War Drums (Scharkie)/The Robbery of Windy Ridge

by Louis Edward Scharkie

THE ROBBERY OF WINDY RIDGE.

Yellow bloom was on the wattle like a burnished arc of gold,
Running up the Windy Gulley where its winding waters rolled
To the hills beyond the gateway, and the wooden-pillared bridge,
Resting like a tired infant at the foot of Windy Ridge.

Bloom of gum and orange blossom, from the gurgling streams below,
Running up along the hillsides, robed them with a wreath of snow.
There, the droning gleaner garnered for his home beyond the hills,
And the songsters trilled their carols to the rippling of the rills.

There, beyond the bridge and gateway where the sloping ridges fall,
Rear the white walls and the turrets of the mansion Windy Hall,—
With its terraces and fountains, and its avenues of pine,
And its gaudy halls and portals, starred with gems of many a mine.

Beautiful th' empurpling twilight closed the bright decline of day.
Pallid moon and trembling starlights glittered on their silver way—
Far too calm, and far too lovely for the deeds about to fall
Like a thunderbolt of ruin on the mansion Windy Hall.

Deeply, sleep was on the mansion, on the mountain, and the lea.
Silence, like a dreamless angel, lulled the breezes on the sea,—
Broken only by the dingoe howling over yonder dune,
And the owl beyond the hilltops hooting lowly to the moon.

Warka footstep grinds the gravel with the crunch of smothered heels;
See! a robber lifts the lattice, and athwart the lintel kneels.—
God preserve the lives of those within it from the blabe that wounds and kills—
For 'tis Thunderbolt the wily robber-devil of the hills.

There were two within that mansion,—one a maid of tender years,—
And her sire with whom she lived and drunk with him, his cup of tears;
For her mother died at ocean, scarce two fleeting summers past,
Where the Horn frowns bleakly thro' th' Atlantic's scourge of storm and blast.

Lightly, up the polished stairway, Thunderbolt the robber stept,
Creeping noiseless in the chamber where the dreaming maiden slept;
But a sense of certain danger down her throbbing pulses streamed,
For, before her and the moon-light, stood the robber, and she screamed.

Dauntless he, with cruel fingers, clutched the shrieking maiden's throat,
As he muttered fiercely, "curse thee maiden! curse thee;—cease thy note."
But a pistol shot rung from the chamber where her sire slept,
And the robber, like an apparition, through the lattice leapt.

Close the curtains sadly on the tragedy of Windy Hall.
Gently bear the purest mortal that was ever 'neath a pall.
Let the violet bloom above her, and the virgin blossom wave;
For the ball that flew to save her, laid her coldly in her grave.

There, beside yon dripping fountain, sire and maid rest side by side,
And the night-winds sigh in every gust the griefs of which he died;
While the climbing portals crumble, and the tottering turrets fall,
And the midnight mountains moan the ghostly tales of Windy Hall.