Struck beneath him, as he bounded just like lightning from the floor,
As like a tarr’d and feather’d Mercury, up he bounded from the floor,
Grazed his heel, and—nothing more.
Back toward my hearth-stone looking, where my ham and eggs were cooking,
Shaking, quaking as no mortal ever shaked or quaked before,
Soon I heard the ugly sinner mutter forth these words, “Some dinner,”
Looking still more gaunt and thinner, even than he looked before,
These the words the heathen mutter’d—the sole and only sound then uttered,
As down from his high jump he flutter’d ’lighting on his major toe,
“Dinner,” said he, nothing more.