Reveals the butte-top tall and lonely there
Like some gray prophet contemplating doom.
But hark! What spirits whisper in the gloom?
What sibilation of conspiracies
Ruffles the hush—or murmuring of trees,
Ghosts of the ancient forest—or old rain,
In some hallucination of the plain,
A frustrate phantom mourning? All around,
That e’er evolving, ne’er resolving sound
Gropes in the stifling hollow of the night.