The Works of The Ettrick Shepherd Centenary Edition. With a Memoir of the Author, by the Rev. Thomas Thomson ... Poems and Life. With Many Illustrative Engravings [by James Hogg] |
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 | The Works of The Ettrick Shepherd |  |
No sleep was his—he raised his eye,
To note if dangerous place was nigh.
There columned rocks, abrupt and rude,
Hung o'er his gateless solitude:
The muffled sloe, and tangling brier,
Precluded freak or entrance here;
But yonder oped a little path,
O'ershadowed, deep, and dark as death.
Trembling, he groped around his lair
For mountain ash, but none was there.
Teeming with forms, his terror grew;
Heedful he watched, for well he knew,
That in that dark and devious dell
Some lingering ghost or sprite must dwell:
So as he trowed, so it befell.
To note if dangerous place was nigh.
There columned rocks, abrupt and rude,
Hung o'er his gateless solitude:
The muffled sloe, and tangling brier,
Precluded freak or entrance here;
But yonder oped a little path,
O'ershadowed, deep, and dark as death.
Trembling, he groped around his lair
For mountain ash, but none was there.
Teeming with forms, his terror grew;
Heedful he watched, for well he knew,
That in that dark and devious dell
Some lingering ghost or sprite must dwell:
So as he trowed, so it befell.
| The Works of The Ettrick Shepherd | |