The Sisters of Glen Nectan

It is from Nectan's mossy steep,
The foamy waters flash and leap :
It is where shrinking wild-flowers grow,
They lave the nymph that dwells below.

But wherefore in this far-off dell,
The reliques of a human cell ?
Where the sad stream and lonely wind
Bring man no tidings of his kind.

" Long years agone," the old man said,
'Twas told him by his grandsire dead :
" One day two ancient sisters came :
None there could tell their race or name ;

" Their speech was not in Cornish phrase,
Their garb had signs of loftier days ;
Slight food they took from hands of men,
They withered slowly in that glen.

" One died — the other's sunken eye
Gushed till the fount of tears was dry ;
A wild and withering thought had she,
' I shall have none to weep for me.'

" They found her silent at the last,
Bent in the shape wherein she passed ;
Where her lone seat long used to stand,
Her head upon her shrivelled hand."

Did fancy give this legend birth ?
The grandame's tale for winter hearth :
Or some dead bard, by Nectan's stream,
People these banks with such a dream ?

We know not : but it suits the scene,
To think such wild things here have been :
What spot more meet could grief or sin
Choose, at the last, to wither in ?