The Blue Endearment of the Hills [poem by Mary E. Fullerton]

[Editor: This poem by Mary Eliza Fullerton was published in Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics (1908).]

The Blue Endearment of the Hills

Is life not fair, when all around
The blue endearment of the hills
Lays on the eyes the larger sight
That lifts and thrills?

From one hilltop I see the sun
Chase violet from the higher peaks,
That driven, darkens when it finds
The narrow creeks.

Pursued by beams it shelters where
The portalled mansions of the haze
Resist the sun, and guard the home
Of secret fays.

Ah blue endearment of the hills,
Your silent gullies deepen down
In cloisters royal, and on your head
The golden crown.

’Tis like a love whose ardent kiss
Enskies the face with glory’s dye,
While yet the depth is unrevealed
By lip or eye;

But secret still remains unlit
By Passion’s touch, or Passion’s speech
In hazy chambers of the soul
Beyond our reach.

Source:
Mary E. Fullerton, Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics, Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian, 1908, pp. 57-58

Editor’s notes:
fay = a fairy or an elf

’tis = (archaic) a contraction of “it is”