The Land God Forgot

Robert William Service

The lonely sunsets flare forlorn
    Down valleys dreadly desolate;
The lordly mountains soar in scorn
    As still as death, as stern as fate.

The lonely sunsets flame and die;
    The giant valleys gulp the night;
The monster mountains scrape the sky,
    Where eager stars are diamond-bright.

So gaunt against the gibbous moon,
    Piercing the silence velvet-piled,
A lone wolf howls his ancient rune—
    The fell arch-spirit of the Wild.

O outcast land! O leper land!
    Let the lone wolf-cry all express
The hate insensate of thy hand,
    Thy heart’s abysmal loneliness.

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