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RV 294 He saw neither what was above his head nor beneath his feet, but only what was in front of him, too far to reach yet not too far to be real, not painted with the colors of distance but still overhung by the glamour of it—the poetic and terrific spectacle of the great brood of mountains.

Their multiplying summits were all in piercing silver light. It ran in outline down their shoulders. On their ledges and divides shadows like wings were folded. The cañon's depth was one black shadow from side to side, the trees like black waves driving up the ravines. The arch of the sky above him was immense, the cañon was the converse hollow. The woven lines of summits binding the two stood stark in the radiance, frozen with silence. The trees, the cold white fire of the moon, the night-hawk, that divided the air with his wings shooting downward like a plummet, were all a part of one thing, one strength, one awful unconsciousness of strength. In the face of it the man's strength was faint. The sense of being human, of being vulnerable and mortal came over him. He stretched out his hand, unaware that he did so, and clasped the woman's. It responded with a tremulous pressure. But he scarcely felt it. He drew her toward him, yet hardly knew that she was there. The awe of what was around them had entered his blood. The beauty