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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.

Hardmoor

Hardmoor

By Cora Kennedy Aitken

O MIGHTY Master, who shall tread this heath

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.