He laid his hand on the iron chains
And like flax they moulder'd asunder,
And the coffin lid that was barr'd so firm
He burst with his voice of thunder.
And he bade the Old Woman of Berkeley rise
And come with her master away,
And the cold sweat stood on the cold cold corpse,
At the voice she was forced to obey.
She rose on her feet in her winding sheet,
Her dead flesh quivered with fear,
And a groan like that which the Old Woman gave
Never did mortal hear.
She followed the fiend to the church door,
There stood a black horse there,
His breath was red like furnace smoke,
His eyes like a meteor's glare.
The fiendish force flung her on the horse
And he leapt up before,
And away like the lightning's speed they went
And she was seen no more.
They saw her no more, but her cries and shrieks
For four miles round they could hear,
And children at rest at their mother's breast,
Started and screamed with fear.
The Surgeon's Warning.
The subject of this parody was given me by a friend, to whom also I am
indebted for some of the stanzas.
Respecting the patent coffins herein mentioned, after the manner of
Catholic Poets, who confess the actions they attribute to their Saints
and Deity to be but fiction, I hereby declare that it is by no means my
design to depreciate that useful invention; and all persons to whom this
Ballad shall come are requested to take notice, that nothing here
asserted concerning the aforesaid Coffins is true, except that the maker
and patentee lives by St.
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