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on that rock where the storms have their dwelling, The birthplace of phantoms, the home of the cloud; Around it for ever deep music is swelling, The voice of the mountain-wind, solemn and loud. 'Twas a midnight of shadows all fitfully streaming, Of wild waves and breezes, that mingled 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; Things glorious, unearthly, pass'd floating before me, And my heart almost fainted with rapture and awe. I view’d the dread beings around us that hover, Though veil'd by the mists of mortality's breath; And I call'd upon darkness the vision to cover, 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! I saw them—the mighty of ages departed— The dead were around me that night on the hill: From their eyes, as they pass'd, 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 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;— But oh! what new glory all nature invested, When the sense which gives soul to her beauty was won!$^1$