On the Gorgeous Hills of Morning

On the gorgeous hills of morning / A sudden piping of birds, / A piping of all the forest, high and merry and clear, / I lay in my tent and listened; / I lay and heard them long, / In the dark of the moonlit morning, / The birds of the night at song.

I lay and listened and heard them / Sing ere the day was begun; / Sing and sink into / Silence one by one.

I lay in my bed and looked --

Paler than starlight or lightning / A glimmer.

In the highlands in the country places / Where the old plain men have rosy faces, / And the young fair lasses / Quiet eyes, / Light and heat begin, begin and strengthen, / And the shadows turn and shrink and lengthen, / As the great sun passes in the skies.

Life and death go by with heedful faces --

Mock with silent steps these empty places.