The summer I had passed in my own fashion <br />High in the Alps, a proselyte to toil. <br />I was released and free, and spent my passion <br />On the bare rocks as on a fruitful soil. <br />I had soothed my soul with labour, and its fire <br />Borne to those naked heights where I unfurled <br />My flag with new ambitions, high and higher <br />Even to the last bleak outposts of the world. <br />My soul had needed courage, and behold! <br />Here in these battles with the hosts of air <br />And rock and snow and storm she had grown bold <br />And proved her temper for the coming war. <br />This was her gain, the strife she must engage <br />With physical fear, her childhood's heritage.<br /><br />Wilfrid Scawen Blunt<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/esther-a-sonnet-sequence-xxviii/
