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Title: The Death-Sprite
Author: Cale Young Rice [
More Titles by Rice]
(A ballad for God)
A. D. 909
Three kings with naught of a care
To a hunting went;
Three kings of stirrup fair
And of yew-bow bent.
Away they rode with a song
On the summer tide;
Away from thrid and throng
By the blue lake side.
And "Ho!" they vaunted aloud
To the morning hills.
And "Ha!"--What reck the proud
For the God of Ills?
Naught! so they swagged thro the glade
Where the roe-buck rose:
She nosed the wind, affrayed
By the blod "Ho, hos!"
"Three arrows now to her heart!"
They shouted, and sped,
Each king, an evil dart
With a flinten head.
And O she staggered down--
O unpitied, slain!
But in her dreadful swoun
There was more than pain!
For Horror sprang from her blood,
A Spectre of Death!
It drew them thro the wood--
Where a Chapel saith
Masses for souls that are lost
In the wilds of sin--
There mumbled, "Ye'll pay cost
Ere to shrift ye win!"
Then led them to a bay tree
By an open grave,
Where three ghost-kings in three
Stony coffins clave.
Which spake, "Lo, we too were fair!"--
"Unto this ye'll come!"--
"Ay ye, who of naught beware!"--
So spake--and were dumb.
Then of fright and dread the kings flung
Away yew-tree bow
(The Chapel bell slow rung
With the bleak wind's blow).
And fast they fled thro the glade
To the castle hall.
But God had not been stayed--
They were lepers, all!
Woe then to kings! to the pelf
That men call pride!
Christ shrive us all from self,
From the Death-sprite hide!
[The end]
Cale Young Rice's poem: Death-Sprite
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