Now I watched them, and half longed for a fight like Beowulf's.

[iv] At last the moon rose behind me, and I walked on.

Once a vast shape rose up in the mist and walked beside me, and I half drew my sword on it.

But that, too, drew sword, and I knew it for my own shadow on the thick vapour.

Then a sheet of water stretched out almost under my feet, and thousands of wildfowl rose and fled noisily, to fall again into further pools with splash and mighty clatter.