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And soon, and soon, our sports must fail: But let us trip the nightly ground, While the merry, merry, bells ring round.

III.

Hark! hark! the death-watch ticks! See, see, the winding sheet! Our dance is done, Our race is run And we must lie at the alder's feet. Ding-dong! ding-dong! Merry, merry, go tbe bells, Swinging o'er the weltering wave! And we must seck Our deathbeds bleak, Where the green sod grows upon the grave.

(They vanish.— The Goddess of Consumption descends).

Come, Melancholy, sister mine! Cold the dews, and chill the night: Come from thy dreary shrine! The wan moon climbs the heavenly height, And underneath her sickly ray Troops of squalid spectre play, And the dying mortal's groan Startles the night on her dusky throne. Come, come, sister mine! Gliding on the pale moonshine: Welll ride at ease On the tainted breeze And oh! our sport will be divine. (The Goddess of Melancholy advances habited in black and covered with a thick veil.— She speaks): Sister, from my dark abode Where nests the raven, sits the toad, Hither I come at thy command; Sister, sister, join thy hand! 1 will smooth the way for thee, Thou shalt furnish food for me. Come, let us speed our way Where the troops of spectres play. To charnel-houses, churchyards drear, Where Death sits with a horrible leer, A lasting grin on a throne of bones, And skim along the blue tombstones. Come, let us speed away, Lay our snares, and spread our tether! I will smooth the way for thee, Thou shalt furnish food for me; And the grass shall wave O'er many a grave, Where youth and beauty sleep together. 2*