Born a million years ago you stay here a million
years . . . watching the women come and live
and be laid away . . . you and they thin-gray
thin-dusk lovely.
So it goes: either the early morning lights are lovely
or the early morning star.
I am glad I have seen racehorses, women, mountains.
Among the mountains I wandered and saw blue haze and
red crag and was amazed;
On the beach where the long push under the endless tide
maneuvers, I stood silent;
Under the stars on the prairie watching the Dipper slant
over the horizon's grass, I was full of thoughts.
Great men, pageants of war and labor, soldiers and workers,
mothers lifting their children — these all I
touched, and felt the solemn thrill of them.
And then one day I got a true look at the Poor, millions
of the Poor, patient and toiling; more patient than
crags, tides, and stars; innumerable, patient as the
darkness of night — and all broken, humble ruins of
nations.
I LOVE you so entirely
I cannot think to please you,
My art is wasted.
You are burnt with madness.
My being burns to ease you.
In dreams of utter service,
Is all sweetness tasted.
I love you so entirely,
I want you not to praise me!
I would be low in all esteem!
I would be outcast with one thing to raise me,
The hope of service I have gathered in a dream.
Let us go to the mountains, O my Lover!
And make our habitation near the sky;
In clear, cool air we can discover
A plan of perfect living, you and I.
Jangle of cow-bells through pine-trees.
Grasshoppers leaping up out of the grass.
The mountain is bloomed like a grape
(Silver, hazing over purple),
It blocks into the sky like a shadow.
The South wind blows intermittently.
And the clanking of the cow-bells comes up the hill in gusts.
Over the green and level land
My sad eyes wander without hope ;
Here no rejoicing mountains stand,
No strong and friendly slope.
But ever when I close my eyes
Tall mountains rear their stately forms.
Against the sky I watch them rise,
Serene in calm or storms.
One in the distance rises blue,
Haloed by morning's earliest beams.
This was the peak my childhood knew.
About her clung my dreams.
Over her pallor fell the snow,
The hot sun scorched her fertile breast.
But in the summer lightning's glow
I always loved her best.
Pedro Montoya of Arroyo Hondo
Comes each day with his load of wood
Piled on two burros' backs, driving them down
Over the mesa to Santa Fe town.
He comes around by Arroyo Chamisa —
A small grey figure, as grey as his burros —
Down from the mountains, with cedar and pine
Girt about each of the burros with twine.
As patient as they are, he waits in the plaza
For someone who comes with an eye out for wood,
Then Pedro wakes up, like a bantam at dawn —
Si, Senor, si Senor — his wood is gone.
Pedro Montoya of Arroyo Hondo
Rides back on one burro and drives the other.
With a sack of blue corn-meal, tobacco and meat,
A bit to smoke and a bit to eat.
A deep blue shadow falls
On the face of the mountain —
What great bird's wing
Has dropped a feather?
The tired wind creeps down the canyon
At nightfall.
By day it turns and flings itself
Against the granite face of the mountains.
This valley is not ours, nor these mountains,
Nor the names we give them — they belong,
They, and this sweep of sun-washed air,
Desert and hill and crumbling earth.
To those who have lain here long years
And felt the soak of the sun
Through the red sand and crumbling rock,
Till even their bones were part of the sun-steeped valley;
How many years we know not, nor what names
They gave to antelope, wolf, or bison.
To prairie dog or coyote.
To this hill where we stand,
Or the moon over your shoulder . . .
Let us build a monument to Time
That knows all, sees all, and contains all,
To whom these bones in the valley are even as we are:
I was a grovelling creature once,
And basely cleaved to earth:
I wanted spirit to renounce
The clod that gave me birth.
But God hath breathed upon a worm,
And sent me from above
Wings such as clothe an angel's form,
The wings of joy and love.
With these to Pisgah's top I fly
And there delighted stand,
To view, beneath a shining sky,
The spacious promised land.
The Lord of all the vast domain
Has promised it to me,
The length and breadth of all the plain
As far as faith can see.
Beautiful Loch Katrine in all thy majesty so grand,
Oh! how charming and fascinating is thy silver strand!
Thou certainly art most lovely, and worthy to be seen,
Especially thy beautiful bay and shrubberies green.
Then away to Loch Katrine in the summer time,
And feast on its scenery most lovely and sublime;
There's no other scene can surpass in fair Scotland,
It's surrounded by mountains and trees most grand.
And as I gaze upon it, let me pause and think,
How many people in Glasgow of its water drink,
That's conveyed to them in pipes from its placid lake,
And are glad to get its water their thirst to slake.
Then away to Loch Katrine in the summer time,
And feast on its scenery most lovely and sublime;
The mountains and glens of Aberfoyle are beautiful to sight,
Likewise the rivers and lakes are sparkling and bright;
And its woods were frequented by the Lady of the Lake,
And on its Lakes many a sail in her boat she did take.
The scenery there will fill the tourist with joy,
Because 'tis there once lived the bold Rob Roy,
Who spent many happy days with his Helen there,
By chasing the deer in the woods so fair.
The little vale of Aberfoyle and its beautiful river
Is a sight, once seen, forget it you'll never;
And romantic ranges of rock on either side
Form a magnificent background far and wide.
And the numerous lochs there abound with trout
Which can be had for the taking out,