“The Summit” [poem]
Oh we are on the mountain top
The clouds float by in fleecy flock
Heavy and dank, Around below
A wilderness of turf and snow
Scanty rock turf, or sandstone
Without a living thing, for there
Not a bird clove the thin cold air
With labouring wing, the very goat
To such a height ascendeth not
And if the clouds thick drapery
Clove for a moment, you would see
Clasping the mountain breast, or heaped
In high wreathed hills whence torrents leaped
And gathering force, as downward
To aid the broad
And andhere and there a mouldring cross
Of dark pine matted oer with moss
Hung oer the precipice, to tell
Where some benighted traveller fell.
Or where the avalanches leap
Hurled down with its wild thunder sweep
Him unexpecting, and to pray
The passing traveller to stay
And looking from the precipice,
Dizzily down from
To wing to heaven one short prayer
One, for the soul that parted there.
I thought as, by the cross I past
Of far Helvellyns dreary waste
Mid my own hills, and legend strange, 2
How from dark Stridens ridgy range, 3
One fell, upon a wintry day
When snow wreaths white concealed his way
And died, beside a small dark tarn 4
Oerlooked by crags, whose foreheads stern
Shut in a little vale, a spot
By man unknown and trodden not
Green, and most beautiful, and lay,
His bones there whitening many a day,
Though sun and rain might work their will
From bird and wolf protected still
For he had one companion, one,
Watched oer him in the desert lone
That faithful dog beside sat aye,
Baying the vulture from his prey, a
Else moved not, slept not, stirred not, still,
Oer lake and mountain, rock and hill
Rung his short plaintive timid cry b
Most melancholy, None passed by,
None ‸
Yet still beside the corse he staid
And watched it moulder, and the day
When three long months had past away
It was discovered where it lay
And he beside it. Would that, we could love
As he did. c
The clouds float by in fleecy flock
Heavy and dank, Around below
A wilderness of turf and snow
Scanty rock turf, or sandstone
marble
bare
Ruskin's line number
700
System generated line number
5Without a living thing, for there
Not a bird clove the thin cold air
With labouring wing, the very goat
To such a height ascendeth not
And if the clouds thick drapery
Ruskin's line number
705
System generated line number
10Clove for a moment, you would see
The
A
long white snowfields on each sideClasping the mountain breast, or heaped
In high wreathed hills whence torrents leaped
And gathering force, as downward
they
welling
Ruskin's line number
710
System generated line number
15To aid the broad
swift
Rhines headlong swellAnd andhere and there a mouldring cross
Of dark pine matted oer with moss
Hung oer the precipice, to tell
Where some benighted traveller fell.
Ruskin's line number
715
System generated line number
20Or where the avalanches leap
Hurled down with its wild thunder sweep
Him unexpecting, and to pray
The passing traveller to stay
And looking from the precipice,
Ruskin's line number
720
System generated line number
25Dizzily down from
to
the abyssTo wing to heaven one short prayer
One, for the soul that parted there.
I thought as, by the cross I past
Of far Helvellyns dreary waste
Ruskin's line number
725
System generated line number
30Mid my own hills, and legend strange, 2
How from dark Stridens ridgy range, 3
One fell, upon a wintry day
When snow wreaths white concealed his way
And died, beside a small dark tarn 4
Ruskin's line number
730
System generated line number
35Oerlooked by crags, whose foreheads stern
Shut in a little vale, a spot
By man unknown and trodden not
Green, and most beautiful, and lay,
His bones there whitening many a day,
Ruskin's line number
735
System generated line number
40Though sun and rain might work their will
From bird and wolf protected still
For he had one companion, one,
Watched oer him in the desert lone
That faithful dog beside sat aye,
Ruskin's line number
740
System generated line number
45Baying the vulture from his prey, a
Else moved not, slept not, stirred not, still,
Oer lake and mountain, rock and hill
Rung his short plaintive timid cry b
60
Most melancholy, None passed by,
Ruskin's line number
745
System generated line number
50None ‸
heard
his sorrowing call for aidYet still beside the corse he staid
And watched it moulder, and the day
When three long months had past away
It was discovered where it lay
Ruskin's line number
750
System generated line number
55And he beside it. Would that, we could love
As he did. c