The Rocky Mountain Sheep Poem by Mary Austin

THE red deer loves the chaparral,
The hawk the wind-rocked pine;
The ouzel haunts the rills that race
The cañon's steep incline;
But the wild sheep from the battered rocks,
Sure foot and fleet of limb,
Gets up to see the stars go by
Along the mountain-rim.

For him the sky-built battlements,
For him the cliff and scar,
For him the deep-walled chasms
Where the roaring rivers are;
The gentian-flowered meadow-lands,
The tamarack slope and crest,
Above the eagle's screaming brood,
Above the wild wolf's quest.

When in the riot of the storms
The snow-flowers blossom fair,
The cattle get them to the plain,
The howlers to the lair.
The shepherd tends his foolish flocks
Along the mountain's hem;
But free and far the wild sheep are,
And God doth shepherd them.