THE HILLS
57
So witless and aimless and formless
I count the Creator to be;
Not strong as who rides on the stormless
And tames the untamable sea.
But motion and action distorted
Are marks of the paths He hath trod.
Hated or courted, aided or thwarted :—
Lo, He is your God!
But mine in the silence abideth ;
Her strength is the strength of rest ;
Not on thunders or clouds She rideth
But draweth me down to Her breast :
No maker of men, but dissolving
Their life from its burden of ills,
Ever resolving the circle revolving
To peace of the hills.
And dark is Her breast and unlighted ;
But a warm sweet scent is expressed,
And a rose as of sunset excited
In the strength of Her sunless breast.
Her love is like pain, but enchanted :
Her kiss is an opiate breath
Amorously panted : Her fervours last granted
Are sorrow, and death.
Nor death as ye name in derision
The change to a cycle of pain,
To a cycle of joy as a vision
Ye chase, and may capture in vain.
Endeth you peace, and your change is
Like the change in a measure that shrills
And slackens and ranges; your passion
estranges
The love of the hills !
Nay ! death is a portal of passing
To miseries other but sure.
Yet the snow on the hills amassing
The wind of an hour may endure ;
But as day after day grows the summer
The crystals melt one after one.
The hill—shall they numb her?
overcome her ?
Demand of the sun!
Their frost
That uttermost death of my lady
Revealed in the heart of the range
Is as light in the groves long shady
As peace in the halls of change.
The web of the world is rended ;
Stayed are the causal mills ;
Time is ended ; space unextended.
An end of the hills ! ,