As Mountains Round About Jerusalem

MARY STONE WALLACE

Before I gained the sense of thankfulness
I never knew the riches that were mine;
Not having learned the secret of content,
My life, so dull, seemed hardly worth the while;
The friends I had seemed only friends in name—
I was a stranger to my very own.
What can I say of life as it was then?
Existence purposeless! What of my work?
Something through which to go. And what of joy?
It seemed to come to others, not to me.
And this, our home, high on the mountain side,
Though picturesque, it always seemed to me
So plain and so remote, I never marked
The grandeur of the castellated hills
That formed the range. I watched the fading sky,
When early darkness crept across the pass,
Saying, Beyond the sky line lies the world,
The world I love, while I am stranded here,
In this drear desert place, like some lost soul;
Oh, if there be a God, He has withheld
What I most wanted, and has given me
What least I prize! And so in discontent,
Beneath a cloud of ignorance, within
A mist of false belief, the days went by.

One day there came a change. It seemed by chance
A friend had left a book. I picked it up
And turned the pages, reading here and there,
And came upon these words, which held my eye:
"Love is impartial ... universal in
Its adaptation and bestowals."
 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 13.  Long
I looked upon these lines, reading the words
And studying the context. Once, as a child,
Some one had read to me a Bible verse,
Which I had loved and treasured in my mind.
It now recurred to me, not word for word,
But only in the substance: Jesus said,
Fear not, it is the Father's wish and will
To give to you the riches of His realm.
The Father's will! What, then, could circumvent?
The Father's wish! I now could see how Love,
Impartial, universal, meets our needs.
Do you believe, or do you not believe?
I questioned of myself; and answer made,
I do believe!

Then, like a carrier bird,
Came gratitude, and brought a new right sense,
A true appraisement of the worth of things.
I was immersed in gladness; it was like
A fine, soft rain on the unwatered ground.
With quickened ear I heard the mock-bird's song
In the high branches of the deodar,
The laughter of the children at their play,
The strong, clear voices of the men at work,
Calling to one another in the field;
With seeing eyes I looked upon my home.
Though plain, indeed, it was, as one might say,
A comfort-giving house; the adobe walls
Kept the rooms cool in summer, being helped
By wide, low eaves, and by an ivy vine,
Whose clinging leaves, abundant, interlaced,
Adorned the rough gray plaster. In the yard
Were ever blooming roses, dahlias tall,
An oleander white, the yellow broom;
And on the terrace, red geraniums.
Beyond the yard, the stream, the bending road;
And then the near and dear low-lying hills,
The mountains, half in light and half in shade.
There seemed of beauty more than earth can give;
Truly, beyond the sky line lies the world,
But heaven is all about us!