Smuggler's Gap

WE did not know day’s travelling
Would find us north of summer’s line
In dark hills just awakening,
And grant us twice, sweet burst of spring.
So softly June retraced her track,
We neither of us marked the sign
Where summer stopped and Way came back.

Here, bud against dark stand of pine
Breaks sharper into golden shine
Than heady leaf the lowlands show.
Mountain sheaf puts forth in spark
To prove what men forgot to know
From fighting too much brutal chill;
That surge of beauty back of bark
Is all the better for the dark
Imposed by winter’s will.

And is it just because they’re late,
That maple’s scarlet floweret,
And catkin stemming delicate
Above a mountain field,
Seem jewel-work of subtler hue,
And touched by tools more accurate
Than clusters valleys yield?

Where, taut, the fiddle-necks uncoil,
Their music’s defter, less expected
From this blacker, savage soil.
And scent, in this high atmosphere
Is intermittent like the cheer,
By wind and sun deflected,
That falls from finch’s dipping flight,
And twice as dear to eye and ear
For keeping mostly out of sight.