Boulders
There is a look of wisdom in yon stones,
Great boulders basking in the noonday heat,
Their grimness lightened by a fringe of sweet
Fresh fern or moss or green-gray lichen tones.
While through the glade an insect army drones
And birds from neighboring boughs their notes repeat,
These patriarchs, drowsing as in bliss complete,
Rest on the flowery sward their tranquil bones.
A thousand or ten thousand years ago,
Shattered by frost, or by the torrent’s might,
These boulders hurtled from some toppling height
And crashed through forests to the plain below.
Now, reconciled to Nature’s gentler mood,
They lie on lowly earth and find it good.
Charles Wharton Stork