The Cave Hill

The following is a poem by W. Mayne Knox from his short collection: The Cave Hill and Other Verses (1909)

High on a couch of heath I sit,
In colours gorgeous as a throne,
Where nature's pen  deep lines has writ
On carven Cave Hill's crest alone.

Owner of all this mellow air
That needs no throned king's command;
Beneath my feet the velvet fair,
So soft and sweet, so green and grand.

Eastward the silver waters lie,
Encompassed by the dark hills' frame,
And over me the hoarse crows cry-
A king am I in all but name.

Southward, the city lies beneath
Its ugly pall of dingy grey,
That blots the sun as wreath on wreath
Rises, darkening out the day.

The wheels of progress hum like fate
Among the tapering chimneys tall;
That hum which round us seems so great,
But when far from us seems so small.

Along the water's marge a train
Rushing express, but creeps along,
A cloudy feather's a refrain
Of white steam trailing through its song.

Rows of lights in the gloom appear,
As night draws down its dusty cloak,
Black and begemmed with stars so clear
Their high blue is undimmed by smoke.

An hour of freedom, free from care,
Free from the fretful fume and strife,
Free as the perfumed mountain air,
Throned on purple, an hour of life.