“That is my garden where I sleep!
Hold on, my dear, don’t shrink at all
And leap now briskly o’er that wall!”
“Oh, leave me now! Oh, leave me here!
Your look is dreadful, your face queer;
Your breath is poison, so your eyes;
Your heart is stubborn, cold like ice!”
“My sweetheart, don’t be scared the least!
My home is jolly with a feast:
Of meat enough, but with no juice;
To-night we’ll have it as we choose!—
I see, dear, you still bear a load.”
“Those are the shirts that I have sewed.”
“Of those you will need shortly none
But one for you and for me one.”
He flung the bag with grewsome laugh
Against a tombstone’s epitaph.
“Just look at me, don’t fear at all,
Leap to that bag there o’er the wall!”
“But you have been first ev’ry place,
I only followed in your race.
You have been first up until now:
So leap again and show me how.”
He bounded o’er the barrier
Suspecting no deceit in her;
He made a bound some five rods high—
But then she vanished from his eye;
A single glimpse of her dress white
He barely caught in her swift flight.
She ran not far and still got lost—
A great surprise for her bad host!
A morgue stands here with door and lock
Just ready his access to block.
In there she ran and locked the door,
And he can get her nevermore!
The building’s strong, just four bare walls,
But through a crack spare moonlight falls;
The building’s like a cage with latch,
And inside—a corpse, stiff in stretch.
Hark! how from outside fiercely raves
An ugly legion from the graves!
They rattle as they tramp around
And utter words of grewsome sound:
“The body falls due to the tomb;
Alas! whose soul falls to her doom!”
And now at the door, rap, rap, rap!
Her lover outside pounds with slap.
“Arise, you dead one, from your stretch
And open on the door that latch!”
The dead one opens his dim eyes,
He rubs them once, he rubs them twice,
He raises his head from the ground
And stares in semi-circle ’round.
“Oh, holy God! Pray, by me stand!
Don’t give me into devil’s hand!
You dead one, don’t arise, lie, please:
May God give you eternal peace!”
And then the dead one dropped his head
With eyes again closed and lay dead.
And now again, rap, rap, rap, rap!
Her lover pounds with harder slap,
“Arise, you dead one, from your stretch;
Push back for me your chamber’s latch!”
And on that word and on that noise
The dead one rises from his poise
And points his cold stiff arm once more
Toward the latch upon the door.
“Oh, Jesus Christ! Pray, save my life
And soul in anguish and in strife!—
You dead one, don’t arise, lie, please:
May God give you—and me, too—peace!”
The dead one stretched out without noise
His limbs again to former poise.
And from without still, rap, rap, rap!
Her ears are deaf, her eyes agap.
“Arise, you dead one! Don’t you hear?
And pass the live one over here!”
Alas! Alas! and woe to her!
The third time does the dead one stir
And turns his bulging eyes in gloom
To the one half-dead in the room.
“Oh, Virgin Mary! With thy power,
Pray, ask thy son for help this hour!
Unworthily to Thee I’ve prayed;
Forgive me the great sin I’ve made!
Oh Mary, mother of relief,
Oh, save me in my woe and grief!”
And hark! from somewhere down below
A rooster just began to crow,
And through the village happily
In joined the rooster family.
And then the dead one, standing tall,
Fell backward with a mighty fall.—
A lull ensued and nothing reared,
Her lover, too, had disappeared.—
On morning people going past
To early mass halt here aghast:
One of the graves does gape and lurk;
A maiden’s locked up in the morgue,
And on each grave-mound in the dirt
A shred lies from a brand new shirt.—
***
Oh maiden! It was very wise
That you have raised to God your eyes
And shirked that fellow, full of vice!
Had your action been different,
Your life would have been poorly spent:
Your white, clean body ere the morn
Had like the shirts to shreds been torn!
