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WHERE is my chief, my master, this bleak night, mavrone? | |
O cold, cold, miserably cold is this bleak night for Hugh! | |
Its showery, arrowy, speary sleet pierceth one thro and thro, | |
Pierceth one to the very bone. | |
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Rolls real thunder? Or was that red vivid light | 5 |
Only a meteor? I scarce know; but through the midnight dim | |
The pitiless ice-wind streams. Except the hate that persecutes him, | |
Nothing hath crueler venomy might. | |
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An awful, a tremendous night is this, meseems! | |
The flood-gates of the rivers of heaven, I think, have been burst wide; | 10 |
Down from the overcharged clouds, like to headlong oceans tide, | |
Descends grey rain in roaring streams. | |
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Tho he were even a wolf ranging the round green woods, | |
Tho he were even a pleasant salmon in the unchainable sea, | |
Tho he were a wild mountain eagle, he could scarce bear, he, | 15 |
This sharp sore sleet, these howling floods. | |
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O mournful is my soul this night for Hugh Maguire! | |
Darkly as in a dream he strays. Before him and behind | |
Triumphs the tyrannous anger of the wounding wind, | |
The wounding wind that burns as fire. | 20 |
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It is my bitter grief, it cuts me to the heart | |
That in the country of Clan Darry this should be his fate! | |
O woe is me, where is he? Wandering, houseless, desolate, | |
Alone, without or guide or chart! | |
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Medreams I see just now his face, the strawberry-bright, | 25 |
Uplifted to the blackened heavens, while the tempestuous winds | |
Blow fiercely over and round him, and the smiting sleetshower blinds | |
The hero of Galang to-night! | |
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Large, large affliction unto me and mine it is | |
That one of his majestic bearing, his fair stately form, | 30 |
Should thus be tortured and oerborne; that this unsparing storm | |
Should wreak its wrath on head like his! | |
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That his great hand, so oft the avenger of the oppressed, | |
Should this chill churlish night, perchance, be paralysed by frost; | |
While through some icicle-hung thicket, as one lorn and lost, | 35 |
He walks and wanders without rest. | |
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The tempest-driven torrent deluges the mead, | |
It overflows the low banks of the rivulets and ponds; | |
The lawns and pasture-grounds lie locked in icy bonds, | |
So that the cattle cannot feed. | 40 |
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The pale-bright margins of the streams are seen by none; | |
Rushes and sweeps along the untamable flood on every side; | |
It penetrates and fills the cottagers dwellings far and wide; | |
Water and land are blent in one. | |
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Through some dark woods, mid bones of monsters, Hugh now strays, | 45 |
As he confronts the storm with anguished heart, but manly brow, | |
O what a sword-wound to that tender heart of his, were now | |
A backward glance at peaceful days! | |
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But other thoughts are his, thoughts that can still inspire | |
With joy and onward-bounding hope the bosom of MacNee; | 50 |
Thoughts of his warriors charging like bright billows of the sea, | |
Borne on the winds wings, flashing fire! | |
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And tho frost glaze to-night the clear dew of his eyes, | |
And white ice-gauntlets glove his noble fine fair fingers oer, | |
A warm dress is to him that lightning-garb he ever wore, | 55 |
The lightning of his soul, not skies. | |
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Avran. Hugh marched forth to fight: I grieved to see him so depart. | |
And lo ! to-night he wanders frozen, rain-drenched, sad betrayed; | |
But the memory of the lime-white mansions his right hand hath laid | |
In ashes, warms the heros heart! | 60 |