The Night was dark, yet winter breathed

Night was dark, yet winter breathed, The
With softened sighs on Gondal's shore;
And, though its wind repining grieved,
It chained the snow-swollen streams no more.

How deep into the wilderness
My horse had strayed, I cannot say;
But neither morsel nor caress
Would urge him farther on the way;

So, loosening from his neck the rein,
I set my worn companion free;
And billowy hill and boundless plain
Full soon divided him from me.

The sullen clouds lay all unbroken
And blackening round the horizon drear;
But still they gave no certain token
Of heavy rain or tempests near.

I paused, confounded and distressed;
Down in the heath my limbs I threw;
Yet wilder as I longed for rest
More wakeful heart and eyelids grew.

It was about the middle night,
And under such a starless dome
When, gliding from the mountain's height,
I saw a shadowy spirit come.

Her wavy hair, on her shoulders bare,
It shone like soft clouds round the moon;
Her noiseless feet, like melting sleet,
Gleamed white a moment, then were gone.

" What seek you now, on this bleak moor's brow?
Where wanders that form from heaven descending? "
It was thus I said as, her graceful head,
The spirit above my couch was bending.

" This is my home, where whirlwinds blow,
Where snowdrifts round my path are swelling;
'Tis many a year, 'tis long ago,
Since I beheld another dwelling.

" When thick and fast the smothering blast
O'erwhelmed the hunter on the plain,
If my cheek grew pale in its loudest gale
May I never tread the hills again.

" The shepherd had died on the mountain side,
But my ready aid was near him then:
I led him back o'er the hidden track,
And gave him to his native glen.

" When tempests roar on the lonely shore,
I light my beacon with sea-weeds dry,
And it flings its fire through the darkness dire
And gladdens the sailor's hopeless eye.

" And the scattered sheep, I love to keep
Their timid forms to guard from harm;
I have a spell, and they know it well,
And I save them with a powerful charm.

" Thy own good steed on his friendless bed
A few hours since you left to die;
But I knelt by his side and the saddle untied,
And life returned to his glazing eye.

" And deem thou not that quite forgot
My mercy will forsake me now:
I bring thee care and not despair;
Abasement but not overthrow.

" To a silent home thy foot may come
And years may follow of toilsome pain;
But yet I swear by that burning tear
Loved shall meet on its hearth again, The
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