---

Felicia Dorothea Hemans - The Rock Of Cader Idris
Work rating: Low

I LAY on that rock where the storms have their dwelling,  
  The birthplace of phantoms, the home of the cloud;  
Around it for ever deep music is swelling,  
  The voice of the mountain-wind, solemn and loud.  
`Twas a midnight of shadows all fitfully streaming, 
  Of wild waves and breezes, that mingled their moan; 
Of dim shrouded stars, as from gulfs faintly gleaming; 
  And I met the dread gloom of its grandeur alone. 

I lay there in silence–a spirit came o`er me; 
  Man`s tongue hath no language to speak what I saw: 
Things glorious, unearthly, passed floating before me, 
  And my heart almost fainted with rapture and awe. 
I viewed the dread beings around us that hover, 
  Though veil`d by the mists of mortality`s breath; 
And I called upon darkness the vision to cover, 
  For a strife was within me of madness and death. 

I saw them–the powers of the wind and the ocean, 
  The rush of whose pinion bears onward the storms; 
Like the sweep of the white-rolling wave was their motion, 
  I felt their dim presence,–but knew not their forms !  
I saw them–the mighty of ages departed– 
  The dead were around me that night on the hill:  
From their eyes, as they passed, a cold radiance they darted,– 
  There was light on my soul, but my heart`s blood was chill. 

I saw what man looks on, and dies–but my spirit 
  Was strong, and triumphantly lived through that hour; 
And, as from the grave, I awoke to inherit 
  A flame all immortal, a voice, and a power ! 
Day burst on that rock with the purple cloud crested, 
  And high Cader Idris rejoiced in the sun;– 
But O ! what new glory all nature invested, 
  When the sense which gives soul to her beauty was won !
Source
The script ran 0.001 seconds.