Natura Benigna

What power is this? what witchery wins my fee
To peaks so sheer they scorn the cloaking snow
All silent as the emerald gulfs below,
Down whose ice- walls the wings of twilight beat?
What thrill of earth and heaven — most wild, most sweet-
What answering pulse that all the senses know,
Comes leaping from the ruddy eastern glow
Where, far away, the skies and mountains meet?
Mother, 'tis I once more: I know thee well,
Yet comes that throb, an ever-new surprise!
O Mother and Queen, beneath the olden spell
Of silence, gazing from thy hills and skies!
Dumb Mother, struggling with the years to tell
The secret at thy heart through helpless eyes.