Were chorussing in the sky.
But when she hearken'd the deed was known,
And her coming hour of strife,
And how they had found the royal bones
From which she had taken the life,
She got King David's psalter book,
And turn'd to the psalm they sung,
And began to read it contrariwise,
Though it blister'd on her tongue.
And she mock'd the monkish melody,
With a heart like boiling pitch,
And the clouds went shudd'ring as they heard
Like a broom beneath a witch.
When she had gotten to verse the twelfth,
'Twas the twelfth verse from the end,
Her breast upheav'd a horrible groan,
And she gave the psalm a rend.
The lofty turret quiver'd with fear,
The floor of the chapel shook,
Her eyeballs fell from her burning brow,
And blooded the psalter book.
And thrice she groan'd and thrice she sigh'd,
And thrice she bowed her head.
And a heavy fall and a light'ning flash
Was the knell of a sinner dead.
And forth from her eyeless sockets flew
A furious flame around,
And blood stream'd out of her spirting mouth,
Like water upon the ground.
The magpie chatter'd above the corpse,