Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SUMMITS, by VICTOR DE LAPRADE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SUMMITS, by                    
First Line: I will go and drink the waters pure that feed the rolling river
Last Line: Shall never guess the wayfarer returned is even he.
Subject(s): Mountains; Water; Hills; Downs (great Britain)


I WILL go and drink the waters pure that feed the rolling river;
I will tread the frozen azure of the glacier under heel;
I will bathe my body in the waves of new-born winds that shiver;
The surging flood of thrilling air shall temper me like steel.

Let me slumber on the mountain-top that I have toiled in winning,
And, thrust in the eternal snow, my hands be purified;
There, in that air, life's currents have their impulse and beginning,
Ah! let me hence and breathe full deep of that unsullied tide.

Then up! the moaning wind wanes out beneath the giant boulder,
Doubt cannot soar so high aloof as that chill height I seek;
Then up! with calm and silence swathing brow, and breast and shoulder,
Within that rocky steadfastness God's solemn voice shall speak.

The air I breathe on that chill height shall fill me on descending,
Along the sombre ways a ray of light shall follow me;
And those that saw the toiling man toward the summit wending,
Shall never guess the wayfarer returned is even he.





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