What lies beyond! The Moon
Hangs blood-red in the valley,
Where below the swift black waters flow,
Roaring their unrest to the soundless snow,
Turning their heads to snap their spuming fangs
Like wolves that howl as from a wood they go.
And there She overhangs —
So round, so red, so low.

Shall I, too, bare my teeth at thee, O Moon,
Now I have climbed so high
And these white Peaks are silent? By and by
Perhaps they'll speak, or is this all they say,
This empty stare while the pale frozen sky
Sucks out thy colour until small and grey
Thy wan corpse faintly moves throughout the day?

Hast thou not lured me here with thy cold light,
Washing the mountains with a waveless flood,
Intangible, without a line or bubble,
But yet alive, filling the straining sight
With a strange brightness, filling the empty night
With a great splendour! Pour out thy ebbing blood
Into my soul else thou escape and die,
My ardour lost, and thou a frost-wraith white.

My arms close fast on nothing. Thou dost grow
Paler and yet more pale. The white Peaks gleam,
Shining like icy Ghosts across the snow
As thou removest high, removest high,
High out of reach, of thought, of hope — a Dream
That called me up the valley to those peaks,
To fade elusively into the sky.