First Things RSS Feed - Stephen Edgar https://www.firstthings.com/author/stephen-edgar en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:55:56 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/stephen-edgar 60 Govett’s Leap https://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/03/govetts-leap https://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/03/govetts-leap Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0500 Looking across to Bridal Veil Falls,
You feel your weight’s
Free will against the fence
Urging you outward into that immense
Absence of panorama which appalls
The same mind it exhilarates.

Impossible to calculate the stretch
From here to there”
That far sunwall of cliff”
And wonder how long you would wonder if
That empty impulse undertook to fetch
You forth into the mindless air.

And a butterfly floats past you to commit
Precisely this.
You very nearly gasp
And fling your hand out in a desperate grasp,
For one distracted second sure that it
Will plummet into that abyss.

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