University of Virginia Library

No longer now his darkening brow
And coldly-glittering eye instilled
The terror that whene'er he willed
Had once the Maiden's bosom chilled.
The might of one supreme despair
Would let no lesser passion share
That bosom; one absorbing care
Had left no room for terror there.
She sought not to upbraid, reply;
Too sad for scorn, she turned to fly.
He saw his words their purpose missed,
Yet would not from his aim desist:
“Not listen! so resolved to go!—
Think not you shall escape me so;—
Think not I've no assistance nigh!—”
With sudden grasp he seized her wrist
And shouted. Then once more her eye
Shot forth its proud indignant light;
Her form expanded to full height;
She looked almost as when she stood
A captive bound beside the wood
When first she dazzled Ranolf's sight;—
Yet now so haggard, wan and worn,
By grief of so much beauty shorn,
Not much more like that Vision bright
Of anger-flashing loveliness,
Than some too early perished Tree,
A silver skeleton portrayed
Against the mountain's violet shade,
Like its own former self would be,
In luxury clad of leafy dress;
In sunlit symmetry of frame
And every sinuous branch the same;
But all the wealth wherewith it shone
Of blossom gay and verdure—gone!—
The wrist he held—she wrenched it free,
And flung him off with all her might.
He reeled—he stumbled—staggered back;
Nor had he seen how near he stood
To that fierce cauldron, sputtering black
And baleful—ever-boiling mud—
Beneath the phantom-shapes of rock
That seemed to gibber, jeer and mock!
The treacherous bank began to crack—
Gave way—and with a sullen plash
He plumped into the viscous mash.
The sable filth upspurted high—
Foul steam in thicker volumes gushed;
Then back the burning batter rushed
And closed o'er that despairing face
Upturned in blue-lined agony—
Those writhing limbs—that stifled cry!
Then heavily swelled into a cone;
Sunk down; and ring on ring a space
In sluggish undulations rolled;
And thicklier rising crowds alone
Of bubbles, of that horror told;
Though just as lazily they burst,
And not more poisonous than at first
Their old sulphureous stench dispersed.

Shocked, horrified, at sight so dread
Swift through the thicket Amo sped:
So rapidly had all occurred,
Well might what she had seen and heard—
That Sorcerer's apparition—then
And there—in that secluded glen,
And his swift disappearance, seem
Illusions of a hideous dream.