I have known the lure of cities and the bright gleam
of golden things,
Spires, towers, bridges, rivers, and the crowd that
flows as a river,
Lights in the midnight streets under the rain,
and the stings
Of joys that make the spirit reel and shiver.

But I see bleak moors and marshes and sparse grasses,
And frozen stalks against the snow;
Dead forests, ragged pines and dark morasses
Under the shadows of the mountains where no men go.
The crags untenanted and spacious cry aloud as clear
As the drear cry of a lost eagle over uncharted lands,
No thought that man has ever framed in words is spoken here,
And the language of the wind, no man understands.

Only the sifting wind through the grasses, and the hissing sleet,
And the shadow of the changeless rocks over the frozen wold,
Only the cold,
And the fierce night striding down with silent feet.

Chambery