The Climber Questioned

By George Yeld

[Reprinted by kind permission of The Spectator]

Question.

“What do ye win?” the scorners ask,
“Who climb great peaks of rock and snow?
What guerdon gain ye for your task
That does not wait on those below?

We see the peak in all its might,
Its symmetry, its proud repose,
The moon sheds there her stainless light,
There dawn her kiss of dame bestows.

It shimmers in the noonday heat,
And faery shadows haunt its sides;
Dark comes, and there in lone retreat
The spirit of the storm abides.

On this–yea, more than this by far–
Our eyes with keen enjoyment feed;
Say what the greater glories are
That make the climber’s boasted meed?”

Answer.

“What could young Porphyro impel
To venture in that foeman’s den?
What lore makes clear to us the spell
That sped the feet of Imogen ?

What was it that Bassanio brought
That tamed so soon fair Portia’s pride
Why was it that Diana sought
Latmos, her Godhead laid aside?

Words fail you? So the mountaineer
Loves yon majestic dome of snow–
To him ’tis passionately dear,
As Juliet was to Romeo.

But if you ask the cause, ’tis,vain–
There are no words, since Shakespeare sleeps,
So subtle that they can explain
How passion through the spirit sweeps.

The lover’s rapture is to love,
The climber’s rapture is to climb;
And both possess a heart above
The petty chains of place and time.
Who knows, fond questioner, how soon
On thee shall fall the sacred fire,
And thou on some great peak at noon,
Feeling, shalt need not to inquire?”