The billowy tempest whelms; till, upward urged, The valley to a shining mountain swells, Tipt with a wreath high-curling in the sky. As thus the snows arise, and foul and fierce, All Winter drives along the darkened air, 55 In his own loose-revolving fields the swain Disastered stands; sees other hills ascend, Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes, Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain; Nor finds the river nor the forest, hid Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on From hill to dale, still more and more astray 60 Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps, Stung with the thoughts of home: the thoughts of home Rush on his nerves and call their vigour forth 65 In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul! What black despair, what horror fills his heart, When, for the dusky spot which fancy feigned His tufted cottage rising through the snow, He meets the roughness of the middle waste, 70 Far from the track and blest abode of man; While round him night resistless closes fast, And every tempest, howling o'er his head, What water) of the still unfrozen spring, 80 These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift, |