I saw a funeral train, with sweeping pall,
And mournful bearers in a double row.
I rubbed my eyes, I looked again, and lo!
No human forms composed that funeral train!”
(The black cat’s eyes of gold-stone glitter so!
He rises from the spot where he hath lain
And listens well, as one who does not list in vain.)
VIII
“Folk say the Schloss was ever haunted ground;
But tell us, father, what those mourners were.”