Alice Corbin

From “New Mexico Songs”

After the roar, after the fierce modern music
Of rivets and hammers and trams,
After the shout of the giant
Youthful and brawling and strong
Building the cities of men,
Here is the desert of silence,
Blinking and blind in the sun—
An old, old woman who mumbles her beads
And crumbles to stone.

What hills, what hills, my old true love?—Old Song

WHAT hills are these against the sky,

What hills so far and cold?

These are the hills we have come to find,

Seeking the yellow gold.

What hills, what hills so dark and still,

What hills so brown and dry?

These are the hills of this desert land

Where you and I must die.

Oh, far away is gay Seville,

And far are the hills of home,

And far are the plains of old Castile

Beneath the blue sky’s dome.

The bells will ring in fair Seville,

And folk go up and down,

And no one know where our bones are laid

In this desert old and brown.

What hills, what hills so dark and cold,

What hills against the sky?

These are the last hills you shall see

Before you turn to die.

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