Explore "On the Jellico-Spur" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
TO MY FRIEND, JOHN FOX, JR.
/ You remember, the deep mist, -- / Climbing to the Devil's Den -- / Blue beneath us in the glen / And above us amethyst, / Throbbed and circled and away / Thro' the wild-woods opposite, / Torn and shattered, morning-lit, / Scurried up a dewy gray. / Vague as in Romance we saw / From the fog one riven trunk, / Its huge horny talons shrunk, / Thrust a hungry dragon's claw. / And we climbed two hours thro' / The dawn-dripping Jellicoes, / To that wooded rock that shows / Undulating peaks of blue: / The vast Cumberlands that sleep, / Weighed with soaring forests, far / To the concave welkin's bar, / Leagues on leagues of purple sweep. / Range exalted over range / Billowed their enormous spines, / And we heard the priestly pines / Hum the wisdom of their change. / We were sons of Nature then; / She had taken us to her, / Closer drawn by brier and burr, / There on lonely Devil's Den.