The
forest crack’d, the waters curl’d,
The cattle huddled on the lea;
And wildly dash’d on tower and tree
The
sunbeam strikes along the world:
And
but for fancies, which aver
That all thy motions gently pass
Athwart a plane of molten glass,
I
scarce could brook the strain and stir
That
makes the barren branches loud;
And but for fear it is not so,
The wild unrest that lives in woe
Would
dote and pore on yonder cloud
That
rises upward always higher,
And onward drags a labouring breast,
And topples round the dreary west,
A
looming bastion fringed with fire.