Death was their challenge, death the swift ax
Striking the timbers low in damp green coves
Within the mountain’s shadow;
Death the last quiet courage of a stricken heart
That fiddles praised, lean dulcimers moaned
When men went down with brave disdain to die
Upon the hill’s breast pressed beneath the sky.
And Troublesome’s dead are quartered with the roots
That split firm stone and draw the marrow out
And finger yellowing bones that lie astray,
Freed from design, released from life and death
And all of light and darkness, and the disarray
Of pathways in a brush-choked wood—
Only the hills are marked where they once stood.