AMBERGRIS 
3 
 
 
 
FROM A TALE OF ARCHAIS 
 
In Hollow Stones, Scawfell 
 
Blind the iron pinnacles edge the twilight ; 
Blind and black the ghylls of the mountain clefted, 
Crag and snow-clad slope in a distant vision 
Rise as before me. 
 
Here (it seems) my feet by a tiny torrent 
Press the moss with a glad delight of being : 
Here my eyes look up to the riven mountain 
Split by the thunder, 
 
Rent and rifted, shattered of wind and lightning, 
Smitten, scarred, and stricken of sun and tempest, 
Seamed with wounds, like adamant, shod with iron, 
Torn by the earthquake. 
 
Still through all the stresses of doubtful weather 
Hold the firm old pinnacles, sky-defying ; 
Still the icy feet of the wind relentless. 
Walk in their meadows. 
 
Fields that flower not, blossom in no new springtide ; 
Fields where grass nor herb nor abounding darnel 
Flourish ;  fields more barren, devoid, than ocean’s 
Pasture ungarnered. 
 
Deserts, stone as arid as sand, savannahs 
Black with wrecks, a wilderness evil, fruitless ; 
Still, to me, a land of the bluest heaven 
Studded with silver. 
 
Castles bleak and bare as the wrath of ocean, 
Wasted wall and tower, as the blast had risen,