VIII. MOUNTAINS.

A stronger gust catches the cloud and twists

A spindle of rifted darkness through its heart,

A gash in the damp grey, which, thrust apart,

Reveals black depths a moment. Then the mists

Shut down again; a white uneasy sea

Heaves round the climbers and beneath their feet.

He strains on upwards through the wind and sleet,

Poised, or swift moving, or laboriously

Lifting his weight. And if he should let go,

What would he find down there, down there below

The curtain of the mist? What would he find

Beyond the dim and stifling now and here,

Beneath the unsettled turmoil of his mind?

Oh, there were nameless depths: he shrank with fear.