Now, by the cool, declining year condescend,
Descend the copious exhalations, check'd,
As up the middle sky unseen they stole,
And roll the doubling fogs around the hill.
No more the mountain, horrid, vast, sublime,
Who pours a sweep of rivers from his sides,
And high between contending kingdoms
The rocky long division, fills the
With great variety; but in a
Of gath'ring vapour from the baffled
Sinks dark and dreary; thence expanding far,
The huge dusk gradual swallows up the plain:
Vanish the woods; the dim-seen river
Sullen and slow to roll the misty wave.
Ev'n in the height of noon, oppress'd, the
Sheds weak and blunt his wide-refracted ray,
Whence glaring oft with many a broaden'd
He frights the nations.
Indistinct on earth,
Seen through the turbid air, beyond the
Objects appear, and, wilder'd o'er the waste,
The shepherd stalks gigantic: till at last,
Wreath'd dun around in deeper circles, still Successive closing, sits the gen'ral
Unbounded o'er the world, and, mingling thick,
A formless gray confusion covers all.
