I LAY on that rock where the storms have their dwelling, | |
| The birthplace of phantoms, the home of the cloud; | |
| Around it forever deep music is swelling, | |
| The voice of the mountain wind solemn and loud. | |
| ’T was a midnight of shadows all fitfully streaming, | 5 |
| Of wild waves and breezes, that mingle their moan; | |
| Of dim shrouded stars, as from gulfs faintly gleaming; | |
| And I met the dread gloom of its grandeur alone. | |
| |
| I lay there in silence,—a spirit came o’er me; | |
| Man’s tongue hath no language to speak what I saw; | 10 |
| Things glorious, unearthly, passed floating before me, | |
| And my heart almost fainted with rapture and awe. | |
| I viewed the dread beings around us that hover, | |
| Though veiled by the mists of mortality’s breath; | |
| And I called upon darkness the vision to cover, | 15 |
| For a strife was within me of madness and death. | |
| |
| I saw them,—the powers of the wind and the ocean, | |
| The rush of whose pinion bears onward the storms; | |
| Like the sweep of the white-rolling wave was their motion,— | |
| I felt their dim presence, but knew not their forms! | 20 |
| I saw them,—the mighty of ages departed,— | |
| The dead were around me that night on the hill: | |
| From their eyes, as they passed, a cold radiance they darted,— | |
| There was light on my soul, but my heart’s blood was chill. | |
| |
| I saw what man looks on, and dies,—but my spirit | 25 |
| Was strong, and triumphantly lived through that hour; | |
| And, as from the grave, I awoke to inherit | |
| A flame all immortal, a voice, and a power! | |
| Day burst on that rock with the purple cloud crested, | |
| And high Cader Idris rejoiced in the sun; | 30 |
| But O, what new glory all nature invested, | |
| When the sense which gives soul to her beauty was won! | |
| |
