 | Poems: Second Series |  |
115
THE TERROR PIKE.
FOUR SONNETS.
We climbed or crept, full in the morning's glow,
Too high for fear, along that narrow edge
Of treacherous splinter and imagined ledge—
On either hand four thousand feet below
Fell walls of naked rock or dazzling snow,
Sudden and sheer, to where a river rolled
Out of its frozen fountain—green and cold—
Tempestuous billows in arrested flow.
And from that height we looked on snowy field,
And iron peak and glacier heaped around
In giant desolation: everywhere
A stillness reigned triumphant as despair,
A stillness ever and anon revealed—
Not broken—by the avalanche's sound.
Too high for fear, along that narrow edge
Of treacherous splinter and imagined ledge—
On either hand four thousand feet below
Fell walls of naked rock or dazzling snow,
Sudden and sheer, to where a river rolled
Out of its frozen fountain—green and cold—
Tempestuous billows in arrested flow.
And from that height we looked on snowy field,
And iron peak and glacier heaped around
In giant desolation: everywhere
A stillness reigned triumphant as despair,
A stillness ever and anon revealed—
Not broken—by the avalanche's sound.
Grim in your desolation—iron peaks,
Whose snow slopes burned beneath the cloudless sky,
Whose glittering glaciers pained the gazing eye,—
Fiends of the wilderness! your spirit speaks
Now even as then, and mine uprising wreaks
Its utmost force against you, and recoils
Crushed and appalled—for so your grandeur foils
Feeling itself, withholding all it seeks.
Yet not in vain I, wearied and oppressed,
Gazed on you then and was athirst to see
A leaf or floweret: even while I shrank
From you, the winter of your stillness sank
Into my soul, and, locked within my breast,
Lived with my life and grew a part of me.
Whose snow slopes burned beneath the cloudless sky,
Whose glittering glaciers pained the gazing eye,—
Fiends of the wilderness! your spirit speaks
116
Its utmost force against you, and recoils
Crushed and appalled—for so your grandeur foils
Feeling itself, withholding all it seeks.
Yet not in vain I, wearied and oppressed,
Gazed on you then and was athirst to see
A leaf or floweret: even while I shrank
From you, the winter of your stillness sank
Into my soul, and, locked within my breast,
Lived with my life and grew a part of me.
It yet may be that I shall turn to you,
O ice and iron of that silent land,
If ever with imperious command
Some voice serene shall bid my heart renew
Old wounds of anguish—and no more pursue
The hanging prize of some desirèd fruit,
But pluck from earth unflinching by the root
The flower of hope so cherished while it grew:
Then shall I find you, snow and precipice,
And cataract of glacier, hidden deep
As thews and sinews of my inmost soul,
And strong in you my passion to control,
Grow hard as cliff of granite, cold as ice
And lonely as the mountains in their sleep.
O ice and iron of that silent land,
If ever with imperious command
Some voice serene shall bid my heart renew
Old wounds of anguish—and no more pursue
The hanging prize of some desirèd fruit,
But pluck from earth unflinching by the root
The flower of hope so cherished while it grew:
Then shall I find you, snow and precipice,
And cataract of glacier, hidden deep
As thews and sinews of my inmost soul,
And strong in you my passion to control,
Grow hard as cliff of granite, cold as ice
And lonely as the mountains in their sleep.
117
But now farewell: to other scenes I turn:
Your frozen summits for awhile recede:
For well I know where woodland valleys lead
To narrower glens of mingled heath and fern,
And bushes that o'erhang the wayward burn;
And on through bleaker uplands I have traced
The wandering stream to where 'mid mossy waste
Mists of the moorland feed its fountain urn.
Dear to my every mood—in these I find
Companionship in gladness as in pain:
I know the hour when sunset's violet glow
Bathes the far lines of purple: and I know
As well the wailings of autumnal wind,
That bring grey clouds and melancholy rain.
Your frozen summits for awhile recede:
For well I know where woodland valleys lead
To narrower glens of mingled heath and fern,
And bushes that o'erhang the wayward burn;
And on through bleaker uplands I have traced
The wandering stream to where 'mid mossy waste
Mists of the moorland feed its fountain urn.
Dear to my every mood—in these I find
Companionship in gladness as in pain:
I know the hour when sunset's violet glow
Bathes the far lines of purple: and I know
As well the wailings of autumnal wind,
That bring grey clouds and melancholy rain.
| Poems: Second Series | |