Sonnet VIII.
So ravishing soft upon the tide
Of the infuriate gust, it did career,
It might have sooth’d its rugged charioteer,
And sunk him to a zephyr; - then it died,
Melting in melody; - and I descried,
Borne to some wizard stream, the form appear
Of druid sage, who on the far-off ear
Pour’d his lone song, to which the surge replied;
Or thought I heard the hapless pilgrim’s knell,
Lost in some wild enchanted forest’s bounds
By unseen beings sung; or are these sounds
Such, as ’tis said, at night are known to swell
By startled shepherd on the lonely heath,
Keeping his night-watch and portending death?
