By Christopher Courtley

The groaning of the oaken doors

Announce my swift-approaching death

On feet that pound these hallowed floors

I cling to with abated breath.

I’ll find no sanctuary here

From this unholy war they wage.

I try to calm my growing fear

As I endure their shouts of rage.

The angry mob is led by one

Whose daughter lately did succumb

To fever, and by one whose son

By means unknown was stricken dumb.

They will not hear my arguments—

The preacher looks on with a sneer

As I protest my innocence;

He says my guilt is all too clear.

The mob now having found their witch

Beseech of him a remedy;

He tells them they must smear with pitch

My body and put flame to me.

They seize me then, with irons bind

My wrists, and then my dress they tear

And chaining fast my hands behind

My back, proceed to strip me bare.

Men force me down between the pews

And each in turn does what he will.

They yank my hair, my breasts they bruise,

Till every one has had his fill.

Then gagged that I may cast no spell,

With prayers that their Lord may save

My soul from all the pains of hell,

They send me to my fiery grave.

§

But now on Hallows Eve a sign

Against the waning gibbous moon,

A scudding shadow shaped like mine

Foretells my bloody vengeance soon

To fall on those who did me wrong!

The preacher leads his flock into

The chapel, thinking himself strong

In Christ—as if I cannot do

What I have come to do within

That desecrated church where he

Stood o’er me with a leering grin

While twelve men had their way with me—

Yet now the groaning oaken doors

Swing open, letting in the night

As shadows sweep across the floors

Within the fading candlelight.

The flames burn blue and then go out—

The faithful huddle close in fear—

For now they see the ghost of doubt

Upon the preacher’s face appear!

But loudly he begins to pray

To God and all His angels, as

If they will intervene to stay

My righteous hand, which never has

In life or death committed sins

So black as his. But still unbound,

My shadow in the darkness spins

A cloak of fallen leaves around

Its pitch-soaked form—and now they run—

The guilty twelve beg God to save

Their lives as I hunt down each one

And send him swiftly to his grave.

§

The preacher’s wily prey, and fast

But I am wilier and faster—

Yet ne’er should I have left for last

This thirteenth morsel for the Master!

My vengeful spate must end at morn

And now I fear he will escape

My wrath, and I will be forsworn—

For with hell’s fiends that long to rape

His soul for all eternity

I bartered for my brief return

Its sure and swift delivery.

Which failing, my poor shade will burn

Forever in the lake of fire!

But then at last I see him—lo!

The object of my dark desire

In the dawn’s first feeble glow!

Still cowering on hallowed ground—

How foolishly he clings to faith!

But sensing now that he’s been found,

He turns to flee my fearsome wraith.

I overtake him quickly, shed

His blood as he repents his deeds

But without mercy are the dead

And now the earth on which he bleeds

Begins to quake and then to rock,

And then yawns wide to swallow him—

And by the crowing of the cock

I know that I must follow him.

But looking my last on the sky

I see that angels ride the wind!

They’ve come to bear my soul on high

Which ere this night had barely sinned!