As one whose brain habitual [3] frensy fires
  Owes to the fit in which his soul hath tossed
  Profounder quiet, when the fit retires,
  Even so the dire phantasma which had crossed
  His sense, in sudden vacancy quite lost, 95
  Left his mind still as a deep evening stream. 
  Nor, if accosted now, in thought engrossed,
  Moody, or inly troubled, would he seem
  To traveller who might talk of any casual theme.

XII

  Hurtle the clouds in deeper darkness piled, 100
  Gone is the raven timely rest to seek;
  He seemed the only creature in the wild
  On whom the elements their rage might wreak;
  Save that the bustard, of those regions bleak
  Shy tenant, seeing by the uncertain light 105
  A man there wandering, gave a mournful shriek,
  And half upon the ground, with strange affright,
  Forced hard against the wind a thick unwieldy flight.

XIII

  All, all was cheerless to the horizon’s bound;
  The weary eye—­which, wheresoe’er it strays, 110
  Marks nothing but the red sun’s setting round,
  Or on the earth strange lines, in former days
  Left by gigantic arms—­at length surveys
  What seems an antique castle spreading wide;
  Hoary and naked are its walls, and raise 115
  Their brow sublime:  in shelter there to bide
  He turned, while rain poured down smoking on every side.

XIV

  Pile of Stone-henge! so proud to hint yet keep
  Thy secrets, thou that lov’st to stand and hear
  The Plain resounding to the whirlwind’s sweep, 120
  Inmate of lonesome Nature’s endless year;
  Even if thou saw’st the giant wicker rear
  For sacrifice its throngs of living men,
  Before thy face did ever wretch appear,
  Who in his heart had groaned with deadlier pain 125
  Than he who, tempest-driven, thy shelter now would gain? [4]

XV

  Within that fabric of mysterious form,
  Winds met in conflict, each by turns supreme;
  And, from the perilous ground dislodged, [5] through storm
  And rain he wildered on, no moon to stream 130
  From gulf of parting clouds one friendly beam,
  Nor any friendly sound his footsteps led;
  Once did the lightning’s faint disastrous gleam
  Disclose a naked guide-post’s double head,
  Sight which tho’ lost at once a gleam of pleasure shed. 135

XVI