THE WERE-WOLF.
[Anglo-Saxon wer, a man, and wolf—a man in the form of a wolf.
"The garments are changed into hair, his arms into legs; he becomes a wolf, and he still retains vestiges of his ancient form. His hoariness is still the same, the same violence appears in his features; his eyes are bright as before; he is still the same image of ferocity."—Ovid, on the metamorphosis of King Lycaon into a wolf.]
Wolf! Wolf! The cry that wakes
The slumbering shepherds, shakes
The faint-hearts of the fold with shuddering fear.
The flock's ferocious foe
Compassion doth not know,
His breathing's heard, his furtive foot-fall's near.
It is no season for slack guard,
But watchful care and unrelaxing ward.
This is the Man-Wolf, theme
Of ancient classic dream,
And mediæval myth, at last made fact.
Worse than the lupine pest
Upon whose hoary crest
Old monarchs laid a price! 'Gainst him a pact
Of all the peoples must be made;
Rapine's his life, red ruin his dread trade.
The old grey wolf who prowled
Around the fold, and howled
Impotent rage to the black wintry skies,
Was no such foe as this,
Our Were-Wolf, whom the abyss
Of yawning chaos looses, whose red eyes,
Half human and half bestial, glare
Malignant menace from his secret lair.
Such subter-human guise,
Such fiercely fiendlike eyes,
Arcadian Lycaon. Jove-changed, bore
When mortal hate took on,
At the Olympian frown,
Its fitting shape. The lessons of old lore,
Magic-divested, myth-stripped, still
Commend themselves to human wit and will.
Humanity must urge
Against this lupine scourge
Civilisation's forces banded close.
The watch-dogs, as of old,
Must guard the human fold
Against this last and worst of order's foes;
And the world's sleuthhounds led by Law
Must hunt this Were-Wolf of the insatiate maw.
Hunt him from every lair,
Till, outlaw everywhere,
This friend of carnage and sheer chaos finds
A foe at every turn.
A foot to crush or spurn,
The warning cry of "Wolf!" on all the winds,
And wheresoe'r the ravener stray
Civilisation's light must search—and slay!
"Très Bang!"—To T-m Sm-th, of the Wholesale Crackery Warehouse, with Mr. Punch's compliments. Certainly, at Christmas-time. T. S.'s crackers "get the pull!" At least, so says his Lordship the pop-ular Bishop of Go-Bangor.