150 HENKY KIRKE WHITE S POEMS. 



Tliou mark'dst him drink with ruthless ear 

 The death-sob, and disdaining rest, 

 Thou sawest how danger fired his breast, 



And in his young hand couch'd the visionary spear. 

 Then Superstition at thy call, 

 She bore the boy to Odin's Hall, 

 And set before his awe-struck sight 

 The savage feast and spectred fight ; 

 And summoned from his mountain tomb 

 The ghastly warrior son of gloom, 

 His fabled runic rhymes to sing 

 While fierce Hresvelger flapped his wing; 

 Thou showedst the trains the shepherd sees, 

 Laid on the stormy Hebrides, 

 Which on the mists of evening gleam 

 Or crowd the foaming desert stream ; 

 Lastly, her storied hand she waves 

 And lays him in Florentian caves ; 

 There milder fables, lovelier themes,, 

 Enwrap his soul in heavenly dreams. 

 There pity's lute arrests his ear. 

 And draws the half- reluctant tear ; 

 And now at noon of night he roves 

 Along the embowering moonlight groves, 

 And as from many a cavern'd dell 

 The hollow wind is heard to swell, 

 He thinks some troubled spirit sighs. 

 And as upon the turf he lies. 

 Where sleeps the silent beam of night, 

 He sees below the gliding sprite, 

 And hears in fancy's organs sound 

 Aerial music warbling round. 



Taste lastly comes and smoothes the who! % 

 And breathes her polish o'er his soul ; 

 Glowing with wdld, yet chastened heat, 

 The wondrous work is now complete 

 The Poet dreams : — The shadow flies, 

 And fainting fast its image dies. 

 But lo ! the Painter's magic force 



