Who shall decide that he is sane?

And still the halls of old Craigullan
To weird doom are ever true;
The moaning winds are sad and sullen,
The grey owl hoots too-hoo! too-hoo!



XII.

THE HERMIT OF THE HILLS.


"Intruder, thou shalt hear my tale," the solitary said,
While far adown beneath our feet the fiery levin played;
The thunder-clouds our carpet were--we gazed upon the storm,
Which swept along the mountain sides in many a fearful form.

I sat beside the lonely man, on Cheviot's cloudless height;
Above our heads was glory, but beneath more glorious night;
For the sun was shining over us, but lightnings flashed below,
Like the felt and burning darkness of unutterable woe.

"I love, in such a place as this," the desolate began,
"To gaze upon the tempests wild that separate me from man;
To muse upon the passing things that agitate the world--
View myself as by a whirlwind to hopeless ruin hurled.

"My heart was avaricious once, like yours the slave of feeling--