er shoulders, with whips formed of serpents, they scourge,
And fast from her wounds the blood flows.

"Oh! welcome!" she cried, and her voice spoke despair;
"Oh! welcome, Sir Osric, the torments to share,
Of which thou hast made me the prey.
Twelve years have I languished thy coming to see;
Ulrilda, who perished dishonoured by thee
Now calls thee to anguish away!

"Thy passion once sated, thy love became hate;
Thy hand gave the draught which consigned me to fate,
Nor thought I death lurked in the bowl:
Unfit for the grave, stained with lust, swelled with pride,
Unblessed, unabsolved, unrepenting, I died,
And demons straight seized on my soul.

"Thou com'st, and with transport I feel my breast swell:
Full long have I suffered the torments of hell,
And now shall its pleasures be mine!
See, see, how the fiends are athirst for thy blood!
Twelve years has my panting heart furnished their food.
Come, wretch, let them feast upon thine!"

She said, and the demons their prey flocked around;
They dashed him, with horrible yell, on the ground,
And blood down his limbs trickled fast;
His eyes from their sockets with fury they tore;
They fed on his entrails, all reeking with gore,
And his heart was Ulrilda's repast.

But now the grey cock told the coming of day!
The fiends with their victim straight vanished away,
And Carloman's heart throbbed again;
With terror recalling the deeds of the night,
He rose, and from Falkenstein speeding his flight,
Soon reached his paternal domain.

Since then, all with horror the ruins behold;
No shepherd, though strayed be a lamb from his fold,
No mother, though lost be her child,
The fugitive dares in these chambers to seek,
Where fiends nightly revel, and guilty ghosts shriek
In accents most fearful and wild!

Oh! shun them, ye pilgrims! though late be the hour,
Though loud howl the tempest, and fast fall the shower;
From Falkenstein Castle begone!
There still their sad banquet hell's denizens share;
There Osric the Lion still raves in despair:
Breathe a prayer for his soul, and pass on!

The Conference of the Dead

A legend of later date than most of the Rhineland tales, but still
of sufficient interest to merit inclusion among these, is that which
attaches to the pal