VII.
The desert gave him visions wild,
Such as might suit the specter’s child.
Where with black cliffs the torrents toil,
He watch’d the wheeling eddies boil,
Till, from their foam, his dazzled eyes
Beheld the River Demon[177] rise;
The mountain mist took form and limb,
Of noontide hag, or goblin grim;
The midnight wind came wild and dread,
Swell’d with the voices of the dead;
Far on the future battle heath
His eye beheld the ranks of death:
Thus the lone Seer, from mankind hurl’d,
Shaped forth a disembodied world.
One lingering sympathy of mind
Still bound him to the mortal kind;
The only parent he could claim
Of ancient Alpine’s lineage came.
Late had he heard, in prophet’s dream,
The fatal Ben-Shie’s[178] boding scream;
Sounds,[179] too, had come in midnight blast,
Of charging steeds, careering fast
Along Benharrow’s shingly side,
Where mortal horseman ne’er might ride;
The thunderbolt had split the pine,—
All augur’d ill to Alpine’s line.
He girt his loins, and came to show
The signals of impending woe,
And now stood prompt to bless or ban,[180]
As bade the Chieftain of his clan.