Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 153, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 July 1919 — A MYSTERY [ARTICLE]

A MYSTERY

The river hemmed with living trees Wound through Its meadows green; A low blue line ctf mountains showed The open pines Jaetween. One sharp, tall peak above them all Clear into sunlight sprang; I saw the Aver of my dreams The mountains that I sang! No clue of memory led me on But well the ways I knew; A feeling of familiar things With every footstep grew. Not otherwise above its crag Could lehn the blasted pine; Not .otherwise the maple hold Aloft its red ensign. So up the Iprfg and shorp foothills The mountain road should creep; So, green and low, the meadow fold Its red-haired kine asleep. The river wound as it should wind, Their place the mountains took; The white tom fringes of their clouds Wore no unwonted look. Yet ne’er before that river’s rim Was pressed by feet of mine, Never before mine eyes had crossed That broken mountain line. x A presence, strange at once and known. Walked with me as my guide; The skirts of some forgotten life Trailed noiseless at my side. 17 Was it a dim remembered dream? Or glimpse through aeons old? The secret which the mountains kept The river never told. But from the vision ere it passed ?( A tender hope I drew, * . - i And, pleasant as a dawn of spring, ' The thought within me grew. That love would temper every change. And, misty with the dreams of earth. The hills of heaven arise. —Whittier.