Home Is My Valley

Rocks and sage and an alder

tree.

Basalt walls until the eye can

see.

Only a ribbon of cloud-clear

sky. . .

A train of freight cars, passing

by,

Brings a friendly wave from the

engineer.

Then all that comes to the

listening ear

Is the sound of the river's echoing

roar.

Thundering down as it did

before.

The rocks and the sage and the tree

and I,

Under our ribbon of turquoise

sky,

As if mutely bound in a fabled

dream,

Are held in the spell of the ageless

stream.

--- George McDonald