That sweep with sharp perpetual sound
The arid heights where the snows drift,
And drag the slain pines to the ground,
And all into the whirlwind lift
The heavy sinking slopes of shade
From hidden hills of monstrous girth,
Till new unearthly lights have flayed
The draping darkness from the earth.
Henceforth what hiding-place shall hide
All hallowed spirits that in form
Of mortal stand beneath the wide
And wandering pale eye of the storm?
The beadsman in his lonely cell
Hath cast one boding timorous look
Toward the heights; then loud and well,
—Kneeling before the open book—
All night he prayeth in one breath,
Nor spareth now his sins to own:
And through his prayer he shuddereth
To hear how loud the forests groan.
For all abroad the lightnings reign,
And rally, with their lurid spell,
The multitudinous campaign
Of hosts not yet made fast in hell:
And us indeed no common arm,
Nor magic of the dark may smite,
But, through all elements of harm,
Across the strange fields of the night—
Enrolled with the whole giant host
Of shadowy, cloud-outstripping things
Whose vengeful spells are uppermost,
And convoyed by unmeasured wings,
We foil the thin dust of fatigue
With bright-shod phantom feet that dare
All pathless places and the league
Of the light shifting soils of air;
And loud, mid fearful echoings,
Our throats, aroused with hell’s own thirst,
Outbay the eternal trumpetings;
The while, all impious and accurst,