THE MOST-SACRED MOUNTAIN

Space, and the twelve clean winds of heaven,

And this sharp exultation, like a cry, after the slow six thousand steps of climbing!

This is Tai Shan, the beautiful, the most holy.

Below my feet the foot-hills nestle, brown with flecks of green; and lower down the flat brown plain, the floor of earth, stretches away to blue infinity.

Beside me in this airy space the temple roofs cut their slow curves against the sky,

And one black bird circles above the void.

Space, and the twelve clean winds are here;

And with them broods eternity-a swift, white peace, a presence manifest.

The rhythm ceases here. Time has no place. This is the end that has no end.

Here, when Confucius came, a half a thousand years before the Nazarene, he stepped, with me, thus into timeless

ness.

The stone beside us waxes old, the carven stone that says: "On this spot once Confucius stood and felt the smallness of the world below."

The stone grows old:

Eternity is not for stones.

The Most-Sacred Mountain

But I shall go down from this airy space, this swift white peace, this stinging exultation.

And time will close about me, and my soul stir to the rhythm

of the daily round.

Yet, having known, life will not press so close, and always I shall feel time ravel thin about me;

For once I stood

In the white windy presence of eternity.

Eunice Tietjens

ENOUGH

I was born to those who longed for me
Ere ever my life began;

I have glimpsed the soul of a woman,

And fought the fight of a man;

I have reared a child, and thought of God:
Now, Death, do what you can!

Winifred Webb

I will ride upon this heaving surface
As a boat rides upon the water.
Even as a boat

Cleaving the water with an eager keel,

I have run a furrow

Straight across the ridges.

I will sow down this field,

Scattering gems.

With both hands will I scatter

Quivering emeralds out of a bottomless pouch.

As I tread the loam

My feet sink deep.

The black earth embraces my ankles

And clings to my bent knees.

I sing as I go

Scattering emeralds.

The wind sings upon my lips,

And pearls stream off my neck and forehead.

I am bathed in a sweat of pearls.

Eyes straight forward

Rest on a brightening ultimate slope.

SUCCESSION

It is not as if I stood alone.
When I stop to rest the horses

And take a look at the sky,
It is not me

So much as my father

Stopping in the same furrow:
For I have his shoulders

And his eyes.

And when I stumped that field, I felt as if I were his father,

Who cleared the first land

And built the house.

My father built on the ell,
But he slept himself

In his father's bed

In the old house;

And that's where I sleep.

I hope my son will stick to the land.

I like to watch him plough

Upon that hillside,

And burn brush

Along the road.

It is as much me
As it is himself,

And as much my father

As either of us.

Succession

THE RED LAND

In the autumn, Bathed in gold-dust,

I shall strip the red land

Of a golden harvest.

Oh, fruitful as the red land
Bearing golden harvest
In the autumn,

Bountiful as the prairie
Heaving milky breasts
On flushed horizons!

My hand slackens
In the act of cutting,
While I lose myself
In these blue distances.

The scythe pauses

On the neck of the wheat
As my heart faints against
These flushed horizons.

I that have seen the sky,
In the time of reaping,
Between her breasts
In the wheat-field,

Sowing and reaping,
There I worship

The land!

Joseph Warren Beach