Fifty-One Tales by Lord Dunsany 1915

The Unpasturable Fields

Thus spake the mountains: "Behold us, even us; the old ones,

the grey ones, that wear the feet of Time.  Time on our

rocks shall break his staff and stumble: and still we shall

sit majestic, even as now, hearing the sound of the sea, our

old coeval sister, who nurses the bones of her children and

weeps for the things she has done.

   "Far, far, we stand above all things; befriending the

little cities until they grow old and leave us to go among

the myths.

   "We are the most imperishable mountains."

   And softly the clouds foregathered from far places, and

crag on crag and mountain upon mountain in the likeness of

Caucasus upon Himalaya came riding past the sunlight upon

the backs of storms and looked down idly from their golden

heights upon the crests of the mountains.

   "Ye pass away," said the mountains.

   And the clouds answered, as I dreamed or fancied,

   "We pass away, indeed we pass away, but upon our

unpasturable fields Pegasus prances.  Here Pegasus gallops

and browses upon song which the larks bring to him every

morning from far terrestrial fields.  His hoof-beats ring

upon our slopes at sunrise as though our fields were of

silver.  And breathing the dawn-wind in dilated nostrils,

with head tossed upwards and with quivering wings, he stands

and stares from our tremendous heights, and snorts and sees

far-future wonderful wars rage in the creases and the folds

of the togas that cover the knees of the gods."