| |
| A WARRIOR so bold and a virgin so bright | |
| Conversed, as they sat on the green; | |
| They gazed on each other with tender delight: | |
| Alonzo the Brave was the name of the knight, | |
| The maid’s was the Fair Imogine. | 5 |
| |
| ‘And, oh!’ said the youth, ‘since to-morrow I go | |
| To fight in a far-distant land, | |
| Your tears for my absence soon leaving to flow, | |
| Some other will court you, and you will bestow | |
| On a wealthier suitor your hand.’ | 10 |
| |
| ‘Oh! hush these suspicions,’ Fair Imogine said, | |
| ‘Offensive to love and to me! | |
| For if you be living, or if you be dead, | |
| I swear by the Virgin, that none in your stead | |
| Shall husband of Imogine be. | 15 |
| |
| ‘And if e’er for another my heart should decide, | |
| Forgetting Alonzo the Brave, | |
| God grant, that, to punish my falsehood and pride, | |
| Your ghost at the marriage may sit by my side, | |
| May tax me with perjury, claim me as bride, | 20 |
| And bear me away to the grave!’ | |
| |
| To Palestine hasten’d the hero so bold; | |
| His love she lamented him sore: | |
| But scarce had a twelvemonth elapsed, when behold, | |
| A baron all cover’d with jewels and gold | 25 |
| Arrived at fair Imogine’s door. | |
| |
| His treasure, his presents, his spacious domain | |
| Soon made her untrue to her vows: | |
| He dazzled her eyes, he bewilder’d her brain, | |
| He caught her affections so light and so vain, | 30 |
| And carried her home as his spouse. | |
| |
| And now had the marriage been bless’d by the priest; | |
| The revelry now was begun; | |
| The tables they groaned with the weight of the feast, | |
| Nor yet had the laughter and merriment ceased, | 35 |
| When the bell of the castle toll’d—‘one!’ | |
| |
| Then first with amazement fair Imogine found | |
| That a stranger was placed by her side: | |
| His air was terrific; he uttered no sound; | |
| He spoke not, he moved not, he look’d not around, | 40 |
| But earnestly gazed on the bride. | |
| |
| His visor was closed, and gigantic his height, | |
| His armour was sable to view: | |
| All pleasure and laughter were hush’d at his sight, | |
| The dogs, as they eyed him, drew back in affright, | 45 |
| The lights in the chamber burnt blue! | |
| |
| His presence all bosoms appear’d to dismay, | |
| The guests sat in silence and fear: | |
| At length spoke the bride, while she trembled:—‘I pray, | |
| Sir Knight, that your helmet aside you would lay, | 50 |
| And deign to partake of our cheer.’ | |
| |
| The lady is silent; the stranger complies; | |
| His vizor he slowly unclosed: | |
| Oh! then what a sight met fair Imogine’s eyes! | |
| What words can express her dismay and surprise, | 55 |
| When a skeleton’s head was exposed! | |
| |
| All present then uttered a terrified shout; | |
| All turn’d with disgust from the scene. | |
| The worms they crept in, and the worms they crept out, | |
| And sported his eyes and his temples about, | 60 |
| While the spectre address’d Imogine: | |
| |
| ‘Behold me, thou false one! behold me!’ he cried; | |
| ‘Remember Alonzo the Brave! | |
| God grants that, to punish thy falsehood and pride, | |
| My ghost at thy marriage should sit by thy side, | 65 |
| Should tax thee with perjury, claim thee as bride, | |
| And bear thee away to the grave!’ | |
| |
| Thus saying, his arms round the lady he wound, | |
| While loudly she shriek’d in dismay, | |
| Then sank with his prey through the wide-yawning ground: | 70 |
| Nor ever again was fair Imogine found, | |
| Or the spectre who bore her away. | |
| |
| Not long lived the Baron: and none since that time | |
| To inhabit the castle presume; | |
| For chronicles tell, that, by order sublime, | 75 |
| There Imogine suffers the pain of her crime, | |
| And mourns her deplorable doom. | |
| |
| At midnight four times in each year does her sprite, | |
| When mortals in slumber are bound, | |
| Array’d in her bridal apparel of white, | 80 |
| Appear in the hall with the skeleton-knight, | |
| And shriek as he whirls her around. | |
| |
| While they drink out of skulls newly torn from the grave, | |
| Dancing round them pale spectres are seen: | |
| Their liquor is blood, and this horrible stave | 85 |
| They howl:—‘To the health of Alonzo the Brave, | |
| And his consort, the False Imogine!’ | |
| |
