VII.

Forth from her bosom the young savage drew A pine torch, strongly girded with gnatoo; A plantain-leaf o'er all, the more to keep Its latent sparkle from the sapping deep. 140 This mantle kept it dry; then from a nook Of the same plantain-leaf a flint she took, A few shrunk withered twigs, and from the blade Of Torquil's knife struck fire, and thus arrayed The grot with torchlight. Wide it was and high, And showed a self-born Gothic canopy; The arch upreared by Nature's architect, The architrave some Earthquake might erect; The buttress from some mountain's bosom hurled, When the Poles crashed, and water was the world; 150 Or hardened from some earth-absorbing fire, While yet the globe reeked from its funeral pyre; The fretted pinnacle, the aisle, the nave,[404] Were there, all scooped by Darkness from her cave. There, with a little tinge of phantasy, Fantastic faces moped and mowed on high, And then a mitre or a shrine would fix The eye upon its seeming crucifix. Thus Nature played with the stalactites,[405] And built herself a Chapel of the Seas. 160