distant prospects reconsidered

at this remove the world becomes too strange
for understanding yet we work our wills
upon the ones that mark the greatest range
once great mountains now just gentle hills
with greatest ceremony the spaces marked
become the holy places for such odd folk
as those who when the dragon softly barked
conceived that they no longer bore the yoke
of such a servitude as not one would despise
but understand the purpose we have made
the beast that took all nature in its eyes
departs and leaves us but a darkish shade
marking the world the lightest of the kind
unclogs the senses and redeems the blind