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Ascent
SUNG AT DUSK
ASCENT
They stripped my body of its dress,
And, twisting tight my silken hair,
They thrust a candle in my hand
And sent me on a broken stair.
A blackness laps before, behind
The wick that licks the gusty wind.
The stones uneven were and steep;
Their darkness chilled my fumbling feet.
I shuddered with each breath that shrived
My swaying body of its heat.
Above the rapid wind's repeat
I hear my frightened pulses beat.
More pale than ghost was I who climbed . . .
More pale than I the tallow flame
That was bestowed on me to find
The way the other dreamers came.
Frail ghosts, frail ghosts, but wraiths in name
Who upward creep the stars to claim.
"The way the other dreamers came . . .
Oh, are you sure?" And voices spoke,
"Breathe, unbeliever, of the air
Yet pungent with their tapers' smoke."
From unseen lips and hidden throats
A surge of whispers curls and floats.
"Feel with your feet the hollow treads
Grooved deep by pilgrim flesh and bone."
"T cannot, for my feet are numb."
"Then kneel you on the trodden stone."
I kneel and, blind in kneeling prone,
Make prayer, and think I pray alone.
"And hold your candle closely down.
Behold the steps and scars they bear."
"How can I, for the wick is dim,
And gusts of blackness cloud the air?"
But while the dark looms everywhere,
I seek and find the foot-marks there.