Page:Weird Tales Volume 38 Number 01 (1944-09).djvu/53



HERE is a path through a marsh
 * That I must take to go home
 * Mallows, and thick black loam,

Alder, and bog-grass harsh,

And the marsh-pools glinting with lights
 * Of the sunset that stains the sky:
 * That is all to the eye,

Yet something is there that affrights.

Something which I never see
 * Though I feel its eyes on my back
 * As I cross on that narrow track,

Something that watches me.

It is never bittern, who thumps
 * At his hidden churn in the reeds.
 * It is never heron, who feeds

In the shallows beside old stumps,

Or spotted bull-frog, who eyes
 * Me passing his tiny lake
 * Where the great green bubbles break

And the veils of the bog-mists rise.

But deeper than long-drowned log
 * Something that never sleeps
 * Lies crouched in those oozy deeps,

Something as old as the bog

They say that there was a time
 * When Indians called this sod
 * "The place of the evil god,"

And prayed to the quivering slime.

They say that a Face would appear
 * In the mists that the night-winds brew,
 * And would ask for its ancient due:

One human heart a year.

All that is a long-closed book
 * But still, as I pass on that track,
 * I feel something's eyes on my back

And I never dare turn to look,

For fear that the mists should spread
 * And curdle to mouth and eyes
 * Malefic and old and wise,

Demanding Its terrible bread!