Spiders their busy death-watch tick'd; A certain sign that Fate will frown; The clumsy kitchen clock, too, click'd, A certain sign it was not down. More strong and strong her terrors rose;-- Her shadow did the maid appal;-- She tremble'd at her lovely nose,-- It look'd so long against the wall. Up to her chamber, damp and cold, She climb'd Lord Hoppergollop's stair;-- Three stories high--long, dull, and old,-- As great Lords' stories often are. All Nature now appear'd to pause: And "o'er the one half world seem'd dead;" No "curtain'd sleep" had she;----because She had no curtains to her bed. List'ning she lay;--with iron din, The clock struck _Twelve_; the door flew wide; When Thomas, grimly, glided in, With little Bobtail by his side. Tall, like the poplar, was his size, Green, green his waistcoat was, as leeks; Red, red as beet-root, were his eyes; Pale, pale as turnips, were his cheeks! Soon as the Spectre she espied, The fear-struck damsel faintly said, "What wou'd my Thomas?"--he replied, "Oh! Molly Dumpling! I am dead. "All in the flower of youth I fell, Cut off with health's full blossom crown'd; I was not ill--but in a well I tumble'd backwards, and was drown'd. "Four fathom deep thy love doth lie: His faithful dog his fate doth share; We're Fiends;--this is not he and I; We are not _here_,--for we are _there_. "Yes;--two foul Water-Fiends are we; Maid of the Moor!--attend us now! Thy hour's at hand;--we come for thee!" The little Fiend-Cur said "bow wow!" "To wind her in her cold, cold grave, A Holland sheet a maiden likes; A sheet of water thou shalt have; Such sheets there are in Holland Dykes." The Fiends approach; the Maid did shrink; Swift thro' the night's foul air they spin; They took her to the green well's brink, And, with a souse, they plump'd her in. So true the fair, so true the youth, Maids, to this day, their story tell: And hence the proverb rose, that Truth Lies in the bottom of a well. [Illustration] DICK ended:--TOM and WILL approve'd his strains; And thought his Legend made as good a figure As naturalizing a dull German's brains, Which beget issues in the Heliconian stews, Upon a profligate _Tenth_ Muse, In all the gloomy _impotence of vigour_.[1] "'Twas now the very witching time of night, When _Prosers_ yawn."--Discussion grew diffuse: Argument's _carte and tierce_ were lost, outright: And they fought loose. Says WILL, quite carelessly,--"the other day, As I was lying on my back, In bed, I took a fancy in my head;-- Some writings aren't so difficult as people say;-- They are _a knack_."