VI.
26 lines✦
lone, among his young compeers,Was Brian from his infant years;A moody and heart-broken boy,Estranged from sympathy and joyBearing each taunt which careless tongueOn his mysterious lineage flung.Whole nights he spent by moonlight paleTo wood and stream his teal, to wail,Till, frantic, he as truth receivedWhat of his birth the crowd believed,And sought, in mist and meteor fire,To meet and know his Phantom Sire!In vain, to soothe his wayward fate,The cloister oped her pitying gate;In vain the learning of the ageUnclasped the sable-lettered page;Even in its treasures he could findFood for the fever of his mind.Eager he read whatever tellsOf magic, cabala, and spells,And every dark pursuit alliedTo curious and presumptuous pride;Till with fired brain and nerves o'erstrung,And heart with mystic horrors wrung,Desperate he sought Benharrow's den,And hid him from the haunts of men.
✦