Going West Poem by Mary Austin

Someday I shall go West,
Having won all time to love it in, at last,
Too still to boast.

But when I smell the sage,
When the long, marching landscape line
Melts into wreathing mountains,
And the dust cones dance,
Something in me that is of them will stir.

Happy if I come home
When the musk scented, moon-white gilia blows,
When all the hills are blue, remembering
The sea from which they rose.
Happy again,
When blunt faced bees carouse
In the red flagons of the incense shrub,
Or apricots have lacquered boughs,
And trails are dim with rain!

Lay me where some contented oak can prove
How much of me is nurture for a tree;
Sage thoughts of mine
Be acorn clusters for the deer to browse.
My loving whimsies -- Will you chide again
When they come up as lantern flowers?

I shall be small and happy as the grass,
Proud if my tip
Stays the white, webby moons the spider weaves,
Where once you trod
Or down my bleaching stalks shall slip
The light, imprisoning dew.
I shall be bluets in the April sod!

Or if the wheel should turn too fast,
Run up and rest
As a sequoia for a thousand years!