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.