Under the misty sky, low-hanging, gray,
The hills stretched, dark and still in the half light;
The wet air, scented like an April night
With marshy sweetness, on our parched lips lay--
Unbroken silence save for the light stir
Of dry, dead grass,
And once, along the forest edge, the whir
Of a gray partridge startled into flight--
I felt the quiet pass
Like balm into my heart. For grief that burned
But yesterday, in the mad land of human ills,
Here was no place.
Instinctively I turned
To you--and found you staring at the hills
And saw the fierce world-hunger in your face.