"It was a vision. In the drowsy gloom, The dull of midnight, at her couch's foot Lorenzo stood and wept: the forest tomb Had marr'd his glossy hair, which once could shoot Lustre into the sun, and put cold doom Upon his lips, and taken the soft lute From his lorn voice, and passt his loomed ears Had made a miry channel for his tears. Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spoke; For there was striving in its piteous tongue, To speak as when on earth it was awake, And Isabella on its music hung: Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake, As in a palsied Druid's harp unstrung; And through it moaned a ghostly under-song, Like hoarse night gusts sepulchral biers among. Its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy bright With love, and kept all phantom fear aloof From the poor girl by magic of their bright, The while it did unthread the horrid woof Of the late darkened time--the murd'rous spite Of pride and avarice--the dark pine roof In the forest--and the sodden turfed dell, When, without any word, from stabs it fell. Saying moreover, 'Isabel, my sweet! Red whortle-berries droop above my head, And a large flint-stone weighs upon my feet, Around me beeches and high chesnuts shed Their leaves and prickly nuts; a sheep-fold bleat Comes from beyond the river to my bed: Go shed one tear upon my heather-bloom, And it shall comfort me within the tomb. 'I am a shadow now, alas! alas! Upon the skirts of human nature dwelling Alone: I chaunt alone the holy mass, While little sounds of life around me knelling, And glossy bees at noon do fieldward pass, And many a chapel bell the hour is telling, Paining me through: these sounds grow strange to me, And thou art distant in humanity.'" Let us now see what Burns, the never-to-be-forgotten Scottish poet, says in his _Address to the Deil_ and _Tam o' Shanter_. In his own felicitous way he brings out the belief the ancient inhabitants had of visible devils, water-kelpies, spunkies, witches, charms, spells, and many other forms of superstition. ADDRESS TO THE DEIL. "O thou! whatever title suit thee, Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie, Wha in yon cavern grim an' sootie, Closed under hatches, Spairges about the brunstane cootie, To scaud poor wretches. Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee, An' let poor damned bodies be; I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie, E'en to a deil, To skelp and scaud poor dogs like me, An' hear us squeel? Great is thy pow'r, and great thy fame; Far kend and noted is thy name: An' tho' yon lowin' heugh's thy hame, Thou travels far; An' faith! thou's neither lag nor lame, Nor blate nor scaur.