Poem: Ghoul’s Course

A shadow raced across the lonely lawn,
cast in the rising of an early dawn,
the sight of which was like to me an Hell,
for I knew what dread things such sights foretell.
The house awoke unto the shrillest screams
which ended all the home’s so happy dreams.
The nursemaid wept beside the cradle robbed;
beside that empty crib, she lay and sobbed.
I left the scene, and tiptoeing my way,
went up the stairs to seek out Mister Grey
whose face last night was covered with a sheet,
whose heart had stopped, who’d faced final defeat.
Before his door a trembling cur I stood.
In fear I rapped my knuckles on the wood.
—And what? Did I expect an answer then
to come from out the shadows of that den?—
The creaking hinges filled my ears with dread.
The door opened, and I beheld the bed.
The latch, the lock, were broken ere I came,
the corpse was gone; I knew now who to blame.
I raced downstairs—the steps like ice were cold—
The arm of Junior Grey I took a hold:

“You’re father’s corpse is gone, and so’s your son—”

“My God,” he said. “What have these burglars done?”

“No intruder has broken in tonight.
Of inmate breaking out I caught a sight.
Your father’s form, there loathsome, half decayed,
it ran across your backyard’s open glade.”

His face no color held, his hair grew pale,
his manly legs were by my words made frail.
Stooping, he fell senseless into my chest.
With cruelest love, I offered him no rest.
I slapped his cheek, and shouted in his ear:

“You have no time to now succumb to fear.
Become the man; you have no other choice!”

He nodded with a grimace at my voice.
With tear stained cheeks he called for gun and horse.
Thus we prepared to track this ghoul’s dread course.