Classic Poem

Alpinist--
Excelsior, there's nought we may not dare!
Why, now, confess defeat, when plain in sight
Looms the stern peak--to which we've toiled and fought
Up many a mountain gorge and soaring height?
It were a shame if we should now go back
And, leaving all we've won, retrace our track.

Undaunted by the circling mists we camped,
Laid siege; while hail and snow went storming by,
Assaulted through the brilliant mists; that wrapped
A veil, impenetrable to the eye,
Around the wastes of ice, the snowfields bare
And craggy peaks that pierce the upper air.

We scorned to own defeat, when lost to sight,
'Mid cloud and snowstorm, was that summit cold;
But started out the morn e're yet the sun
The highest cornices had edged with gold.
See now! the noonday glare reveals our fate
Above a rampart white and sharp arete.

Guide--
Crevasses open-mouthed have reft the face
Of brightly gleaming ice, that upward led.
Their clear green depths a gap impassable present
Across the glacier slope ahead;
Save on yon steep and scintillating slope
Which promises success to axe and rope.

Alpinist--
Roped man to man we'll scale the giddy height:
Step after step cut up those slopes of snow
That, gleaming spotless in the noonday light,
Curve out of sight above and far below.
What rumbled? (G.) From yon distant cliff was hurled
An avalanche which shakes this snowy world.

Guide--
The rocks I've gained through chimneys rough and steep
That crumble at a careless touch, and send
A rattling train of rubble bounding down
The icy slopes, which great crevasses rend.
Re-entrant over here the mountain dips
Into a gulf, which eddying mists eclipse.

Perched on this tottering and steep arete,
One hardly dares to even whisper low;
Lest, crashing from their crumbling pedestals,
The rotten crags through empty space will go
Two thousand feet down, where the hard neve
Is packed by ice that avalanched that way.

I'll anchor fast, and hold the rope, that you
By hand and foot and alpenstock may scale.
A traverse of the skyline rocks we'll make
And yon last gleaming slope of snow assail.
It leads up to a virgin mountain's head,
On which our feet will be the first to tread.

* * * *

The highest of a glacier covered range,
Its proud and lofty crest at length hath bowed
Before the bold attack of alpinists
Undaunted by the steeps or storm or cloud;
and all the dangers than in grim array
The spirit of the mountain brought to play.