Epigraph
“Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds:
His path was rugged and sore,—
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Through many a fen, where the serpent feeds,
And man never trod before.
And when on earth he sunk to sleep,
If slumber his eyelids knew,
He lay where the deadly vine doth weep
Its venomous tears, that nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew.”