Page:Roden Noel - A Little Child's Monument - 1881.pdf/39

 The rude, immense, straight pillars of grey pine Scale heaven, sustaining tempest-writhen roofs Of scant, green, level umbrage; they are built Athwart yon vaporous and vasty walls Of far-off mountain: over them arise Ruinous tower, fantastic pinnacle, And icy spire in a blue burning air. They overhang deep, forest-filled ravines Wandering seaward; whose dim serpentine Night ever hears a solemn utterance Of torrents, with deep monotone attuned To these wind-oracles of ancient pine. Yonder a gaunt trunk-Skeleton upbraids With blasted arms the Bolt that shattered it. Tusky black monsters reign within the gloom Of forest, and dead waters desolate: Dim mists drive blindly through portentous trees, While a weird Sun blinks dwarfed within the drilt: Legions of shadowy shaggy ilex climb Yon narrow-cloven hollows of the crag.

Now evening falls: an aromatic breath Of amber oozing from a dun-red bark, And mountain herb, and many a mountain flower Pervades the air slow clearing from the cloud: A vaselike cleft between two snowy peaks Glowingly fills with a pale violet; Beneath appears fair Ocean's purple line,