PART I.

The morn is looking on the lake,

Beside the ruined abbey;

And its fingers white on the waters shake,

Like the quivering curls of a silver snake,

For the pale old moon it must keep its wake

In the dark clouds thick and shaggy!

The night-wind hath a moaning tone,

And it cometh moaning by;

The Hart’s-tongue on the ancient stone,

That years have crumbled, one by one,

Answereth—sometimes like a groan,

And sometimes like a sigh.

A little light through the forest-trees

Is twinkling very bright,

Like a distant star upon waveless seas,

Or a glow-worm of the night;

’Tis scarcely bigger than a pin,

The little light of the village inn!

It is a parlor dimly lit,

And shadows on the arras flit;

Shadows here and shadows there,

Shadows shifting everywhere,

Very thin and very tall,

Moving, mingling on the wall—

Till they make one shadow all!

An old clock in the corner stands,

Clicking! clicking! all the while;

And its long and shadowy hands

Would seem to say this hour is man’s,

But Life hath swiftly running sands,

And may wither in a smile.

A fire is blazing upon the hearth,

And it crackles aloud as if in mirth;

By its flickering flames you may chance to see

There are six men sitting in groups of three;

They laugh and talk—they drink and drain

Their goblets, till to drink is pain,

And the eyes are brighter than the brain.

Three gamble at the pictured vice,

And three upheave the rattling dice,

The cards go round—

The boxes sound—

A king!—an ace!!—a deuce!—a doublet!!

For luck a laugh—for loss a goblet;

An aching smile and a muttered curse,

A beating heart ’gainst a broken purse,

Ha! ha! ha! ha! how wild the din

Of hearts that lose and hearts that win!

PART II.

Near the corner, and near the clock,

Sits a man in a dingy frock;

A slouchÈd hat on his head wears he,

So sunken his eyes you cannot see;

His clothes are turned of a rusty hue,

All worn with age and damp with dew,

A traveler! I’ll be sworn he be,

This stranger man so strange to see,

Weary with driving adown the lea;

He hath ridden hard—he hath ridden long,

And would like a meal more than a song!

The rattling dice come rattling down!

The pictured tablets glide;

But a deeper shade on the light hath grown

Of the parlor dim and wide,

And the embers utter a fitful blaze

On the forms that sit beside:

For three look white in its ghastly rays—

White as the corpse of ended days—

While three are dark, and yet darker gaze

On the cards and dice with which each one plays

In the parlor dim and wide!

And near the corner—near the clock—

In silence sitteth still,

The stranger motionless as a rock—

The stranger man with a dingy frock—

Who entered the room without nod or knock,

As quietly as a rill.

Clicking!—clicking!—all the while,

The old clock soundeth on,

As if it never had seen a smile,

But was kin to that in the abbey-aisle—

Chiming for mortals gone!

Click—click! and hearts are beating

High with the fate of game;

Click—click! the clock is repeating

Its lesson still the same—

But one has uttered a fearful word,

And started up like a startled bird,

To dash the dice-box down;

And with the click of the ancient clock

Is heard the click of a pistol’s cock—

And then—the deep fall, in a sudden shock,

Of a body lifeless grown.

The stranger is standing beside the board—

The stranger that entered without a word—

And to five who with cowardice quail and quake,

As white as the moon looking on the lake,

It was thus that the noiseless stranger spake:—

“The blood which has ceased in the veins to run

Of this form that shall nevermore feel the sun,

This blood—a score of years ago—

Belonged to a noble hidalgo,

With a great estate and a greater name,

And a palace proud, and a beauteous dame,

And a little child—his only heir—

Soft as the dew in the morning air,

And as opening roses fresh and fair.

“And it was this noble hidalgo

Who sat in this chamber dim and low,

But now a score of years ago,

With a youth who bore beside his name,

Which had never known the weight of blame,

A treasure placed in his trusty hand

By the sovereign lord of this mighty land.

“And it was in this chamber dim and low,

As the pendulum wide swung to and fro,

That this youth and the high-born hidalgo

Rattled a cursÈd horn;

That they played for the treasures of the king,

Played till the cocks began to sing.

And the youth had become a worthless thing—

A mark for shame and scorn.

“The youth knelt down at the noble’s feet,

And, weeping, prayed that he should not meet

The eyes of his master, the injured king,

Who had trusted him well—a worthless thing!

Yet he turned, the wretch! to stalk away,

When a cry arrested his cruel way,

And he heard a voice in agony say—

A voice departing from its clay—

‘It shall follow thy house—it shall blast thy pride—

It shall be as a thorn in thine aching side—

Yea, learn, unpitying child of sin,

Not always lucky are those who win;

For they who would thrive with unthrifty clod,

Who would reap where fortune’s wheel hath trod,

Are the foes of man and the cursed of God!’

The blood which has ceased in the veins to run

Of this form that shall nevermore feel the sun,

This blood—a score of years ago—

Belonged to a noble hidalgo,

And I am—”

Here the ancient clock,

With a rusty, rumbling sound,

Shook as it struck—and the matin cock

Answered the solemn chime of the clock,

Till it echoed round and round!

The embers that on the hearth-stone lay

Down into ashes dropped away,

While from the lattice worn and white,

In the moonshine waning with the night,

A steed was seen like the drifted snow

As it galloped across the plain below,

Swift as an arrow from its bow;

With the slouchÈd hat and the dingy frock

Of the figure that sat near the corner and clock,

And which came and went without nod or knock.

And they that remained on each other bent

Glances so dim and drear,

That neither could tell what the other meant,

Save that in all there was fear blent

With a something which told them Heaven-sent

Was the doom of the dead man there.

One was a laborer tough and tanned,

With the toil of tilling his meager land;

The next, a veteran who did wield

The sword on many a bloody field;

The third, a friar grave or gay,

As chase or chancel led the way,

With shaven crown and cassock gray;

The fourth, a publican, sorry elf!

Who cared for no one but himself;

And the last, a chield, as we often ken,

Unknowing their ways in the walks of men.

And these departed homeward all,

Far holier than they came;

For the sights which their visions did appall—

The signs and sights in the haunted hall—

Like to the writing on the wall,

Spoke with a tongue of flame.

PART III.

Torches are gleaming to and fro,

In the abbey’s ancient vault;

While a mute procession slowly go

Into its mouldering depths below,

And, in solemn order, halt!

A monk hath chanted the midnight mass

For a soul that tempted its final pass;

And the little, gloomy sacristan

Striveth to soothe an aged man,

As they lift from the blazoned bier

The stately drooping pall;

And the old man sees him lying there

His son—his heir—his all!

Thou canst not soothe him, sacristan,

Go to thy cord and corse—

It is a fiend which gnaws that man;

The worst of fiends—Remorse!

It is a fiend which whispereth still,

Or noon or night, or well or ill,

From the dark caverns of the past,

Through all their chambers dim and vast,

“For they who would thrive with unthrifty clod,

Who would reap where fortune’s wheel hath trod,

Are the foes of man and the cursed of God!”

The lights have vanished—and the gate

Of the abbey closed up desolate,

And all is silent as before

The key was turned in that rusty door,

To add a slumbering mortal more

To its never, never failing store;

All is silent save the owl

That moans like a monk from beneath his cowl,

As the moon is looking on the lake,

Beside the ruined abbey;

And its fingers white on the waters shake,

Like the quivering curls of a silver snake,

For the pale old moon it must keep its wake

In the dark clouds thick and shaggy!

The night-wind hath a moaning tone,

And it cometh moaning by;

The Hart’s-tongue on the ancient stone,

That years have crumbled, one by one,

Answereth—sometimes like a groan,

And sometimes like a sigh.