A Thousand Feet Up

A thousand feet up: twilight. Westwards, a clump of firtrees silhouetted against a bank of blue cumulus cloud; The June afterglow like a sea behind. The mountain trail, white and clear where human feet have worn it, zigzagging higher and higher till it loses itself in the southern skyline. A patch of young corn to my right hand, swaying and swaying continuously, tho' hardly an air stirs. A falcon wheeling overhead. The moon rising. The damp smell of the night in my nostrils.

O hills, O hills, To you I lift mine eyes! I kneel down and kiss the grass under my feet. The sense of the mystery and infinity of things overwhelms me, annihilates me almost. I kneel down, and silently worship.