24
" Behold me, thou false one, behold me," he cried,
" Behold thy Alouzo the Brave,
God grant that, to punish thy falsehood and pride,
My ghost at thy marriage should sit by thy side,
Should tax thee with perjury, claim thee as bride,
And bear thee away to the grave."
This saying, his arms round the lady he wound,
While fair Imogene shriek'd with dismay;
Then sunk with his prey through the wide-yawn-
ing ground,
Nor never again was fair Imogene found,
Or the spectre that bore her away.
Not long liv'd the baron, and none, since that time,
To inhabit the castle presume;
For chronicles tell, that by order sublime,
There Imogene suffers the pain of her crime,
And mourns her deplorable doom.
At midnight four times in cach year does her sprite,
When mortals in slumber are bound,
Array'd in her bridal apparel of white,
Appear in the hall with her skeleton knight,
And shricks as he whirls her around.
Whilo they drink out of skulls newly torn from the
grave,
Dancing round them pale spectres are seeu:
Their liquor is blood, and this horrible stavo
They howl, " To the lealth of Alonzo the Brave,
And his consort the false Imogene."
THE END
