SIERRA MADRE
BY HENRY VAN DYKE
O MOTHER mountains! billowing far to the snow-lands,
Robed in aërial amethyst, silver, and blue,
Why do ye look so proudly down on the lowlands?
What have their gardens and groves to do with you?
Theirs is the languorous charm of the orange and myrtle,
Theirs are the fruitage and fragrance of Eden of old,—
Broad-boughed oaks in the meadows fair and fertile,