LIVE FREE OR DIE

 

The Old Man of the Mountain--

Is he what Daniel Webster

Chose to call a Real man?

He stares across the notch,

Past the peregrine cliffs,

And into the blind vistas

Of his own granite eyes.

 

It is we who attribute

To the crag his Persona,

Derived from the images

We cast upon our storm-blasted

Aggregates of Clinging.

 

Trembling with this vision,

Like mountaineers we sway

From the stakes and the cables

We drive into the Rushmores

We have not yet conquered,

Yet scale in our presumption.

 

When Jefferson looked up

At the Old Man of the Mountain,

The Old Man looked down

and laughed a mocking laugh

that echoes from the White Mountains’

jagged slopes, even to this day.