Every summer in my teens I canoed with friends through the Rideau region of Ontario. At one annual camping spot an enormous rope swing tied to an overhanging tree hung over a lake. You grabbed the rope, stepped back as far as you could, swung out over the water and then plummeted. The drop was steep and the water cold, and once you committed, you had to leap – if you swung back you’d crash against the tree and the rocky bluff.

Once, as I swung out, I looked down to see a long water snake swirling in the water directly below me. My terror of snakes was lifelong and primal, but there was no going back. I plummeted with my eyes closed and struck out for shore the second I surfaced. This quiet poem, written long ago, brings that memory rushing back through me. The snake, the long plummet into the freezing water, the wild surge of life as I tore toward shore.

Faith, by Louis Untermeyer (public domain)

What are we bound for? What’s the yield
of all this energy and waste?
Why do we spend ourselves and build
with such an empty haste?

Wherefore the bravery we boast?
How can we spend one laughing breath
when at the end all things are lost
in ignorance and death? . . .

The stars have found a blazing course
in a vast curve that cuts through space;
enough for us to feel that force
swinging us through the days.

Enough that we have strength to sing
and fight and somehow scorn the grave;
That Life’s too bold and bright a thing
to question or to save.

Click here for more information on Louis Untermeyer, whose poetry is now in the public domain.
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