Oh! What a joy it were in vigorous health,
To have a body, (this our vital frame
With shrinking sensibility endued,
And all the nice regards of flesh and blood)
And to the elements surrender it
As if it were a spirit! - How divine,
The liberty for frail, for mortal man
To roam at large among unpeople glens
And Mountainous retirements, only trod
By devious footsteps; regions consecrate
To oldest time! and reckless of the storm
That keeps the raven quiet in her rest,
Be as a presence or a motion, - one
Among the many there; and while the mists
Flying, and rainy vapors, call out shapes
And phantoms from crags and solid earth
As fast as musician scatters sounds
Out of an instrument; and while the streams
(As at a flight creation and in haste
To exercise their untried faculties)
Descending from the region of the clouds,
And starting from the hollows of the earth
More multitudinous every moment, rend
Their way before them - what a joy to roam
An equal among mightiest energies;
And happy sometimes with articulate voice,
Amid the deafening tumult, scarcely heard
By him that utters it, exclaim aloud,
"Be this continued so from day to day,
Nor let the fierce commotion have to end,
Ruinous through it be, from month to month!"
- Thomas Starr King
