Prelude Poem by Joanna Baillie

NAY , smile not, lady, when I speak of witchcraft,
And say that still there lurks amongst our glens
Some touch of strange enchantment.-Mark that fragment,
I mean that rough-hewn block of massive stone,
Placed on the summit of this mountain pass,
Commanding prospect wide o'er field and fell,
And peopled village, and extended moorland,
And the wide ocean and majestic Tay,
And the far distant Grampians.-Do not deem it
A loosened portion of the neighbouring rock,
Detach'd by storm and thunder,-'twas the pedestal
On which, in ancient times, a cross was rear'd,
Carv'd o'er with words which foil'd philologists;
And the events it did commemorate
Were dark, remote, and undistinguishable,
As were the mystic characters it bore.
But, mark,-a wizard by a southern stream,
Tuned but his magic harp to this wild theme,
And, lo! the scene is hallow'd.-None shall pass,
Now or in after days, beside that stone,
But he shall have strange visions;-thoughts and words,
That shake, or rouse, or thrill the human heart,
Shall rush upon his memory when he hears
The spirit-stirring name of this rude symbol,-
Oblivious ages, at that simple spell,
Shall render back their terrors with their woes,
Alas! and with their crimes,-and the proud phantoms
Shall move with step familiar to his eye,
And accents which, once heard, the ear forgets not,
Though ne'er again to list them.-Siddons, thine,
Thou matchless Siddons! thrills upon our ear;
And on our eye thy lofty brother's form
Rises as Scotland's monarch.-But, to thee,
Joanna, why to thee speak of such visions?
Thine own wild wand can raise them.-
Yet since thou wilt an idle tale of mine,
Take one which scarcely is of worth enough
To give or to withhold.-But time creeps on,
Fancy grows colder as the silvery hair
Tells the advancing winter of our life.
But if it be of worth enough to please,
That worth it owes to her who set the task,
If otherwise, the fault rest with the author.