NIGHT ON A BARE MOUNTAIN

               i.

   What a heavenly sun

   And a glorious day -

A dream ending fast.

   Struck we stood,

   On baking rocks,

Wishing the glory’d last,

   But as the darking sun

   Sinks in gold,

The air deceives and spoils.

   The shadow creeps,

   With electric wind

And the lonely mountain boils.

               ii.

   In the stars it was writ

   That we would be caught

On a torn black-washed night -

   Dark as the verses

   Sung from hell

And punctuated by light.

   The four winds hounding

   And bounding the rocks

That hiss at the wet and cold.

   The ritual trees

   Bow to the dark,

Leaves lost and souls sold.

   Too steep to run

   With no place to hide

And time stands watching our pain.

   The satanic air roars

   As the clouds spit out

Unseely  daggers  of  rain.

   No end in sight,

   No patch of calm,

The unseen storm spins on.

   A night so long,

   So violent and dark,

The memory  of day is gone.

               iii.

   To a hellish pitch

   A demon wind vomited 

ice  in  my  heart.

   To an elemental peak

   The storm threw out

To tear the mountain apart;

   And died in its trying,

                                  to a whisper.

We watched the new lighting skies -

   The eternal east,

   Her promise of calm

And the still sun in our eyes.

Copyright © Jason Horsler

28/06/94 - This poem is based on the classical music piece of the same name by Mussorgsky and J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’.