Singing Cliffs 



The awfulness of sudden death and the glory of 

 heaven stunned me ! The thing that had been mys 

 tery at twilight, lay clear, pure, open in the rosy hue 

 of dawn. Out of the gates of the morning poured 

 a light which glorified the palaces and pyramids, 

 purged and purified the afternoon s inscrutable clefts, 

 swept away the shadows of the mesas, and bathed 

 that broad, deep world of mighty mountains, stately 

 spars of rock, sculptured cathedrals and alabaster 

 terraces in an artist s dream of color. A pearl from 

 heaven had burst, flinging its heart of fire into this 

 chasm. A stream of opal flowed out of the sun, to 

 touch each peak, mesa, dome, parapet, temple and 

 tower, cliff and cleft into the new-born life of another 

 day. 



I sat there for a long time and knew that every 

 second the scene changed, yet I could not tell how. I 

 knew I sat high over a hole of broken, splintered, 

 barren mountains ; I knew I could see a hundred miles 

 of the length of it, and eighteen miles of the width 

 of it, and a mile of the depth of it, and the shafts and 

 rays of rose light on a million glancing, many-hued 

 surfaces at once ; but that knowledge was no help to 

 me. I repeated a lot of meaningless superlatives to 

 myself, and I found words inadequate and superflu 

 ous. The spectacle was too elusive and too great. It 

 was life and death, heaven and hell. 



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