MORE fearful grows the hillside way, The gloom no softening breeze hath kissed! I glance far upward to the day, But scarce can catch one faltering ray From out the mist! Ah, heaven! to think youth's morning prime, All flushed with rose and amethyst, Its tender loves, its hopes sublime, Should shrink to this dull twilight-time Of cold and mist! No tranquil evening hour descends, When peace with memory holds her tryst, But doubt with prescient terror blends, And grief her mournful curfew sends Along the mist! Weird shapes and wild, stalk strangely by, And say, what bodeful voices hissed Where yonder blasted pine-trunks lie? What mystic phantoms shuddering fly Far down the mist? Dark omens all! they bid me stay, Unsheathe resolve, pause, strive, resist That poisonous charm which haunts my way; Alas! the fiend, more bold than they, Still rules the mist! And now from gulfs of turbulent gloom A torrent's threatening thunder; -- list! That ravening roar! that hungry boom! Down, down I pass to meet my doom Within the mist! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BEFORE MARCHING, AND AFTER (IN MEMORIAM F.W.G.) by THOMAS HARDY EPITAPHS OF THE WAR, 1914-18: THE BEGINNER by RUDYARD KIPLING WHITE HEAD by ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN SKY WRITING by MARY FINETTE BARBER THE CLOISTER OF THE FALLING SNOW by SYLVIA HORTENSE BLISS THE WOMEN OF WEINSBERG by ADELBERT VON CHAMISSO THE PROPHECY OF FAMINE; A SCOTS PASTORAL INSCRIBED TO JOHN WILKES by CHARLES CHURCHILL |