The wood-louse dropped, and rolled into a ball, The subtle spider, that from overhead The very stains and fractures on the wall, Some tale that might, perchance, have solved the doubt, Wherefore amongst those flags so dull and livid The banner of the BLOODY HAND shone out, So ominously vivid. Some key to that inscrutable appeal, Which made the very frame of Nature quiver, For over all there hung a cloud of fear; If but a rat had lingered in the house, Huge drops rolled down the walls, as if they wept; For years no cheerful blaze had sparkled there, The floor was redolent of mould and must, The fungus in the rotten seams had quickened: No mark of leathern jack or metal can, There was so foul a rumor in the air, For over all there hung a cloud of fear; PART III. "T is hard for human actions to account, Those gloomy stairs, so dark, and damp, and cold, With odors as from bones and relics carnal, Deprived of rite and consecrated mould, The chapel vault or charnel. Those dreary stairs, where with the sounding stress Of every step so many echoes blended, The mind, with dark misgivings, feared to guess How many feet ascended. The tempest with its spoils had drifted in, Till each unwholesome stone was darkly spotted, As thickly as the leopard's dappled skin, With leaves that rankly rotted. The air was thick, and in the upper gloom The bat or something in its shape- was winging; And on the wall, as chilly as a tomb, The death's-head moth was clinging. That mystic moth, which, with a sense profound And with a grim significance flits round The taper burning bluely. Such omens in the place there seemed to be, For over all there hung a cloud of fear; Yet no portentous shape the sight amazed; Each object plain, and tangible, and valid; But from their tarnished frames dark figures gazed, And faces spectre-pallid. Not merely with the mimic life that lies. Within the compass of art's simulation; Their souls were looking through their painted eyes With awful speculation. On every lip a speechless horror dwelt; Such earnest woe their features overcast, They might have stirred, or sighed, or wept, or spoken, But, save the hollow moaning of the blast, The stillness was unbroken. No other sound or stir of life was there, Except my steps in solitary clamber, From flight to flight, from humid stair to stair, From chamber into chamber. Deserted rooms of luxury and state, That old magnificence had richly furnished With pictures, cabinets of ancient date, And carvings gilt and burnished. Rich hangings, storied by the needle's art, The silent waste of mildew and the moth The sky was pale; the cloud a thing of doubt; The BLOODY HAND that with a lurid stain The BLOODY HAND significant of crime, O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear; The death-watch ticked behind the panelled oak, And echoes strange and mystical awoke, The fancy to embarrass. Prophetic hints that filled the soul with dread, But through one gloomy entrance pointing mostly, The while some secret inspiration said, That chamber is the ghostly! Across the door no gossamer festoon Swung pendulous - no web - no dusty fringes, No silky chrysalis or white cocoon About its nooks and hinges. The spider shunned the interdicted room, The moth, the beetle, and the fly were banished, One lonely ray that glanced upon a bed, And yet no gory stain was on the quilt- Obscurely spotted to the door, and thence What human creature in the dead of night Had coursed like hunted hare that cruel distance? What shrieking spirit in that bloody room Across the sunbeam, and along the wall, O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear; THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. ONE more unfortunate, Rashly importunate, |