Invocation
Hurl down, harsh hills, your bitterness
Of wind and storm.
Stem ye the drift of herded men
With your uncouthness
So, tasting of your power, they press
Back shrinking where upon their warm
Safe ways of smoothness
They feed their various lusts again.
Guard ye, wild hills, with scar and whip
Your outlawry
Lest alien-hearted pigmies tame
Your trackless boulders,
And with their unclean cunning slip
The leash of civilry
Fast round your shoulders.
O keep ye from that shame.
Or they shall surely come, black hordes
Swarming as lice
With their obscenities and greed
Across your fastness,
Even your peaks that swing white swords,
Rent, splintered ice
Into the vastness
Of skies where fanged winds feed.
Hurl down, harsh hills, your bitterness,
Guard ye with flail
Of shattering wind and thong of sleet
Your pride uplifting
To the impaled stars; be pitiless
Before this unquiet trail
Of man-herds drifting
Against your stone still feet.