CANTO FOURTH.
Wilds of Holderness—Hags—Parting on the Humber—Waltham Abbey, and Grave—Conclusion.
The moon was high, when, 'mid the wildest wolds
Of Holderness, where erst that structure vast,
An idol-temple,[104] in old heathen times,
Frowned with gigantic shadow to the moon,
That oft had heard the dark song and the groans
Of sacrifice,
There the wan sisters met;
They circled the rude stone, and called the dead,
And sung by turns their more terrific song:
FIRST HAG.
I looked in the seer's prophetic glass,10
And saw the deeds that should come to pass;
From Carlisle-Wall to Flamborough Head,12
The reeking soil was heaped with dead.
SECOND HAG.
The towns were stirring at dawn of day,
And the children went out in the morn to play;
The lark was singing on holt and hill;
I looked again, but the towns were still;
The murdered child on the ground was thrown,
And the lark was singing to heaven alone.
THIRD HAG.
I saw a famished mother lie,20
Her lips were livid, and glazed her eye;
The tempest was rising, and sang in the south,
And I snatched the blade of grass from her mouth.
FOURTH HAG.