His eyes burned like two fiery moons
That paled the Queen of Night,
And when he opened wide his mouth
His teeth gleamed sharp and white.
His tail, which brushed the ground, was decked
With phosphorescent scales,
And yet his paws were like a bear’s
With long, protruding nails.”
His head and legs were wreathed in chains,
Which rattled as he went
Along the narrow, winding streets
On pranks and mischief bent.
He gambolled like a monstrous calf
Of breed unknown and strange,
And drunken men were filled with fear
Who happened on his range.
His egress led along the drain,
Whence comes, from far below,
The boiling, seething sulphur stream
Whose waters ever flow.
Before the large Bath House was built,
A wide canal was made
To hold this healing flood, and there,
Beneath the beech trees shade,
The poorer women washed their clothes
Without a thought of fear;
Though echoes rattling through the drain
Announced the beast was near.
They felt no fear, for demons shun
The honest light of day,
But as the night came stealing on
They were afraid to stay,
Although the beast was never known
To take a single life,
Was never even known to touch
A child or maid or wife.
He seldom either sought his prey
Before the midnight hour,
And then the haunts of vice and mirth
Around about he’d scour.
Ah, woe betide! the jovial youth
Or greybeard steeped in shame,
Whose shuffling walk and glassy eye
Proclaim from whence he came.