Ii

First, past the fellside, where the bramble-hollow Whines, wolf-like, with the wind; gaunt wind, that grieves Through the one sickly ash, whose withered leaves Worry and mutter, shriveled as the lips Of bent hags kissing. Then--the slope that whips The face with brush; and where a gnarled vine slips, Snake-like, from off a rock, that seems to wallow,-- One mass of briers,--a humpbacked hulk of hair, A gorgon head of writhings, huge, that heaves, When, heaped abruptly on it, flare! Burst rain and tempest-glare.-- This passed, I follow A thorny slip of path until I reach the storm-scarred summit of the hill.