Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A SONG OF THE HILLS AND MY FRIEND, by GEOFFREY DENNIS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A SONG OF THE HILLS AND MY FRIEND, by                    
First Line: There are two things I long for
Last Line: Perhaps. I pray him so.
Subject(s): Friendship; God; Mountains; Oxford University; Hills; Downs (great Britain)


THERE are two things I long for,
An exile over the sea:
The hills I sing this song for
In the old land over the sea,
The lad I bring this song for,
The lad who once loved me.

There are two things through all life's ills
A man must love to the end,
The great hills, the straight hills,
And the oldest, dearest friend.

I weary me
O' the sound o' the sea
And all her white waves' buffetings,
her triumphings,
Her loud unsilenceable trumpets of proud foam,
I want the hills, my home;
I do not want these broad sweet southern streams
Bright as some dearest vision of deep dreams,
These midnights where th' Antarctic saltier gleams,
This rich red loam.
In all the pinnacled splendour of the town,
The traffic-battle raging up and down,
I find no joy,
Nor tower nor street nor park nor glittering dome, --
I want the hills my home, --
Nor in the new gay faces without end,
For him I want to see that was my friend
When I was a boy.

In the white first days of the earth,
When the mists of the morning began
Before the beginning of man,
In the uttermost extreme land
Before the beginning of birth,
The great hills statelily stand.

Then men to the valleys come,
They look to the earth, they die,
They speak, they fade, they are dumb:
The great hills point to the sky.

Yet there is sorrow always, not joy in the hills,
The hills are sad.
Strange men who come to see the hills,
Strange men, are glad;
The men who live among the hills
And die are sad.

The hills are great, they are gray,
This is the gift they send,
To love in the oldest greatest way
The man one has for a friend.

They have no gay trinkets to play with, --
Only the sky;
And the love their children love with
Is as deep as the hills are high.

He knew but little of life's dark ills,
A simple mountain-lad,
Sometimes I scarce would love my hills
For the love to him I had.

Then pounced the cruel fever pale
Upon his years nineteen,
The comeliest lad that Ennerdale
I ween had ever seen.

The sun was sinking in the sky.
The night came on. The hours fled by,
Swift to the end;
On the frowning Sty by the Gable high
I laid my friend.

Maybe it never were worth to weep,
For one day things may mend,
And after the great gray sleep
Glad waking come at the end,
If His word the good Lord keep
Whom Father God did send:
I did not know, I had to weep
Because I lost my friend.

The hills they hold all manner of ills;
Though I shall always love the hills,
God knows they are not glad.
The men who live and die among the hills
Are sad.

In the hills the good Lord too,
My Other Friend,
Found birth and death i' the hills,
And loved them to the end.

On the hill of Bethlehem
The good Lord came.

From a mountain huge and bare
Beat about by the cold wild air,
He saw the wide world spread around;
Satan said, "Now to the ground
Before me fall,
And I give you all."
The good Lord wrestled awhile in prayer,
Ere the white winds swept his fears away.
He said to the Tempter, Nay;
And stayed upon the mountain there.

On a green hill to a crowd
The good Lord spoke aloud
And said full many a noble word, --
The world their like hath never heard
Before, beside --
On the green hillside.

On a hill deep dewed
He fed the multitude.

To a lakeside hill
They brought Him all the ill,
And that were miseral,
He healed them all.

On a hill, men say,
A hill most high
I' the blue of the sky,
The Christ's Face shone more glorious than the sun
When his most glorious work is done
I' the heat of the day.

In His bright face
Like a shining star
When the cold nights are
God's Love had place,
The which transfigureth
Death, even death.

On a dark hill
The traitor did Him ill.

On a gray hill at last
His enemies
After that shining life of His
Carried Him past
All worldly ill,
Calvary Hill.
* * * * *
No man can tell what hour a Voice
Will hush his low last breath,
Nor make him any choice
Mid the devious ways of death,
Nor surely know if a place beyond
Friends re-establisheth;
Yet since on a hill God lost His Son
Where too my friend lost I,
Since there they twain great sorrows were done --
My human sorrow, and the Greatest One
The world has seen since Time begun --
My grief and God's Most High,
Then perhaps such pity will come to God,
So great love He will show
That I meet my friend in the hills of God.
Perhaps. I pray Him so.





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