The Wind and the Hills.

We will carry our ills

To a height of the hills,

Lying down, lying still

In the lap of a hill.

The wind blowing keen

Shall again make us clean,

Both body and spirit;

As it passes we shall hear it.

The time is of thunder

And fields new turned under,

Of budding and waking;

Of thorn-blossom flaking.

Of longing and questing;

Of carol and nesting;

Of white birds on the wing

Over seas blue with spring.

But you read in the pages

Of the books of the sages,

And save that dark curtain

They know nothing certain,

Except that dark portal

Which waits all things mortal —

And conqueror or prophet

Comprehend no more of it.

Yet the wind travels so

That it surely must know;

It has gone the world round

Till it came to our ground.

And the hills, which stood fast

Ere the first axe was cast

And have seen so much history,

May have fathomed the mystery.

But the hills on our borders

Are silent old warders,

And the winds which rejoice

No articulate voice.

Oh! ye pure larger airs

Ye will scatter our cares —

Mighty bastions of ours,

Uplift that which cowers,

For behind your grave brows

Are a thousand strong “Nows —”

And the wind has a “must”

In its rude healthy gust.

How it braces and rightens

That wind to make Titans!

Its strenuous wooing

Says, “Up, lads, and doing.”

So leaving the high down

Like giants we stride down;

While the valleys before us

Resound to our chorus.

Having been each a seer

To whom all things were near,

Not resenting or grieving

But simply believing.