I have an understanding with the hills <br />At evening when the slanted radiance fills <br />Their hollows, and the great winds let them be, <br />And they are quiet and look down at me. <br />Oh, then I see the patience in their eyes <br />Out of the centuries that made them wise. <br />They lend me hoarded memory and I learn <br />Their thoughts of granite and their whims of fern, <br />And why a dream of forests must endure <br />Though every tree be slain: and how the pure, <br />Invisible beauty has a word so brief <br />A flower can say it or a shaken leaf, <br />But few may ever snare it in a song, <br />Though for the quest a life is not too long. <br />When the blue hills grow tender, when they pull <br />The twilight close with gesture beautiful, <br />And shadows are their garments, and the air <br />Deepens, and the wild veery is at prayer, -- <br />Their arms are strong around me; and I know <br />That somehow I shall follow when you go <br />To the still land beyond the evening star, <br />Where everlasting hills and valleys are: <br />And silence may not hurt us any more, <br />And terror shall be past, and grief, and war.<br /><br />Grace Hazard Conkling<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/after-sunset-2/
