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TO AN ECHO IN SNOWDON.
Thou bodiless, shadowless elf! careering
From fell to rock, from rock to tow’r!
With many a shout of goblin laughter cheering
The mountain spirits in their craggy bow’r;
Turning to faery revelry and mirth
Each sound of weal or woe that owes its birth
To mortal man—frail being of an hour!
Like aspen leaf that quails with like emotion,
Beneath the summer’s flick’ring breeze,
As from the hurricane whose fierce commotion
Wracks into dell and precipice the seas—
Like avalanche, whose earth-born thunders hear
Alike the bugle of the mountaineer,
And a whole army’s warlike revelries!
Thus thou each voice that near thy dwelling lingers
With elfin murmurs dost salute,
Till the whole mountain fastness to thy fingers
Trembles instinct with music like a lute!
Like wintry floods the gathering chorus broods
O’er all the waste and boundless solitudes,
Nor fell nor fount nor precipice is mute.
The monarch’s voice, the shepherd’s idle shout,
And childhood’s laugh of ecstasy,
Alike have drawn thy sweet responses out,
