Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1896-07-01

Nature gave, It's true, the spot,
But Sloath the hand of tillage.
Briars choked the stunted corn,
And disregard of reason,
With sheer neglect and fields forlorn
Brought waste with every season.
Beyond the road with rugged grace,
The flight of scarce an arrow,
An inn looked down the open space,
From easements long and narrow.
"The Cock and Heron sign board rude
Strutted in rusty sables;
And with gloom somehow imbued,
This house of hooks and gables.
Great oaks above the Cock and Hen"
Sighed weird, low and eerie,
And oft was heard strange voices when
The night was wild and dreary.
Within the doorway's royal rest,
Rotund and ample-bodied,
To coming and departing guest,
The landlord smirked and nodded
Tho the quiet of the inns repose
At times, indeed, was horrid;
For when Dame Hilda's wall arose
The atmosphere was torrid.
One stormy eve, oer knob and stone
THE coach was seen descending
The great highway that dimly shown,
In twilight's gloomy ending
Slashed with mud from boot to hip,
The surly driver grumbled,
As DER his team he cracked his whip,
And up the stage coach rumbled.
A stranger staggered to the inn
From out the night and weather;
His face was pale, his clothes so thin
They scarcely held together.
He hugged a black hen in his arm
Black as Egyptian darkness
As if to keep his person warm,
For the man was nearly sarkless.
The landlord smirked-he always smrked-
But now the smirk was soulful;
As if beyond some mystery lurked,
More strange, perhaps, than doubtful,
"a room, a room" the stranger said,
In n voice weak and weary
And gold upon the counter laid,
As if to stop all query.
The landlord bowed and straightway led
(Oh, gold, thou mighty lever,
The stranger to his welcome bed
Half dead with raging fever.
Though weary hours to midnight fled,
Fraught with the storms communings,
The hen above the strangers bed,
Kept up her plaintive croonings,
On tester perched like thing of eld,
Her eerie presence daunted,
And a strange sense of something held
The better judgment haunted.
Mine host could not his doubts allay,
He ever was debating
THAT cursed hen-that bird of prey
There raven-like awaiting"
The sick man begged priest be brought,
Before he died to shrive him;
But the landlord said no masses bought
Could of his sins deprive him.
From the strangers lips impassioned burst
The scorr he had dissembled
And with imprecations cursed
Till half the household trembed.
But the strangers life was ebbing fast
The clouds were raclled and rifted
The shattered bark-a wreck at last
To seaward-seaward drilted.
The unknown life had scarcely fled,
Than the weird bird, reliant
As some proud cock, threw back her head,
And crew three times defiant.
Dame Hilda rose, as well she might
1t stirred the old wfe's mettle'
And at the hen, this iieud of night
She hurled both tea and kettle.
She thought not of yOn pallid wreck,
Nor stopped for time to reason
"Ye bird of hell, I'll wiring your neck,
Be 7 in or out of season.
The hen flew left the hen flew right,
As if the diel was at her,
And vanished in the gloom of night
With eldrich squall and clatter.
| Without. the storm from hill and fen,
Around the gables rumbled
Till from the sign the cock and hen
II nearly blew or tumblet.
The glass blew in-out went the light
The blast grew fierce and louder,
And lightning blazed the gloom of night
As with sulphuric powder,
| While screaming maids and shouting men
Rushed from hall to portal;
Dame Hilda cried God curse the hen,
But save, oh, save the mortal
In smiles or tears, the days 90 home,
Followed by the morrow
And memories with our wrinkles come
From the long ago to borrow
Now as of yore above the line
OF highway, scared and ruited.
| The black cock on the creakiug sign
In all his glory strutted.
AlthO' tn mate of his high estate,
No longer at him leered
For by some strange decree of fate,
She long had disappeared.
The radiance of the sunsets glow,
To twilight's embers burned,
/ And tn crimson clouds 10 westward low,
Their sable Innings turned
Around the hostelS wide aroh'd hearth,
The hamlet's gossip faltered
Or if there was a smile of mirth
/ Inc smile Was quickly dlltltN-
A presence felt of unseen things
The dusky chamber filled
And shadows. as Of evil wings
The superstitious chilled.
A roar came down the great black fiue
Like the wlerd means that follow
The wind, when ON its passage through
Some lone anC wooded hollow.
Was it the dane autumns rain
That on the ingles pattered?
Or some wild troop, with lOOScn'd rein
That down the highway clatierd?
The windows shook from roof to ball,
A hash-ard burst of thunder
The black hens shadow on the wall
The great oaks rent asunder-
Then whined tn cur and lowed the kline,
From mantle fell the mirror,
The cock flew Off the broken sign
The household fed in terror.
The mystery Of the mysteries, was.
Garments of every species,
Without the least apparent cause
Were clipped and cut to pieces.
The powers of grace were all invoked,