Here doth she revel hold o' moony nights,
With grave-rank ghouls and moaning spectral sprites;
And ... Saints! what's that?
A hook-winged bat?
Not so; perchance, within its hairy body fell
Is man or maid transformed by magic spell.
O, brothers, heedful be, and careful tread
Lest magic gin should catch and strike us dead!
O would my grannam might go with us here.
Since, being witch, she doth no witchcraft fear."
So came the three at last to Haunted Wood,
Where mighty trees in gloomy grandeur stood,
Their wide-flung boughs so closely interweaving
Scarce space between for ghostly moonbeams leaving;
But, snake-like, round each other closely twined,
In shuddering wind did mournful voices find,
And, groaning, writhed together to and fro
Like souls that did the fiery torment know.
Thus, in the wood, 'twas dark and cold and dank,
And breathed an air of things long dead and rank;
While shapes, dim-seen, did creep and flit and fly
With sudden squeak, and bodeful, wailing cry.
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