"
Her home was at the distance of eight miles from Romanby; and Morton
bridge, hard by the heath where she was murdered, is the traditionary
scene of her nocturnal revisitings. The author has seen the tree said to
have been distorted by her in endeavouring to climb the fence; and has
visited the village and bridge, from which his descriptions are
accurately taken. The impression of her re-appearance is only
_poetically_ assumed, for there is too much of what Coleridge would term
"the divinity of nature" around Morton Bridge, to warrant its association
with supernatural mysteries.
Oh! sights are seen, and sounds are heard,
On Morton Bridge, at night,
When to the woods the cheerful birds
Have ta'en their silent flight.
When through the mantle of the sky
No cheering moonbeams delve,
And the far village clock hath told
The midnight hour of twelve.
Then o'er the lonely path is heard
The sigh of sable trees,
With deadly moan of suff'ring strife
Borne on the solemn breeze--
For Mary's spirit wanders there,
In snowy robe array'd,
To tell each trembling villager
Where sleeps the murder'd maid.
It was a Sabbath's eve of love,
When nature seem'd more holy;
And nought in life was dull, but she
Whose look was melancholy.
She lean'd her tear-stain'd cheek of health
Upon her lily arm,
Poor, hapless girl! she could not tell
What caus'd her wild alarm.
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