That I have tracked you from afar, my crown I call it and my height:
All hail, O dear and difficult star! All hail, O heart of light!
No pleasure born of time for me,
Who in you touch eternity.
If I have found you where you are, I win my mortal fight.
You flee the plain: I therefore choose summit and solitude for mine,
The high air where I cannot lose our comradeship divine.
More lovely here, to wakened blood,
Sparse leaf and hesitating bud,
Than rosaries in the dewy vales for which the dryads pine.
Spirit austere! lend aid: I walk along inclement ridges too,
Disowning toys of sense, to baulk my soul of ends untrue.
Because man's cry, by night and day,
Cried not for God, I broke away.
On, at your ruthless pace! I'll stalk, a hilltop ghost, with you.