Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/23

One ink-drop on a solitary thought,
Hath stirr'd the mind of millions.
                                             Where a cliff
Doth beetle rudely from the mountain's breast,
And dripping with a chilly moisture, make
Perpetual weeping,—was a lonely cave!
Rock-ribbed and damp.—There dwelt an aged man,
Fear'd as a prophet by the unletter'd race
Who sought his counsel, when some work of guilt
Did need a helper. Wondrous tales they told
Of dark communion with a shadowy world,
And of strange power to rule the demon shapes
That shriek'd and mutter'd in his cell, when storms
At midnight strove. Of his mysterious date
The living held no record. Palsying Age
The elastick foot enchain'd, which erst would climb
The steep unwearied—and the wither'd flesh
Clos'd round each sinew with a mummy's clasp;
As if some gaunt and giant shape, embalm'd
At Thebes or Memphis, when the world was young,
Should from its stain'd sarcophagus, protrude
The harden'd limb, and send a grating sound
From the cold, lungless breast.
                                        And there he dwelt,
Austere, in such drear hermitage, as seem'd
Most like a tomb, gleaning from roots and herbs
Scant nutriment. Fierce passions, brooding dark
In solitude and abstinence, had made
A hater of mankind. But when he heard
Of the white stranger, with his creed of love
Seducing red men's hearts, hot seeds of wrath
Smoulder'd within his bosom,—like a fire