So, perhaps, will our greatest earthly achievements look,
when viewed from the heights of eternity.
By noon a blue haze had crept over the horizon and was spreading over
the whole landscape. But we had scored a victory over it by coming
early.
"To have the great poetic heart,
Is more than all the climber's art."
In some sense, we each felt the meaning of the lines, as we turned from
Kearsarge top and made the gradual descent. There is a precipitous
bridle-path which shortens the distance in proportion as it increases
fatigue. The majority of us were unwilling to tempt fate by adopting it,
and took the easier way. As we stopped occasionally in a shady nook to
rest, we severally confessed that scraps of Lowell's matchless poem had
been floating nebulously in the brain ever since the clouds had
disappeared the day before. Two such days as we had been blessed with
are rare, even in June. Up there in the forest primeval, in the happy
shining weather, we were constantly proving that there was
"Not a leaf or a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace.
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