DECEMBER 6. A few hours of mountain climbing turn a villain and a saint into two rather equal creatures. Exhaustion is the shortest way to equality and fraternity, and liberty is added eventually by sleep. Friedrich Nietzsche

I Have Never Seen “Volcanoes”

Emily Dickinson

I have never seen “Volcanoes” 
But, when Travellers tell
How those old phlegmatic mountains
Usually so still    

Bear within appalling Ordnance,
Fire, and smoke, and gun,
Taking Villages for breakfast,
And appalling Men 

If the stillness is Volcanic
In the human face
When upon a pain Titanic
Features keep their place 

If at length the smouldering anguish
Will not overcome 
And the palpitating Vineyard
In the dust, be thrown?

If some loving Antiquary,
On Resumption Morn,
Will not cry with joy “Pompeii”!
To the Hills return!

 

 

FOTO – MT WARNING VOLCANIC CALDERA NEAR MURWILLUMBAH. THE SLEEPING WOMAN VIEW