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.