The Aspirations Of The Soul Poem by Timothy Thomas Fortune

The pathway up the mountain may be plain,
But who can rob th' ascent of toil and pain?
Far up the valley's sloping sides we gaze
To where the summits tower in misty haze;
Or, when the sun dispels the clouds that lower,
The giant stands disclosed in matchless power.
Nature's eternal walls that pierce the clouds,
Pendant like gorgeous floating muslin shrouds,
Charm and o'erawe the soul that looks to God—
Who dwells in skies, in peaks afar, in sod—
And feels the force that made the prophets rear
Their sacred altars in the upper air.

The soul will lift itself above the clay
And seek beyond the earth eternal day.
And never can the man who once has seen
Unveiled the myst'ries of the mountain's sheen;
Its vastness and its strength and rugged brow,
Feel as he felt before, content to dwell
Cooped in the confines of his native cell.
Far out into th' unknown he takes his flight,
Seeking for sunbeams through the pathless night.