midnight
On the other side of this immeasurable gulph lay in deep shadow -- the main range of Snowdon ; whose base was perhaps covered with thick forests , but whose summit and declivities displayed a dreary waste . Dazzled by the grandeur of the spectacle , Bertram would have sought repose for his eye by turning round ; but the new scene was , if not greater , still more striking . From his lofty station he overlooked the spacious ruins of the entire monastery , as its highest points silvered over by moonlight shot up from amidst the illimitable night of ravines , chasms , and rocky peaks that form the dependencies of Snowdon . Add to these permanent features of the scene the impressive accident of the time -- midnight , with an universal stillness in the air , and the whole became a fairy scene , in which the dazzled eye comprehended only the total impression , without the separate details or the connexions of its different points . So much however might be inferred from the walls which lay near with respect to those which gleamed in the distance -- that the towers and buildings of the abbey had been for the most part built upon prominent peaks of rock . Those only , which were so founded , had resisted the hand of time : while the cross walls which connected them , wanting such a rocky basis , had all fallen in . Solemnly above all the chapels and turrets rose , brilliantly illuminated by the moon , the main tower .