Breathe on my soul your everlasting calm,
Majestic mountains, passionless and cold!
Give to my spirit, drooping‘ neath the palm,
The rugged strength your changeless summits hold!
So thin the azure veil that floats between
My tropic flowers and your arctic snows,
That one swift glance reveals to me the sheen
Of your white bastions and my blossoming rose.
Yet, though so near, my feet have never pressed
Your silvered ramparts, etched along the sky:
Untrodden crystal crowns each spotless crest;
On virgin snows the sunset colors die.
So near, yet unattainable! Ye seem
Like awful deities, at whose command
Man's evanescent life,— a fretful stream,
One instant murmurs and is lost in sand.
Splendid in sunshine, steadfast under storms,
Facing the fiercest tempests with disdain,
The blackest clouds that shroud your giant forms,
Leave on your glittering panoply no stain.
The setting sun will turn your gray to gold,
The dawn will find your icy foreheads bare,
And all your glacial armor, as of old,
Will shine resplendent in the upper air.
So from my life may all dark clouds depart!
So may I come unscathed from Fate's worst blows!
Yet with your strength, O Mountains, let my heart
Retain, as well, the sweetness of the rose.