University of Virginia Library

I

We will go up for help unto the hills.
Since in their tent together by a sword
The nations sleep divided; since the seas
Of memory sever; and the cauldrons formed
Of old time make wind-craters full of tongues
Opposed, and zones of different decrees;
Since hatred trembles in the singing chord,
And in ourselves still the old savage throngs
Lurk on, cave-dwellers in the gentle breast;
Since stone-age man sits as our right-hand guest,
And secular coils of chthonian energies,
Dark trains of purpose script will never know,
Involve in wrestlings blind the polities
And interlock the peoples to their woe;
In soul, aim, stature diverse, we are stormed
By battle yet, and are the sport of fears
Through the rushing of unstable atmospheres;
Since thus, thus, thus, and thus we fail,
And enmities exhaustless us assail,
Is it in vain for innocence we strive—
In vain that we are now alive?
We are earth creatures. If essential strife
Be stampt in the very make of the globe itself,
What help, to look for help unto the hills?
Yet will we go.
We will go up and wrestle with the hills;
Not for their blessing, but their utterance.
Speak they our weal or woe, or naked'st Chance—
Until they speak we will not let them go.