The Changeless Hills

ALL power, all virtue, is repression— ye
Are stationary, and God keeps ye great;
Around your heads the fretful winds play free;
Ye change not — ye are calm and desolate.
What seems to us a trouble and a 'ate
Is but the loose dust streaming from your feet
And drifting onward— early ye sit and late,
While unseen Winds waft past the things that fleet
So sit for ever, still and passionless
As He that made you! — thought and soul's distress
Ye know not, though ye contemplate the strife;
Better to share the Spirit's bitterest aches —
Better to be the weakest Wave that breaks
On a wild Ocean of tempestuous Life.