Occasionally we hear of them--of
some shrewd and desperate city fugitives brought to bay in a corner of the
woods, or some brutal farmhouse murderer still lurking uncaptured among
the hills. Often they pass through the country and out beyond, where they
are never seen again.
In the extreme southwestern corner of the State the railroads do not come;
the vacant spaces grow between the country roads, and the cities dwindle
down to half-deserted crossroads hamlets. Here the surface of the map is
covered up with the tortuous wrinkles of the hills. It is a beautiful but
useless place. As far as you can see, low, unformed lumps of mountains lie
jumbled aimlessly together between the ragged sky lines, or little silent
cups of valleys stare up between them at their solitary patch of sky. It
seems a sort of waste yard of creation, flung full of the remnants of the
making of the earth.
--George Kibbe Turner: _Across the State_ ("McClure's").
When once the shrinking dizzy spell was gone,
I saw below me, like a jeweled cup,
The valley hollowed to its heaven-kissed lip--
The serrate green against the serrate blue--
Brimming with beauty's essence; palpitant
With a divine elixir--lucent floods
Poured from the golden chalice of the sun,
At which my spirit drank with conscious growth,
And drank again with still expanding scope
Of comprehension and of faculty.
I felt the bud of being in me burst
With full, unfolding petals to a rose,
And fragrant breath that flooded all the scene.
Pages:
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307