I climbed wearily up the fell.
The rain in a heavy sheet,
soaked every fibre of my trousers.
I was, it seemed, lost.
The rocks were heavy beneath my feet.
The cracks deep in water
and there finally in the cloud
the Trig Point: the highest point
From here one can see fifty miles
Today I could not see fifty feet
I sat beside its thin girth
And then some lesser dark, some
filmy grey opened above me.
I thought a helicopter in an instant
could take me above this cloud
And then a great glorious blue expanse would open before me
And then the great horizontal sleeting wind rain
Seemed to take my soul also above this rain
Climbing slowly, wearily up those rocks.
I had wondered again whom am I
Could this thought this conscience fleet itself from these tired feet?
And now high upon the fell
I hoped my soul might flee
And leave this body slumped upon the Trig stone.
I got up and walked
And then by some vent in cloud and rain
The mist was drawn aside like a curtain
And distant fields and world and walls revealed
And then was hidden once more
And I walked again down
into pale sunshine and the land of men.