But now is borne away by thee,

Memorial of thine agony!

780

Wet with thine own best blood shall drip 38

Thy gnashing tooth and haggard lip;

Then stalking to thy sullen grave,

Go-and with Gouls and Afrits rave;
Till these in horror shrink away

From spectre more accursed than they!

785

"How name ye yon lone Caloyer?

"His features I have scanned before

"In mine own land: 'tis many a year,

"Since, dashing by the lonely shore, 790

"I saw him urge as fleet a steed

"As ever served a horseman's need.

"But once I saw that face, yet then "It was so marked with inward pain, "I could not pass it by again;

795

"It breathes the same dark spirit now,
"As death were stamped upon his brow."

" "Tis twice three years at summer tide
"Since first among our freres he came;
"And here it soothes him to abide

800

"For some dark deed he will not name.

"The sea from Paynim land he crost,

"And here ascended from the coast;

"Yet seems he not of Othman race,
"But only Christian in his face:
"I'd judge him some stray renegade,

Repentant of the change he made,

"Save that he shuns our holy shrine,

810

"Nor tastes the sacred bread and wine. 815

"Great largess to these walls he brought,

"And thus our abbot's favour bought;

"But were I Prior, not a day

"Should brook such stranger's further stay,

"Or pent within our penance cell

820

"Should doom him there for aye to dwell.

"Much in his visions mutters he

"Of maiden 'whelmed beneath the sea;

"Of sabres clashing, foemen flying,

"Wrongs avenged, and Moslem dying. 825

"On cliff he hath been known to stand,

"And rave as to some bloody hand

"Fresh severed from its parent limb, "Invisible to all but him,

"Which beckons onward to his grave,

"And lures to leap into the wave.”

830

Dark and unearthly is the scowl

That glares beneath his dusky cowl:
The flash of that dilating eye

Reveals too much of times gone by;
Though varying, indistinct its hue,

Oft will his glance the gazer rué.

835

For in it lurks that nameless spell
Which speaks, itself unspeakable,

A spirit yet unquelled and high,

That claims and keeps ascendancy;

And like the bird whose pinions quake,

But cannot fly the gazing snake,

Will others quail beneath his look,

840

Nor 'scape the glance they scarce can brook.

How that pale lip will curl and quiver!

Then fix once more as if for ever;