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HYMN TO ARTEMIS: ALL MOUNTAINS, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Give me all mountains
Last Line: And the towering mountain trees.
Alternate Author Name(s): H. D.; Aldington, Richard, Mrs.
Subject(s): Bible; Mountains; Hills; Downs (great Britain)


GIVE me all mountains.
City, town, the precinct
of temple
the crowded town gate,
I have no love for:
Walls must crush or hide
whether of market
palace court
or precinct.
Give me the stream's cold path,
the grove of pine,
for garden terrace
the unclaimed
bleak
wild stretches
of the mountain side.

Give me no earth
Crushed flat
with cruel layer
of fitted square
or meted length,
but boulders
unhewn
but set apart
as secret altars,
high in the loveliest
alder grove
or poplar.
Give me for altar fire
the wild azalea;
let Phoebos keep
the fervid market place.

Marble of islands,
snow of distant points,
threatened with wave of pine,
with wash of alder,
my islands
shift and change,
now here now there,
dazzling,
white,
granite,
silver
in blue ether.
I swim
who tread the mountain path as air.

Let Phoebos keep the market,
let white Love
claim all the islands
of sea-port or river;
would I contend with these?
Nay,
I would rather pity him, my brother,
pity white, passionless Love
Who only knows
the prompting
of the restless, thwarted seas,
shivering in porches
from the bitter air.
Ah Zeus,
ennoble,
care for these thy children,
but give me the islands of the upper air,
all mountains
and the towering mountain trees.





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