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I HE stood a moment at the weathered edge | |
| Of the highest cliff, and looked far out with me | |
| Upon great valleys ending in the haze, | |
| And mountains that from haze drove up a wedge | |
| Of snow in skies of lapis-lazuli. | 5 |
| Then something of the littleness of days | |
| His life could span came to him dizzily; | |
| And he, who boasted of his strength with men, | |
| Turned back and grasped a little cedar tree | |
| Near by, for safety; and he shut his eyes, | 10 |
| Shaken, and would not turn to look again…. | |
| Back from that cliff-edge, jutting to the skies, | |
| He crawled, and spoke at last with heavy breath: | |
| “God, what a place! What is it? Life or Death?” | |
| |
II Our words seemed much in vain…. | 15 |
| How many Ages helped those heights attain | |
| Such silence in the sun, | |
| O silent One?… | |
| |
III Faint jingle of little bells | |
| And the half-heard shuffle of feet, | 20 |
| High up on the mountain side, | |
| Crept down through the waves of heat; | |
| And a gray thread wove through the wide | |
| Cloth of the mountain side. | |
| |
| The burro train came down | 25 |
| With ores men take apart | |
| As the thing they love the best | |
| From the multitudinous heart | |
| Of the mountain. But all I could see | |
| Was a gray thread through tapestry. | 30 |
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