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THE mountain
held the town as in a shadow
I saw so much before I
slept there once:
I noticed that I missed stars in
the west,
Where its black body cut into the sky.
Near me it seemed: I felt it like a wall
Behind which
I was sheltered from a wind.
And yet between the town
and it I found,
When I walked forth at dawn to see
new things,
Were fields, a river, and beyond, more
fields.
The river at the time was fallen away,
And
made a widespread brawl on cobble-stones;
But the
signs showed what it had done in spring;
Good
grass-land gullied out, and in the grass
Ridges of
sand, and driftwood stripped of bark.
I crossed the
river and swung round the mountain.
And there I met a
man who moved so slow
With white-faced oxen in a
heavy cart,
It seemed no hand to stop him altogether.
"What town is this?" I asked.
"This? Lunenburg."
Then I was wrong: the town of my sojourn,
Beyond the
bridge, was not that of the mountain,
But only felt
at night its shadowy presence.
"Where is your
village? Very far from here?"
"There is no
village--only scattered farms.
We were but sixty
voters last election.
We can't in nature grow to many
more:
That thing takes all the room!" He moved his
goad.
The mountain stood there to be pointed at.
Pasture ran up the side a little way,
And then there
was a wall of trees with trunks:
After that only tops
of trees, and cliffs
Imperfectly concealed among the
leaves.
A dry ravine emerged from under boughs
Into the pasture.
"That looks like a path.
Is that
the way to reach the top from here?--
Not for this
morning, but some other time:
I must be getting back
to breakfast now."
"I don't advise your trying from
this side.
There is no proper path, but those that
have
Been up, I understand, have climbed from Ladd's.
That's five miles back. You can't mistake the place:
They logged it there last winter some way up.
I'd
take you, but I'm bound the other way."
"You've never
climbed it?"
"I've been on the sides
Deer-hunting
and trout-fishing. There's a brook
That starts up on
it somewhere--I've heard say
Right on the top,
tip-top--a curious thing.
But what would interest you
about the brook,
It's always cold in summer, warm in
winter.
One of the great sights going is to see
It
steam in winter like an ox's breath,
Until the bushes
all along its banks
Are inch-deep with the frosty
spines and bristles--
You know the kind. Then let the
sun shine on it!"
"There ought to be a view around
the world
From such a mountain--if it isn't wooded
Clear to the top." I saw through leafy screens
Great
granite terraces in sun and shadow,
Shelves one could
rest a knee on getting up--
With depths behind him
sheer a hundred feet;
Or turn and sit on and look out
and down,
With little ferns in crevices at his elbow.
"As to that I can't say. But there's the spring,
Right on the summit, almost like a fountain.
That
ought to be worth seeing."
"If it's there.
You
never saw it?"
"I guess there's no doubt
About its
being there. I never saw it.
It may not be right on
the very top:
It wouldn't have to be a long way down
To have some head of water from above,
And a good
distance down might not be noticed
By anyone who'd
come a long way up.
One time I asked a fellow
climbing it
To look and tell me later how it was."
"What did he say?"
"He said there was a lake
Somewhere in Ireland on a mountain top."
"But a
lake's different. What about the spring?"
"He never
got up high enough to see.
That's why I don't advise
your trying this side.
He tried this side. I've
always meant to go
And look myself, but you know how
it is:
It doesn't seem so much to climb a mountain
You've worked around the foot of all your life.
What
would I do? Go in my overalls,
With a big stick, the
same as when the cows
Haven't come down to the bars
at milking time?
Or with a shotgun for a stray black
bear?
'Twouldn't seem real to climb for climbing it."
"I shouldn't climb it if I didn't want to--
Not for
the sake of climbing. What's its name?"
"We call it
Hor: I don't know if that's right."
"Can one walk
around it? Would it be too far?"
"You can drive round
and keep in Lunenburg,
But it's as much as ever you
can do,
The boundary lines keep in so close to it.
Hor is the township, and the township's Hor--
And a
few houses sprinkled round the foot,
Like boulders
broken off the upper cliff,
Rolled out a little
farther than the rest."
"Warm in December, cold in
June, you say?"
"I don't suppose the water's changed
at all.
You and I know enough to know it's warm
Compared with cold, and cold compared with warm.
But
all the fun's in how you say a thing."
"You've lived
here all your life?"
"Ever since Hor
Was no bigger
than a----" What, I did not hear.
He drew the oxen
toward him with light touches
Of his slim goad on
nose and offside flank,
Gave them their marching
orders and was moving.
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