Fair forms of glistening marble stand around
Whose fixed & sightless eye-balls chill the soul
As they stand cold & silent while a sound
Is heard without of the deep thunder roll
And wild swift wind-blasts sweep the moonless sky
Now with a faroff wail now howling sternly nigh

Stretched on that couch I see an old mans form
Whose head is hoary with a century's snow
He shudders while he lists the sullen storm
And the cold death-sweats trickle from his brow
As his high palace echos to a yell
Loud as a hundred tempest's mightiest swell

There lies Lord Rowan all his eye's dark light
Quenched in the lapse of time. his raven hair
Which once in grape-like clusters thick & bright
Hung o'er his temples now so wan & bare
Falls down in meagre locks of hoary grey
Which turn to silver where the torch-beams play

A cloud of costliest inscence fills the room
The wealth of nations shines resplendent round
But shadowy horrors cast o'er him their gloom
And near his death-bed fien[d]ish whispers sound
Calling his soul with awful summonings
To stand e're morn before the King of Kings

Now that dark contract, which in years gone by
He sealed with solemn oaths, weighs on his breast
A fiery burden that eternally
Will shut his spirit from the heaven of rest
And claim it where the wicked ceaseless cry
And where the pangs of torture never die

He hath lived long the terrible the feared
Of all that journey on the sounding sea
And long hath in the storm of battle reared
His blood-red pirate flag triumphantly
His name is known to all the sons of men
O'er hill & plain & far-off mountain glen

And ever it was rumoured through the land
That he was guarded by a spirit's might
For still a shield borne by some unseen hand
Hovered around him in the raging fight
And still when fiercest tempests swept the sea
His stately ship sailed on unscathed & free

But now he feels the ghastly King draw nigh
The life blood turns to ice in evry vein
As through the black night sounds that solemn cry
Rising above the howling storm again
Strongly he struggles. Death will have his prey
And 'mid responsive shrieks his spirit bursts away