Classic Poem

A BOUT thy head where dawning wakes and dies,
Sublimity, betwixt thine awful rifts, —
'Mid mists and gloom and shattered light, uplifts
Hiding in height the measure of the skies.

Here pallid Awe forever lifts her eyes,
Through veiling haze across thy rugged clefts,
Where far and faint the sombre sunlight sifts,
'Mid loneliness and doom and dread surmise.

Here nature to this ancient silence froze,
When from the deeps thy mighty shoulders rose,
And hid the sun and moon and starry light; —
Where based in shadow of thy sunless floods,
And iron bastions, vast, forever broods,
Winter, eternal stillness, death and night.