It was a clime where mortal form Hath never pressed the blasted soil— Where tempest-fires and surging storm Are struggling ever in their coil: A sunless clime, whose dreary night Gleams dimly with that doubtful light Which men have seen—when Darkness threw Around their homes its sombre hue— The fearful herald of the wrath That blazes on the Whirlwind’s path Ere he has tossed his banners out Like sable draperies o’er the Dead, And with a wild, delirious shout Struck his deep thunder-drum of dread; A clime where e’en the fountains fall With tone and step funereal: And ever through the dark, old trees A melancholy music rolls Along the faintly-chiming breeze— Sad as the wail of tortured souls. There ghastly forms were hurrying past Like weird clouds through the ether driven, In fear, before the HUNTER-BLAST, Whose vengeance purifies the heaven. And some were pale, as if with woe, And ever cast their eyes below; And some were quivering with a fear In this their dreary sepulchre; And some, whose awful aspects wore A look where sat the seal of age, On their convulsèd foreheads bore The phrenzied agony of rage; _On some_ a dreadful beauty shone Like rays received from fallen stars— So dim, so mournful and so lone, Yet brave, despite of all their scars. Far from the throng two sat apart Beneath a forest’s darkling plume— In that communion of the heart Which but the wretched can assume. They seemed in earnest converse there, As if with words to quench despair; And one, along whose features grew, A withering, deathly, demon-hue, Wore that high, dread, defying look Which but the Lost can dare to brook; The other milder seemed—but he Was shrouded, too, in mystery, And ever threw along the sky A fearful spiritual eye Which in its gloomy light sublime— Seemed half of virtue, half of crime, Like lightning when you see its glow Soft as a moonbeam flashed below— And then in blasting brightness sent Wild-quivering through the firmament. So sat they in that dreary light, Upon the blasted darkling mould— Fit watchers of such awful night— As thus the last his story told. LORRO. The _many_ only look to _years_; The _many_ think _they_ only roll The tides of happiness or tears Around the human soul: I know a single hour for me— _A minute_—was Eternity, That seemed with its fierce, lidless eye Fixed—fixed forever in the sky Which, circling round the Italian shore, Was only made for bliss before: But now it darkled like a shroud By demon-hands in warning shaken, From their lone, scowling thunder-cloud Ere yet its elements awaken.