GHOSTRIES.
ID you never hear a rustling,
In the comer of your room;
When the faint fantastic fire-light
Served but to reveal the gloom?
Did you never feel the clammy
Terror, starting from each pore,
At a shocking
Sort of knocking
On your chamber door?
Did you never fancy something
Horrid, underneath the bed?
Or a ghastly skeletonian,
In the garret overhead?
Or a sudden life-like movement,
Of the Vandyke, grim and tall?
Or that ruddy
Mark, a bloody
Stain upon the wall?
Did you never see a fearful
Figure, by the rushlight low,
Crouching, creeping, crawling nearer—
Putting out its lingers—SO.
Whilst its lurid eyes glared on you
From the darkness where it sat—
And you could not,
Or you would not,
See it was the cat?
