To proof of skill ere their succession to The father's office. Kurt himself hath shot The silver ring out o' the popinjay's beak-- A good shot he, you see, who would succeed. Of these enchanted bullets let me speak: There may be such; our Earth has things as strange, Perhaps, and stranger, that we doubt not of, While we behold, not only 'neath the thatch Of Ignorance's hovel, but within The pictured halls of Wisdom's palaces, How Superstition sits an honored guest. A cross-way let it be among the hills; A cross-way in a solitude of pines; And on the lonely cross-way you must draw A blood-red circle with a bloody sword; And round the circle, runic characters, Gaunt and satanic; here a skull, and there A scythe and cross-bones, and an hour-glass here; And in the centre, fed with coffin-wood, Stol'n from the grave of one, a murderer, A smouldering fire. Eleven of the clock The first ball leaves the mold--the sullen lead Mixed with three bullets that have hit their mark, And blood, the wounded Sacramental Host Stolen, and hence unhallowed, oozed, when shot Fixed to a riven pine. Ere twelve o'clock With never a word until that hour sound, Must all the balls be cast; and these must be In number three and sixty; three of which The Fiend's dark agent, demon Sammael, Claims for his master and stamps for his own To hit aside their mark, askew for harm. The other sixty shall not miss their mark. No cry, no word, no whisper, even though Vague, gesturing shapes, that loom like moonlit mists, Their faces human but with animal forms, Rise thick around and threaten to destroy. No cry, no word, no whisper should there come, Weeping, a wandering shadow like the girl You love, or loved, now lost to you, her eyes Hollow with tears; all palely beckoning With beautiful arms, or censuring; her face Sad with a desolate love; who, if you speak Or waver from that circle--hideous change!-- Shrinks to a wrinkled hag, whose harpy hands Shall tear you limb from limb with horrible mirth. Nor be deceived if some far midnight bell Strike that anticipated hour; nor leave By one short inch the circle, for, unseen Though now they be, Hell's minions still are there, Watching with flaming eyes to seize your soul. But when the hour of midnight sounds, be sure You have your bullets, neither more nor less; For if through fear one more or less you have, Your soul is forfeit to Hell's majesty.-- Then while the hour of midnight strikes, will come A noise of galloping hoofs and outriders, Shouting; six midnight steeds,--their nostrils, pits Of burning blood,--postilioned, roll a stage, Black and with groaning wheels of spinning fire: "Room there!--ho! ho!--who bars the mountain-way? On over him!"--But fear not, nor fare forth; 'T is but the last trick of your bounden slave.