Mundi et Cordis :: :: University of Virginia Library

The winter-wild Seas have laid bare the shore,
And shingle and sand from its stony floor
Swept, and left naked a desert of rocks
That was buried in pebbly depths before;
And the spray of the waves on their massy blocks—
Of a thousand uncouth and fantastic forms,
The offspring misshapen of billows and storms—
Lies frozen, and white as an old man's hair:
Some are huddled and clad, others lonely and bare;
And from the weeds on the adamant crowd,
Thick, wither'd and starch'd,
By the keen winds parch'd,
The icicles hang their white frost-woven locks,
Which shell-fish and creatures scarce animate shroud.
Where the waves have receded that blent with the rills
Which flow'd o'er the beach to the sea from the hills

And kiss'd them with freshness, of shingle-pierced ice
Lie glittering curves; and the unmoving snow
Streaks the cliffs above and the beach below
And enwreathes the far hills with a varied device;
And smooth frozen sea-weeds are scatter'd around,
Which, suddenly struck, gleam with stars at the wound.

2.

A river, the far-pour'd oblation
Of mountain-streamings, in their congregation,
Beneath a veil of ice transparent,
Through which its crystal clear apparent
Gleams like love through chastity,
Flows along the dreary sand;
Till, breaking from its icy shade,
'Twixt ice-banks, from its waters made,
It trickles coldly to the sea
That foams upon the frozen strand.

3.

On the vast cliffs that heavenward climb,
Which on their brows wear storm-recorded Time,
The frost hath wrought a work sublime!
The manifold descending fountains
Of these cleft and concave mountains

Are veil'd within their icy cells,
Portculliced by vast icicles,
That, dagger-like, in each rocky jag,
Hang threat'ningly from crag to crag;
And where'er a curving roof
Beetles far into the air,
There is woven a glorious woof
Of ice-threads o'er the ceiling bare;
Whilst broader streamlets here and there
From the cliff's summit to its base
Lie bright and still in frozen ripples,
Where the faint sunbeams, coldly nurst,
Draw slow drops from those icy nipples,
Which, chain'd by the frost in their downward chase,
Seem struggling in vain to leap forth as at first—
A charm on my eyes hath burst!
A waterfall bold,
In many a fold
From steep to steep wide sweeping,
Till, perpendicularly leaping,
It sprang to the rocky beach,
In vain hath strived to reach—
For the frozen airs, around it creeping,
In massy ice-bonds clasp it, sleeping,
And there it lives, unheard, but dread,
Like a mighty spirit dead!