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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
107
But
with
this
ideal
picture
of
mountain
scenery
there
came
to
me
a
revelation
of
poetry
as
the
one
unattainable
something
which
I
must
reach
out
after,
because
I
could
not
live
without
it.
The
thought
of
it
was
to
me
like
the
thought
of
God
and
of
truth.
To
leave
out
poetry
would
be
to
lose
the
real
meaning
of
life.
I
felt
this
very
blindly
and
vaguely,
no
doubt;
but
the
feeling
was
deep.
It
was
as
if
Mont
Blanc
stood
visibly
before
me,
while
I
murmured
to
myself
in
lonely
places--
"Motionless
torrents!
silent
cataracts!
Who
made
you
glorious
as
the
gates
of
heaven
Beneath
the
keen
full
moon?
Who
bade
the
sun
Clothe
you
with
rainbows?
Who
with
lovely
flowers
Of
living
blue
spread
garlands
at
your
feet?"
And
then
the
"Pine
groves
with
their
soft
and
soul-like
sound"
gave
glorious
answer,
with
the
streams
and
torrents,
and
my
child-heart
in
its
trance
echoed
the
poet's
invocation,--
"Rise,
like
a
cloud
of
incense
from
the
earth!
And
tell
the
stars,
and
tell
the
rising
sun,
Earth,
with
her
thousand
voices,
calls
on
GOD!"
I
have
never
visited
Switzerland,
but
I
surely
saw
the
Alps,
with
Coleridge,
in
my
childhood.
And
although
I
never
stood
face
to
face
with
mountains
until
I
was
a
mature
woman,
always,
after
this
vision
of
them,
they
were
blended
with
my
dream
of
whatever
is
pure
and
lofty
in
human
possibilities,--like
a
white
ideal
beckoning
me
on.
Since
I
am
writing
these
recollections
for
the
young,
I
may
say
here
that
I
regard
a
love
for
poetry
as
one
of
the
most
needful
and
helpful
elements
in
the
life-outfit
of
a
human
being.
It
was
the
greatest
of
blessings
to
me,
in
the
long
days
of
toil
to
which
I
was
shut
in
much
earlier
than
most
young
girls
are,
that
the
poetry
I
held
in
my
memory
breathed
its
enchanted
atmosphere
through
me
and
around
me,
and
touched
even
dull
drudgery
with
its
sunshine.
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