Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

In Western Mountains

Glenn Ward Dresbach

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.

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,

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?”

Our words seemed much in vain….

How many Ages helped those heights attain

Such silence in the sun,

O silent One?…

Faint jingle of little bells

And the half-heard shuffle of feet,

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

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.