The sea saw it and fled. . . . The mountains
skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.
He drank the bright air into his throat
And cast a glance across the shattered thrust
Of hills: And he knew that of all men who slept,
Who waked suddenly, he least of all could name this thing
That held them here. He least could put the sound
Upon his tongue and build the spoken words
That all might know, might speak themselves, might write
In flowing script for those who come upon this place
In curious search, knowing this land for what it is.
But there are those who learn what is told here
By convolutions of earth, by time, by winds,
The water’s wearings and minute shapings of man.
They have struck pages with the large print of knowledge,
The thing laid open, the hills translated.
He least can know of this.
He can but stand
A stranger on familiar slopes and drink the restless air,
Knowing that beneath his feet, beneath his probing eyes
A river of earth flows down the strident centuries.
Hills are but waves cast up to fall again, to rise
Still further down the years.
Men are held here
Within a mighty tide swept onward toward a final sea.