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 burden 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,