Christina Rossetti — Resurgam

From depth to height, from height to loftier height,          The climber sets his foot and sets his face,          Tracks lingering sunbeams to their halting-place, And counts the last pulsations of the light. Strenuous thro' day and unsurprised by night          He runs a race with Time, and wins the race,          Emptied and stripped of all save only Grace, Will, Love,--a threefold panoply of might. Darkness descends for light he toiled to seek;          He stumbles on the darkened mountain-head,                  Left breathless in the unbreathable thin air,          Made freeman of the living and the dead,-- He wots not he has topped the topmost peak,                  But the returning sun will find him there.