The Equinox (Volume I, Number IV)

238 THE EQUINOX Far into the fire she cast the blood, And the flames grew twisted and red; Her breast heaved with her passion’s flood As a hollow-eyed ghost arose Like a cloud of stench from the rotting dead When a wind from a pest-house blows. She clasped the ghost to her skinny dugs,— No other love might she know,— The dead man squirmed at her panting hugs, But she had her passionate will, And a sobbing breeze began to blow From the top of the lonely hill. And then a dim grey streak of dawn Came, and the sad ghost fled, With staring sockets and jaw-bone drawn, Back to the desolate place; The morning breeze grew still and dead As it played around his face. So we fled from the Mother Troll Under the dawning grey; We left the Hill of the Bloody Bowl Ere ever the sun uprose, But the dead man’s heart till Judgment-day Shall there with the Troll repose. Victor B. NEuBURG.