And, as they came, with Alpine's Lord The Hermit Monk held solemn word:--.
'Roderick! it is a fearful strife, For man endowed with mortal life Whose shroud of sentient clay can still Feel feverish pang and fainting chill, Whose eye can stare in stony trance Whose hair can rouse like warrior's lance, 'Tis hard for such to view, unfurled, The curtain of the future world.
Yet, witness every quaking limb, My sunken pulse, mine eyeballs dim, My soul with harrowing anguish torn, This for my Chieftain have I borne!--The shapes that sought my fearful couch A human tongue may ne'er avouch;No mortal man--save he, who, bred Between the living and the dead, Is gifted beyond nature's law Had e'er survived to say he saw.
At length the fateful answer came In characters of living flame!
Not spoke in word, nor blazed in scroll, But borne and branded on my soul:--WHICH SPILLS THE FOREMOST FOEMAN'S LIFE, THAT PARTY CONQUERS IN THE STRIFE.'
