The eternal stars of night have witness’d here.

There stands an altar of unsculptured stone,[154]

Far on the moor, a thing of ages gone,

Propp’d on its granite pillars, whence the rains

And pure bright dews have laved the crimson stains

Left by dark rites of blood: for here, of yore,

When the bleak waste a robe of forest wore,

And many a crested oak, which now lies low,

Waved its wild wreath of sacred mistletoe—

Here, at dim midnight, through the haunted shade,