University of Virginia Library

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303

THE WITCH.

[FROM AN UNPUBLISHED TALE OF SHETLAND.]

Spirits, who beneath the deep
Darkly build the wrecking rock!
Wake the dreaming storm from sleep,
And the doors of safety lock!
Fleetly, on their palfreys white,
Swept the Fatal Sisters by
His old castle yesternight,
Shrieking out—“Thy doom is nigh!”

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304

Genii of the clouds! array
Arching sky in black to-day;
For the tongue of leader dread
To her ghastly troop hath said—
He must drown!

Not well could pen portray the face
And figure of that grim, weird woman;
One, gazing, would have thought the race
She darkly sprang from superhuman.
The garment round her shoulders cast
Was by a silver brooch made fast;
And, crested by a raven feather,
A bonnet muffled up her head,
Dark with the stains of time and weather;
Her shrivelled neck was bare,—and thread,
Whose coloring was caught from night,
Depended from a distaff light,
That near her lay, with noxious weeds,
On which the dew yet shone in beads,
And plants of power that flourish best
When plaintively the night-wind grieves—
When day has faded in the west,
And other flowers have shut their leaves.

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305

Low on the forehead of the crone
The hair in grisly masses grew;
Her lips were shrunken, and the bone
Of her lean cheek shone clearly through
The parchment-like and wrinkled skin,
That lay in furrows long and deep:
Like some foul votary of sin,
Just risen from a dreamless sleep,
And merry with a fearful mirth
By reason of return to earth—
Exulting that foul charm again
To generate disease and pain
Was in her keeping, stood the hag
Surveying ocean from the crag
The glad bird hushed its warbled strains
When flitting by.—Within her veins
The fountains of vitality
Long in appearance had been dried,
Though the red twinkle of her eye
Debility of frame belied;
And fiercely by the fire of hate
Her glance at times was lighted up.
In one hand, to unravel fate,
She held an old enchanted cup,
Whose handle cunningly resembled
The knotted snake in act to spring,
While lightly in the other trembled
A wand of magic fashioning.

Of freestone made and granite block,
A mossy structure capp'd the rock,
And stood as if the wind and rain
Of centuries had beat in vain
On rugged roof and side of stone
With hanging lichen overgrown.
The lintel of the cot was low,
And piping winds could come and go

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306

Through fissures in the granite gray,
Defying tempest, time, decay.
The regal pine, that loves to toss
Its plumage on the mountain head,
Proud perch of eagles! in the moss
Of ages richly habited,
Grew not in stately beauty there,
Green banners flinging to the air;
But the lonely spot was a fitting home
For the mystic being of my story;
Beneath lay ocean, flecked with foam,
And round were piled,
In grandeur wild,
Rocks with the flight of ages hoary.
Above, ribbed with fragments of porphyry stone,
The mountain raised its leafless cone;
And, wearing channels deep and wide,
The torrent came down its precip'tous side.
Murmurs, born in caverns dark,
Came up where the lonely crag was rifted;
And reefs, to wreck the gallant bark,
Above the wave their edges lifted.
Against the coast, with dark rock bound,
The waters struck with earthquake sound,
Or, rushing on, to madness toss'd,
In cold, unlighted caves were lost.
No leafy shrub, with blossoms hung,
Rich odor on the light winds flung;
Nor bush with dewy berries bright
The small birds tempted to alight;
And not one blade of grassy green
Gave freshness to the barren scene;
But meet was the place of for its occupant old,
Communion with spirits of evil to hold.