The ragged heather-ridge is black
Against the sunset's frosty rose:
With rustling breath down syke and slack
The icy eager north-wind blows.

It shivers through my hair and flicks
The blood into my tingling cheek,
And with adventurous urging pricks
My spirit that in drowsy reek

Of glowing peats had dreamt too long,
Crouched in the cosy inglenook,
Till life seemed vainer than the song
The kettle sings upon the crook —

Till life seemed vainer than the puff
Of steam that perished in hot air,
A fretful fume, a vapour-stuff
Of gusty passion, cloudy care.

But as once more I watch the stars
Rekindle in the glittering west.
Beyond the fell-tops naked scars,
Life rouses in me with new zest.

The immortal wakens in my blood
Beneath the wind's relentless thresh,
And universal life at flood
Breaks through the bonds of bone and flesh.

I scale the utmost peak of night,
The eternal breath upon my face,
Till borne on wings of singing light
I lose myself in starry space.