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, 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 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, O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear, THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. "Drowned! drowned!"- Hamlet. NE more unfortunate, Gone to her death! Take her up tenderly, Lift her with care; 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; |