When, by Night’s mantle hooded o’er, The heaving hills are seen no more, Oft blended with the torrent’s dash Are heard the thunder’s startling crash, And burst of billows on the shore, Like cannon’s deep and distant roar, By echoes answered loud and fast, That gallop on the midnight blast, As if the Spirit of the vale Heard in his cave the stormy wail, And to the tempest rolling by Shrieked loud his frightful mockery.... Where cairns of slumbering chiefs are piled, And frown above the waters wild, Rear their hoar heads, forlorn and dim, Upon the ocean’s lonely brim, There the fierce storm and maddening surge Howl loud and long the warrior’s dirge, And blended there together rave Through many a deep and dreary cave, And waken from their sullen lair Sea-monsters, darkly slumbering there. Seen from those death-towers of the flood, The ocean’s mighty solitude Widens through boundless space around, Vast, melancholy, lone, profound; So vast that thought with weary wing Droops o’er its distant wandering, And, left behind, again returns To muse upon the mouldering urns.... As the rude brush of evening’s wind Leaves not a lingering trace behind Of landscapes living in the stream, Like the dim scenery of a dream Called up by Fancy’s wizard wand, When Sense is sealed by Slumber’s hand; So Time’s drear blast hath swept along Alike from record and from song Their very names, who now lie hid Beneath each dusky pyramid; And all that hint of them are graves Where the green flag of ruin waves, Or crumbling remnant of the past That ivy shelters from the blast, And clings to still when others flee, Like true love in adversity. On Noltland’s solitary pile The last blush of the dying day Plays like a melancholy smile And hectic glow on pale decay ... The moss of years is on the wall, And fitfully the night-winds start Through Bothwell’s roofless ruined hall, Like sobs of sorrow from the heart; Upon each floor of cold, damp sod The clustering weeds like hearse-plumes nod; Through chambers desolate and green Hoots the gray owl at evening’s close. Meant for far other guests, I ween— Where wave-worn Beauty might repose, And find that bliss in Love’s caress Which hallows scenes of loneliness.