Page:The Earliest English Translations of Bürger's Lenore - A Study in English and German Romanticism - Emerson (1915).djvu/116

"Come to, come to, ye ghostly crew,
Come to, and follow me,
And daunce for us the wedding daunce,
When we in bed shall be."

And brush, brush, brush, the ghostly crew,
Came wheeling ore their heads,
All rustling like the witherd leaves
That wide the whirlwind spreads.

Halloo! halloo! away they go,
Unheeded wet or dry;
And horse and rider snort and blow,
And sparkling pebbles fly.

And all that in the moonshyne lay,
Behind them fled afar;
And backward scudded overhead
The skie and every star.

Tramp, tramp, across the land they speede;
Splash, splash, across the see:
"Hurrah! the dead can ride apace;
Dost fear to ride with mee?

"I weene the cock prepares to crowe;
The sand will soone be run:
I snuffe the early morning air;
Downe, downe! our work is done.

"The dead, the dead can ride apace:
Our wed-bed here is fit:
Our race is ridden, our journey ore,
Our endless union knit."

And lo! an yron-grated gate
Soon biggens to their view:
He crackde his whyppe; the locks, the bolts,
Cling, clang! asunder flew.

They passe, and 'twas on graves they trodde;
"'Tis hither we are bound:"
And many a tombstone ghastly white
Lay in the moonshyne round.

And when he from his steed alytte,
His armure, black as cinder,
Did moulder, moulder all awaye,
As were it made of tinder.