Classic Poem

We cast off blankets, we who have not slept,
And cold grope forth uphill.
Night, fever-charged, numb, watchful Night, has crept,
Uneasy dying, towards tremendous Day.
Dawn is not yet. all's chill,
Cloud on drench'd grass, clouds washing round the fells,
Forth over battlements and deeps
A sea of curdled fugitive cloud —
Filmy panic-pale hordes, all in flight
One way — the ice-floes of an arctic strait;
But, through fissures, darknesses untold below.

Of the cordon of main Alps — no sign. . . .
From cloud a threatening tor outswells;
From far abyss one glimpsed outlier
Couchant, of vassal buttresses; and lo!
White Horn, or Tagliaferro's rigid spine
Slanted, intense, along his ledges sheer. . . .
Ah, brothers, brothers, who could have believed
It cost so much that this wall should be heaved?
Writ in these fulgural archives
Of conflicts settled, of denuded hate,
Folded together are the hostile lives.
Here they are twinned, who strove to dominate!
How closely clasp'd, the writhings of the ridges!
Behold, the horror of the upturned edges —
Together the torn strata seek the sky!