Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE ROCK OF CADER IDRIS, by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE ROCK OF CADER IDRIS, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I lay on that rock where the storms have their dwelling
Last Line: When the sense which gives soul to her beauty was won!
Alternate Author Name(s): Browne, Felicia Dorothea
Subject(s): Cader Idris (mountain), Wales


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.
'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, 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,
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 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
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!





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