THE BALLAD OF A BUGABOO.

In Aachen Town, in olden days,

There dwelt a demon beast,

Whose special prey was roysterers

Returning from a feast.

By day, he lurked in caverns deep

Where sulphur waters boil,

And dreamt of evil men and deeds,

Whilst resting from his toil.

By night he issued from the spring,

And those, who saw him, said:

“His body long and shaggy seemed

With oddly flattened head.

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.

The demon beast with gliding gait

Would follow on his track,

With sudden spring would seize his prey

And hang upon his back.

The more the victim fought and reeled,

The heavier hung the beast,

The more the victim cursed or prayed,

The closer clung the beast.

The wretched man now sought his home

Beneath this awful load,

With beads of sweat upon his brow

He oft mistook the road.

At last, at last he reached his goal,

Worn out by pain and fear,

And as he passed within his home —

The beast would disappear.

With rattling and with clanking chains

The demon gambolled off,

Avoiding church and crucifix,

To seek the sulphur trough;

But if another maudlin man

There chanced upon his way,

Most gladly would he turn aside

To grapple yet more prey.

Then moans and groans began afresh,

As this new victim found

He too must turn from wrong to right,

By sad repentance bound!