She wed a mountain man and tried to love

The hard defiant thrust of angry stone

Whose jealous crevices reject the chastening sun

And let no sentimental seed be sown.

For once, before men, the liquid rock rebelled

And split the earth's cloud crust exultingly.

Assaulted by the thin and hostile air

It hardened into immortality.

In frozen passion now the bare-boned peaks

Refuse the compromise of lesser lands

And fling a splendid challenge to the winds,

The blunting snow and the abusive sands.

She loved a mountain man, but dying wept

To leave the mountain's cataclysmic truth

Her ebbing heart sought permanence and and peace

Within the gentle forests of her youth.