Look, the abyss, the downward sky, the sea! <br />Bird-mountain, shot with thunder, furls below <br />feathers and wings, in curve beyond rainbow, <br />snow-sails and mast, immobile, vast, free; <br />and cloudlike over spacious limbo, covers <br />wide azure - oh, island-hemisphere in flight, <br />darkens a half-world with its own sad night. <br />Look, on its forehead ribbon flames and hovers! <br />Lightning! But stop here. At our feet, abysses, <br />ravines, thresholds we must at gallop span. <br />I leap; stand ready with whip and spur; stare <br />past rock escarpment where I vanish. This is <br />your sign: If white panache gleams, I am there; <br />if not, there is no path beyond for man.<br /><br />Adam Mickiewicz<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mount-kikineis/