Here I
Slackened Pace, For I Drank The Spicy, Resiny Wind, And Beneath The
Arms Of This Noble Tree I Felt That I Was Safely Home.
Never did pine
trees seem so dear.
How sweet was their breath and their song, and
how grandly they winnowed the sky! I tingled my fingers among their
tassels, and rustled my feet among their brown needles and burrs, and
was exhilarated and joyful beyond all I can write.
When I reached Yosemite, all the rocks seemed talkative, and more
telling and lovable than ever. They are dear friends, and seemed to
have warm blood gushing through their granite flesh; and I love them
with a love intensified by long and close companionship. After I had
bathed in the bright river, sauntered over the meadows, conversed with
the domes, and played with the pines, I still felt blurred and weary,
as if tainted in some way with the sky of your streets. I determined,
therefore, to run out for a while to say my prayers in the higher
mountain temples. "The days are sunful," I said, "and, though now
winter, no great danger need be encountered, and no sudden storm will
block my return, if I am watchful."
The morning after this decision, I started up the canyon of Tenaya,
caring little about the quantity of bread I carried; for, I thought, a
fast and a storm and a difficult canyon were just the medicine I
needed. When I passed Mirror Lake, I scarcely noticed it, for I was
absorbed in the great Tissiack - her crown a mile away in the hushed
azure; her purple granite drapery flowing in soft and graceful folds
down to my feet, embroidered gloriously around with deep, shadowy
forest. I have gazed on Tissiack a thousand times - in days of solemn
storms, and when her form shone divine with the jewelry of winter, or
was veiled in living clouds; and I have heard her voice of winds, and
snowy, tuneful waters when floods were falling; yet never did her soul
reveal itself more impressively than now. I hung about her skirts,
lingering timidly, until the higher mountains and glaciers compelled
me to push up the canyon.
This canyon is accessible only to mountaineers, and I was anxious to
carry my barometer and clinometer through it, to obtain sections and
altitudes, so I chose it as the most attractive highway. After I had
passed the tall groves that stretch a mile above Mirror Lake, and
scrambled around the Tenaya Fall, which is just at the head of the
lake groves, I crept through the dense and spiny chaparral that
plushes the roots of the mountains here for miles in warm green, and
was ascending a precipitous rock front, smoothed by glacial action,
when I suddenly fell - for the first time since I touched foot to
Sierra rocks. After several somersaults, I became insensible from the
shock, and when consciousness returned I found myself wedged among
short, stiff bushes, trembling as if cold, not injured in the
slightest.
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