Yet the mountaineer who sidles on
And on to the very bending,
Discovers, if heart and brain be proof,
No necessary ending.
Foot up, foot down, to the turn abrupt
Having trod, he, there arriving,
Finds—what he took for a point was breadth
A mercy of Nature’s contriving.
So, he rounds what, when ’tis reached, proves straight,
From one side gains the other:
The wee path widens—resume the march,
And he foils you, Ben my brother!
But Donald—(that name, I hope, will do)—
I wrong him if I call “foiling”
The tramp of the callant, whistling the while
As blithe as our kettle’s boiling.
He had dared the danger from boyhood up,
And now,—when perchance was waiting
A lass at the brig below,—’twixt mount
And moor would he standing debating?
Moreover this Donald was twenty-five,
A glory of bone and muscle:
Did a fiend dispute the right of way,
Donald would try a tussle.
Lightsomely marched he out of the broad
On to the narrow and narrow;
A step more, rounding the angular rock,
Reached the front straight as an arrow.
He stepped it, safe on the ledge he stood,
When—whom found he full-facing?
What fellow in courage and wariness too,
Had scouted ignoble pacing,
And left low safety to timid mates,
And made for the dread dear danger,
And gained the height where—who could guess
He would meet with a rival ranger?
’Twas a gold-red stag that stood and stared,
Gigantic and magnific,
By the wonder—ay, and the peril—struck
Intelligent and pacific: