Classic Poem

To a wild mountain, whose bare summit hides
Its broken eminence in clouds; whose steeps
Are dark with woods; where the receding rocks
Are worn with torrents of dissolving snow;
A wretched woman, pale and breathless, flies,
And, gazing round her, listens to the sound
Of hostile footsteps: — No! they die away —
Nor noise remains, but of the cataract,
Or surly breeze of night, that mutters low
Among the thickets, where she trembling seeks
A temporary shelter — clasping close
To her quick-throbbing heart her sleeping child,
All she could rescue of the innocent group
That yesterday surrounded her. — Escaped
Almost by miracle! — Fear, frantic Fear,
Winged her weak feet; yet, half repenting now
Her headlong haste, she wishes she had stayed
To die with those affrighted Fancy paints
The lawless soldiers' victims. — Hark! again
The driving tempest bears the cry of Death;
And with deep, sudden thunder, the dread sound
Of cannon vibrates on the tremulous earth;
While, bursting in the air, the murderous bomb
Glares o'er her mansion. — Where the splinters fall
Like scattered comets, its destructive path
Is marked by wreaths of flame! — Then, overwhelmed
Beneath accumulated horror, sinks
The desolate mourner!


The feudal Chief, whose Gothic battlements
Frown on the plain beneath, returning home
From distant lands, alone and in disguise,
Gains at the fall of night his castle walls,
But at the silent gate no porter sits
To wait his lord's admittance! — In the courts
All is drear stillness! — Guessing but too well
The fatal truth, he shudders as he goes
Through the mute hall; where, by the blunted light
That the dim moon through painted casement lends,
He sees that devastation has been there;
Then, while each hideous image to his mind
Rises terrific, o'er a bleeding corse
Stumbling he falls; another intercepts
His staggering feet. — All, all who used to rush
With joy to meet him, all his family
Lie murdered in his way! — And the day dawns
On a wild raving Maniac, whom a fate
So sudden and calamitous has robbed
Of reason; and who round his vacant walls
Screams unregarded, and reproaches Heaven!