Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.
Hardmoor
By Cora Kennedy AitkenO
Without mysterious visions,—looking back
To see the witches dancing on his track
With shrivelled limbs, and voice and eyes of death?
They beckon with their palsied hands beneath
The stunted trees, their torn locks shake among
The dropping branches. Thin and black along
The shivering grass the heather holds its breath
For fear, and cannot burn and blossom when
Night after night such awful sights it sees;
The wan, worn moonlight fainting on the trees,
And life struck dumb till daylight breathes again!
And even the daylight is bewildered here
Where all things have such consciousness of fear.