O’er my Castle silence reigned,
Late the night and drear the hour,
When on the terrace I observed, _55
A fleeting shadowy mist to lower.—
Light the cloud as summer fog,
Which transient shuns the morning beam;
Fleeting as the cloud on bog,
That hangs or on the mountain stream.— _60
Horror seized my shuddering brain,
Horror dimmed my starting eye.
In vain I tried to speak,—In vain
My limbs essayed the spot to fly—
At last the thin and shadowy form, _65
With noiseless, trackless footsteps came,—
Its light robe floated on the storm,
Its head was bound with lambent flame.
In chilling voice drear as the breeze
Which sweeps along th’ autumnal ground, _70
Which wanders through the leafless trees,
Or the mandrake’s groan which floats around.
‘Thou art mine and I am thine,
‘Till the sinking of the world,
I am thine and thou art mine, _75
‘Till in ruin death is hurled—
‘Strong the power and dire the fate,
Which drags me from the depths of Hell,
Breaks the tomb’s eternal gate,
Where fiendish shapes and dead men yell, _80
‘Haply I might ne’er have shrank
From flames that rack the guilty dead,
Haply I might ne’er have sank
On pleasure’s flowery, thorny bed—
—‘But stay! no more I dare disclose, _85
Of the tale I wish to tell,
On Earth relentless were my woes,
But fiercer are my pangs in Hell—
‘Now I claim thee as my love,
Lay aside all chilling fear, _90
My affection will I prove,
Where sheeted ghosts and spectres are!