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Beneath it like successive billows borneCrimes and calamities sweep into light,Each direr than the first!———Ha, speak I nowÆnigmas? Bear ye witness to the truthWith which I follow, hound-like, on the trackOf the evil deeds committed long ago.———There is a choir that never leaves this roof,Symphonious, not euphonious; for its notesAre not of good. A troop of wassailers,Drunk and made bold with draughts of human blood,A troop of Sister Furies, haunts this house,Hard, hard to be dislodged. To the doom'd wallsClose-clinging, loud they sing the primal wrong;Then loathingly repeat the name of himWho trampled on a brother's marriage-bed.Miss I the mark; or do my words strike home?Wilt call me now "Impostor, vagabond,"Wretched deceiver"?—On thine oath attestMy knowledge of this house's ancient crimes!
CHORUS.An oath, if plighted in a proper spirit,Is a most solemn tie twixt man and man.Oaths are uncall'd for here. I marvel at thee,That thou, a damsel from far-distant climes,Like an eye-witness speakest of the deedsWith which this land was stain'd in days gone by.
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