Like a worm-fretted visage from the tomb,
The moon unswathes her hollow, shrunken head,
Launching such light as foulders on the dead
From pallid skies more death-like than the gloom.
Under her beams the breasted lands assume
Dead hues, and charnel shapes unceremented;
And shadows that towering sepulchers might shed
Move livid as the shadows on dials of doom.

On hills like tumuli, and waters mute,
A whiteness steals as of a world made still
When reptant Death at last rears absolute—
An earth now frozen by malefice of eyes
Aeonian dooms and realm-deep rigors fill—
The gaze of that Medusa of the skies.