Stirring to rings the black well of our rage
We twitch the elusive scar of our old wound
That gushed with fresh blood on the barren mountain
Where stumbling we fell (not delicately torn
On thorns of rose, but boulders of defeat,
And overwhelmed knew perfect our despair.

We who across the desert of despair
Have shouted till lungs bled our impotent rage
And heard unheeded echoes of defeat
Fall deadly back, have learned the sorest wound
Is not the one time's unicorn has torn
With golden horn on the peak of a pine mountain,

But one we took when, mid way up the mountain
Grey scarped and cold of solitude, despair
Like a blind, giant Mars we faced, saw torn
Our hope and fed the bonfire of our rage,
And took spreadeagle pinned our shameful wound
And suffered on black stones complete defeat.

Always in memory of black defeat
We tremble at the base of any mountain
Fearing to take in shame our second wound,
Fearing to see blind goggle eyed despair
Mock the worn dance of our exhausting rage
While for the second time our flesh is torn.

O from our guts the silent scream is torn,
Who, crippled by Promethean defeat,
Have still to smother flutterings of rage
And turn again to climb a sheerer mountain
Bearing a heavier burden (where despair
Conquered before): the fear of sharper wound.

Always our nightmare is the shame of wound
And pain. Against our will the dream is torn
Each time the mind, over worn lines despair
Told once forever, stutters its own defeat
To empty darkened halls. Always the mountain
Looms to be climbed again, in spite of rage.

O the sure end of rage is the rock torn
Eternal wound on our eternal mountain
And cold defeat alone and drowned despair.