Last evening the moon rose above this rock

Impure upon a world unpurged.

The man and his companion stopped

To rest before the heroic height.

Coldly the wind fell upon them

In many majesties of sound:

They that had left the flame-freaked sun

To seek a sun of fuller fire.

Instead there was this tufted rock

Massively rising high and bare

Beyond all trees, the ridges thrown

Like giant arms among the clouds.

There was neither voice nor crested image,

No chorister, nor priest. There was

Only the great height of the rock

And the two of them standing still to rest.

There was the cold wind and the sound

It made, away from the muck of the land

That they had left, heroic sound

Joyous and jubilant and sure.