| |
| RUNS the wind along the waste, | |
| Run the clouds across the moon, | |
| Ghastly shadows run in haste | |
| From snowy dune to dune— | |
| Blue shadows o’er the ghastly white | 5 |
| Spectral gleaming in the night. | |
| But ghastlier, more spectral still, | |
| What fearful thing speeds hither, | |
| Running, running, running | |
| Swifter than cloud or wind? | 10 |
| What omen of nameless ill, | |
| Whence coming, speeding whither, | |
| Running, running, running, | |
| Leaves all save fear behind? | |
| |
| Leaning, leaning in the race, | 15 |
| Breath keen-drawn through nostrils tense, | |
| Fell eyes in ruthless face, | |
| What goblin of malevolence | |
| Runs through the frozen night | |
| In superhuman flight? | 20 |
| See it run, run, run, | |
| Outstripping the shadows that fly! | |
| Hear the fiend’s heart beat, beat, | |
| Beat, beat, beat in its breast! | |
| Running, running, running on | 25 |
| Under the frozen sky, | |
| Fleet, so fearfully fleet, | |
| Pausing never to rest. | |
| |
| Clutched—what is clutched so tight | |
| In its lean, cold hands as it speeds? | 30 |
| Something soft, something white, | |
| Something human, that bleeds? | |
| Is it an infant’s curly head, | |
| And innocent limbs, gnawed and red? | |
| Fleeter and yet more fleet | 35 |
| It leans, leans and runs; | |
| Dabbled with blood are its awful lips, | |
| Grinning in horrible glee. | |
| The wolves that follow with scurrying feet, | |
| Sniffing that goblin scent, at once | 40 |
| Scatter in terror, while it slips | |
| |
| Away, to the shore of the frozen sea. | |
| Away! is it man? is it woman, | |
| On such dread meat to feed? | |
| Away! is it beast? is it human? | 45 |
| Or is it a fiend indeed? | |
| Fiend from human loins begotten, | |
| Hell-inspired, God-forgotten! | |
| Now the midnight hour draws on: | |
| Human form no fiend may keep | 50 |
| Or ever that mystic hour is told. | |
| Lower, lower, lower it bends. | |
| Midnight is come—is come and gone! | |
| Down on all fours see it plunge and leap! | |
| A human yell in a wolf’s howl ends!… | 55 |
| What gaunt, gray thing gallops on o’er the world? | |
| |
