A hundred horrid stems, jagged and stark,

Wrestled with crooked arms in hideous fray,

Besides sleek ashes with their dappled bark,

Like crafty serpents climbing for a prey,

With many blasted oaks moss-grown and gray."

LXXVIII.

"But here upon his final desperate clause

Suddenly I pronounced so sweet a strain,

Like a pang'd nightingale, it made him pause,

Till half the frenzy of his grief was slain,