Page:Satanella (1932).pdf/72

 From the stake that stands erected

On the castle's spacious court-yard,

From the stake whose gruesome outline

Gazes through the chamber windows

As a horrible indictment

Of her innocent conviction.

Led by secret inner calling

Gazes on the musing prelate,

As the cautious, frightened, moonbeam

Steals across the Satan's picture.

And at times to him it seems that

Once before, in past now distant,

He had seen those dreadful features;

Where and when? In vain he muses!

Is it only play of moonbeams,

Or is it imagination?

Now he clearly sees the Satan

Drop the hand before his forehead,

Lay aside the shield, eight-pointed,

Sees him stretch his limbs and body

And with slow delib'rate movement

Leave the hearth and walk right towards him.

And his spectral silent paces

Flit as noiselessly as shadows

'cross the floor illumined brightly

By the fickle, changing moonbeams.