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| ON 1 Hallow-Mass Eve, ere you boune ye to rest, | |
| Ever beware that your couch be bless’d; | |
| Sign it with cross, and sain it with bead, | |
| Sing the Ave, and say the Creed. | |
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| For on Hallow-Mass Eve the Night-Hag will ride, | 5 |
| And all her nine-fold sweeping on by her side, | |
| Whether the wind sing lowly or loud, | |
| Sailing through moonshine or swath’d in the cloud. | |
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| The Lady she sate in St. Swithin’s Chair, | |
| The dew of the night has damp’d her hair: | 10 |
| Her cheek was pale—but resolved and high | |
| Was the word of her lip and the glance of her eye. | |
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| She mutter’d the spell of Swithin bold, | |
| When his naked foot traced the midnight wold, | |
| When he stopp’d the Hag as she rode the night, | 15 |
| And bade her descend, and her promise plight. | |
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| He that dare sit on St. Swithin’s Chair, | |
| When the Night-Hag wings the troubled air, | |
| Questions three, when he speaks the spell, | |
| He may ask, and she must tell. | 20 |
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| The Baron has been with King Robert his liege, | |
| These three long years in battle and siege; | |
| News there are none of his weal or his woe | |
| And fain the Lady his fate would know. | |
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| She shudders and stops as the charm she speaks;— | 25 |
| Is it the moody owl that shrieks? | |
| Or is that sound, betwixt laughter and scream, | |
| The voice of the Demon who haunts the stream? | |
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| The moan of the wind sunk silent and low, | |
| And the roaring torrent had ceased to flow; | 30 |
| The calm was more dreadful than raging storm, | |
| When the cold grey mist brought the ghastly form! | |
