A Vale there is enwrapped with dreadful shades,

Which thick ° of mourning pines shrouds from the sun,

Where hanging cliffs yield short and dumpish ° glades,

And snowy floods with broken streams do run;

Where eye-room ° is from rock to cloudy sky,

From thence to dales with stony ruins strawed, °

Then to the crushed water's frothy fry,

Which tumbleth from the tops where snow is thawed;

Where ears of other sound can have no choice,

But various blust'ring of the stubborn wind In trees,

in caves, in straits with diverse noise,

Which now doth hiss, now howl, now roar by kind;

Where waters wrestle with encount'ring stones,

That break their streams and turn them into foam,

The hollow clouds full fraught with thund'ring groans,

With hideous thumps discharge their pregnant womb.

And in the horror of this fearful ° choir

Consists the music of this doleful place;

All pleasant birds their tunes from thence retire,

Where none but heavy notes have any grace.

Resort there is of none but pilgrim wights,°

That pass with trembling foot and panting heart;

With terror cast in cold and shudd'ring frights,

They judge° the place to terror framed by art.

Yet nature's work it is, of art untouched,

So strait indeed, so vast unto the eye,

With such disordered order strangely couched,

And so with pleasing horror low and high,