The burden of the mountains: There shall come a day when the ravine
for the silver is drained and the gold-seekers turn from thee
disconsolate, but thy years are unnumbered and thy strength unfailing:
the grass shall cover thy nakedness and the pine-boughs brood over
thee for ever and ever; the clouds shall visit thee and the springs
increase; the snows shall gather in the clefts of thy bosom; thy
breasts shall give nourishment, thy breath life to the fainting, and
the sight of thy face joy. The people shall go up to thee and build in
thy shadow; their flocks shall feed in peace: out of thy days shall
come fatness, and out of thy nights rest, for thou hast that within
thee more precious than silver, yea, better than much fine gold.
When the burden was past I looked out into the night. A soft wind was
stirring; I scented the balsam of the piny woods; the moon had
descended beyond the crest of the mountain, and above me the sky was
flooded with pale and palpitating stars. We slid out of the mountains
into the broad Humboldt desert one cloudless day: it was like getting
on the roof of the world--the great domed roof with its eaves sloping
away under the edges of heaven, and whereon there is nothing but a
matting of sagebrush, looking like grayish moss, and a deep alkali
dust as white and as fine as flour.
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