In the Morning

Chapter 33: THE MOUNT OF THE HOLY CROSS.

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About This Book

A sequence of lyric poems that meditates on dawn, nature, and spiritual feeling, often deploying mountain, forest, and seaside imagery to probe grief, consolation, and renewal. Poems move among quiet pastorals, occasional and domestic verse, devotional hymns, translations, and lighter nonsense pieces, following seasonal rhythms and holiday observances. The voice shifts between elegiac introspection and bright affirmation, favoring sensory detail—birdsong, running water, sunlight—and a consolatory outlook that finds moral and emotional sustenance in simple scenes and ritual moments.

THE MOUNT OF THE HOLY CROSS.

Down the rocky slopes and passes

Of the everlasting hills

Murmur low the crystal waters

Of a thousand tiny rills;

Bearing from a lofty glacier

To the valley, far below,

Health and strength for every creature,—

’Tis for them “He giveth snow.”

On thy streamlet’s brink the wild deer

Prints with timid foot the moss;

To thy side the sparrow nestles,—

Mountain of the Holy Cross!

Pure and white amid the heavens

God hath set His glorious sign:

Symbol of a world’s deliverance,

Promise of a life divine.