| |
| I HAVE an understanding with the hills | |
| At evening when the slanted radiance fills | |
| Their hollows, and the great winds let them be, | |
| And they are quiet and look down at me. | |
| Oh, then I see the patience in their eyes | 5 |
| Out of the centuries that made them wise. | |
| They lend me hoarded memory and I learn | |
| Their thoughts of granite and their whims of fern, | |
| And why a dream of forests must endure | |
| Though every tree be slain: and how the pure, | 10 |
| Invisible beauty has a word so brief | |
| A flower can say it or a shaken leaf, | |
| But few may ever snare it in a song, | |
| Though for the quest a life is not too long. | |
| When the blue hills grow tender, when they pull | 15 |
| The twilight close with gesture beautiful, | |
| And shadows are their garments, and the air | |
| Deepens, and the wild veery is at prayer,— | |
| Their arms are strong around me; and I know | |
| That somehow I shall follow when you go | 20 |
| To the still land beyond the evening star, | |
| Where everlasting hills and valleys are: | |
| And silence may not hurt us any more, | |
| And terror shall be past, and grief, and war. | |
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