Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams,--
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams!



FROM "THE FALL OP THE HOUSE OF USHER."

At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a moment paused;
for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my excited
fancy had deceived me)--it appeared to me that, from some very remote
portion of the mansion there came, indistinctly, to my ears what might
have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but a
stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound
which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond
doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for amid
the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and, the ordinary
commingled noises of the still-increasing storm, the sound, in itself,
had nothing, surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. I
continued the story.

* * * * * * * *

Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild
amazement--for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this instance,