In Deeper Vein.

The Incubus.      The way was dark within the gloomy church-yard,         As I wandered through the woodland near the stream,      With slow and heavy tread         Through a city of the dead,      When suddenly I heard a dreadful scream.      My heart gave frantic leap, as when the roebuck         Is started by the clamor of the chase,      And I halted all atremble         In the vain hope to dissemble,      Or cloak the leaden pallor on my face.      'Twas in the ghostly month of grim December,         The frozen winds were bitter in their cry      And I muttered half aloud         To that white and silent crowd:      "'Tis a somber month to live in or to die."      And then as if in answer to my whisper,         Came a voice of some foul fiend from Hell:      "No longer live say I,         'Tis better far to die      And let the falling snow-flakes sound the knell."      Perched upon a tombstone sat the creature         Grewsome as an unquenched, burning lust.      Sitting livid there         With an open-coffin stare--      A stare that seemed the mocking of the just.      And in my thoughts the dreadful thing is sitting--         Sitting there with eyelids red and blear,      And see it there I will         'Til my restless soul is still      And the earth-clods roll and rumble on my bier.