I
It was midnight in the country,
And dust upon the lane –
From city square to hollow field
Echoed voices lost in pain.
Men and women, worn and weary,
Waited on the word –
A promise hung in humid air,
Too desperate to be heard.
II
They gathered at the boundary
Where rumour breeds with fear,
And all the shadows seemed to dance –
But none could see them clear.
Above the hill, a rider came,
Shrouded deep in smoke,
And every heart leapt up to see
What destiny awoke.
III
With banners torn and burning speech,
The horseman spoke their name:
“Come ride with me, forsaken folk!
I bring the world aflame.
To those betrayed by silent kings,
Follow at my heel –
For I will give you what you lack,
And teach you how to feel!”
IV
A haggard man with haunted eyes
Clutched at the horse’s chest –
A mother, hollow, followed near,
A babe at her breast.
One by one, the desperate throng
Pressed in, their hopes retold,
Each clinging to the promises
Their hollow rider sold.
V
Through alleys dense with echoed lies,
The spectral steed advanced;
Its iron hooves left nothing green –
No flowers where they danced.
The moon was cold and starless;
The north wind held its breath,
And every follower’s longing
Led them further to their death.
VI
“Oh, where is truth?” the tailor cried,
“Where justice?” hissed the priest –
The rider turned, his mask aflare,
And howled, “You are released!
No more the tired ballot-box,
No more the distant crown –
With me, the future rises up,
The hypocrites fall down!”
VII
A girl with ribbons in her hair
Climbed up upon the rear –
A merchant left his ledger closed,
His conscience numb with fear.
They surged as if compelled by strings
Invisible and fierce,
Not seeing close beneath the hood
No human soul to pierce.
VIII
Down roads that fell to nowhere,
Through rivers black with soot,
They galloped after empty words –
The world beneath their hoofs.
The houses on the roadside
Were silent as the tomb,
Yet none would pause to question
Why the air was thick with gloom.
IX
At bridges wreathed in spiderwebs,
The rider waved his hand –
“Leap with me! Forsake your past!
Together, rule this land!”
The children threw their candles
Into the choking stream;
The elders nailed their memories
Into a fever-dream.
X
Past ruined towers of reason
And ditches choked with trust,
They galloped on, no looking back –
Their banners turning to dust.
The bells from distant churches
Only sounded knells,
But hunger shouted louder
Than the wisdom of the bells.
XI
When morning found no sunrise,
And time itself stood still,
The rider whispered, “Look ahead,
We journey higher still.”
But every field grew barren,
Every road grew thin,
And emptiness behind the mask
Grinned its withered grin.
XII
One youth, in anguish stumbling,
Called, “Where are gifts you swore?”
The rider flared in shadow-smoke,
“I told you: nevermore!
The glutted kings have vanished,
Your rulers cast aside –
But all that’s left to seize is ash
Upon the midnight tide.”
XIII
They pined for vanished justice,
For laws and lamp-lit courts,
But wept their pleas in silence
On roads of lost resorts.
For in the skin of liberty
The rider hid decay,
And all who rode beside him
Were lost along the way.
XIV
Yet still they clung – too fearful
To pitch into the night –
Their hands like bony branches
Clasped to the phantom tight.
For hope becomes a sickness
When fed on lies and bone,
And those who join false riders
Will perish all alone.
XV
No mother heard her children
Sing beneath the bloody moon;
No shepherd called his flock to rest,
For every voice was strewn.
They begged for simple mercy,
But mercy turned its face,
And all who clung to shadows
Were devoured by disgrace.
XVI
The lands grew rough and frozen,
No welcome sign in sight –
Yet ever on, the horseman led
Them deeper into night.
Their footsteps were forgotten
Within the silent loam,
And none remembered laughter,
And none remembered home.
XVII
For populist and populace
Were joined in cursed dance –
One feeding off the other’s fear,
Both prisoners of chance.
Beneath the mask was nothing,
No vision, voice or will –
Just echoes of the longing
That lured them down the hill.
XVIII
So let this be a warning
To any lost and cold:
The ghost you trust for answers
Will leave you in the mould.
Democracy, long slaughtered,
Now rises as a wraith –
While those who leap on spectres
Are consumed by their faith.
XIX
Ride, ride into the ruin!
Chase shadows on the wind!
The world you thought you hungered for
Was hollow to begin.
And when the finaldusk descends,
No trumpet, prayer or star –
Just empty streets and laughter
From the rider’s mouth ajar.
XX
Thus midnight keeps its kingdom,
Despair devours the least,
And those who gave their hope to ghosts
Will never find release.
The rider and his followers
Are wedded to the gloom,
For none escape who barter truth –
Expectation is their tomb.
*This poem is built around:
The Ballad of Lenore
by Emile-Jean-Horace Vernet
1839, Musée d’Arts, Nantes
In the dead of night rides an armoured horseman with the terrifying face of a skeleton, and a terrified young woman rides double. The mount leaps over a tomb’s recumbent statue.
The work illustrates the German author Gottfried August Bürger’s famous Romantic poem “Lenore”.
