Page:Betelguese, a trip through hell.djvu/46

38 Within this crypt of whistling Doom! When in monastic nights of haze

The battlements retard giant sighs;

When marshalléd mists from out the West

Cloak ramparts black with ughly light,

A rubic Soldan rakes each ghaut,

Each sleeping vandal, imp and soul.

No astral eyes laugh from these skies,

No nightingales sing in the night;

A dungeoned curse that villains wrought

Rasp each eternal vault and shoal.

Then one-eyed mongrels split the dyes

Of roaring winds and raging storms,

Dim shapes flee to the haunts of gore,—

Each Cyclopean Dragon's goal!

And groaning cries from maidens fair

Is heard by spectral, gangrel forms,—

The writhing thin is flayed some more! Its secret sins,—Black deeds of Soul—

Is scourged as copper-burnished hair

Hangs from her alabaster head,