What phantom light from yonder lonely tower,
Glimmers yet paler than the pale moon beam;--
Breaking the darkness of the midnight hour,--
What bodes its dismal, melancholy gleam?
’Tis not the brightness of that glorious light,
That bursts in splendour from the hoary north;
’Tis not the pharos of the dangerous night,
Mid storms and winds benignly shining forth.
Still are the waves that wash this desert shore,
No breath is there to fill the fisher’s sail;
Yet round yon isle is heard the distant roar
Of billows writhing in a tempest’s gale.
Doomed are the mariners that rashly seek
To land in safety on that dreadful shore;
For once engulfed in the forbidden creek,
Their fate is sealed--they’re never heard of more.
For spirits there exert unholy sway--
When favoured by the night’s portentous gloom--
Seduce the sailor from his trackless way,
And lure the wretch to an untimely doom.
A demon tenant’s yonder lonely tower,
A dreadful compound of hell, earth, and air;
To-night he visits not his favourite bower,
So pale the light that faintly glimmers there.
In storms he seeks that solitary haunt,
And, with their lord, a grim unearthly crew;
Who, while they join in wild discordant chant,
The mystic revels of their race pursue.
But when the fiends have gained their horrid lair,
The light then bursts forth with a blood-red glare;
And phantom forms will flit along the wave
Whose corses long had tenanted the grave.
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