Towards democracy
444 Towards Democracy
grass almost too steep to stand on, or carry their heavy wooden brantes of milk, braced to their shoulders, down the ©
mountain-bases ;
And for a brief season the stream of visitors arrives, and ©
the hotels wake from sleep, and distant music is heard ;
And guides and climbers sally forth with lanterns in the ©
dark, and are glad if they may remain for a few minutes at
early morning in the thin icy wind of some silent summit ;
And even tiny invisible trains attempt to ascend the ~
unimaginable mountains.
But here on this little palm of grass, Earth’s hand uplifted, =
All is the same as though the centuries moved not; And the peaks stand round and wreathe themselves in
clouds, and take the colors and the lights of morning and —
evening ;
And the moon sails, and an occasional eagle, overhead ; :
And the valleys plunge below in depths and darks invisible ;
And the butterflies and flowers quiver and leap in the -
light and living air;
And we, in our turn, on the little dancing-ground of:
centuries, Forming a circle, dance—till the mountains too wheel
round us.