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THE UNPASTURABLE FIELDS
Thus spake the mountains: "Behold us, even us; the old ones, the
grey ones, that wear the feet of Time. Time on our rocks shall break
his staff and stumble: and still we shall sit majestic, even as now,
hearing the sound of the sea, our old coeval sister, who nurses the
bones of her children and weeps for the things she has done.
"Far, far, we stand above all things; befriending the little cities until
they grow old and leave us to go among the myths.
"We are the most imperishable mountains."
And softly the clouds foregathered from far places, and crag on
crag and mountain upon mountain in the likeness of Caucasus upon
Himalaya came riding past the sunlight upon the backs of storms and
looked down idly from their golden heights upon the crests of the
mountains.
"Ye pass away," said the mountains.
And the clouds answered, as I dreamed or fancied,
"We pass away, indeed we pass away, but upon our unpasturable
fields Pegasus prances. Here Pegasus gallops and browses upon
song which the larks bring to him every morning from far terrestrial
fields. His hoof-beats ring upon our slopes at sunrise as though our
fields were of silver. And breathing the dawn-wind in dilated nostrils,
with head tossed upwards and with quivering wings, he stands and
stares from our tremendous heights, and snorts and sees far-future
wonderful wars rage in the creases and the folds of the togas that
cover the knees of the gods."
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