Sir Marmaduke Maxwell, A Dramatic Poem :: :: University of Virginia Library

Solway Shore. Night.
Spirits unseen.
Sea Spirit.
Hail, spirit; cease thy pastime—hillock high
Thy multitude of waters, till the foam
Hang in the hollow heaven. I scent the course
Of a dread mortal, whom ten thousand fiends
Herald to deeds of darkness.

River Spirit.
Come, my streams
Of fairy Nith, of hermit Clouden clear,
And moorland Annan—come too, gentle Ae—
And meet the Solway; and be loosed, ye winds
Which mock the proudest cedars into dust—
Come, mar his sinful course.

Sea Spirit.
Lo! now he comes;
I see him shoot through green Arbigland bay;
The smiling sea-waves sing around his prow,
Wooed by the melody, flung sweet and far,
From merry flute and cymbal. Lo! he comes;
Say, shall he go unchasten'd through our floods?

River Spirit.
His helmet plume shall drink my mirkest surge.

I have no lack of waters, such as smack
Of the world's corruption. I have secret floods,
Embrown'd with cut-throats' dust; waves tumbling red
With the gore of one whose hands were never wash'd
From the blood of strangled babes.

Sea Spirit.
Of every crime
That cries from earth to heaven, I have a stain;
So rise, ye surges. Are ye slow to rise
Against the homeward sea-boy, when he sees
Lights in his mother's dwelling by the foot
Of lonely Criffel? Rise, ye surges, rise!
Leap from the oozy bottom, where the bones
Of murderers fester—from the deepest den,
Where he who perish'd, plotting murder, lies;
Come from the creek where, when the sun goes down,
The haunted vessel sends her phantom troops
Of fiery apparitions. Come, as I call;
And come, too, heaven's wild wind. Pour the deep sea
Prone on yon ship that bears five unbless'd mortals—
Spirit, let us work.