| How the Mountains
Ate up the PlainsBy Emerson Hough “I once knew a man,” said the Singing Mouse, “who had seen the mountains in the winter time, when they were covered deep in snow. It is the belief of most men that the mountains are then asleep, but this man said that they are not asleep, but that they have only drawn over their heads the white council-robes, for then they are sitting in council. Now the mountains are very old and wise. This man told me he heard strange sounds coming from under the council-robes of the mountains then, voices not distinctly heard, but wonderful and strong and of a sort to make one fear. “This man told me that once he heard the mountains tell of a time when they ate up the plains. ‘Once man was a dweller of the plains,’ sang the mountains in a great song; ‘there man dug and strove. Never he lifted up the eye, but at his feet, at his feet, there he still gazed down. The clouds bore not up his gaze, neither did the hills comfort him. Things false, of no worth, these man sought and prized. Though we whispered to him, still he made deaf his ear. Then we, the mountains, we the strong, the just, the wise, we rose, we set together our shoulders and so marched on. Thus we ate up the plain. Now we stand where once man was, for man lifted not up his eyes. Therefore, now let man look up, let him not make small his gaze. We the strong, we the just, the wise, we shall eat up the plain. For on our brows sits the light, about our heads is the calm. That which is high shall in the days prevail. We the strong, the just, the wise, this we have said!’ | |