MORE fearful grows the hillside way,
The gloom no softening breeze hath kissed!
I glance far upward to the day,
But scarce can catch one faltering ray
From out the mist!
Ah, heaven! to think youth's morning prime,
All flushed with rose and amethyst,
Its tender loves, its hopes sublime,
Should shrink to this dull twilight-time
Of cold and mist!
No tranquil evening hour descends,
When peace with memory holds her tryst,
But doubt with prescient terror blends,
And grief her mournful curfew sends
Along the mist!
Weird shapes and wild, stalk strangely by,
And say, what bodeful voices hissed
Where yonder blasted pine-trunks lie?
What mystic phantoms shuddering fly
Far down the mist?
Dark omens all! they bid me stay,
Unsheathe resolve, pause, strive, resist
That poisonous charm which haunts my way;
Alas! the fiend, more bold than they,
Still rules the mist!
And now from gulfs of turbulent gloom
A torrent's threatening thunder;--list!
That ravening roar! that hungry boom!
Down, down I pass to meet my doom
Within the mist!
