Oracles

II4 THE HOUSE You guess how gladly to the door I rushed And flung it wide. Why ! no one’s there ! Arouse ! I am asleep. What horror came and crushed My whole soul’s life out as some shadow brushed My body and passed in ? All sense allows At last the fearful truth—This is the house ! This is my old house on the marsh, and here, Here is the terror of the distant sea Moaning, and here the wind that wails, the drear Groans like a ghost’s, the desolate house of fear Whence I fled once from my great enemy— This is the house ! O speechless misery ! Here the great silver candlesticks illume The agèd book, the blackness blazoned o’er With golden characters and scarlet bloom Twined in the blue-tinged sigils wrought for doom, And dreadful names of necromancer’s lore Written therein : so stood my room before When the hissed whisper came, “ Beware ! Beware ! They’re coming ! ” and “ They’re coming ! ” when the wind Bore the blank echoes of their stealthy care To creep up silently and find me there, Hid in the windowless old house, stark blind For fear—and then—what horrors lurked behind