 | Sonnets in Switzerland and Italy |  |
THE GUIDE'S FAREWELL
TO ULRICH LAUENER AT LAUTERBRUNNEN
Withered of form, in spirit unsubdued,
The conqueror of the mountain solitude,
He stood alone; his snow-seared eyes still scanned
The well-loved heights: I held his horny hand,
That hand so sure in all vicissitude,—
And this was he who first of men had stood
On many a virgin peak of Oberland;
Who well had kept all charges to him given.
Now he was old, his bones were racked with pain;
‘Farewell,’ I cried, ‘brave heart, we meet again!’
And Ulrich answered grave, beneath his breath,
‘Master, no more on earth! perchance in Heaven.’
—In May of 1893, at Lauterbrunnen, I met Ulrich Lauener, a last survivor of his contemporaries, the famous band of Oberland guides. Himself the first to stand on the summit of the Weisshorn, Dent-Blanche, Rothhorn, and Grand Cornier, he was guide to Professor Tyndall and other of the most daring climbers in the middle of this century. Now an old man of 72, erect, but stiff and much troubled with rheumatism, his dim eyes lit up as he talked of the ascents he had made. Even as late as last summer he had ascended the Jungfrau. ‘I was ever a careful man, far-sighted,’ he said, ‘and in all my climbing, thank God, never met with accident.’ ‘Farewell, Ulrich,’ said my friend, who had one time employed him as guide, ‘we shall meet again.’—‘On earth no more, sir,’ answered Ulrich solemnly, ‘perchance in Heaven.’
| Sonnets in Switzerland and Italy | |