I sought where-so the wind blows keenest. There I learned to dwell Where no man dwells, on lonesome ice-lorn fell, And unlearned Man and God and curse and prayer? Became a ghost haunting the glaciers bare?
7
Ye, my old friends! Look! Ye turn pale, filled o’er With love and fear! Go! Yet not in wrath. Ye could ne’er live here. Here in the farthest realm of ice and scaur, A huntsman must one be, like chamois soar.
8
An evil huntsman was I? See how taut My bow was bent! Strongest was he by whom such bolt were sent— Woe now! That arrow is with peril fraught, Perilous as none.—Have yon safe home ye sought!
9
Ye go! Thou didst endure enough, oh, heart;— Strong was thy hope; Unto new friends thy portals widely ope, Let old ones be. Bid memory depart! Wast thou young then, now—better young thou art!
10
What linked us once together, one hope’s tie— (Who now doth con Those lines, now fading, Love once wrote thereon?)— Is like a parchment, which the hand is shy To touch—like crackling leaves, all seared, all dry.
11
Oh! Friends no more! They are—what name for those?— Friends’ phantom-flight Knocking at my heart’s windowpane at night, Gazing on me, that speaks “We were” and goes— Oh, withered words, once fragrant as the rose!