While Thomas Moore held a minor appointment in Bermuda, early in the
last century, he visited the United States, and there found material for
several well-known poems. His imagination was greatly struck by what he
heard of the Dismal Swamp, which at that time was a vast morass more
than forty miles in length and twenty-five miles in width, extending
from Virginia into North Carolina, and having in the midst of it a
stagnant lake to which few had ever penetrated. Many strange stories
were told of this gloomy swamp, with its dark recesses in which savage
animals and loathsome serpents lurked, and where, according to the
legends of the country-people, unearthly sights had at times been seen.
Moore’s genius gave to one of these legends a poetical form in the lines
which are here reprinted and which were long extremely popular. It may
be mentioned as a matter of interest that the Dismal Swamp has in recent
years been in part reclaimed by drainage, and that a canal now crosses
it, thus destroying its old-time mystery and romance.