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The Revenant
’Twas this cold and gloomy December, within this ghastly day I remember,
As I sat thinking in an armchair of my chambre, by a window of that night,
When a blustery main of the levin, roar’d abruptly from the ire of heaven,
And the clock in the corridor struck eleven, bringing soon the midnight,
The world of the dormant dead, who swiftly awake onto the midnight—
I perceiv’d a presence of death, entering my chambre blear.
Thereafter, the draperies startl’d to ruffle, abating the once placid muffle,
Rising with a sinister sizzling sparkle, from the fiery ember of the firelight,
And the whistling birr stirr’d the core of the confin’d hollow walls that bore,
Releasing onto the ceiling the villain of lore, lurking behind the lamplight,
A vile daemon unbeknown to me, who was lurking behind the lamplight—
E’er aware of the eerie noise that had raught my ear.
The burning ember swoop’d onto the floor, closing then my wooden door,
As the mysterious figure of malediction, slowly tower’d and was in sight.
And I saw a phantom of my dirge, as I quaff’d my nepenthe with an urge,
Behind the shadow that would emerge, standing there bold and upright,
Shakespearean was the being, who was standing so bold and upright—
For my heart beat more faster, as peculiar echoes I could hear.
Thus before me was this Revenant, shap’d from some ungodly covenant,
With ghostly white eyes peering, and a potent sable guise of sheer fright,
The vivid vestige of a doom medieval, creation of a horrid maker primeval,
From the chasm of ruin of no retrieval—and warn’d with superb foresight,
To and fro such an unbearable ruin foreseen, by that superb foresight—
Was this an enigma yet to be solv’d and too unclear?
“Who art thou Devil haunting me now, with thy nefarious and stern brow?”
I ask’d the ghost of a bewitching hour, who sought to daunt me o’ernight.
“I am merely a fail’d compositor, and not a saintly intercessor or inquisitor,
Begone at once, thou unbidden visitor, into those strong winds of tonight,”
For ne’er did I invite thee, and hasten into those strong winds of tonight—
Alack, the restless tempest I hope shall disappear.
But the Revenant did not flit or fluster, amidst the chill and the bluster,
As I rose to my feet to confront him, in my posture of gallantry and fight,
And my voice became so broken, with murmurs of spirits who had spoken,
Knowing that the reaper unbroken, sought his whims of a morbid delight.
The unmerciful master of illusion, whose whims were of a morbid delight—
And the reverberation of a knell was e’en more so clear.
“Art thou the Lord of the death knell, from the hideous and calamitous hell,
Who was fore’er trapp’d, in this Ophelian mansion of rakehells of blight,
And these halls to wander astray, are full of those wanton souls that stay,
Lorn in a perdition that men pray, shall ne’er bestow them with this sight?”
The sundry spirits in perdition, who yearn to be rid of an appalling sight—
A procession of the animas who fade, in the 360 days of a year.
“Phantom of my unsettling nightmare, am I dead, thou incubus or mare?
Hast thou come for my soul to take, to the underworld thou shalt benight,
By the blazing brimstone of the raven, thou hast risen from hoary craven,
Amid the damnable throne of the haven of sinners of ominous birthright?”
Heinous must be thy palatial throne of the sinners of ominous birthright—
I betook myself to follow the stately wraith, closely in the rear.
Had my despair deviat’d me of a reality, imposing this dreadful alterity,
With those mournful pitiful laments of the deceas’d of no merit or right?
I hark’d the clamours of respite, respite now—that I had heard somehow,
From the clammy cesspit I avow, whose grisly tongues are stiff and tight,
I saw beyond the hall, these grisly tongues who remain’d stiff and tight"—
The chambre door open’d, to the hallway I did not endear.
I had hanker’d for a just reprieve, from this terror I did not want to believe.
“Perhaps, I am void of sanity, and my mind is lost in a light shone bright.
But I shall not yield to thy desire, as I shall thwart this ordeal grim and dire,
If only this wish I could acquire, I would call upon the seraphim of might,”
Let this horror that I suffer ghost, be gone with the seraphim of might—
The rain of the tempest, suddenly drench’d upon my fear.
“Know that I shall not implore thee—with any mortal plea—Then take me!
For God or Devil standing, I shall not tarry any longer helpless I say wight!
But if I am taken, I shall be brazen to dare, as I am weary and I do not care,
Get thee back onto the baleful glare that shall quit into a fainting firelight!”
That abyss found within the glare that shall quit into the fainting firelight—
The clock struck six o’clock, as a noise of tenants I o’erhear.
But the Revenant of no mortal name, bore not one token of earthly shame,
And was imbued endlessly, with the wonder of such impeccable eyesight,
Traversing that unknown mystery, and fate predestin’d of human history,
As my troubl’d soul of harsh misery, was evict’d like the thief into the light,
At last, the pall of tribulation had been evict’d, like the thief into the light—
And the madness end’d, taking a consternation once drear.
“'Is it the immediate hour of my departing, and my odyssey is starting,
Alive and drifting afterwards, within the forthcoming dawn of daylight?
For I hear the resounding bells peal, drowning the pith of a frantic zeal,
From the haughty devils of a chthonic seal, reveal’d upon the fortnight,
Damn the greedy benefactors, who were reveal’d upon the fortnight—”
My salvation seen in the seraphim, who durst to appear.
“O tell me—what shall I call thee ghost, my Cimmerian and wick’d host?”
Shall I go straightway into the terrible embers of a burning flame alight?
Where shall my condemn’d soul rest then, beside this fell world of men?
Shall my grave lie within the fen, with those who perish in their plight?”
The forsaken and exil’d reprobates, who had perish’d ere in their plight—
I had frett’d for a moment, as I felt a sense of yesteryear.
He quoth, “I am the Revenant I utter, the fearful Daemon mortals mutter!”
The only words spoken, before he had stepp’d back and then took flight,
When the window had shatter’d, and the sharp shards broken scatter’d,
And the red draperies tatter’d, as his accurst soul disappear’d forthright,
Swaying back and forth the draperies, and a soul disappear’d forthright—
Into the superstition of believers, till his soul would reappear.
The seraphim emerg’d radiantly eternal, before the shrewd ghost infernal,
And his dominion of a visible murk was gleaming after the orphic twilight,
When his spectral guise I then drew, immortalised in the winds that blew,
Onto the verge of the damping dew, and the strange flickering night light,
I still recall that damping dew, and the sight of the flickering night light—
And the burning embers of a firelight that had beguil’d near.
