Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: I should prefer to have some boy bend them Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs And half grant what I wish and snatch me away The Joy of the Hills Edwin Markham For biographical note concerning the author, see "The Man with the Hoe," page 103. There is joy and expansion in this poem. Deliver it with sweep and abandon. Because the scene changes so often, it is best to read this selection from the book. I RIDE on the mountain-tops, I ride; I have found my life and am satisfied. Onward I ride in the blowing oats, Checking the field-lark's rippling notes- From steep to steep: Over my head through the branches high The tall oats brush my horse's flanks; I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget All the terror and pain I leave you a blur behind. I am lifted elate-the skies expand: Here the world's heaped gold is a pile of sand. I swing on as one in a dream—I swing My body's a bough in the wind, my heart a bird! Reprinted by permission of the author. Copyright by Edwin Markham. The Hills Berton Braley Berton Braley was born in 1882. He is a newspaper man, a poet, and a novelist. During the war he was a special correspondent in northern Europe. Read this poem with a rugged grandeur akin to that of the mountains that are described. Note, however, the change in mood in the early part of the last stanza. PARTNER, remember the hills? The gray, barren, bleak old hills Not those gentle, placid slopes that swell The sharp and sheer-cut pinnacles of earth Partner, remember the hills? Those snow-crowned, granite battlements of hills They stood so calm, inscrutable and cold, And yet we felt their thrall; And ever and forever to the end To hear their call, Partner, remember the hills? The grim and massive majesty of hills That soared so far, Seeming, at night, to scrape against a star. Do you remember how we lay at night (When the great herd had settled down to sleep) And watched the moonshine-white Against the peaks all garlanded with snow, The night wind murmured in our ears-and so And quiet sleep? Partner, remember the hills? The real hills, the true hills. Ah, I have tried To brush the memory of them aside; To learn to love Those fresh, green hills the poets carol of; But the old gray hills of barrenness still hold That I forget the beauty all about, The grass and flowers and all; And just cry out To take again the faint and wind-swept trail, To see my naked mountains, shale and snow, To feel again the hill-wind and to know The spell that shall not fail. Reprinted by permission of, and special arrangement with, Geo. H. Doran Company, from Songs of the Workaday World. Copyright, 1915. |