St Irvyne

Red thunder-clouds, borne on the wings of the midnight whirlwind,
floated, at fits, athwart the crimson-coloured orbit of the moon; the
rising fierceness of the blast sighed through the stunted shrubs,
which, bending before its violence, inclined towards the rocks whereon
they grew: over the blackened expanse of heaven, at intervals, was
spread the blue lightning's flash; it played upon the granite heights,
and, with momentary brilliancy, disclosed the terrific scenery of the
Alps, whose gigantic and mishapen summits, reddened by the transitory
moon-beam, were crossed by black fleeting fragments of the tempest-
clouds. The rain, in big drops, began to descend, and the thunder-
peals, with louder and more deafening crash, to shake the zenith, till
the long-protracted war, echoing from cavern to cavern, died, in
indistinct murmurs, amidst the far-extended chain of mountains. In
this scene, then, at this horrible and tempestuous hour, without one
existent earthy being whom he might claim as friend, without one
resource to which he might fly as an asylum from the horrors of
neglect and poverty, stood Wolfstein;--he gazed upon the conflicting
elements; his youthful figure reclined against a jutting granite rock;
he cursed his wayward destiny, and implored the Almighty of Heaven to
permit the thunderbolt, with crash terrific and exterminating, to
descend upon his head, that a being useless to himself and to society
might no longer, by his existence, mock Him whone'er made aught in
vain. "And what so horrible crimes have I committed," exclaimed
Wolfstein, driven to impiety by desperation, "what crimes which merit
punishment like this? What, what is death?--Ah, dissolution! thy pang
is blunted by the hard hand of long-protracted suffering--suffering
unspeakable, indescribable!" As thus he spoke, a more terrific
paroxysm of excessive despair revelled through every vein; his brain
swam around in wild confusion, and, rendered delirious by excess of
misery, he started from his flinty seat, and swiftly hastened towards
the precipice, which yawned widely beneath his feet. "For what then
should I longer drag on the galling chain of existence?" cried
Wolfstein; and his impious expression was borne onwards by the hot and
sulphurous thunder-blast.

The midnight meteors danced above the gulf upon which Wolfstein
wistfully gazed. Palpable, impenetrable darkness seemed to hang upon
it; impenetrable even by the flaming thunderbolt. "Into this then
shall I plunge myself?" soliloquized the wretched outcast, "and by one
rash act endanger, perhaps, eternal happiness;--deliver myself up,
perhaps, to the anticipation and experience of never-ending torments?
Art thou the God then, the Creator of the universe, whom canting monks
call the God of mercy and forgiveness, and sufferest thou thy
creatures to become the victims of tortures such as fate has inflicted
on me?--Oh! God, take my soul; why should I longer live?" Thus having
spoken, he sank on the rocky bosom of the mountains. Yet, unheeding
the exclamations of the maddened Wolfstein, fiercer raged the tempest.
The battling elements, in wild confusion, seemed to threaten nature's
dissolution; the ferocious thunderbolt, with impetuous violence,
danced upon the mountains, and, collecting more terrific strength,
severed gigantic rocks from their else eternal basements; the masses,
with sound more frightful than the bursting thunder-peal, dashed
towards the valley below. Horror and desolation marked their track.
The mountain-rills, swoln by the waters of the sky, dashed with direr
impetuosity from the Alpine summits; their foaming waters were hidden
in the darkness of midnight, or only became visible when the momentary
scintillations of the lightning rested on their whitened waves.
Fiercer still than nature's wildest uproar were the feelings of
Wolfstein's bosom; his frame, at last, conquered by the conflicting
passions of his soul, no longer was adequate to sustain the unequal
contest, but sank to the earth. His brain swam wildly, and he lay
entranced in total insensibility.

What torches are those that dispel the distant darkness of midnight,
and gleam, like meteors, athwart the blackness of the tempest? They
throw a wavering light over the thickness of the storm: they wind
along the mountains: they pass the hollow vallies. Hark! the howling
of the blast has ceased,--the thunderbolts have dispersed, but yet
reigns darkness. Distant sounds of song are borne on the breeze: the
sounds approach. A low bier holds the remains of one whose soul is
floating in the regions of eternity: a black pall covers him.t

St Irvyne