Glenarvon, Volume 1

In the town of Belfont, in Ireland, lived a learned physician of the name of Everard St. Clare. He had a brother, who, misled by a fine but wild imagination, which raised him too far above the interests of common life, had squandered away his small inheritance; and had long roved through the world, rapt in poetic visions, foretelling, as he pretended, to those who would hear him, that which futurity would more fully develop.—Camioli was the name he had assumed.

It was many years since Sir Everard last beheld his brother, when one night Camioli, bearing in his arms Elinor his child, about five years of age, returned, after his long absence to his native town, and knocked at Sir Everard’s door. The doctor was at the castle hard by, and his lady refused admittance to the mean-looking stranger. Without informing her of his name, Camioli departed, and resolved to seek his sister the Abbess of Glenaa. The way to the convent was long and dreary: he climbed, therefore, with his lovely burthen to the topmost heights of Inis Tara, and sought temporary shelter in a cleft of the mountain known by the name of the “Wizzard’s Glen.” Bright shone the stars that night, and to the exalted imagination of the aged seer, it seemed in sleep, that the spirits of departed heroes and countrymen, freed from the bonds of mortality, were ascending in solemn grandeur before his eyes;—the song of the Banshees, mourning for the sorrows of their country, broke upon the silence of night;—a lambent flame distinguished the souls of heroes, and, pointing upwards, formed a path of light before them;—the air resounded with the quivering of wings, as with one accord innumerable spirits arose, fanning the breeze with their extended plumes, and ascending like a flight of birds toward the heavens.