Mountains They Looked Not Of This Earth, But Such As One Sees In
Dreams Alone, The Blessed Ranges Of "The
Land which is very far
off." They were more brilliant than those incredible colors in
which painters array the fiery
Hills of Moab and the Desert, and
one could not believe them for ever uninhabited, for on them
rose, as in the East, the similitude of stately fortresses, not
the gray castellated towers of feudal Europe, but gay, massive,
Saracenic architecture, the outgrowth of the solid rock. They
were vast ranges, apparently of enormous height, their color
indescribable, deepest and reddest near the pine-draped bases,
then gradually softening into wonderful tenderness, till the
highest summits rose all flushed, and with an illusion of
transparency, so that one might believe that they were taking on
the hue of sunset. Below them lay broken ravines of fantastic
rocks, cleft and canyoned by the river, with a tender unearthly
light over all, the apparent warmth of a glowing clime, while I
on the north side was in the shadow among the pure unsullied
snow.
With us the damp, the chill, the gloom;
With them the sunset's rosy bloom.
The dimness of earth with me, the light of heaven with them.
Here, again, worship seemed the only attitude for a human spirit,
and the question was ever present, "Lord, what is man, that Thou
art mindful of him; or the son of man, that Thou visitest him?"
I rode up and down hills laboriously in snow-drifts, getting off
often to ease my faithful Birdie by walking down ice-clad slopes,
stopping constantly to feast my eyes upon that changeless glory,
always seeing some new ravine, with its depths of color or
miraculous brilliancy of red, or phantasy of form.
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