FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63  
64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   >>  
And pleading countenance of her you love, Faded with tears of waiting; beckoning With gray, large arms or censuring; her shame In dull and desolate eyes; who, if you speak Or stagger from that circle--hideous change!-- Shrinks, faced a hag of million wrinkles, which Ridge scaly sharpness of protruding bones, To rip you limb from limb with taloned claws. Nor be deceived if some far midnight bell Boom that anticipated hour, nor leave By one short inch the bloody orbit, for The minion varlets of Hell's majesty Expectant cirque its dim circumference. But when the hour of midnight smites, be sure You have your bullets, neither more nor less; For, if thro' fear one more or less you have, Your soul is forfeit to those agencies, Right rathe who are to rend it from the flesh. And while that hour of midnight sounds a din Of hurrying hoofs and shouting outriders-- Six snorting steeds postilioned roll a stage Black and with groaning wheels of spinning fire, "Room there!--ho! ho!--who bars the mountain-way! On over him!"--but fear not nor fare forth,-- 'Tis but the last trick of your bounden slave: And ere the red moon strives from dingy clouds And dives again, high the huge leaders leap Iron fore-hoofs flashing and big eyes like gledes, And, spun a spiral spark into the night, Whistling the phantom flies and fades away. Some say there comes no stage, but Hackelnburg, Wild Huntsman of the Harz, rides hoarse in storm, Dashing the dead leaves with dark dogs of hell Direful thro' whirling thickets, and his horn Croaks doleful as an owl's hoot while he hurls Straight 'neath rain-streaming skies of echoes, sheer Plunging the magic circle horse and hounds. And then will come, plutonian clad and slim, Upon a stallion vast intensely black, Semial, Satan's lurid minister, To hail you and inform you and assure.-- Enough! these wives-tales heard to what I've seen; To Ammendorf I came; and Rudolf there With Kurt and all his picturesque foresters Met me. And then the rounding year was ripe; Throbbing the red heart of full Autumn: When Each morning gleams crisp frost on shriveled fields; Each noon sits veiled in mysteries of mist; Each night unrolls a miracle woof of stars, Where moon--bare-bosomed goddess of the hunt-- Wades calm, crushed clouds or treads the vaster blue. Then I proposed the season's hunt; till eve The test
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63  
64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   >>  



Top keywords:

midnight

 

circle

 

clouds

 
stallion
 

plutonian

 
hounds
 

Straight

 

Plunging

 
echoes
 
streaming

Huntsman

 

Hackelnburg

 
hoarse
 
phantom
 
Whistling
 

Dashing

 

doleful

 

Croaks

 

intensely

 
thickets

leaves

 
whirling
 

Direful

 

mysteries

 

veiled

 

unrolls

 
miracle
 
gleams
 

fields

 

shriveled


proposed

 

season

 

vaster

 

goddess

 

bosomed

 

treads

 

crushed

 
morning
 

Ammendorf

 

Enough


assure
 

Semial

 
minister
 
inform
 
Rudolf
 

Throbbing

 

Autumn

 
rounding
 
picturesque
 

foresters