Читать книгу The Essential Works of William Harrison Ainsworth - William Harrison Ainsworth - Страница 33

I ride alone — I ride by night

Through the moonless air on a courser white!

Over the dreaming earth I fly,

Here and there — at my fantasy!

My frame is withered, my visage old,

My locks are frore, and my bones ice cold.

The wolf will howl as I pass his lair,

The ban-dog moan, and the screech-owl stare.

For breath, at my coming, the sleeper strains,

And the freezing current forsakes his veins!

Vainly for pity the wretch may sue —

Merciless Mara no prayers subdue!

To his couch I flit — On his breast I sit! Astride! astride! astride! And one charm alone — A hollow stone! —23 Can scare me from his side!

A thousand antic shapes I take;

The stoutest heart at my touch will quake.

The miser dreams of a bag of gold,

Or a ponderous chest on his bosom rolled.

The drunkard groans ‘neath a cask of wine;

The reveller swelts ‘neath a weighty chine.

The recreant turns, by his foes assailed,

To flee! — but his feet to the ground are nailed.

The goatherd dreams of his mountain-tops,

And, dizzily reeling, downward drops.

The murderer feels at his throat a knife,

And gasps, as his victim gasped, for life!

The thief recoils from the scorching brand;

The mariner drowns in sight of land!

Thus sinful man have I power to fray,

Torture, and rack, but not to slay!

But ever the couch of purity,

With shuddering glance, I hurry by.

Then mount! away! To horse! I say, To horse! astride! astride! The fire-drake shoots — The screech-owl hoots — As through the air I glide!

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23. In reference to this imaginary charm, Sir Thomas Browne observes, in his “Vulgar Errors.” “What natural effects can reasonably be expected, when, to prevent the Ephialtes, or Nightmare, we hang a hollow stone in our stables?” Grose also states, “that a stone with a hole in it, hung at the bed’s head, will prevent the nightmare, and is therefore called a hag-stone.” The belief in this charm still lingers in some districts, and maintains, like the horse-shoe affixed to the barn-door, a feeble stand against the superstition-destroying “march of intellect.”