WHAT means yon trampling? what that light | |
| That glimmers in the inmost wood; | |
| As though beneath the felon night, | |
| It marked some deed of blood? | |
| Behold yon figures, dim descried | 5 |
| In dark array; they speechless glide. | |
| The forest moans; the raven’s scream | |
| Swells slowly o’er the moated stream, | |
| As from the castle’s topmost tower, | |
| It chants its boding song alone: | 10 |
| A song, that at this awful hour | |
| Bears dismal tidings in its funeral tone; | |
| Tidings, that in some grey domestic’s ear | |
| Will on his wakeful bed strike deep mysterious fear. | |
| And, hark, that loud report! ’tis done; | 15 |
| There’s murder couched in yonder gloom; | |
| ’Tis done, ’tis done! the prize is won, | |
| Another rival meets his doom. | |
| The tyrant smiles,—with fell delight | |
| He dwells upon the….. | 20 |
| The tyrant smiles; from terror freed, | |
| Exulting in the foul misdeed, | |
| And sternly in his secret breast | |
| Marks out the victims next to fall. | |
| His purpose fixed; their moments fly no more, | 25 |
| He points,—the poniard knows its own; | |
| Unseen it strikes,—unseen they die, | |
| Foul midnight only hears, and shudders at the groan. | |
| But justice yet shall lift her arm on high, | |
| And Bourbon’s blood no more ask vengeance from the sky. | 30 |
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