178 A BED OF BOUGHS. 



As we came back the light yet lingered on the top 

 of Slide Mountain. 



"The last that parleys with the setting sun," 



said I, quoting Wordsworth. 



" That line is almost Shakespearean," said my 

 companion. " It suggests that great hand at least, 

 though it has not the grit and virility of the more 

 primitive bard. What triumph and fresh morning 

 power in Shakespeare's lines that will occur to us at 



sunrise to-morrow ! 



" ' And jocund day 

 Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.' 



Or in this : 



" ' Full many a glorious morning have I seen, 

 Flatter the mountain tops with sovran eye.' 



There is savage, perennial beauty there, the quality 

 that Wordsworth and nearly all the modern poets 

 lack." 



" But Wordsworth is the poet of the mountains," 

 said I, " and of lonely peaks. True, he does not 

 express the power and aboriginal grace there is in 

 them, nor toy with them and pluck them up by the 

 hair of their heads as Shakespeare does. There is 

 something in Peakamoose yonder, as we see it from 

 this point, cutting the blue vault with its dark, ser- 

 rated edge, not in the bard of Grasmere ; but he ex- 

 presses the feeling of loneliness and insignificance 

 that the cultivated man has in the presence of mount- 

 ains, and the burden of solemn emotion they give 



