Oh William Frong upon the log,
How sweet your accents sing
An airy tune beath the moon
Remote you sit and sing.

All through the rushes, and in the bushes
Odd creatures slip in the dark,
And sulky owls with feathery cowls
Go sweeping about the park

You hear on the breeze from behind the trees
The Ampton clock begin
And when it is still, how thin and shrill
The bell of the hall chimes in.

Then the horses stir and the sleepy cats purr
And something moves in the fen.
And did you not see in the hollow oak tree
Two eyes begin to burn?

You heard a foot pass, it trailed over the grass,
You shivered it came so near.
And was it the head of a man long dead
That raised itself out of the mere?

Then a call came clear over the mere
And died in the night beyond
And the moor hens woke and you heard a croak
From the swan on the judgment pond

Four black things with eyes of flame
In the hour before the dawn
And their dry throats cluck for they long to suck
The blook of a sleeping fawn

But all around from the trees and the ground
The elves and the olws creep on
And the black things shrink and we rather think
That their chance of a meal is gone.

There blows a dull breath over Troston Heath
And cocks are crowing afar
And a pool of blood in the old Broom wood
Looks up at the morning star.