“What time the beldam jeers at February,
Let women everywhere be wondrous wary,
Nor fall asleep on chairs for awful reason!
Shepherds as well, at yon uncanny season
Early your charges fold, and it mislike you
A spell should motionless and rigid strike you
“For seven years’ time. The Fairies’ Cavern, too,
Looses about these days its eerie crew.
Winged or four-footed, they o’er Crau disperse;
While, from their lairs aroused, the sorcerers
Gather, the farandoulo dance, and sup
An evil potion from a golden cup.
“The dwarf-oaks dance as well. Lord, how they trip it!
Meanwhile there’s Garamaude in wait for Gripet.
Fie, cruel flirt! Ay, seize the carrion,
And claw her bowels out! Now they are gone,—
Nay, but they come again! And, oh, despair!
The monster stealing through the sea-kale there,
“The one who like a burglar crouched and ran,
Is Bambarouche, babe-stealing harridan.
Her wailing prey in her long claw she takes,
Lifts on her horny head, and off she makes.
And yon’s another! She’s the Nightmare-sprite
Comes down the chimney-flue at dead of night,
“And stealthy climbs upon the sleeper’s breast,
Who, as with weight of a tall tower opprest,
Hath horrid dreams. Hi! What a hideous racket!
My dears, ’tis the foul-weather fiends who make it!
That sound of rusty hinges, groaning doors,
Is they who beat up fog upon the moors,
“And ride the winds that homestead-roofs uptear
And bear afar. Ha, Moon! What ails you there?
What dire indignity hath made you scowl
So red and large o’er Baux? ’Ware the dog’s howl!
Yon dog can snap you like a cake, be sure!
He minds the filthy Demon of the Sewer!
“Now see the holm-oaks bend their heads like ferns,
And see that flame that leaps and writhes and burns.
It is St. Elmo’s. And that ringing sound
Of rapid hoofs upon the stony ground
Is the wild huntsman riding over Crau.”
Here hoarse and breathless paused the witch of Baux.
But straight thereafter, “Cover ears and eyes,
For the black lamb is bleating!” wildly cries.
“That baaing lambkin!” Vincen dared to say;
But she, “Hide eyes and ears without delay!
Woe to the stumbler here! Sambuco’s Path
Less peril than the black horn’s passage hath.
“Tender his bleating, as you hear, and soft:
Thereby he lures to their destruction oft
The heedless Christians who attend his moan.
To them he shows the sheen of Herod’s throne,
The gold of Judas, and the fatal spot
Where Saracens made fast the golden goat.
“Her they may milk till death, to hearts’ content.
But, when they call for their last sacrament,
The black lamb only buts them savagely.
And yet, so evil is the time,” quoth she,
“Unnumbered greedy souls that bait will seize,
Burn incense unto gold, then die as these!”