The Witch of Shiloh

I

The night was marvelous to hear;
It had a strangely mingled mell.
It bellowed like a raging mere;
It hissed with flights of spirits fell.
The night was like a demon's dream,
(A demon dreaming deep in hell),
A dream of blast and roar and gleam
And formless horror throned supreme.

If ever demons dream, I think
They surely dream on such a night.
The sky was like a sky of ink;
The lightning could not give it light.
It seemed as though a dragon whirled
Gigantic wings athwart the sight;
As though an endless dragon curled
His wings and talons round the world.

I think that surely monsters flew
That night to tear our feeble earth;
I think that surely Satan blew
His trumpet round creation's girth;
And every evil creature heard;
The black cat bounded from the hearth,
The he-goat leaped, the owlet whirred,
The goblin flapped, the wizard spurred.

Around the gallows-tree they came,
Around the pirate's corse they flung;
They danced a dance without a name,
They sang a song in unknown tongue.
The demons capered, great and small;
The witches capered, old and young;
And, smirking through his iron thrall,
The dead man capered over all.

II

Immortal Downing! Only he
Might brave the darkness, rain and thunder
To reach the haunted gallows-tree
And drive the weirdly swarm from under.

But Adam Downing stood for more
Than any common valiant spirit;
His patriarchal essor bore
The germ of Yankee might and merit.
A demiurge, a type, a fate,
Precursor of a coming nation,
His heart was pure, his aim was straight,
His sabre-stroke, predestination;
And therefore might be fare alone
To seek the prancing Endor rabble
And smite it unto coasts unknown
As fast as broom and goat could scrabble.

Thus much of argument is meet
Before the muses pour their coffers
Of magic pearls beneath the feet
Of scientists and other scoffers.
For many, mired in sloughs of doubt,
Presume to scorn the wondrous story,
And swear that witchcraft dribbled out
When Salem flattened Goodman Cory.
But we who hold what elders told,
We know from Downing's Commentaries
That Satan troubled Shiloh's fold
With spooks and spunkies thick as berries;
That wizard bites and pricks and stitches
Were commoner than coughs and sneezing,
And those who least believed in witches
Were most perplexed with hellish teasing.

III

Mid levin gleam and thunder rattle
Our hero fought his parlous battle;
He routed Satan's hideous minions
And strowed the ways with demon-pinions,
With mangled goat and broomstick broken,
Chaldean scroll and wizard token;
He chased the myriad mongrel muddle
Through dripping wold and splashing puddle
Till not an imp could raise a bellow
And not a warlock find his fellow;
In short, he quelled the magian revel
And spoiled the picnic of the devil.
Then, panting from his godlike labor,
He sheathed his yard or two of sabre
And homeward through the darkness stumbled.
Rude march! The thunder-billows rumbled;
The lightning shot demoniac flashes,
As though 'twould scorch the skies to ashes;
The sheeted flurries hissed and rattled
Like volleys poured by ranks embattled;
The earth was mud, the air was water,
And Downing streaming like an otter.

But while he toiled through mud and mystery,
The dampest hero known to history,
He chanced to spy beneath a thicket
A damsel crouching like a cricket,
A lassie weird in garb and feature,
Who seemed to him a wizard creature.
One leap! a panther leap! He caught her,
And homeward on his shoulder brought her.

IV

A child the captive seemed to him,
Or scarcely more — a half-ripe maiden;
But fierce of temper, strong in limb,
And Downing traveled heavy laden.

Moreover, all around, a swarm
Of sombre phantoms beat and bayed;
Yea, many lords of night and storm
Arrived to aid the elfin maid;
Now clutching her athwart the brumes,
And pulling here and pushing there;
Now lifting her on mighty plumes
Till Downing fairly walked in air;
Now twining vines across his way
And plunging him aslant in mire;
Now deftly leading him astray
With dodging wisps of fairy fire.
And all the while they called a name,
The Tyrian name of Yesebel,
Or uttered titles weirdly sweet,
Becoming high born eldritch dame;
Or showered kisses on her feet
And pleaded, "Come, O Damozel!"
As 't were a dauphiness of hell.

But, drawing near to Downing's roof,
A change befel the stormy glamor;
The shoal of phantoms swerved aloof
And wailing shuddered through its clamor,
As though eolian darkness cried
Its hate and fear of coming dawn,
Or souls of wildernesses sighed
Adieu to dryad, sylph and faun;
And when our sturdy champion bore
The captive through his cottage door,
Unearthly shadows backward drew
And midnight poured a last adieu.
"Farewell;" its voices seemed to wail.
"Farewell, O queen of night and gale!
Farewell till womanhood shall yearn,
And all your pulses cry, Return!"

V

No doubt the grubbing mole denies
That Phoebus shines along the skies,
And judges prairies by the root
Of grass that snares his toilsome foot.
No doubt he holds in sand-blind scorn
The tales of creatures Eden-born;
Of dazzling seraphim who bare
Response to patriarchal prayer;
Of darkling wiles and whispers weird
That made our fervent sires afeard.
He teaches what he feels — no more;
And worms revere his groundling lore,
Believe creation's secret lies
Behind the fillets of his eyes,
And clamor, "Hail, Professor Mole,
Who proves the corpse, disproves the soul!"

Alas! we dwell in carnal times;
If spirits live, they live in rhymes.
Alone the poet keeps the faith,
Alone believes in imp and wraith,
Alone discerns Elysian coasts,
The angel ranks, the goblin hosts;
In all the earth no other gaze
Sees Eblis nights or Eden days.

I pause. The matter rolls too wide.
The farther shore is undescried.
I call in vain. The awful sea
Replies in tongues unknown to me.
Yea, tiny ripples nearest land
Speak words I cannot understand,
No voyager across that mere
Returns with news for mortal ear,
And therefore must I haste away
To dream the flimsy dreams I may.

VI

"Farewell!" the parting demons wept
As Downing shut the world without.
Then silence fell; the thunder slept;
The goblin tempest lulled its shout.
The captive ceased to moan and struggle,
And showed a gracious mind to snuggle.

A winsome, winning lass she seemed
As ever bard or painter dreamed,
With gipsy cheek of fervent bloom,
And fleeces black as raven's plume
That curled in glossy rings above
A brow Hellenic gods might love.
Such maidens danced in Syrian nights
Beneath Astarte's madding lights,
Or waved to Baal the wine and corn,
Or wept for Tammuz' drooping horn.
In Paphian grove, in Grecian tongue,
Such russet damsels leaped and sung,
Or glinted through the rippling foam
To welcome argent Venus home.

Most wondrous were the lassie's eyes;
They dreamed of myths and mysteries;
They sparkled coaxings, lures and loves;
They had as many tints as doves;
They twinkled galaxies of light,
And yet out-ravened blackest night.
They touched her captor's heart; he smiled
With sudden kindness on the child;
Then signed his only daughter near,
And said, "I bring a sister here."

VII

So Esther Downing gently kissed
The radiant child of midnight mist,
Arrayed her cleanly, gave her meat
And room upon the ingle seat,
Nor ceased the while to ask her name
And question her of whence she came.

But little would the stranger speak,
Though frolic dimpled chin and cheek.
One only tale had she to tell;
She laughed, "My name is Yesebel."
Meantime so beautiful was she,
So brimming bright with childish glee,
So seeming innocent in soul,
And ignorant of fear or dole,
As though sidereal night had blown
A cherub from beside the Throne,
And dropped it through New England air
To show that Paradise is fair.

And Downing, gazing on her grace,
Surmised a child of gentle race,
Beguiled or rapt by spooks unclean
To wear the crown of elfin-queen,
But infant pure as yet in mind
And fit to mate with human kind.
So, holding faith that Yankee roof
Would slur the airy fiends aloof,
He settled with his stubborn will
To father her, for good or ill.

VIII

Now flitted many a peaceful day,
Such days as worthy Shiloh knew
When Satan went his darkling way
And led afar his graceless crew.

No longer midnight rang agen
With goblin hoots and wizard cries;
No longer writhed the sons of men
On pins, like learning's butterflies.
No more, athwart the wailing rain,
Athwart the tempest's angry hum,
Did vague, unearthly voices plain
To Yesebel, and bid her come;
Aye, weep to her as mothers weep
To darlings vanishing beneath
A rushing billow's curling steep,
An arrowy river's foam and seethe.

The damsel grew by Downing's hearth
As fresh and pure as any flower
That findeth hospitable earth
And kindly sun and kissing shower.
She quickened all the hero's frame
To gladness when she smiled or spoke;
She made a spring of blossoms flame
From out that rugged heart of oak.

IX

Nor less did Esther twine and fold
The tendrils of her blooming May
About the waif of storm and wold,
And hold her dearer day by day.
Full sisterly the damsels kept
Each other close in loving palms,
Together laughed, together wept,
Together sang the sabbath psalms.

For Yesebel appeared as pure
As ever breeze that summer stirs;
No weird perfume, no naughty lure
Exhaled from any word of hers.
The knowledge of the wizard past
Had faded from her merry brain,
As one may see a dusky mast
Go down behind a shining main.
She knew no single wicked thing,
No cabalistic sign or spell,
Nor any stave that sorcerers sing
To greet the seignories of hell.

Forbidden carols, which before
Defiled her dainty coral mouth,
Had died like bubbles on the shore,
Had gone like swallows flitted south.
She knew not whence she came, nor how;
The elfin past was all a haze;
If any one recalled it now,
She mutely stared in prim amaze.
She held herself the very kin
Of those who daily kissed her face,
And found their sweetest joyaunce in
Communing with her sunny grace.

X

O change, mutation, miracle!
How many lives we live in one!
We hear a tinkling, tiny bell:
A curtain falls: a scene is done.
Another opens: all is new —
The actors, motives, joy and pain:
The past has disappeared like dew;
And yet we love and hate again.

O bright illusions! hopes like fires,
That quickened youth's aspiring feet!
Swift inclinations, strong desires,
Of old so steady in their seat!
Enchanted towers, a moment shown!
Tiaras round a spectre's head!
Where are you? — Shattered! overthrown!
The creatures that we were, are dead.

XI

So flitted thirty tranquil moons,
And every day this Yesebel
Increased her store of dainty boons
That dower a beauteous damozel.
Fair, too, was Esther, passing fair,
With faintly flusht carnelian skin,
And floods of sunlight through her hair,
And eyes revealing Heaven within.

And many loved them, many came
To bow before their dawn of charms:
High-stepping squires of county fame
For spacious homes and fruitful farms;
Some worshipping the holy skies
That Esther's lashes drooped above;
Some dazzled by those gipsy eyes
That seemed to promise storms of love.

And there was one, the favored one,
The largest, richest soul of all,
Whose lyric accents deftly spun
Round human hearts a wizard thrall;
Whose eloquence had tones sublime,
That startled while they lured the soul,
Like some resounding churchly chime
A-swing betwixt delight and dole;
Or, choosing thus, could swiftly wake
The stormy throbs of fervid blood,
And cause the waves of love to break
On all the shores of womanhood.

No squire was he of carnal mould,
With burly frame and beefy hand,
Attired in velvet, lace and gold
And boasting miles of fenced land.
The pastor of the fold he was,
Where Yesebel and Esther bowed
Beneath the glare of Sinai's laws,
Or saw the bow behind the cloud.
He looked a very Nazarite,
Assured to holiness from birth,
A spirit clothed in saintly white,
Almost a visitant on earth.
And many, gazing on his face
And groping for the soul within,
Believed him born a child of grace,
Who never knew the load of sin.

Such was Apollos Himmelstone,
A flower of starry gardens, sown
As though by angels, here below,
To show how Eden's roses blow.

XII

If any maid of mortal clay
Should love a bright seraphic sprite,
Should worship him for many a day,
And feel as nothing in his sight;
And then should hear him call her near
And meekly tell his angel love,
Beseeching her to hold him dear
And bide with him in realms above;
I think her happiness would be
Immense, intense as any dole;
And marvel like a billowing sea
Would almost drown her throbbing soul.

XIII

Such happiness to Esther fell.
She heard this gracious levite tell
His love, and plead to win her own;
She sate on love's imperial throne,
A queen of love; but ah, how meek!
What humble tears upon her cheek!
She spoke; the lips would scarcely part;
The words were sobs, but gave a heart.
So they were plighted, sweetly sworn
As one to joy, as one to mourn,
As one to tread the pilgrim's path
And fly the city doomed to wrath,
As one to seek the Joyous Heights
And Beulah's shades and Eden's lights.

Their voices mingled in the psalms,
They mingled in the sighs of prayer
They interchanged the precious balms
That angels fling through earthly air;
Wing interlocked with wing they flew
Above the birthplace of the dew
To where —. Ah, realm of mysteries,
Too high, too pure, for sinful eyes!
The mortal glance must turn away,
The worldly songster check his lay.

XIV

So other peaceful moons went by.
O gladsome moons, why should ye die?
Why should the perfect-circled light
Of joyaunce dwindle into night?
Alas! how many roses bloom
To shed their petals o'er a tomb!
There was a lily of the vale.
There was! Where is she? Ask the gale.

There came a change in Esther's dream
Of life. It took a nightmare cast.
She rowed in vain against a stream.
A shadow threatened; spectres passed.
There came a phantom, vague but grim,
A fitful looking-for of wrong
Betwixt her loving heart and him
Who lately made her life a song.

There came a change in Yesebel,
A transformation hard to tell,
A marvel wrought by ancient spell,
A bubble rising through a mere
But lately crystal pure and clear, —
A bubble from the founts of hell.
Aye, suddenly this saintly thing
Became as weird as any fay
That ever haunted moonlit spring
Before the elder faiths were grey.
In other maids it might have been
The pranksomeness of youthful mood,
The witchery of years of teen,
The dazing dawn of womanhood.
With Yesebel it seemed to be
A swift revulsion tow'rd the mind
And memories of days when she
Was one of Elfland's darkling kind.
Aroused — no matter how — who knows?
A dormant nature waked again,
A resurrected maenad rose,
A fettered syren burst her chain.

XV

Her eyes were like to haunted wells
Where guileful necromancy dwells,
And beckons those who gaze therein
To enter gorgeous halls of sin
That glow beneath the wizard wave
Like Eden courts, but hide a grave.

Her eyes were beautifully strange,
Alive with tender, melting change
Of many colors, many beams,
Commixed and sweet as fairy dreams,
But aye, whatever tint they caught,
Right perilous to tranquil thought,
And fit to drive an anchorite,
For safety, into desert night,
Or make a seraph close his eyes
And wing his way to sheltering skies.
No younker looked between their brims
Without a thrill in heart and limbs,
A something like delicious fear
That startled much, yet lured anear,
As though a little bird he were,
Bewildered by a serpent's stare.

Moreover, when she walked with men
In forest ways, or even when
She flouted them in rompish games
Beneath the gaze of puckered dames,
Her beauty breathed a weird perfume
(More luscious than of rose in bloom)
That made whoever stood anigh
Turn dreamy-gentle in the eye,
And deeply breathe to catch again
The sorcery that thrilled his brain,
Nor care if elders leaned askance
To study him with surly glance.

XVI

Alas, what puny fences rise
'Twixt Eden blooms and asps of hell!
The pastor's heart was Paradise,
Yet everywhere twined Yesebel.
While guarding seraphs wept or slept
Within and all about she slid,
Athwart the valley lilies crept,
Among the Sharon roses hid,
Or bent the fair forbidden fruit
To longing hands that trembled nigh,
And caroled sweet as Lydian lute,
"Behold ye shall not surely die."

How falls the saint, the shining one
Who walked in righteousness and faith,
Whose earnest feet had almost won
The heights beyond affright or skaith,
The gladsome mounts that Christian clomb
To see the road no longer dim,
And, fair ahead, the heavenly home
Ablaze with stars and seraphim?
Alas! full oft the noblest fall,
The sweetest heart, the richest brain;
The soul that loveth best of all,
By love is often snared and slain.

XVII

There came a time Apollos led
Two lives, diverse as yea and nay:
An open life, a life of day;
Another when the day was dead:
One wrenched by anguishes of prayer
And wrestlings after penitence:
Another bound in carnal sense
And haled by princes of the air.
Like one who hath two guardian sprites,
(The one a fiend, an angel, one)
He walked with Esther 'neath the sun,
With Yesebel through wizard nights.
The world that knew his morning mood
Believed him fit for Eden meads;
The world that shared his darkling deeds
Esteemed him one of Belial's brood.
How many live (ah, who can tell
But One who watcheth from the skies?)
How many live such life of lies,
Such double life of Heaven and Hell?

XVIII

Yea, only otherworldly eyen
Perceived the pastor's star grow pale.
How could unshriven saint divine
That holiness like his might fail?
Yet now and then, and yet agen
An airy shoal of whispers stole
From home to home of awestruck men
Concerning her who snared his soul.
Aye, babblings fathered none knew where,
(Such tales as mumbling beldames tell)
Like whirling snowflakes filled the air,
All drifting thick round Yesebel.

No wonder tattle chose her out:
Outlandish seemed her gipsy gaze;
Her story was a thing of doubt,
And elfin-strange were all her ways.
To wit, a-many times she larked
Such trills as deacons never pitched,
So syren-sweet that whoso harked
Stood open-mouthed like wight bewitched.
Full often chanted she like this
To girlish mate and rustic swain
Until they blushed with foolish bliss
And pleaded for the lilt again.

Whence came these magian minstrelsies
No learned doctor e'er divined;
Perchance they were but memories
Of nursing runes her grandam whined;
Perchance (as rigid spirits held)
A former life sent echoes down
Of psalms that dancing brownies yelled
To her who wore the wizard crown.
For oft of Lady Moon she hymned,
How bright she made the fairy knoll,
And how her loving maenads brimmed
With joy unknown to Quaker soul.

XIX

It cometh hard to mortal men
To write a rune from wizard lips,
For weirdly fingers jog the pen
And blunders gambol where it trips;
While, underneath the table-baize,
Demoniac jokers hammer through
A rigmarole of naughty lays
That worthy fairy never knew.
Yet noble Downing (mouth of gold)
Hath handed down the wonder-story
That oftentime his elfling trolled
This hymn to midnight's queen of glory.

Hear me, O mighty one,
Victor of Day,
Queen of the starry band,
Regent of Night!
Mount from the dying sun,
Fly from the Faraway,
Come to the Fairyland,
Come in thy might!

Give me to reign for thee!
Give me to reign,
Ruling the realm of fays
Far and anigh,
Making all bow the knee,
Kneel with bewildered brain,
Worship with longing gaze,
Worship and die!

XX

But gossips muttered stranger things.
They told that every moonlit night
She hasted forth (belike on wings)
And sought a lonesome windy height
Where anthemed hoarse an oaken wood;
And all the argent way she sang
In tongues no Christian understood
Till every bell of echo rang
And magic tumbled forth her brood.

Such roundelays she trilled, so sweet,
So full of necromantic power,
That brownies came on pranksome feet
And fairies leaped from every flower;
All trooping lightly tow'r'd a glade
Of turf amid the wizard wold,
Where roundabout they danced and played
As woodlings used in days of old.
Moreover, when the magic swarm
Dissolved and Yesebel returned,
Above her many a winged form
Of fay and gnome like fireflies burned;
Rejoicing sprites, with kindly eyes
As pure as jeweleries of dew,
And lips that had a pouting guise
Of blowing kisses while they flew.

XXI

Yea, further, all the voices woke
That peopled night in years agone.
From roaring wooded waste they spoke,
From tinkling brook and sighing lawn.
Around the eldritch girl's abode
They circled, lifting plaintive trills
And harmonies that cooed and flowed
Like yearning notes of whippoorwills:
Faint solos rolling into choirs
That sudden fell, then sharply rose,
Like carols from eolian wires
When winter through the casement blows:
Enchanters summoning their mate
(Perchance a mate, perchance their queen),
Till morning chased the goblin state
And power of darkness from the scene.

But ever, when the tempest yelled
And lightning tore the sheeted rain,
The magic music keened and swelled
Like choruses of souls in pain;
And through the windy midnight pressed
An eager train of pallid flights
That ringed the lassie's sleeping nest
And beat against her window-lights;
Now driving aimless here and there
As fitfully as shapes of dream,
Or bats and other waifs of air,
Bewildered by a lantern's gleam;
Now beckoning with filmy hands
And signing her to fare with them
Through lurid night to far-off lands,
Perchance to wear a diadem;
While ever and anon they purled
Imploring runes in speech unknown,
For ages flyted from the world,
Or known to wizard wight alone.
One word was clear in all the mell;
That single word was Yesebel.

XXII

Thus came the fairies oftentime,
As visible to mortal gaze
As phosphor-sheen of tropic clime,
Or waves of borealis rays.
And those who sentried from above
Affirmed that they were sweet to see
As any shape that painters love,
Or poets dream, or hermits flee;
While others, watching from below,
Half blinded by telluric air,
(Or viewing clearly; who can know?)
Spied nothing holy, nothing fair.

They said the radiances of night
Endured an evil second birth
And shed their garniture of light
Whenever they approached the earth;
That each renounced his pearly guise
For ugliness as black as soot
And looked the villain Sire of lies
From horned head to cloven foot.
And like enow our fallen star
Has potency to soil and mar
The sheen of whatsoever plume
Adventures through its sinful brume;
For well we know that long ago
Gods made the Syrian welkin glow,
Who lost anon their hallowed fame
To find Avernian name and shame.

XXIII

And Downing tells a ghastly tale,
Affirming in his Commentaries
That haunting sprites of nightly gale
Are swart of skin as whortleberries.

"As black," he adds, "as any kittle
That ever shamed a slattern's ingle;
An' every Shiloh chug kin whittle
Superior fairies from a shingle.

"I watched 'em through my kitchen winders,
A-whirlin' down the blowy weather,
Now scalin' round like paper cinders,
Now flockin clost as bees together.
The wings were flimsy, torn an' scurvy,
Consid'able like paper money;
An' when they tumbled topsy-turvy,
'Twas partly horrid, partly funny;
While as for music, any boodle
Of summer frogs in Shiloh ditches,
Will yowp a sweeter Yankee-Doodle
Than all your singin'-schools of witches.

"The boys who squinted from the garret
Reported quite another story,
Pretendin' they could skurcely bear it,
The figgers glinted sech a glory.
But youth is fearfully deludin';
It's eyes are big as bushel measures;
An' whipsters allays are concludin'
Forbidden spitzenbergs are treasures;
While we, who mowed our craps to stubble
In fields as wide as theirn, an' wider,
Know thoroughly through toil an' trouble
That Sodom fruit makes awful cider.

XXIV

"Jest here I suddintly remember
That certain neighbors grumbled roundly
Because I didn't scoot up chember
An' switch my gipsy lassie soundly;
Believin' (very like with reason)
That she was queen of certain devils
Who sartinly would hold it treason
To bring her trouble by their revels;
An' holdin forth (perhaps correckly)
That sech an arnest kind of dealin'
U'd scart the 'tarnal coots direckly
An' hazed 'em out'n Shiloh squealin'.

"An here I'm druv to make confession,
Although it hurts like pullin' grinders;
But times there be of dark possession,
An' wiser men have worn the blinders.
The jade was sech a tearin' beauty,
An' looked so leetle like a sinner,
I couldn't squarely face my duty
An' say that Uncle Hob was in her.
I hate to larrup gals like cattle;
My heart preferred to resk a sally;
An' thus I soon declared for battle,
Though waged with all the Shadder Valley.

"So, after takin' drink an' vittle,
I trotted out to poke an' whittle.
An' now that flyin' generation
Of vipers throwed a transformation.
They quit cahootin' round my gables
An' settled down like forty Babels,
A truly awful, howlin', squirmin',
Rambunkshus flock of pizen vermin,
Goats, tomcats, panters, anacunders,
Imps, dragons, spooks an' other wonders,
Who charged me on a tearin' gallop,
An' seemed resolved to have my scallop.

"The leader was a boar-constrictor,
Who opened six-feet-wide his picter,
Proposin', if I'm not mistaken,
To try the whole of Downing's bacon,
But never got a single swaller,
Because I sabred through his collar
An' left his serpentship in sections
That skipped in opposite directions.

"The next who offered me a banter
Was twenty foot or so of panter,
Who carmly ast himself to supper,
But got a slash from snoot to crupper,
That ruther cut the combat shorter,
Both halves a-bawlin' out for quarter.

XXV

"Well, after that the fight was easy;
The spooks were old, the dragons wheezy;
The billy-goats were clumsy hitters
An' kinder tottlish on their bobbins;
The tomcats frowzy, starvelin' critters,
A poorish match for mice an' robins;
From whence I jedge that Satan's legions
Are nourished purty much on shadders;
An' probably the brimstone regions
Don't run so rich as Shiloh medders.

"At any rate, the spirit bodies
Went down as easily as toddies.
I found it ruther fun than trouble
To bust their glory like a bubble,
An' worked destruction on their models
Till every rood was heaped with noddles,
All dribblin smoke from mouths an' noses
Like jackolanterns lit with oakum,
Some smilin' peaceable as Moses,
Some snappin' when I went to poke 'em,
As though, perhaps, some perished hardened
An' others longin' to be pardoned.

"In twenty minutes Tophet's embers
Conceded that the fight was over;
The biggest part had lost their members,
The rest had skittered off to cover.

XXVI

"But now comes Beelzebub's endeavor
To make the battle look like dreamin';
The coot is more than Injun-clever
In every kind of trick an' schemin'.

"When mornin' sot the little birdies
A-grindin' on their hurdy-gurdies
I puttered out with pick an' shovel
To lay the witches under gravel.
But everything was changed; the corpses
Were neither fish nor flesh nor porpses.
I couldn't light on wing or gizzard
Of fiend or spook or ghoul or wizard.
Instead of hell-fire salamanders
I found a stack of geese an' ganders;
An' wust of all, my neighbor Moultrie
Presented claims for slaughtered poultry.
Thus Beelzebub, that prince of cheatin',
Contrived to cover up his beatin',
To plunder me of all my laurels
An' cast a slur upon my morals."

XXVII

Thus was it noble Downing fought,
And saw his triumph turn to naught,
While Shiloh rang with foolish scorn
And Satan lifted high his horn.

Meantime the elfin maiden strolled
By midnight through the oaken wold,
And there beneath the moonshine did
Whatever Samuel's laws forbid.
Nor walked alone; beside her stole
The gracious youth who knew the right,
And pointed out the Heavenly goal
To lowly Shiloh's sons of light.
Nor he alone: the mysteries
Of wizard darkness lurked anigh;
For zephyrs murmured witching glees
And thickets whispered counsels sly;
The field-mice squeaked forbidden words,
The crickets chirruped wicked leers,
And titters came from tattling birds
And sneering owlets hooted jeers.

So, many a time, through Eblis land
This couple sauntered hand in hand,
And heard its naughty echoes ring
As gladsome music, sweeter far
To them than any caroling
Of saints beyond the morning star;
Nor cared though many a cloven foot
Behind them tracked their paradise;
Nor cared though poison dewed its fruit
And all its roses budded lies.

XXVIII

One summer eve Apollos sought
The bedside of a dying boy;
Unearthly comfortings he brought,
And changed the trembling plaint to joy.
His prayer arose on lyric wings
That seemed to challenge angel flights;
His psalm resounded like the strings
Of golden harps on Eden's heights;
And ere he left the mourning hearth
To follow paths that seraphs flee,
A grateful soul had 'scaped from earth
And pain and sin and such as he.
XXIX
He burst away from prayer and praise
To find delights of fairy glade.
His cheek was all a-flame; his gaze
Shot flashes like a polished blade.
He flew with eager feet along
The road from which he warned so well,
And every word he breathed was song,
For every word was Yesebel.

But suddenly a woman's eyes
Illumed the darkness; sparkled keen
Yet mournfully; seraphic skies
Of love and love's reproof; their sheen
Was terrible to him, though sweet.
They pierced the shadows round his soul;
They checked the madness of his feet.
He paled like one who hears the toll
Of funeral bells, and fears to die.
He stopped with lifted arms and sobbed,
"Oh, Esther!" — "Yes," she wept, "'Tis I!"
Then, standing by his side, she throbbed
And struggled through a stormy mere
Of pleading, every wave a tear.

XXX

I know you love another. Yea,
I know her name. But let it go!
My gladness had its little day
And set forever. Be it so!
I was not worthy such a throne
Of joy as once seemed all my own.

O days when earth was paradise!
When seraphim attended me!
Alas! I half forgot the skies,
Forgot my very God in thee.
He rescued with the sword of flame.
He punished. Hallowed be his name!

I murmur not. I blame you not.
I ask you not for happiness.
I offer not a love forgot.
Its strength is gone. I could not bless
Your life as once I hoped to do.
Henceforth a gulf divides us two.

But you, Apollos! where are you?
Am I the only one forsook?
Look back upon the joy you knew
In ways of holiness. Then look
Adown the path you tread to night.
Are they the same? Is darkness light?

Where is the eloquence that burned
Along the road that leads to God?
Has he who taught the journey, learned
No footstep feebler souls have trod?
The guide, the champion, of our band
Alone turns back from Eden-land.

Are not the companies of Heaven,
The high communion of the just,
The purity like snow new-driven,
The wealth beyond all loss or rust,
Fairer than any hope to dwell
With lords and princesses of hell?

XXXI

She ceased. Her pleading mantled up
To sobbing, — woe's primeval speech.
It overbrimmed the little cup.
Of human language; strove to reach
Unearthly eloquence. Meanwhile
Her lips revealed a yearning smile
That writhed and quivered like a wretch
Whose limbs the torture-engines stretch.

But presently she grew aware
That none attended to her moan.
She sobbed and gasped to empty air;
The man she pleaded with had flown;
Had leaped away like one who speeds
From punishment of evil deeds.
He ran like Cain, alone, alone.
The wicked darkness helped his flight,
The swarthy-pinioned, demon night.
It shielded him from pitying eyes
That strove to follow, longed to save.
Alone he fled with broken cries
Like one who fights against a wave
That smothers him in curling froth.
His aching heart was bitter wroth
With every living thing but her
Whose magic made his pulses stir.

He neared the wizard wold and heard
Her voice careering like a bird;
(A bird afloat on balanced wings
Who sings unknowing that he sings)
So lightly soared her gladsome lay
Of times when frolic gods held sway;
When every hill-top had its grove,
And every grove its glowing shrine,
Where Baal accepted corn and wine,
Or Ashtaroth accepted love.

XXXII

There was a maid of Sidon
Who joyed to watch the night
When all its princes ride on
Their jeweled steeds of light.

She loved the brightest daemon
Who flies from pole to pole,
And wrote his lordly name on
The altar of her soul.

To find him and to hold him
She wandered north and south;
To clasp him and to fold him
Against her heart and mouth.

But far above he sparkled
And reigned from zone to zone;
And far below she darkled,
Still loving him alone.

Oh, weary was the maiden
When halted she to rest:
It was the daemon's Aidenn,
And lovers there are blest.

For, weeping near a river,
She looked therein and spied
Her darling's glory-quiver
Beneath the crystal tide.

Then down the maiden fluttered,
And never more was seen:
But daemon voices muttered:
"Below she reigns a queen."

XXXIII

He found her dancing through a glade
Of moonlit turf and leafy shade,
While all around and all above
Disported airy, fairy forms
As thick as motes when summer warms
The marshy wold to life and love.
Around the dancing elfin girl
They flitted blythely to and fro
On hazy wings of lucent pearl,
Now darting swift, now wheeling slow,
As fitful breezes chanced to blow,
Or crazy eddies chanced to whirl.

Aloft, the crescent goddess flew
On slender wings of argent sheen
As though the joyous Fairy Queen
Arrived athwart the hollow blue
To find and greet her devotee.
Nor came alone, for every zone
Of sparkling night with daemons shone,
The gods who ruled the Tyrian sea
And made their names and glory known
To gay Hellene and grave Chaldee;
While ever, through the northern sphere,
The boreal spirits toiled to rear
A paradise of throbbing flame,
Incessant tumbling, yet the same,
So deftly wrought some magian name.

XXXIV

He found her dancing like a breeze,
In raiment delicate as mist
And shorter than her dimpled knees,
While lovingly the moonlight kissed
Her arms from shoulder down to wrist.

He found her dancing like the seas,
The bacchant seas, when tempests pour
Their mighty music far from shore;
When every frantic triton blows
His shell for laughing sprite and gnome,
And every billow naiad throws
Abroad her draperies of foam.
He called her fiercely, "Yesebel!"
For still he greatly feared to see
The lurid entrances of Hell.
She answered, singing, "Come to me!"

He looked; he saw the pearly teeth,
The coral curl of chanting lips,
The ebon hair in tossing wreath,
The levin glance, the bosom's swell,
The rosy hands athwart the hips,
The twinkling feet, the maenad glee;
And all his puny anger fell,
A falling star, to quick eclipse.
No power had he to bid her nay,
No power to turn and speed away,
But dazzled stared with panting breath,
The feeblest man of feeble clay
That ever reeled in ways of death.

XXXV

She laughed; she kissed his golden head,
The while he trembled like a leaf.
"There's not a sin on earth," she said,
"Except the dreary sin of grief;
There's not a holier thing than mirth
In all the holy lands of earth.

"The laughing gods of olden time,
The deities of gladsome men,
Illume us, beckon us to climb
Afar from dogma's smoky den,
Where bigots pile the cruel fires
With nature's pleasures, hopes, desires.

Look upward! Night is all divine
For those who tremble not to die.
Look upward! Jocund daemons shine;
Olympian revels crowd the sky.
Look up and see what life should be:
A godlike dance for me and thee!

And, ah my queen! my queen of fays!
She lifts her shining arms above
The cloudy crests, the flying haze
Of heavenly night, and bids to love,
The old, the sweet, the strong command,
So well obeyed in Elfin land.

Dear goddess queen! beneath thy glance
What gentle pleas and soft replies,
What yearning lyres and tender chants,
What clinging lips and burning eyes,
How many millions have there been
Since thou hast reigned, O goddess-queen!

XXXVI

She stopped; then swiftly caught his hands
And folded him in coiling bands,
An Eden-serpent, deadly sweet
From winsome head to lissome feet.
Her snaky glances brightly stole
Through his, and paralyzed his soul.
She needed not to murmur word
Of sortilege or charm; he heard
Her witching heartbeats throb and seethe
In all his frame; he felt her breathe
Her sorceries through every vein;
He felt her magic in his brain;
He only gasped to suck perfume;
He drank her fragrant, dazing bloom;
The draught was death; he drank his doom.

She saw him fall; she saw him lost;
She uttered not a word of boast.
She saw her glamour win its prize,
And could not speak, except in sighs.
But triumph sent the pagan blood
Athwart her face in burning flood,
And lit her eyes to flamings, while
She kissed him with a syren smile,
Victorious, a queen of guile!

A soul was lost, a victim fell
For aye beneath her evil spell,
Forever fell to worship sin
And whomsoever rules therein.

XXXVII

Who never gazed with sparkling eye
On gleam and shape of fairy mead;
Who never saw the elfin sky
One moment glow like Heaven indeed;
Who never heard the lorelei sing
Till all his blood like lava ran;
I count him but a lumpish thing,
Not worth the lordly title, Man.

The weak behold the mighty fall,
And, marvel how their feet should slip;
The sheltered pinnace tells the yawl
How ocean whelmed the lofty ship;
The cripple keeps his blood and breath
When battle lays the champion pale;
The ant surveys the lion's death,
And says, "Behold me strong and hale!"
The daisies smile superior
When giant oaks bestrow the plain:
They only felt a zephyr stir;
Aloft it was a hurricane.

There never yet was groundling mole
That perished climbing peaks of snow;
There never yet was pigmy soul
That bore Promethean sin and woe.
No levin rends the fluttering leaf,
No wreck befalls the grubbing hind,
No syren music lures the deaf,
No demon star misleads the blind;
While he, the chief, the kingly one,
Whose noble blood is throbbing fire,
Whose haughty pinions seek the sun,
Whose aim is ever high and higher;
How often doth his swiftness drive
Through dazing gleams or blinding glooms!
How often must the lightning rive
His daring might of splendid plumes!

He finds a more than human grace
Where flesh discovers flesh alone;
He sees beyond the outer face,
He sees the soul upon its throne;
He clothes another with himself,
And therefore finds her passing fair.
He sees the god within the elf;
He sees the fiends as once they were.
He bends the knee where others stand,
Because he has the second sight;
He seems the fool of all the land,
Because he loves with all his might.

XXXVIII

The story goes (who now receives
What ancient men affirmed on oath?)
That underneath the oaken leaves,
And sheltered by a laurel's blowth,
Two lated urchins, cold with fright,
Beheld the Stygian revellings,
The wood a hell of lurid light,
The air a hell of goblin wings;
Beheld their pastor madly whirl
With Yesebel in Belial's dance,
While all around a wizard swirl
Revolved with stormy song and prance;
Till lastly came a fearful shape,
Beyond the ghastliest thought of man,
A formless form as black as crape,
With pinions reaching many a span;
Whereon these younkers, all agape,
Displayed what spryness younkers can,
And trundled off their trembling meat
To pious Shiloh's drowsy street.

The village won, they yelled amain
Till nightcaps blanched each window pane,
Till lovely woman poured her shriek
And infants made the echoes speak,
While strident goodman, plangent squire
Responded, "Murder! witches! fire!"
At last, when every soul was hoarse,
At last the case was understood,
And Shiloh mustered all its force
To march against the wicked wood,
Resolved to dye its steel in gore
Of wizard throngs, and furthermore
To capture Tophet's sooty peers
And bind them for a thousand years.

XXXIX

Now Downing, in his Thirteenth Book,
Relates in noble terms the matter.
"I kinder hoped," he says, "to cook
The goose of Satan to a tatter.
We had a hundred men, about,
With twenty wagon-loads of ladies,
Besides a whappin' younker rout
An' hounds enough to pin all Hades.
I sent the bacheldors ahead,
With orders strict to keep a-wabblin',
Expectin' soon to hear their lead
A-whizzin' through a yowpin' goblin.

"But common men, as ginrals know
Are ruther peaceful kind of cattle,
An' allays travel pesky slow
Whenever they go forth to battle.
Afore we'd journeyed very fur
Or Nipton's flames begun to blind us,
I found that every skirmisher
Was forty rod or more behind us.
Thereon I formed my army front
Accordin' to the law of natur:
The women first, to ketch the brunt;
The chaps who'd want to save 'em, later.
The better-halves an' gals, you ken,
Might use the shays for battle-chariots;
An that would stir the married men,
An' cheer the bacheldor Iscariots.

"The line was purty chirk at last,
Especially the dogs an' hosses,
An' rattled forrard middlin' fast,
Considerin' the stumps an' mosses,
Till finally we nighed the grove
Where Satan's deacons cut their capers,
All lookin' monstrous hot above,
As though the twigs were burnin' tapers.
I ranked my wagons thill to thill,
An' give the word to whip tremendous;
Then, whack, we cantered up the hill
As fast as hoofs an' wheels could send us.

XL

"We reached the top. You never saw
A spot like that for signs an' wonders:
The turf ablaze like kindled straw,
The oaks a-spittin' sparks an' thunders,
The lanskip glarin' all around,
The air alive with spooks an' devils,
While crowds of witches sot the ground
A-teeter with their stompin' revels;
All guarded by a dragon's rolls
Of slimy scales an' tail enormous,
Who snorted ovens-full of coals,
An' blew 'em ragin' hot to warm us.

"But, most astonishin' to tell,
I spied our lately wusshupt parson,
Both arms around our Yesebel,
A-jiggin' through the fire an' arson;
Both steppin' out at sech a pace,
So dandified an' swift an' supple,
With sech a gladness in the face,
I couldn't help admire the couple.
They kinder seemed like king an' queen:
I never saw a gal no sweeter:
Her cheeks a-flush, her glances keen:
All Shiloh couldn't show her beater.
She flew like any busy bee;
There warn't another jade went past her;
Yit seemed to me the parson he
Could foot it off a leetle faster.
He had a sort of unkshus slide:
You saw him, then you couldn't find him;
He squelched the spryest wizard's pride,
An' left the peartest imps behind him.

XLI

"But while I stood with jaws apart,
A-gogglin' at those hansome critters,
My army got a trifle scart
An' suddintly went all to fritters;
For when the hosses smelt the dragon,
An' when the ladies fairly saw it,
Away went every tarnal wagon
As fast as dobbin's legs could draw it;
An' clost behind, with howl an' whine,
Dogs, younkers, single men an' married,
The fastest, loudest drove of swine
That ever Tophet's legion harried.

"The only one who stuck it through
Was Esther Anne, my faithful daughter.
God bless her! Downing grit is true,
An' Downing blood is thicker 'n water.
She wouldn't dodge the pesky ventur,
Though right ahead stood Hell embattled,
An', jerry-go-lang! for Shiloh centre
Those wagons of salvation rattled.
She went beside me through the scrimmage
Without the smell of fire upon her,
For Satan's impotent to damage
A maiden clad in grace an' honor.

"Well, right away the fight begun,
The devils spoutin' smoke an' flashes,
I bangin' with my duckin' gun,
An' blowin' some to dust an' ashes.
The forest glimmered red an' black
With fizzin' fire an' sooty cinders;
The noise was loud enough to crack
In flinders forty thousen' winders.
In short, t'was jest the roughest tussle,
The toughest muss for roars an' blazes,
That ever taxed old Downing's muscle
An' scart him into prayers an' praises.

XLII

"Considerin' their cause was bad,
The goblins nobly used their chances,
An' where the dragon led they had
A sneakin' hope to make advances.
That dragon give me special fits:
He scorched an' baked an' fried an' roasted;
He smelted both my eppylets
An' left my uniform well toasted.
I couldn't dodge the creetur's aim,
Though peart at dodgin' as an otter;
An' every time he blazed, the flame
Appeared to me a trifle hotter.
At last, as flints were gittin' few
An' nawthin' seemed to come of shootin',
I thought I'd try an interview
Upon a more familiar footin'.

"The sword of Gideon I drawed,
An' went for Granther Dragon's jacket.
The monster smoked an' blazed an' clawed,
But found he couldn't stand the racket.
His scales an' buttons flew around;
His trotters wabbled sorter limber;
He winced an' whimpered like a hound;
His afterparts were all a-kimber.
Then suddintly an awful glare
Ascended swishin' through the branches;
The cuss had scooted for his lair
With all his devils at his haunches.
You never saw a garden toad
So lively in a shingle-whackin';
I jest remarked that somethin' glowed,
An' then his majesty was lackin'.

XLIII

"But I had nary time to laugh
While any warlock stayed, or wizard;
I thrashed my harvest into chaff,
An' spelt my stent from A to Izzard.
I strowed the country right an' left
With Tophet's elders an' exhorters,
With damaged prophets, powwows cleft,
An' necromancers carved in quarters.
The very whiteoaks couldn't hold
Agin the slash of Downing's whinyard;
I ravaged all that haunted wold
As Ahab ravaged Naboth's vineyard.
I didn't leave a trunk unchopped;
The rubbidge covered several acres,
An' everywhere the wizards dropped
In urgent need of undertakers.
The hill is higher far than 'twas
Before I laid the woodland level,
An' schollards dig there teeth an' claws
As old an' ugly as the devil.

"But still, alas! I couldn't do
A Shiloh soldier's perfect duty;
I failed to run Apollos through,
An' save my little gipsy beauty,
They whipped about at lightnin' pace,
Onsartin, like a firefly's glitter,
The parson smirkin' in my face,
The lassie blushin', all a-titter.
They sparkled there, they fluttered here,
They glimpsed along from nook to cover.
Betimes they capered purty near,
An' roundabout my head would hover.
But finally there came a glare
Of fiery claws and flamy pinions,
That hustled them, I s'pose, to where
Apollyon snarls among his minions."

XLIV

Thus Downing saw them, sturdy child
Of common sense, who found no grace
In dazzling sin, or soul beguiled,
In demon plume, or fairy face;
Who saw the earthly husk of things,
And saw the earthly husk alone,
Nor guessed a grub has hidden wings,
Nor guessed the gem within the stone;
Who held the ancient virtues sin,
The hoary creeds bedeviled tales,
Nor found a gleam of glory in
The names that ruled Elysian vales;
To whom the pearly sylphs were black,
The syren's lilt a doleful scream,
The fairies but a vampire pack,
And poesy a wicked dream.

Thus Downing saw this fated pair
Who sought to princes of the wind;
Who found each other deadly fair,
And therefore loved, and therefore sinned.
He saw them smitten; hurried swift
As lightning through a fiery rift
Of Eblis; souls of driven flame
That agonized from sin to shame;
Apostate angels, tempest-tost;
Extinguished stars, forever lost.

XLV

But Esther saw with other eyes,
For sorrow knows the second-sight;
And loving souls, though clad in white,
Behold with love's alert surmise.
She saw them soaring hand in hand,
Their glances mingled, eye to eye,
Their breath commingled, sigh to sigh,
Like creatures born of Paphian land,
Who held each other far too dear
To question whether Eden's strand
They neared, or Hell's cimmerian mere.

She saw them floating, far above,
On beaming clouds of delicate lawn,
Around them many a kissing dove
And dovelike spirit, winged with love,
Who guided them to meet the dawn
As tenderly as angels guide
Forgiven souls through Heaventide.
Adown the kindling East they shone;
And there, a welkin's width away,
They lingered glorious; seemed to stay
One breath upon a dazzling throne;
One moment reigned; then sudden fell
For aye; while Esther wept, "Farewell!"