Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/38

28 And straightway to a sinking gulf it came,

Tortuous and vague, with glimpses of the moon

Seaming the rock far on; sheer from the pit

The wall adverse, one bulging precipice,

With random ledges ribbed of pine and fir,

Struck heaven, and eclipsed the highest stars;

Upon the hither side the fissure hugged

The scaling way, and from its hungry gloom,

That felt the beam of light in his young eyes,

The blind deep seemed to heave its wandering arms.

Upon the brink profound his cold hand clung,

Now, past the jut, pursued the crumbled shelf,

And won beyond, where cliffs retreating rolled

A vast moraine, steep-furrowed by old floods—

Far-reaching swells, like billowy seas aslant,

Where many a rocky bed poured headlong down;

And higher up the swaying slopes he rose,

And further to the rent the rough slide fell,

O'er which the loose stones clattered, heard no more.

The winds dropped down; black clouds like bars shot o'er;

And, opposite, the pine-sheathed mountain moaned.

On many a mortal death he set his foot;

Not these he feared; he feared the heart within;