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IN one of those excursions (may they ne’er | |
| Fade from remembrance!) through the northern tracts | |
| Of Cambria ranging with a youthful friend, | |
| I left Bethgelert’s huts at couching-time, | |
| And westward took my way, to see the sun | 5 |
| Rise from the top of Snowdon. To the door | |
| Of a rude cottage at the mountain’s base | |
| We came, and roused the shepherd who attends | |
| The adventurous stranger’s steps, a trusty guide; | |
| Then, cheered by short refreshment, sallied forth. | 10 |
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| It was a close, warm, breezeless summer night, | |
| Wan, dull, and glaring, with a dripping fog | |
| Low-hung and thick that covered all the sky; | |
| But, undiscouraged, we began to climb | |
| The mountain-side. The mist soon girt us round, | 15 |
| And, after ordinary travellers’ talk | |
| With our conductor, pensively we sank | |
| Each into commerce with his private thoughts: | |
| Thus did we breast the ascent, and by myself | |
| Was nothing either seen or heard that checked | 20 |
| Those musings or diverted, save that once | |
| The shepherd’s lurcher, who, among the crags, | |
| Had to his joy unearthed a hedgehog, teased | |
| His coiled-up prey with barkings turbulent. | |
| This small adventure, for even such it seemed | 25 |
| In that wild place and at the dead of night, | |
| Being over and forgotten, on we wound | |
| In silence as before. With forehead bent | |
| Earthward, as in opposition set | |
| Against an enemy, I panted up | 30 |
| With eager pace, and no less eager thoughts. | |
| Thus might we wear a midnight hour away, | |
| Ascending at loose distance each from each, | |
| And I, as chanced, the foremost of the band; | |
| When at my feet the ground appeared to brighten, | 35 |
| And with a step or two seemed brighter still: | |
| Nor was time given to ask or learn the cause, | |
| For instantly a light upon the turf | |
| Fell like a flash, and lo! as I looked up, | |
| The moon hung naked in a firmament | 40 |
| Of azure without cloud, and at my feet | |
| Rested a silent sea of hoary mist. | |
| A hundred hills their dusky backs upheaved | |
| All over this still ocean; and beyond, | |
| Far, far beyond, the solid vapors stretched, | 45 |
| In headlands, tongues, and promontory shapes, | |
| Into the main Atlantic, that appeared | |
| To dwindle, and give up his majesty, | |
| Usurped upon far as the sight could reach. | |
| Not so the ethereal vault; encroachment none | 50 |
| Was there, nor loss; only the inferior stars | |
| Had disappeared, or shed a fainter light | |
| In the clear presence of the full-orbed moon, | |
| Who, from her sovereign elevation, gazed | |
| Upon the billowy ocean, as it lay | 55 |
| All meek and silent, save that through a rift— | |
| Not distant from the shore whereon we stood, | |
| A fixed, abysmal, gloomy, breathing-place— | |
| Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, streams | |
| Innumerable, roaring with one voice! | 60 |
| Heard over earth and sea, and, in that hour, | |
| For so it seemed, felt by the starry heavens. | |
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