Looking Down

Mountains of sorrow, I have heard your moans,

And the moving of your pines; but we sit high

On your green shoulders, nearer stoops the sky,

And pure airs visit us from all the zones.

Sweet world beneath, too happy far to sigh,

Dost thou look thus beheld from heavenly thrones?

No; not for all the love that counts thy stones,

While sleepy with great light the valleys lie.

Strange, rapturous peace! its sunshine doth enfold

My heart; I have escaped to the days divine,

It seemeth as bygone ages back had rolled,

And all the eldest past was now, was mine;

Nay, even as if Melchizedec of old

Might here come forth to us with bread and wine.