Chapter III

Let me not think of it!--as I go thence,--
That thought I can not kill!
Ungovernable! that dogs my footsteps still,
Like something real and living; which my will
Is powerless against.--Ah! when that fence,
Dividing the dark ridges of the hill,
Is passed, shall I not then be breathless? ill
With sinking sense
Of ghastly things to come?--Some sterner strength
Sustain my soul!--Beyond the hill the dense
Dead wood's to pass, and then ... that livid length
Of mooning water, spectral and immense
With sullen storm and night....
There, if the ghoulish wind,--
That knows well as I know how I have sinned,--
Will cease to curse me in its hag-like spite,
Alone with all the horror of my soul,
I shall behold,
Now this way, and now that way rolled,
Lifeless, among cramped reeds, the storm has thinned,--
With wide, white eyes, metallic in the light
Of the impassive moon:--in gusty roll
Of washing ripples, webby, slippery locks
Dabbling and dark; and,--wedged between sharp rocks,--
Two rocks, two iron fangs,
Whereon the lake's mad lip, pale-foaming clangs,--
Wild-pinched and water-strangled white,
His murdered face! that mocks.

ASHLY MERE

Come! look in the shadowy water here,
The stagnant water of Ashly Mere:
Where the stirless depths are dark but clear,
What is the thing that lies there?--
A lily-pod, half-sunk from sight?
Or spawn of the toad, all water-white?
Or ashen blur of the moon's wan light?
Or a woman's face and eyes there?

Now lean to the water a listening ear,
The haunted water of Ashly Mere:
What is the sound that you seem to hear
In the ghostly hush of the deeps there?--
A withered reed, that the ripple lips?
Or a night-bird's wing, that the surface whips?
Or the rain in a leaf that drips and drips?
Or a woman's voice that weeps there?

Now look and listen! but not too near
The lonely water of Ashly Mere!--
For so it happens this time each year
As you lean by the Mere and listen:
And the moaning voice I understand,--
For oft I have watched it draw to land,
And lift from the water a ghastly hand
And a face whose dead eyes glisten.

And this is the reason why every year
To the hideous water of Ashly Mere
I come when the woodland leaves are sear,
And the autumn moon hangs hoary:
For here by the Mere was wrought a wrong
But the old, old story is overlong--
And woman is weak and man is strong,
And the Mere's and mine is the story.

THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN

On the black road through the wood,
As I rode,
There the Headless Horseman stood,
By the dark pool in the wood,
As I rode.

From the shadow of an oak,
As I rode,
Demon steed and rider broke;
By the thunder-riven oak,
As I rode.

On the wild way through the plain,
As I rode,
At my back he whirled like rain;
On the tempest-blackened plain,
As I rode.

Four black hoofs shod red with fire,
As I rode,
Woke the wild rocks, dark and dire;
Eyes and nostrils streaming fire,
As I rode.

On the deep path through the rocks,
As I rode,
I could touch his horse's locks;
Through the echo-hurling rocks,
As I rode.

And again I looked behind,
As I rode--
Dark as night and swift as wind,
Towering, he rode behind,
As I rode.

On the steep road through the dell,
As I rode,
Far away I heard a bell,
In the church beyond the dell,
As I rode.

And my soul cried out in prayer,
As I rode--
Lo! the demon went in air,
When my soul called out in prayer,
As I rode.

THE WEREWOLF

_She_

Nay; still amort, my love?--Why dost thou lag?

_He_

The strix-owl cried.

_She_

Nay! 'twas yon stream that leaps
Hoarse from the black pines of the Hakel steeps;
Its moon-wild water glittering down the crag.--
Why so aghast, sweetheart? Why dost thou stop?

_He_

The Demon Huntsman passed with hooting horn!

_She_

Nay! 'twas the blind wind sweeping through the thorn
Around the ruins of the Dumburg's top.

_He_

My limbs are cold.

_She_

Come! warm thee in my arms.

_He_

My eyes are weary.

_She_

Rest, them, love, on mine.

_He_

I am athirst.

_She_

Quench, on my lips, thy thirst.--
O dear belovéd, how thy last kiss warms
My blood again!

_He_

Off!... How thy eyeballs shine!--
Thou beast!... thou--Ah!... thus do
I die, accursed!

THE SEA SPIRIT

Ah me! I shall not waken soon
From dreams of such divinity!
A spirit singing 'neath the moon
To me.

Wild sea-spray driven of the storm
Is not so wildly white as she,
Who beckoned with a foam-white arm
To me.

With eyes dark green, and golden-green
Long locks, that sparkled drippingly,
Out of the green wave she did lean
To me.

And sang; till Earth and Heaven were
A far, forgotten memory;
Till more than Heaven seemed in her
To me:--

Sleep, sweeter than love's face or home,
And death's immutability,
And music of the plangent foam,
Ah me!

Sweep over her with all thy ships,
With all thy stormy tides, O sea!
The memory of immortal lips,
And me!

THE VAMPIRE

A lily in a twilight place?
Or moonflower in the lonely night?--
Strange beauty of a woman's face
Of wildflower-white!

The rain that hangs a star's green ray
Slim on a leaf-point's restlessness,
Is not so glimmering green and gray
As was her dress.

I drew her dark hair from her eyes,
And in their deeps beheld a while
Such shadowy moonlight as the skies
Of Hell may smile.

She held her mouth up, redly wan
And burning cold:--I bent and kissed
Such rosy snow as some wild dawn
Makes of a mist.

God shall not take from me that hour,
When round my neck her white arms clung!
When 'neath my lips, like some fierce flower,
Her white throat swung!

Nor words she murmured while she leaned!
Witch-words, she holds me softly by,--
The spell that binds me to a fiend
Until I die.

WILL-O'-THE-WISP

I

There in the calamus he stands
With frog-webbed feet and bat-winged hands;
His glow-worm garb glints goblin-wise;
And elfishly, and impishly,
Above the gleam of owlet eyes,
A death's-head cap of downy dyes
Nods out at me, and beckons me.

II

Now in the reeds his face looks white
As witch-down on a witches' night;
Now through the dark, old, haunted mill,
All eerily, all flickeringly
He flits; and with a whippoorwill
Mouth calls, and seems to syllable,
"Come follow me! oh, follow me!"

III

Now o'er the sluggish stream he wends,
A slim light at his fingers' ends;
The spotted spawn, the toad hath clomb,
Slips oozily, sucks slimily;
His easy footsteps seem to come--
Like bubble-gaspings of the scum--
This side of me; that side of me.