The Frotier

Adelaide Anne Procter

O THE GLORIOUS purple line

  Of the mountains lifted along the west!

Bright, in the sun, their summits shine;

  Dark, in the shade, their valleys rest.

Cossack and Tartar may hold the plains,

  And the rivers that creep to a tideless sea;

Mine be the heights where the eagle reigns,

  And cataracts thunder, and winds blow free!

 

Not for the steepe, with its desert sheen,

  From Austria’s border to China’s wall,

Would I give the upland pasture’s green,

  The beech-tree’s shadow, the brooklet’s fall.

Vanish, O weary, mournful level!

  Welcome, O wind my brow that fans!

In the splendor of earth again I revel,

  Greeting the purple Carpathians!