Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.
In Western MountainsGlenn Ward Dresbach
Of the highest cliff, and looked far out with me
Upon great valleys ending in the haze,
And mountains that from haze drove up a wedge
Of snow in skies of lapis-lazuli.
Then something of the littleness of days
His life could span came to him dizzily;
And he, who boasted of his strength with men,
Turned back and grasped a little cedar tree
Near by, for safety; and he shut his eyes,
Shaken, and would not turn to look again….
Back from that cliff-edge, jutting to the skies,
He crawled, and spoke at last with heavy breath:
“God, what a place! What is it? Life or Death?”
How many Ages helped those heights attain
Such silence in the sun,
O silent One?…
And the half-heard shuffle of feet,
High up on the mountain side,
Crept down through the waves of heat;
And a gray thread wove through the wide
Cloth of the mountain side.
With ores men take apart
As the thing they love the best
From the multitudinous heart
Of the mountain. But all I could see
Was a gray thread through tapestry.