TALES OF TERROR: INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE

Transcriptions of TALES OF TERROR. Info on Lewis and the composition of the Tales (a must read!)

I. INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE (Gordon)

V. THE WOLF-KING (Balkcom)

XI. GRIM, KING OF THE GHOSTS (Pate) x

INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE

Friend,

What, scribble tales? Oh! Cease to play the fool!

Christmas is past, and children gone to school,

E’en active Harlequin abash’d retires,

Neglected witches quench the cauldron’s fires,

Whilst fairy phantoms vanish swift away, 5

And sense and nature reassume their sway.

What gain, what pleasure, can your labours crown?

A nurs’ry’s praise shall be your best renown;

Each feeble tale ingloriously expire,

A gossip’s story at a winter’s fire! 10

Author.

Oh! Cease this rage, this misapplied abuse,

Satire gives weapons for a nobler use;

Why draw your sword against my harmless quill,

And strive in vain a ghostly muse to kill?

That task is ours: if I can augur well, 15

Each day grows weaker her unheeded spell,

Her eager votaries shall fix her doom,

And lay her spirit in oblivion’s tomb.

Friend.

Yes! thus I oft my drooping hopes revive,

Prepost’rous births are seldom known to thrive; 20

These scribblers soon shall mourn their useless pains,

And weep the short-lived product of their brains,

These active panders to perverted taste

Shall mar their purpose by too anxious haste.

As earthquakes nature’s harmony restore, 25

And air grows purer in the tempest’s roar,

So strange the workings of a monstrous mind

Will quickly fade, and leave no trace behind;

Like brilliant bubbles, glitter for a day,

Till, swoll’n too big, they burst, and pass away. 30

We need not call ethereal spirits down

To rouse the torpid feelings of the town;

Or bid the dead their ghastly forms uprear,

To freeze some silly female breast with fear;

No—I have hopes you’ll find this rage decrease’d, 35

And send a dish too much to terror’s feast;

The vicious taste, with such a rich supply

Quite surfeited, “will sicken, and so die.”

Author.

My friend, believe me, with indifferent view

I mark opinion’s ever-varying hue, 40

Let tasteless fashion guide the public heart,

And, without feeling, scan the poet’s art.

Fashion! Dread name in criticism’s field,

Before whose sway both sense and judgement yield,

Whether she loves to hear, midst deserts bleak, 45

The untaught savage moral axioms speak;

O’er modern, six weeks, epic strains to dose,

To sigh in sonnets, or give wings to prose;

Or bids the bard, by leaden rules confined,

To freeze the bosom, and confuse the mind, 50

While feeling stagnates in the drawler’s veins,

And Fancy’s fetter’d in didactic chains;—

Or rouses the dull German’s gloomy soul,

And Pity leaves for Horror’s wild controul,

Pouring warm tears for visionary crimes, 55

And softening sins to mend these moral times,

It boots not me—my taste is still my own,

Nor heeds the gale by wavering fashion blown.

My mind unalter’d views, with fix’d delight,

The wreck of learning snatch’d from Gothic night, 60

Chang’d by no time, unsettled by no place,

It feels the Grecian fire, the Roman grace;

Exulting marks the flame of ancient days,

In Britain with triumphant brightness blaze!

Yet still the soul for various pleasure form’d, 65

By Pity melted, and by Terror storm’d,

Loves to roam largely through each distant clime,

And “leap the flaming bounds of space and time!”

The mental eye, by constant lustre tires,

Forsakes, fatigued, the object it admires, 70

And, as it scans each various nation’s doom,

From classic brightness turns to Gothic gloom.

Oh! It breathes awe and rapture o’er the soul

To mark the surge in wild confusion roll,

And when the forest groans, and tempest lours, 75

To wake Imaginations’ darkest powers!

How throbs the breast with terror and delight,

Filled with rude scenes of Europe’s barbarous night!

When restless war with papal craft combined,

To shut each softening ray from lost mankind; 80

When nought but Error’s fatal light was shown,

And taste and science were alike unknown;

To mark the soul, benumb’d its active powers,

Chained at the foot of superstition’s towers!

To view the pale-eyed maid in penance pine, 85

To watch the votary at the sainted shrine;

And, while o’er blasted heaths the night-storm raves,

To hear the wizard wake the slumb’ring graves;

To view war’s glittering front, the trophied field,

The hallow’d banner, and the red-cross shield; 90

The tourney’s knights, the tyrant baron’s crimes,

“Pomp, pride, and circumstance” of feudal times!

Th’enraptured mind with fancy loves to toil

O’er rugged Scandinavia’s martial soil;

With eager joy the ’venturous spirit goes 95

O’er Morven’s mountains, and through Lapland’s snows;

Sees barbarous chiefs in fierce contention fall,

And views the blood-stained feasts of Odin’s hall;

Hears Ossian’s harp resound the deeds of war,

While each grey soldier glories in his scar; 100

Now marks the wand’ring ghost, at night’s dull

noon,

Howl out its woes beneath the silent moon;

Sees Danish pirates plough th’ insulted main,

While Rapine’s outcry shakes the sacred fane;

Observes the Saxon baron’s sullen state, 105

Where rival pride enkindles savage hate;

Each sound, each sight, the spell-bound sense appalls,

Amid some lonely abbey’s ivied walls!

The night-shriek loud, wan ghost, and dungeon damp,

The midnight cloister, and the glim’ring lamp, 110

The pale procession, fading on the sight,

The flaming tapers, and the chaunted rite,

Rouse, in the trembling breast, delightful dreams,

And steep each feeling in romance’s streams!

Streams which afar in restless grandeur roll, 115

And burst tremendous on the wond’ring soul!

Now gliding smooth, now lash’d by magic storms,

Lifting to light a thousand shapeless forms;

A vaporous glory floats each wave around,

The dashing waters breathe a mournful sound, 120

Pale Terror trembling guards the fountain’s head,

And rouses Fancy on her wakeful bed;

“From realms of viewless spirits tears the veil,

“And half reveals the unutterable tale!”

March 1, 1801

GRIM, KING OF THE GHOSTS;OR THE DANCE OF DEATH

A CHURCH-YARD TALE.

_________

On Horror’s head, horrors accumulate. OTHELLO.

_________

This Tale, as will be immediately seen by all tale-readers, is written in imitation of the Cloud-King, and dedicated (of course) to M.G. Lewis, Esq.

--- “Why, how now, old sexton? why shake you with dread?

“Why haunt you this street, where you’re sure to catch cold?

“Full warm is your blanket, full snug is your bed!

“And long since, by the steeple-chimes, twelve has been told.” ---

--- “Tom Tap, on this night my retreat you’ll approve,

“For my church-yard will swarm with its shroud-cover’d hosts;

“Who will tell, with loud shriek, that resentment and love,

“Still nip the cold heart of Grim, King of the Ghosts.

“One eve, as the fiend wander’d through the thick gloom,

“Towards my newly-tiled cot he directed his sight;

“And, casting a glance in my little back-room,

“Gazed on Nancy, my daughter, with wanton delight.

“Yet Nancy was proud, and disdainful was she,

“IN affection’s fond speech she’d no pleasure or joy;

“And vainly he sued, though he knelt at her knee,

“Bob Brisket, so comely, the young butcher’s boy.

“---‘ For you, dearest Nancy, I’ve oft been a thief,

“ ‘Yet my theft it was venial, a theft if it be;

“ ‘For who could have eyes, and not see you loved beef!

“ ‘Or who see a steak, and not steal it for thee?

“ ‘Remember, dear beauty, dead flesh cannot feel,

“ ‘With frowns you my heart and its passion requite;

“ ‘Yet oft have I seen you, when hungry at meal,

“ ‘On a dead bullock’s heart gaze with tender delight.

“ ‘When you dress it for dinner, so hard and so tough.

“ ‘I wish the employ your stern breast would improve;

“ ‘And the dead bullock’s heart, while with onions you stuff,

“ ‘You would stuff your own heart, cruel virgin, with love.’---

“---‘Young rascal! presumest thou, with butcher-like phrase,

“ ‘To foul stinking onions my love to compare;

“ ‘Who have set Wick, the candle-man, all in a blaze,

“ ‘And Alderman Paunch, who has since been the Mayor?

“ ‘You bid me remember dead flesh cannot feel,

“ ‘Then I vow by my father’s old pick-axe and spade,

“ ‘Till some prince from the tombs shall behave so genteel,

“ ‘As to ask me to wed, I’ll continue a maid!

“ ‘Nor him will I wed, till (these terms must he own)

“ ‘Of my two first commands the performance he boasts;’---

“Straight, instead of a foot-man, a deep-pealing groan

“Announced the approach of Grim, King of the Ghosts!

“No flesh had the spectre, his skeleton skull

“Was loosely wrapp’d round with a brown shrivell’d skin;

“His bones, ‘stead of marrow, of maggots were full,

“And the worms they crawl’d out, and the worms they crawl’d in.

“His shoes they were coffins, his dim eye reveal’d

“The gleam of a grave-lamp with vapours oppress’d;

“And a dark crimson necklace of blood-drops congeal’d,

“Reflected each bone that jagg’d out of his breast.

“In a hoarse hollow whisper---‘thy beauties,’ he cried,

“ ‘Have drawn up a spirit to give thee a kiss;

“ ‘No butcher shall call thee, proud Nancy, his bride,

“ ‘The grim King of Spectres demands thee for his.

“ ‘My name frightens infants, my word raises ghosts,

“ ‘My tread wakes the echoes which breathe through the aisle;

“ ‘And lo! here stands the Prince of the Church-yard, who boasts,

“ ‘The will to perform thy commands for a smile.’

“He said, and he kiss’d her; she pack’d up her clothes,

“And straight they eloped through the window with joy;

“Yet long in her eats rang the curses and oaths,

“Which growl’d at his rival the gruff butcher’s boy

“At the charnel-house palace soon Nancy arrived,

“When the fiend, with a grin which her soul did appal,

“Exclaim’d---‘I must warn my pale subjects I’m wived,

“ ‘And bid them prpare a grand supper and ball!’ ---

“Thrice swifter than thought on his heel roud he turns.

“Three capers he cut and then motionless stood;

“Then on cards, made of dead men’s skin, Mancy discerns

“His lank fingers to scrawl invitations in blood.

“His quill was a wind-pipe, his ink-horn a skull,

“A blad-bone his pen-knife, a tooth was his seal;

“Soon he order’d the cards, in a voice so deep and dull,

“To haste and invite all his friends to the meal.

“Away flew the cards to the south and the north,

“Away flew the cards to the east and the west;

“Straight with groans, from their tombs, the pale specters stalk’d forth,

“ In deadly apparel, and shrouding sheets dress’d.

“And quickly scar’d Nancy, with anxious affight,

“Hears the tramp of a steed, and a knock at the gate;

“On an hell-horse so gaunt, ‘twas a grim ghastly sprite,

“On a pillion behind a she-skeleton safe!

“The poor maiden she thought ‘twas a dream or a trance,

“While the guests they assembled gigantic and tall;

“Each sprite ask’d a skeleton lady to dance,

“And King Grim with fair Nancy now open’d the ball.

“Pale specters send music from dark vaults above,

“Wither’d legs, ‘stead of drum-sticks, they brandish on high;

“Grinning ghosts, sheeted spirits, skipping skeletons move,

“While hoarse whispers and rattling of bones shake the sky.

“With their pliable joints the Scotch steps they do well;

“Nancy’s hand with their cold clammy fingers they squeeze;

“Now sudden, appall’d, the maid hears a death-bell,

“And straight dark and dismal the supper she sees!

“A tomb was the table: now each took his seat,

“Every sprite next his partner so pale and so wan.

“Soon as ceased was the rattling of skeleton feet,

“The clattering of jaw-bones directly began!

“Of dead aldermen’s fat the mould candles were made,

“Stuck in sockets of bone they gleam’d dimly and blue;

“Their dishes were scutcheons, and corses decay’d

“Were the viands that glutted this ravenous crew!

“Through the nostrils of skulls their blood-liquor they pour,

“The black drought in the heads of young infants they quaff;

“The vice-president rose, with his jaws dripping gore,

“And address’d the pale damsel with horrible laugh.

“---‘Feast, Queen of the Ghosts, the repast do not scorn;

“ ‘Feast, Queen of the Ghosts, I perceive thou has t food;

“ ‘To-morrow again shall we feast, for at noon

“ ‘Shall we feast on they flesh, shall we drink of thy blood.’ ---

“Then cold as a cucumber Nancy she grew,

“Her proud stomach came down, and she blared and she cried,

“---‘O, tell me, dear Grim, does that spectre speak true,

“ ‘And will you not save from his clutches your bride?’ ---

“---‘Vain your grief, silly maid, when the matin bells ring,

“ ‘The bond becomes due, which long since did I sign;

“ ‘For she, who at night weds the grizzly Ghost King,

“Next morn must be dress’d for his subjects to dine.’ ---

“---‘In silks and in satins for you I’ll be dress’d,

“ ‘My soft tender limbs let their fangs never crunch.’---

“---‘Fair Nancy, yon ghosts, should I grant your request,

“ ‘Instead of at dinner would eat you at lunch!’ ---

“---‘But vain, ghostly King, is your cunning and guile,

“ ‘That bond must be void which you never can pay;

“ ‘Lo! I ne’er will be yours, till, to purchase my smile,

“ ‘My two first commands (as you swore) you obey.’ ---

“---‘Well say’st thou, fair Nancy, thy wishes impart,

“ ‘But think not to puzzle Grim, King of the Ghosts.’

“Straight she turns o’er each difficult task in her heart.

“And ---‘I’ve found out a poser,’ exultingly boasts.

“ ‘You vow’d that no butcher should call me his bride,

“ ‘That this vow you fulfil my first asking shall be;

“And since so many maids in your clutches have died,

“ ‘Than yourself show a bloodier butcher,’---said she.

“Then shrill scream the specters; the charnel-house gloom

“Swift lightnings disperse, and the palace destroy;

“Again Nancy stood---in the little black-room,

“And again at her knee knelt the young butcher’s boy!

“---‘I’ll have done with dead husbands,’ she Brisket bespeaks,

“ ‘I’ll now take a live one, so fetch me a ring!’ ---

“And when press’d to her lips were his red beefin cheeks,

“She loved him much more than the shrivell’d Ghost King.

“No longer his steaks and his cutlets she spurns,

“No longer he fears his grim rival’s pale bond;

“Yet still when the famed first of April returns,

“The sprites rise squadrons, and Nancy demand

“This informs you, Tom Tap, why to-night I remove,

“For I dread the approach of the shroud-cover’d hosts!

“Who tell, with loud shriek, that resentment and love,

“Still nip the cold heart of Grim, King of the Ghosts!” ---

THE WOLF KING [i]

LITTLE RED RIDING-HOOD

An Old Woman’s Tale

-Veteres avias tibi de pulmons revello. Persius

Translated from the Danish of the author of the Water-King, etc.

And respectfully inscribed to the M. G. Lewis, Esq. M.P. as an humble

Attempt to imitate his excellent version of that celebrated ballad.

THE birds they sang, the morning smiled,

The mother kiss’d her darling child,

And said-“My dear, take custards three,

“And carry to your grand-mummie.”-

5 The pretty maid had on her head

A little riding-hood of red,

And as she pass’d the lonely wood,

They call’d her small Red-riding-hood.

Her basket on her arm she hung,

10 And as she went thus artless sung,

-“A lady lived beneath a hill,

“Who, if not gone, resides there still.”-

The Wolf-King saw her pass along,

He eyed her custards, mark’d her song,

15 And cried-“That child and custards three,

“This evening, shall my supper be!”-

Now swift the maid passed her way,

And heedless trill’d her plaintive lay,

Nor had she pass’d the murkey wood,

20 When lo! The Wolf-King near her stood!

-“Oh! stop, my pretty child so gay!

-“Oh! whither do you bend your way?”-

-“My little self and custards three,

“Are going to my grand-mummie!”-

25 -“While you by yonder mountain go,

“On which the azure blue-bells grow;

“I’ll take this road; then haste thee, dear.

“Or I before you will be there.

“And when our racing shall be done,

30 “A kiss you forfeit, if I’ve won;

“Your prize shall be, if first you come,

“Some barley-sugar and a plumb!”-

-“Oh! thank you, good Sir Wolf,” said she,

And dropp’d a pretty courtesie;

35 The little maid then onward hied,

And sought the blue-bell’d mountain’s side.

The Wolf sped on o’er marsh and moor,

And faintly tapp’d at granny’s door;

-“Oh! let me in, grand-mummy good,

40 “For I am small Red-riding-hood.”-

-“The bobbin pull,” the grandam cried,

-“The door will then fly open wide.”-

The crafty Wolf the bobbin drew,

And straight the door wide open flew!

45 He pac’d the bed-room eight times four,

And utter’d thrice an hideous roar;

He pac’d the bed-room nine times three,

And then devour’d poor grand-mummie!

He dash’d her brains our on the stones,

50 He gnaw’d her sinews, crack’d her bones;

He munch’d her heart, he quaff’d her gore,

And up her lights and liver tore[ii]!!!

Grand-mummy’s bed he straight got in,

Her night-cap tied beneath his chin;

55 And waiting for his destin’d prey,

All snug between the sheets he lay.

Now at the door a voice heard he,

Which cried-“I’ve brought you custards three;

“Oh! let me in, grand-mummy good,

60 “For I am small Red-riding-hood.”-

-“The bobbin pull,” the Wolf-King cried,

“The door will then fly open wide!”

The little dear the bobbin drew,

And straight the door wide open flew.[iii]

She placed the custards on the floor,

65 And sigh’d-“I wish I’d brought you four,[iv]

“I’m very tired, dear grand-mummie,

“Oh! may I come to bed to thee?”

-“Oh! come,” the Wolf-King softly cried,

“Why does your voice so gruff appear?

70 -“Oh! hush, sweet-heart, the Wolf-King said,

“I’ve got a small cold in my head!”-

-“Oh! tell me, grand-mummie so kind,

“Why you’ve a tail grows out behind?”

-“Oh! hush thee, hush thee, pretty dear.

75 “My pin-cushion I hang on here?”

-“Why do your eyes so glare on me?”-

-“They are your pretty face to see.”-

-“Why do your ears so long appear?”-

-“They are your pretty voice to hear.”-

85 -“Oh! tell me, granny, why, to-night,

“Your teeth appear so long and white[v]?”-

Then growling, cried the Wolf so grim,”

-“They are to tear you limb from limb!”-

His hungry teeth the Wolf-King gnash’d,

90 His sparkling eyes with fury flash’d,

He oped his jaws all sprent with blood,

And fell on small Red-riding-hood.

He tore our bowels one and two,

-“Little maid, I will eat you!”-

95 But when he tore out three and four,

The little maid she was no more!

Take warning hence, ye children fair;

Of wolves’ insidious arts beware;

And pass each lonely wood,

100 Ah! think of small Red-riding-hood.

With custards sent nor loiter slow,

Nor gather blue-bells as ye go;

Get not to bed with grand-mummie,

Lest she a ravenous wolf should be!