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| GOD ploughed one day with an earthquake, | |
| And drove his furrows deep! | |
| The huddling plains upstarted, | |
| The hills were all a-leap! | |
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| But that is the mountains’ secret, | 5 |
| Age-hidden in their breast; | |
| “God’s peace is everlasting,” | |
| Are the dream-words of their rest. | |
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| He hath made them the haunt of beauty, | |
| The home elect of his grace; | 10 |
| He spreadeth his mornings on them, | |
| His sunsets light their face. | |
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| His thunders tread in music | |
| Of footfalls echoing long, | |
| And carry majestic greeting | 15 |
| Around the silent throng. | |
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| His winds bring messages to them, | |
| Wild storm-news from the main; | |
| They sing it down to the valleys | |
| In the love-song of the rain. | 20 |
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| Green tribes from far come trooping, | |
| And over the uplands flock; | |
| He weaveth the zones together | |
| In robes for his risen rock. | |
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| They are nurseries for young rivers; | 25 |
| Nests for his flying cloud; | |
| Homesteads for new-born races, | |
| Masterful, free, and proud. | |
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| The people of tired cities | |
| Come up to their shrines and pray; | 30 |
| God freshens again within them, | |
| As he passes by all day. | |
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| And lo, I have caught their secret, | |
| The beauty deeper than all, | |
| This faith—that life’s hard moments, | 35 |
| When the jarring sorrows befall, | |
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| Are but God ploughing his mountains; | |
| And the mountains yet shall be | |
| The source of his grace and freshness | |
| And his peace everlasting to me. | 40 |
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