by: Arthur Guiterman (1871-1943)
NEVER loved your plains!– - Your gentle valleys,
- Your drowsy country lanes
- And pleachéd alleys.
- I want my hills! — the trail
- That scorns the hollow.–
- Up, up the ragged shale
- Where few will follow,
- Up, over wooded crest
- And mossy bowlder
- With strong thigh, heaving chest,
- And swinging shoulder,
- So let me hold my way,
- By nothing halted,
- Until, at close of day,
- I stand, exalted,
- High on my hills of dream–
- Dear hills that know me!
- And then, how fair will seem
- The lands below me,
- How pure, at vesper-time,
- The far bells chiming!
- God, give me hills to climb,
- And strength for climbing!
