"How glumly sounds yon dirge-like song, Night-ravens flap the wing; What knell doth slowly toll ding dong? "It creeps, the swarthy funeral train, The corpse is on the bier; Like croak of toads from lonely moors, The chant doth meet the ear. Go, bear her corpse when midnight's past, I've got my wife, I take her home, "Lead forth, O clerk, the chanting quire, To swell our nuptial song ; Come, priest, and read the blessing soon, They heed his call, and hushed the sound, The bier was seen no more; And followed him o'er field and flood, Halloo! halloo ! away they go, Unheeding wet or dry; And horse and rider snort and blow, F How swift the hill, how swift the dale, By hedge and tree, by thorp and town, Tramp, tramp, across the land they speed, "Look up, look up, an airy crew, The moon is bright, and blue the night, "Come to, come to, ye ghostly crew, And dance for us the wedding dance, And brush, brush, brush, the ghostly crew Halloo! halloo ! away they go, And horse and rider snort and blow, And all that in the moonshine lay, And backward scudded overhead, The sky and every star. Tramp, tramp, across the land they speed, "I ween the cock prepares to crow, The sand will soon be run; I snuff the early morning air, Down, down! our work is done. “The dead, the dead can ride apace, And lo! an iron grated gate Soon biggens to their view; He cracked his whip; the clanging bolts, The doors asunder flew. They pass, and 'twas on graves they trod; "Tis hither we are bound; And many a tombstone ghostly white And when he from his steed alit, His head became a naked skull, And at his dry and bony heel And in his withered hand you might And lo! his steed did thin to smoke, And paled, and bleached, then vanished quite And hollow howlings hung in air, And shrieks from vaults arose; But onward to the judgment-seat, The ghostly crew their flight pursue, "Be patient, though thine heart should break, Arraign not Heaven's decree; Thou now art of thy body reft, Thy soul forgiven be ! " From the German of Bürger. XXVIII ADELGITHA. The ordeal's fatal trumpet sounded, She wept, delivered from her danger; But when he knelt to claim her glove — "Seek not," she cried, "oh gallant stranger, For hapless Adelgitha's love. "For he is in a foreign far land Whose arms should now have set me free, "Nay! say not that his faith is tainted! CAMPBELL. |