I

A valley with its ancient hills Deep-founded in earth’s adamant And crested dark with driven cloud, Like warrior’s trophies blown aslant:

With zenith-high a riven space, Whence royal from his azured zones The golden sun strikes sheer where lie The dead pueblo’s fallen stones:

A ruin upon the mesa top Above the scarred arroyo’s sands, Its ochres crimsoned by the glow, Mid rock-strewn solitudes it stands:

Where citadelled as now with light Its ramparts stood a thousand years, The valley’s strong Acropolis Against the gathering murk of fears:

When Caesars held imperial sway Its dusky warriors manned their wall; Round council-fires its chieftains sate When Roland fell at Roncevalles:

What time the looms of Flanders wove, Its women spun their fleecy thread; They fashioned earthen burial jars While wailing mere mourned Arthur dead:

The dancers gathered to its feasts The while Columbus sailed the seas; At Coronado curious gazed Its children from their mothers’ knees:

And there where now is grass-grown nave, Walls summer-breached and winter-rent, To pray before a Christian saint Came many a dark-hued penitent:

But yesterday its people passed Into their silence and their night, Leaving their broken walls to glow Encrimsoned by the shafted light:

Leaving their valley’s purpled hills To gather glamours and to brood, Scornful of man and his phantom years, In vast and patient solitude.