15
O Gods, what a sight met Imogene's eyes;
What words can express her dismay and surprise,
When a skeleton's head was exposed.
All present then utter'd a terrified shout,
And turn'd with disgust from the scene;
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 tho Brave;
God grants, 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 the 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 ever 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 orders sublimo,
There Imogene suffers tho 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,
