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THE WITCH IN THE GRAVEYARD
(After an interval)Some predal hand doth halt the wandering air;Now dies the throttled wind with rattling breath,And round about a breathing Silence prowls.(After another interval)I hear the cheeping of the bat-lipped ghouls,Aroused beneath the vaulted cypressesFar-off; and lipless muttering of tombs,With clash of bones bestirred in ancient charnelsBeneath their shroud of unclean light that crawls.***Earth shudders, and rank odours 'gin to riseFrom tombs a-crack; and shaken out all at onceFrom mid-air, and directly neath the moon,Meseems what hanging wing divides the light,Like a black film of gloom, or thickest shadow;But on the tombs there is no shadow!
FIRST WITCH:Enough! Twill be a prosperous night, methinks,For commerce of the demons with the dead;And for us, too, when every omen's good,And fraught with promise of a potent brew.
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