Shepherd Of The Hills Quotes

Then she gave one last burst of music. The white Moon heard it, and she forgot the dawn, and lingered on in the sky. The red rose heard it, and it trembled all over with ecstasy, and opened its petals to the cold morning air. Echo bore it to her purple cavern in the hills, and woke the sleeping shepherds from their dreams. It floated through the reeds of the river, and they carried its message to the sea.

…I never understood until the past months why the Master so often withdrew alone into the wilderness. There is not only food and medicine for one’s body; there is also healing for the heart and strength for the soul in nature. One gets very close to God…in these temples of God’s own building.

The High Places,” answered the Shepherd, “are the starting places for the journey down to the lowest place in the world. When you have hinds’ feet and can go ‘leaping on the mountains and skipping on the hills,’ you will be able, as I am, to run down from the heights in the gladdest self-giving and then go up to the mountains again. You will be able to mount to the High Places swifter than eagles, for it is only up on the High Places of Love that anyone can receive the power to pour themselves down in an utter abandonment of self-giving.

Here and there among men, there are those who pause in the hurried rush to listen to the call of a life that is more real… He who sees and hears too much is cursed for a dreamer, a fanatic, or a fool, by the mad mob who, having eyes, see not, ears and hear not, and refuse to understand…

I am a monster because I have too much of something.

Let the Great Shepherd lead; and by winding ways not without green pastures and still waters, we shall rise insensibly, and reach the tops of the everlasting hills, where the winds are cool and the sight is glorious.

WEATHERS This is the weather the cuckoo likes, And so do I; When showers betumble the chestnut spikes, And nestlings fly; And the little brown nightingale bills his best, And they sit outside at 'The Traveller's Rest,' And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest, And citizens dream of the south and west, And so do I. This is the weather the shepherd shuns, And so do I; When beeches drip in browns and duns, And thresh and ply; And hill-hid tides throb, throe on throe, And meadow rivulets overflow, And drops on gate bars hang in a row, And rooks in families homeward go, And so do I.

For the most appalling quality of water is its strength. I love its flash and gleam, its music, its pliancy and grace, its slap against my body; but I fear its strength. I fear it as my ancestors must have feared the natural forces that they worshipped. All the mysteries are in its movement. It slips out of holes in the earth like the ancient snake. I have seen its birth; and the more I gaze at that sure and inremitting surge of water at the very top of the mountain, the more I am baffled. We make it all so easy, any child in school can understand it – water rises in the hills, it flows and finds its own level, and man can't live without it. Bud I don't understand it. I cannot fathom its power.

These tracks give to winter hill walking a distinctive pleasure. One is companioned, though not in time.

I have no hesitation in saying that Serena was my life's most present person. Even more so than my own wife, God rest her soul. Ever since I was a little boy in the distant past, she would come up the hill to visit me on weekends.

Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods or steepy mountain yields. And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold, With buckles of th purest gold; A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my love. The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love.

Those who are ignorant of Geology, find no difficulty in believing that the world was made as it is; and the shepherd, untutored in history, sees no reason to regard the green mounds which indicate the site of a Roman camp, as aught but part and parcel of the primeval hill-side.

The Bumpuses were so low down on the evolutionary totem pole that they weren't even included in Darwin's famous family tree. They had inbred and ingrown and finally emerged from the Kentucky hills like some remnant of Attila the Hung's barbarian horde. Flick said that they had webbed feet and only three toes. It might have been true.

You and me, we look out for each other. But I will take care of you a little extra, because I am your person, and you will always be my special horse.

The presence of a person does not destruct from, but enhances the silence, if if the other person is the right sort of hill companion. The perfect hill companion is the one whose identity is for the time being merged in that of the mountains, as you feel your own to be.

Summer on the high plateau can be delectable as honey; it can also be a roaring scourge. To those who love the place, both are good, since both are part of its essential nature. And it is to know its essential nature that I am seeking here. To know, that is, with the knowledge that is a process of living. This is not done easily nor in an hour. It is a tale too slow for the impatience of our age, not of immediate enough import for its desperate problems. Yet it has its own rare value. It is, for one thing, a corrective of glib assessment: one never quite knows the mountain, nor oneself in relation to it. However often I walk on them, these hills hold astonishment for me. There is no getting accustomed to them.

Egypt is a fertile valley of rich river soil, low-lying, warm, monotonous, a slow-flowing river, and beyond the limitless desert. Greece is a country of sparse fertility and keen, cold winters, all hills and mountains sharp cut in stone, where strong men must work hard to get their bread. And while Egypt submitted and suffered and turned her face toward death, Greece resisted and rejoiced and turned full-face to life. For somewhere among those steep stone mountains, in little sheltered valleys where the great hills were ramparts to defend, and men could have security for peace and happy living, something quite new came into the world: the joy of life found expression. Perhaps it was born there, among the shepherds pasturing their flocks where the wild flowers made a glory on the hillside; among the sailors on a sapphire sea washing enchanted islands purple in a luminous air.

The air is part of the mountain, which does not come to an end with its rock and its soil. It has its own air; and it is to the quality of its air that is due the endless diversity of its colourings. Brown for the most part in themselves, as soon as we see them clothed in air the hills become blue. Every shade of blue, from opalescent milky-white to indigo, is there. They are most opulently blue when rain is in the air. Then the gullies are violet. Gentian and delphinium hues, with fire in them, lurk in the folds.

We, who live in the cities, see but a little farther than across the street. We spend our days looking at the work of our own and our neighbors' hands. Small wonder our lives have so little of God in them, when we come in touch with so little that God has made.

I was afraid that I'd forgotten all the colors of the rainbow, but I know just where I can find them again.

When Geoffrey was away, the goat often took himself off. He had soon got the goats at Granny’s cottage doing his bidding, and Nanny Ogg said once that she had seen what she called ‘that devil goat’ sitting in the middle of a circle of feral goats up in the hills. She named him ‘The Mince of Darkness’ because of his small and twinkling hooves, and added, ‘Not that I don’t like him, stinky as he is. I’ve always been one for the horns, as you might say. Goats is clever. Sheep ain’t. No offence, my dear.

The third encounter came towards the end of the afternoon when Sophie had worked her way quite high into the hills. A countryman came whistling down the lane towards her. A shepherd, Sophie thought, going home after seeing to his sheep. He was a well set up young fellow of forty or so. "Gracious!" Sophie said to herself. "This morning I'd have seen him as an old man. How one's point of view does alter!" When the shepherd saw Sophie mumbling to herself, he moved rather carefully over to the other side of the lane and called out with great heartiness, "Good evening to you, Mother! Where are you off to?" "Mother?" said Sophie. "I'm not your mother, young man!" "A manner of speaking," the shepherd said, edging along against the opposite hedge. "I was only meaning a polite inquiry, seeing you walking into the hills at the end of the day. You won't get down into Upper Folding before nightfall, will you?" Sophie had not considered this. She stood in the road and thought about it. "It doesn't matter really," she said, half to herself. "You can't be fussy when you're off to seek your fortune." "Can't you indeed, Mother?" said the shepherd. He had now edged himself downhill of Sophie and seemed to feel better for it. "Then I wish you luck, Mother, provided your fortune don't have nothing to do with charming folks' cattle." And he took off down the road in great strides, almost running, but not quite. Sophie stared after him indignantly. "He thought I was a witch!" she said to her stick. She had half a mind to scare the shepherd by shouting nasty things after him, but that seemed a little unkind.

while they read and talked together, there was opened before them the great book wherein God has written, in the language of mountain, and tree, and sky, and flower, and brook, the things that make truly wise those who pause to read.

Dynamite was the milk of life to the average hillbilly of the day. He celebrated with it, feuded with it, and fished with it. The Sporting instinct runs strong in the hills. When the fishing season would open, the river would literally be aboil with TNT.

One cannot know the rivers till one has seen them at their sources; but this journey to sources is not to be undertaken lightly. One walks among elementals, and elementals are not governable. There are awakened also in oneself by the contact elementals that are as unpredictable as wind or snow

As they drove on the quiet A3320 towards Notting Hill, Doris spoke. “He won’t, you know. He won’t pay the ransom.” Wolfe offered her a reassuring smile, but inside his stomach housed a million butterflies. Shamefully, he passed wind again, the words of his captive disconcerting him on his journey to Shepherd’s Bush.

Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd's head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd's eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him.

Her face was a face to go with one through the years, and to live still in one's dreams when the sap of life is gone.

We fly above the spectral shield that shall never be quite finished, but it's all right. We are our own prism of light now.

Perhaps they never die at all. I quite believe that myself, and it is a comfort, don't you think? That there is a place where no one ever grows old?

... haste can do nothing with these hills. I knew when I had looked for a long time that I had hardly begun to see.

I have no hesitation in saying that Serena was my life's most pre-sent person. Even more so than my own wife, God rest her soul. Ever since I was a little boy in the distant past, she would come up the hill to visit me on weekends.

Go back to that night when Divine Light, in order to illumine the darkness of men, tabernacled Himself in the world He had made… The angels and a star caught up in the reflection of that Light, as a torch lighted by a torch, and passed it on to the watchers of sheep and the searchers of skies. And lo! As the shepherds watched their flocks about the hills of Bethlehem, they were shaken by the light of the angels And lo! As wise men from beyond the land of Media and Persia searched the heavens, the brilliance of a star, like a tabernacle lamp in the sanctuary of God’s creation, beckoned them on to the stable where the star seemed to lose its light in the unearthly brilliance of the Light of the Word.

Here and there among men, there are those who pause in the hurried rush to listen to the call of a life that is more real… He who sees and hears too much is cursed for a dreamer, a fanatic, or a fool, by the mad mob who, having eyes, see not, ears and hear not, and refuse to understand… Only when we can no longer strive in the battle for earthly honors or material wealth, do we turn to the unseen but more enduring things of life; and.. we strive to hear and see the things we have so long refused to consider. Pete knew a world unseen by us, and we, therefore, fancied ourselves wiser than he. The wind in the pines, the rustle of the leaves, the murmur of the brook, the growl of thunder, and the voices of the night were all understood and answered by him. The flowers, the trees, the rocks, the hills, the clouds were to him, not lifeless things, but living friends, who laughed and wept with him as he was gay or sorrowful. ‘Poor Pete,’ we said. Was he in truth, poorer or richer than we?

The morning sea of silence broke into ripples of bird songs; and the flowers were all merry by the roadside; and the wealth of gold was scattered through the rift of the clouds while we busily went on our way and paid no heed. We sang no glad songs nor played; we went not to the village for barter; we spoke not a word nor smiled; we lingered not on the way. We quickened our pace more and more as the time sped by. The sun rose to the mid sky and doves cooed in the shade. Withered leaves danced and whirled in the hot air of noon. The shepherd boy drowsed and dreamed in the shadow of the banyan tree, and I laid myself down by the water and stretched my tired limbs on the grass. My companions laughed at me in scorn; they held their heads high and hurried on; they never looked back nor rested; they vanished in the distant blue haze. They crossed many meadows and hills, and passed through strange, far-away countries. All honour to you, heroic host of the interminable path! Mockery and reproach pricked me to rise, but found no response in me. I gave myself up for lost in the depth of a glad humiliation---in the shadow of a dim delight. The repose of the sun-embroidered green gloom slowly spread over my heart. I forgot for what I had travelled, and I surrendered my mind without struggle to the maze of shadows and songs. At last, when I woke from my slumber and opened my eyes, I saw thee standing by me, flooding my sleep with thy smile. How I had feared that the path was long and wearisome, and the struggle to reach thee was hard!

Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor, has put his signature first on all the articles against Wolsey. They say one strange allegation has been added at his behest. The cardinal is accused of whispering in the king’s ear and breathing into his face; since the cardinal has the French pox, he intended to infect our monarch. When he hears this he thinks, imagine living inside the Lord Chancellor’s head. Imagine writing down such a charge and taking it to the printer, and circulating it through the court and through the realm, putting it out there to where people will believe anything; putting it out there, to the shepherds on the hills, to Tyndale’s plowboy, to the beggar on the roads and the patient beast in its byre or stall; out there to the bitter winter winds, and to the weak early sun, and the snowdrops in the London gardens.

The presence of another person does not detract from, but enhances, the silence, if the other is the right sort of hill companion. The perfect hill companion is the one whose identity is for the time being merged in that of the mountains, as you feel your own to be. Then such speech as arises is part of a common life and cannot be alien.

By age seventeen he’d convinced himself that every human he saw was a parasite, captive to the dictates of consumption. But as he reconstructs Zeno’s translation, he realizes that the truth is infinitely more complicated, that we are all beautiful even as we are all part of the problem, and that to be a part of the problem is to be human. He cries at the end. Aethon steals into the garden in the center of the cloud city, talks to the gigantic goddess, and opens the Super Magical Extra Powerful Book of Everything. The academic articles among Zeno’s papers suggest that translators arrange the folios in such a way that leaves Aethon in the garden, inducted into the secrets of the gods, finally freed of his mortal desires. But evidently the children have decided at the last moment that the old shepherd will look away and not read to the end of the book. He eats the rose proffered by the goddess and returns home, to the mud and grass of the Arkadian hills. In a child’s cursive, beneath the crossed-out lines, Aethon’s new line is handwritten in the margin, “The world as it is is enough.

But evidently the children have decided at the last moment that the old shepherd will look away and not read to the end of the book. He eats the rose proffered by the goddess and returns home, to the mud and grass of the Arkadian hills. In a child’s cursive, beneath the crossed-out lines, Aethon’s new line is handwritten in the margin, “The world as it is is enough.

To apprehend things—walking on a hill, seeing the light change, the mist, the dark, being aware, using the whole of one’s body to instruct the spirit—yes, that is a secret life one has and knows others have. But to be able to share it, in and through words—that is what frightens me ... It dissolves one’s being, I am no longer myself but a part of a life beyond myself when I read pages which are so much an expression of myself

Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields. And we will sit upon the Rocks, Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow Rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing Madrigals. And I will make thee beds of Roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle; A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty Lambs we pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold; A belt of straw and Ivy buds, With Coral clasps and Amber studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me, and be my love. The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May-morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me, and be my love.

The world exists for our education; it is the nursery of God's children, served by troubled slaves, troubled because the children are themselves slaves—children, but not good children. Beyond its own will or knowledge, the whole creation works for the development of the children of God into the sons of God. When at last the children have arisen and gone to their Father; when they are clothed in the best robe, with a ring on their hands and shoes on their feet, shining out at length in their natural, their predestined sonship; then shall the mountains and the hills break forth before them into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Then shall the wolf dwell with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid and the calf, and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. Then shall the fables of a golden age, which faith invented, and unbelief threw into the past, unfold their essential reality, and the tale of paradise prove itself a truth by becoming a fact. Then shall every ideal show itself a necessity, aspiration although satisfied put forth yet longer wings, and the hunger after righteousness know itself blessed. Then first shall we know what was in the Shepherd's mind when he said, 'I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.

THE MEETING" "Scant rain had fallen and the summer sun Had scorched with waves of heat the ripening corn, That August nightfall, as I crossed the down Work-weary, half in dream. Beside a fence Skirting a penning’s edge, an old man waited Motionless in the mist, with downcast head And clothing weather-worn. I asked his name And why he lingered at so lonely a place. “I was a shepherd here. Two hundred seasons I roamed these windswept downlands with my flock. No fences barred our progress and we’d travel Wherever the bite grew deep. In summer drought I’d climb from flower-banked combe to barrow’d hill-top To find a missing straggler or set snares By wood or turmon-patch. In gales of March I’d crouch nightlong tending my suckling lambs. “I was a ploughman, too. Year upon year I trudged half-doubled, hands clenched to my shafts, Guiding my turning furrow. Overhead, Cloud-patterns built and faded, many a song Of lark and pewit melodied my toil. I durst not pause to heed them, rising at dawn To groom and dress my team: by daylight’s end My boots hung heavy, clodded with chalk and flint. “And then I was a carter. With my skill I built the reeded dew-pond, sliced out hay From the dense-matted rick. At harvest time, My wain piled high with sheaves, I urged the horses Back to the master’s barn with shouts and curses Before the scurrying storm. Through sunlit days On this same slope where you now stand, my friend, I stood till dusk scything the poppied fields. “My cob-built home has crumbled. Hereabouts Few folk remember me: and though you stare Till time’s conclusion you’ll not glimpse me striding The broad, bare down with flock or toiling team. Yet in this landscape still my spirit lingers: Down the long bottom where the tractors rumble, On the steep hanging where wild grasses murmur, In the sparse covert where the dog-fox patters.” My comrade turned aside. From the damp sward Drifted a scent of melilot and thyme; From far across the down a barn owl shouted, Circling the silence of that summer evening: But in an instant, as I stepped towards him Striving to view his face, his contour altered. Before me, in the vaporous gloaming, stood Nothing of flesh, only a post of wood.

A bed of roses' is first found in's The Passionate Shepherd To His Love. This was published posthumously in 1599 - Marlowe died in 1593. Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods or steepy mountain yields. And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold; A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my love. The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love.

Ain't nothin' to a flat country nohow. A man jes naturally wear hisself plumb out a walkin' on a level 'thout ary downhill t' spell him. An' then look how much more there is of hit! Take forty acres o' flat now an' hit's jest a forty, but you take forty acres o' this here Ozark country an' God 'lmighty only knows how much 'twould be if hit war rolled out flat. 'Taint no wonder 't all, God rested when he made these here hills; he jes naturally had t' quit, fer he done his beatenest an' war plumb gin out.

Here and there among men, there are those who pause in the hurried rush to listen to the call of a life that is more real. He who sees and hears too much is cursed for a dreamer, a fanatic, or a fool, by the mad mob who, having eyes, see not, ears and hear not, and refuse to understand. Only when we can no longer strive in the battle for earthly honors or material wealth, do we turn to the unseen but more enduring things of life; and we strive to hear and see the things we have so long refused to consider.

Three miles from my adopted city lies a village where I came to peace. The world there was a calm place, even the great Danube no more than a pale ribbon tossed onto the landscape by a girl’s careless hand. Into this stillness I had been ordered to recover. The hills were gold with late summer; my rooms were two, plus a small kitchen, situated upstairs in the back of a cottage at the end of the Herrengasse. From my window I could see onto the courtyard where a linden tree twined skyward — leafy umbilicus canted toward light, warped in the very act of yearning — and I would feed on the sun as if that alone would dismantle the silence around me. At first I raged. Then music raged in me, rising so swiftly I could not write quickly enough to ease the roiling. I would stop to light a lamp, and whatever I’d missed — larks flying to nest, church bells, the shepherd’s home-toward-evening song — rushed in, and I would rage again. I am by nature a conflagration; I would rather leap than sit and be looked at. So when my proud city spread her gypsy skirts, I reentered, burning towards her greater, constant light. Call me rough, ill-tempered, slovenly— I tell you, every tenderness I have ever known has been nothing but thwarted violence, an ache so permanent and deep, the lightest touch awakens it. . . . It is impossible to care enough. I have returned with a second Symphony and 15 Piano Variations which I’ve named Prometheus, after the rogue Titan, the half-a-god who knew the worst sin is to take what cannot be given back. I smile and bow, and the world is loud. And though I dare not lean in to shout Can’t you see that I’m deaf? — I also cannot stop listening.

For what is in this world but grief and woe? O God! methinks it were a happy life To be no better than a homely swain; To sit upon a hill, as I do now, To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, Thereby to see the minutes how they run- How many makes the hour full complete, How many hours brings about the day, How many days will finish up the year, How many years a mortal man may live. When this is known, then to divide the times- So many hours must I tend my flock; So many hours must I take my rest; So many hours must I contemplate; So many hours must I sport myself; So many days my ewes have been with young; So many weeks ere the poor fools will can; So many years ere I shall shear the fleece: So minutes, hours, days, months, and years, Pass'd over to the end they were created, Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely! Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade To shepherds looking on their silly sheep, Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy To kings that fear their subjects' treachery? O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth. And to conclude: the shepherd's homely curds, His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle, His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade, All which secure and sweetly he enjoys, Is far beyond a prince's delicates- His viands sparkling in a golden cup, His body couched in a curious bed, When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.

The soul of Sardinia lies in the hills of the interior and the villages peppered among them. There, in areas such as Nuoro and Ozieri, women bake bread by the flame of the communal oven, winemakers produce their potions from small caches of grapes adapted to the stubborn soil and acrid climate, and shepherds lead their flocks through the peaks and valleys in search of the fickle flora that fuels Sardinia's extraordinary cheese culture. There are more sheep than humans roaming this island- and sheep can't graze on sand. On the table, the food stands out as something only loosely connected to the cuisine of Italy's mainland. Here, every piece of the broader puzzle has its own identity: pane carasau, the island's main staple, eats more like a cracker than a loaf of bread, built to last for shepherds who spent weeks away from home. Cheese means sheep's milk manipulated in a hundred different ways, from the salt-and-spice punch of Fiore Sardo to the infamous maggot-infested casu marzu. Fish and seafood may be abundant, but they take a backseat to four-legged animals: sheep, lamb, and suckling pig. Historically, pasta came after bread in the island's hierarchy of carbs, often made by the poorest from the dregs of the wheat harvest, but you'll still find hundreds of shapes and sizes unfamiliar to a mainland Italian. All of it washed down with wine made from grapes that most people have never heard of- Cannonau, Vermentino, Torbato- that have little market beyond the island.

After the departure of her cousin and his companions she roamed more than usual; she carried her somber spirit from one familiar shrine to the other. Even when Pansy and the Countess were with her she felt the touch of a vanished world. The carriage, leaving the walls of Rome behind, rolled through narrow lanes where the wild honeysuckle had begun to tangle itself in the hedges, or waited for her in quiet places where the fields lay near, while she strolled further and further over the flower-freckled turf, or sat on a stone that had once had a use and gazed through the veil of her personal sadness at the splendid sadness of the scene — at the dense, warm light, the far gradations and soft confusions of colour, the motionless shepherds in lonely attitudes, the hills where the cloud-shadows had the lightness of a blush.

VIII 'Farewell to barn and stack and tree, Farewell to Severn shore. Terence, look your last at me, For I come home no more. 'The sun burns on the half-mown hill, By now the blood is dried; And Maurice amongst the hay lies still And my knife is in his side. 'My mother thinks us long away; 'Tis time the field were mown. She had two sons at rising day, To-night she'll be alone. 'And here's a bloody hand to shake, And oh, man, here's good-bye; We'll sweat no more on scythe and rake, My blood hands and I. 'I wish you strength to bring you pride, And a love to keep you clean, And I wish you luck, come Lammastide, At racing on the green. 'Long for me the rick will wait, And long will wait the fold, And long will stand the empty plate, And dinner will be cold.' IX On moonlit heath and lonesome bank The sheep beside me graze; And yon the gallows used to clank Fast by the four cross ways. A careless shepherd once would keep The flocks by moonlight there, And high amongst the glimmering sheep The dead man stood on air. They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail: The whistles blow forlorn. And trains all night groan on the rail To men that die at morn. There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night, Or wakes, as may betide, A better lad, if things went right, Than most that sleep outside. And naked to the hangman's noose The morning clocks will ring A neck God made for other use Than strangling in a string. And sharp the link of life will snap, And dead on air will stand Heels that held up as straight a chap As treads upon the land. So here I'll watch the night and wait To see the morning shine, When he will hear the stroke of eight And not the stroke of nine; And wish my friend as sound a sleep As lads' I did not know, That shepherded the moonlit sheep A hundred years ago.

If you do come to Christ he will appear as a lion, in his glorious power and dominion, to defend you. All those excellencies of his in which he appears as a lion, shall be yours, and shall be employed for you, in your defense, for your safety, and to promote your glory; he will be as a lion to fight against your enemies: he that touches you, or offends you, will provoke his wrath, as he that stirs up a lion. Unless your enemies can conquer this lion, they shall not be able to destroy or hurt you; unless they are stronger than he, they shall not be able to hinder your happiness. Is. 31:4, “For thus hath the Lord spoken unto me, like as the lion, and the young lion, roaring on his prey, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them; so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight for Mount Zion, and for the hill thereof.

I feel like I’m on holy ground here, do you?' she called to the crowd through her mic. 'Special spot, special spot,' somebody called back. They were not wrong: what happened here in a mountainous backwater of a colonial outpost had gathered enough momentum to shift the course of history. Shepherd told the story of the anonymous woman who was said to have started the first trash house fire on the night of December 27, 1831. 'Yes, it led to her death,' she said, 'but it gave birth to abolition within the British Empire. I’m going to rename her tonight. Guess what I’m going to name her? ‘Fire.’ Tonight we christen ‘Fire.’ This time we want to have the flames of passion in our hearts. As I look across the hills, I can almost see the fires lit in 1831. I believe the hills were joyful that night as they witnessed our ancestors stand against oppression and torture.' Her voice rose: 'Ancestors, we see you! We hear you every time we sing or dance. Everything we do, the roots are in what our ancestors did to survive.

In ancient times, it was said that the goddess Selene drove the moon across the sky. Each night she followed her brother Helios, the sun, to catch his fiery rays and reflect the light back to earth. One night on her journey, she looked down and saw Endymion sleeping in the hills. She fell in love with the beautiful shepherd. Night after night she looked down on his gentle beauty and loved him more, until finally one evening she left the moon between the sun and the earth and went down to the grassy fields to lie beside him. For three nights she stayed with him, and the moon, unable to catch the sun's rays, remained dark. People feared the dark moon. They said it brought death and freed evil forces to roam the black night. Zeus, King of the Gods, was angered by the darkness and punished Selene by giving Endymion eternal sleep. Selene returned to the moon and drove it across the night sky, but her love was too strong. She hid Endymion in a cave; and now, three nights each lunar month, she leaves the moon to visit her sleeping lover and cover him with silver kisses. In his sleep, Endymion dreams he holds the moon. He has given Selene many daughters to guard the night. They are powerful and beautiful like their mother, and mortal like their father.

I would rather face the devil himself than that man,” Elizabeth said with a repressed shudder. “I daresay,” Lucinda agreed, clutching her umbrella with one hand and the side of the cart with her other. The nearer the time came, the more angry and confused Elizabeth became about this meeting. For the first four days of their journey, her tension had been greatly allayed by the scenic grandeur of Scotland with its rolling hills and deep valleys carpeted in bluebells and hawthorne. Now, however, as the hour of confronting him drew near, not even the sight of the mountains decked out in spring flowers or the bright blue lakes below could calm her mounting tension. “Furthermore, I cannot believe he has the slightest desire to see me.” “We shall soon find out.” In the hills above the high, winding track that passed for a road, a shepherd paused to gape at an old wooden wagon making its laborious way along the road below. “Lookee there, Will,” he told his brother. “Do you see what I see?” The brother looked down and gaped, his lips parting in a toothless grin of glee at the comical sight of two ladies-bonnets, gloves, and all-who were perched primly and precariously on the back of Sean MacLaesh’s haywagon, their backs ramrod-stiff, their feet sticking straight out beyond the wagon. “Don’t that beat all,” Will laughed, and high above the haywagon he swept off his cap in a mocking salute to the ladies. “I heered in the village Ian Thornton was acomin’ home. I’ll wager ‘e’s arrived, and them two are his fancy pieces, come to warm ‘is bed an’ see to ‘is needs.” Blessedly unaware of the conjecture taking place between the two spectators up in the hills, Miss Throckmorton-Jones brushed angrily and ineffectually at the coating of dust clinging to her black skirts. “I have never in all my life been subjected to such treatment!” she hissed furiously as the wagon they were riding in gave another violet, creaking lurch and her shoulder banged into Elizabeth’s. “You may depend on this-I shall give Mr. Ian Thornton a piece of my mind for inviting two gentlewomen to this godforsaken wilderness, and never even mentioning that a traveling baroche is too wide for the roads!” Elizabeth opened her mouth to say something soothing, but just then the wagon gave another teeth-jarring lurch, and she clutched at the wooden side. “From what little I know of him, Lucy,” she managed finally when the wagon righted, “he wouldn’t care in the least what we’ve been through. He’s rude and inconsiderate-and those are his good points-“ “Whoa there, whoa,” the farmer called out, sawing back on the swayback nags reins and bringing the wagon to a groaning stop. “That’s the Thornton place up there atop yon hill,” the farmer said, pointing.

The flock of the Lord is in very bad shape. As Jeremiah lamented, the sheep have become lost sheep because their shepherds have led them astray by making them turn aside to the mountains and hills, to things that will keep them excited and keep them moving. They are being led to the things of the Lord, but not to the Lord Himself. Many are now lukewarm because they have so much, so many distractions. Others are lukewarm because they are worn out from all the hype and continuous running to and fro. “You are right about your generation. Even so, the biggest victories can only come with the biggest battles. Your generation has failed, but it does not have to end in failure. Those who repent will be given the grace to change. Then they will be given one of the greatest honors of the ages—they will be allowed to fight in the last battle. All of the prophets and righteous ones have been waiting to see these days. You are living them. “I was surprised by the condition that you, and the few who have made it this far, have come in. But now I see strength. If the others who come have this and can keep it, then you will prevail.” “What is that strength?” I asked. “You are quick to repent. You are not afraid of an accurate evaluation of yourself. You do not try to hide your faults or make excuses for them. That is a foundation that victory can be built upon. Only with this accurate evaluation will you fully embrace the cross as your hope. The power of God is the cross, and those who live the life of the cross will live in power. “To be changed into the image of the Lord, you must see His glory with an unveiled face. Excuses are the biggest veil that keep people from seeing Him as He is, and from seeing themselves as they are. Those with this veil do not change. Even if they see His glory it is distorted through the veil they wear, so they are not changed by it. If you keep this humility it will not take long to get you ready for your purpose.

The goal of living a life of faith is never to go against God, but to go with Him. It isn’t just about getting what you want, it’s about seeking God’s best, then trusting Him with His answer.” —Linda Evans Shepherd

We spend our days looking at the work of our own and our neighbors' hands. Small wonder our lives have so little of God in them, when we come in touch with so little that God has made.

And this is the stuff," said he to himself, "that makes possible the civilization that produces them.

The Mountain of the Lord 4 In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. 2 Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 3 He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. 4 Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken. 5 All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever. The Lord’s Plan 6 “In that day,” declares the Lord, “I will gather the lame; I will assemble the exiles and those I have brought to grief. 7 I will make the lame my remnant, those driven away a strong nation. The Lord will rule over them in Mount Zion from that day and forever. 8 As for you, watchtower of the flock, stronghold[a] of Daughter Zion, the former dominion will be restored to you; kingship will come to Daughter Jerusalem.” A Promised Ruler From Bethlehem 5 [a]Marshal your troops now, city of troops, for a siege is laid against us. They will strike Israel’s ruler on the cheek with a rod. 2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans[b] of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” 3 Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a son, and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. 4 He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. 5 And he will be our peace

Master Clement, how far dost thou make it to Higham-on-the-Way?" "A matter of forty miles," said the Chapman; "because, as thou wottest, if ye ride south from hence, ye shall presently bring your nose up against the big downs, and must needs climb them at once; and when ye are at the top of Bear Hill, and look south away ye shall see nought but downs on downs with never a road to call a road, and never a castle, or church, or homestead: nought but some shepherd's hut; or at the most the little house of a holy man with a little chapel thereby in some swelly of the chalk, where the water hath trickled into a pool; for otherwise the place is waterless." Therewith he took a long pull at the tankard by his side, and went on:

57. Every Time You Surprise Yourself…You Inspire Yourself SAS selection is designed to test you. Any mental flaw, any physical failing will be exposed by the relentless series of challenges aimed at finding your breaking point. Lung-bursting cross-mountain marches through the snow, uphill sprints, carrying another recruit in a fireman’s lift up and down steep hills, often in driving rain, sometimes in sub-zero temperatures. As selection goes on, these ‘beasting’ sessions get harder and harder. And yet I also found that the more of them I came through in one piece (albeit exhausted and battered), the more easily I could cope with them. It was the SAS way of testing our mental resolve through physical battering. Selection is all about realizing that the pain never lasts for ever. And every time I was tested and I hung on in there, the better I understood that it was just a question of doing it again - one more time - until someone eventually said it was the end, and I had passed. I now know that unless you really, truly test yourself, you’ll never have any idea just how capable you can be. And with each small achievement, your confidence will grow. Most people never reach their limit because they are never sufficiently tested. This means I’ve got two good pieces of news for you. The first is that whenever you do something beyond your ‘comfort zone’ and realize you are still standing, the more you will believe that the impossible is actually possible. And on the road to success, belief is everything. And the second piece of news is that we all have much further to push ourselves than we might initially imagine. Inside us all, just waiting to be tested, is a better, bolder, braver version of who we think we are. All you have to do is give it an opportunity to be unleashed. So pick big targets and surprise yourself with how capable you really are deep down. Remember David and Goliath? Rather than David, the young shepherd boy, looking at this giant of a warrior and thinking, ‘Yikes, he’s huge, I’m beat’ - he thought, ‘With a target that big, how can I possibly miss!’ Success, in life and adventure, is dependent on the retraining of our mind.

The wood that awaits you is a place of no time. A place of new barters, a hill you must climb. Betwixt ancient trees, where the mist cuts bone-deep, the Spirit safeguards, like a dragon its keep. The wood knows no road, no path through the snare. Step into the mist—it will guide your way there. Ayris and I stepped into the alderwood, and the mist homed in on my sister. It shot into her nose, her mouth. She gasped—breathed it in— And the warmth of the sun snuffed

Ravyn wrenched at roots with bloody hands. But he couldn’t get Jespyr out. He turned to the Nightmare. Shouted a broken plea: “Help me.” Our shared vision snapped forward. And though I had no control over my body, I’d swear it was me who tightened the Nightmare’s grip on his sword. He drew his blade over his hand, cut a thin slice in his palm, and stalked toward the twin alders. When he slapped a bloody handprint onto the pale alder, the hill did not merely shudder. It quaked. The trees spoke as one, their voices a dissonant, wretched harmony. Taxus.

There are many circles that draw through time,” he said. “Many mirrored events, many woods that inevitably lead us to the same place. Much of what happened five hundred years ago has happened again.” His eyes narrowed. “But not this. You will not make a monster out of him as you did me, forcing him to give up a sister. Let go of Jespyr Yew. Or I will cleave your roots from this earth.” The alders went rigid, their slithering roots and twisting branches halting to an eerie stillness. Then, so abruptly I’d no time to scream, they seized Ravyn, ripping him away from Jespyr. He shouted, thrashed, but was tossed with abandon through the doorway onto the pale shore. The trees turned their vicious branches on the Nightmare. But his sword found them first. He took to the roots, cutting Jespyr free with furious precision. The hill trembled, the opening between the alders as narrow as my bedroom door at Spindle House. Keep going, I urged him. He pried Jespyr’s limp body off the earth and slung her over his shoulders. The two of them were struck over and over by flailing branches. Ravyn reached out, the space between the alders now so narrow he could not get back out. “Take my hand!” The Nightmare took it. When Ravyn yanked him forward, the doorway between the twin alders slammed shut. The trees and the hilltop were gone. All that remained now was a pale shore, accompanied by the sound of waves. And the oppressive smell of salt.

The Nightmare paused, looming over Ravyn like a shadow. Slowly, he knelt. “Look at me.” Ravyn’s gaze seemed far and near. It crashed into my window. “A King’s reign is wrought with burden. Weighty decisions ripple through centuries. Still, decisions must be made.” The Nightmare’s whisper was like wind in the trees. “You are strong, Ravyn Yew. I have known that since the moment I clapped eyes on you. And you must keep being strong—” He turned and faced the hilltop. “For what comes next.” The hill’s crown

I located that scroll three days ago when I first heard of the events in Bethlehem with the child.  I have read it many times since.  The scroll is a prediction by my father, given to him in a dream.  It speaks of a baby who will be born within a century and who will become the savior of mankind.  It speaks of God’s son coming as a child in a stable.  It speaks of an earthly mother and a heavenly father.  And it speaks of you.”   “It . . . it speaks of me?”  Benjamin was astonished.  “A scroll written seventy years ago speaks of me?”    Onias laughed.  “Not just you.  The most exciting thing about your visit today was when you told me you were shepherds.  The scroll of my father says that shepherds in the hills outside Bethlehem will be visited by messengers from God and will be shown where the newborn King lies.

Perhaps there is another reason we are told so little about these people we meet ever so briefly. It raises our curiosity and, in order to satisfy our curiosity, we must go beyond what we are told and ask questions. Take, for example, John the Forerunner. We are told more about John than most you will meet, yet we are told very little. We know Mary and Elizabeth were relatives. We know that Mary visited Elizabeth when they were both pregnant. Does this mean that Jesus and John grew up together? They lived eighty miles apart, a significant distance in that time. How often did they see one another? Jesus grew up in the village of Nazareth in a northern area called Galilee. John lived south in the hills of Judea, practically growing up in the wilderness. Were one or both influenced by the Essenes who had withdrawn into the desert to live in simplicity and purity and to usher in the coming of the Messiah? The wilderness was their home and they lived near Qumran. Here the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by a shepherd boy in 1947.

But here's the thing: shepherds were despised. They couldn't keep the ceremonial laws while traveling about the hills, they were often regarded as thieves, and because they were considered unreliable, they were not permitted to give evidence in court. Yet this was whom God chose for his witnesses and entrusted with his good news.

Your home, too, isn’t it?” “Duty requires I remain here, with the King,” he said, his expression unwavering. “But it is not my home. My family’s estate is in town. The Destriers often train there, as they once did at Spindle House.” I frowned. “The castle at the top of the hill?” “The very same.” Castle Yew was old—the grounds historic. The wrought-iron gate and the dark, climbing ivy resided under the shadow of ancient yew trees—tall and foreboding. Beyond lay a statuary, a maze of stone and hedges, then the towering, ominous house. I had walked past the gate many times as a child, certain to my bones there was something to fear under those trees. I’d never been inside.

So they turned towards the hills, which were blue and purple in the setting sun--a shepherd did he but know it, lives in halls more splendid than a king's....

So with hearts made high these sat night-long by the outworks of battle, and their watchfires blazed numerous about them. As when in the sky the stars about the moon’s shining are seen in all their glory, when the air has fallen to stillness, and all the high places of the hills are clear, and the shoulders out-jutting, and the deep ravines, as endless bright air spills from the heavens and all the stars are seen, to make glad the heart of the shepherd; such in their numbers blazed the watchfires the Trojans were burning between the waters of Xanthos and the ships, before Ilion. A thousand fires were burning there in the plain, and beside each one sat fifty men in the flare of the blazing firelight. And standing each beside his chariot, champing white barley and oats, the horses waited for the dawn to mount to her high place.

We are invited to believe that He is the Lord of hosts and the warrior of heaven. That in being for us, no one can be against us. Courage is a by-product of faith. Which isn’t a feeling or a mere affection but the commitment to trusting in the good Shepherd. Hoping in Him more than anything opens us up to the freedom of believing the best about our life. Instead of fearing evil, we can expect good. And that it will surely follow us all of our days.

David resisted fear by being secure in God’s presence and protection. You don’t have to fear evil when the always good God walks with you. He says for “you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Which brings to mind David, the shepherd boy who killed a giant with the same items he used to protect his sheep. The resources the good God used to protect you are the same resources He will use to fight for you.

I’d like to build a display case for the crystal,” the boy said to the merchant. “We could place it outside, and attract those people who pass at the bottom of the hill.” “I’ve never had one before,” the merchant answered. “People will pass by and bump into it, and pieces will be broken.” “Well, when I took my sheep through the fields some of them might have died if we had come upon a snake. But that’s the way life is with sheep and with shepherds.

The Cairngorm Mountains are a mass of granite thrust up through the schists and gneiss that form the lower surrounding hills, planed down by the ice cap, and split, shattered and scooped by frost, glaciers and the strength of running water. Their physiognomy is in the geography books—so many square miles of area, so many lochs, so many summits of over 4000 feet—but this is a pallid simulacrum of their reality, which, like every reality that matters ultimately to human beings, is a reality of the mind.

Eugene Peterson speaks of the “God-dominated imagination” that developed in David as he spent his days and nights watching sheep on the Judean hillsides.19 It appears that something similar happened in Patrick. In the lush, green hills of western Ireland, in the towering clouds that rolled across the big sky, even in the most inclement of weather, Patrick sensed the presence of a Creator who hadn’t seemed very real or relevant or necessary in his earlier life of ease. For all its disadvantages, the shepherd’s life leaves plenty of time to think and pray, and Patrick used his time to great advantage. Far from wallowing in self-pity, Patrick celebrated his enslavement, the very shock he needed to bring him to his senses. Throughout his Confession, Patrick’s language is shot through with the confidence that, whatever his circumstances, God was doing good things in his life. He viewed his kidnapping and slavery as God’s direct work; this work, however, was not merely punitive but remedial, not evidence that God had forsaken him, but that God wished to draw Patrick to himself. So rather than growing bitter, Patrick allowed God’s chastisement to do its work in him. His enslavement, he believed, was a hard mercy, but a mercy nonetheless. From the very beginning of the Confession, we get a glimpse of Patrick’s indomitable joy. His tone echoed that of Paul, who wrote from prison,

He saw the great hills heaving their dark forms into the sky, and in his soul he felt the spirit of the wilderness and the mystery of the hour.

I know for certain that darkness can be defeated by hope, and I know that one girl, no matter how small, can make her dreams come alive. (From the Author's Note)

Traveler, do not drink the warm water from this pool, all muddy from the quick mountain brook and the intruding sheep. Go a little further up the hill where the heifers are grazing, and there by a shepherd's pine you will find bubbling up through the porous rock a spring colder than northern snow.

There is a bond of fellowship in sorrow that knows no conventionalities.

The old scholar raised his head and looked long at the girl. Her splendid form, glowing with the rich life and strength of the wilderness, showed in every line the proud old southern blood. Could she learn to be a fine lady? Mr. Howitt thought of the women of the cities, pale, sickly, colorless, hot-house posies, beside this mountain flower. What would this beautiful creature be, had she their training? What would she gain? What might she not lose? Aloud he said, "My dear child, do you know what it is that you ask?

Rwanda in 1949 was a land of enchantment—a wilderness where people and animals lived in harmony untouched by the outside world. Shepherds led their cattle to drink at the lakes and pools until evening, when elephants began to migrate toward the watering holes to drink and bathe. Time was told by the sun, and the moon was the calendar. A house could be built in a few days, made from trees and bamboo gathered from the forests and roofed with grass. Men prayed that the weather would be favorable for their crops, young boys dreamed of owning large herds of cattle, and little girls cradled and sang to their dolls made of spiky flowers called red-hot pokers, imagining a baby of their own. The markets were social gathering places and trading centers where a finely woven grass mat was exchanged for forty pounds of potatoes or a basket for storing grain.

To apprehend things, walking on a hill, seeing the light change, being aware, using the whole of one’s body to instruct the spirit – yes, that is a secret life one has and knows others have. But to be able to share it, and thro’ words…it dissolves one’s being, I am no longer myself, but a part of a life beyond myself.

To walk out through the top of a cloud is good. Once or twice I have had the luck to stand on a tip of ground and see a pearled and lustrous plain stretch out to the horizons. Far off, another peak lifts like a small island from the smother. It is like the morning of creation. Once on Lochnagar, we had watched the dawn light strike the Cairngorms, like the blue bloom on plums. Each scarp and gully was translucent, no smallest detail blurred. A pure, clear sun poured into each recess. But looking south, we caught our breath. For the world had vanished. There was nothing but an immense stretch of hummocked snow. Or was it sea? It gleamed, and was the high hills as the sea washes rock.

Invaders crest the final hill, and drop their lance on me, I rise and fight, the last to stand, futile though it be.

As were images of Shakespeare’s times. An eye-witness to Dylan in Australia that same year, remembered that it “was amazing to watch him work on a song. He would have the poetry of it worked out in his head, and he would say to Robbie [Robertson, guitar player]: ‘…just imagine this cat who is very Elizabethan, with garters and a long shepherd’s horn and he’s coming over the hill with the sun behind him. That’s the sound I want.’”14