All sore astonished stood Lord Scroope, He stood as still as rock of stane; He scarcely dared to trew his eyes, When thro’ the water they had gane.
‘He is either himsell a devil frae hell, Or else his mother a witch maun be; I wadna have ridden that wan water For a’ the gowd in Christentie.’
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.
[ THE LAST MAN]
All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, The Sun himself must die, Before this mortal shall assume Its Immortality! I saw a vision in my sleep, That gave my spirit strength to sweep Adown the gulph of Time! I saw the last of human mould, That shall Creation’s death behold, As Adam saw her prime!
The Sun’s eye had a sickly glare, The Earth with age was wan, The skeletons of nations were Around that lonely man! Some had expired in fight,—the brands Still rested in their bony hands; In plague and famine some! Earth’s cities had no sound nor tread; And ships were drifting with the dead To shores where all was dumb!
Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood With dauntless words and high, That shook the sere leaves from the wood As if a storm passed by, Saying, ‘We are twins in death, proud Sun! Thy face is cold, thy race is run, ’Tis Mercy bids thee go; For thou ten thousand thousand years Hast seen the tide of human tears, That shall no longer flow.
‘What though beneath thee man put forth His pomp, his pride, his skill; And arts that made fire, flood, and earth, The vassals of his will;— Yet mourn I not thy parted sway, Thou dim discrownèd king of day: For all those trophied arts And triumphs that beneath thee sprang Heal’d not a passion or a pang Entail’d on human hearts.
‘Go, let oblivion’s curtain fall Upon the stage of men, Nor with thy rising beams recall Life’s tragedy again: Its piteous pageants bring not back, Nor waken flesh, upon the rack Of pain anew to writhe; Stretch’d in disease’s shapes abhorr’d, Or mown in battle by the sword, Like grass beneath the scythe.