A

LEGEND OF GLENCOE.

In a rocky pass of the Pyrenees, towards sunset, two persons, a Monk and a Hermit, are seen approaching a solitary hut.

HERMIT.

BEGONE! old man! nor haunt in vain

The threshold of this lonely shed.
More welcome far the sleety rain,
Or the blast raging round my head,
Than the false word, and falser smile
Of man, the accursed priest of guile.

Speak not of peace-this bosom hides
A heart more tortured than the tides,

When the tornado raves.

Talk not of hope-a second breath

Shall sooner seek the vaults of death,

And stir our fathers' graves!

Waste not thy vain compassion here;
My misery claims no sigh, no tear.
Breathe not of bliss-yon blasted tree
Shall bloom ere bliss revisit me.

Hast thou a balm can salve the heart
Pierced by remorse's venomed dart?
Hast thou a drug can steep the brain,
Till memory wake to all but pain?

I've felt, and still must feel, the worst

Can'st thou redeem what God hath curst?

Then bid a long, a blighted track

Of years from age to youth roll back.

Bid grief undo what guilt hath done!

Bid frenzy cease to rend and sear!
Can'st thou allay my pangs-even one?
Old man! What dotage brings thee here?

So spake the Hermit of the wood

That trembles o'er Gavarni's flood.

Men wist not why he came, nor whence. No foot had trod his residence,—

A wretched hut, where night could shed Her dews upon his lonely bed,

And muttering winds at will might creep, On sightless foot, around his sleep.

A thousand feet beneath his wall

He saw the abyssmal waters fall,
And oft, upon a misty ledge,

That shudders o'er the torrent's edge,
He mused, until the drifting spray
Dript from his floating locks of grey,
And night, like bird of sable plume,
Rose darkly from that gorge of gloom.
And oft hath midnight's pallid Queen

Beheld him rooted there;

For man hath mental moods, I ween,

To which fair noonday's cloudless sheen
And midnight's murkiest air

Are both alike—an inner strife
Veiling all signs of outward life-

A world within the breast awaking,

With sights and sounds of its own making.

Ah! bleak the thoughts, and all unblest,

That rob yon Hermit of his rest,
And fix him o'er that gulf profound,
Unmoved by sight, unstirred by sound.
Fierce, fierce the soul, that sympathy
Seeketh so oft, wild surge in thee!

Unsocial Stranger! who is he?
Why comes he there to watch and weep?
No tongue can solve the mystery.
But wild conjecture will not sleep;
And some surmise he crossed the sea
Pursued by guilt-but what the crime
They know not-nor the distant clime.
But this they know-he never seeks
His fellow-men, nor idly speaks

To woodman met at evening's hour;
And when St Mary's convent-tower
Rocks to the pensive vesper-bell,
Ne'er was the stranger seen to tell
His holy beads, or breathe a prayer;

And peasant-boys, belated there,

Have marked him, at that sacred sound,
Start, wildly-gazing, from the ground,

As if the sad and solemn note

Had found an echo in his thought

A plummet dropt by memory
Into the depth of days gone by!

MONK.

Penance, in deep contrition done,
Can win thee what it oft hath won.
Confession owns a mystic power

To hallow sorrow's saddest hour,
To pluck remorse's venomed dart

From the most lorn and wretched heart,
And ope the golden gates of grace

For the most guilty of thy race.

Thy care, thy crime-I know them not;

But this, mysterious man! I know,

The world hath never mourned the blot,

And man hath never felt the woe,