 | Lectures on art, and poems |  |
352
THE NIGHT-MARE.
ALMAHAYA.Sister Spirit, tell me where
Left you her,—the Lady fair,
Whom the star that ruled her birth
Gave to thee to guard on earth?
ZELICAN.
I saw her but now, as I left my dell
To swing the tongue of yonder bell,
By me pass on the Twilight's steed,—
The pale gray steed, that loves to feed
On toadstools black, in swamps that grow,
And the feathers that fall from the moulting crow.
ALMAHAYA.
She went not alone so late, I trow?
ZELICAN.
Nay, not so; for by her side
A green-eyed Owl, as page, did ride.
ALMAHAYA.
And whither goes she, squired so?
ZELICAN.
To yon church-yard I saw her go.
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But what, I pray thee, doth she there?
ZELICAN.
She goes to comb and curl her hair,
And scent it with the midnight dew
That drips from yonder mourning yew.
ALMAHAYA.
Look!—I see her through the gloom,
Making her toilet on a tomb.
I know her errand. Now 't is clear
She trims her smiles and trims her hair
Thus in the moonless, starless air,
To meet the Fiend that oft doth lie
By day concealed in a pigeon-pie.
I know the Fiend: I've seen his eyes
Gleaming through those fatal pies;
Those pies that each at night become
A new-made grave,—when, dark and dumb,
The Fiend steps out to the Lady fair,
To ride by her side through the startled air,
On his red-hoofed, blue-eyed, black night-mare.
ZELICAN.
Hush, good Sister!—hist, I pray!
Sure I heard his night-mare neigh.
ALMAHAYA.
O, haste thee, then, your charge to save!—
'T is the Fiend himself! In yonder grave
I see his head: and now he looms,
Like a column of smoke, above the tombs;
Now the blue eyes of his snorting mare
Like charnel-fires upon us glare;
She paws the ground;—but, hark! that groan!
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'T is only a kick she gave to a bone:
I've heard a skull thus near her moan.
ALMAHAYA.
But listen again!
ZELICAN.
'T is the laugh of despair;
For the Fiend is now with the Lady fair.
And see! they mount on the flashing air.
ALMAHAYA.
If I had flesh, 't would creep at this.
What 's that? Dost hear?
ZELICAN.
'T is the adder's hiss
In the jaws of a toad that squats by the yew:
I've seen it so feed till it upward grew
To the size of a church.
ALMAHAYA.
It grows so now!
And the vane on the steeple now brushes its brow.
But, mercy upon us!—O, hear how it roars!
Like ten thousand thunders—
ZELICAN.
The toad only snores,
After supping, good Sister.
ALMAHAYA.
But see that sight!—
Like a spark struck out from the solid night,
Down through the darkness comes a star.
Feel you not its fearful jar?—
'T is tumbling upon us! and with it the mare,—
But not her own rider,—'t is thy Lady fair,
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O, save her, dear Sister!—she touches again
The earth, and—O, horrible!—how the earth shakes!
ZELICAN.
Sweet Sister, no more. She is saved,—she awakes.
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