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 soine 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!

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.

Make no deep scrutiny
Into her mutiny

Rash and undutiful:

Past all dishonor,

Death has left on her

Only the beautiful.

Still, for all slips of hers,

One of Eve's family

Wipe those poor lips of hers Oozing so clammily.

Loop up her tresses

Escaped from the comb, Her fair auburn tresses; Whilst wonderment guesses

Where was her home?

Who was her father?

Who was her mother?

Had she a sister?

Had she a brother?

Or was there a dearer one

Still, and a nearer one

Yet, than all other?

Alas for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun!

O, it was pitiful !
Near a whole city full,
Home she had none.

Sisterly, brotherly,

Fatherly, motherly