Wahlpurgisnacht

Grady McMurtry

circa 1937/1938

Upon the crags with ghostlight drenched

Writhe up the weres with hands outclenched

As now the chant of those undead

To He who rules below is read

By ghoules who gargoyle at the sky,

Red lipped with crimson, bloody dye,

Their twisting forms paint the rock

With flickering shadows of the Boch

To whom they offer down their prayer

On this Black Sabbath, in his lair

He ‘waits the moment of his sign

To sit upon the stony shrine

Among the shadowed boulders strewn

As ever higher mounts the moon.

The Noon of Night approaches near,

Satanas Rex appear, appear.

Swiftly stalking ‘neath the moon

On wings of wind, as though a boon

To place before His gathered host,

He Overlord of souls now lost

Is seen across the foothilled plains

Sweeping up the mountain chains

‘Till towering far above the peak

The breeze moans – This is whom you seek.

Hushed as though by Death itself

Now lie the band upon a shelf

Of stone that juts above the deep,

Here cry the bats and witches weep

Beseeching him with words that croak

Until He lifts His arms and cloak

To shroud them all in shadows dim

Hidden from the world by Him.

The Hexentanz begins its whirl

Within the cauldron entrails swirl

Among those present at their grave

Are none but those whose soul is slave

To Satan Rex, the Lord of Hell,

King-Emperor of all who dwell

Within where leaps the flaming breath

Of blackened Sheol’s pit of death

For these are no common shades

But the officer elite of Hades

Whose cabalistic tongue is spoken

In this vague half-world of the Brocken

As in state Satanas sits

While demon legions of the Pits

Pay homage to the Holle Boch

On this witch-brewed Wahlpurgisnacht.

[11]