Sir Aubrey D Ever E
¶[1788-1846]
566 Glen Gar If FI
¶GAZING from each low bulwark of this bridge,How wonderful the contrast! Dark as night,Here, amid cliffs and woods, with headlong mightThe black stream whirls, through ferns and drooping sedge,'Neath twisted roots moss-brown, and weedy ledge,Gushing;—aloft, from yonder birch-clad heightLeaps into air a cataract, snow-white;Falling to gulfs obscure. The mountain ridge,Like a grey Warder, guardian of the scene,Above the cloven gorge gloomily towers:
Hartley Coleridge
¶O'er the dim woods a gathering tempest lours;Save where athwart the moist leaves' lucid greenA sunbeam, glancing through disparted showers,Sparkles along the rill with diamond sheen!
II
¶A sun-burst on the Bay! Turn and behold!The restless waves, resplendent in their glory,Sweep glittering past yon purpled promontory,Bright as Apollo's breastplate. Bathed in gold,Yon bastioned islet gleams. Thin mists are rolled,Translucent, through each glen. A mantle hoaryVeils those peaked hills shapely as e'er in storyDelphic, or Alpine, or Vesuvian old,Minstrels have sung. From rock and headland proudThe wild wood spreads its arms around the bay:The manifold mountain cones, now dark, now brighNow seen, now lost, alternate from rich lightTo spectral shade; and each dissolving cloudReveals new mountains while it floats away.