Paradise Maintained?

(dedicated to the memory of the late Dr. Roger Allen)

I fain would know the siren  Goddess,
careless in Her wild dominions.
Now enticing,  now rejecting
those who’d mountaineer.

We sought to know this awful Goddess
who,  in frightful Nordic beauty
cast Her deadly glance upon us,
We who’d mountaineer.

And so I knelt before the Goddess
in Her shining Asian temple.
Now she smiled serenely on me,
I who’d mountaineer.

Think not to know this fickle Goddess
thronéd in her pale pavilions
Bitter sweet the thralldom is,  of
he who’d mountaineer.

W. C. I. Crowther
November 1995