For nature weeps in kindred sympathy.
But one short hour ago, and hundreds were,
Who are, no longer-the unconscious widow,
Perchance, in that same hour, awaited one
Doomed never to return-the aged matron
Thought of her far-off sea-boy whose sweet presence
The last dead hour should lend her-idle hopes!
This hour awoke the Storm-God-he arose
And called his whirlwinds around him, while in wrath,
From pole to pole they tempested the main,
And the poor sea-boy perished—never more
His mother shall smile on him, never more
With spectacled eye-sight, bend a look upon
That sun-bronzed cheek, to trace the chubby youth
She cradled in his childhood-he is gone-
This hour hath knelled his last.
Hear a low stifled moan, as if the wind
Sung through some bony skeleton?
"Tis nearing now, and breaks from yonder pool.
Away then to the cave-the spirits of night
Are rising to their revels.
SECOND STRANGER.
Lead on, I follow.
(They enter the cave by the pool-side. The water meantime becomes agitated, a cloud hovers over its surface, and in the midst appears a female form, with a silver wand in her hand. She waves it, and four witches rise from the earth. While this is going forward, the first stranger, who is standing by the mouth of the cave, addresses his companion in the interior.)
SECOND STRANGER. (After a pause.)
My veins are curdled, and each drop of blood
Is stiffening to an icicle.
The pool is thronged with dæmons, and the heavens
Rain spirits down as hail-storms; ghastly shapes
Flit by upon the raven wing of night,
Embodied visions, that while nature sleeps
Haunt her repose: the hour weighs on my soul,
As though 'twere laden with the past, and voices
Float all around the enamoured atmosphere,
Like bubbles on a stream of sound; each note
Trills softly on the laughing air, as when
In the morning of the world, celestial choirs
Sung the first man to sleep in Paradise.—
The spirits are assembled, and the queen
Of night is rising o'er the pool; they bow,
Wizard and witch, before the awful shrine
Of her unearthly majesty; how she sits!
There is a thoughtful grandeur in her eye,
A solemn melancholy in the tones
Of her deep dæmon voice, that bids me love,
Yet tremble while I love her-hark! a summons—
(The Queen speaks from her water-throne.)
Spirits of Hell! speak to your throned queen,
The night witch slumbers by her fountain side,
Charmless and impotent. Speak! the hour invites
We hurry, we hurry, o'er moorland and dell,
The witch by the fountain she knows us full well;
She knows us full well, for hark to her spell,
How it warbles in magical close as we rove
Round about, round about, under the grove.
The zenith moon while we pass her by,
Draws in her horns, and shrinks back in the sky,
Shrinks back in the sky, as the bonny blue eye
Of the violet fades when the tempest is nigh—
Then hail to our night-queen, we'll sing as we rove,
Round about, round about, under the grove.
A voice by the fountain, a voice in the vale,
Louder and louder the hollow winds rail,
The hollow winds rail-there is blood on the gale;
The child it is strangled, the mother is dying,
The father stands over them weeping and sighing;
We have stricken the parent and murdered the son-
So hey! to the grave, for our task is done.
Honor to death and his carnival!
You lift the coffin and I the pall;
On to the charnel house, steady, be steady,
The grave it is dug, and the priest is ready,
The priest is ready, the prayer is said,
The hollow dust rings on the coffin head,
And the old grey church, both turret and rafter,
Shakes like a flow'r with the summer wind's laughter.
There was a youth in the gay haunts of man
Well known-a sullen shameless libertine;
Hovering at night around the city—I
Met him, and lighted from my thunder-cloud
In guise of a young girl whom once he loved,
But loved in vain; I drew him readily on
From guilt to sin, from sin to deadliest crime;
He fought, loved, drank, blasphemed, apostatized,
Gambled, won, lost, and felt each fluctuation
Of triumph and despair, sunshine and gloom,
"Till one lone night of savage hopelessness,
Returning to the home, his home no longer;
A dagger met his eye-I placed it there-
He had a father, rich, but covetous
Of the world's dross; shall such a miser live?'
The apostate boy low muttered as he sought
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