Poem by Rose Terry Cooke

Beyond

The stranger wandering in the Switzer's land,
 Before its awful mountain tops afraid,—
Who yet, with patient toil, hath gained his stand,
 On the bare summit where all life is stayed,

Sees far, far down, beneath his blood-dimmed eyes,
 Another country, golden to the shore,
Where a new passion and new lopes arise,
 Where Southern blooms unfold forevermore.

And I, lone sitting by the twilight blaze,
 Think of another wanderer in the snows,
And on more perilous mountain-tops I gaze,
 Than ever frowned above the vine and rose.

Yet courage, soul! nor hold thy strength in vain,
 In hope o'ercome the steeps God set for thee;
For past the Alpine summits of great pain,
 Lieth thine Italy.

1. The Two Villages
2. Fraternité
3. “It Is More Blessed”
4. Once before
5. Trailing Arbutus

Digby Dolben Beyond ("Beyond the calumny and wrong")

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