Читать книгу Terrible Tractoration, and Other Poems онлайн

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Were fill’d so full of godly wrath,

They burnt them off, nor thought it cruel,

As one would burn a load of fuel!

These things I note, to bring to view

Some noble precedents for you:

The chapter needs not any comment;

Then pray don’t hesitate a moment.

But, hark! what means that moaning sound!

That thunder rumbling under ground!

What mean those blue sulphureous flashes,

That make us all turn pale as ashes!

Why in the air this dreadful drumming,

As though the devil himself were coming;

Provoked by magical impostors,

To carry off a doctor Faustus!

Why scream the bats! why hoot the owls!

While Darwin’s midnight bull-dog howls![61]

Say, what portends this mighty rumpus,

To fright our senses out of compass!

’Tis Radcliffe’s sullen sprite now rising,[62]

To warn you by a sight surprising,

More solemn than a curtain lecture,

Or Monk-y Lewis’ Spanish Spectre![63]

Now, in a sort of moody mutter,

These awful sounds I hear him utter,

Which make my heart to beat and thwack it,

And burst the buttons off my jacket!