Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950). Spoon River Anthology. 1916.

239. Judson Stoddard

ON a mountain top above the clouds

That streamed like a sea below me

I said that peak is the thought of Buddha,

And that one is the prayer of Jesus,

And this one is the dream of Plato,

And that one there the song of Dante,

And this is Kant and this is Newton,

And this is Milton and this is Shakespeare,

And this the hope of the Mother Church,

And this—why all these peaks are poems,

Poems and prayers that pierce the clouds.

And I said “What does God do with mountains

That rise almost to heaven?”