A spectre of the woods, shadeless and pale,
A form of vanished ages, whose dark tale
It once beheld, and seemed by fits to wail.
LIV.
Here came the Druid, with firm, silent tread,
To bury deep the fangs of Warwolf dread.
Now, by the waning Moon’s red, slanting ray,
By her long, gloomy shadows on the way,
Two circles round about the oak he traced,
And, as with measured step and slow he paced,
And Runic words of secret import drew,
The mighty lines wider and wider grew,
As watery circles o’er a lake increase;
At length they rested, where he bade them cease.
Watching the minutes of the downward moon,
He walked th’ enchanted Celtic circles duly o’er;
Dropping, at every bidden step, a fang.
One fang to every step he gave, no more,
Meanwhile his harp, unsmote, with strange notes rang!
The vast circumference he paced not soon;
One hundred and forty minute-steps past,
Ere was paced the widest circle and last;
And the pale moon, behind the forest-shade,
Sunk with a small and smaller curve of light;
O’er the wood-tops he watched her last glow fade,
Till every lingering ray was lost in night.
The hour is won! — the spell is done!
The Druid to rest in his bower is gone!
LV.
Now LISTEN AND WATCH, and you shall see
What passed around that old oak-tree.
The marvellous story must now be told
Of the ban’s last force of Warwolf bold.
When next the midnight-moon was seen,
The Druid returned to the forest green;
That forest green on yesternight,
Now mourned in all its leaves a blight!
And now were its branches shattered and bare;
Nor tree, nor bough, did the Sorcerer spare,
Dire was the hour when he waked from his swoon!
O’er all the region, far and nigh,
Far as the Druid cast his eye,
(Under the glimpses of the low-hung moon)
The lands all black and desolate lie!
But whither the Wizard his-self was fled,
And whether still living in trance, or dead,
Or what was become of his horrid den,
Were matters not readied by the Druid’s ken.
Nor cliff, nor rock, was e’er seen from that hour,
On wilds, that had owned the Sorcerer’s power;
Not an oak, or green bank, on hill or dale,
That once waved in Summer’s and Winter’s gale.
LVI.
The Druid pressed on through the lifeless wood,
Till he reached the plain, where the old oak stood.
Now listen and watch, and you shall see
What was done around that warrior tree.
Scarce could the Druid now believe,
That phantoms did not his eyes deceive,
As he looked o’er this desert land,
Far as his vision could command.
Is it the light, that mocks his sight?
Or shadows, that now the low moon throws?
What dark and mighty shapes are those,
Standing like dæmons of the night?
Nearer and nearer the Seer now goes,
Taller and taller the figures arose!
Astonished he saw, on the plain around,
In the circles he traced on the teeth-sown ground,
A hundred and forty figures stand,
A lofty and motionless giant-band!
He paused in the midst, and calmly viewed
Their strange array and their sullen mood.
High wonder filled his mind, as this he saw.
And wander still and reverential awe,
From age to age, have filled the gazer’s mind,
With sweet yet melancholy dread combined.
Stonehenge is the name of the place this day,
But what more it means no man may say.
LVII.
Who, that beholds these solid masses rude,
Could guess they ever were with life endued?
And yet, receive the marvel that I tell,
These mighty masses held the Wizard’s spell!
They were his buried fangs, and upward sprung
By nerve of magic, which they yet retained,
Dilating to enormous size and shape,
While from their prison-grave they strove t’ escape.
But here their effort ceased, and, wildly flung,
They in their mighty shapes have since remained.
Their effort, but not yet their power, has ceased,
Far, as the ages of the world increased,
Still with the charm of wonder they have bound
Whoever stepped in their enchanted ring,
And when the learned held the truth was found,
The daily and the nightly thought,
So long pursued, so closely caught,
Has proved a feather dropped from Fancy’s wing!
And thus have two thousand ages rolled,
But the truth till now was never told!
Unsuspected it lay,
Closely hid from the day,
Till some smatterer bold
Should the secrets of Druid lore unfold.
LVIII.
The Hermit, by the wondrous vision won,
Felt not the shuddering earth, nor heard the gale
O’er the far wilderness come sweeping on,
With gathering strength and wildly sweeping yell,
Till, like some fiendly voice it burst around,
And gradual died along the hollow ground.
Then he knew it the Wizard’s blast;
It was his fiercest and his last,
And came for vengeance on the Druid’s head;
But with his fangs his evil power was fled.
And, when rung out the harp’s rejoicing swell,
The Druid knew that all was once more well.
Then to his bowery home his steps he turned,
And slept the sleep by conscious virtue earned.
His fortitude the Wizard’s spell had braved;
His patient wisdom a wide land had saved!
LIX.
From forth that day began the Druid sway
O’er all this widely stretching plain,
And hamlets few that on their border lay.
Still did the Druids long remain
In the lone desert, far from vulgar eye,
‘Wrapt in high thought and solemn mystery.
The circle of the Wizard’s fangs, ‘tis said,
Was their great temple, where, on certain days,
In triumph for the tyrant-daemon fled,
They gathered from the country far around,
And sang, with nameless rites, their mystic lays,
Here on this rescued memorable ground.
LX.
And thus they ruled, for age succeeding age.
There is one later record; which doth spell,
But in what scroll, or rhyme, or numbered page,
Or letter black, or white, I cannot tell —
There is one record, could it now be found,
Doth spell the words which, spoken on that ground,
By the wan light of the setting moon,
When night is far past her highest noon —
Words, that make sight so strong and fine,
As will the Druids’ shadowy figures show,
When in their long and stately march they go,
Around and round that mighty line,
Where yet the Wizard’s fangs uprear
Their monstrous shapes upon the air.
And, as they glide those shapes between,
A beam-touched harp does sometimes shine,
Or golden fillet’s glance is seen;
While long devolving robes of snow,
Wave on the wind, and round their footsteps flow.
And then are heard the wild, fantastic strains,
Which Druid-charm has left to dignify these plains.
LXI.
Such was the scene, and such are the sounds,
Linked with the history of these grounds!
Nay, ‘tis said that, at this very hour,
Without aid from any words of power,
If mortal has courage to go alone
To that remote circle and count each stone,
When the midnight-moon doth silently reign
Over the pathless and desolate plain,
Gliding forms may ev’n yet be viewed,
Of lofty port and solemn mood,
Performing rites ill understood
By people of this latter day!
How this-may be I cannot say;
For nobody of these days can be found
To venture alone to that distant ground,
When the midnight moon walks over the land,
With slow, soundless step and beckoning wand,
And cold shadows following her command.
LXII.
But, not for kindly sprites alone,
Is now that haunted region known,
Since the antique Seers are gone.
‘Tis said that, sometimes, even there
Fiendish sprites will ride on the air!
To lone shepherd their forms appear.
Their forms in the tempest’s first gloom he finds;
And this is the cause that the hurrying winds
Sweep so swiftly, and moan so loud,
As o’er those haunted downs they crowd.
On the waste’s edge they gather and brood;
Then, meeting the wild fiend’s fiercest mood,
They scud o’er the desert, through clouds, through rain,
Like ship, with her storm-sail set, on the main.
While the Druids lived, these evil bands
Kept far aloof from the guarded lands.
But, when the last died, the Sorcerer’s ban
Gained part of the force, with which it began.
LXIII.
And this is the cause why corn will not spring,
Nor a bird of summer will rest his wing,
Nor will the cottager here build his home,
Nor hospitable mansion spread its dome;
Why the plain never hears merry peal,
Announcing benefactor’s weal,
Nor e’en lone bell in village tower
Knells the irrevocable hour;
Why the dead find not here a hallowed grave,
Why the bush will not bud, nor tall tree wave.
And why Salisbury steeple was built so high
As though fairies had reared it to prop the sky!
For the mischievous sprites they once came so nigh,
They threatened all the country round,
Castles and woods, and meadow-ground,
That kindly peer o’er the edge of the plain,
Like a sunny shore o’er a stormy main;
Nay, they came so near to Salisbury town,
The people within feared the walls would down.
LXIV.
Then they built a tower, as by charmed hands,
So grand, yet so simple, its airy form!
To guard the good town from all fiendish bands,
And avert the dreaded pitiless storm.
And they fenced the tower with pinnacles light,
And they traced fine openwork all around;
It is, at this day, a beautiful sight!
And they piled on the tower a spire so high,
That it looked o’er all the Sorcerer’s ground,
And almost it vanished into the sky.
So lofty a steeple the world cannot show;
Nor, drawn on the air with the truth of a line,
A form so majestic, so gracefully fine;
Nor a tower more richly adorned below,
Where fretted pinnacles attend,
The spire’s first ascent to defend,
And catch the bright purple of evening’s glow,
While, sinking in shadows, the long roofs go.
This spire, viewed by the dawn’s blue light,
Or rising darkly on the night,
As with tall black line to measure the sphere,
While stars beside it more glorious appear,
Has so holy a look, not of earth it seems,
But some vision unknown save in Fancy’s dreams
LXV.
Now this good spire thus high they made,
All the land to watch and ward,
That the ill sprites, whene’er they strayed,
To their confines might be awed.
It could see on the wide horizon’s bound
Each shade, good or bad, as it walked its round,
Whether a fairy or fiend,
Whether a foe or a friend.
It could see the procession move along
With glittering harps, in robes of white;
It could hear the responsive far-borne song
Faintly swell o’er the wide-stretched plain,
Then sink, till all was still again,
And sleeping in the dear moonlight.
So this beautiful spire did watch and wake,
And guarded the land for Innocence* sake.
LXVI.
And, at this very day,
Let but the feeblest ray,
Or gleam, of moonshine chance to fall
Over this steeple so slenderly tall,
Or but glimmer upon the trembling vane;
Though the lighted traveller on the plain,
While he perceives it faintly shine,
Peering over upland downs afar, —
Though he hails it for the morning-star,
Yet all too well the warning sign
Know the bands of the Wizard’s line!
Soon as they spy its watching eye,
Whether by moonlight, or by morn,
Sullen they sigh, and shrink and fly,
Where sun, or moonbeam, never warn.
So this beautiful spire does watch and wake,
And still guards the land for Innocence’ sake.
SHAKSPEARE’S CLIFF.
HERE, all along the high sea cliff,
Oh, how sweet it is to go!
When Summer lures the light-winged skift
Over the calm expanse below, —
And tints, with shades of sleepy blue,
Misty ocean’s curving shores;
And with a bright and gleaming hue,
Dover’s high embattled towers.
How sweet to watch the blue haze steal
Over the whiteness of yon sail;
O’er yon fair cliffs, and now conceal
Boulogne’s walls and turrets pale!
Oh! go not near that dizzy brink,
Where the mossed hawthorn hangs its root.
To look how low the sharp crags sink,
Before the tide they overshoot.
Nor listen for their hollow sound —
Thou canst not hear the surges mourn,
Nor see how high the billows bound
Among the caves their rage has worn.
Yet, yet forbear! thou canst not spring,
Like fay, from off this summit high,
And perch upon the outstretched wing
Of the sea-mew passing by,
And safely with her skirt the clouds;
Or, sweeping downward to the tide,
Frolic amid the seaman’s shrouds,
Or on a bounding billow ride.
Ah! no; all this I cannot do;
Yet I will dare the mountain’s height,
Seas and shores and skies to view,
And cease but with the dim daylight.
For fearful-sweet it is to stand
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On some tall point ‘tween earth and heaven,
And view, far round, the two worlds blend,
And the vast deep by wild winds riven.
And fearful-sweet it is to peep
Upon the yellow strands below,
When on their oars the fishers sleep,
And calmer seas their limits know.
And bending o’er this jutting ridge,
To look adown the steep rock’s sides,
From crag to crag, from ledge to ledge,
Down which the samphire-gatherer glides.
Perhaps the blue-bell nods its head,
Or poppy trembles o’er the brink,
Or there the wild-briar roses shed
Their tender leaves of fading pink.
Oh fearful-sweet it is, through air
To watch their scattered leaves descend,
Or mark some pensile sea-weed dare
Over the perilous top to bend,
And, joyous in its liberty,
Wave all its playful tresses wide,
Mocking the death, that waits for me,
If I but step one foot aside.
Yet I can hear the solemn surge
Sounding long murmurs on the coast;
And the hoarse waves each other urge,
And voices mingling now, then lost.
The children of the cliffs I hear,
Free as the waves, as daring too;
They climb the rocky ledges there,
To pluck sea-flowers of humble hue.
Their calling voices seem to chime;
Their choral laughs rise far beneath;
While, who the dizziest point can climb,
Throws gaily down the gathered wreath.
I see their little upward hands,
Outspread to catch the falling flowers,
While, watching these, the little bands
Sing welcomes to the painted showers.
And others scramble up the rocks,
To share the pride of him, who, throned
On jutting crag, at danger mocks,
King of the cliffs and regions round.
Clinging with hands and feet and knee,
How few that envied height attain!
Not halfway up those urchins, see,
Yet ply their perilous toil in vain.
Fearless their hero sports in air,
Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) Page 266