the hills, and the snow had come upon them tentatively, but already
the birds of the waste had moved to the sheltered places for every
omen boded more to fall. Far away some little hills blazed like an
aureate bulwark broken off by age and fallen from the earthward
rampart of Paradise. And aloof and dark the mountains stared
unconcernedly seawards.

And when I saw those grey and watchful mountains sitting where
they sat while the cities of the civilization of Araby and Asia arose
like crocuses, and like crocuses fell, I wondered for how long there
would be smoke in the valley and little fields on the hills.




THE UNPASTURABLE FIELDS


Thus spake the mountains: "Behold us, even us; the old ones, the
grey ones, that wear the feet of Time. Time on our rocks shall break
his staff and stumble: and still we shall sit majestic, even as now,
hearing the sound of the sea, our old coeval sister, who nurses the
bones of her children and weeps for the things she has done.

"Far, far, we stand above all things; befriending the little cities until
they grow old and leave us to go among the myths.

"We are the most imperishable mountains."

And softly the clouds foregathered from far places, and crag on