Alone, among his young compeers, Was Brian from his infant years; A moody and heartbroken boy, Estranged from sympathy and joy, Bearing each taunt with careless tongue On his mysterious lineage flung. Whole nights he spent by moonlight pale, To wood and stream his hap to wail, Till, frantic, he as truth received What of his birth the crowd believed, And sought, in mist and meteor fire, To meet and know his Phantom Sire! In vain, to soothe his wayward fate, The cloister oped her pitying gate; In vain, the learning of the age Unclasped the sable-lettered page; Even in its treasures he could find Food for the fever of his mind. Eager he read whatever tells Of magic, cabala, and spells, And every dark pursuit allied To curious and presumptuous pride; Till with fired brain and nerves o'erstrung, And heart with mystic horrors wrung, Desperate he sought Benharrow's den, And hid him from the haunts of men.
VII
The desert gave him visions wild, Such as might suit the specter's child. Where with black cliffs the torrents toil, He watched the wheeling eddies boil, Till, 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 eyes 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 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
'Twas all prepared—and from the rock, A goat, the patriarch of the flock,
