Ascending in aërial flight, The wheel of fire did not appear, To dissipate the fogs of night And clarify the atmosphere. Seeking with fervent ray and fierce, The canopy of cloud to pierce, The orb of day, stripped of his flame, A circle, ill-defined, became, As through the ever-thickening haze, His feeble outline met the gaze. This faded till his glowing face Left no suggestive spot or trace, No corollary on the pall Which settled and pervaded all. As stormy cowls their summits hid, In turret, tower and pyramid, Of stately and majestic mien, Was nature's architecture seen. From yawning chasm and abyss, Rose minaret and precipice, Carved by the tireless hand of time, In forms fantastic, yet sublime, While spires impregnable and high, Were profiled on the lowering sky. Exceeding the tremendous height Of brother peaks, on left and right, In his commanding station placed, The giant of the rocky waste With awe-inspiring aspect stood, The sentry of the solitude, Guarding the mountainous expanse With his imposing battlements. In rock-ribbed armor panoplied, With rugged walls on every side, Beseamed with countless scars and rents, From combat with the elements, He towered with mute and massive form, A challenge to the gathering storm. This overshadowing mountain peak In solemn silence seemed to speak A prophecy of arctic doom; As in his frigid splendor dressed, He reared aloft his frozen crest, Surmounted by a snowy plume. His wrinkled and forbidding brow A sombre shadow seemed to throw O'er other crags as wild and stern, Which frowned defiance in return. The wind, lugubrious and sad, In doleful accents, soft and low, Mourned through the dismal forests, clad In weird habiliments of snow, As if, forsooth, the sylvan ghosts Had mobilized in pallid hosts, To haunt their rugged solitudes, The spectres of departed woods. And with uninterrupted flow The streamlet, underneath the snow, Answered the wind's despondent moan With plaint of gurgling monotone; Or, locked in winter's stern embrace, No longer trickled in its bed, But found a frigid resting place In stationary ice, instead. The crystal snowflakes gently fell, Enrobing mountain, plain and dell, In mantle spotless and complete, As nature in her winding sheet. Layer upon layer fell fast and deep Till every cliff, abrupt and steep, Was crowned with coronal of white. Capricious gusts, which whirl and sift, Built comb and overhanging drift, From feathery flakes so soft and light.