The desert gave him visions wild, Such as might suit the spectre's child. Where with black cliffs the torrents toil, He watched the wheeling eddies boil, Jill from their foam his dazzled eyes Beheld the River Demon rise: The mountain mist took form and limb Of noontide hag or goblin grim; The midnight wind came wild and dread, Swelled with the voices of the dead; Far on the future battle-heath His eye beheld the ranks of death: Thus the lone Seer, from mankind hurled, Shaped forth a disembodied world. One lingering sympathy of mind Still bound him to the mortal kind; The only parent he could claim Of ancient Alpine's lineage came. Late had he heard, in prophet's dream, The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream; Sounds, too, had come in midnight blast Of charging steeds, careering fast Along Benharrow's shingly side, Where mortal horseman ne'er might ride; The thunderbolt had split the pine,-- All augured ill to Alpine's line. He girt his loins, and came to show The signals of impending woe, And now stood prompt to bless or ban, As bade the Chieftain of his clan. VIII. 'T was all prepared;--and from the rock A goat, the patriarch of the flock, Before the kindling pile was laid, And pierced by Roderick's ready blade. Patient the sickening victim eyed The life-blood ebb in crimson tide Down his clogged beard and shaggy limb, Till darkness glazed his eyeballs dim. The grisly priest, with murmuring prayer, A slender crosslet framed with care, A cubit's length in measure due; The shaft and limbs were rods of yew, Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach wave Their shadows o'er Clan-Alpine's grave, And, answering Lomond's breezes deep, Soothe many a chieftain's endless sleep. The Cross thus formed he held on high, With wasted hand and haggard eye, And strange and mingled feelings woke, While his anathema he spoke:-- IX.