A pale and livid halo spread
Its flood above the hoar hill's head,
As slowly from behind it rose
The large blank Moon in grey repose,
Faint gleaming like the spectral skull
Of buried day: her frontlet dull
Black shadows trenched where lights had been,
Like eyes their sockets sunk within;
A formless visage faintly traced,
With shade and glimmer half effaced.
The ancient rocks caught fitfully
The tremulous light of her wan eye,
As beneath her filmy veil
She showed her brow so high, so pale;
While with a cold and glittering gaze
Their bald brows met her pallid rays.
The dark, deep woods from forth the gloom
Emerged as from a yawning tomb,
And showed their locks with dews besprent,
And raised their arms by lightnings rent:
While where was open space, a ray
Stole in at times through that drear way,
Where fancy laboured to behold
Shapes that fear hath not seen or told!