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 gossamier 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!

Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!

Look at her garments
Clinging like cerements;
Whilst the wave constantly

Drips from her clothing;
Take her up instantly,
Loving, not loathing. -

Touch her not scornfully;
Think of her mournfully,
Gently and humanly;
Not of the stains of her,
All that remains of her
Now is pure womanly.