Blondin by Walter de la Mare

blondin
Mons. Blondin’s walk across the cataract. Charles Magnus publisher. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

With clinging dainty catlike tread,
His pole in balance, hand to hand,
And, softly smiling, into space
He ventures on that threadlike strand.

Above him is the enormous sky,
Beneath, a frenzied torrent roars,
Surging where massed Niagara
Its snow-foamed arc of water pours:

But he, with eye serene as his
Who sits in daydream by the fire,
His every sinew, bone and nerve
Obedient to his least desire,

Treads softly on, with light-drawn breath,
Each inch-long toe, precisely pat,
In inward trust, past wit to probe—
This death-defying acrobat! …

Like some old Saint on his old rope-bridge,
Between another world and this,
Dead-calm ‘mid inward vortices,
Where little else but danger is.

Source: De la Mare, Walter. Collected Poems. London: Faber & Faber, 1979

Blondin was first published in De la Mare, Walter. Inward Companion. London: Faber and Faber, 1950.

Blondin crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope in 1859 and 1860.

Read more about Blondin here

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