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النشر الإلكتروني

The wood-louse dropped, and rolled into a ball,
Touched by some impulse occult or mechanic;
And nameless beetles ran along the wall
In universal panic.

The subtle spider, that from overhead
Hung like a spy on human guilt and error,
Suddenly turned, and up its slender thread
Ran with a nimble terror.

The very stains and fractures on the wall,
Assuming features solemn and terrific,
Hinted some tragedy of that old hall,
Locked up in hieroglyphic.

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,
And every thrilling nerve and fibre feel
So ague-like a shiver.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear;
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted!

If but a rat had lingered in the house,
To lure the thought into a social channel!
But not a rat remained, or tiny mouse,
To squeak behind the panel.

Huge drops rolled down the walls, as if they wept;
And where the cricket used to chirp so shrilly
The toad was squatting, and the lizard crept
On that damp hearth and chilly.

For years no cheerful blaze had sparkled there,
Or glanced on coat of buff or knightly metal;
The slug was crawling on the vacant chair, -
The snail upon the settle.

The floor was redolent of mould and must,

The fungus in the rotten seams had quickened:
While on the oaken table coats of dust
Perennially had thickened.

No mark of leathern jack or metal can,
No cup, no horn, no hospitable token, -
All social ties between that board and man
Had long ago been broken.

There was so foul a rumor in the air,
The shadow of a presence so atrocious,
No human creature could have feasted there,
Even the most ferocious.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear;
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted!

PART III.

"T is hard for human actions to account,
Whether from reason or from impulse only-
But some internal prompting bade me mount
The gloomy stairs and lonely.

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
Of all unholy presence, augurs truly;

And with a grim significance flits round

The taper burning bluely.

Such omens in the place there seemed to be,
At every crooked turn, or on the landing,
The straining eyeball was prepared to see
Some apparition standing.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear;
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted!

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;
On every brow the burthen of affliction;
The old ancestral spirits knew and felt
The house's malediction.

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,
With Scripture history or classic fable;
But all had faded, save one ragged part,
Where Cain was slaying Abel.

The silent waste of mildew and the moth
Had marred the tissue with a partial ravage;
But undecaying frowned upon the cloth
Each feature stern and savage.

The sky was pale; the cloud a thing of doubt;
Some hues were fresh, and some decayed and duller;
But still the BLOODY HAND shone strangely out
With vehemence of color!

The BLOODY HAND that with a lurid stain
Shone on the dusty floor, a dismal token,
Projected from the casement's painted pane,
Where all beside was broken.

The BLOODY HAND significant of crime,
That, glaring on the old heraldic banner,
Had kept its crimson unimpaired by time,
In such a wondrous manner!

O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear;
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted!

The death-watch ticked behind the panelled oak,
Inexplicable tremors shook the arras,

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,
And where the sunbeam fell athwart the gloom
The very midge had vanished.

One lonely ray that glanced upon a bed,
As if with awful aim direct and certain,
To show the BLOODY HAND in burning red
Embroidered on the curtain.

And yet no gory stain was on the quilt-
The pillow in its place had slowly rotted;
The floor alone retained the trace of guilt,
Those boards obscurely spotted.

Obscurely spotted to the door, and thence
With mazy doubles to the grated casement-
O, what a tale they told of fear intense,
Of horror and amazement!

What human creature in the dead of night

Had coursed like hunted hare that cruel distance?
Had sought the door, the window, in his flight,
Striving for dear existence?

What shrieking spirit in that bloody room
Its mortal frame had violently quitted? -
Across the sunbeam, with a sudden gloom,
A ghostly shadow flitted.

Across the sunbeam, and along the wall,
But painted on the air so very dimly,
It hardly veiled the tapestry at all,
Or portrait frowning grimly.

O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear;
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted!

THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.
"Drowned! drowned!"- Hamlet.

ONE more unfortunate,
Weary of breath,

Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death!

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