Tomb Valley

Down a cliff-side where rock-roses,Shallow-rooted, scantly bloom,And the mountain goats in passingBarely find a foothold's room,While the boulders of the summitCast an everlasting gloom.

Leaps a torrent from behindThe jutted angle of a wallIn a long, unbroken sliding,For it touches not at allAny rock, or stone, or pebbleFor a thousand feet of fall.For a thousand feet it rushes

Like a heavy, laden air,Playing over some tremendousSound which surely must be there,For you hear it, lose it, hear it.Does it come from anywhere?

Seething, bubbling, churning, groaning,Has the water in its flightShattered on the stony bottomOf the valley, while its heightDrawing upward like a ribbonPalely grows upon the sight?

But the sound is chiller, deeper,Long and dreary like a moanCaught forever on an echo'Twixt two balanced shafts of stone,Whence it surges and resurgesIn protracted monotone.

Far below, within the valley,Runs a river, cold and sleek,Never oar has cut its smoothness,It has shattered on no beakOf shallop or of galley,Its tide is slow and meek.

And the trees within that valley,Of every broad-leaved kind,Wave to and fro compactly,For there's never any wind.Ten thousand branches blowingAll one way is hard to find.

And the shadows which their movementCasts upon the sandy groundAre like footsteps weaving dancesTo that ghastly, haunting soundRinging round the chilly valley,Round and round and round and round.

Where the river curves about it,And the water lilies strewSilver petals on the pebblesMingling with dropped cones of yew,Stands a sepulchre of graniteStriped with bars of green and blue.

Green and blue bars painted crosswiseFrom its bottom to its crown,At its apex is a statue,Coldly, boldly, gazing down,Gazing fiercely, gazing wildly,Tn an everlasting frown.

And upon its knees a womanKneels and clasps the granite thighs,And clings upon the roughened stoneWhile tears drop from her eyes.The surly yews wave back and forthBeneath a red moonrise.

And a hollow, draughty moaningFills the valley like a gong.Women's voices weeping, wailing,All the waving trees among,Where no shapes or shadows flickerBut the low moon, broad and long.

Slowly rising from the cliff-tops,Like a gnawed and crumbled cone,It appears in perfect semblanceTo a sepulchre of stone,And the bars are striped upon itLike cross-sticks of blackened bone.

In a bitter orange moonlightLies the woman on the kneesOf that austere thing of granite,All surrounded by the trees,And the curling, sneering river,And nothing else but these.

On a sudden, she has risen,And with clenched fists beats the faceOf that frozen granite horror,And her blows in that drear placeAre as thunder-claps resoundingUpon vastnesses of space.

For an instant still she battersAt that changeless, mocking frown,Then flings her bleeding handsAbove her head and plunges downTo the smooth and careful riverWith sere rushes overgrown.

But no ripple marks her entranceTo that water, bright as flame,And no pucker stirs the granite faceTo tell she ever came.The trees blow and the moaningContinues just the same.

But every moonlight night, they say,She drowns herself once more,And by the queasy daylightYou can see her from the shoreLying like a lily petalOn the river's glassy floor.

So they say, but no one proves it.No one ever ventures inTo that valley. Only passers-byAbove can hear a thinWeary wailing, if they note itThrough the torrent's distant din.

As they wander on the cliff-edgeWhere the scant rock-roses blow,And the mountain goats go shrewdlyIn the footways that they know,While the crash of tumbling waterSounds a thousand feet below.