Where now he, wearied, paused—and then his ear
Started to note some shaggy monster’s growl,
That from his snow-clad rocky den did peer,
Shrunk with gaunt famine in that tempest drear,
And scenting human blood:—yea, and so nigh,
Thrice did our northern tiger seem to come,
He thought he heard the fagots crackling by,
And saw, through driven snow and twilight gloom,
Peer from the thickets his fierce burning eye,