If Superstition has her dreams,
Proud reason has her mystic day;
And who shall harmonize the themes
In this world's dark and dreary way?
If Clementine is yet forgot,
Is the relief to her a gain?
She fears the demon in each thought,
In every fancy of the brain.
If once a cheerful thought shall rise,
The dreaded enemy is near;
If once her heaving bosom sighs,
The vengeful demon will appear.
In vain she seeks the greenwood grove,
In vain she hears the merlin sing,
In vain she seeks her flower alcove,
In vain for her the roses spring.
If holy peace she tries to seek,
She hears Clorinda's maniac song,
Or Florabel's ecstatic shriek,
Sounding the stilly woods among.
What though Sir Walter seeks her bower,
And pleads his suit on bended knee
With all a lover's magic power,
That she his lady-love shall be?
He does not know her secret pain;
She dare not whisper in his ear;
She dare not trust that she is sane;
She loves him, but she loves with fear.
This is her madness. Who shall know
If she with reason, they without,
Which have the greater load of woe?
Her sisters have not sense to doubt.
This is the world's madness too:
We seek for truth, and seek in vain.
While madly we the false pursue,
Who shall decide that he is sane?
And still the halls of old Craigullan
To weird doom are ever true;
The moaning winds are sad and sullen,
The grey owl hoots too-hoo! too-hoo!
XII.
THE HERMIT OF THE HILLS.
"Intruder, thou shalt hear my tale," the solitary said,
While far adown beneath our feet the fiery levin played;
The thunder-clouds our carpet were—we gazed upon the storm,
Which swept along the mountain sides in many a fearful form.
I sat beside the lonely man, on Cheviot's cloudless height;
Above our heads was glory, but beneath more glorious night;
For the sun was shining over us, but lightnings flashed below,
Like the felt and burning darkness of unutterable woe.
"I love, in such a place as this," the desolate began,
"To gaze upon the tempests wild that separate me from man;
To muse upon the passing things that agitate the world—
View myself as by a whirlwind to hopeless ruin hurled.
"My heart was avaricious once, like yours the slave of feeling—
Perish such hearts! vile dens of crime! man's selfishness concealing;
For self! damned self's creation's lord!—man's idol and his god!
Twas torn from me, a blasted, bruised, a cast off, worthless load.