he girding sky.

III.

A solemn hour!--so silent, that the sound
Even of a falling leaflet had been heard,
Was that, wherein, with meditative step,
With uncompanion'd step, measured and slow,
And wistful gaze, that to the left, the right,
Was often turn'd, as if in secret dread
Of something horrible that must be met--
Of unseen evil not to be eschew'd--
Up a long vista'd avenue I wound,
Untrodden long, and overgrown with moss.
It seem'd an entrance to the hall of gloom;
Grey twilight, in the melancholy shade
Of the hoar branches, show'd the tufted grass
With globules spangled of the fine night-dew--
So fine--that even a midge's tiny tread
Had caused them trickle down. Funereal yews
Notch'd with the growth of centuries, stretching round
Dismal in aspect, and grotesque in shape,
Pair after pair, were ranged: where ended these,
Girdling an open semicircle, tower'd
A row of rifted plane-trees, inky-leaved
With cinnamon-colour'd barks; and, in the midst,
Hidden almost by their entwining boughs,
An unshut gateway, musty and forlorn;
Its old supporting pillars roughly rich
With sculpturings quaint of intermingled flowers.

IV.

Each pillar held upon its top an urn,
Serpent-begirt; each urn upon its front
A face--and such a face! I turn'd away--
Then gazed again--'twas not to be forgot:--
There was a fascination in the eyes--
Even in their stony stare; like the ribb'd sand
Of ocean was the eager brow; the mouth
Had a hyena grin; the nose, compress'd
With curling sneer, of wolfish cunning spake;
O'er the lank temples, long entwisted curls
Adown the scraggy neck in masses fell;
And fancy, aided by the time and place,
Read in the whole the effigies of a fiend--
Who, and what art thou? ask'd my beating heart--
And but the silence to my heart replied!
That entrance pass'd, I found a grass-grown court,
Vast, void, and desolate--and there a house,
Baronial, grim, and grey, with Flemish roof
High-pointed, and with aspect all forlorn:--
Four-sided rose the towers at either end
Of the long front, each coped with mouldering flags:
Up from the silent chimneys went no smoke;
And vacantly the deep-brow'd windows stared,
Like eyeballs dead to daylight. O'er the gate
Of entrance, to whose folding-doors a flight