Classic Poem

PART VII.

But during all this wondrous night
How did Sir Gerald sleep?
Did dreams of new wealth bring delight?
Was his slumber calm and deep?

The night before the funeral
Little I ween he slept;
The first night after, his poignant grief
In sleepless mourning sought relief —
Sir Gerald waked and wept.

Now wearied nature claimed repose:
But he feared to sleep alone;
And he dared not sleep with another, lest
Unconscious mutterings in his rest
Should tell what he had done.

Before he closed his aching eyes,
He heard the midnight bell:
The solemn tones to him did sound
The tolling of a knell!

He slept. In a dream he saw broad lands
And gems of wondrous size;
Vast heaps of coined gold did feast
His avaricious eyes:
With greedy joy he stretched his hands
To clutch the glittering prize,

When long worms with their slimy forms
Crawled cold and clammy round his arms,
And clenched them like a vice;
The chilly horror in his veins,
It froze his blood to ice!

And huge snakes' forked tongues and fangs
Did hiss and grind in his face;
While arms of crooked flame did stretch,
Burning to clasp the sordid wretch
In their intense embrace!

In fear he started! Along the wall
Sadly the night-wind sighed;
And slowly o'er the marble floor
The cold moon-beam did glide.

He slept again. He was in a vault
Dim-lit by lantern dark: in thought
From every eye close hid,
Filling a coffin with stone and sod,
And screwing down the lid.
When he looked up, and from on high,
Lo! a serene and bright blue Eye
Was watching what he did!

Trembling he woke. Along the wall
Softly the night-wind sighed;
And nearer o'er the marble floor
Did the quiet moon-beam glide.
He slept again. Before his eyes
The crag o'erhanging the sea did rise;
And falling swift down to the wave below,
Was a woman's form in a robe of snow:
How he strained his eye and his listening ear
To see the dim form disappear,
And the sound of the deep, dull plash to hear!
But the sinking form, to his fearful stare,
Falls slower, and stops in middle-air!
From her fair neck the stone, unbound,
Drops alone in the wave with a deadened sound;
While, struggling free from the twisted band,
For help was stretched a quivering hand,
And a shrill shriek rends the skies:
More shrill, the sky echoes back the cry;
And, 'fore his starting eyes,
The form begins to rise!

In terror he woke: his flesh did quake —
What sees he now? Does he dream awake?
Standing before his bed
There's woman's form in a dank white shroud!
Round her snowy neck, by death-pains bowed,
Is a corded mark in a circle dark;
Her rigid face is pale and stark;
Her eyeballs glare — a glassy stare!
In wild locks hang her dripping hair,
And the sea-foam is on her head.

" 'Tis she! " he cried; and, quick as light,
From the casement he leaped — a fearful height!
Five fathom down he fell:
Yet started, flying, to his feet,
For fiends bore him up unhurt, to meet
A death more horrible.

Like Panic, over the rocks he fled
With wondrous speed and wild:
'Twas startling strange to see a man
So furious, haggard, wild and wan,
In the silent moonshine mild.

Aye backward staring, he descried
That awful form behind him glide,
With a scowl on her pallid face;
And her cold and skinny hands outstretched,
Urged fast and faster the maniac wretched
On his terrific race.

Sir Gerald, hold! the crags are here!
But she follows close behind!
Sir Gerald! Sir Gerald! the sea is near,
But nearer is S HE behind!

Ha! ha! — o'er the cliff he's plunged, hell-driven
By the phantom-fiend, Remorse!
High from the green brine hungry sharks
Leaped up at the caitiff corse!

CONCLUSION.

T HE old moon in the young moon's arm
In shadowy slumber lay;
And one short month, how rapturously,
Had swiftly passed away.

When, on the morn of a sunny day,
To the village church there hied,
With merry bells ringing, and young girls singing,
A Bridegroom and a Bride.

And well I ween a sight was seen
Both beautiful and rare,
When Sir Frederick, the noble Knight, gave troth
To Lady Mary fair.

There was jolly cheer in the castle-hall
When the wedding-feast began;
With dainties stored then groaned the board,
And free the rich red wine ran:
And the Bridegroom gay and his lovely Bride
— Forgot the Fisherman!

But the mermaid-sisters had carried him
Before their Island Queen;
With witching smile and magic eye
She charmed his bitter misery;
And by oblivion took away
The grief that in his bosom lay,
With its gnawing anguish keen.
She changed his form; and now he roves
With the mer-women free through coral groves,
And the moon-stone cave, with its pearl-alcoves,
Deep down in the ocean green.

And often at night, near that charmed shore,
On the salt breeze borne along,
The mariner hears, o'er the moon-lit wave,
The sea-boy's distant song.