The Vigil

No wind stirred the skeletal branches that night, or the ground fog that lay in the hollow,
And wither the leprous full moon spilled her light, did a murder of shadows there follow,
Stumps of old marble and granite forgotten,
Broken, and layered with moss,
Cold graven verses, of anguish begotten,
Memories of sorrow and loss,
And a light could be seen o’er the trees from afar, in a window it shimmered like evening’s own star,
From a turret that rose o’er a mansion of stone, on a hill rising out of the swampland alone,
And between was a dire account.

The sepulchral hush in that curse-haunted dell was disturbed by a low distant ringing,
As if underground was a great iron bell, and the end of all joy it was singing,
Rumors from deep in the Earth were approaching,
Footfalls that slowly drew near,
Specter of death on the living encroaching,
Herald of suffering and fear,
And a great basalt slab lying prone in the ground of the hollow did tremble in time with the sound,
And then slowly it lifted, an opening made, and revealed a stairway of megaliths laid,
And a figure arose on the brink.

A man in its form, and a lord by its mien, and its flesh with corruption was crawling,
The flames in its eyes were the mark of a fiend, and a bestial rave it was calling,
Hatred and fury were clear on its visage,
Long-suffered injuries pent,
Death and despair were the wake of its passage,
Sanguine revenge its intent,
And it lifted its gaze to the desolate height, to the window that harbored the shimmering light,
And a smile appeared on that ruinous face, for its prey was at hand in its ancestral place,
And the time long awaited had come.

Then over a tomb with a gleam ghostly white, and magnificent angels adorning,
There gathered a misty, ethereal light, like the breath of the early spring morning,
Dancing, awhirl, diamond motes coalescing,
Taking the shape of a maid,
Beauty and grace as she bore, heaven’s blessing,
Wisdom with suffering paid,
And she lightly slipped down to the moldering ground, and she turned to confront him, the fiend now unbound,
And he growled at the girl, and waved her aside, an imperious gesture ‘twould not be denied,
But she stood, and she shook her head, no.

He knew her it seemed by the tilt of his head, from a life and a plight unforgiven,
For she into tragedy blindly was led, while he into madness was driven,
Now was his wrath at the maiden directed,
She would his vengeance deny?
Yet was it evident who she protected,
Who she had come to defy,
But the fiend could not near the pale maiden in white, for he could not endure the ethereal light,
And he stalked to the left o’er the mist shrouded ground, and again to the right to discern a way ‘round,
But she followed and he could not pass.

In silence she fought him, a battle of will, and her courage withstood the fiend’s ire,
And steadily shimmered the light on the hill, ever slowly the moon drifted higher,
Midnight went by, and the moon was descending,
Dawn was approaching at last,
Damned was the fiend, for his time there was ending,
Time for his vengeance was past,
And he quailed before the now paling sky, and impotently cursed at the window on high,
And retreating perforce to the unhallowed deep, he descended in unwonted utter defeat,
And the hellish gate closed up behind.

No wind stirred the fog at the morning’s first breath, as the quiet returned to the hollow,
The fear had departed that place of regret, and the shadows were slowly to follow,
Under the sunlight the maiden’s pale glimmer,
Faded, her time nearly spent,
Up on the window where lamplight still shimmered,
Sorrowful eyes were intent,
And her gaze bore a love and a wistful desire, but the sun was arisen and the clouds were afire,
And she turned from the warmth of the far lighted room, to the cold and the dark of the pale marble tomb,
And reluctantly faded away.