第20章

(THE GHOST SPEAKS)

A GHOST is the freak of a sick man's brain?

Then why do ye start and shiver so?

That's the sob and drip of a leaky drain?

But it sounds like another noise we know!

The heavy drops drummed red and slow, The drops ran down as slow as fate--Do ye hear them still?--it was long ago!--But here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

Spirits there be that pass in peace;

Mine passed in a whorl of wrath and dole;

And the hour that your choking breath shall cease I will get my grip on your naked soul--Nor pity may stay nor prayer cajole--I would drag ye whining from Hell's own gate:

To me, to me, ye must pay the toll!

And here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

The dead they are dead, they are out of the way?

And a ghost is the whim of an ailing mind?

Then why did ye whiten with fear to-day When ye heard a voice in the calling wind?

Why did ye falter and look behind At the creeping mists when the hour grew late?

Ye would see my face were ye stricken blind!

And here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

Drink and forget, make merry and boast, But the boast rings false and the jest is thin--In the hour that I meet ye ghost to ghost, Stripped of the flesh that ye skulk within, Stripped to the coward soul 'ware of its sin, Ye shall learn, ye shall learn, whether dead men hate!

Ah, a weary time has the waiting been, But here in the shadows I wait, I wait!