Ghostly figure on the Mountain

On the way up the mountain today, in bright sunshine, beneath a blue sky and with hardly a breath of wind, I noticed -- from a fair distance -- something white among the rocks just beneath the summit.  I thought it was moving, but could not be sure.  It was too white to be a sheep, and I thought maybe it was a pony -- but no, a mountain pony would not be grazing just there, among the jagged rocks.   I climbed closer and closer,  with the white thing (which was about the right size for a human being) sometimes in view and sometimes not......  Closer and closer I got, and then finally I clambered over the last rocky eminence to find not a ghostly appirition but a snow-white frozen waterfall in a place where I was not even aware of a water seepage.  It was, after all, rather close to the summit.  Oh, did I forget to mention it?  The temperature was sub-zero, as it has been for the last few days....

That reminded me of this wonderful poem by Robert Graves, set in Criccieth:

WELSH INCIDENT
by Robert Graves

'But that was nothing to what things came out
From the sea-caves of Criccieth yonder.'
'What were they? Mermaids? Dragons? Ghosts?'
'Nothing at all of any things like that.'
'What were they, then?'
                                    'All sorts of queer things,
Things never seen or heard or written about,
Very strange, un-Welsh, utterly peculiar
Things. Oh, solid enough they seemed to touch,
Had anyone dared it. Marvellous creation,
All various shapes and sizes, and no sizes,
All new, each perfectly unlike his neighbour,
Though all came moving slowly out together.'
'Describe just one of them.'
                                        'I am unable.'
'What were their colours?'
                                        'Mostly nameless colours,
Colours you'd like to see; but one was puce
Or perhaps more like crimson, but not purplish.
Some had no colour.'
                                'Tell me, had they legs?'
'Not a leg or foot among them that I saw.'
'But did these things come out in any order?'
What o'clock was it? What was the day of the week?
Who else was present? How was the weather?'
'I was coming to that. It was half-past three
On Easter Tuesday last. The sun was shining.
The Harlech Silver Band played Marchog Jesu
On thirty-seven shimmering instruments
Collecting for Caernarvon's (Fever) Hospital Fund.
The populations of Pwllheli, Criccieth,
Portmadoc, Borth, Tremadoc, Penrhyndeudraeth,
Were all assembled. Criccieth's mayor addressed them
First in good Welsh and then in fluent English,
Twisting his fingers in his chain of office,
Welcoming the things. They came out on the sand,
Not keeping time to the band, moving seaward
Silently at a snail's pace. But at last
The most odd, indescribable thing of all
Which hardly one man there could see for wonder
Did something recognizably a something.'
'Well, what?'
'It made a noise.'
'A frightening noise?'
'No, no.'
'A musical noise? A noise of scuffling?'
'No, but a very loud, respectable noise —-
Like groaning to oneself on Sunday morning
In Chapel, close before the second psalm.'
'What did the mayor do?'

'I was coming to that.'