With odorous sap, they set upon the hill
The shrine of liberty for man’s mind,
And by it the shrine of liberty for man’s soul,
The school-house and the church.

The apple-tree by the wall sheds its blossom about me--
A shower of petals of light upon darkness.
From Nature’s brimming cup I drink a thousand scents;
At noon the wizard sun stirs the hot soil under the pines.
I take the top stone of the wall in my hands
And the sun in my heart;
I feel the rippling land extend to right and left,
Bearing up a receptive surface to my uncertain feet;
I clamber up the hill and beyond the grassy sweep;
I encounter a chaos of tumbled rocks.
Piles of shadow they seem, huddling close to the land.
Here they are scattered like sheep,
Or like great birds at rest,
There a huge block juts from the giant wave of the hill.
At the foot of the aged pines the maiden’s moccasins
Track the sod like the noiseless sandals of Spring.
Out of chinks in the wall delicate grasses wave,
As beauty grew out of the crannies of these hard souls.

Joyously, gratefully, after their long wrestling
With the bitter cold and the harsh white winter,
They heard the step of Spring on the edge of melting snow-drifts;
Gladly, with courage that flashed from their life-beaten souls,
As the fire-sparks fly from the hammered stone,
They hailed the fragrant arbutus;