For strength,—as powerless as I was pale.
Then I remembered that within a tale
Once I had read—a chronicle of ills
Cowled monks had written—how one shall not fail
To find, unsought, the Fiend, if so he wills,
Cloak, cap, and cock's crook'd plume among the lonely hills.
VIII
Was that his laugh? and that his vulture hand?—
No! no! for in the legend it was said,
"Though moonless midnight curse the barren land