I HAD a vision when the moon was high,
And blind old Midnight, like a banished god,
Who strives to find some route, however hard,
So it be sure, back to that former state,
Where once he shone, clomb with assiduous feet,
Picking his devious, disconsolate way,
Up a sad segment of the oblique sky.
I seemed to roam in an enchanted Isle,
Benighted, unconjectured and remote,
Tormented round by gray, tempestuous seas,
Dim, perilous, where vessel never sailed,
Lying beyond the confines of the world.
It was a fallen realm of landscapes wild,
Of dreary lakes, plateaus and terraces,
And rock-ridged promontories, worn by storms —
Tortured by earthquake and by avalanche,
Into the semblance of fantastic towers,
And ruinous battlements, that seemed the homes
Of those unearthly shapes, the reeling brain
Conceives in lunacy, of Phantom-Land.
And there is neither rest nor anything
That gives the heart of man to taste of peace;
But perturbation weird and dire disturbance,
Dismal disaster, discord and despair,
A drear domain of discontent and death!
I stood upon a toppling pinnacle —
A black, balsaltic, overhanging crag,
That trembled to the thunderous vibration
Of headlong sea-shocks dashed against its base,
With jar tremendous as when mighty Thor
Brings down his hammer, and the ice-bergs crack
In scintillating ruin round the Pole.
On such a beetling precipice I stood,
And gazed upon that witchland scenery.
Gigantic forests rent by hurricanes,
Tossing their gaunt, gesticulating arms,
Like mournful skeletons to the pitiless heavens,
Made awful noises and a crashing sound,
Forever, in that ancient solitude.
Along the cavernous gorges and ravines,
Where the winds wandered, blowing hollow tunes,
A frantic river raved and whirled in foam,
And moaning swayed in multitudinous murmurs,
And an impetuous sweep from side to side,
And shuddered as it threw itself at length,
Into the chasmal hollows of the earth,
Making a dismal music to the moon —
The moon herself, that looked so wearied out,
And seemed so old, dejected and decayed,
As she would drop from out the marble sky,
And quench her faded, insufficient light,
In blind oblivion, and to rise no more!
An arrows flight from off the looming shore,
A whirlpool jagged with iron-headed rocks,
Black, threatening, and implacable as fate,
Rotated horribly and gurgled hoarse,
Like some enormous water-beast who shows
His hungry-fatal teeth, and froths for food.
And still with wide dilated eyes I gazed
In fearful wonder for new scenes to come —
Confusion's climax! Darkness hid the moon.
In the torn edges of the inky clouds
Incessant lightning played, and all at once
Volleys of thunder broke athwart the skies,
Explosive, solid rumbling, as if were fallen
The adamantine parapets of Heaven,
Toppled to chaos; and the granite cliffs
Reeled to their rock foundations oscillant,
And Echo startled from her hundred caves,
Ran shrieking through long gorges to the sea.
Great whirlwinds blew; yet statute-like I stood,
As one who walks in dreams nor apprehends
Eternal danger, while his soul is rapt
In vague phantasmagorias, half asleep.
Then seemed it that the unquenchable stars went mad!
Some shot to outer darkness and expired;
And some exploding into comets broke,
And rushing in far coruscation, streamed
Through startled constellations infinite,
In orbits incomputable by man.
And while I gazed with faculties entranced
The burning mountain shook itself and yawned —
Disparting wide, deluging night with fire,
And casting far across the seething sea
Red leagues of splendor. Then the forests crashed,
And white with foam the roaring vortex spun,
Drowning the rocks.
The rest is mystery
For the wild trouble of the elements,
Touched my dazed brain with horror and I woke,
As morning drave her ruby-flashing wheels
Along the dappled and impearled East;
And from the dewy fields upsprang the lark,
Thrilling the sunshine with his ecstacy!
And blind old Midnight, like a banished god,
Who strives to find some route, however hard,
So it be sure, back to that former state,
Where once he shone, clomb with assiduous feet,
Picking his devious, disconsolate way,
Up a sad segment of the oblique sky.
I seemed to roam in an enchanted Isle,
Benighted, unconjectured and remote,
Tormented round by gray, tempestuous seas,
Dim, perilous, where vessel never sailed,
Lying beyond the confines of the world.
It was a fallen realm of landscapes wild,
Of dreary lakes, plateaus and terraces,
And rock-ridged promontories, worn by storms —
Tortured by earthquake and by avalanche,
Into the semblance of fantastic towers,
And ruinous battlements, that seemed the homes
Of those unearthly shapes, the reeling brain
Conceives in lunacy, of Phantom-Land.
And there is neither rest nor anything
That gives the heart of man to taste of peace;
But perturbation weird and dire disturbance,
Dismal disaster, discord and despair,
A drear domain of discontent and death!
I stood upon a toppling pinnacle —
A black, balsaltic, overhanging crag,
That trembled to the thunderous vibration
Of headlong sea-shocks dashed against its base,
With jar tremendous as when mighty Thor
Brings down his hammer, and the ice-bergs crack
In scintillating ruin round the Pole.
On such a beetling precipice I stood,
And gazed upon that witchland scenery.
Gigantic forests rent by hurricanes,
Tossing their gaunt, gesticulating arms,
Like mournful skeletons to the pitiless heavens,
Made awful noises and a crashing sound,
Forever, in that ancient solitude.
Along the cavernous gorges and ravines,
Where the winds wandered, blowing hollow tunes,
A frantic river raved and whirled in foam,
And moaning swayed in multitudinous murmurs,
And an impetuous sweep from side to side,
And shuddered as it threw itself at length,
Into the chasmal hollows of the earth,
Making a dismal music to the moon —
The moon herself, that looked so wearied out,
And seemed so old, dejected and decayed,
As she would drop from out the marble sky,
And quench her faded, insufficient light,
In blind oblivion, and to rise no more!
An arrows flight from off the looming shore,
A whirlpool jagged with iron-headed rocks,
Black, threatening, and implacable as fate,
Rotated horribly and gurgled hoarse,
Like some enormous water-beast who shows
His hungry-fatal teeth, and froths for food.
And still with wide dilated eyes I gazed
In fearful wonder for new scenes to come —
Confusion's climax! Darkness hid the moon.
In the torn edges of the inky clouds
Incessant lightning played, and all at once
Volleys of thunder broke athwart the skies,
Explosive, solid rumbling, as if were fallen
The adamantine parapets of Heaven,
Toppled to chaos; and the granite cliffs
Reeled to their rock foundations oscillant,
And Echo startled from her hundred caves,
Ran shrieking through long gorges to the sea.
Great whirlwinds blew; yet statute-like I stood,
As one who walks in dreams nor apprehends
Eternal danger, while his soul is rapt
In vague phantasmagorias, half asleep.
Then seemed it that the unquenchable stars went mad!
Some shot to outer darkness and expired;
And some exploding into comets broke,
And rushing in far coruscation, streamed
Through startled constellations infinite,
In orbits incomputable by man.
And while I gazed with faculties entranced
The burning mountain shook itself and yawned —
Disparting wide, deluging night with fire,
And casting far across the seething sea
Red leagues of splendor. Then the forests crashed,
And white with foam the roaring vortex spun,
Drowning the rocks.
The rest is mystery
For the wild trouble of the elements,
Touched my dazed brain with horror and I woke,
As morning drave her ruby-flashing wheels
Along the dappled and impearled East;
And from the dewy fields upsprang the lark,
Thrilling the sunshine with his ecstacy!