How deeply he loved! and how zealously wooed!
My God! 'tis beside where our cottage late stood!
He could have escaped, but alone would not fly,
And—aha!—for my safety, for me did he die.
Aha! aha! the maiden cried,
Aha! aha! the rocks replied;
'Twas carried weird upon the wind,
And wildly woke the hills behind;
It smote the birds upon the wing,
They fled afar, and ceased to sing;
It pierced my heart that still its blight
It bears upon it day and night;
Still when the eventime is nigh
I hear the maiden's withering cry,
And see her spectral shadow by,
Which stays and haunts my restless dreams,
Disturbed by those heart-rending screams.
Aha! she cried, and down the glen
She madly took her way again.
Through shadowy vale, o'er shaggy hill
Young Janet wanders frantic still,
Watched and sustained from year to year
By pity of the mountaineer,
Who knows the story of her woe,
And curses deep her kindred's foe;
And on from year to year the same
She wildly calls on Ronald's name.
A Parody
Once upon a midnight dreary, as I sauntered weak and weary
From a jovial fellow-student's room upon another floor;
As I sauntered, sadder, sicker, suddenly I heard a snicker,
And the lights began to flicker, and right out went three or four.
"Some infernal trick!" I muttered, as I neared my chamber door;
"I won't stand this any more."
Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in my first September,
And each night-attired member fled like ghost upon the floor.
Lamp I vainly sought to borrow, though I threatened on the morrow
They would catch it to their sorrow, they would catch it sad and sore—
I would have them on the morrow the dread Faculty before—
Fearful here for evermore.
And the hushed and humorous talking, and the doors' successive locking
Filled me—thrilled me with fantastic terrors often felt before;
So that now to still the beating of my heart I stood repeating
"'Tis some prank they are repeating that they played the night before,
"Sewn, perchance, my couch's covering, firmly fixed my chamber door,
"Effigy upon my floor."
Then toward my chamber turning, for my wonted slumber yearning,
Straightway I could hear them laughing somewhat louder than before;
"Surely," said I, "surely that is ominous, foreboding that is,
"Let me see, then, what the rat is, and this mystery explore—
"I'll discover what the rat is, and this mystery explore;
"For methinks 'tis something more."
Open then I flung the portal, and—oh! miserable mortal!
Down there fell a pan of water in a most tremendous pour;
Not the least cessation made it, not a second stopped or stayed it;
But before I could evade it, down it fell from off the door—
Fell,—and with its icy current chilled me to the very core;
This there was, what could be more?