Of the wide forests that before him lay: His ever steady onward pace alone Told that from home he lengthened yet his way, While the same forms--the same drear hollow moan, Seemed ever round him lingering to stay, And every step of progress to disown; As with all sail the bark may breast the tide, Nor yet advance, but rather backward glide. XXXIX. Above his head the branches writhe and bend, Or in the mingled wreck their ruin flies; The storm redoubles, and the whirlwinds blend The rising snow-drift with descending skies: And oft the crags a friendly shelter lend His breathless bosom, and his sightless eyes; But, when the transient gust its fury spends, Amid the storm again his way he wends. XL. Still truly does his course the magnet keep-- No toils fatigue him, and no fears appal; Oft turns he at the glimpse of swampy deep, Or thicket dense, or crag abrupt and tall, Or backward treads to shun the headlong steep, Or pass above the tumbling waterfall; Yet still rejoices when the torrent’s leap, Or crag abrupt, or thicket dense, or swamp’s far sweep XLI. Assures him progress.--From gray morn till noon-- Hour after hour--from that drear noon until The evening’s gathering darkness had begun To clothe with deeper glooms the vale and hill, Sire Williams journeyed in the forest lone; And then night’s thickening shades began to fill His soul with doubt--for shelter he had none-- And all the outstretched waste was clad with one XLII. Vast mantle hoar. And he began to hear, At times, the fox’s bark, and the fierce howl Of wolf, sometimes afar--sometimes so near, That in the very glen they seemed to prowl Where now he, wearied, paused--and then his ear Started to note some shaggy monster’s growl, That from his snow-clad rocky den did peer, Shrunk with gaunt famine in that tempest drear, XLIII. And scenting human blood:--yea, and so nigh, Thrice did our northern tiger seem to come, He thought he heard the fagots crackling by, And saw, through driven snow and twilight gloom, Peer from the thickets his fierce burning eye, Scanning his destined prey, and through the broom, Thrice stealing on his ears, the whining cry Swelled by degrees above the tempest high. XLIV. Wayworn he stood--and fast that stormy night Was gathering round him over hill and dale; He looked around and by the lingering light, Found he had paused within a narrow vale; On either hand a snow-clad rocky height Ascended high, a shelter from the gale, Whilst deep between them, in thick glooms bedight, A swampy dingle lay before his sight. XLV.