Page:Bohemian legends and other poems.djvu/75

Five feet he leaped into the air,
Then he looked back, no maid was there.

But like a flash he saw a form
Glide by him, in the dark, forlorn.

There stood indeed a chamber small,
One heard the latchstring quickly fall.

A narrow room, with windows none—
Through chinks the moonlight passage won.

And in that cage-like room on bier,
A corpse is laid with no one near.

Ah, what is this—this nameless fear—
The ghouls are stirring—they are here!

One hears them—they are gliding on—
And strange and weird their ghostly song.

“The body to the earth is told,
Alas! for him who lost his soul.”

And on the door one heard them rap,
And awful was their tap, tap, tap.

“Arise, oh dead one, from thy bier,
Pull back the latch, we all are here.”

The dead one opens wide his eyes,
He makes as though he would arise.

His head he raises from the bier,
He looks about him, far and near.

“Great God! Thy mercy now I pray—
Oh, keep me from the devil’s sway!”

“You dead one, lay you down to sleep—
God in His mercy, thy soul keep.”