Lines from this poem borrowed and rearranged from:

"The Lady of the Lake", by

  Sir Walter Scott

                 ~

There are those who have, at midnight hour,

In broken dreams the image rose.

To grace the stranger of the day,

And kiss with whispering sound and slow.

A sainted hermit from his cell,

Of hasty love or headlong ire.

As faltered through terrific dream,

Was bathed in floods of living fire.

How sweet at eve the lover's lute,

The wizard note has not been touched in vain.

Above a heart more good and kind,

So secret but we meet again.

The messenger of blood and brand,

By moonlight tread their mystic maze,

Grey superstitions whisper dread,

The stranger raptured and amazed.

The lesson I so lately taught?

The messenger of fear and fate.

By firm resolve to conquer love,

Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep.

Fresh vigor with the hope returned,

The spot an angel deigned to grace.

While eyes that mocked at tears before,

Could on the dark-blue mirror trace.

The tear that gathered in his eye,

My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,

The will to do, the soul to dare,

Wait on the verge of dark eternity.

One only passion unrevealed,

To which the moon her silver gave,

Dream not with the rising sun,

At noontide there a twilight made.

Like future joys to Fancy's eye,

Late had he heard the prophet's dream.

And heard unintermitted sound,

The eagles answered with their scream.

Now leader of a broken heart,

And silence claimed her evening reign.

Time rolls his ceaseless course,

And all but won that desperate game.

 

~Yvonne Renee Moore