Blair Collection > Selections from the Gaelic bards

228 1IEBRIDIAN SKETCHES.
And he tries to sleep till the morning steep
In its light the stranger ground.
He tries to sleep, but soon starts and awakes;
For a sound is in the air,
That is not the sound of the wind or the wave,
And it raises his fell of hair.
It is not the tread of a man that he hears,
Nor the sound of a human tongue ;
He folds his arms on his breast, and peers
The dim-dark shore along.
Now on the left, and now on the right,
And now it comes before;
Sweet mercy! there's some vague dark thing
Upon the stormy shore.
Oh, horror! there's a dull, deep sound,
Like breath from a tighten'd throat—
Now on the land, and now on the sea,
And now on the rocking boat.
And there's a form, a clouded form,
In a shroud of misty light,
That darker makes the tempest wild —
More terrible the night.
It rests on the gunwale and looks in his face,
And it glares so fierce and fell ;
While it breathes through its throat, with that dismal note,
'Twixt a groan and an angry yell —
A note of pain and agony ;
A note to hear with dread ;
A wrathful note — a struggling cry,
By fear and fierceness fed !