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 ban

ished,

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.

NE 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,