O! lover of the twilight hour, That calls thee from the tombs of death, To haunt the cave, the time-struck tower, The sea-girt cliff, the stormy heath; Sweet is thy minstrelsy to him whose lays First sung this hallow'd hill of ancient days. Yet not this Druid-scene alone Inspires the gloom-delighted muse; Ah! many a hill to fame unknown, With awe the tuneful wanderer views; And oft while midnight lends her list'ning ear, Sings darkling, to the solitary sphere. Poor Ghost! no more the Druid band Shall watch, Devotion-wrapt, their fire, No more, high sounding thro' the land, To Virtue strike the plauding lyre. The snake along the frowning fragment creeps, And fox obscene beneath the shadow sleeps. No more beneath the golden hook The treasures of the grove shall fall; Time triumphs o'er each vanish'd oak-- The power whose might shall crush this ball-- Yet, yet, till Nature droops the head to die Compassion grant each monument a sigh. The bards, in lays sublime, no more The warrior's glorious deeds relate; Whose patriot arm a thunder bore, That hurl'd his country's foe to fate: Lo! mute the harp near each pale Druid hung, Mute, like the voice that once accordant sung. Save when the wandering breeze of morn, Or eve's wild gale with wanton wing, To hear the note of sorrow mourn, Steals to the silent sleeping string, And wildly brushing, wakes with sweetest swell, The plaintive trembling spirit of the shell. Here Virtue's awful voice was heard, That pour'd the instructive truth profound, Here Cornwall's sons that voice rever'd, Where sullen silence sleeps around. See where she sung, sad, melancholy, tread, A pensive pilgrim o'er th' unconscious dead. She calls on Alda's, Odred's name, Sons to the darken'd world of yore! Lur'd by whose eagle-pinion'd fame, The stranger left his native shore, Daring, his white sail to the winds he gave, And sought fair knowledge o'er the distant wave. Tho' few these awful rocks revere, And temples that deserted lie, The muse shall ask the tenderest tear That ever dropt from Pity's eye, T' embalm the ruins that her sighs deplore, Where Wisdom, Virtue dwelt, but dwell no more. FOOTNOTES: [147] For a description of this hill see page 208.