Fiddler's Farewell/Of Mountains
Of Mountains
. . . Then I rose upAnd swept the dust of planets from my eyes,And wandered shouting down that shouting hour,Pausing to pluck a mountain like a flowerThat grew against the skies.
All through the night I am awareOf hills that are not hillsBeyond my window;I am aware of flight,High, heavy,Across the sky.
Mountains—And over them a crumbling moon,A snow-flake on fire,Scattered from their frosty tips.
Stone wings,So sure of the way!
Lying there I can see themBlue hour on hour;And from my safe pillow I followTheir granite flight,White hills fastened to my heels!***Morning lies prone upon the lake,Like a pale woman on a silver bedWho will not lift her head.
—I had forgotten the green of trees at dawn, and howwithdrawn are they from day. I had forgotten toohow trees stray in their sleep across deep drowsywater, until the first breeze ripples them away.—
Along the shoreAre little boats that dreamOf little journeys they will make;Of journeys made no more.
—Far up the slopes gleam languid patches of mid-summer snow that never go; dim flocks of snow amongthe rocks of a perched mountain meadow.—
Only the mountains are awake,Guarding the vague low sky;And a bird for its own song's sake—And I!
—Only a bird would dare to break the stillness of thishour; make of the shattered air this cool unbrokennote—tiny master-tool within the tiny throat!—***Mountains—high mothers—Storms lie in their laps,Thunders and lightnings play about their iron knees;I have seen them rock the sky to sleep.
The mist lifts them;Flint and ice floating as clouds float,Unpeopled islands of a white unfathomed sea.
They are like an unanswered crying turned to stone,And beyond
Are stone echoes of the crying;Beyond—and beyond—Is a veiled whispering on its knees,On its face,Hushed at last on the far plains.***Out of blazing noon and into its cleft sideI creep,To where the cataract,Silver artery of the mountain,Pounds through its bleak heart.
AbashedI stand in that covert place,Silenced in the roar of the silent one!***Flowers and trees grow timid,Follow me no further;Grass runs to green safety on the lower hills.
Under my climbing feet earth climbsAnd starves;Its boulders start like bones from its gaunt sides.Livid and aloneIt hurls itself forever upward,Turned to blind graniteBeneath the glare of hostile spacesAnd of skies estranged.*** This is the hill!Mournful against the sky, and bare,Where wind and darkness meet,Crucified in the air.
And at its feetHills gather there,Crowding, and casting lotsFor a green cloak to wear.***The way that I have come,Winding so cannily,Is a brown zig-zag serpentAlert along the tilting slopes,Ready to leap and strike.
And looking downI fear its wily coils,Knowing that I must tread themTo reach again the cluttered toysIn the valley—Where I shall sleep to-night.***They say the sea was here;And it is like the sea to-day.
Waves, waves,Green tides and tempests Closing in on me,Granite waters that have crashed together,Flooded and filled the hollows!
What are a million years?
These spread peaksAre Eternity's stone fingersOn which she reckons the rhythmOf centuries.
And they say the jungle crawled, lush and savage,In this ascetic place.Once I saw a glacier-rockLying numbered on a museum-shelf,And as if carved upon it,The drooping slender outline of a palm-leafFallen from a too hot sky.
Count on, stone fingers!Fingers of ice, recount these careless wonders!
The sea was here.Hidden beneath the ripples of oncoming hillsCattle are grazing on its grassy floor;The sound of bells drifts byLike sea-weed on the surface of the air.
What are a million years?***I thought: These shall endureThough the sky tumble!—
But now, with a slow handThey are removed from off the summer landWithout a cry or rumble.
This thing I know:The mist is stronger than these massive hills,And when it willsThey go.
And I know tooIts silence is the greater;It can subdueTheir august hush to lessThan nothingness.
And yet it grants to meEnough of path to tread;And one dim treeTo keep me comforted.***But at eveningThe mountains lean from out the skyTo lap the glossy waters of the lake.
So came Hannibal's elephants,Humped gray backs,Heads lowered,Lumbering through the passes,Knee-deep in the deep water.
Snow clings to their rough flanks,Their shoulders heave under the red and purple blowsOf the sun-set;Detached from earth and sky,They emerge,They tread mightily up the valley.
And I watch them,Mild beasts wading into the lake;And I wonder they do not break its shining mirror.***The boatman glanced along its darkening side,From the pale water paler with the night,And in his face I saw a sturdy pride,An understanding of its strength and height,Its silences, its storms, its lonely ways:He who had lived beside it all his days.
He pulled upon his oar and naught he said;But in his eyes were hills inherited.***Under the iron wheels that lift us,And about the sooty scars that tunnels make,The mountain scatters flowers from an ample garden,(Fox-glove and hare-bell pirouetting on the giddy ledges),And we of the summer valleyStumble shivering along its constant snowsOn feet that never climbed.
Our voices are thin in the thin air,Our little hearts thud strangely.We are near the nearness of its swift deathsOn these relentless heights—Death, in the swerving shelves of blue bitter ice,Death, in the sly shrouds that hang from its sinister banks,Death, unconcerned!
And we shall trickle down to life againUnimportantly:We of the summer valley.***Dusk wanders here alone;No cloud or star runs at her side,The lit sky is her own.
Along her paths of snow,In that far fearless gardenShe walks alone;And from dim paths below,I watch her plucking crimson flowers,Roses in ice and stone.***And suddenly I fear these mountains!There is a howling in the airThat is their intolerable voice,They leap the sky,They tear at the clouds,Foam drips from their steep jaws.
They sit hunched up along the passes,Snarling in the gorges;And one, his lean head straining toward the moon,Howls, howls!
Night is a clanging of loud bronze,And I fear these mountains;All the winds of the airAre blown from their stretched throats.***The morning wears a Gothic air,And Sabbath bells are carved on its blue arches.
I am rimmed round with hillsUpon their knees.
So rose the first prayer to the first sky—A wide doxology of early earthThe while God rested.***Summer is leaving these high places.With all their weightThe mountains cannot fasten to the meadowOne warm blade,Hold to the bough its truest leaf,Dismay or clamp upon the skyAny small wing that chooses flight.
Not all the phalanx of these hillsPiled each on each Can do this thing,Although they barricade the stars!Summer is leaving these high places.***Traveler, if you would go,Go now:Follow the breathless gray-lipped stream,The bony finger of the bough,Follow the fading falling road,Forget the whole green episode;Go now.
Go now if you would go;That is a different denser snowAlong the black cliffs of the sky,And down the hillsTheir harvest spillsIts slanting squares of wheat and rye;But overheadSomething is strickenIn the airThat will not quicken.
If you would not see hill-sides die,Stripped bareAnd brown,With stormy wreaths on the indomitable browThat wears this hour like a crown,Go now!*** Hills that are not hills,But a deliberate violent gesture of earthAway from earth,(Upward, always upward),What are seasons to you?What are arrivals or departures?
But I,How shall I go?It is so long since I have seen the curved barOf the horizon,Making a prison of the world!
How shall I walk the plains again,Go down and down—Into the valley of the shadow of life?
Only because of mountains in my heartFor me to climb,Heights, my own,Depths, higher still;And I, the pioneer!***Who is the pioneer?He is the follower here,Perhaps the lastOf all who passed.
He does not fear nor scornTo treadThe ventured path, the worn,Of those ahead; Nor shall he failTo blaze his own brave trailAlong the beaten track,Make of the old a newer wayOf stouter clayFor others at his back.
He is the pioneer who climbs,Who dares to climbHis own high heart,Although he fallA thousand times;Who dares to crawlOn honest hands and kneesAlong its stony ecstasiesUp to the utmost snows:Nor knowsHe stands on these!
Who is the pioneer?I say he is the follower here,Dogged and undeterred,Perhaps the lastOf all who passed.
He passes too,The wingless one, the heavy bird,Limping along—
Ah, but his song,His song!