The Nympholept
There was a boy—not above childish fears—With steps that faltered now and straining ears,Timid, irresolute, yet dauntless still,Who one bright dawn, when each remotest hillStood sharp and clear in Heaven’s unclouded blueAnd all Earth shimmered with fresh-beaded dew,Risen in the first beams of the gladdening sun,Walked up into the mountains. One by oneEach towering trunk beneath his sturdy strideFell back, and ever wider and more wideThe boundless prospect opened. Long he strayed,From dawn till the last trace of slanting shadeHad vanished from the canyons, and, dismayedAt that far length to which his path had led,He paused—at such a height where overheadThe clouds hung close, the air came thin and chill,And all was hushed and calm and very still,Save, from abysmal gorges, where the soundOf tumbling waters rose, and all aroundThe pines, by those keen upper currents blown,Muttered in multitudinous monotone.Here, with the wind in lovely locks laid bare,With arms oft raised in dedicative prayer,Lost in mute rapture and adoring wonder,He stood, till the far noise of noontide thunder,Rolled down upon the muffled harmoniesOf wind and waterfall and whispering trees,Made loneliness more lone. Some Panic fearWould seize him then, as they who seemed to hearIn Tracian valleys or Thessalian woodsThe god’s hallooing wake the leafy solitudes;I think it was the same: some piercing senseOf Deity’s pervasive immanence,The Life that visible Nature doth indwellGrown great and near and all but palpable …He might not linger, but with winged stridesLike one pursued, fled down the mountain-sides—Down the long ridge that edged the steep ravine,By glade and flowery lawn and upland green,And never paused nor felt assured againBut where the grassy foothills opened. Then,While shadows lengthened on the plain belowAnd the sun vanished and the sunset-glowLooked back upon the world with fervid eyeThrough the barred windows of the western sky,Homeward he fared, while many a look behindShowed the receding ranges dim-outlined,Highland and hollow where his path had lain,Veiled in deep purple of the mountain rain.