond the great divide!
Subject(s): Muir, John (1838-1914)
A lean, wild-haired, wild-bearded, craggy man,
Wild as a Modoc and as unafraid,
A man who went his way with no man's aid,
Yet mild and soft of heart as any maid.
Sky-loving, stalwart as the sugar-pine,
Sweet, simple, fragrant as that towering tree,
A mountain man, and free as they are free
Who tread the heights and know tranquillity.
A relish of the larger life was his,
With reverence rapt and wonder and deep awe
For any beauty Nature's brush might draw,
A man of faith who kept each primal law.
The skylands brown, the blest skywaters blue
He haunted, and he had a curious eye
For glaciers, where his bold feet dared to try
The dizziest summits and their threats defy.
He made his bed amid the sheltering rocks
Or where the lowly, blood-red snowplant blooms,
Where sleep more sweetly comes than ever comes
In the stale heated air and dust of rooms.
Unarmed, he faced the grizzly in the wood,
Birds trilled him friendly notes from tree-tops tall;
The ouzel, thrush and quail and whimsical
Gray squirrel miss him, for he loved them all.
Gone is the traveler of the unseen trail
To seek that wilder beauty which defied
His eager earthly quest—gone with his Guide
To find it there beyond the Great Divide!
Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!
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