The Devil guards his secrets close as God. For who can say what elementaries, Demonic, lurk in desolate dells and hills And shadowy woods? malignant forces who, Malicious vassals of satanic power, Are agents to that Evil none may name, Who signs himself, through these, a slave to those, Those mortals who call in the aid of Hell, And for some earthly, transitory gift, Barter their souls and all their hopes of Heaven.
Of these enchanted bullets let me speak: There may be such: our earth hath things as strange, Perhaps, and stranger, that we doubt not of, While we behold,--not only 'neath the thatch Of Ignorance's hovel,--but within The stately halls of Wisdom's palaces, How Superstition sits an honored guest.
A cross-way, so they say, among the hills; A cross-way in a solitude of pines; And on the lonely cross-way you must draw A bloody circle with a bloody sword; And round the circle, runic characters, Weird and symbolic: here a skull, and there A scythe, and cross-bones, and an hour-glass here: And in the centre, fed with coffin-wood, Stolen from the grave of--say a murderer, A fitful fire. Eleven of the clock The first ball leaves the mold--the sullen lead Mixed with three bullets that have hit their mark, And blood the wounded Sacramental Host, Stolen, and hence unhallowed, oozed when shot Fixed to a riven pine. Ere midnight strike, With never a word until that hour sound, Must all the balls be cast; and these must be In number three and sixty; three of which The Fiend's dark agent, demon Sammael, Claims for his master and stamps for his own To hit aside their mark, askew for harm. The other sixty shall not miss their mark.
No cry, no word, no whisper, even though Vague, gesturing shapes, that loom like moonlit mists, Their faces human but of animal form, Whinnying and whining lusts, faun-faced, goat-formed, Rise thick around and threaten to destroy. No cry, no word, no whisper should there come, Weeping, a wandering shadow like the girl You love, or loved, now lost to you, her eyes Hollow with tears; sad, palely beckoning With beautiful arms, or censuring; her face Wild with despondent love: who, if you speak Or waver from that circle--hideous change!-- Shrinks to a wrinkled hag, whose harpy hands Shall tear you limb from limb with horrible mirth. Nor be deceived if some far midnight bell Strike that anticipated hour; nor leave By one short inch the circle, for, unseen Though now they be, Hell's minions still are there, Watching with flaming eyes to seize your soul. But when the hour of midnight sounds, will come A noise of galloping hoofs and outriders, Shouting: six midnight steeds,--their nostrils, pits Of burning blood,--postilioned, roll a stage, Black and with groaning wheels of spinning fire: "Room there!--What, ho!--Who bars the mountain way?-- On over him!"--But fear not, nor fare forth; 'Tis but the last trick of your bounden slave. And ere the red moon rushes from the clouds And dives again, high the huge leaders leap, Their fore-hoofs flashing and their eyeballs flame, And, spun a spiral spark into the night, Hissing the phantasm flies and fades away. Some say there comes no stage; that Hackelnburg, Wild-Huntsman of the Harz, comes dark as storm, With rain and wind and demon dogs of Hell; The terror of his hunting-horn, an owl, And the dim deer he hunts, rush on before: The forests crash, and whirlwinds are the leaves, And all the skies a-thunder, as he hurls, Straight on the circle, horse and hounds and stag. And at the last, plutonian-cloaked, there comes,-- Infernal fire streaming from his eyes,-- Upon a stallion gaunt and lurid black, The minister of Satan, Sammael, Who greets you, and informs you, and assures.