Canto XV

To-night the winds begin to rise    And roar from yonder dropping day:    The last red leaf is whirl'd away, The rooks are blown about the skies;

The forest crack'd, the waters curl'd,    The cattle huddled on the lea;    And wildly dash'd on tower and tree The sunbeam strikes along the world:

And but for fancies, which aver    That all thy motions gently pass    Athwart a plane of molten glass, I scarce could brook the strain and stir

That makes the barren branches loud;    And but for fear it is not so,    The wild unrest that lives in woe Would dote and pore on yonder cloud

That rises upward always higher,    And onward drags a labouring breast,    And topples round the dreary west, A looming bastion fringed with fire.

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H., Canto XV