Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/314

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Then a rapping begins. To the tavern swiftly approaches An uncanny guest: on his lips a smile of horrible presage: His eyes with the hollow sockets stare round with an empty chillness. He bears a scythe in his hands. It is Death with his icy message.

Clutching the bulky book, the host is in peaceful slumber, When Death draws near to him softly, and peacefully near him lingers. And he takes in his hands a pen from the grimy tavern table And he sets his signature down with a twist of his lifeless fingers.

Then he turns to the corner; and out of the thin half-darkness Horribly grins; with its fangs tempest clumsily catches And shakes at the darkened windows, and the heavy oaken portals And shrieks through the empty tavern in gloomy and horrible snatches.