Miracle, and Other Poems

<h2 id="id00242" style="margin-top: 4em">THE CLIMBER</h2> <p id="id00243">He stood alone on Fame's high mountain top,<br/> His hands at rest, his forehead bound with bay;<br/> And yet he watched with eyes unsatisfied<br/> The downward winding way.<br/></p> <p id="id00244">The great procession of the stars went by<br/> Far overhead, beyond the mountain's rim,<br/> But the unconquered worlds of time and space,<br/> As nothing were to him.<br/></p> <p id="id00245">There from his vantage ground, so still and high,<br/> He watched the storm clouds when they rolled below,<br/> And felt the wind mount up to where he stood<br/> Amid eternal snow.<br/></p> <p id="id00246">And sometimes in the valleys and the plains<br/> He saw the little children at their play;<br/> In cottage homes he saw the candle-light<br/> Gleam out at close of day.<br/></p> <p id="id00247">But he and loneliness kept feast and fast,<br/> The while with weary eyes, by night and day;<br/> They watched the path that led to common things—<br/> The downward winding way.<br/></p> <p id="id00248">"'Twas there," he said, "that gladness passed me by,<br/> In yonder valley, where I sought the truth;<br/> And there, a few leagues up the rocky slope,<br/> I said good-bye to Youth.<br/></p> <p id="id00249">"There, where the pine trees catch the sun's last gold,<br/> Love reached its hands to me and bade me stop;<br/> Oh, madness of the ones who climb," he said,<br/> "Up to the mountain top!"<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />