The pines, the pines! By many a windy hollow
Muster the humble starveling parasites,
Ambitious highland scorners of delights;
One springs to lead and half a million follow.
Low where the liberal valley floors indulge
Green beeches leave them, half-way up the larch
Withdraws his plumy striplings from the march
Where the last easy flanks of pasture bulge:
Still these hold good nor hesitate till there
A broken decimated rout they come
Where perpendicular desolations plumb
Clean from near clouds, a curtain of despair.
At last the heavy-hearted pioneers
Fling up their hands and agonize and fail,
While slow reliefs yet loiter in the vale,
And hope foredates in vain the work of years.
But brothers undismayed pursue their stage,
Warrior monks in sombre uniform
Not flown with pride of leaf nor dashed by storm,
Fighting an immemorial pilgrimage.
The merry waters shout around their feet,
Smooth hills of grass slip softly from them marching,
Cumbered with winter burdens overarching,
Wasted with brazen noons of AugusTheat.
Diamonded with the fresh tears of night,
When the high sun at noonday rules intenser
To him they wave a tributary censer
Of natural thankfulness for heat and light:
— Rather themselves a holy temple-close,
Themselves a balmy living holocaust,
Phase after phase they quietly exhaust
Their simple calendar of suns and snows.
Prone millions kneeling at the crumbled heap
Of some vast idol older than the Fall
Darken the long steps of his pedestal;
Who in his pitiless immortal sleep.
Destroys his votaries, to all their prayer
Answering bolts of stone and avalanches:
And yet the Spring the wounds of Winter stanches,
And yet the Summer finds them suppliant there.
Here with a grave incline they gain the brook,
And there they spurn the water's stationless
Eternity of transitoriness,
Stiffly addressed against the slope: and look!
Palmers unwitting bound for unknown shrines,
One valley past into the next they fare, —
Look where they take the horizon, high in air,
Steady as nights and days, the pines, the pines!
The pines, the pines! By many a windy hollow
Muster the humble starveling parasites,
Ambitious highland scorners of delights;
One springs to lead and half a million follow.
Low where the liberal valley floors indulge
Green beeches leave them, half-way up the larch
Withdraws his plumy striplings from the march
Where the last easy flanks of pasture bulge:
Still these hold good nor hesitate till there
A broken decimated rout they come
Where perpendicular desolations plumb
Clean from near clouds, a curtain of despair.
At last the heavy-hearted pioneers
Fling up their hands and agonize and fail,
While slow reliefs yet loiter in the vale,
And hope foredates in vain the work of years.
But brothers undismayed pursue their stage,
Warrior monks in sombre uniform
Not flown with pride of leaf nor dashed by storm,
Fighting an immemorial pilgrimage.
The merry waters shout around their feet,
Smooth hills of grass slip softly from them marching,
Cumbered with winter burdens overarching,
Wasted with brazen noons of AugusTheat.
Diamonded with the fresh tears of night,
When the high sun at noonday rules intenser
To him they wave a tributary censer
Of natural thankfulness for heat and light:
— Rather themselves a holy temple-close,
Themselves a balmy living holocaust,
Phase after phase they quietly exhaust
Their simple calendar of suns and snows.
Prone millions kneeling at the crumbled heap
Of some vast idol older than the Fall
Darken the long steps of his pedestal;
Who in his pitiless immortal sleep.
Destroys his votaries, to all their prayer
Answering bolts of stone and avalanches:
And yet the Spring the wounds of Winter stanches,
And yet the Summer finds them suppliant there.
Here with a grave incline they gain the brook,
And there they spurn the water's stationless
Eternity of transitoriness,
Stiffly addressed against the slope: and look!
Palmers unwitting bound for unknown shrines,
One valley past into the next they fare, —
Look where they take the horizon, high in air,
Steady as nights and days, the pines, the pines!
Muster the humble starveling parasites,
Ambitious highland scorners of delights;
One springs to lead and half a million follow.
Low where the liberal valley floors indulge
Green beeches leave them, half-way up the larch
Withdraws his plumy striplings from the march
Where the last easy flanks of pasture bulge:
Still these hold good nor hesitate till there
A broken decimated rout they come
Where perpendicular desolations plumb
Clean from near clouds, a curtain of despair.
At last the heavy-hearted pioneers
Fling up their hands and agonize and fail,
While slow reliefs yet loiter in the vale,
And hope foredates in vain the work of years.
But brothers undismayed pursue their stage,
Warrior monks in sombre uniform
Not flown with pride of leaf nor dashed by storm,
Fighting an immemorial pilgrimage.
The merry waters shout around their feet,
Smooth hills of grass slip softly from them marching,
Cumbered with winter burdens overarching,
Wasted with brazen noons of AugusTheat.
Diamonded with the fresh tears of night,
When the high sun at noonday rules intenser
To him they wave a tributary censer
Of natural thankfulness for heat and light:
— Rather themselves a holy temple-close,
Themselves a balmy living holocaust,
Phase after phase they quietly exhaust
Their simple calendar of suns and snows.
Prone millions kneeling at the crumbled heap
Of some vast idol older than the Fall
Darken the long steps of his pedestal;
Who in his pitiless immortal sleep.
Destroys his votaries, to all their prayer
Answering bolts of stone and avalanches:
And yet the Spring the wounds of Winter stanches,
And yet the Summer finds them suppliant there.
Here with a grave incline they gain the brook,
And there they spurn the water's stationless
Eternity of transitoriness,
Stiffly addressed against the slope: and look!
Palmers unwitting bound for unknown shrines,
One valley past into the next they fare, —
Look where they take the horizon, high in air,
Steady as nights and days, the pines, the pines!
The pines, the pines! By many a windy hollow
Muster the humble starveling parasites,
Ambitious highland scorners of delights;
One springs to lead and half a million follow.
Low where the liberal valley floors indulge
Green beeches leave them, half-way up the larch
Withdraws his plumy striplings from the march
Where the last easy flanks of pasture bulge:
Still these hold good nor hesitate till there
A broken decimated rout they come
Where perpendicular desolations plumb
Clean from near clouds, a curtain of despair.
At last the heavy-hearted pioneers
Fling up their hands and agonize and fail,
While slow reliefs yet loiter in the vale,
And hope foredates in vain the work of years.
But brothers undismayed pursue their stage,
Warrior monks in sombre uniform
Not flown with pride of leaf nor dashed by storm,
Fighting an immemorial pilgrimage.
The merry waters shout around their feet,
Smooth hills of grass slip softly from them marching,
Cumbered with winter burdens overarching,
Wasted with brazen noons of AugusTheat.
Diamonded with the fresh tears of night,
When the high sun at noonday rules intenser
To him they wave a tributary censer
Of natural thankfulness for heat and light:
— Rather themselves a holy temple-close,
Themselves a balmy living holocaust,
Phase after phase they quietly exhaust
Their simple calendar of suns and snows.
Prone millions kneeling at the crumbled heap
Of some vast idol older than the Fall
Darken the long steps of his pedestal;
Who in his pitiless immortal sleep.
Destroys his votaries, to all their prayer
Answering bolts of stone and avalanches:
And yet the Spring the wounds of Winter stanches,
And yet the Summer finds them suppliant there.
Here with a grave incline they gain the brook,
And there they spurn the water's stationless
Eternity of transitoriness,
Stiffly addressed against the slope: and look!
Palmers unwitting bound for unknown shrines,
One valley past into the next they fare, —
Look where they take the horizon, high in air,
Steady as nights and days, the pines, the pines!