THE SISTERS OF THE GLEN. 79 



"The Lady of the Mount" relates to the loves of 

 Lady Catherine Gordon and the impostor Perkin 

 Warbeck, well known in English history ; — and also 

 to the consecration of St. Michael's mount. "The 

 Sisters of the Glen " is a wild and melancholy story. 



THE SISTERS OF THE GLEN. 



It is from Nathan^s mossy steep, 

 The foaming waters flash and leap ; 

 It is where shrinking wildflowers grow 

 They lave the Nymph that dwells below. 



But wherefore in this far off dell, 

 The reliques of a human cell ? 

 Where the sad stream and lonely wind 

 Bring man no tidings of' his kind! 



Long years agone ! the Old Man said, 

 Twas told him by his Grandsire dead, 

 One day two ancient Sisters came, — 

 None there could tell their race or name. 



Their speech was not in Cornish phrase, 

 Their garb had marks of loftier days, 

 Slight food they took from hands of men, 

 They wither'd slowly in that glen. 



One died ! the other's shrunken eye 

 Gush'd till the fount of tears was dry, — 

 A wild and wasting thought had she, — 

 ^' I shall have none to weep for me V- 



ITiey found her, silent, at the last. 

 Bent in the shape wherein she passed, — ■ 

 Where her lone seat long used to stand, 

 Her head upon her shrivell'd hand ! 



Did Fancy give this legend birth ? 

 The Grandarae's tale for Winter-hearth — 

 Or some dead Bard, by Nathan's stream, 

 People these banks with such a dream ? 



We know not ! but it suits the scene 

 To think such wild things here have been. 

 What spot more meet, could Grief or Sin 

 Choose at the last to wither in ? 



We would willingly dwell on the merits of the re- 

 maining poems did our space admit, we cannot however 

 pass over " Clovelly," a most beautiful effusion — the 

 lines in Italics breathe the very soul of poetry. 



