"Alas, but I fear the heavy sound, Sister Helen; Is it in the sky or in the ground?" "Say, have they turned their horses round, Little brother?" (_O Mother, Mary Mother_, _What would she more, between Hell and Heaven?_) "They have raised the old man from his knee, Sister Helen, And they ride in silence hastily." "More fast the naked soul doth flee, Little brother!" (_O Mother, Mary Mother_, _The naked soul, between Hell and Heaven!_) "Flank to flank are the three steeds gone, Sister Helen, But the lady's dark steed goes alone." "And lonely her bridegroom's soul hath flown, Little brother!" (_O Mother, Mary Mother_, _The lonely ghost, between Hell and Heaven!_) "Oh the wind is sad in the iron chill, Sister Helen, And weary sad they look by the hill." "But he and I are sadder still, Little brother!" (_O Mother, Mary Mother_, _Most sad of all, between Hell and Heaven!_) "See, see, the wax has dropped from its place, Sister Helen, And the flames are winning up apace!" "Yet here they burn but for a space, Little brother!" (_O Mother, Mary Mother_, _Here for a space, between Hell and Heaven!_) "Ah! what white thing at the door has cross'd, Sister Helen? Ah! what is this that sighs in the frost?" "A soul that's lost as mine is lost, Little brother!" (_O Mother, Mary Mother_, _Lost, lost, all lost, between Hell and Heaven!_) Notice how the action naturally dies off into despair. From the beginning until very nearly the close, we had an uninterrupted crescendo, as we should say in music--that is, a gradual intensification of the passion expressed. With the stroke of the death-bell the passion subsides. The revenge is satisfied, the irreparable wrong is done to avenge a wrong, and with the entrance of the ghost the whole consequence of the act begins to appear within the soul of the actor. I know of nothing more terrible in literature than this poem, as expressing certain phases of human feeling, and nothing more intensely true. The probability or improbability of the incidents is of no more consequence than is the unreality of the witch-belief. It is enough that such beliefs once existed to make us know that the rest is not only possible but certain. For a time we are really subjected to the spell of a mediæval nightmare.