Classic Poem

A rugged rock is the mountain,
Rock from the base to crown;
But the mountain glens and valleys,
Where the brooks come leaping down,
Are gardens of tender, ferny things,
Sweet tangles of green and brown.

Like the mountain stood our poet!
Strength of the hills was he,
In the quiet sky uplifted,
A moveless sanctity;
And the listening lands heard thunders roll
Of his Sinai prophecy.

But the brooks in his heart were singing,
Singing all night and day,
And rhymes like the mosses nestled
Over the ledges gray,
And a poet's radiant world of flowers
Out-bloomed from the Yea and Nay.