150 THE SPECTRE PIG. And thus she spoke in thrilling tone→→ Then did her wicked father's lipa Ye need not weep, ye gentle ones, The bright sun folded on his breast And softly over all the west The shades of evening came. He slept, and troops of murdered pigs Loud rang their wild, unearthly shrieks, Wide yawned their mortal seams. The clock struck twelve; the dead hath heard ; He opened both his eyes, And sullenly he shook his tail To lash the feeding flies. One quiver of the hempen cord One struggle and one bound With stiffened limbs, and leaden eye, The pig was on the ground; And straight towards the sleeper's house And hooting owl, and hovering bat, On midnight wing attended. Back flew the bolt, uprose the latch, And little mincing feet were heard ADDRESS TO A MUMMY. Two hoofs upon the sanded floor, And two upon the bed; And they are breathing side by side, "Now wake, now wake, thou butcher man! Untwisted every winding coil; The shuddering wretch took hold, So tapering and so cold. "Thou com'st with me, thou butcher man!" And open, open, swung the door, Fast fled the darkness of the night, And morn rose faint and dim: They called full loud, they knocked full long, Straight, straight towards that oaken beam, A ghastly shape was swinging there- 151 O. W. Holmes. ADDRESS TO A MUMMY IN BELZONI'S AND thou has walked about (how strange a story !) 152 ADDRESS TO A MUMMY. Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dumby; Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures, Tell us for doubtless thou canst recollect To whom we should assign the Sphinx's fame? Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect Of either pyramid that bears his name? Is Pompey's pillar really a misnomer? Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer? In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played? Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass, I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed, Long after thy primeval race was run. Thou couldst develop, if that withered tongue Still silent, incommunicative elf! Art sworn to secrecy? Then keep thy vows; But pr'ythee tell us something of thyself, Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house; THE COLD WATER MAN. 153 Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered, We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations; The Roman empire has begun and ended, New worlds have risen-we have lost old nations, Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head, And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder, If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed, A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast, Statue of flesh-immortal of the dead! And standest undecayed within our presence, Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning, When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning. In living virtue, that, when both must sever, THE COLD WATER MAN, It was an honest fisherman, F 154 THE COLD WATER MAN, A grave and quiet man was he, His neighbours thought it odd, For science and for books, he said, No school to him was worth a fig, He ne'er aspired to rank or wealth, For, though much famed for fish was he, Let others bend their necks at sight He ne'er had learned the art to "bob" A cunning fisherman was he, All day this fisherman would sit With all the seeming innocence To charm the fish he never spoke- And many a gudgeon of the pond, Would own, with grief, this angler had |