I am the child of the towering hills;
I bound like a roe on the rocks;
I leap down laughing and wild as the rills,
And the shout of my glee all the green wood fills
With reverberating shocks,
Its many echoing shocks.
I can chase the chamois to his lair;
Or, high on her ayrie's peak,
The brood of the startled eagle scare;
Or launch the rock which is trembling there
To the thrill of her angry shriek,
Her wild and dissonant shriek.
Oh, let than live in the sluggish vale
Who dare not to be free,
Whose hearts at the "joy of danger" quail,
Whose checks turn white at the roughening gale;
But a mountain home for me,
Oh, a house on the hill for mel
When the storm has charged on the mountain's scar,
While the sky above is blue,
As lightnings stream up under me far,
I hang from my rock o'er the rumbling war,
And shout with a clear halloo,
A dauntless, long halloo!
I have gazed on terrors that well might blanch
The lip of the mountain child,
When the woods went down, like a withered branch,
In the track of the roaring avalanche,
While the moon looked on and smiled,
Looked calmly on and smiled!
Yet a home on the rock-ribbed hills for me,
Where the cataract waves its flag;
Where the souls of men as the winds are free,
And the real of a gray eternity
Is on every giant crag,
Stamped deep on every crag.
