Ice Man
From Cap de Hault to Frenchman's Lease
Lies seven miles of moving ice,
A lady comes there once or twice a year
To view that precipice.
The glacier, that tortuously
Grinds along that deep moraine
Is known to all as 'Adam's Fault',
And Eve despairs the bleak terrain.
Eve Grise de Mare du Montalban
The countess from her place of fame,
Who played coquettish with her fan
When first to Adam's Fault she came.
Gervase and I both courted Eve
But she played him, and then played me,
The contest was uneven, for
Gervase was old nobility.
We both enjoyed a hearty climb
And took our contest to the 'Fault',
Who first would conquer Frenchman's Lease
And reach the peak, should win it all;
The right to ask the lady's hand,
To claim the prize of her by right,
The loser, then, would quit the scene,
Would disappear him, overnight.
The day was cold, a storm was due,
We set out with our picks and rope,
The ice was clear as rippled glass
As we ascended up the slope.
We'd made three of the seven miles
Before the storm burst over us,
Gervase was slightly in the lead
But stopped beside the Fault to rest.
The glacier was close beside
When I pulled up to shelter, then
A crevice, fifteen metres wide
Had opened up, quite close to him.
Gervase half turned, the blinding sleet
Reduced our vision down to naught,
He sought direction with his feet
And pitched head first into the Fault.
The depth seemed bottomless, I heard
Eventually, a distant thud,
Gervase had hit the glacier floor
And I was certain he was dead.
The storm, in one short hour had flown,
[...] Read more
poem by David Lewis Paget
Added by Poetry Lover
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