Colorado

Now the plains come to adore the mountain wall, 
Their yellow fields running and bowing like waves 
To celebrate in such serene order the fury and 
Love that bore these stony things. Now fragile 
Air, sweet health of a superficial season 
Disguise for a little immemorial winter. 

And I, not long nor with profit hereabouts, 
Note merely the blue, the watercolor blue, 
A descriptive man would like; the rare 
And fictive shadowline of trees, the smooth 
Peaks too cold for the warm west to redden, 
Much, or gild them. They remain sharply vague. 

It is so, too, I think, with the remote 
Population of memory; they stand above 
Our imperceptible journeys and indulgence, 
Easily unseen by a simple turn of the head, 
Impossible to grasp in contour, always a little 
Shifting, and the same. Death has engraved them 
Lovely and lofty, and my metaphysic 
Smiles to align them here, the shadowy ones 
Tinted so faint, yet luminous as gems. 

A property of distance. And distance? 
A requisite of the just, which is proportion, 
Or holy measure, that the sages loved, 
Being so fond of stringed instruments and so 
Mild: they liked puppies as well as you; 
And saw fit—being profound—not to reflect 
Chaos unbounded, but to extract therefrom 
Numerous order and magnificence. 

So at least I interpret the very thin hostile azure 
Wherein these stones are dipt, and I imagine 
Of time and the great dead, they too 
Correctly make a tune with me; let me 
Behold by their grave light my minuscule 
Part in the swaying and tranquil grandeur here.