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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
MOUNT AGIOCHOOK, by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Gray searcher of the upper air Last Line: Dwell the strange gods of heathendom! Subject(s): Native Americans - Religion; White Mountains, New Hampshire | |||
GRAY searcher of the upper air, There's sunshine on thy ancient walls, A crown upon thy forehead bare, A flash upon thy waterfalls. A rainbow glory in the cloud Upon thine awful summit bowed, The radiant ghost of a dead storm! And music from the leafy shroud Which swathes in green thy giant form, Mellowed and softened from above Steals downward to the lowland ear, Sweet as the first, fond dream of love That melts upon the maiden's ear. The time has been, white giant, when Thy shadows veiled the red man's home, And over crag and serpent den, And wild gorge where the steps of men In chase or battle might not come, The mountain eagle bore on high, The emblem of the free of soul, And, midway in the fearful sky, Sent back the Indian battle cry, And answered to the thunder's roll. The wigwam fires have all burned out, The moccasin has left no track; Nor wolf nor panther roam about The Saco and the Merrimac. And thou, that liftest up on high Thy mighty barriers to the sky, Art not the haunted mount of old, Where on each crag of blasted stone Some dreadful spirit found his throne, And hid within the thick cloud fold, Heard only in the thunder's crash, Seen only in the lightning's flash, When crumbled rock and riven branch Went down before the avalanche! No more that spirit moveth there; The dwellers of the vale are dead; No hunter's arrow cleaves the air; No dry leaf rustles to his tread. The pale-face climbs thy tallest rock, His hands thy crystal gates unlock; From steep to steep his maidens call, Light laughing, like the streams that fall In music down thy rocky wall, And only when their careless tread Lays bare an Indian arrow-head, Spent and forgetful of the deer, Think of the race that perished here. Oh, sacred to the Indian seer, Gray altar of the men of old! Not vainly to the listening ear The legends of thy past are told, -- Tales of the downward sweeping flood, When bowed like reeds thy ancient wood; Of armed hands, and spectral forms; Of giants in their leafy shroud, And voices calling long and loud In the dread pauses of thy storms. For still within their caverned home Dwell the strange gods of heathendom! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CLOUDS ON WHITEFACE by LUCY LARCOM IN A CLOUD RIFT by LUCY LARCOM THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN; PROFILE NOTCH, FRANCONIA by JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE AMONG THE HILLS by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ON THE HILLS by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER AMY WENTWORTH; FOR WILLIAM BRADFORD by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER AN AUTOGRAPH (1) by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ASTRAEA by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |
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