Classic Poem

Come hither, youths! and in your train
Your maidens bring:
The old man o'er his hoary lyre,
Old songs will sing.
The spirits of departed days
Again appear;
And sounds re-echo'd from the past,
Burst on his ear.

Near Hrub-Kozoged's village stream,
An ancient well,
Has held from immemorial time,
A hidden bell.
That bell is veil'd from human eyes,
For ever there;
And never shall its voice again
Summon to prayer.

Once—only once—in centuries gone,
That awful bell
Pour'd on an ancient woman's ear
Its marvellous knell.
She went to wash her flaxen threads
In that old well—
Her threads had bound the bell around,
She shriek'd—and fell.

She shriek'd and fell—and long she lay
In speechless dread—
She dropp'd the threads, and dropp'd the bell,
And frighted fled.
And then the bell, with fearful sound,
Sunk in the well;
And hill and forest echo'd round
Its fateful knell:
“John, John! is for the greyhound gone.”