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VIII.

“Say why hath all this fear,
This horror thus come o'er ye?
My messenger was here,
I sent him on before me.

67

He told you I ween with whoop and with cry”
That his aged master was drawing nigh.—”
The old man spake with a leer and a smile,
And the owlet with its eye of fire,
Sat perching all the while
Upon his master's golden lyre.
That was a wondrous harp I ween,
And aye men say that it had been
In many a strange and dreadful scene!