Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 1 (1927-01).djvu/75

 The dance-hall church is now mostly a dance-hall, and queer faces have appeared at night at the windows. Lately a policeman expressed the belief that the filled-up crypt has been dug out again, and for no simply explainable purpose. Who are we to combat poisons older than history and mankind? Apes danced in Asia to those horrors, and the cancer lurks secure and spreading where furtiveness hides in rows of decaying brick.

Malone does not shudder without cause—for only the other day an officer overheard a swarthy squinting hag teaching a small child some whispering patois in the shadow of an areaway. He listened, and thought it very strange when he heard her repeat over and over again:

"O friend and companion of night, thou who rejoicest in the baying of dogs and spilt blood, who wanderest in the midst of shades among the tombs, who longest for blood and bringest terror to mortals, Gorgo. Mormo, thousand-faced moon, look favorably on our sacrifices!"

High and cold, the tapers Burn with a wheat-white fire, And the silver stands are clotted With the ash of dead desire.

Bleak as the flameless altar Of the "god without a name," Stands 'mid the sweeping star-winds The lonely shrine of Fame.

Stilled is the song of laughter. Frozen the warmth of tears, Sound only grand cadenzas— The Heart Song of the spheres.

Rugged the way and narrow, Pale with the bleach of bones, Riming of sweat in the furrows, Black'ning of blood on the stones.

And they who kneel at the chancel Gaze forward, they dare not look back. For white are the "pillars," and bitter, That warn by the soul-clutching track.