And lo! in wild confusion scattered round,
Huge, shapeless, naked, massy piles of stone
Rise, proudly towering o'er this barren ground,
Scowling in mutual hate--apart, alone,
Stern, desolate they stand--and seeming thrown
By some dire, dread convulsion of the earth
From her deep, silent caves, and hoary grown
With age and storms that Boreas issues forth
Replete with ire from his wild regions in the north.

How beautiful! yet wildly beautiful,
As group on group comes glim'ring on the eye,
Making the heart, soul, mind, and spirit full
Of holy rapture and sweet imagery;
Till o'er the lip escapes th' unconscious sigh,
And heaves the breast with feeling, too too deep
For words t' express the awful sympathy,
That like a dream doth o'er the senses creep,
Chaining the gazer's eye--and yet he cannot weep.

But stands entranced and rooted to the spot,
While grows the scene upon him vast, sublime,
Like some gigantic city's ruin, not
Inhabited by men, but Titans--Time
Here rests upon his scythe and fears to climb,
Spent by th' unceasing toil of ages past,
Musing he stands and listens to the chime
Of rock-born spirits howling in the blast,
While gloomily around night's sable shades are cast.