Meadow and Mountain 



Moonlit meadows lie in dreamless sleep. When dusk 

 is on the world and dew is in the wold, the moonlight falls 

 like sifted silver in the dells. With soundless step it creeps 

 into the dreaming canons from over the towering cliffs. It 

 shoots its shining shafts across the falling and foaming 

 thunders of cataract and waterfall. At hide-and-seek ten 

 thousand moonbeams play across the tarns and trees. 



The shadow-shod feet of the night slip noiseless among 

 the sedges of the marsh, and the wind's wet wings, freighted 

 with fragrance of flowers, fold them down in the moonlit 

 meadows to rest. 



Old Yosemite as old as the stars that rain their radiance 

 into thy night could I tell the tales of thy tarns and trees, 

 thy ferns and flowers, thy mosses and meadows, thy gleams 

 and glooms; could I tell the secrets of thy tempest thunders 

 and thy zephyr whispers, the deep darks of thy nights and the 

 high lights of thy noons, the bliss of thy birds and thy bees, 

 I should catch the clew to the life-lore of the ages and the 

 love songs of the world. 



Great Artist of the hills and the heart, of the mountains 

 and meadows; Artist of eternity and of time, Thou hast 

 gone this way of wonder and of wealth, and I have come 

 after Thee to find Thy fragrant footprints full of beauty and 

 of bloom. 



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