| Harriet Monroe, ed. (18601936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 191222. | | | | Valardena Sunset | | By Grace Hazard Conkling |
| | From Out of Mexico WHEN I saw the hills before dawn, | |
| They were of the texture of thin gauze | |
| The sky shone through. | |
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| Now they are molten hills. | |
| Like metal on the lip of a crater they palpitate and change, | 5 |
| Radiant, volatile. | |
| The iron ravines flare and glow; | |
| Scarlet lava brims the arroyo channels; | |
| Overflowing in rivulets | |
| It glazes the flashing sand. | 10 |
| Caverns, purple-dark a moment since, | |
| Are boiling cauldrons of light; | |
| They seethe under a primrose vapor. | |
| There are no shadows anywhere; | |
| Only undulating ridges of flamboyant copper, | 15 |
| Boulders of brass, | |
| Precipices dripping hot gold, | |
| Incandescent peaks that quiver upward | |
| And hiss at contact with the sky. | |
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| Can these be the hills I saw hanging like pale rose gauze | 20 |
| Against the door of the dawn? | | | | |
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