UMB traveler from mortality's gray dawn,
Beneath a weight of eons thou hast come,
From out that void in which together sang
The morning stars. Muse of the mountain, hail!
All frosted o'er with Time's Confederate rime,
A pilgrim thou, whose mantling robe is gray,
Spun in the loom of ages,-gray to mate,
In kindred tones of color with the dreams
Which, over distant stretches call to thee,
From olden twilights, aye, from battle-fields,
Gray with the mists of fading yesterdays,
Whereon the phantom legions are encamp'd
In spectral bivouacs. Life's warfare o'er,
The silent Southerners lie calmly couch'd,
Where hush'd is the artillery-mute the drum-
Whose sleeping thunders wake no echoing heights.
With many a century's immemorial moss
Trac'd on thy registers, O, storied rock,
Of what milleniums hast thou taken toll
Since, o'er the plain, thy battlements arose?
But, woven of thine own sweet music's strain,
Suiting the minstrel, is the minstrel's gown.
Thy uniform is but a garb to match
Thy memories glorious, and to mete
Silver for silver, in a silvery song.
Gray are the very sandals of thy feet
O'er which the Spring can scarcely rouse a flower.
Gray, too, the arches of thy granite brow
O'er which, in radiance, brood th' ethereal gems
Of heaven's jewelry, waking for thee,
Out of the diamonds of the dark, a crown
More luminous than Caesar's, when proud Rome
Saw an Augustan age, forsooth, a crown,
Whose heir-loom splendors of the night bedim
England's regalia, which, with castl'd pomp,
The Tower of London lifts above the Thames-
Shaming the luster which barbaric pearls
Once lent at Bagdad to Arabian feasts-
Divesting all the Orient of its charms-
Albeit yon fair blazonry of light
Is but an aureole of Georgia stars
Lit 'round the brow of Dixie's sentinel.
Gray minstrel of the past, but monarch, too,
Of all the country-side, for many a league-
Unmated, in thy Jovine gianthood,
A solitary pile, whose shadow vast,
Falls like a benediction on the plain.
With awe unfeign'd, I mutely feast for hours
On thy majestic countenance-I gaze,
Transfixt-bereft of every power of speech-
Upon thy solemn ramparts of unchanging rock,
Till, in thy loneliness, I seem to see
Colossal-grown and cloud-becapp'd a form
Meet to enshrine the heroic soul of Lee;
To lift a Conquer'd Banner to the skies,
Though furl'd it be forever on its staff;
And, while the multiplying years increase,
To guard the matchless memories of the South.
But fashion'd of the hill's eternal stone,
No trembling sinew quivers through thy frame
Of adamantine mold, to hint of age
Or tell of Time's decay. No comrade near
To lend companionship, a Titan thou
By Fate's decree, estrang'd from all thy race;
A lonely Lear upon the barren moor,
A hermit Hercules with head unbent
And ready still to wrestle with the storm.
Aye, all of these thou art, grim rock of gray.
In varied metaphors we think of thee,
But still, like him who swept a harp of gold,
Blending in one, a minstrel and a king.
Older than Homer, whose time-honor'd song
Wakes the far dawn of the Hellenic day,
A wandering minstrel from the shadowy world
Of cosmic chaos, lorn and lonesome, thou
Hast lost thy way, or else for some old feud,
Of which no clue survives among the rocks,
Hast left thy comrades of the caravan
In the dim distance, to pursue alone
Life's toilsome journey, without kith or kin.
Yonah and Tray, from yonder Blue Ridge heights
Have call'd to thee for ages, but in vain.
For thee have sigh'd the cedars and the pines
Upon the highland summits-wept the vales
To the soft murmur of Eolian harps.
Why hast thou roam'd afar? Could not the spell
Of fair Nacoochee's beauty keep thee bound?
Could not love's winsome witchery hold thee fast
To Rabun's cloud-land of enchanted peaks-
There, where an unseen Artist of the Woods
At work, mixes the magic of the dawn
And wakes the wonder of the sunset hour?
Traditions bide among the mountains still
Of days long dead when, on thy rocky crags,
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