The Power of Solitude/The druid rites
THE DRUID RITES.A FRAGMENT.
Hah! what shrieks of anguish swell, Recreant madness stands aghast;Did you hear that demon's yell, Roll on the shivering blast? 'Twas the Druid's midnight howl To bid the fiends of sorcery meet; Lo, wrapt in many a winding sheet, With eye of wrath and withering scowlSlowly rise they from the dead,Each unveils his cowled head,Muttering sounds of dark intent,That tell the moody mind on schemes of murder bent.
Now the troubled rites begin, Shouts that freeze the alarmed soul,With dubious meaning peal their din; The Furies burst a fitful laugh, Loud, as the tempest rocks the sky; Anon they seize the mystic bowl, And holiest blood they quaff.At length the cauldron boils, and round they fly, Urged by no conscious will; The boding raven hurries by, And all again is still.
Lo, a lovely child appears,[1]Its cheeks suffused with scalding tears;A mother bears the fatal knife,To yield at witchery's doom its life, A sacrifice of eldest birth.Can a mother urge such deeds, To glut the Druid's savage mirth?Break the bondage of his spell, Nor foul the bridal bed,With crimes so black, as startle hell: Monster, curses blast thy head,He bleeds, the newborn infant bleeds!
The banquet smokes, the hags advance,And round in wild disorder dance; Their screams disturb the dead: Grinning now with hideous look, In mystery's lore supremely read, They scan the sorcerer's Runic book: The churchyard yawns, and many a sprite,With hurrying step, and marble glare,Walks the midnight's baleful air, While livid flames betray his flight.
Pillowed on clouds of curling fire, The fateful sisters sail behind, Yoked to the pinions of the shuddering wind; From wormy skulls the clotted gore With savage ecstasy they drink, And rolling onward slowly sink;'Drown,' they cry, 'in blood your ire, 'And let the orgies roar.
The cold moon, trembling with affright,Grows pale, and reels athwart the night;Convulsive Mona backward leaps,And groans along her thousand steeps.Once more they shout, 'to vengeance run,'Ere morn a palsying deed of hell is done.'
- ↑ Human victims, particularly the first born, were offered at these polluted altars of horrible superstition.