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The worms they crept in, and the worms they crept out,
And sported his eyes and temples about,
While the spectre address'd Imogene:
"Behold me, thou false one, behold me," he cried,
"Behold thy Alonzo 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 thee 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-yawning 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 each 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 shrieks as he whirls her around.
While they drink out of sculls newly torn from the grave,
Dancing round them pale spectres are seen:
