Oracles

THE HILLS I75 Not death as ye name in derision The change to a cycle of pain, To a cycle of joy as a vision Ye chase, and may capture in vain. Endeth you peace, and your change is Like the change in a measure that shrills And slackens and ranges ; your passion estranges The love of the hills ! Nay ! death is a portal of passing To miseries other but sure. Yet the snow on the hills amassing The wind of an hour may endure ; But as day after day grows the summer The crystals melt one after one. The hill—shall they numb her ? Their frost overcome her ? Demand of the sun ! That uttermost death of my lady Revealed in the heart of the range Is as light in the groves long shady As peace in the halls of change. The web of the world is rended ; Stayed are the causal mills ; Time is ended ; space unextended. And end of the hills !