Climb

My shoes fall on the house-top that is so far beneath me,

I have hung my hat forever on the sharp church spire,

Now what shall seem the hill but a moment of surmounting,

The height but a place to dream of something higher!

Wings? Oh not for me, I need no other pinions

Than the beating of my heart within my breast;

Wings are for the dreamer with a bird-like longing,

Whose dreams come home at eventide to nest.

The timid folk beseech me, the wise ones warn me,

They say that I shall never grow to stand so high ;

But I climb among the hills of cloud and follow vanished

lightning,

I shall stand knee-deep in thunder with my head against

the sky.

Tiptoe, at last, upon a pinnacle of sunset,

I shall greet the death-like evening with laughter from

afar,

Nor tremble in the darkness nor shun the windy midnight,

For by the evening I shall be a star.

[56]