Not such should be the homesteads of a land Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state, With beauty, art, taste, culture, books, to make His hour of leisure richer than a life Of fourscore to the barons of old time, Our yeoman should be equal to his home Set in the fair, green valleys, purple walled, A man to match his mountains, not to creep Dwarfed and abased below them. I would fain In this light way (of which I needs must own With the knife-grinder of whom Canning sings, "Story, God bless you! I have none to tell you!") Invite the eye to see and heart to feel The beauty and the joy within their reach,-- Home, and home loves, and the beatitudes Of nature free to all. Haply in years That wait to take the places of our own, Heard where some breezy balcony looks down On happy homes, or where the lake in the moon Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Ruth, In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet Of Boaz, even this simple lay of mine May seem the burden of a prophecy, Finding its late fulfilment in a change Slow as the oak's growth, lifting manhood up Through broader culture, finer manners, love, And reverence, to the level of the hills. O Golden Age, whose light is of the dawn, And not of sunset, forward, not behind, Flood the new heavens and earth, and with thee bring All the old virtues, whatsoever things Are pure and honest and of good repute, But add thereto whatever bard has sung Or seer has told of when in trance and dream They saw the Happy Isles of prophecy Let Justice hold her scale, and Truth divide Between the right and wrong; but give the heart The freedom of its fair inheritance; Let the poor prisoner, cramped and starved so long, At Nature's table feast his ear and eye With joy and wonder; let all harmonies Of sound, form, color, motion, wait upon The princely guest, whether in soft attire Of leisure clad, or the coarse frock of toil, And, lending life to the dead form of faith, Give human nature reverence for the sake Of One who bore it, making it divine With the ineffable tenderness of God; Let common need, the brotherhood of prayer, The heirship of an unknown destiny, The unsolved mystery round about us, make A man more precious than the gold of Ophir. Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all things Should minister, as outward types and signs Of the eternal beauty which fulfils The one great purpose of creation, Love, The sole necessity of Earth and Heaven! . . . . . . . . . . . For weeks the clouds had raked the hills And vexed the vales with raining, And all the woods were sad with mist, And all the brooks complaining. At last, a sudden night-storm tore The mountain veils asunder, And swept the valleys clean before The besom of the thunder. Through Sandwich notch the west-wind sang Good morrow to the cotter; And once again Chocorua's horn Of shadow pierced the water.