Читать книгу The Complete Works of Algernon Blackwood. Novels, Short Stories, Horror Classics, Occult & Supernatural Tales, Plays онлайн

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Who live eternally in dreadful fright

Of stories told us in the grey twilight

By—nurserymaids!

We are the children of a winter's day;

Under our breath we chant this mournful lay;

We dance with phantoms and with shadows play,

And have no rest.

We have no joy in any children's game,

For happiness to us is but a name,

Since Terror kissed us with his lips of flame

In wicked jest.

We hear the little voices in the wind

Singing of freedom we may never find,

Victims of fate so cruelly unkind,

We are unblest.

We hear the little footsteps in the rain

Running to help us, though they run in vain,

Tapping in hundreds on the window-pane

In vain behest.

We are the children of the whispering night,

Who dwell unrescued in eternal fright

Of stories told us in the dim twilight

By—nurserymaids!"

The plaintive song and the dance ceased together, and before Jimbo could find any words to clothe even one of the thoughts that crowded through his mind, he saw them moving towards a door he had not hitherto noticed on the other side of the room. A moment later they had opened it and passed out, sedate, mournful, unhurried; and the boy found that in some way he could not understand the light had gone with them, and he was standing with his back against the wall in almost total darkness.