And seemed to surge about me,

As the brawl of armèd men.

And once I sprang from slumber,

Hot and startled,

Dreaming that I felt

A warm breath on my cheek,

As if a jackal nuzzled me;

Or some dread, slinking foe

Made certain of my sleeping

Before he plunged the steel.

But nothing stirred within the glimmering cavern,

Where, all around me, lay my sleeping kindred;

And, when I stole without, with noiseless footsteps,

To rouse the smouldering watchfire into flame,

And cast fresh, crackling brushwood on the blaze,

I caught no glint of arms betwixt the branches,

Nor any sound or rumour, save

The choral noise of cold hill-waters,

Cold hill-waters singing,

Singing to the stars.

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