The Hills of the Lord

William Channing Gannett (1840–1923)

GOD ploughed one day with an earthquake,

And drove his furrows deep!

The huddling plains upstarted,

The hills were all a-leap!

But that is the mountains’ secret,

Age-hidden in their breast;

“God’s peace is everlasting,”

Are the dream-words of their rest.

He hath made them the haunt of beauty,

The home elect of his grace;

He spreadeth his mornings on them,

His sunsets light their face.

His thunders tread in music

Of footfalls echoing long,

And carry majestic greeting

Around the silent throng.

His winds bring messages to them,

Wild storm-news from the main;

They sing it down to the valleys

In the love-song of the rain.

Green tribes from far come trooping,

And over the uplands flock;

He weaveth the zones together

In robes for his risen rock.

They are nurseries for young rivers;

Nests for his flying cloud;

Homesteads for new-born races,

Masterful, free, and proud.

The people of tired cities

Come up to their shrines and pray;

God freshens again within them,

As he passes by all day.

And lo, I have caught their secret,

The beauty deeper than all,

This faith—that life’s hard moments,

When the jarring sorrows befall,

Are but God ploughing his mountains;

And the mountains yet shall be

The source of his grace and freshness

And his peace everlasting to me.