Even in the lap of horror.  Ivy clasped
The fissured stones with its entwining arms,
And did embower with leaves for ever green, 580
And berries dark, the smooth and even space
Of its inviolated floor, and here
The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore,
In wanton sport, those bright leaves, whose decay,
Red, yellow, or ethereally pale, 585
Rivals the pride of summer.  ’Tis the haunt
Of every gentle wind, whose breath can teach
The wilds to love tranquillity.  One step,
One human step alone, has ever broken
The stillness of its solitude:—­one voice 590
Alone inspired its echoes;—­even that voice
Which hither came, floating among the winds,
And led the loveliest among human forms
To make their wild haunts the depository
Of all the grace and beauty that endued 595
Its motions, render up its majesty,
Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm,
And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould,
Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss,
Commit the colours of that varying cheek, 600
That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.

The dim and horned moon hung low, and poured
A sea of lustre on the horizon’s verge
That overflowed its mountains.  Yellow mist
Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank 605
Wan moonlight even to fulness; not a star
Shone, not a sound was heard; the very winds,
Danger’s grim playmates, on that precipice
Slept, clasped in his embrace.—­O, storm of death! 
Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night:  610
And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still
Guiding its irresistible career
In thy devastating omnipotence,
Art king of this frail world, from the red field
Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital, 615
The patriot’s sacred couch, the snowy bed
Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne,
A mighty voice invokes thee.  Ruin calls
His brother Death.  A rare and regal prey
He hath prepared, prowling around the world; 620
Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men
Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms,
Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine
The unheeded tribute of a broken heart.

When on the threshold of the green recess 625
The wanderer’s footsteps fell, he knew that death
Was on him.  Yet a little, ere it fled,
Did he resign his high and holy soul
To images of the majestic past,
That paused within his passive being now, 630
Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe
Through some dim latticed chamber.  He did place
His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk
Of the old pine.  Upon an ivied stone