On the south side of the hill
Out of the wind
I sat we down to rest.
At my back a lichened wall,
A rough, heaped-up wall of gray boulders,—
(What patient labor of man goes into the gathering of stones!)
Under my feet the rusty fields—
Brush of smoke-rose, yellow reeds, dull purple masses of trees fretting the pale sky.
A world cleft in irregular blocks of ashen colors
By blundering stone-walls that east block shadows.
Over against we a hill crouched in desolation like a lion;
A jade-colored rock upon his breast
Fountained a living spring,
Frozen in monstrous shapes, a row of alabaster gods
Grotesque, with hands upon their knees
Like Hindu idols guarding a king's tomb.
And O, the subtle-toned and bristling marsh
Dead-rose and olive-green,—white shields of ice beneath—
Russet and amber and faded lilac,—
Dimmed like breath on a mirror;
Blended and toned as colors seen through a fog,—
Yet under the cold thin light of the wintry day
Fixed, bloodless and dead.
So, gazing upon last year's furrows, and the marks of old ploughs,
And the drear scattered houses, feathered with little smoke,
And the lean cattle backing to the wind,
And the dim hobbling men stiffly carrying in wood,
And the pale thwarted faces of their women at the windows,—
I thought, this is death,—this is lassitude and sterility unending,—
Rocks and weeds and back-bowing work have stunted the soul of this place,
Faith has the world none, nor future save fruitless, monotonous drudgery,—
Stunted souls too weary to aspire,—and deadened brains too driven to do battle,
Anemic fields unfertile with much ploughing.