SONG OF THE CHILDEEN ABOUT SPEING. 127 



Into hugest craggy phantoms drifted, 

 Crashing together borne. 



Deep green all below, and in glinting white, 



Where clear peaks climb the skies, 

 They topple and clang in a loud vast fight, 



Meet for a demon's eyes. 



v. 



Above this wild motion he broodeth and sails, 



Makes the air dun with his wings, 

 Then rocks on the Kraken or stuns the Narwhales 



With the ice-spear that he flings. 

 He loveth such delicate sports as these, 



A hunter of monsters he, 

 I ween he rouseth those ice-mountained seas 



To thunder and leap t' his glee, 

 Till they heave at the stars their lance-keen tops, 



While the lashed chase passeth by, 

 Then lo ! every burnish'd pinnacle drops 



To crash down the steeps from on high I 



Yery rude are the points and angles there ; 



As he flaps between the crags 

 They topple and roll so much that they tear 



His smooth pinions on the jags. 

 You may know when the nice sleet-polished plumes 



Of a prim old Boy like he 

 Have been torn, how churlish vanity fumes 



That other things nice should be ; 

 For e'en the monsters gaping spout and jeer 



That he looketh so dismally. 



So he whirls him in great wrath up the air, 

 With his Fiend- Winds thronged behind, 



