Anne Bannerman

Prologue

Turn from the path, if search of gay delight,
Lead thy vain footsteps back to ages past!
Frail are the blighted flowers, and thinly cast
O'er the dim regions of monastic night.

Yet in their cavern'd, dark recesses dwells
The long-lost Spirit of forgotten times,
Whose voice prophetic reach'd to distant climes,
And rul'd the nations from his witched cells;

That voice is hush'd!....But still in Fancy's ear
Its first unmeasur'd melodies resound!
Blending with terrors wild, and legends drear,
The charmed minstrelsy of mystic sound,
That rous'd, embodied, to the eye of Fear
The' unearthly habitants of faery ground.