in each year does her sprite,
When mortals in slumber are bound.
Arrayed in her bridal apparel of white,
Appear in the hall with a skeleton knight
And shriek as he whirls her around.

"While they drink out of skulls newly torn from the grave,
Dancing round them pale spectres are seen.
Their liquor is blood, and this horrible stave
They how: 'To the health of Alonzo the Brave
And his consort, the Fair Imogene!'"

Lewis' own contributions to his "Tales of Terror" and "Tales of Wonder,"
were of his same raw-head and bloody-bones variety. His imagination
rioted in physical horrors. There are demons who gnash with iron fangs
and brandish gore-fed scorpions; maidens are carried off by the Winter
King, the Water King, the Cloud King, and the Sprite of the Glen; they
are poisoned or otherwise done to death, and their wraiths revisit their
guilty lovers in their shrouds at midnight's dark hour and imprint clammy
kisses upon them with livid lips; gray friars and black canons abound;
requiem and death knell sound through the gloom of the cloisters; echo
roars through high Gothic arches; the anchorite mutters in his mossy
cell; tapers burn dim, torches cast a red glare on vaulted roofs; the
night wind blows through dark aisles; the owl hoots in the turret, and
dying groans are heard in the lonely house upon the heath, where the
black and tattered arras molders on the wall.

The "Tales of Wonder" included translations by Lewis from Goethe's
"Fisher" and "Erl-King," and from German versions of Runic ballads in
Herder's "Stimmen der Voelker." Scott's "Wild Huntsman," from Buerger, was
here reprinted, and he contributed, in addition, "Frederick and Alice,"
paraphrased from a romance-fragment in Goethe's opera "Claudina von Villa
Bella"; and three striking ballads of his own, "The Fire King," a story
of the Crusades, and "Glenfinlas" and "The Eve of St. John," Scottish
tales of "gramarye." There were two or three old English ballads in the
collection, such as "Clerk Colvin" and "Tam Lin"; a contribution from
George Colman, Jr., the dramatist, and one from Scott's eccentric friend
Leyden; and the volume concluded with Taylor's "Lenora."[37]

It is comical to read that the Monk gave Scott lectures in the art of
versification and corrected the Scotticisms and false rhymes in his
translations from Buerger; and that Scott respectfully deferred to his
advice. For nothing can be in finer c