POETRY.
THE HILLS.
'Opeatrpotpos
Now men there be that love the plain With yellow cornland dressed, And others love the sleepy vales Where lazy cattle rest; But some men love the ancient hills, And these have chosen best.
For in the hills a man may go Forever as he list, And see a net of distant worlds Where streams and valleys twist A league below, and seem to hold The whole earth in his fist.
Or if he tread the dales beneath A new delight is his, For every crest's a kingdom-edge Whose conqueror he is, And every fell the frontier Of unguessed ernperies.
And when the clouds are on the land In shelter he may lie, And watch adown the misty glens The rain go marching by, Along the silent flanks of fella Whose heads are in the sky.
And in the hills are crystal terns
As deep as maidens' eyes, About whose edge at middle-noon
The heavy sunshine lies, And deep therein the troll-folk dwell, Can make men wondrous wise.
The gorse of spring is like a host Of warriors in gold,
And summer heather like a cloak Of purple on the wold,
While autumn's russet bracken 1.3 Monks' livery of old.
Our lord the sun knows every land, But most he loves the fells; At morning break his earliest torch Upon their summit dwells, At eve he lingers there to catch The sound of vesper bells.
The men who dwell among the hills Have eyes both strong and kind, For as they go about their works In Heaven's sun and wind,' The spirit of the stablished hills Gives them the steadfast mind.
W. N. HODGSON.
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