Oracles

THE HOUSE II5 The door firm barred !—and thus they cried in vain : “ Open the door ! ” Then crouched I mad with fear Till at the dawn their footsteps died again. They can do nothing to me—that is plain— While the door bars them ! What is that runs clear Truth in my mind ? Once more they may be near ? And then came memory. Wide the portal stood And—what had brushed me as it passed ? What froze My dream to this awakening—fearful flood Of horror loosed, loosing a sweat of blood, An agony of terror on these brows ? God ! God ! Indeed, indeed this is the house ! The candles sputtered and went out. I stood Fettered by fear, and heard the lonely wind Lament across the marsh. A frenzied flood Of hate and loathing swept across my mood, And with a shudder I flung the door to. Mind And body sank a huddled wreck behind. Nought stirred. Draws hither the grim doom of Fate ? A long, long, while. Now—in the central core Of my own room what accents of keen hate Triumphant malice, mockery satiate, Rings in the voice above the storm’s wild roar ? It cries “ Open the door ! Open the door ! ”