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.

“Some say there’s wildness in my eyes, and others deem me crazed,
They, trembling, turn and shun my path—­for which let Heaven be praised! 
They say my words are blasphemy—­they marvel at my fate,
When ’tis my happiness to know they pity not, but hate.

“My father fell from peace and wealth the day that I was born—­
My mother died, and he became his fellow-gambler’s scorn;
I know not where he lived or died—­I never heard his name—­
An orphan in a workhouse, I was thought a child of shame.

“Some friend by blood had lodged me there, and bought my keeper too,
Who pledged his oath he would conceal what of my tale he knew. 
Death came to him—­he called on me the secret to unfold,
But died while he was uttering the little I have told.