Morning in the Hills
How quiet is the morning in the hills! The stealthy shadows of the summer clouds Trail through the cañon, and the mountain stream Sounds his sonorous music far below In the deep-wooded wind-enchanted cove. Hemlock and aspen, chestnut, beech, and fir Go tiering down from storm-worn crest and ledge, While in the hollows of the dark ravine See the red road emerge, then disappear Towards the wide plain and fertile valley lands. My forest cabin half-way up the glen Is solitary, save for one wise thrush, The sound of falling water, and the wind Mysteriously conversing with the leaves. Here I abide unvisited by doubt, Dreaming of far-off turmoil and despair, The race of men and love and fleeting time, What life may be, or beauty, caught and held For a brief moment at eternal poise. What impulse now shall quicken and make live This outward semblance and this inward self? One breath of being fills the bubble world, Colored and frail, with fleeting change on change. Surely some God contrived so fair a thing In a vast leisure of uncounted days, And touched it with the breath of living joy, Wondrous and fair and wise! It must be so.
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