LYRICAL AND DRAMATIC, 131
Fantastic cliffs of gnarléd stone, and saw
The vivid lightning flare in purple robes
Of flame along the ridge, and even heard
Its terrible crackle, ’mid the sullen roar _
Of answering thunder. And the driven hail
Beat on our faces, while we strove to fling
Aloft the axe of forgéd steel, encased
In glittering ice, and smite unceasingly
On the unyielding slope of ice, as black
As those most imminent ghosts of Satan’s frown
That shut us out from heaven, while the snow
Froze on our cheeks. And thus we gained the
field
Where precipice and overwhelming rock,
Avalanche, crag, leap through the dazzled air
To pile their mass in one Lethean plain
Of undulations of rolled billowy snow
Rent, seamed, and scarred with wound on jagged
wound,
Blue-rushing to the vague expanse below
O’ th’ unknown secrecies of mountain song.
Dragging behind us beautiful weary limbs,
We turned snow-blinded eyes towards the pass
That shot a jasper wall above the mist
Into the lightning-kindled firmament,
Behind whose battlements a shelter lay,
Rude-built of pine, whose parents in the storm
Of one vast avalanche were swept away
Into the valley. Thither we hasted on,
And there, as night stretched out a broken wing