The grot with torchlight. Wide it was and high,

And showed a self-born Gothic canopy;

The arch upreared by Nature's architect,

The architrave some Earthquake might erect;

The buttress from some mountain's bosom hurled,

When the Poles crashed, and water was the world;150

Or hardened from some earth-absorbing fire,

While yet the globe reeked from its funeral pyre;

The fretted pinnacle, the aisle, the nave,[404]

Were there, all scooped by Darkness from her cave.