168' 



Friends, I have mountains on the brain and you 

 With patient sympathy must help me through. 



A famed Dutch tumbler of antiquity 



(Old Diedrich says) once made a bet that he 



Would jump over a mountain so, one day, 



He started on the run three miles away, 



To get a purchase by this mighty race ; 



But when at length he reached the mountain's base, 



He sat, to gain his breath, upon a rock, 



And o'er the mountain then, at leisure, he could walk. 



Scarce less presumptuous to myself I seem 



Than that rash wight, before my mountainous theme. 



Like him, I pause an instant here, and then 



Gird up my loins and journey on again. 



(Friends, these remarks are nothing but the Proem ; 



Mistake them not, I pray you, for the Poem. 



In Eastern lands the temple, as you know, 



Is, sometimes, shorter than the portico. 



The patient hearer hence some hope may win: 



Pre-ambling then no more, we now begin :) 



In good old times, ere yet Romance's land 



Was gridironed by rails on every hand; 



Or black, fuliginous clouds obscured the blue 



And half the landscape's beauties hid from view; 



Or pipe of lark or eagle's pibroch scream 



Were scared or drowned by shrieks of prisoned steam ; 



When Nature's quiet voice could yet be heard 



In peaceful song of bee and brook and bird, 



Inviting man to the unvexed recesses 



Of her majestic sylvan wildernesses ; 



Then (as old Chaucer says) by easy stages 



Did "longen folk to gon on pilgrimages." 



In coach or carryall or "one horse shay" 



They jogged along the quiet country way ; 



Or, better still, on horseback rode at ease 



With forehead bared to woo the morning breeze. 



So rode that pleasant troop whose forms repass 



Forevermore in Fancy's magic glass, 



Drawn by the spell of his exhilarant lay 



(The morning-glory of Old England's day;, 



Who dipped his brush in the enchanting hues 



