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VII. ZAMAN'S HILL
A great hill hung close over the old town,A precipice against the main street's end;Green, tall, and wooded, looking darkly downUpon the steeple at the highway's bend.Two hundred years the whispers had been heardAbout what happened on the man-shunned slope—Tales of an oddly mangled deer or bird,Or of lost boys whose kin had ceased to hope.
One day the mail-man found no village there,Nor were its folk or houses seen again;People came out from Aylesbury to stare—Yet they all told the mail-man it was plainThat he was mad for saying he had spiedThe great hill's gluttonous eyes and jaws stretched wide.
VIII. THE PORT
Ten miles from Arkham I had struck the trailThat rides the cliff-edge over Boynton Beach,And hoped that just at sunset I could reachThe crest that looks on Innsmouth in the vale.Far out at sea was a retreating sail,White as hard years of ancient winds could bleach;But evil with some portent beyond speech,So that I did not wave my hand or hail.
Sails out of Innsmouth! Echoing old renownOf long-dead times. But now a too-swift nightIs closing in, and I have reached the heightWhence I so often scan the distant town.The spires and roofs are there—but look! The gloomSinks on dark lanes, as lightless as the tomb!
IX. THE COURTYARD
It was the city I had known before;The ancient leprous town where mongrel throngsChant to strange gods, and beat unhallowed gongsIn crypts beneath foul alleys near the shore.The rotting, fish-eyed houses leered at meFrom where they leaned, drunk and half animate,As edging through the filth I passed the gateTo the black courtyard where the man would be.
The dark walls closed me in, and loud I cursedThat ever I had come to such a den,When suddenly a score of windows burstInto wild light, and swarmed with dancing men:Mad, soundless revels of the dragging dead—And not a corpse had either hands or head.
