Read "Zermatt: to the Matterhorn" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
(_June_-_July_, 1897)
THIRTY-TWO years since, up against the sun, / Seven shapes, thin atomies to lower sight, / Labouringly leapt and gained thy gabled height, / And four lives paid for what the seven had won.
They were the first by whom the deed was done, / And when I look at thee, my mind takes flight / To that day's tragic feat of manly might, / As though, till then, of history thou hadst none.
Yet ages ere men topped thee, late and soon / Thou watch'dst each night the planets lift and lower; / Thou gleam'dst to Joshua's pausing sun and moon, / And brav'dst the tokening sky when Cesar's power / Approached its bloody end: yea, saw'st that Noon / When darkness filled the earth till the ninth hour.